Book Description

In the year 535 AD a tiny girl is born on the west coast of Ireland and abandoned under a fairy tree. An abbess discovers the child, names her, Jenesis, and raises her with other abandoned deformed and disabled children called monsters. A boy named Mobhi becomes Jenesis' best friend.A wolfhound saves Jenesis from an evil monk and leads her to an underground chamber. There, she meets Eirin, and learns she's descended from the mystical Tuatha de Danu. Eirin gives Jenesis three tasks: to share her gifts in a distant new world; to bring light and learning to the forsaken; and to find the Danu to carry on her mission. Jenesis, Mobhi, and the evil monk travel to the new world on Brendan the Navigator's ship. After defeating the monk in a terrible battle, Jenesis, Mobhi and their new allies, Bear Claw and Aliya, enter a time-space portal and surface in the Wissahickon Creek near Philadelphia in the year 1680, where they discover an underground chamber. In 1683, William Penn grants Jenesis 500 acres above the chamber. She calls her land, Tirna Nog, the land of the ever young. With her allies, Jenesis rescues abandoned and disabled children. By the twentieth century, Jenesis longs to find her successor so she can join her ancestors in the other world. In shadows under a stone bridge - the chamber's portal - a child, Peggo, sees Jenesis, who believes Peggo is the one. At 17, Peggo returns from a polio hospital, begs to work with the orphans, and learns that any intersection with her chamber life and upper world life will banish her from the chamber. On Halloween, 1952, Peggo's wicked stepfather abandons her newborn brother under the chamber's fairy tree. The stepfather attacks Peggo and leaves her unconscious. Chamber orphans garbed in Halloween costumes rise from the chamber to protect Peggo and vanquish her stepfather. But Peggo loses all memory of the chamber, and Jenesis' quest for a successor is thwarted.Jenesis returns to the chamber, wistful and sad, yet filled with admiration for the abandoned children.