But first of all, before I even began, I paused to write these few thoughts of introduction to those of you who may someday read my words.

I nearly always wait until a book is completed before attempting to add any particular word I might have to its readers. On this occasion, however, I felt it might be appropriate to share my thoughts before the quest begins.

You see, at this moment in time, I know little more than you do about what may lie past the next turning of the page. I’m full of excitement and wide-eyed anticipation to find out. But I literally do not know where this story will lead, once we open the door and look back to a time, not so far behind us really, but an era in the world’s history that will never come again—and that none of us will ever forget.

I do know that the tale will make itself known. The book will not write itself, but I have the sense its truths will tell themselves. This is not my story at all, but rather an account of the universal experience we each become part of every time we put a rose to our nostrils and breathe in deeply of the mysteries and secrets God placed within it.

Michael Phillips

Eureka, California

Prologue-1961...

Prologue

1961

A man sat quietly rocking in a plain oak chair.

The hair on his head shone brown and full in the sun’s fading afternoon light and revealed only the beginning signs of grey. In all other respects, however, he appeared old, though his face could not readily be seen. His shoulders slumped with the sagging invisible weight of despondency.

The back-and-forth movement of the chair, slow and melancholy as it was, seemed to originate in some ethereal region having no connection whatever to his own limbs. Indeed, both arms and legs appeared to hang lifeless from the rest of his frame and, had they been so inclined, did not look as though they would contain even the modicum of strength necessary to give the wooden pendulum upon which he sat the rhythmic movement it now somehow exhibited.

He wore the aspect of one altogether dead to life, both the life around him and, if there chanced to be any left, that within him as well.

The only sign that he in fact was alive, besides the slow creaking motion of the oak runners over the boards of the floor, was a slight movement of the fingers that lay in his lap, though what they held could not immediately be seen.

Around him, the Bavarian mountainside was idyllic, peaceful, and still, just the consoling balm his soul needed after the tragedy.