Synopsis
A synopsis! I actually wrote a synopsis! Not only that, I wrote it before the book was done!
Talisman
HOLDS-TWO-MOONS CODY, a fourteen-year-old girl from the world Usania, has come to Earth incognito to attend Bible Grove Christian Academy, a Baptist boarding high school in northeast Missouri. She has assistance from the PONTARIUM OF PROMETHEUS, an informal group of Earth people who aid those who come from off-world to do research or study here. Due to a Hunch (a magical premonition coming to a Pontarium member), The Pontarium recruits KELLY O’BANYON to be Holds-Two-Moons’ roommate and companion at school.
Holds-Two-Moons is often visited by one DONNER FILBERT, and later by one GREELY COOPER, who claim to represent American Indian members of the Pontarium and supposedly act as her advisors while she is here. In fact they are not very helpful and seem to be trying to recruit her to some nefarious scheme. They speak disparagingly of the Pontarium and The GREEN MAN’S BURDEN DOCTRINE. (No contact) They keep asking about the various trinkets she has brought with her from home.
The trinkets include two God’s Eyes. One is her own, made by a relative when she was born. Holds-Two-Moons was told to leave the second God’s eye on Earth, with no further instruction as to where or with whom she should leave it.
The second God’s-eye is actually a talisman that prevents the cultivation of chilven-bearing plants on the Earth. Filbert and Cooper belong to a group that calls itself the PLANTERS that want to destroy the talisman and cultivate chilven here. Wands with chilven fibers are currently produced off-Earth.
The Planters don’t know what the talisman is nor how it works. They only know Holds-Two-Moons has something to do with it. An unknown girl in a fake Bible Grove uniform ransacks her room twice and sneaks spy crystals into it. She steals Holds-Two-Moons’ Usanian twenty-buck piece, guessing that it is the talisman, but it is in fact a common coin.
They also know she comes from the part of Usanian culture built around American Indian oral traditions. So, they set out to find out what they can about American Indian culture, in particular about what Holds-Two-Moons might have.
Their idea of doing this is by abducting Indian boys of about Holds-Two-Moons’ age and questioning them. The boys know nothing about any talisman, but under torture they make stuff up. (The Planters’ hirelings do have other motives to select Indian boys.)
The burglaries and abductions of the boys bring CLARION VON DRAKENBERG, commandant of the Boundary Patrol, which has the responsibility of preventing outside contact with the Earth; and TEASES-COYOTES CODY, Holds-Two-Moons’ brother and Usanian military liaison with the Pontarium, to the school to investigate.
To get the boys, the Planters use a girl to lure them away from public view at some public function, to where others can grab them. The Pontarium members become concerned that some Bible Grove boys with Indian backgrounds might become targets. Browsing the student records gives them three possibilities: LESTER “HANDS” MORIARTY, AUNDRE’ HUNDMAN, and SAMMY DALE, a local boy who had applied to Bible Grove but hadn’t gotten in.(hair)
Sammy attends the same church as Holds-Two-Moons and other Pontarium kids. TARK BYNUM, a student at the school, becomes a casual friend of Sammy because of their mutual interest in UFOlogy.
Holds-Two-Moons lends the second God’s Eye to the organizers of the Christmas pageant, as it resembles somebody’s idea of the Star of Bethlehem. Her other trinkets she leaves magically affixed to the wall in her room. After Christmas, the God’s eye is stored in a room in the Chapel basement with other pageant props.
A few weeks after Christmas, the unknown girl rips down the remaining trinkets from Holds-Two-Moons’ room, taking some of the wallboard with them. She is seen and pursued by a couple of Bible Grove girls. She injures one of the girls.
At a dance near the end of the school year, the girl turns up and first tries to lure Aundre’ away. He does not take the bait. However, Moriarty does. He is lured out to the parking lot, where he is captured, bound, and thrown into a van. The goons then go and try to grab Aundre’ directly.
Tark, along with the Pontarium girls and Aundre’s girlfriend, go to the boys’ rescue. The surviving goons escape in their remaining van without the boys. The pyrotechnics and aftermath of the resulting fight is blamed on a freak storm.
Tark realizes that if the abduction attempts are still going on, then none of the trinkets the girl stole from Holds-Two-Moons is what they were after. That would leave only the God’s Eye stored in the chapel basement. He, Kelly, and LUCINDA CARMODY go to the store room to make sure the God’s Eye is still there. They run into armed Planters, who tie and gag them, then leave them locked in the chapel store room. They escape and capture the planters who had tied them. They recover the God’s Eye.
Meanwhile, at a meeting about the fight at the dance, Cooper and three other Planters draw wands and demand the talisman from Holds-Two-Moons. They are subdued and captured.
