Algonkian Pre-event Narrative Enhancement Guide - Opening Hook

_Alice. Talk to me. Whatever it is, we will get through this, like we always have. You are not alone._
My psychiatrist told me this during our last session at his office in downtown Los Angeles. It was around eight o’clock on the morning of November 9th. I was lying supine on a tufted sofa, elbows at my sides, the sun shining fiercely in the sky. I called him Stein, though everyone else referred to him as Dr. Costen. He was trying to peel my brain, tinker with my defective mind like he had done so many times before. But that day, for the first time, he couldn’t get what he wanted from me. Not a damn thing. 

The thought comes to me as the taxi lurches forward, its engine growling in protest as we crawl through the streets of Kenwood. My stomach knots tighter with every mile, the familiar landscape rising up, swallowing me whole. Ten years—ten long years since I left this city behind, yet the weight of it presses down on me, cold and sharp, like it never really let me go. The cab windows fog slightly from the heat, turning the view outside into a hazy blur of redbrick, iron railings, and graffiti-scrawled alleyways. I press a finger to the glass, wiping a streak clear, but the scene beyond is just as muted as before, like I’m looking through a dirty lens.

I’m back.

Chicago hasn’t changed much, or maybe I just can’t see beyond my thoughts. The taxi bumps over a pothole, jostling me, and I glance out at the snow-choked streets, the slush grinding under the tires. We pass sagging three-story walkups, their bricks darkened by decades of soot and salt, the kind of buildings that lean into the wind like they’re bracing for another bitter winter. Even the air smells the same—burnt pretzels from a street cart mixing with diesel and old snow. It’s a smell that sticks to your clothes, a reminder that this place never lets you forget.

The driver glances at me in the rearview, his eyes shadowed under a Cubs cap, but I ignore him, watching the familiar landmarks spring out at me, dragging me into memories I thought I’d buried. There—on the corner of South Drexel—the liquor store. That cursed store Janice stumbled out of more times than I can count, her breath sour with bourbon, her eyes glazed like she didn’t know she had daughters waiting for her at home. Or maybe she did, and that was the problem. She’d come back with bottles, enough to last a week if she paced herself, but she never did. She was always trying to drown something out, a scream inside her that we could never hear but felt in every slap, in every cruel word, in every night she didn’t come home. I always wondered what she was trying to silence, what desperate scream echoed in her head, the one that none of us could hear but all of us felt. It doesn’t matter now, does it? 
The cab hits another pothole, and my hand skids over the cracked leather seat, catching on a split seam. I dig my fingers into the torn cushion, feeling the damp foam underneath—spongy and cold. It reminds me of decay, of flesh eaten from the inside out, and suddenly, I see Janice in that hospital bed, her skin yellowed, her breath rasping like broken glass. I swallow hard, forcing the memory back down, but it sticks in my throat, sharp and bitter. 
I tell myself I’m OK. 
We roll past my old high school. Kenwood Academy. The bricks are darker now, streaked with time and neglect, but it’s still the same place. I can see myself there, in the gymnasium after we’d sneak out of class, fueled on our juvenile highs. My crew was here—Doug, Robyn, Heather—juveniles with dreams bigger than this city, bigger than their broken homes. And then there was Mark. I haven’t thought about him in years––a forced proposition––but the sight of the school hits me like a punch to the chest, sharp and sudden. We were so young, stupid with love, or whatever we thought love was. I was just a kid, and so was he, but we clung to each other like lifelines, like we could drag each other out of this place. He made me feel like I mattered in a world that didn’t want us. He had all these big ideas, dreams of traveling the world. He’d talk about it endlessly—Monaco, always Monaco for some reason. 
I force a laugh, imagining him there now, maybe living that life. Maybe with someone who wasn’t so broken, someone he didn’t have to save, someone who didn’t just… disappear. I left him with no warning. One day I was there, under the Belmont Overpass, his lips on mine, his hands in my deep brown hair, and the next, I was gone—on a plane to London, leaving behind everything we’d built in those short few years, or thought we had. I tell myself he’s forgotten me, that he’s too smart, too driven to hold on to someone who shattered him the way I did. Maybe he’s in Monaco right now, drinking his martinis, laughing with a beautiful blonde. And he’s long since wiped me from his mind. That thought—it brings me comfort. He deserves to forget me. He deserves better.
The cab jerks to a sudden stop, slamming me forward. My hands hit the cold plastic partition with a thud, the impact vibrating up my arms. For a second, I sit there, frozen, the stale heat of the cab pressing against my skin. My heart is racing, my breath shallow.

I glance up, and the driver is staring at me through the rearview mirror. His gaze lingers, steady, searching, and it sends a prickle of unease across my skin.

What does he want? Why is he looking at me like that?

“You need help with your bags?” he asks finally, his voice rough, gravelly, but not unfriendly.

“No,” I say. “I’ve got it.”
He nods, his face unreadable, then shifts back in his seat, staying where it’s warm. He doesn’t say anything else, but I feel his eyes on me as I open the door. 
The cold hits me instantly, sharp and brutal, searing my lungs. It’s the kind of cold that doesn’t just skim the surface—it burrows deep, sinking into your bones. My boots crunch against the thin layer of snow on the sidewalk, and I pause for a moment. 
I’m not ready for this. For any of it.
The building is right in front of me, redbrick and solid, its windows dark and empty. My chest tightens, and I can feel the weight of it—the why. The reason I’m here. I move to the trunk, pulling my bag out with numb fingers. The handle is icy, and it stings, but I barely feel it. I can’t feel much of anything right now. The driver is still watching me, his face half-hidden in shadow, but I don’t look at him. I don’t say goodbye. I just turn away, dragging my bag behind me as the wheels catch and stick in the snow.
My toes are already numb in my heels, and I curse myself for being stupid enough to wear them. Eight years in Los Angeles have mollycoddled me. I’d forgotten how this kind of cold doesn’t just sting. 
The weight of it all—this place, this moment—is crushing.
And yet, I keep walking.
 

Hello, from John Farrington. Here is the opening chapter to UNKNOWN DIRECTION. It introduces a major antagonist and the core wound.

UNKNOWN DIRECTION OPENING CHAPTERS 1-2.docx

“Your stance is still too spread out, Kate,” Hassland said, snapping my ankles with his wooden sword like he was a gods-damned prison warden. 

“Do that one more time and I swear-” I began to growl, just as he swiped again for my ankle, hitting his mark a second before I could pull it away. I stumbled to the side, catching myself with my own wooden sword to keep from toppling into the dirt. 

Hassland gave me an amused smile. “See. Told you your stance was too wide.” 

I glared at my brother as I propped myself back up, shuffling my feet closer together this time.

He paid no mind to my scowl, the expression more common on my face nowadays than a smile. His brown eyes were still narrowed at my feet. “It still doesn’t look right. Do you always stand that way?”

“Hassland,” I barked, snapping him out of his focus. He held up his hands in defeat and turned back towards the elegant ebony manor that loomed behind us. 

“Right. Sorry. Maybe I’m just overthinking it. Have you seen Father today by the way? He wasn’t even at breakfast.” Hassland was still staring at the House of Hands, as if asking the building instead of me. He was distracted. He’d been distracted all morning. That or infuriatingly focused on one insignificant, stupid thing, like my fighting stance. 

“No. And why do you care?”

“Dunno. I just-” He paused, scratching the back of his head, his eyes still glued to the manor, to the exact window that belonged to my father’s study. Which was dark. Like it had been all week. “He’s just been gone a lot more recently, don’t you think?”

“I don’t know, Hassland,” I sighed, my mind now just as distracted as his as I picked at a piece of mud that’d found itself crusted to one of my blades. “Honestly, I find it peaceful. No reason to question it.”

“I guess,” Hassland said softly, turning back to me. But that was Hassland. He had to question everything. Stick his nose in everything. And it’d only ever gotten him in trouble. 

“Can we just get back to sparring? It’s hot and I’d rather not spend any more time out here than I have to.”

“Yeah, sorry,” Hassland mumbled, turning back to me. His gaze lit up as it crossed my feet. “Hey, your stance looks better!”

Every bit of strength I had kept me from rolling my eyes. Instead, I just gave him a forced smile, not eager to have his laser focus turned back onto my footwork. Even if I hadn’t moved an inch since he last glanced at me. 

For the next hour, we hardly spoke, only spun and ducked and jabbed at each other, taking a second only to breathe or pull ourselves back up off the ground. It was after one particularly long sparring match that I finally got a hit on Hassland. He’d miscalculated my speed, assuming I wouldn’t have enough time to twist out of his swipe for my right side. But I had, and I came back swinging for his left side now exposed.

I’d like to say I hit him harder than I’d meant to, but quite frankly, that’d be a lie. After the two raps at my ankle and the several more whacks I’d received during our sparring match, I’d been a little too pleased to finally get to show him how much a wooden sword could actually hurt. 

He barely had time to breathe out the word, “shit” as he doubled over, the air squeezed from his lungs like water from a wet rag. 

“King of Reih, Katerina, don't you think that was a bit hard for training?” Hassland said, his voice a pathetic mix between a wheeze and a whisper. 

“Sorry, it got away from me.” 

“Liar,” he mused, his face still contorted in pain as he rubbed his side. I didn’t bother defending myself. I only dusted off the wooden practice blades that almost perfectly matched my steel ones slung across my bed right now. 

“Katerina,” our father’s voice cut through the sound of men sparring around us, making me jump. “The king is here asking for you.”

Both Hassland and I tensed. I whipped my head around to face our father, but before I could open my mouth to ask why, he cut me off with a sharp wave of his hand. 

"Don’t keep him waiting,” Father said, his tone about as warm and lively as a four-day-old corpse. 

So much for his peaceful absence I’d been growing to enjoy.

Part 3 for the March 2025 Write to Pitch New York

Below is an excerpt from chapter one. This is the protagonist's memory of becoming a full-time hire for her employer.

Darla circled the master bedroom, wielding the broom and dustpan like a knight in pitched combat.

She looked at the wall to the right side of the bed. Another secret panel hid there, protecting the Parson’s safe and family photo albums. Unlike those in bank robber movies, the safe wasn't anything special.

Every so often, she’d peruse the photographs of long-dead Parson ancestors. Occasionally, Darla would find a new, crisply developed photo of the couple off on European adventures or relaxing Caribbean cruises. A life she would never know. Still, even hiding spots needed dusting.

It'll be fine. They're not back till Friday. I'll get it tomorrow; got to hurry before I miss sunset, she thought as she approached the bed.

The Parson’s bed was not a simple turn-down affair; it was a ceremony, a sacrament to the home. Once, she’d forgotten to make it. Darla remembered the sound of Silvia Parson shouting her name through the house. She remembered rushing into the room, sure she was about to be fired.

“Does this bed look made, maid?”

“No, ma’am.”

The woman’s beady eyes had narrowed as she looked around the room.

"How much are we paying you, dear?" Mrs. Parson asked as she walked around the bed.

"Five dollars per cleaning for four cleanings per week,” Darla answered quickly.

"And how much would it cost for a daily clean? We expect to be here quite often with our office opening downtown. It might become a permanent move in a couple of years once we’re up and running. You’ll find my husband is fond of his dinner parties.” Silvia stopped, just inched away from her.

“We wish to explore more of the culture here. You Carolinians are so simple, simple tastes and simple pleasures. Such a pleasant change from the hustle and bustle of D.C.

So, how much for you to come here and clean every day?"

Darla was floored as she ran the calculations in her head. "Every day, ma'am?" she asked.

“Every day, dear.”

“Um- that’s…” Silvia Parson interrupted.

"Are you a religious woman, Darla?"

"I was raised Catholic, but no longer practice ma'am."

"Then you will take off Christmas and Easter. Do you require more?"

"I visit a friend in Florida for a week each summer." 

A fraction of a wrinkle split between Mrs. Parson’s eyebrows, "Christmas, Easter, and one week in the summer. Is that all, dear?"

“Oh! And my birthday.” Darla blurted. Mrs. Parson narrowed into slits. “Christmas, Easter, one week in summer, and your birthday, and when is your birthday, dear?” Her voice seemed to grow colder with every question.

“The fourteenth of April, ma’am. My birthday will land on Easter in two years, so I’ll get one less day off that year.” Darla had memorized her birthdays against all future corresponding holidays.

“An unfortunate pairing,” Mrs. Parson said coolly.

“I don’t mind sharing my birthday with the big guy in the sky, ma’am,” Darla smiled; Mrs. Parson did not.

“So-” The woman took a long breath and rattled off, “Christmas, Easter, your birthday unless the two coincide, and one week in summer. Do I have that correct?” The sentence sounded more like a deliberation than a question. Darla nodded.

The woman took a step closer. She had known Mrs. Parson was short, but up this close, Darla stood a solid half-head taller.

“And the price?”

“Fifty dollars a week.” Darla held her breath. You blew it! That’s too high, way too high!

Silvia shrugged, "How does eighty dollars a week sound? For all seven days. I know the demand for good help in this neighborhood. All these women here think their reputations can buy them whatever they want; I disagree. Think of this as your retainer. I’m asking that you prioritize this house; if I call, you come running. Eighty dollars a week." 

Darla was dumbfounded; that was almost triple any of her other clients. She blinked and had the mindfulness to close her mouth as she nodded.

"Yes, ma'am. That sounds good. I'll get right to that bed," she said, raising her hand in the small space between them.

"Yes. Please do, dear." The woman said, taking Darla’s hand. She remembered Mrs. Parson’s fingers being so cold, like wrinkly icicles.

That conversation had been a high point in Darla's career. The steady cash flow had been going straight to her vehicle savings account, and she was getting close to her goal.

Fluffing the final pillow, she placed it gingerly on the bed. Taking a step back, she examined the bedframe that towered above the mattress like a wooden ribcage.

The entire bedroom had taken her twenty minutes-ish to complete. She picked up her rag and walked over to a handle protruding from the wall by the hall door.

