I’ve made Mystery Lake a place of unusual phenomena for the magical Djinn who are seeking romance. I pictured a favorite camping lake in conjunction with a favored camp spot alongside a small village in Central Canada. Combining the hilly treed terrain and deep but small, isolated lake, I created the resort Town of Mystery Lake, situated along the north shoreline. Then, I worked backwards to set up the events that led up to the lake earning its name.
Back story, in the form of the Legend of the Djinni-of-the-Lake, is revealed in bits and pieces in each romance story. The legend is about the three banished Djinn who are given life sentences, away from their desert home, centuries before any other of their people come and discover love.
The first Djinni is responsible for allowing the Goddess of Fire to enter the lake when his actions opened up the bottom of an unnamed lake to reveal a simmering volcano underneath. The Djinni King commands that he expel her. He fails miserably. The second banished Djinni is only able to lessen the destructive winds and rains that decimate the beaches and hillsides ringing the lake and keeping explorers, trappers and settlers away. During this time the lake is named Disappearing Lake because water either spirals down through the hole in the lake or it comes up through the whirlpool, with total disregard to the precipitation.
Finally a handsome Djinni prince with negotiating talents, gains the cooperation of the goddess so that the area becomes safe once more. While the Djinni Prince (story in Book 4) cannot expel the Fire Goddess either, he manipulates her destructive forces to appease and amuse her—horizontal columns of fog, rains of fish and frogs, snow falls in summer, spot rains that drench individuals but leave others dry and laughing, and more. The lake is renamed Mystery Lake for its mischievous weather events and the fact that the lake is reputed to actually keep swimmers from drowning. Finally the town site becomes a popular tourist destination, with visitors flooding in to experience the strange weather and enjoy the healthful waters.
How better to utilize this fictional setting than to set flawed, bored, or ungifted members of the Djinn into it? They find themselves houseguests or partners rather than slaves. Two others find themselves falling for each other without realizing their similarities in ancestry. The last Djinni-of-the-Lake, the subordinate prince, is tracked down by a high royal princess who refuses to let him languish in banishment and so he has his own romance story.
In every case, the supernaturally influenced weather figures strongly into the stories. Believers of the legend attribute all the strange goings on directly to the legendary Djinni-of-the-Lake, little realizing that there has been more than one. Non-believers bring in professionals to find proof to disprove any idea of supernatural influence, but efforts are thwarted or end with inconclusive results.
Mystery Lake is not part of Mt. Kaf, vast desert home of the Djinn, but, each Djinni finds love and reason to stay despite entirely different climate, cultures, and terrain.
Leave A Comment