Moriarty then tells them the girl who lured him away from the dance was in fact a boy. At church with Holds-Two-Moons, Moriarty recognizes Sammy Dale’s shoes as those the mystery girl was wearing when she tried to lure him away from the dance.
Sammy shows Tark and Kelly his collection of UFO “evidence:” trash, pieces of metal, paper, and plastic supposedly found at UFO landing and crash sites. Among the trinkets, Tark and Kelly spot Holds-Two-Moons’ stolen possessions, including her Usanian coin.
Pontarium investigators descend on Sammy at his house and quickly turn him around. He tells them where the Planters are hiding with the abducted boys.
In the following shoot-out, the boys are rescued, and the last of the Planters are rounded up. The God’s Eye is moved to Saint Sithney's, where it will be kept and protected.
Subplot Moriarty
Moriarty tends to repel girls. They call him ‘Hands’ for a reason. He sees girls as something to conquer. Holds-Two-Moons sees redeeming qualities in him and this will-to-conquer trait as itself something to conquer.
Their relationship over the year is stormy. Holds-Two-Moons is fine with the tactile familiarities he attempts, but he treats every permission she gives him as a conquest. Courtship seems to him some kind of competition. This attitude comes between them, and they end up both going alone to the dance. Holds-Two-Moons has to rescue him from the Planters after he is led away from the dance by the girl, which may have had some effect on his attitude.
Moriarty was told about much of the space culture by Paisley Donovan (Not seen in book II) last year. He didn’t believe it then, but didn’t dismiss it entirely. Once convinced, and seeing Holds-Two-Moons being tortured, he acts.
Subplot Tark
Tark can’t read girls. He doesn’t realize Kelly actually likes him. He thinks she only tolerates him because he believes her story. Kelly can’t help him with that because of her own severe introversion.
He talks about almost nothing but UFOs. He actually has only seen two, those that fought above the campus last year. He knows Kelly was abducted and hangs around her for her story. Bit by bit, he gets from her enough information to piece together what is going on.
He and Kelly see the attempt to kidnap Aundre’ and try to interfere. He gets smacked down for his trouble. He thus learns about wands and, since one of the Planters happens to be a non-human, he knows space people are involved.
Their relationship is developing, but is not yet a high-school romance by the end.
Now I wonder if it will look anything like the book...
Talisman
HOLDS-TWO-MOONS CODY, a fourteen-year-old girl from the world Usania, has come to Earth incognito to attend Bible Grove Christian Academy, a Baptist boarding high school in northeast Missouri. She has assistance from the PONTARIUM OF PROMETHEUS, an informal group of Earth people who aid those who come from off-world to do research or study here. Due to a Hunch (a magical premonition coming to a Pontarium member), The Pontarium recruits KELLY O’BANYON to be Holds-Two-Moons’ roommate and companion at school.
Holds-Two-Moons is often visited by one DONNER FILBERT, and later by one GREELY COOPER, who claim to represent American Indian members of the Pontarium and supposedly act as her advisors while she is here. In fact they are not very helpful and seem to be trying to recruit her to some nefarious scheme. They speak disparagingly of the Pontarium and The GREEN MAN’S BURDEN DOCTRINE. (No contact) They keep asking about the various trinkets she has brought with her from home.
The trinkets include two God’s Eyes. One is her own, made by a relative when she was born. Holds-Two-Moons was told to leave the second God’s eye on Earth, with no further instruction as to where or with whom she should leave it.
The second God’s-eye is actually a talisman that prevents the cultivation of chilven-bearing plants on the Earth. Filbert and Cooper belong to a group that calls itself the PLANTERS that want to destroy the talisman and cultivate chilven here. Wands with chilven fibers are currently produced off-Earth.
The Planters don’t know what the talisman is nor how it works. They only know Holds-Two-Moons has something to do with it. An unknown girl in a fake Bible Grove uniform ransacks her room twice and sneaks spy crystals into it. She steals Holds-Two-Moons’ Usanian twenty-buck piece, guessing that it is the talisman, but it is in fact a common coin.
They also know she comes from the part of Usanian culture built around American Indian oral traditions. So, they set out to find out what they can about American Indian culture, in particular about what Holds-Two-Moons might have.
Their idea of doing this is by abducting Indian boys of about Holds-Two-Moons’ age and questioning them. The boys know nothing about any talisman, but under torture they make stuff up. (The Planters’ hirelings do have other motives to select Indian boys.)