The laundry chute was another hidden favorite of Darla’s, and it saved her from countless trips to the basement washing machine. She pulled the handle, and the hatch fell open. A cool draft pushed its way up the shaft and felt good against her skin. She used the chute for more than just laundry, dropping everything from spent cleaning supplies to empty liquor bottles into the basket below. Darla dangled her torn cleaning rag over the chute and let go.

She waited for the soft thwap.

It never came.

The breeze from the chute stopped blowing.

The hair on her neck stood up as Darla squinted into the dark opening.

Must’ve gotten stuck.

Martin Hill Ortiz

The School for Dangerous Design

 Chapter One

Mister Specter

            "A ghost is here to see you," Nurse Shannon said in her gravelly voice before waddling off with the emptied lunch tray, leaving behind a sly smile.

            Reb perked up in her bed. A ghost? These last few days in the hospital had been so-o boring. Even with a phone for company, she could peck out only so many texts and view only so many videos. She wasn't like her school friends, rabid judges carrying out the never-ending cosmic duty of assigning likes or dislikes. To jokey photos. To songs. To Tik-Tok challenges and snarky comments. To Reb, it all seemed so repetitive a chore. So lame. And why couldn't you judge something as "kind of like, kind of hate"? And why not "who cares?"

            With her elderly roommate, Mrs. Menendez, one bed over, complaining about every bit of noise, Reb had resorted to watching the television mounted high on the wall with the sound off. Right now, a comedy show. Sort of. Silent actors mouthed lines and made goofy or shocked faces and paused for what must have been laughs. Reb thought it the weirdest thing on earth.

            The world is insane. The food here is terrible. And why am I even being forced to stay in this hospital? "You are lucky to be alive," the doctors told her after the explosion. Okay, but she wasn't sick or hurt and, other than missing a week of memory, nothing more bad had happened. Nothing that should keep her stuck in a hospital bed. 

            And why does everyone stare at me like I'm a freak? Her dad and her mom and Nurse Shannon and Doctor Ramirez winced when they saw her. Even Mrs. Menendez, who had a PVC tube sticking out of her chest, gave her a critical eye. And then there was how her friend Jenny had written on a get-well card—in handwriting so perfect it almost seemed snobbish—"Glad they found you." I was never lost. Was I?

            While waiting for her "ghostly" visitor, Reb spent a minute examining herself in a pocket mirror, thinking that maybe everyone else knew something she didn't. Nothing seemed different. All her human parts were in human places. 

            A man, more of a ghoul than a ghost, appeared in the doorway. Maybe sixty, he was skeleton-thin and dressed like the head of a funeral home: a black suit with a midnight-blue tie, knotted crisply and drawn tightly against his bulging Adam's apple. His arms dangled at his sides and his jacket sleeves were magician-sized, vast enough to hide a thousand scarves and several rabbits; the cuffs of a white shirt peeked out. His eyes bugged and were wide open, and as they shifted from side to side surveying the room, he seemed to think out each brief closing of their lids. 

            He's a cyborg and his eyes are cameras, Reb thought, each blink a snapshot. She glanced at Mrs. Menendez to see if she was weirded out. She slept, her mouth a lazy oval, drool running down her cheek.

OPENING SCENE: Is the backstory for the novel. Sets the tone which drives the plot, as it is the basis for the core wounds for both the protagonist and the antagonist.

Jacksonville, Florida 1980

     The sky was strange and unnatural. Within its blended richness of silver, charcoal, and sapphire hues, the clouds swirled through the atmosphere like spirits returning from the dead to haunt those places they’d left behind. Palido found this added eeriness unsettling. He already had enough fragility in his head without the inclusion of lost or wayward souls. He glanced to the heavens in search of solace from the evil within. He wanted to ask for God’s help to ease his pain, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. His grandmother had always put her problems in God’s hands and prayed for him that he’d do the same. But he didn’t need any help. Not from God. Not from anybody. He had always taken care of himself. He often wanted to tell his grandmother that for as much as he wanted to take heart, he simply didn’t believe. He couldn’t believe. To tell her that he had never felt His presence, not even in the best of times. He knew he was stuck with the cards he was dealt. As unfair as it seemed, he knew unlike poker, there was no draw in the game of life, so played his hand as close to the rules of the street as he could. Even now, standing alone at the corner, reconsidering the life he had been given, there was no way his cards could have been dealt by the hand of God.

     His narrowing eyes checked his watch for the third time in five minutes when a streak of light flashed somewhere off to his left. Lightning, he thought. He glanced up to the ominous sky and shook his head, knowing he should have worn his raincoat. A hoodie seemed like the better choice at the time. He pushed the hood from his head, increasing his field of vision, and saw it again. The light scattered through the bushes like stars twinkling in the night’s sky, and Palido knew it was them. He wanted to appear comfortable, but his stiff body was rooted, as anchored as the light pole he leaned against as he watched them slowly ease past. The driver killed the lights and brought the car to a stop by the side of a dark, dilapidated building. He left the engine running. Palido pushed off the pole and shuffled towards them. He opened the right-side rear door and a got in, wary of the three men inside: two in the front, and one in the back. All sat in silence. The front seat passenger turned in his seat, leaning slightly forward, maintaining eye contact with the newly added passenger before asking, “Where’s Angel?”

     “How the fuck should I know? I’m here. Worry about that,” Palido scoffed. More silence, but only for a moment.

     The front seat passenger continued. “Are you sure about this? I think we’re going too big. It’s too soon.”

     “Yo, you wiggin’. I’m in.” More silence.

     The car with the four men crept around to the other side of the building and parked near an overgrown tree beneath a seclusive canopy of its heavying branches. Palido got back out and shut the door. A steady breeze carrying with it the scent of rancid garbage followed him as he leaned into the already opened window.

     “Give me the bank. I’ll check you later.”

     “I don’t like it,” the driver said again.

     The backseat passenger handed Palido a sizeable, beige colored envelope. He snatched it from him, eagerly opening it to examine its contents. The envelope contained a six-and-a-half-inch bundle of crisp twenties held tightly together with a green rubber band. The sight was even better than Palido had imagined. A soft whistle passed over his lips. His eyes widened as he laughed out loud, “Fuck this, I’m goin’ ghost!”

     The one in the back frowned, and the two in the front stared blankly ahead. Palido’s laugh weakened to a nervous chuckle as he shook his head. “You guys need to chill out.” He folded the top of the envelope over to secure its contents and shoved the bundle deep into the front pocket of his hoodie. He slipped the hood on over his long, greasy blonde hair and pulled down on the strings, drawing it tightly around his face. “We can hook up in an hour at the usual.” Palido tapped twice on the roof. “Wish me luck.”

     “If this goes as easy as you say it will, you shouldn’t need luck.”

     Palido smirked, pointing to the heavens as he turned to leave, “Peace to the gods...”

                                                                                             *****

     The three left in the car sat in silence as they watched him walk away. It wasn’t until he was completely out of sight that the driver spoke. “I don’t like the feel of this. It’s hinky.”

     “Who knows? Maybe he’s active. They’re why he goes by Palido, for chrissake. He said to trust him. There’s not much more we can do.”

     “I know what he said, but we all know he’s weak. A poser. A punk. And an arrogant one, at that. Thinks he’s way smarter than he is. That’s what bothers me. A key? Don’t you agree that’s too much of a jump from nine grams?”

     “Nothing we can do about it now. Let’s get out of here before someone sees us. We’ll grab a quick bite. Shouldn’t be long.” The driver shifted the transmission into drive and pulled slowly away from the curb.

                                                                                          *****

     Four blocks away on a corner lot off Talleyrand Ave stood a small-scale, abandoned building. Built in the early 1920’s, this modest structure was a part of a residential neighborhood which housed mainly blue-collar workers. The man who owned it, like many of his neighbors, worked for the Ford Motor Company manufacturing Ford’s Model T. The homes were walking distance from the plant which made the location convenient. Production of the Model T in Jacksonville ended in 1932, but the plant remained in operation as a distribution hub and continued to do so until 1968 when Ford closed the business for good. Most of the homeowners found other work and moved east, while others tightened their belts and hunkered down, spending their last days on earth within a meager style of living. Any properties left unsold to residents got caught up in a rezoning whirlwind and scarfed up by commercial owners who saw the promising future for a business venture on the beautiful St. John’s River. Which was exactly what happened with the wee corner house. Several businessowners gave it a go, but the location was unforgiving. The area remained industrial, never taking off commercially like everyone had hoped. A little over ten years later, the once loving home sat sad and neglected. Its boarded windows, peeling paint and overgrown shrubbery created the perfect place for anyone demanding secrecy. In the end of its existence, it had been used for nothing more than storage, filled with abandoned boxes stacked eight feet high and three feet deep giving little allowance to functionality.

     Tonight, five men were packed into what little space was left in the largest room of the forgotten structure. An aerial view would have likened the men’s position to the number five side of a die. One man seated in the middle like the center dot, the other four standing post in each of the four corners. All five were Latino and spoke Spanish with slightly different dialects, but communication amongst them did not appear hindered. Everyone understood the universal language of disloyalty. Badly beaten, the man in the center sat slumped over at the waist, his wrists bound behind his back and his ankles tied to the chair’s legs. Even with his eyes swollen shut, he could still see the seriousness of his situation. Bloody, bruised and in immense pain, the Puerto Rican managed a smile. They may have made and tortured him, but he never gave in. He had paid the ultimate price, but his life would be all they’d get. His only regret was coming alone. He should have waited for Palido like they had planned.

This is the first portion of Chapter 1 of my dual timeline historical novel, Chasing the Seventies. It contains the inciting incident that sent the main protagonist, Kate Gardner, on a path to question her beliefs as a Millennial-era woman who grew up believing that women could have it all. 

It was the morning after the night that was never supposed to happen. Every major media outlet in America had predicted that Hillary Rodham Clinton was a shoo-in to become the 45^th President of the United States. Polls showed her sweeping the Electoral College and popular vote by wide margins.

 Excited about the prospects of electing our first female President, I invited five of my closest friends to watch the election returns. We all dressed in Suffragist white to honor the women who had made this all possible. The champagne was on ice, ready to pop the cork when the first network called the election for Clinton.

 The Associated Press announced its first projections around 7 p.m. ET. As predicted, Clinton won Vermont, and Donald J. Trump claimed Indiana and Kentucky. Wine and conversation flowed as we waited until the polls closed on the West Coast for the next projections. 

 “I don’t really like Clinton,” Sarah said from her center seat in the antique armchair. She looked like an elegant Town & Country model in her white linen pantsuit accented by gold pearl earrings.  “But it’s about time this country elected a female head of state. We are tragically behind Europe and Latin America. Despite my misgivings about her hawkish foreign policy views, I had to hold my nose and vote for her.”

 Sarah, my Bay View Law School mentor, teaches International and Comparative Law. She’s a prolific author in the field of global equity and economic empowerment. Judges, scholars, and nonprofit organizations cite her prolific articles. Last year, she received a prestigious Human Rights Prize from the United Nations. No wonder she earned early tenure and a Fullbright to study women’s political participation in India next year.

 “I don’t know much about foreign policy, but I think Clinton’s gotten a bum rap in the media,” Jessica piped in from the kitchen, her white chef’s apron covering her usual jeans, t-shirt, and tennis shoes. “I don’t hear them criticizing Trump’s orange hair or baggy suits.”

 Jessica is my closest friend and our resident foodie, fussing over a skillet on my Viking Professional stove. We went through high school and college together, but then our paths parted ways. Jessica married, had two tow-headed toddlers, and spent her spare time as an amateur chef. I went to law school, married a classmate after graduation, and put off having children until we both established our careers.

 I’m not much of a cook, but the house we bought in the suburbs five years ago came equipped with a double French door oven. The only time it got a workout was when Jessica came to visit, which was quite often now that we lived in the same suburban Boston neighborhood. The delicious aromas of caramelized onions wafted in on a wave of warm air, making me envy my childhood friend’s culinary skills. Maybe I’ll have time to learn to cook once I get tenure.

 “My students think Clinton is corrupt and stole the nomination from Bernie Sanders,” Tamika objected. She could have passed for one of the students in her white mini-skirt and Lululemon tank top.  “They don’t see any reason to support Clinton just because she is a woman. They don’t trust her positions on worker’s rights or the environment. Bernie supports a federal living wage and universal health care.  If they can’t vote for him, they’re planning to sit this election out.”

Tamika is the newest Assistant Professor at Bayview, hired to teach Legal Writing while she tries to break into her real love, Labor Law and Worker’s Rights. As a recent graduate, Tamika is more closely aligned with our Gen X students’ progressive politics. We can always count on her to bring a different perspective to the conversation.

 “Hold on a second,” I said, waving my hands for emphasis. My white pantsuit was a tribute to Clinton’s preferred professional uniform, purchased especially for the occasion. “Hillary and Bernie have nearly identical platforms. You mean to tell me they would rather lose the election than support Clinton?”

 “That’s right,” Tamika said. “They were furious when Madeleine Albright said there was a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other. Then Gloria Steinem added to the insult by suggesting that young women who support Bernie are just in it to meet boys. They were furious at older feminists for talking down to them and suggesting they should base their vote solely on gender.”

“But they’re okay with losing the election to a misogynist who talks about grabbing women by the pussy?” I exclaimed. “That’s like cutting off your nose to spite your face.”

As the words came out of my mouth, my heart sank to my knees. Don’t let this deteriorate into a contentious faculty meeting, I thought. We are supposed to be celebrating tonight.

Always the voice of reason, Olivia chimed in to save the day. Her flowing white wrap dress exuded calm and grace. She has to be a diplomat as the Dean of Students, even when fiercely advocating for her students.

 “You have to understand this generation,” she said. “They grew up during the Great Recession of the 1990s. They are accumulating hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loans. They saw students being murdered in Parkland and Virginia Tech. They’ve seen an increase in natural disasters caused by global warming. It’s no surprise that feminism is not one of their top concerns with the world falling apart around them.”

Her words deflated my frustration as I felt my friends breathe a collective sigh of relief. Just then, Jessica called out from the kitchen, “Dinner’s ready!”

