Ireland Rose & The Endless Stream - The Fountain Of Youth Chronicles Vol. 2

Summary

"When the well is dry, we know the worth of water"

                                                                     - Benjamin Franklin 

Synopsis: The Water Chronicles series uses a "parallel" storytelling structure in which two separate-but-related plot lines, taking place in radically different eras of history, evolve both thematically and literally and weave together forming a whole. Told in sequential chapters, one timeline, then the other, both storylines form separate novels, but will work as a unified piece.

Ireland Rose and the Endless Stream picks up right after the events of its preceding book in the series, India Rose and the Eternals, which saw a parallel set of stories being told. The first was about a group of immigrants coming to America at the turn of the last century on a secret mission by their order to confront one of their own (a certain Thomas Edison) about his reckless exposure of the secret that they guard. The Station Master (the code name for Leonardo da Vinci, who is alive and well hundreds of years after his supposed death) and his apprentice Finn are chased across the ocean by those who desire to discover the source of the long life "The Eternals" have (rumored to be the mythical Fountain Of Youth), including the sinister Man In The Brown Hat (who once drank unworthily from The Fountain, and has been cursed with an "eternal thirst", and strange, dehydrating powers).

In the second storyline, India Rose, a twelve-year-old living in Hope Springs, Maine in the 1980's, finds herself in trouble with the leaders of her town after she researches the town's history a little too thoroughly for a school project. After a slight legal run-in with the town librarian Mrs. Blue (who holds sway over the town council and bears more than a passing resemblance to the famous Mona Lisa), and for a consequence, India spends the summer working for Mrs. Blue at an island summer camp. There India meets a set of characters that seem much older than they actually are, including the dreamy head counselor Egan and the wild head cook Roberto. After saving Mrs. Blue's life during a hike, and assisting the newly befriended Mrs. Blue with saving the town's fishing industry from an oil spill (that might or might not have been orchestrated by The Man In The Brown Hat), India comes to understand that her small, relatively isolated town is a haven for "Eternals" who have been hunted relentlessly by various secret orders who have been looking for the Fountain Of Youth for thousands of years.. The two storylines are revealed to be connected, with many characters populating each era of the over-all story.

In Ireland Rose and the Endless Stream, a story again told in two timelines, Finn is now a soldier in the U.S. Army in WWII era Europe, who operates deep behind enemy lines for a covert organization that conducts deep cover missions. In an inciting incident, set against the backdrop of a Nazi book burning and a deep cover mission, Finn and his squad discover that The Man And The Brown Hat, and his organization have been the secret, propulsion force behind the Nazi's rise to power. Finn's mission is to rescue a number of scientists of Jewish-German background, whom the U.S. desires to task with helping the atomic Manhattan Project. A number of these scientists are Eternals, and Finn's motivation for finding them becomes two-fold. After tracking and taking over the concentration camp-bound prison train that the scientists are on, Finn's squad finds themselves at a moral crossroads of taking the other train prisoners with them in their dash to the sea for extraction.

In 1980's Maine, news of the mysteriously cleaned up oil spill has led The Man In The Brown Hat and his organization to Hope Springs. In an inciting incident, this villain orchestrates the ruse of a deadly infectious disease outbreak in Hope Springs (through his organizations plants in various government agencies), and the sinister group forces a quarantine of the town, and start the search for any and all Eternals who have made Hope Springs their refuge over the last 100 years. These eternal citizens include the town's sheriff (who looks uncannily like George Washington), two of local high school's faculty (a certain one-eared art teacher, and a wild-haired physics teacher) and the exotic proprietor of a fashion boutique in town called "Madam Cleo's Loft".

As the town's citizen's (both eternal and mortal citizens alike) start to realize the nature of what is going on, some turn on each other, and as neighbor starts to suspect neighbor, eleven-year-old Ireland Rose is tasked by Mrs. Blue (who was previously revealed to be the founder of the town and the wife of the captured Station Master) with carrying communications to the outside world. Ireland is unknown to The Man In The Brown Hat's group (her older sister India has been identified as an Eternal's co-conspirator for her role in the oil spill clean-up, and her published essay about the town's history, which was picked up by the Associated Press after it won a state award for writing), so her deep-cover allows her to move around, and her courage allows a plan for fighting back to develop. The Eternals have been on the run from their foes for nearly two centuries (after a climactic battle during the Revolutionary War that they lost), and through Mrs. Blue's leadership, and Ireland's example, the whole town (eternal and mortals alike) fight back for the first time in "living memory". Many of the Eternal citizens of Hope Springs are revealed to be occupants and decedents of those who Finn and his squad saved from the Nazi prison train forty years before, and lead to settle in the town. The victory is won, but the larger battle lines are drawn, and The Man In The Brown Hat and his shadowy master (revealed to be the famous Conquistador Ponce de Leon, the legendary seeker of The Fountain Of Youth) reveal their global schemes (set in the next novel) for orchestrating a nuclear war (in the guise of the already brimming Cold War) to take final possession of the fountain.