Introduction

Psychologist Loche Newirth wonders if it was his fall: the fifty foot drop rom the rocky cliff to the icy water below. Is this why he has been hallucinating? Or is it because one of his clients is dead, or his mentor has gone mad or that his wife is leaving him? He can't bring himself to believe what he has been seeing. Insane things like a massive, searching eye. He sees it in the water below the cliff. He sees it in mirrors, on walls: a massive, crystal blue iris and fathomless pupil there in the center of his life, looking at him.

To find the answer, Loche pens the recent events of his life into a book and leaves the work behind for his mentor, Doctor Marcus Reardon, to interpret. As Reardon reads, he plunges into the harrowing depths of Loche's reality:

his loss of a client, the discovery of an unknown past, an ancient conflict over possession of the human condition, the awesome reality of the gods walking among us, and the crimes of humanity invading the hope that lies beyond the grave.

And along the way, Loche tells of unforgettable characters: the torn and manic housewife that teeters on the edge of sanity, and the depressed, swashbuckling swordsman that believes he is over six hundred years old, the stoned and prolific painter and his perilous work he must keep secret, and the beautiful business woman that abandons her life's work for a love she never expected.

The first part of Michael B. Koep's The Newirth Mythology-The Invasion of Heaven is mystery, adventure, myth, betrayal, murder and madness.

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Excerpt

Prologue:

This is really happening, isn’t it?
Dr. Loche Newirth, a thirty-seven-year-old
psychologist in an olive green wool coat, blue jeans, and
leather hiking boots walks with his head down. He is
crying. His breath steams in the October chill. Before him
the wooded trail blurs as he hikes toward a high cliff
above Upper Priest Lake. Through the trees the afternoon
is grey and pale. He can hear the wind above the pines
and water rushing against the stones below.
He tries to pretend that what has happened is not real.
He wishes he had seen it coming. His mentor, friend and
fellow psychologist Marcus Rearden told him once,
“When a client of yours takes their own life, you’ll want
to take yours. You’ll believe that it was your fault. And I
assure you, after that, there’s no going back.” Loche
brushes at the tears and leans into the hill, upping his
pace.
“Damn you, Marcus,” he says quietly. “Damn you.”
His mind replays the sessions with Bethany. Bethany
Winship, mid-sixties, fit and healthy, with a husband,
Roger, and grown children, convertible BMW, hot tub and
a healthy allowance. As a girl she learned to disappear,
become invisible, hide. It was a necessary choice after the
first time her whiskey-eyed father cracked his belt across
her face and thighs. Being unnoticed became habit. And
the better she got at it the more she was forgotten—
neglected. She shouldered all those memories into
adulthood, into her marriage and her children until her
strength gave out. Loche sees her pleading eyes, the
streaks of black mascara—the remnant of a woman
tormented by severe depression, each day falling deeper
into darkness. Loche struggles to quiet her voice echoing
in his ears, torrents of unmet desires, missed chances and
fear. “My life wasn’t supposed to be like this,” she had
said. “I wish I could redo it. Have another chance.
Rewrite it.” Loche wishes that, too. He wishes he had
asked more questions—offered more encouragement—
reached further.
But now she’s gone.
There are three fears that every psychologist will face
at some point—another of Marcus Rearden’s dictums—
what he calls the Three Heavy What Ifs, What if I can’t
help them? What if I can’t handle it? What if I go in with
them? As this thought occurs to Loche he feels his failure
with Bethany as complete. The tears blind him and burn
lines down his cheeks. What if I can’t help? He had done
everything within his power to guide Bethany out of the
dark. In the end, it was as if he had done nothing. What if
I can’t handle it? This is suddenly obvious as he sees
himself stumbling along the trail, crying uncontrollably,
unable to put his emotions into some kind of order. Long
hikes had always balanced him—brought clarity. Today it
is not working. Each tottering step approaches the edge of
a black and swirling maelstrom. He is descending. He is
going in with her.
Loche stops suddenly—squeezes his eyes shut—he
breathes. A distant boat engine drones and fades away
toward the thoroughfare. A cluster of birds scatters from
the treetops above him. The water laps the shore.
Then the sound of his wife’s voice in his memory, “I
don’t know how much more of this I can take,” she had
said. Her angry eyes flashed.
“I need a few days,” he told her. “I need some time to
work out what has happened.”
“Here’s what will happen, you’ll lose me,” she had
said. “I can’t go on like this. With you, like this. Jesus,
Loche—you need time? I need time.” Loche’s four-yearold
son, Edwin, stood in the open door a few feet away—
his hands balled into fists and his brown eyes are sleepy.
“Helen,” Loche said, “one of my clients has died. This
is a lot for me to process—and I’ve just received more
news,” he remembers feeling for the envelope in his coat,
“news that will change—”
“I’ll tell you what needs to change, Loche. It’s you.
It’s always something with you,” she said turning away.
“So where will you go?”
“I don’t know, Helen. I’m so sorry, there is so much
more to this—I can’t tell you right now. It’s become much
more serious.”
“They think you did it? They think you—” she faced
him and watched.
Loche felt the air leave his lungs. “Yes. I am a
suspect.” Helen turned her back.
The conversation was over. He tried to pull her into an
embrace. She pushed him away. Loche then knelt and
held his son. “I’ll see you before you know it,” he
remembers saying to him. “Before you know it.”