 I had set the table with my grandmother’s best china and crystal in honor of the occasion. Nana was a nurse in the Army Nurse Corps during World War II and defied the expectations of her time by continuing to work after she married. She would have been thrilled to see the first woman President be elected.

 Jessica had the caramelized onion mushroom crostini arranged artfully on a filigreed silver tea tray. I pulled the Belgian endive, apple, and blue cheese salad from the Frigidaire and drizzled it with walnut oil while Sarah uncorked the Bon Pari Russian River Valley Pinot Noir we had brought back from our summer vacation. We spent the next hour blissfully chowing down and chatting about our relationships. Sarah was the only one with children, and we happily passed around her iPhone to see photos of their adventures at summer camp.

At 10:30, Kendrick popped his head out the study door to let us know that the next projections were coming in. Ohio was declared for Trump, his first swing state victory. He led the polls there all along, but Democrats were hopeful that a last-minute swing through the state would help them beat the polls.

 Concern swept through our small living room as we watched breathlessly for the next projections. Close to 11 p.m., Trump claimed Florida's 29 electoral votes, making his path to the White House much more likely. Still, we hoped North Carolina and Pennsylvania would swing our way and clinch Clinton's victory.

By this time, the atmosphere in our small gathering had grown decidedly less celebratory. We collectively held our breaths for the next announcement, which came when Trump was declared victorious in North Carolina, followed by wins in Utah and Iowa before midnight.

 “How could this be happening?” Olivia cried. “All the polls said Hillary would win by a mile.”

 “That’s what happens when people sit out the election,” I muttered under my breath. “They are going to cost us the election.”

 “I can’t take this anymore,” Jessica said. “I’m going home to my kids. I’ll see the results in the morning.”

 “I’ll go with you,” Tamika said. “It’s going to be a crazy day at the law school tomorrow. I need my beauty sleep.”

 Olivia, Sarah, and I couldn’t pull ourselves away from the disaster playing out on the screen. At this point, Clinton's hopes hinged on the swing states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.  The pollsters had predicted those states for Clinton, but by now we had seen how wrong the polls could be.

 All hopes were dashed when Pennsylvania was declared for Trump at 1:35 a.m. Clinton would have to capture Wisconsin, Michigan, and Arizona to climb her way out of the hole, and Trump was leading in all three states.

 Olivia stood unsteadily, drunk with wine and bad news, tears streaming down her face. “Time to give it up,” she said. “There’s no hope she can pull this out.”

 “Let me drive you home,” Sarah said, putting her arm around Olivia’s shoulders. “You shouldn’t drive in this state. I guess we won’t see a woman President in my lifetime.”

Excerpt from first meeting of two main characters including the protagonist. Sets tone and setting.

He was immediately struck by the air, clean and sweet, scented with what he didn’t know to be bush honeysuckle. There was a light rush of wind through newly budding trees, and he could hear the crackle of squirrel claws as the small animals scurried up the course bark of a nearby elm. A few weathered pinecones lay beneath a tree to one side of the road and capless acorns lay like loose bronzed pearls beneath an oak farther up on the other.

His perceptions of his surroundings were stark and pure, and he could feel them to his core, an effect the city had never delivered. The landscape appeared to have been gently ladled into place by the hands of Providence while the skyline of Manhattan, the countless concrete monoliths he was so used to seeing, now seemed as though they had been jammed angrily into the ground. Merrill felt a foreign, yet benign sensation guarded with a quiet that was deafening. Raising his closed eyes toward the sky, he breathed deeply. His lungs took in the chill of the air, the sun not yet clearing the tree lines, and he drew an odd strength from it. Knowing there was no one living between him and the paved state road below, he began a slow climb up the gravel lane. Old Cricket would not be The Road Not Taken.  

About a quarter mile up the lane, he could see breaches in the tree lines to both sides of the road, where singular rays of the sun cut through the space of the openings. He hoped the gaps made way for a house or some other structure with electricity. As he cleared the greenery, his gaze was drawn to the right. The Windmill Hill Ridgeline, a series of small peaks 16 miles long, stretched out before him. His breaths shortened as the beat of his heart grew faster. It was more than his senses could take in, and his eyes become glassed with a thin veil of involuntary tears. It’s just so beautiful.

Merrill wiped his eyes on a jacket sleeve and turned around to see Albert on his front porch, rocking slowly in his chair. A dog of medium build and questionable lineage, graying about the snout, lay at the edge of the porch, his paws overhanging the top step. The old man appeared stout, healthy and alert, sitting erect without any sign of frailty about him. His large right hand surrounded a coffee mug which rested on one of the chair’s wide arms. He wore overalls faded by use rather than any house of fashion, and beneath them was a pale flannel plaid jersey covering an undershirt that hung loosely about his neck. Albert nodded his head in the young man's direction, momentarily shading his eyes with the worn brim of his Southern States cap.

Albert saw a fit young man in his early 20s, just shy of six feet with a backbone straight enough to lend him another inch or two in appearance. His hair was cut short and chestnut in color, his searching eyes a similar hue. He wore pleated pants and a collared shirt beneath a waist−length jacket. The boy looked like money to Albert and seemed certain of himself, but intent and a far cry from cocky.

Merrill began a cautionary approach toward Albert’s front porch, as wary of the old man as he was his dog. Neither moved save for a feeble wag of the canine’s tail.

“Good morning, sir,” Merrill said in a supplicative tone.

Albert nodded again. Friend or foe, he had always believed you could learn more about either the less you said. Merrill gave the dog an anxious look.

“Don’t worry about him,” said Albert. “He’s old, and there isn’t much that excites him anymore. Only barks at night when he can’t make out something that’s moving outside.”

Merrill felt more at ease. “My car died just down the road, and I was wondering if I could use your phone to call AAA.”

“Don't have one," Albert responded.

“Really,” said an astonished Merrill. “How do you live without a phone?”

“Well, I’m sitting here breathing and enjoying my coffee, so I seem to be doing okay without one.”

Merrill couldn't argue with that and climbed the first few stairs of the porch. The dog sat back, up on his haunches, and Merrill gave his head a rub.

“What’s his name?”

“Silas,” answered Albert.

Merrill nodded slowly, remembering the name from somewhere.

“My wife passed away a few years ago, and my two sons thought it would be a good idea if I got another dog. The one we had when they were growing up died, and I couldn’t see getting another one with them so close to leaving home, but I’d got used to having one around, so I went to the shelter down in Northfield and picked up this guy.”

“Is there a reason you named him Silas?”

“Well, in a book I read once, a man named Silas Marner gets accused of stealing something and goes off to live by himself, but he wasn’t happy about it. A little kid shows up at his door, Silas adopts him and kinda feels reborn. My dog here looked pretty sad when I saw him in the pound, and I thought we just might help each other get a new start. Think it was something we both needed to do.”

Merrill smiled at Albert and Silas as much as Albert’s telling of the story.

“Now I remember that book. Read it in junior high school, I think. Merrill scanned the porch nervously. “Well if you don’t have a phone, I was wondering if I could plug mine into an outlet here on your porch just long enough so I could call for some help.”

“Son, you ever ask a question you haven't wondered about first?”

“Excuse me?” Merrill answered skeptically.

“Well, the only two questions you asked so far you had to wonder about asking” Just ask your question or state your mind. No need to wonder about it. Wondering about an answer isn't going to change it.” Albert’s tone was calm and constructive, not intolerant, and that's just the way it struck Merrill.

“If I can just use an outlet on your porch here for half an hour or so, I should be able to get enough of a charge, and I'll be out of your hair.”

Albert smiled broadly as he removed his cap revealing small tufts of gray to either side of his weathered head. “Not a lot of hair left here to get out of. Besides, I don't have any outlets on the porch. Never saw the need for ‘em. I come out here to get away from anything that needs juice, but there's an outlet inside the front door there, just to your right. Help yerself.”

Meryl climbed up onto the porch, a few of its floorboards creaking beneath his feet, and extended his right hand. “I'm Merrill Ryan, sir. Good to meet you."

Albert stood from the chair using only his legs. He grasped the hand firmly, the strength in Albert’s taking Merrill by surprise. He returned the same firm grip, sealing the introduction. “Albut Hull’s my name. Likewise.”  Albert felt good about the resolve he sensed in the young man's clench.

Merrill opened the front door gingerly and found the outlet. Before plugging in his phone, he looked about the room. The long low-slung hi-fi, RCA TV with its bulbous screen, and an array of furniture reminded him of a display he'd once seen at the Smithsonian − the room felt like a time capsule. There were a few current newspapers on an end table next to the outlet, a copy of the Brattleboro Reformer at the top of it.  But he noticed the word Times in a familiar font printed on a page sticking out from under the local paper. He lifted the Reformer to reveal a copy of the Sunday New York Times opened to the International page. The old man and his newspapers didn’t seem to add up. Merrill tapped the outlet, plugged into the USB port of his phone, and returned to the porch.

“Have a seat,” Albert said. “There's a pot of coffee on the stove if you want some.”

“No, thank you. I had a few cups on the way up from New York this morning, and I'm still a little wired. Your name, Albut, is that a local name?”

“Been ‘round as long as I can rememba,” Albert replied.

“Never heard it before.”

“You telling me you neva heard of Albut Einstein or Albut Schweitzer?

“Oh, Albert,” Merrill responded with a smile. He didn’t realize “r’s” were syphoned off from the speech of many Vermonters, converted to “ah’s” and shipped down to Boston where people made better use of them “pahhking” their cahhs” in yahhds.”

“That name Merrill, where did that come from?” inquired Albert.

“It was my grandfather's middle name. I guess it was just a matter of time before someone in the family had to make use of it again, and it found its way to me. Most people call me Merle.”

Albert was grateful for the brevity of the answer − nothing bored him more than lengthy genealogies. “There's a whole bunch of Ryans down near Colraine, but you being from New York, I guess they're not any relation.

“Not that I know of,” Merrill replied, almost apologetically. “It sure is beautiful here − the mountains, trees, the air − it's nothing I'm used to."

“Well, that's the secret, Merle. You should never get used to beauty. Soon as you do nothing’s so beautiful anymore.” Merrill nodded his head in agreement, their mutual respect firmly established.

The two sat silently for a few moments, Albert still enjoying the new day and Merrill letting the sage words of the old man sink in.

“Don't you worry about not having a phone? I mean, if you needed help, how would you get in contact with anyone?”

“Air horn,” said Albert.

“Sorry?” Merrill replied.

“I got a couple of ‘em around the house and in the barn, and I got neighbors just up the road. Somebody in one of those houses is always around, and the best neighbors are the ones you know are there but can't see. Keeps everybody friendly and just helpful enough.” Merrill thought about his own neighbors on the upper East Side of Manhattan, none of whom he knew other than by sight, certainly none he’d rely upon for help. People in the city tended to record developing trouble on their phones and only offered help when they felt comfortably clear of any liability.

“I figure I can get to an air horn just as quick as a phone, and air horns don't bother you like phones. It's one-way calling if you know what I mean.”

“I do. I do,” Merrill smiled. “Some days I just want to throw mine out of the window.”

There was another long pause in the conversation as the two pondered the shortcomings of modern communication. Merrill had never given it much thought until now, the convenience of connection between people only serving to keep them further apart. To him, cell phones were just a part of life, but Albert didn't think so, and he hadn't been wrong about much so far.

“So, the name Hull, do you have any connection with the conference center I assume is up the road?”

“The mountain here is named after my family, but no, that mess up there was my brother Artha's brainchild.” (Another “r” converted to an “ah” and on its way to Boston.)  He sold his piece of the mountain about 15 years ago and headed for Florida, Naples I think. We don't talk much anymore. Seems he can't hear my air horn from down there."

Merrill laughed. “So, your family owned this whole mountain?”

“I think it was about 1825, some grandfather of mine, I forget how many greats are in front of it anymore, had it in his head that if this area was to grow, it was going to need lumber. He bought this mountain, all 2400 acres of it, for a song, though nobody in the family ever knew what the tune cost him. He was a smart man, and most of the houses down in Brattleboro and around Putney here were built with lumber off this mountain. It was old growth, some of those trees dense as stone, not the crap you get in those big box stores these days. Aren't many of those houses still around though. When enough of the land was cleared, the family started farming, mostly corn and cows. They live real good off each other, ya know. Seems like God's first try at recycling.”

Jean Palmer HECK

Log Line: Two Eastern European siblings, driven by duty to family, are scorned and exploited as illiterate outsiders in America, while they struggle to earn money for their starving family living under Russian oppression, and they are torn between the promise of a new life and the pull of their homeland.

If I Could See Across the Ocean 

1905  Kaunas, Lithuania — under Russian rule

When Sofia didn’t come home from the market where she was selling her woven linen tablecloths, her brothers knew something was wrong. The three men headed to the town square and discovered her bruised, bloodied body behind the tavern. They carried her home and buried her next to their parents.

Inside the house, in the silence of grief, the youngest brother picked up their lone photograph of the family and touched the image of Sofia.

“It’s time to go,” commanded the oldest. “I refuse to wear their Russian uniforms.”

“If we stay, I’ll kill them,” said the middle one, “if they don’t kill us first.”

Before the moon rose that night, they closed the door to their home for the last time and headed to the border.

1909  Merkine, Lithuania — under Russian rule

“Tell me a story before you leave,” said Martynas, his wan, innocent face staring up at his oldest sister from his frequent resting place on the sofa. “Prašau. Please.”

“How about the one with the lambs? The stubborn ones.” Viktoria’s voice strained, a bit higher than usual. She was dressed in her Sunday skirt and blouse, wearing a new pair of shoes the cobbler gave her, a gift for all the times she brought communion to his sickly wife when no one else in the village dared. Viktoria would much rather be wearing her broken-down shoes and frayed work clothes, filling the copper wash bucket and scrubbing laundry for her parents and seven younger siblings.

Today she wouldn’t be the one to do that. Nor tomorrow. Nor the next day. The tickets were bought; the ship for America would leave England in six days; and, Viktoria would be on it with her brother, Petras.

“Let’s make up a new story,” Martynas suggested, “with someone who can fly.”

