Her Artifacts Lost, Volume 1 - The Vanishing Vial

To The Boy With The Heart of Emerald

For over seven years now, I've been obsessed with making you real. I have spent so much of my time writing this book. Crafting many unfinished drafts: my half-hearted attempts at bravely diving into my soul. Finding both great treasure and immense darkness there.

I asked myself: why was I doing this? Why would I be willing to do such hard, emotional labor?

Writing this book caused many subsequent changes and transformations in my life. It tore me open in ways that were (to say the least) likely deadly to any normal person. I almost died seven times. One for each time my heart had been broken. Shattered by the sin of our world.

I realized that this wasn't "normal." That I wasn't normal. I, somehow, in these brushes with death, withstood every single impact. No matter how hard I tried I could no longer deny what I was.

I am Mizar. And you are Alcor. We are the twin stars that can only be seen together in the night by those with the keenest of eyesight.

I have written this book to teach you that normalcy is an illusion. That the greater, grander, more heroic myth which is life, lies just on the other side of your ability to embrace and love what is strange, peculiar, and altogether grotesque about you.

I had wanted all of my life to be a hero. But I realize perhaps it was you. You must have been there since the beginning of time. Since the day I was born. It was you who wanted to be a hero.

Me, I was just a strange woman, made more of air and spirit, than earth. More of a faery, or a specter, than a human being.

With a deep desire to grant the wish of her son.

You showed me that a Mother is the most powerful, sacred, mysterious, magical, and important role that a woman can hold.

A mantle to bear that is even more powerful than those who sit at the highest seats of our society. A role even greater than any job or occupation created by man for the purposes of business or society. A vocation even richer than those of the greatest artists, creators, and performers.

Everything in our society is built to create and sustain Motherhood. Because our children are the future of our nation. And you shall come to know that about your Mother: the future is never too far from my grasp.

If you, my dear Reader, get nothing else from this book, especially if you are a Daughter of America, it is my hope that you look at Motherhood and being a Mother in a new light. If you're skeptical about my claims, I hope to change your mind.

Allister J. Holding, as I call you in the book, one day you will be real! I declare this! Your real name will be Allister Jonah Lawyer.

By the time this book is written and published, it is my hope you'll be born. And I can begin reading it to you at night. Because in my darkest night, the most difficult times of my life, even at the moments I teetered between life and death, you saved me.

And through this book and subsequent books, I want to save you. I want to remind you of what you did for me, even before you were born. I want you to know of your potential to be one of the greatest men the world will ever know.

I want to keep your heart of Emerald in tact.

It was your will to live that kept me alive. It was your love of heroism that made a writer of me.

It was you. All this time. And your Father. For the both of you believe so much in me. That alone has made it impossible for me to give up on life. Even after all I've been through and all I've seen.

Thank you, Allister. I love you more than anything.

It would be the greatest honor to bring you into the world one day. I pray and hope that what I've thought about you is true. That you are real.

Because the world could truly use a hero right now.