J.L. Haynes

“The defence shall cross-examine Zara Hanson,” he beckons her forward. “Would you tell the court how long we have known each other?”
“Well…” taken aback, she ponders how best to answer, “you could say days, but then again you could say several lifetimes. It feels like I’ve known you my whole life.”
“And in this time, would you say you trust my judgement?”
Unsure where this is going, she gives a terse reply.
“I’ve no reason not to.”
“I ask that you trust my defence and do not draw any forgone conclusions.”
“Okay?” Zara nods, her brow knits together with a look of curiosity. What’s he up to?
“Zara Hanson, what is love?”
“Well, you won’t find it anywhere near these jelly-beans,” she looks at the Elb.
“Please, tell us what love is—not that which it is not.”
“What is love?” Zara raises an eyebrow and smiles, “It is something indescribable, to categorise it would do its power a disservice.”
“And yet categorise it we must.” Ansebe’s skin changes its tone, pigments diversify a hypnotic effect, influencing her emotions, “Please—what is love?”
― J.L. Haynes, Zara Hanson & The Mystery of the Painted Symbol

“There’s a certain way you can see the world as magical, but for many the price is too high.”
― J.L. Haynes

“Zara slowly reaches forward, touches the Tetragrammaton with her index and middle finger, nothing at first, then an odd sensation, a feeling of divine power and knowledge. “It’s beautiful,” a surge of information overwhelms her senses—she turns her palms face up, as she does they turn transparent to reveal the constellations, “I am that which is not, born from the imperishable stars.” With that said her skin transforms a dark blue, filled with a star-blue sky, photons of rainbow-light encircle her body; she stops dead, lifeless, in a suspended state of animation. Just then she finds herself above, looking down at the pyramid, at herself, the entire universe all stopped dead in single frozen moment of time. And then it is all gone, she awakes in another place, another time-line. Ancient Egypt. The Pyramids of Giza.”
― J.L. Haynes, Zara Hanson & The Mystery of the Painted Symbol

“Perhaps it’s fate,” Zara says, supping tonic-water from a beaker, “I just had the weirdest dream, but it seemed so real.”
“A dream?” Æther asks curiously, as he gives her more water, “Take your time.”
“It was vivid, so real,” she raises her eyebrows, “I was lost in it. It was like parts of me were scattered all over time itself. The past, future and present all in an endless causality loop, every moment co-creating slices of time.”
― J.L. Haynes, Zara Hanson & The Mystery of the Painted Symbol