Viktoria glanced over at their mother who was sweeping the bare floor for the third time that morning, pretending it needed her attention. Motina gave a little nod, wiped her eyes with the end of her apron, and turned back to the unnecessary task at hand. Viktoria granted her favorite brother’s wish — knowing it would be the last time for four or maybe five years.

“Once upon a time, there was a stork and a little boy,” she began. “And…who else should there be?”

“A hedgehog. I like those,” said Martynas. “You know they’re very, very strong…like I’ll be someday.”

“Yes, you will, sweet one.” Viktoria patted her brother’s head, lingering to stroke his soft hair. “The hedgehog and the little boy lived in a castle. The boy—he was in the tower part.”

“A tower that goes all the way up to the sky!” He pointed as they both craned their necks towards the clouds outside.

Viktoria continued to keep her face lifted, blinking her eyes to soak up the tears that started to form. On any other day, she would have been absorbed in the story-telling. Today, she was anchored in reality. The Russian Tsar’s taxes were oppressive. Sending family members to America was the real price they paid. If she could, she would stay. But at age 23, and unmarried, Viktoria knew it was her duty to go.

Chapter 1

 It was near noon when the Klansmen poured out of their cars. The television cameras, set up to record a peaceful march, captured the terror—people diving to the ground as the Klansmen opened fire with shotguns and pistols. It was over in two minutes. Five dead, ten wounded, and not a policeman in sight. There would be no Death to the Klan demonstration today.

Steve Logan had watched the footage when it was first broadcast on the news. He recorded it with his VCR and watched the tape numerous times. The trial was scheduled to begin next month, two years after the killings. This story would be more complicated than just another crime story. He needed to be there. He was anxious about seeing her again. Would she want to see him after all these years? He wanted to understand how she got here, how she had changed—how he had changed. She didn’t need this, more death. She had experienced enough death. She should be celebrating life and her new career.

He turned off the interstate, drove around the looped exit ramp, and took the right toward town.

Centerville, a Carolina mill town, was never really prosperous and now its downtown was on the verge of collapse. Steve had researched the demographics before he arrived—sixty percent white, thirty-five percent Black, and the rest… well, they were the rest. The textile mills were still the major industry, paying jobs and steady. It was 1981 and those jobs were beginning to move to Asia, making life uncertain. Some new jobs had opened in a chicken processing plant, but unemployment was high, education low, and resentment a notch below boiling.

He drove Front Street, the old backbone of the town, where the bank, dry goods, hardware store, and barbershop once would have pulsed with gossip. The Woolworth store, where young Blacks first sat down at the lunch counter, lay empty, the company name in stone over the front doors. When the Walmart opened on the edge of town, the small merchants disappeared.

There was a Plymouth police cruiser with a round cherry top sitting in front of a coffee shop. Steve pulled his car into the diagonal space in front of the store; no need to parallel park like up north. If the cops ate here, the food wouldn’t be bad.

Kentucky plates on his Volkswagen were better than having New York ones, but a pickup would be better than a Beetle. He had been through that drill while covering stories in Kentucky.

He bought a Centerville Post from the rack in front of the store; the front-page story was about the upcoming trial.

The coffee shop had three booths on each side of the door and a counter with red circular seats. On the counter was a raised pastry pan with a plastic cover and a decent-looking apple pie.

“I’ll have coffee and a piece of that pie,” Steve said to the man behind the counter as he sat on the end seat.

“Billy, more coffee,” a cop with a flattop haircut said from a booth. The cop was early thirties with a trace of acne. His partner was a woman in her early twenties with her blond hair pulled up tightly to fit under a hat. Steve looked at the unlikely pair. A woman cop. How things had changed over the years. When he had been a police officer, the brass would never consider a woman officer. He felt sorry for her, knowing that she was being hazed as well as regularly hit upon by other cops.

“Coming right up, Hal,” the counter man said as he took the carafe with the thick black liquid over to the booth. Must be the owner, Steve thought. Keep the cops happy first. That hadn’t changed; he was only a paying customer, unlike the cops.

“I’ll have some of it too,” Steve said to the man as he returned to the counter.

He stopped and pointed the coffee carafe at Steve. “You’re new in town.”

Steve didn’t take it as an accusation but rather an announcement for the cops and the other locals in the place.

“Just got here,” he said. “Came for the trial.” He pointed to the headline on the paper.

“Commie bastards. Got what they deserved,” the man said as he poured coffee into a well-used ceramic cup.

“Commies?” Steve said. “Russians, Chinese, Cubans?”

“You ain’t from around here.”

“No, from Kentucky. Came to cover the story for a magazine.” He didn’t want them to think he was from some foreign country like New York.

“Don’t say,” the flattop cop, his teeth cigarette stained, said as he got up and put on his Smokey the Bear hat.

“Sure thing,” Steve said drawing out the words as he had learned to since covering rural areas. He wasn’t trying to sound Southern; he just wanted to keep any New York accent disguised.

The cop stopped behind him. The round stool creaked rustily as Steve turned to face him.

“You’re from where?” He stuck his chin closer to Steve.

“Lexington.” Steve drew out the word.

“And you’re here for this trial?”

“Yes, sir.” Steve looked him in the eyes. “Lots of people interested in it. What’s your take on it, Officer Conroy?” He read the name over the right pocket.

“Commies came down here and tried to stir up trouble, and they sure did.” He moved toward the door. “What’s your name?”

“Logan,” Steve said.

“I’ll be seeing you, Mister Logan,” Officer Conroy said, reaching for the aluminum door handle.

“Hope so,” Steve said. “I’ll probably have a lot more questions.”

Conroy stopped and stared at Steve for a moment before he exited.

His woman partner had clear nail polish on bitten fingernails. She looked him up and down. Steve smiled and a faint turn of her lip acknowledged him. She put on her Smokey hat and tipped the brim without saying a word. Middleton, the name badge read. Steve wrote it in his notebook.

Friendly sort, Steve thought. Just trying to size me up. Just like I was her. He would have to get to know her.

 Commies—there wasn’t any mention of them in any of the news stories he had seen. Radicals, yes. Commies? American Communists? Didn’t they disappear with the House Un-American Activities Committee in the 1950s when Hollywood was put on the stand? He would have to dig into it. How did she get mixed into the middle of it? Ten years ago, they were still lovers, idealist college kids. Now she was a doctor and a widow. He sipped the coffee as he looked at the paper. He had to find a place to stay and sort out his notes.

As he paid the bill, he knew he should try to find her, to let her know he was here. Would she want him here with what she was going through? There would be a right time, but it wasn’t now.

Opening scene: Introduces protagonist, setting and tone.

-----

“No one just gives someone a plane,” Reeva said, trying to catch rogue strands of her nightsky hair. It was windy, and slightly cool for an October day in Florida. Josie shrugged and repositioned her drink atop the poured concrete bar. When she tilted her head just right, the olives atop her bloody mary resembled strange inner tubes floating in the Daytona Beach waves.

“Especially that plane,” Reeva added in a suggestive tone, flashing her head-cheerleader smile – the one she and Josie shared. A broad line of square teeth shifted subtly inward, cheeks pushed up, opening tiny canyons alongside her glass-bottle green eyes. She was a red-lipped cheshire cat offering a welcome dare. Men reacted to this as if she were a mythological creature, born of heaven and hell, all black winged and silver tongued. Josie was immune.  

As if clued into the conversation, the cover band belted a Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers rendition across the open air deck.

I’m learning to fly. 
But I ain't got wings. 
Coming down … is the hardest thing. 

The wind competed for earspace, pushing waves harder onto the shore with each gust, whipping flaps of the wood deck's blue, liquor-branded umbrellas in changing directions. It reminded Josie of the establishment's grit. Storms, named and unnamed, had ripped the roof off the Checkered Past at least five times in the past 20 years yet, like her, it was still standing.

Despite Reeva’s disbelief, Thomas Marquee had recently given Josie a plane. A somewhat rare, badass World War II era seaplane to be more specific.

“Are you sleeping with him?” Reeva pressed, taking a sip of her 12-year Yamazaki, poured neat. When Reeva began drinking Scotch neat at the same place they once flashed fake IDs and hoped for pina coladas, Josie couldn’t remember. Who drinks Scotch neat at a beach bar anyway? It was a Corona and margarita joint, not a high class steakhouse. Half the time this place didn’t even have Patron, but nowadays Reeva’s order never varied and somehow her Yamazaki was always in stock. Probably because she was the only one who drank it.      

The women last saw one another four years ago, but the innate sibling need to annoy had not dissipated. Instead of answering immediately, Josie took a long sip of her drink, letting the cocktail’s tomatoey-spice-burn roll into her belly. Why she ordered a bloody mary she couldn’t quite say – she didn’t even like them. They just looked fun. Celery leaves and olives waving like peacock plumes as bartenders handed them across the counter. A paloma with a splash of pineapple was Josie’s go-to day drinking cocktail. Sweet & salty. Why mess with a perfectly good standby. But she did.

“Well?” Reeva pushed for an answer.

“Does it matter?” Josie retorted, happy to have irritated her sister. 

If Josie had been talking to anyone else, she would have been afraid of judgment. Reeva, however, went through men the same way she went through red lipstick. Quickly. 

Josie let the question hang in the air a few moments longer, pulling one of the olives from her garnish and popping playfully into her mouth. The issue with Reeva’s question wasn’t that she had asked it, or that Josie was afraid to answer. It was that she had phrased it incorrectly. Reeva should have asked, “Have you been sleeping with him?” The answer to that was affirmative. Yes. Josie had been sleeping with Thomas Marquee. She was not, however, currently sleeping with him. Some might say a difference without a distinction. Josie disagreed, and answered accordingly. 

“No. I’m not sleeping with him.”

Thomas had left St. Lucia three months earlier and gone back home. Somewhere in Portugal. Or maybe it was Brazil. Somewhere Portuguese was spoken. A return to the life from which he took a momentary reprieve. Their reasons for escape were different, but he and Josie had an innate understanding from the moment they met. So when he left, there was no teary-eyed goodbye. There were no explanations. He knew she didn’t need them. 

The note on the kitchen counter of the small condo she had been renting was short. Blue Post-It note short:

You’ll be with me always. Fly forward.
- T

 Next to it were keys to the Widgeon and the plane’s title. 

Josie had considered staying in St. Lucia, serving tourists tropical drinks and taking them on seaplane tours around the island. The family dream, however, tugged at her heart. 

Now, an extra plane courtesy of Thomas Marquee, along with Josie’s settlement money, created a legit opportunity to continue building the flight-based bed and breakfast they had half-jokingly talked about for as long as Josie could remember. 

So she left St. Lucia’s reprieve and headed back to Daytona Beach Shores with promises in her heart. 

I will do better. I will be strong. I won’t move on, but I will move forward. Fly forward.

Reeva shot a look over the rim of her glass and Josie could tell she wasn’t convinced that the relationship with Thomas was purely platonic. Surely there was more to the story, she knew her sister was thinking. Afterall, no one just gives someone a plane. Josie just smiled, plucked the last olive from its perch atop her drink and hummed along to the band:
 

Well, some say life will beat you down
Break your heart, steal your crown
So I've started out for God-knows-where
I guess I'll know when I get there.

I often spend my nights dreaming of what life would be like if I was someone else. Someone with a mother and a real home. A girl who enjoyed holidays with her brothers or sisters and played with dolls as a child. I dream of what it might smell like and taste like. I’ve found that I like the smell of laundry fresh from the washer, so you can still smell the water mixed with the detergent. I imagine my whole house would smell like that if I owned a home. I imagine a wife, kids, a golden retriever, and a mean old cat that only likes me. We decorate for every holiday even though my wife insists it's a hassle. I keep this place a secret. A place only I can visit. A hope that can’t be stolen from me. Every morning when I wake I bury my dream so that no one can find it, and every night I dig it back up. 

I was just getting through with burying it when my corridor’s bell rang. I shrugged my scrubs on, tied my hair into a low ponytail, and stared at myself in the mirror with indignation. Nurses had the worst uniforms of all the Artificials; a semblance of an ugly brown long-sleeve shirt tucked into practical ugly-brown slacks tied together with the horrifically out-of-place bright ugly-green armband. The bell rang again and I knew if I waited any longer to head to breakfast I would be reprimanded. I grabbed my government-issued backpack and headed out of Corridor H11 towards the food hall. 

The walk was short but generous, it gave me time to clear my head. The smell of the crisp morning air mixed with the tense silence that hung over New Hope, and from the corner of my eye, I saw the morning patrol. They were in high spirits, conversing loudly as they passed by. I had bumped into them a handful of times and they were always kind. Today they were on a victory lap. Last night they’d caught an Artificial trying to sneak out; someone from corridor B6, a teacher if I remember correctly. Lately, there had been a string of attempted breakouts after gossip was passed around about a girl escaping to Canada, but nobody knows if it's true. A part of me hoped that she had made it, and she was sitting somewhere living a life where she could do whatever she wanted. Maybe I was holding onto hope because a part of me still wanted to believe that I could have the house, the wife, and the smell of wet laundry. It was silly. 

I reached the food hall and could hear the buzz of hushed chatter spilling out from under the doors. Today's breakfast was oatmeal, a small cup of fruit, and a glass of milk. They rarely served meat for any meal and we would only get desserts on outside holidays. We weren’t allowed to celebrate anything, but getting sweets felt like a small victory. 

Opening Scenes:

Prologue

Vincennes, Indiana

April 1888

The day she almost killed Henry, Ann faced the morning drenched in sweat. The bedsheets clung, and her head ached. Night had been a restless battle for sleep that never came. Rolling sideways, she studied the sunlight streaming through the window. Could it penetrate the baffling fog around her? Probably not. Shadows wrapped her like skin lately, muffling everything.

She missed clear outlines. Sharp edges. Herself.

At Bridget’s light knock, Ann tensed. She pulled herself upright against the headboard, trying to look like a woman ready for the day as the girl entered with a tray.

