Step inside the world of our Gifts. Discover more about the Orders, Witches and the Elemental beings, and their impact on the world we live in.
Through the Reflections is a fantasy series centered around The Order’s of the world.
Keep reading to find out a little more about the world behind the story, and how our characters came to be who they are…
Through the Reflections is a series based around the lives of The Orders. Orders worldwide are home to a race of people responsible for protecting God’s secrets on Earth and maintaining the balance of good and evil. They work closely with nature and Elemental beings (Salamanders -fire faeries, Undines-water fairies, Earth Pixies and Air Sprites,) forming a world within our world, unknown to all except those with paranormal or magical talents.
Available in paperback and as an E book.
Introducing the Gifts.
The eldest child of each family born into the Order is a Gift. Gifts may have many talents, but they are all capable of communicating and travelling through reflections, such as water, glass, and metal. They can speak through them very much like a video call and can also use them for transportation. The most talented Gifts can create visions within the reflections to show to others. They can also use the reflection in somebodies eye to read their thoughts and feelings.
All Gifts, have bright blue eyes, these were given to them by the Arch Angel. Their eye colour (blue eyes in truth being colourless) enables the Gifts to see clearly what is reflected within each other and those they may read, and prevents defective reading of images.
Book One – Waiting to be Heard
Book One; Waiting to be Heard. Although our story begins in the towns and villages of Lancashire whilst we follow our main character Ellie’s life. It leads us into the hills beyond and to the Lancashire Order, introducing us to the way of life and the people who follow it.
The first three books in the series are all to be linked. They each have stories of their own but form a full circle(The wheel of fortune), a tarot reference to the process of life. The first book begins with Ellie’s life, the second book follows the birth of her children, and the third book takes us back to the birth of The Hierophant and ends at the time of Ellie’s conception.
The Lancashire Order.
The Lancashire Order lies beyond the Borough of Bury and its outlying villages, across the moorland above the North Moor Reservoir. ( The North Moor Reservoir doesn’t exist but is styled on the landscape surrounding the reservoir at Haslingden Grane).
After the North Moor reservoir, a dirt road leads up into the hills past the old mills’ ruins and the overgrown mystical millpond until it becomes little more than an ancient cart track weaving its way upwards into the moors.
At the end of the track, deep within a hidden hollow, you’ll find a small stone cottage, unlived in for hundreds of years, and behind the cottage the gates to the Township, home of The Order.
The Township is surrounded by a stone wall 10 feet high. The stones, selected for the minerals and crystals they contain, causing the wall to shine with differing hues dependent upon the light and weather. The gates are made of cast iron. Iron is used for strength and protection. The protective symbols and runes worked into them with intricate craftsmanship.
The roads through the Township are a mixture of dirt, stone and cobble, and the houses are just as diverse.
The people’s homes vary. There are sporadic scatterings of rounded cob cottages, small streets of timber-framed homes so crooked they look like they could be toppled by the slightest gust of wind. These streets surround three sides of the village green and house business’ such as the butchers, bakers, and candlestick makers.
Beyond lie larger stone houses surrounded by smallholdings, and to the east side, a large rock face looms, into which are carved stone cottages.
Two large fast-flowing streams run from the moorland into the Township, one from the west, borders the farm by the smaller moorland gates and runs through the yard at the rear of Savannah’s grange following the wall of the Township. The other flows through Fairfield Glen into the Pool of sight near the village green.
Alongside the stream flowing by the village green is a small row of houses. The end cottage is the largest, this is where Emmanuel resides.
Emmanuel is the High Priest or Hierophant of The Lancashire Order.
Past Emmanuel’s home down a sturdy track across a field away from the Township families and against the surrounding wall lies a rounded concrete structure not unlike an aircraft hangar.
The building has sizeable sliding steel doors. It is within these walls that the only forms of modern technology used by the Township are housed.
There is a large meeting hall, and a library: – containing phones and computers all run by generators and mobile technology. The justice and government offices are housed here, and there is access to the underground tunnel systems.
There is also a fortified store of poisons and Magicks.
The building was built here to be deliberately away from homes and the Townships water sources.
The stream running past Emmanuel’s house flows on through the village green, past the forge which stands just within the green, used for shoeing horses and forging weapons and charms, and straight into the village hall.
The village hall stands a stone’s throw away from the corner of the village green. The village hall is where town meetings are held and are also home to the Hierophants office, the Portraits of the Ancestors, the Bible, and the Pool of sight. The stream flows into the pool and continues downwards into the Earth through an underground network of caves and pools. This is the home of the Undines.
Bordering the fourth edge of the village green is the Chapel, so named for its church-like shape but is used as a schoolroom. It was initially built as the village hall but became too small for purpose when the Township was at its peak in the 1700s.
The members of the Lancashire Order lead a traditional life. For the most part, they have no power within their homes. Many are still without running water, relying on standpipes wells and boreholes.
Most members of the Order work within the Township, with many women- of their own choosing, taking on the role of housewife and mother, but other women choose to work as well. Some members of The Order can be found working in the surrounding towns and villages. However, it is a minute number that chooses to live beyond the Township.
A section of the Township’s inhabitants forms the Brotherhood -The Orders religious sector, responsible for teaching, pastoral care, and governing the Witchcraft and Elemental communities they are responsible for. Other roles are touched on, such as the justice court, which are not fully explored within the first book.
The Lancashire Order, like all others, guard the knowledge and secrets of God’s kingdom. They also work on the release of tortured souls and are governors of magical communities across the whole of England.
The Lancashire Order has allowed some progression. Their children enjoy modern schooling alongside the traditional Order curriculum and have access to the internet and computers via mobile technology in the library.
One area where The Lancashire Order is different from others is how they allow the Gifts (eldest child of each family) the chance to make their own choices. In other Orders, the eldest child is seen as a Gift to the Order itself and, as such, are raised in the belief that their lives are prophesied, and they have no option.
We’d love to hear what you think.
We’re happy to keep you updated with family details, origins or background stories, and we’ll add more as we go.
Have you read the book? How did life at the Order seem to you?
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Jennifer Rawlinson 