Brian A. Ask

The legend began with a Nice Man and a simple cup he shared with friends at his final meal. The Cup was lost to time and man, undiscovered for centuries, until awoken again by a group of traveling North Men. The Cup’s awakening sent a ripple through the dark, alerting the powers that would turn its grace into a weapon of control—the Organization. In a desperate crusade to protect the Cup from the Organization’s dark grasp, one North Man sacrificed everything to steal it away to the far end of the earth, where it remained lost for centuries.

But in the winter of 1961, the silence is broken when a young man named Mark and his dog, Mrs. Henry, awaken the Cup once again. One sip grants Mrs. Henry much more than a voice; it imbues her with a divine agency, allowing her to manifest the impossible and pull the strings of fate in ways that defy—and demand—no explanation. Together, they must pull a scruffy beatnik named Bob from his complacent life in Dinkytown and set him on a road toward a destiny that will change the world.

As the trio embarks on a frozen trek across America, they are pursued by the relentless agents of the Organization. But their hunters have no reckoning for a small, scrappy dog. Drawing on a power that transcends the physical world, Mrs. Henry warps the very fabric of their journey, manifesting impossible intersections with the musical giants of the day. She does not merely orchestrate chance; she summons the inexplicable, conjuring the catalysts Bob needs to find a voice that will define generations to come.

From the cold, vast Midwestern plains to the salt-crusted docks of the East Coast, the road becomes a sequence of unexplainable wonders—a race against a darkness as old as time. In a world of secrets and shadows, the boy, the dog, and the beatnik are all that stand between the Cup and the corruption of mankind.