“I thought toasted bread and egg would taste good this morning, ma’am, and there’s strawberry jam and honey. I love honey, but I don’t know if you prefer…” Bridget’s voice trailed off as she met Ann’s eyes, and Ann thought the girl flinched. Then she recovered, placing the tray on Ann’s lap and averting her gaze as she prattled on. “I know you’re tired. But when you’ve finished eating, Mr. Agnew said you should—he said I was to make sure you come downstairs today. I’ve given Henry and Grace breakfast and sent them to the garden to play, but the baby will need—"

“Yes.” Why did every conversation require so much effort, so many words? Didn’t I just feed the baby? Ann passed a hand across her forehead, pushing back limp strands of hair, and tried hard to think like a mother. Soft taps on the door from Bridget waking her to nurse all bled together. Was it twice last night or not at all? She couldn’t remember. Why didn’t she know?

The girl waited, studying her with an uneasy expression. “Go ahead downstairs.” Ann swept her hand toward the door, trying to infuse the words with authority. “I know you have chores. Bring the baby to me later.” She didn’t say when. The child would demand attention when it hungered for her. She had no control over its needs.

His needs, she reminded herself. The baby was a person. Like her.

Or perhaps--if he was lucky--not like her at all.

Bridget pulled the door closed as she left, and Ann examined the toast. Eating it would be like chewing dust. Tastes, smells, colors, the simple daily motions of her life…she couldn’t summon them. She hadn’t felt anything but exhaustion for weeks.

She glanced uneasily at the ceiling, where shadows gathered in the corners, swallowing the light like it was food. Soon they would finish eating the light. Then they would come for her. Tears blurred her eyes. The world was dimming, and she was powerless to stop it.

Suddenly, she was five again, caught in the hallway as her father left her mother’s bedroom with a face set in stone and a biting command: “Stay away from this room, Annie. Do you hear? She doesn’t want to see anyone right now. Go play.” She had strained for a glimpse as he shut the door, but with the drapes drawn, all she could make out were dim shapes. How could her mother stand to lie in that gloom all day?  Even a child knows living things need light and air. And mothers.

She reached for the toast. Closing her teeth around a tiny corner, she tugged, letting it dissolve into a sticky paste on her tongue before swallowing. Another bite. Chew. Swallow. She fixed her eyes on the window instead of the shadows. She wouldn’t let them have her so easily.

Her children were waiting.

Chapter 1

One Year Earlier

June 1887

Carriages clattered past the house on Sycamore Street, but in the peace of the back garden, Ann listened to Grace and Henry’s piping voices rise and fall over the sounds of birds and relaxed on the bench under the gnarled maple. Afternoon light pierced the leaves and dappled the lawn. She savored the scents of warm grass and damp earth, opening herself to the awe that often flooded her as she watched her children. They had made her a pilgrim to a holy place she had not known existed, somehow adding to her even as they took. She marveled at their power as her hand drifted to her stomach, settled there, resting.

Henry was calling for Grace to help find his ball, which had disappeared into the bushes hugging the fence. Grace, distracted as always, squatted in that awkward crouch toddlers rested in with ease, face rapt as she examined a purple coneflower. Ann watched a bee float nearer in lazy spirals, restraining the urge to pull Grace to safety. Not interrupting joy was one of her few rules for mothering, one of the only things she felt sure of.

Grace reached toward the flower, and before Ann could call out a warning, the bumblebee collided with her daughter’s tiny wrist. At Grace’s shocked cry, Ann moved without thinking, sinking to her knees in the grass to fold Grace into her arms.

“Mamaaa!” Grace wailed, tears welling as pain replaced surprise. “Owww, Mama. Ow…hurt!” She waved her arm as Ann tried to examine the angry red lump. What did a good mother do for a bee sting? She felt the quick, familiar ache of loss for all the things she couldn’t ask, didn’t know. Never mind. She’d figure it out.

“Shhh, Gracie. It’s all right, love.” She kissed the wispy brown hair, inhaling the sweet smell that always calmed her, and felt the child melt into her, sniffling and whimpering. “Let’s go make it better.” She hoisted Grace to her hip. “Henry, I’ll be right back,” she called. “I’m going to take care of your sister’s arm.” Henry’s reply was muffled as he rooted around under the forsythia.

In the kitchen, she bathed Grace’s wrist in a basin of water cooled with chips from the ice box block. The red bump looked smaller already, and the promise of cake with supper had Grace smiling. Still, Ann heard the dark voice of uncertainty in her head. Should I have let her play in the flowers? She had no idea. All her life, she had excelled at banishing doubt; now it lived inside her like a guest that wouldn’t leave.

Before Henry’s birth, she’d been different, flooded with confidence and boundless energy. She stitched piles of embroidered blankets and tiny nightgowns, spent hours canning and preserving, stocked the pantry and root cellar. The perfect wife and housekeeper, she made sure glass sparkled and furniture gleamed. Flowers from her garden brightened every room. When Edward got home from work each evening, she presented his supper and took her place at the table, shining with the certainty that she was extraordinary, a vessel carrying another life about to begin. In the last months of pregnancy, she sometimes lay awake at night, feeling the flutters and kicks inside her crescendo like rising music.

Then Henry arrived, and her brightness tarnished. Motherhood delivered so many kinds of hurt: the ache between her legs that lasted weeks; heavy-headed fatigue from ragged nights of sleeping in bits and pieces; cries that pierced the house and made her feel inept; the endless tedium of diapering and laundering piles of reeking cloth soaked in human fluids. Becoming a mother swept her off-balance completely; she awoke each day to another battle to survive the raging rapids of its brutal requirements. Every light thing in her turned to stone.

Edward brimmed with pride when he held their son, but he escaped to the railroad office each day. He had no idea of the lonely hours, the drudgery, the guilty fragments of uneasy rest she stole while the baby slept. He barely noticed the polished furniture, clean carpets, warm food presented to him on plates that would be washed and filled and washed again. Work without end. Ann fractured alone on the rocky shores of motherhood, and it took months to put herself back together. Just as she began to feel whole, Grace was born, and again she fought through waves of fatigue, hiding her growing despair that perhaps she was not meant to be a mother at all.

The garden saved her. In the early days, she slipped outside while the babies slept, replenishing herself in brief snatched moments soaking up quiet and sunshine on the bench under the maple tree,. She began to love tending flowers and vegetables, silent things with few demands. In time, as the children grew, she worked in the garden or watched them as they played. She remembered all she had wanted as a child and gave it to them. She listened, shared their laughter, held them close, paid attention. Soon every simple moment with them shone bright, eclipsing the rest of her life. She kept house the best she could, swept dirt under carpets, and rushed to prepare supper in a panic when she realized how late the afternoon had gotten. She began to dread Edward’s arrival each evening.

Last night had been typical. He wrapped the children in a hug as they ran to him and offered her a pleasant smile as he removed his coat. With Grace on his lap in the parlor, he listened to Henry narrate a battle with his toy soldiers while Ann set the table. During supper, she had begun to relax, letting her mind wander. He wiped bread crumbs from his sandy moustache and recounted a continued problem with train delays on one of the routes without pausing for her reaction. Sometimes his obliviousness to her was soothing.

Then came his usual query. “And what have you done today?” She knew she should summon a light response, laugh that her tasks would sound dull to him, but instead her heart skipped beats as she searched for answers that would prove she was capable, the right wife, the right kind of mother.

“I—I took up this rug and cleaned it.” She gestured to the floor. “And did all the ironing.”

“And…?”

He would wait with a polite smile. Expecting more. An inspector of accomplishments. Reminding her of things she had deemed unimportant until his eyes landed on them.

“I filled the lamps in the parlor and polished them.”

“That cannot have taken much time.” Did his smile falter? She wasn’t sure. He folded his napkin neatly as he persisted. “How did you pass the afternoon then?”

“We…we spent most of it in the garden.” He raised a brow, questioning still, as she tried to explain. If only she could describe the moments for him, so he would see how precious they were. “Grace is trying to catch a butterfly.” Her face lit up as she thought of the little hands chasing a swallowtail through the flowers. “Tomorrow, we may try to fashion her a net from an old hat veil. Oh, and Henry is starting to catch the ball no matter how I toss it, You should see—"

Edward interrupted her words. “Ann, they’re children. They don’t need you to play with them as if you were one too. Leave them to it, why don’t you? Henry is old enough to look after his sister, and I know you’ve plenty to do in here.” A broad wave of his arm inscribed the boundaries of her domain, her life. He offered a smile, as if it could temper the words, and she nodded, feeling the taste of something bitter in her mouth.

END SAMPLE

AS IN THE DAYS OF NOAH: A woman and her family are thrust into a battle for survival when an alien race enforces global control, unveiling an Antichrist no one saw coming and an end-times prophecy no one truly understood.

 

The Retreat (gothic horror/women’s fiction)

Logline: After losing her job as a tenured professor, a fifty-year-old mother of twins attends a writer’s retreat in rural Georgia, where she must confront her own demons, defy the monster who is stealing her ideas, and manage the ghost of his sister, who wants their family’s shameful secrets exposed.

Opening chapters – inciting incident, establish setting, introduce protagonist and antagonist

Chapter One

“Here we are – Lammermoor.” Bobby’s voice dragged Ginny up from the depths of her car nap. An elaborate wooden sign dangled between two tall posts above a dirt road that wound its way into a thick stand of longleaf pine. A newly mended fence fronted the country road for miles in either direction with pristine boards shining here and there amongst their weathered cousins. Bobby turned into the drive as Ginny looked around taking it all in. Birds darted through high branches searching for respite from the intense sunlight.    

When they came out of the woods, there it was, looming large, at the end of a long straightaway directly in front of them: Lammermoor. The sun dappled the gravel with dark contours as it filtered through live oaks flanking the road. Their branches curved overhead, forming a thick tunnel that was simultaneously grand and claustrophobic. Ginny marveled at the thick strands of Spanish moss dripping from the trees. She found it beautiful but knew it was a deadly parasite on its host. 

A cloud passed in front of the sun, just beginning to weaken in the early May evening and the scene was suddenly cast in shadow. But up ahead, the white house gleamed, its imposing presence presiding over the landscape like a queen who refused to be ignored. Built in the antebellum Greek Revival style, it had matching upper and lower front porches, held up by eight square columns and a large staircase leading to the front door. Its large, evenly spaced windows were hung with black shutters and from a distance they resembled dark eyes that contained unfathomable secrets.  

“Wow. It’s an old plantation. Looks like something out of Gone with the Wind.”  Bobby’s comment betrayed an undercurrent of distaste and Ginny wasn’t sure how to respond. She felt bad that the retreat’s caretaker had hired this particular Lyft driver to transport her. It wasn’t her fault, but somehow, she felt responsible. She tried to steer the conversation in a different direction.

“These old trees are beautiful. I wonder how long they’ve been here.”

“Since before the Civil War, I’d say. Tended to by who knows how many slave gardeners.” Bobby wasn’t wrong, and it made Ginny even more uncomfortable.

“From what I read, the Slakes bought the place in the 1980s when the last of the original family members had passed. Got it for a steal I think . . . must have taken a lot of money and time to fix it all up.”

“Well, I guess if you have that much you can decide what to do with it. Can think of other things they might have done . . .” Bobby trailed off. “Speaking of time and money, I’d better get back to civilization if I want to pick up anyone else today. Is there someone here to meet you?”

Bobby helped Ginny unload her things and bring them up onto the porch. The space glowed blue from the ceiling paint, which Ginny remembered was meant to keep away spirits. Small tables and rocking chairs were scattered along its length. Propped against a sweating pitcher of lemonade on the table closest to the front door was an envelope with Ginny’s name on it. She ripped it open to reveal a short, handwritten note and a set of keys.

Dr. Walker:

Welcome to Lammermoor! I apologize for not being here to greet you, but please make yourself at home. This is your set of keys for the duration of your stay. Feel free to settle into your bedroom – it’s the blue room – last one on your left down the hall on the second floor. There’s food in the refrigerator and I’ve chilled a bottle of rosé. Help yourself. I hope to be back later this evening.

Owen Slake 

Ginny felt a tingle of excitement at the prospect of staying in a gigantic historic house all by herself. It was like being in a movie – she thought of the Sofia Coppola film with Nicole Kidman and Colin Farrell. What was it called?

Bobby hovered at the bottom of the steps. Ginny could tell he wanted to get back on the road but also felt a sense of responsibility for her. Clearly, he was unsure about leaving her on her own.

“Please, go ahead. I’m fine – the house is all ready for me, and I am so tired. I just want to crash.”

“Well, if you’re sure. Here, put my number in your phone, just in case. I’ll call you –what’s yours?”

It took a few tries to find a spot where the service was reliable. They ended up trudging up the drive toward the main road to get a signal. After they exchanged numbers, Bobby got back in his car. Ginny stood on the porch and watched the Toyota recede into the distance, kicking up a plume of dust all the way down the drive. The sound of tires crunching over gravel echoed across the silent lawn. She stopped watching when Bobby’s car was obscured by the shadow of the woods and the crunching was replaced by the insistent screams of a crow. Clouds floated languidly overhead, but she noticed that they were slashed with red like they had been stabbed.

Chapter Two

The sound of a car door slamming startled Ginny awake. Her room was dark. Night had begun to fall while she was resting, and she woke disoriented, wearing the clothes she had travelled in. It took her a few minutes to remember where she was. She caught a faint whiff of jasmine in the air and wondered if she’d left a window open. She heard footsteps crunching in the gravel and went to look outside, noting that both windows were shut tightly. Her room faced the property behind the house. In the fading light she could just make out a close-cropped lawn flanked by several outbuildings. A barn and what she assumed was the old schoolhouse sat in the near distance and beyond that lay vast woods. A tall man in a cowboy hat, jeans, and work boots was making his way toward the barn, his flashlight beam dancing along the path. Ginny kept her room dark so she could follow his movements without being seen. She noticed that he walked with a slight hitch in his step. As she watched, a light came on in the barn. After a short while it went out again and the flashlight beam veered into the woods.