The burglaries and abductions of the boys bring CLARION VON DRAKENBERG, commandant of the Boundary Patrol, which has the responsibility of preventing outside contact with the Earth; and TEASES-COYOTES CODY, Holds-Two-Moons’ brother and Usanian military liaison with the Pontarium, to the school to investigate.
To get the boys, the Planters use a girl to lure them away from public view at some public function, to where others can grab them. The Pontarium members become concerned that some Bible Grove boys with Indian backgrounds might become targets. Browsing the student records gives them three possibilities: LESTER “HANDS” MORIARTY, AUNDRE’ HUNDMAN, and SAMMY DALE, a local boy who had applied to Bible Grove but hadn’t gotten in.(hair)
Sammy attends the same church as Holds-Two-Moons and other Pontarium kids. TARK BYNUM, a student at the school, becomes a casual friend of Sammy because of their mutual interest in UFOlogy.
Holds-Two-Moons lends the second God’s Eye to the organizers of the Christmas pageant, as it resembles somebody’s idea of the Star of Bethlehem. Her other trinkets she leaves magically affixed to the wall in her room. After Christmas, the God’s eye is stored in a room in the Chapel basement with other pageant props.
A few weeks after Christmas, the unknown girl rips down the remaining trinkets from Holds-Two-Moons’ room, taking some of the wallboard with them. She is seen and pursued by a couple of Bible Grove girls. She injures one of the girls.
At a dance near the end of the school year, the girl turns up and first tries to lure Aundre’ away. He does not take the bait. However, Moriarty does. He is lured out to the parking lot, where he is captured, bound, and thrown into a van. The goons then go and try to grab Aundre’ directly.
Tark, along with the Pontarium girls and Aundre’s girlfriend, go to the boys’ rescue. The surviving goons escape in their remaining van without the boys. The pyrotechnics and aftermath of the resulting fight is blamed on a freak storm.
Tark realizes that if the abduction attempts are still going on, then none of the trinkets the girl stole from Holds-Two-Moons is what they were after. That would leave only the God’s Eye stored in the chapel basement. He, Kelly, and LUCINDA CARMODY go to the store room to make sure the God’s Eye is still there. They run into armed Planters, who tie and gag them, then leave them locked in the chapel store room. They escape and capture the planters who had tied them. They recover the God’s Eye.
Meanwhile, at a meeting about the fight at the dance, Cooper and three other Planters draw wands and demand the talisman from Holds-Two-Moons. They are subdued and captured.
Moriarty then tells them the girl who lured him away from the dance was in fact a boy. At church with Holds-Two-Moons, Moriarty recognizes Sammy Dale’s shoes as those the mystery girl was wearing when she tried to lure him away from the dance.
Sammy shows Tark and Kelly his collection of UFO “evidence:” trash, pieces of metal, paper, and plastic supposedly found at UFO landing and crash sites. Among the trinkets, Tark and Kelly spot Holds-Two-Moons’ stolen possessions, including her Usanian coin.
Pontarium investigators descend on Sammy at his house and quickly turn him around. He tells them where the Planters are hiding with the abducted boys.
In the following shoot-out, the boys are rescued, and the last of the Planters are rounded up. The God’s Eye is moved to Saint Sithney's, where it will be kept and protected.
Subplot Moriarty
Moriarty tends to repel girls. They call him ‘Hands’ for a reason. He sees girls as something to conquer. Holds-Two-Moons sees redeeming qualities in him and this will-to-conquer trait as itself something to conquer.
Their relationship over the year is stormy. Holds-Two-Moons is fine with the tactile familiarities he attempts, but he treats every permission she gives him as a conquest. Courtship seems to him some kind of competition. This attitude comes between them, and they end up both going alone to the dance. Holds-Two-Moons has to rescue him from the Planters after he is led away from the dance by the girl, which may have had some effect on his attitude.
Moriarty was told about much of the space culture by Paisley Donovan (Not seen in book II) last year. He didn’t believe it then, but didn’t dismiss it entirely. Once convinced, and seeing Holds-Two-Moons being tortured, he acts.
Subplot Tark
Tark can’t read girls. He doesn’t realize Kelly actually likes him. He thinks she only tolerates him because he believes her story. Kelly can’t help him with that because of her own severe introversion.
He talks about almost nothing but UFOs. He actually has only seen two, those that fought above the campus last year. He knows Kelly was abducted and hangs around her for her story. Bit by bit, he gets from her enough information to piece together what is going on.
He and Kelly see the attempt to kidnap Aundre’ and try to interfere. He gets smacked down for his trouble. He thus learns about wands and, since one of the Planters happens to be a non-human, he knows space people are involved.
Their relationship is developing, but is not yet a high-school romance by the end.
Now I wonder if it will look anything like the book...