Loche starts walking again. Not far ahead the steeper
incline leads out of the trees. He reaches into his coat and
pulls out the bright red envelope the post had delivered to
his house in Sagle, Idaho, two days ago. He stares at it as
he walks. He reads the script on the front again, scribbled
in Bethany’s hand—Dr. Newirth, open only if something
bad happens to me. He considers pulling the letter out and
reading it again, but he shakes his head and pushes it back
into his pocket. His jaw is clenched. He could tell no one
about the letter. Not yet. Not even Helen. The slope rises
steadily into a rocky clearing. He squints, coming under
the steel wash of sky. The icy breeze freezes his tears. He
crosses the short distance to the cliff edge and stops.
I have one chance, he thinks, looking quickly at his
hands, still blotched with oil paint, crimson and black.
One chance to change what has happened. I will lie to
reveal the truth.
He stares out across Upper Priest Lake. It looks small
below him, wreathed in ash green, flecks of yellow
tamarack like candles in shadow.
I will lie to reveal the truth.
A moment later, the air stills and all hushes to silence.
The wind stops, like held breath. There is no longer the
sound of water lapping below, no whisper in the trees, no
bird call or far away boat engine whining away to the
South—only his heart ticking in his ears. The water shines
below him like a metal plate. Its surface is motionless—a
still membrane of glass reflecting the grey canopy above.
So clear it looks as if there is a hole in the Earth. Sky
water. The sight nudges the darkness away from Loche’s
thoughts as he gapes down the sheer fifty foot drop,
mesmerized by the heavens he sees below him. His knees
weaken. A looming sense of vertigo.
With a jolt, he feels as if he is being watched—as if
he’s not alone. He twists around and looks behind to the
shadow beneath the boughs. He scans the tree line and
along the trail that leads down toward the beach. Nothing.
No one.

Loche faces downward again, the small lake far below
staring back up at the sky. At itself.
Then he sees it.
Something moves in the water.
Round, welling out—a black spot widening. A pooling
stain at its center.
But this can’t be—
It moves, flitting, searching. Loche steadies himself
and rubs his eyes, unsure of what he is seeing. Looking
again, the massive dot is ringed with an ice blue iris, its
pupil dilating ever wider.
It stares. It sees. It looks at Loche.

This is really happening, isn’t it?
Loche Newirth is midair. He thinks several thoughts
all at once.
He wonders if he was somehow yanked down over the
edge. There is no lake surface below him now—it is an
eye—hypnotic iris, gaping black center. It appeared as if a
giant from a fairy tale had risen from beneath the world
and pressed its eye to a peep hole. Loche and the cold
October sky were mirrored in its glassy lens—and it
pulled him down.
Loche then wonders if he had instead thrown himself
from the height when his mind managed to discern the
anomaly. A massive eye seeing him. Inviting him like the
connection that happens when the gazes of two strangers
meet—the thrill of recognition in this isolated existence.
He wanted to be a part of whatever it was that beheld him,
so he jumped.
Then, reason. Perhaps he merely tripped from the
shock of such a sight. The impossibility of it. The terror.

Slap.
Needles pierce his skin. A numb, slogging struggle.
Then more falling, head over foot, tumbling through a
slow-motion, bleary abyss.
Silence.
Flash.
Gone.

The stinging of his hands on gravel rouses him. His
limbs are slow, weighted, sluggish. Gasping and clawing
he pulls himself up. With great effort he lugs his heavy
legs out of the cold water. He has the sense to know that
hypothermia will set in soon, and it is a long hike back to
the cabin. He totters to his feet and looks back across the
water. The eye is gone—if there ever was one.
He crashes through the brush along the lakeshore,
searching aimlessly for a landmark, a trail, a direction. He
stumbles and falls every few feet. He does not feel the
gashes on his knees, but he sees the blood. Sharp slashing
branches scratch his face. A few more steps—another
crash upon the stones. Before all goes black he mumbles
to himself a final, desperate assessment, over and over—
“I am Loche Newirth. This is really happening. This is
really happening.”
... view entire excerpt...

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