Owen Slake, Ginny thought with a twinge of disappointment. She had hoped he’d introduce himself to her when he got back and offer a more formal welcome to the retreat. But then again, I was asleep, she thought. He saw no lights on in the house and probably didn’t want to disturb me. Still, she was curious. She wanted to know who he was. Ginny crept downstairs to the kitchen by the tiny light of her cell phone and found a flashlight in a drawer. She exited into the back yard and carefully followed the path she had seen Owen Slake take into the woods. It was deeply dark outside the circle of her flashlight’s beam and Ginny shivered at the thought of getting lost in the woods. After a few steps, she heard music playing – she recognized Bruce Springsteen’s “Atlantic City” – and up ahead she saw a light in the window of a small cottage. Pausing behind a tree, she watched as Owen opened a beer and sat down at a table. He toasted an imaginary companion, took a long swig from the bottle and then dropped his head into his hands.

Reflecting on what little she knew about this man and his family history, Ginny was moved. But it didn’t look like a good time to knock on the door and introduce herself, so she picked her way back to the house and turned in for the night. As she struggled to fall asleep, she imagined what George would say if he knew about the unusual circumstances of her arrival at the retreat. He’d been dubious from the moment she introduced the idea.

“So, what’s in it for them? Do they own whatever work you do there?” After twenty years together, George remained mystified by the workings of academia. 

“No, of course not.” 

“Then what do they get out of it? You’re not paying them, so . . .”

“This guy has a big estate and a house that he can’t possibly use all of, so he’s opened it up to writers and artists to give them space to do their work.”

Over the years Ginny had grown weary of trying to explain the protocols for intellectual exchange in her profession. While it had become a joke for George to ask how much she was getting paid for the articles and book chapters she published, it was clear he was still puzzled by the whole thing. Jack and Cooper had begun to parrot their father when they heard about her writing projects, asking: “Does it pay?”

“I just don’t see why they would pay you to go there and not get anything in return.”

“George, they get the prestige that comes from being associated with the creative process.” Ginny smiled, satisfied with her answer. George looked skeptical.

“Who’s going to be there when you go? Is this some kind of wacky artist colony situation?”

“I’m not sure. I think there’s just one writer at a time . . . and a caretaker, of course. I’ll pull up the description.” Ginny found the classified ad on the Poets & Writers website. 

Lammermoor Writer’s Retreat

Looking for the time and space you need for sustained creative activity?

Commune with nature and the Muses at Lammermoor, a historic property 140 miles southeast of Atlanta. On 150 acres of land, with a lake, a garden, goats and an ornery donkey named Igor, Lammermoor is a perfect retreat. You will have the run of the property, plus the use of the antebellum Greek Revival house, including a bedroom, bathroom, and several well-appointed workspaces. The kitchen has been recently updated, with modern conveniences. Artists have access to a studio space in the re-modelled one-room schoolhouse. There is an old Steinway on the property that can be tuned for guests.

Lammermoor is an isolated rural property, 18 miles from the nearest town. There is a convenience store/gas station 3 miles away. An old pick-up truck is available for guests’ occasional use. While we have Internet access, it is spotty at best; cell service is available with most providers at specific locations on the property.     

We welcome applications from artists and writers who are comfortable in a rural setting, highly self-motivated, and eager for quiet. We offer a $1000 stipend. One writer or artist at a time will attend for one of our three-week sessions. Please note your preferred dates in the application form. Transportation from the Atlanta airport can be arranged in advance. Contact Owen Slake with any questions: oslake88@gmail.com.

“Who is this Owen Slake guy? Is he the caretaker?”

“Actually, I Googled him and I think he is related to someone famous. His parents were in music – they died in a car accident. The Slakes owned the property, Lammermoor, named after the opera, and I guess he inherited it after they died. There’s all sorts of news stories about the crash, but not much about him. I guess he had a sister who died in the accident too. She was some sort of promising dancer.

“That’s tragic – but it sounds like he came out okay.”

“I guess he fixed up the house and the property and opened this retreat.”

“So . . . does he live there too? Who takes care of it?”

“I’m not sure.”

“So, you’d be at this house out in the middle of nowhere, alone for three weeks, with no contact with the outside world?”

“Yeah, I guess.” Ginny tried not to sound eager, but the thought of twenty-one days of peace and quiet with nothing to do but enjoy nature and write made her halfway delirious. “What else have I got going right now? Remember the ‘pink slip’ that came in my last paycheck?”  

“I’m not sure about this. It doesn’t sound safe.”

“George, it’s perfectly safe. This is a real thing, it’s professional.”

“Well, it sounds too good to be true, and if it sounds too good to be true . . .”

“Look, chances are slim that I’ll even get this thing. Who knows how many hundreds of applications they’ll get, from actual writers. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

George encircled Ginny with his arms and patted her bottom. “You’re an actual writer – after all, you have published poetry and a novel in progress.” His smile seemed sincere, but Ginny found his tone slightly mocking.

She still could not believe she’d actually been chosen for the retreat. Even after all the official emails and contracts, George’s doubts persisted and he had been reluctant to let her go. It was only when she’d conjured the image of herself as a depressed former professor, mooning about the house that he’d agreed it might be good for her.

“It will give me time to figure out what’s next. Academia is going down the tubes and I am trained as an Art History professor. I have to consider my options.”

“There’s so much you could do – don’t sell yourself short. I have no doubt you’ll find something else.”

“Well, that makes one of us. But thank you for your confidence.”

Ginny pushed her memories of the past six months to the back of her mind. The whole “academic prioritization” process that had resulted in the closure of her department had been ugly and contentious. “Academic prioritization” turned out to be a euphemism for faculty cuts. The Board of Trustees was determined to reduce costs and the future of small liberal arts colleges was bleak.

“Enough.” She stopped her brain from going down that dark path. Here she was, in a beautiful home steeped in two hundred years of history, surrounded by a pastoral landscape out of a Joshua Shaw painting. What stories this place could tell. There was even a donkey and goats! Ginny was sure that the Muses would visit her at Lammermoor – how could they not be drawn to such an idyll?

Chapter 1 - Introduces the protagonist, antagonist, emotional hook, theme, tone and style. 

MIA

“I’m sorry Mia, I fucked up, please hear me out” Hudson says as I sit on his bed, hearing a bunch of noise, but listening to none of it. How did it all go so bad so quickly? We were in love, weren’t we? I’m not even sure anymore. The room is spinning. I can’t believe this is happening to me. He just got home from his first semester of medical school. Aren’t prospective doctors not supposed to cheat on their girlfriends with other prospective doctors? I’m so confused right now. “I’m not going to hear you out. We’ve been together for six years. From junior year of high school to now. Six years of my life. And, the second you get a glimpse of something different, something new, you throw us away. You throw me away? You told me you wanted to marry me.” “I do want to marry you, I really messed up Mia. Let me make this all up to you, please.” “And how are you going to do that?” I say. “How do you expect me to look at you now? You’re supposed to want to help people, and yet you destroyed me.” “Please give me another chance Mia, we were all drunk, I didn’t mean to do anything.” “I thought it was weird all along when you were constantly studying with her all semester. I thought it was weird that my boyfriend bonded so well with a girl in school. I tried to look past it, I really did. Sorry we’re long distance. Sorry I’m not going to be a doctor. Sorry you forgot about me so easily.” “Mia stop, I am in love with you, I want you. I messed up so badly.” “I need time to think, to process all of this. I need a break from you.” “So is there any hope?” He says, with tears flowing from his eyes. I walk out the door, my breath coming in short, ragged gasps. My chest tightens. The weight of six years crashes over me, and I can’t escape it fast enough. He was gone for one semester. We still spoke everyday. We still facetimed. I even met her over facetime. Gabriella, her name is. The complete opposite of me… She has black hair, deep brown eyes, pale skin, tall… I have light brown hair, olive skin, light blue eyes, 5’3 on a good day. But Gabriella, she was the kind of girl who seemed to belong in the pages of a magazine, and I couldn’t help but feel like I was just… ordinary. Is that why he could forget about me that easily? How can he tell me this? When I’m so excited to see him after months of him being gone. Months of no kisses. No hugs. Nothing.Just me, alone, figuring out post-grad life while he... did this. Did he forget I was the one who was there for him for the past six years? Did he forget about how we were each other's first time? Did it mean nothing to him? How can he hold it in and tell me when he’s home for Christmas? Isn’t this supposed to be a time when love fills the air and nothing can go wrong? I thought we were going to get engaged this Christmas. Boy was I wrong. 

Mannikko Tazmanakos silently bolted to his feet at the faint sounds of Karl’s widow’s lithe frame ever so slowly brushing her way among closely spaced foliage.  Realizing her movement was not wandering at all, but directly toward him, he crouched frozen behind tall dense arbor vitae for her to finally step close enough to allow him to quickly seize her, with a hand pressed firmly but gently upon her mouth.  The feel of the exquisite contours of her thinly clothed womanly form pulled close against him brought an aching reminder that he had not held any woman for what now suddenly felt far too long for him.  He realized a second too late how it made his breath a little deeper and dryer than he wanted her to hear.  She was more than sensual enough to feel the aroused tenor of Tazmanakos’ hot breath, from where his lips slowly whispered the words two centimeters from her ear.  
“Be still now.  If I wanted you hurt it would already be over, yes?  And I declare you are confident that would be impossible since I am only here because your Karl trusted me more closely than anyone else.  I trusted him with my life.  He trusted me with his.  Will you trust me?  Can I trust you?  I’m going to release you now, OK?”
Tazmanakos saw her forehead barely reach his shoulders as she pushed away and glared fearlessly up at him with her slightly more platinum than aquamarine eyes flashing a fierce energy made surreal by the reflecting brilliant ivory moonlight, which for that moment rivaled the moon’s glow above them.  The highlights plentiful throughout her slightly past shoulder length compactly curled red hair wildly shimmered in the moonlight around her milky grey satin camisole draped as liquid closely against her pale skin, making her appear to him as a gothic faerie.  She spoke at him in a supple and resonant voice that he could feel in his chest as much as he heard her.  
“Now who are you?  Why have you invaded my home?”
Tazmanakos braced at her bold eyes penetrating his obvious effort to gather himself to find his next words.  
“You heard me say ‘Karl’”?
“Who is Karl?  I don’t know any Karl!”
“You appear too serious to make me believe you are toying with me.  So why is it then that you want to deny him?”
As if to act contrary to Tazmanakos ‘serious’ she broke into a laugh that snapped out of her chest.  
“Haa!  Deny someone who never existed?”
“He spoke of you frequently, and only to me.  Most often about when you were both younger.  Together.  Before he had to distance himself from you.  For your safety.  Never told me your real name.  Only that you were his ‘Jenya’.  I worked with him continuously, right up until the moment when he passed.”
Tazmanakos saw her freeze at the name she had heard no one say for many years, and then quickly reflected on why it had been so long since then.  
“’Passed away’; that is what you call it?  Worked with him?  Then you and he regularly shared the same blood on your hands?  He was dead long before he knew it.  He just needed someone to finally remind him of it!  Speak not another word of him and go now.  Never return, understand?”
“I am trying to be respectful, that’s all.”
“Will you please go?  Right now!  You do not want me to ask you again!”
“I was with him when he died.  I heard his last words.  Don’t you want to know what he said?”
“Absolutely not!  Long before he died I refused to hear anything out of him!”
“I can understand.  However I heard plenty out of him.  It was on more than one occasion that he asked me to never tell you he was sorry, especially if you had any lightweight glass objects with immediate reach.”
Tazmanakos saw the recognition flash out of her stunned eyes, revealing the memory’s brief grip on her, before she snapped back at him.  
“You dare to be so insulting!?  You know nothing at all of that!  You know nothing of me!”
“Jenya...”
“I am not Jenya to you!  You will address me as Alevtina.”  
“Yes, of course.  Alevtina, what I do know is that Karl wanted on many occasions to intricately describe the different curving cuts that together produced the L-shaped scar covering your left thumb, from the time you accidentally sent your hand through the glass door into your home.  Is it that door back there, behind from where we stand?”
“He said accidentally, did he?”
“It always took two stiff drinks to bring it out of him.  In nearly the same very few sad words each time, he made it clear what a terrible day it was for him.”
“You had no business talking about that with him!”
“Of course I defer to you on that.  But I’ll tell you this.  I can tell when a man is straining himself to assume blame that was not his.”
“He blamed himself?”
“I think he finally convinced himself; not me though.  I wasn’t about to argue with a man who was arguing with himself.  Nonetheless he was totally crystal about one thing.  Made me promise to occasionally check on you.”
“So your prowling here is what you call ‘checking up’ on me?”
Alevtina wondered why Tazmanakos took such a long scan up and across the completely cloudless sky, before he slowly drew a deep breath, before almost whispering to her.  
“He warned me that it would be a mistake to contact you directly.  He insisted that I wait until the stars aligned properly.  Only then would you approach me, because as strange as it is to me, he really seemed to believe, it would invoke what he said would be a celestial blessing to allow him, or was it his spirit?  I never really understood his description of that that part, though, for him to see you through my eyes.  That was his belief, strange as it sounds, to me, at least.  Does it sound as strange to you?”
Tazmanakos watched Alevtina instantly become wide eyed while she reflexively looked up to the stars brilliantly adorning the clear sky.  She appeared to be searching for a couple of seconds, when she appeared surprised at whatever she saw.  She quickly gathered herself to incredulously probe deep into Tazmanakos’ eyes for nearly a half minute to seek any deception, when she felt a sudden flash of a too uncomfortable familiarity out of his gaze that provoked an anger that, at least before tonight, she had always directed exclusively at Karl.  
“What?  Oh, so he sees me now through your barbaric eyes?  Could he not have done better than such a blunt instrument as you?”
The cooling night air stung slightly over his humiliation flushing warmly through his skin.  But then he remembered the humility that Karl warned he would need with her.
“Perhaps he could have, given enough time.  However, he did state it plainly to me that his confidence in me to watch over you was perfect.”
“Perfect?  So he still loved to overindulge himself with that foolish word?  He was always the self-aggrandizing warlock!”
He blinked hard in surprise at that recognition.
“I would never have asked you about that; however, since you raise it, yes, he did mention to me that if you ever trusted me enough, then you might acknowledge him as such a man.”
“I don’t trust you to acknowledge anything!”
“Of course; not so much about trust as it is your comprehension, yes?  I for one do understand how I see you now.  So haven’t you and I passed beyond the need to debate your acknowledgement?  Look, it’s just me asking now.  Alevtina, is this all because you are also involved in the craft?”

