The Poser
a dance with time
"What matters it how far we go,
there is another shore you know upon the other side.
... Then turn not pale but come and join the dance."
—Lewis Carroll
The Lobster Quadrille
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
Lines of a nonsense poem launch this strange tale. Those invited to join the dance are, assured there is nothing to fear because a safe shore awaits them. But, as in another child's verse, The Spider and the Fly, is the true intent of the invitation hidden? What lies in wait for those who choose to dance the dance?
A mystifying loner, Quil Doolin, travels the southwest's high desert, drawn there by a puzzling urgency. As Quil contends with a multitude of adversities, she senses strange, unnatural powers advancing, coupled with a pressing need to uncloak the mastermind behind a progression of planet-shattering catastrophes. Thrust into time-bending, mythical, and out-of-this-world gambles, she runs headlong into strange beings, some allies, some foes, as she searches for the poser, one pretending to be someone they're not.
Much like Alice in the wonderland stories, Quil wends her way through one after another challenge in an attempt to decipher clues, find the villain, and halt the devastation. An Alice fable, maybe, but be, forewarned, this is not a child's fairytale.