Part III - To Ride the Curled Cloud

Opening scene – Introduces the protagonist, inciting incident, major plot point, action sequence with cliffhanger ending

All hail, great master! Grave sir, hail! I come
To answer thy best pleasure, be it to fly,
To swim, to dive into the fire, to ride
On the curled cloud. To thy strong bidding, task
Ariel and all his quality. 
William Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act 1, Scene 2. 
 

Chapter 1

Dylan Caddell looked out the cockpit windshield of his C-130 through instinct, even though all he could see were the crazy shapes driving rain made as it pelted against the glass. He’d read somewhere how humans making sense out of random patterns was somehow a primitive survival trait that persisted. If so, he didn’t see the advantage. The patterns he saw or imagined unwittingly brought his mind back to his first hurricane experience as a ten-year-old. He tried to keep the memories at bay, but the patterns wouldn’t be denied.

The recollections came flooding back. His childhood home being left in shambles from that thieving wind. The walls cracking under the storm’s pressure, The sickly-sweet air filling the space that would cruelly empty the innocent life he knew. His younger sister clutching at him in fear and calling out for their mom over and over. The door he couldn’t bring himself to open back then and the guilt that stayed with him.

He forced himself to push out the troublesome thoughts and focused again on the dials, switches, and readouts before him. The drone of the C-130’s engines was hypnotic. The plane shuddered as it fought through the whipping winds outside and sent vibrations straight through to Dylan’s body as if he were part of the machinery. 

Sitting next to Dylan in the co-pilot’s seat was Shakey. In his scraggly beard, faded flight suit, and very lived-in baseball cap, he looked more like a beggar on the street than an experienced military pilot. Only the two of them were on the plane.  

More as a distraction than anything else, he turned to Shakey, “I figure maybe another few minutes of these heavy winds until we break through to the eye of Kathleen.”

“Our girl’s winds are now at one hundred and thirty,” Shakey said.

“Not for long.”

“Well, our first mission went well enough. No reason to think this one won’t,” said Shakey.

“Except this time, fighter jets were sent to intercept us. Someone doesn’t want us going in here.”

Shakey stroked his scraggly beard and, through a grin, said, “Remind me again why we are risking our necks doing this. Fame and glory, right?”

Dylan wondered if perhaps the bravado between them was to mask the fear their actions were more reckless than courageous. He looked at Shakey’s beard. Individual whiskers shot out in haphazard swirls. More patterns. After a pause, Dylan dryly said, “Fame and glory are overrated.”

The plane continued to be rocked by the storm’s intense inner winds until all at once, visibility cleared as they punched through the eyewall, and the plane trimmed to steady flight with one last shimmy like a dog shaking rain from its back. In the calm of the storm’s eye, Dylan could see the perilous whirl of clouds beckoning on the far side of the eyewall. He took a deep breath and allowed himself a moment to relax.

“Okay. Shakey, I want to hit the southeast quadrant, then get really low to avoid any radar from those angry birds out there, so get ready for a fun ride.”

“Those fighter jocks will be itching to get at us.”

“Yeah, we could hang around in here for a while and wait them out, but somehow, I don’t think that will work.”

“Then let’s do this and go home!” Shakey said with an extra gravelly tone in his voice.

Dylan smiled inwardly and thought he was lucky to have his slightly off-center friend on this mission. “Okay, it’s time to let this storm know we mean business. Shakey, get back there and set the release for 7,500 feet.”

“Roger that, skipper.” Shakey left the cockpit and headed back to the cargo area where the controls for the canister release were located.

Dylan banked right and felt the plane's weight shift its mass accordingly. He focused on the exact spot he wanted to fly into and kept a steady gaze at a swirl of clouds that looked like a large gemstone colored the deep purple of amethyst. He would fly right through that gem and shatter it into slivers. How can they deny this anymore if we do it again? The controls were tight in his hands, and he relaxed his grip slightly.

Dylan heard Shakey begin his countdown, and everything slowed down. The timing was perfect. The plane was flying level and true; the canister bay opened with a jerk, and the canister fell effortlessly through the sky. Seconds passed, and Dylan knew the canister would hit the gemstone target center mass before the dutiful far-eyewall winds violently hit his plane. Blistering winds threw him to the port side, and he heard Shakey yelling through the noise.

“…no detonation. I read no detonation.”

“Oh, come on!” said Dylan, making his calculations for another run. He would gain some distance, turn, and zigzag back. “Prepare another canister, Shakey, and we’ll hit her again.”

Dylan cursed some more under his breath when they hit an air pocket and dropped thousands of feet in seconds. He struggled to regain control, but the plane was in a steep dive and beginning to spin. It all happened so quickly that he could scarcely believe the trouble they were in. The cockpit's contents spilled everywhere. Drinks, pens, clipboards, and sundry papers twirled uncontrollably. Shakey was yelling something again, but Dylan was concentrating on gaining control.

Dylan managed to stop the spin, but they were still losing altitude fast, and he could now see the ocean water below him. The whitecaps of the waves seemed mighty close. Another wind gust hit and threw him against the strap restraints to the point of pain. His shoulder felt like it was being torn from its socket.  Shakey’s yelling was closer now, but he couldn’t make out his words. Then, a wrenching sound, pain, and blackness surrounded him. Dylan involuntarily released the yoke and, with it, any hope of avoiding the whitecaps below.

Through a hazy vision, he saw his mother. There she was, trying to steady herself in the howling winds inside their old, shattered house. Her pearl necklace swaying along her feline neck. She looked just as he remembered, down to the same clothing, but the sky above was different. It was purple. Amethyst purple, both strange and familiar, all at once. Dylan felt cold rising around his body. It started at his feet, then went up to his legs. His arms were splayed, useless like a doll in front of him. There was no pain now. He took a deep breath and remembered the pearls.

1. A Bargain

In the same way a priest nobly chooses celibacy or a gambler swears off betting, I believed I could live outside of my desire. Especially if I set the stakes so high I couldn’t afford to lose. I began crafting a bargain.

By the time the spring warm-up I’d waited impatiently for arrived, I was ready. Jacketless, I headed down the hill where I frequently took “worry walks,” my mostly fruitless strategy for controlling anxiety. Before rounding the cul de sac, I paused in the street with my thoughts. I watched but barely saw a hunched man spray his hose in an arc of water towards his azalea bushes, and I heard but barely listened to the high-pitched barking from behind a yellow two-story house. “It’s time,” I told myself.

Still standing in the middle of the street, I closed my eyes and called up the words, speaking them out loud with finality. “God, if you will keep me from my mother’s fate, I will never cheat on Jim.”

With that, I wished away my tenacious longing for intimacy with a woman. 

Before God, I had cemented my bargain with a promise and closed with a prayer for the strength to stay true to my word. If it worked, I could let go of my biggest fear, confident God heard me; not yet knowing God had heard me in ways I never imagined, not yet wondering if the bargain precipitated the biggest watershed moment of my life.

#

The bargain bridged two decades as I crossed from fifty-nine to sixty. I kicked off my new decade on a Sunday afternoon at a Charlottesville vineyard set in the foothills of the Blue Ridge mountains. My three friends and I reached back and forth across the picnic table to fill our wine glasses and pass hunks of cheese and plates of olives and crackers. We clinked raised glasses to toast my years to come. All of us were unaware Judas sat beside me and would abandon our friendship by my next birthday. But for the sake of righteousness instead of money.

The next night, I sat across from my husband, Jim, in a historic downtown Charlottesville restaurant. He didn’t offer a toast, but he had secured a table by a window. In the ebb and flow of conversation, we looked out at passersby, both of us unaware they were walking to and from the spot where someone would soon die during the 2017 Unite the Right confrontation. 

My final birthday celebration came the next day. It was without cards or toasts or tasty food, but it was the weightiest. Behind a closed door, I lay on an exam table surrounded by sterile walls (except for the detailed poster of a “person” with no skin), my doctor standing beside me. “Your health is stellar,” he said, then extended his hand to help me sit up. He smiled and wrapped up my annual physical with words everyone wants to hear, especially on a milestone birthday: “Live with joy.”  

On those words, I uncrossed my fingers to let the worry I carried like a cross succumb to the glories of the coming summer. If ever I could live with joy, it was in the warmth of summer. Summer, the reason for my career in teaching, would bring my college-aged kids back home and coax my leisures. There would be happy hours with friends, piles of novels and tennis. Yet… I felt a pause, my inner knowing waving a yellow flag at my new decade.

2. The Therapist

There was a sudden flash—not a flash of inspiration, but a flash like the old-fashioned pop of a camera bulb. Except it was green. I looked up from my book, almost expecting to see the flash had come from a source somewhere in the room. From my place on the couch, I panned the family room, eyeing the wall of exposed red brick between the 1960’s paneling. Things looked normal, but I was shaken. I put on my shoes for a worry walk.

Outside, the bright summer light hurt my eyes. Squinting behind my sunglasses, I noticed a green saucer shape sitting at the bottom of my right eye. Within half a block, creeping anxiety began to outpace my effort to stay ahead of it. I cut the walk short.

Back inside, I called out to my nineteen-year-old son. “Micah, look in my eye,” I told him with some urgency, pushing my sunglasses to the top of my head. He directed me to the nearest window, where the light coming in required him to hold my lid open. With my head tipped back, I moved my watery eyeball up, down and around. “It looks fine, Ma,” he said. We diagnosed “weird floater.” 

“Floaters were nothing to worry about,” I thought. The anxiety eased, and I allowed a summer evening to unfold as it should, with a glass of beer on the front porch steps, an easy dinner and an early retreat to the king-size marriage bed Jim and I had never really shared. I crawled in and cozied up to my book, but I had to keep shifting it to see the bottom half of the pages otherwise obscured behind the slice of lime green. 

“Wait!” I thought, this time with a start. “Floaters float.” This wasn’t floating.

This opening scene of my memoir, which comes after a Preface, introduces the protagonist (me), a secondary character (my mother), the setting, a major antagonistic force (unexpected medical events) and a secondary one (my mother’s trauma-based fear). It is the inciting incident. 

The Girl, The Physicist and The Beauty of Reality

Chapter One 

I’m floating through a vast darkness. Light gradually breaks through, like early dawn through heavy fog. Thought and form precipitate. 

My senses compete to be the first to let me know where I am. Bright fluorescent lights. Staccato beeping. A nauseating smell—like disinfectant mixed with cafeteria. The feeling of having been hit by a truck. 

Wait. HAVE I been hit by a truck? 

My tiny, tanned, barely teenage body is swollen and in pain so profound I need another word. I know not to move. Ethereal tiny lights spark like fireflies above my bed and I wonder if they are angels. Morphine-heavy eyelids drift closed. Memories blow in from a safe, hazy distance. 

     blinding lights piercing a farmer’s black night

     metal-on-metal screeches rattling bones, organs, and soul 

     we’re cutting you out as fast as we can

     someone screaming 

It takes a few seconds before I realize that was me. 

Fourteen hours earlier, on September 8, 1978, a lovely, clear and surprisingly cool  central Virginia evening provided perfect weather for Albemarle High School Football’s first Friday night away-game of the season.  A few weeks earlier my best friend Terry, a junior, recruited me, a freshman, to join the Football Trainer Program. Our gameday responsibilities included checking and packing the medical kit, filling coolers with ice, hauling everything from the bus to the sidelines, and tending to players’ minor injuries field-side. We watched the game together, arms crossed, standing next to the visiting players’ bench. Terry flashed me a broad, beautiful smile. 

I’d been uncertain about joining the Football Trainer Program. “Trust me,” Terry  said, and I did. Because of her, I sacrificed two weeks of my summer vacation to attend mandatory pre-season practices. Sweating for hours each day on a treeless field under a brutal August sun watching boys practice a game whose rules I did not yet understand made me seriously question my extracurricular choice for freshman fall. But, as an only child, I’d always fantasized about having a protective big brother. On the football team heaps of sweet boy-men treated me like a baby sister from day one. 

I appreciated the players' ability to anticipate each other's needs using only glances and gestures. They picked each other up, literally and figuratively. Older players took new teammates—scrawny, uncertain freshmen—under their confident, padded shoulders. Authoritative coaches set the tone with certainty, charisma and fairness. It felt so good to be a small part of it. That, plus my friendship with Terry, got me through those first long hot days. 

Less than a month later, on that cool September night, standing on the field under Friday Night Lights in front of a thunderous crowd, it suddenly seemed gloriously worth it. I loved belonging to something so real. Belonging was the opposite of how I had often felt during the previous five years, ever since my immigrant family first moved south to Charlottesville. A hard transition meant fitting in at school took a long time. But that night represented everything I’d fantasized high school could be. Like TV. Glittery and dramatic.

In our neighborhood, though, I felt at home. Terry and I were part of a friend group, bonded together by years of shared experiences and stupid inside jokes. Living in a safe, suburban neighborhood gave us freedom and a lot of hours together because our parents only expected us to be home or call by dinner. 

At the game, no one from the friend group sat together. We spanned three grades and had separate lives and separate school friends, like siblings who behaved one way at school and another at home. After the game we planned to play cards, drink beer, and camp under the stars in the musty-scented, cricketed, late-summer woods that abutted our neighborhood. 

We told our parents we were spending the night at each other's houses. One of the friend group guys, Doug, a sophomore, enlisted his already-graduated older brother—a less good-looking David Cassidy—to buy beer and drive us back to our neighborhood after the game. I told my mom a parent was driving because driving with teenagers was forbidden.

Game over, eight of us piled into Doug’s dad’s Brady Bunch-era, wood-paneled station wagon. Doug called shotgun. Terry and I sat in the trunk, the way-back, with Scott, a tall, cocky, handsome junior Terry’s age. We were holding a case of Michelob steady back there. In ten minutes, sitting cross-legged to make room for the beer would save my legs from amputation at the knees.

A van with a bumper sticker declaring proud support for our rivals pulled up alongside us. Baby faces in the van shouted directly into our driver’s open window: “FUCK YOU Albemarle!” They pumped their middle fingers up and down, laughing. “What the…?” said Jane, the only other girl in the friend group, in her signature comedic voice. She made just those two words (what, the) seem funny. Three years later, she would deservedly be voted AHS Class of 1981’s Class Clown. 

The car accelerated wildly. “What are you DOING?” Terry yelled at David Cassidy, scared. “Relax,” Doug begged when his brother floored it. The van of rivals swerved at our station wagon. Doug’s brother swerved back. 

And then. The universe switched gears, into slow motion. We gut-screamed, and, with crazy centrifugal force, hurtled into a big, black unknown.

My mom walked into my hospital room from a hallway conference with tall men in white coats. Five feet tall, fine-featured and pretty, the harrowing night showed. When things were tough, she was too. But during the relative calm of ordinary life, unreasonable fears of creatively imagined disasters lurked in every innocent corner, the result of a traumatic childhood in post-WWII Austria. Sometimes, they consumed her. That night provided a lifetime's justification for her constant worry.

When she saw my open eyes, she did an involuntary little hop.

“Hey, sweetie,” she said softly. “Your dad will be right back; he went to the cafeteria.”

“Okay.” Pause. “I’m sorry, mom.” Tears rolled down the side of my face. I didn’t wipe them because my arms refused to move. 

This is a repost bc I don't think I included enough to demonstrate my use of dialog. 

1. A Bargain

In the same way a priest nobly chooses celibacy or a gambler swears off betting, I believed I could live outside of my desire. Especially if I set the stakes so high I couldn’t afford to lose. I began crafting a bargain.

By the time the spring warm-up I’d waited impatiently for arrived, I was ready. Jacketless, I headed down the hill where I frequently took “worry walks,” my mostly fruitless strategy for controlling anxiety. Before rounding the cul de sac, I paused in the street with my thoughts. I watched but barely saw a hunched man spray his hose in an arc of water towards his azalea bushes, and I heard but barely listened to the high-pitched barking from behind a yellow two-story house. “It’s time,” I told myself.

Still standing in the middle of the street, I closed my eyes and called up the words, speaking them out loud with finality. “God, if you will keep me from my mother’s fate, I will never cheat on Jim.”

With that, I wished away my tenacious longing for intimacy with a woman. 

Before God, I had cemented my bargain with a promise and closed with a prayer for the strength to stay true to my word. If it worked, I could let go of my biggest fear, confident God heard me; not yet knowing God had heard me in ways I never imagined, not yet wondering if the bargain precipitated the biggest watershed moment of my life.

#

The bargain bridged two decades as I crossed from my fifties into my sixties. I kicked off my new decade on a Sunday afternoon at a Charlottesville vineyard set in the foothills of the Blue Ridge mountains. My three friends and I reached back and forth across the picnic table to fill our wine glasses and pass hunks of cheese and plates of olives and crackers. We clinked raised glasses to toast my years to come. All of us were unaware Judas sat beside me and would abandon our friendship by my next birthday. But for the sake of righteousness instead of money.

The next night, I sat across from my husband, Jim, in a historic downtown Charlottesville restaurant. He didn’t offer a toast, but he had secured a table by a window. In the ebb and flow of conversation, we looked out at passersby, both of us unaware they were walking to and from the spot where someone would soon die during the 2017 Unite the Right confrontation. 

My final birthday celebration came the next day. It was without cards or toasts or tasty food, but it was the weightiest. Behind a closed door, I lay on an exam table surrounded by sterile walls (except for the detailed poster of a “person” with no skin), my doctor standing beside me. “Your health is stellar,” he said, then extended his hand to help me sit up. He smiled and wrapped up my annual physical with words everyone wants to hear, especially on a milestone birthday: “Live with joy.”  

On those words, I uncrossed my fingers to let the worry I carried like a cross succumb to the glories of the coming summer. If ever I could live with joy, it was in the warmth of summer. Summer, the reason for my career in teaching, would bring my college-aged kids back home and coax my leisures. There would be happy hours with friends, piles of novels and tennis. Yet… I felt a pause, my inner knowing waving a yellow flag at my new decade.

2. The Therapist

There was a sudden flash—not a flash of inspiration, but a flash like the old-fashioned pop of a camera bulb. Except it was green. I looked up from my book, almost expecting to see the flash had come from a source somewhere in the room. From my place on the couch, I panned the family room, eyeing the wall of exposed red brick between the 1960’s paneling. Things looked normal, but I was shaken. I put on my shoes for a worry walk.

Outside, the bright summer light hurt my eyes. Squinting behind my sunglasses, I noticed a green saucer shape sitting at the bottom of my right eye. Within half a block, creeping anxiety began to outpace my effort to stay ahead of it. I cut the walk short.

Back inside, I called out to my nineteen-year-old son. “Micah, look in my eye,” I told him with some urgency, pushing my sunglasses to the top of my head. He directed me to the nearest window, where the light coming in required him to hold my lid open. With my head tipped back, I moved my watery eyeball up, down and around. “It looks fine, Ma,” he said. We diagnosed “weird floater.” 

“Floaters were nothing to worry about,” I thought. The anxiety eased, and I allowed a summer evening to unfold as it should, with a glass of beer on the front porch steps, an easy dinner and an early retreat to the king-size marriage bed Jim and I had never really shared. I crawled in and cozied up to my book, but I had to keep shifting it to see the bottom half of the pages otherwise obscured behind the slice of lime green. 

“Wait!” I thought with a start. “Floaters float.” This wasn’t floating.

#

“You had a branch retinal artery occlusion,” the retina specialist said. “Clinically, a BRAO; informally, a retinal stroke.” Of course I’d never heard of such. He pointed to the magnified image of a dark segment on a tiny artery. “The clot lasted about a minute, long enough to cause the green flash.” 

The yellow flag?

The doctor saw no plaque or obvious cause for the clot, which was meant to be good news. “Sometimes this just happens. Don’t go looking for the zebra in the tall grass,” he said, not knowing that was like telling a hungry lion not to pursue its prey. 

The parting words of his assistant were starkly different, simultaneously directing me towards the office exit and a field of hidden zebras. “Good you came in,” he said off-handedly. “The clot was in your eye this time, but it could happen in your brain.” 

Head-to-toe panic flooded my body as it tried to bolt out of itself. This wasn’t the anxiety I was used to. I knew that kind—I lived under its constant shadow. “That” anxiety and I made coffee together in the morning, passed in the halls during the day and retired together at night. But this anxiety reached a new height. We weren’t just cohabitating; it was a coup d’etat, a complete usurping of what had been the status quo.

The next morning, I was back in my primary care doctor’s office. “I was just looking at my phone,” I told him, recounting the events leading up to the green flash. “And before that I was watching the women’s Wimbledon finals… Venus Williams was in it.” I didn’t know why he would care, but I couldn’t help but add, “She’s my all-time favorite women’s player.”

In fact, that July, as Venus Williams wound her way to the 2017 finals of Wimbledon, I watched every match from my seat on our purple basement couch (a “final sale” purchase). Watching Venus play was both exciting and nerve-racking; I cheered her, I chastised her, and I prayed for her to the end as Garbiñe Muguruza took her down in a two-set final. Watching the grand slam title slip away from Venus was painful, but hardly stroke-inducing. 

It was barely a month since my stellar check-up. Even though my summer joy had come with a sense of caution, a stroke was not something I ever imagined. I took care of my body. I followed all of the current health and wellness guidelines. If a stroke, then what other malicious matter was hiding in my blood or my bones, or within the DNA of my cells? I could only speculate, which I did all too well.

“Do you think the eye stroke is related to the recurring ache in my arms?” I asked my doctor. “My upper arms often feel like they are being wrung out like a wet cleaning rag.” 

“I think that's a stress response,” he said, but he agreed to pursue cardiovascular and other clot-related etiologies, at least until he set off on a two-year sailing trip.

Unlike the many alarms my brain sounded over the years, this time I had evidence of a real problem. I knew I could not sustain the anxiety the stroke had unleashed. It was anxiety like the alarm of an abandoned car. I had no key, no way to turn it off, or to even dial it down. It just kept blaring. I also had no way of knowing the stroke was one of those things that happens for a reason not understood until long after the event. No way of knowing the green flash was my personal big bang; one that would expand an incipient religious reformation that had been progressing more slowly than my lifespan might afford. One that would let me finally come of age.

Within a week of the retinal stroke, I made the life-changing decision I would wish I made years before. 

“I don’t want to live like this anymore,” I told a therapist over the phone.

This is a first draft of the opening chapter.

One look around the low-budget motel room told Leo that he was in trouble. Cheap artwork, probably from China, hung on dark walls dimly lit by table lamps. He was sitting on a wobbly desk chair turned so he could face the two agents accompanying him. The younger one, a tall woman in her thirties with dark hair, had flashed a badge that identified her as a federal marshal, when they appeared at his studio apartment in Baltimore. They had insisted he join them in their SUV. They’d driven for more than an hour before stopping at this dump, supposedly a safe house. It didn’t look very safe to him. The only exit from the second-floor room opened onto an exterior walkway. Not much security there. He wasn’t a high-value asset or adversary, but things hadn’t gone too well during his meeting with President Kraft. Despite his refusal to stop telling the truth, he apparently wasn’t considered public enemy number one. Only a discredited ex-NSA employee with a big mouth. Annoying enough to illegally detain in an undisclosed location – on a budget. He wondered if Ralph Weaver, the director of national security had sent them. Maybe Kraft herself or her minion, Djimon Walker. Ralph had told him about her paranoid tendencies. Yep. Leo was in big trouble.

The microwave perched on top of the mini-refrigerator reminded Leo that he had been about to eat lunch when this adventure started. “Can I get something to eat? Maybe a frozen dinner? A Snickers bar from the vending machine ...?”

The younger agent focused on her phone. The old guy, who looked at least fifty and always in a bad mood, retorted, “You can wait. We won’t be here long.”

The woman looked up and said, “Lunch isn’t a problem, Roger. There’s a Mediterranean place down the street that delivers.” She turned to Leo and asked, “Do you have any cash? We don’t pay ... and you can’t use a credit card.”

Leo pulled out the roll of twenties he always carried and peeled one off. “This should cover a protein bowl and a diet-Coke.” He got up and walked over to her as he added, “If it isn’t a security threat, do you mind if I ask your name? I know he’s Roger ...” He nodded towards the white guy, who was now frowning. 

“Logan,” she stated perfunctorily as she accepted the bill.

Leo retook his seat and resumed pondering the meaning of the dabs of paint tossed at the canvas hanging in front of him while Roger and Logan made arrangements for lunch. After several more surveys of the drab room, noting the lingering fragrance of industrial cleaners, he was bored.

“Did Ralph Weaver send you guys to pick me up?” 

Roger scowled and retorted, “We aren’t at liberty to discuss the mission at this time. You’ll get your answers ... later.”

Leo scoffed. “Are you shitting me? I’ve had several meetings with Ralph ... I get it now, you were sent by President Kraft on another preemptive strike. Do you even know what I’m talking about?”

The ensuing silence was broken only by the air conditioner turning on and the muted sound of afternoon traffic. He knew they were somewhere in northern Virginia because they’d crossed the Potomac River. They had taken his phone, so he couldn’t get his exact location. He chuckled at the thought of Adam showing up disguised as a delivery man, eliciting suspicious looks from his hosts. But what could Adam do if he were to intervene? Nothing. Adam Cooper was a professional assassin, not a freedom fighter or mafia hit man. In fact, it was possible that Adam had sent these two in order to save Leo’s life, but that didn’t make sense because he would have texted his plans, unless he suspected that Leo’s phone had been taken. No. There was no way Adam would show up. He’d been pretty clear about not doing anything to oppose Probation. Whatever else might be happening, Leo’s presence in this dive with two bodyguards was about his anti-Probation views.

Logan sat on the queen-sized bed, leaving Roger the armchair by the window. He remained standing by the door, his attention fixed on his phone. Leo wondered what they were both doing with their phones: monitoring communications between different groups involved in the current operation; looking for airline tickets to fly Leo to a CIA black site in Turkey for enhanced interrogation; checking for updates from other members of the deep state; or playing video games. He risked glances to study their expressions for a hint of what was going on. Logan was laser focused, her slim fingers dancing across the miniature keyboard, probably playing a video game. Roger’s expression mirrored the biblical Abraham’s when he was told to sacrifice his son to God – grimacing, frowning, fist clinched, his arm imperceptibly jerking up and down. He was either getting bad news or watching a sports event – he looked like a basketball fan to Leo. This situation was a clusterfuck, no two ways about it. Either these clowns should have already silenced Leo or got him to someplace that was actually safe. But who would want to kill him? He didn’t have an answer to that, unless it might be a far-right, pro-Probation, evangelical group. The FBI was updating Agents Logan and Roger by the moment. Something was going down, and Leo was in the center of it. Blind as usual. A knock at the door interrupted his reflection. 

Roger put his phone away in an instant and patted his weapon, tucked into a shoulder holster, for assurance. He approached the door warily and opened it as far as the security chain allowed. Logan was on her feet, her weapon drawn as she moved to get a good look through the door’s slitted opening. 

A voice from outside stammered, “Hi. Delivery ... uh, I’m Bernard, well ... uh, I’ve never collected before, cash I mean, it’s a little weird but ...” There was a minute delay before Bernard continued, “The total is sixty-three seventy-seven, right? Oh ... for Roger, right?”

Logan nodded at Roger, so he undid the security chain and opened the door slowly. He removed a thin wad of bills from his jacket pocket and said, “Here’s seventy. Keep the change –”

The door burst open, propelling Roger into the coffee table. He lost his balance and fell backward, arms askew, the money floating in mid-air, as he struck the armchair and fell in a heap. Several shots rang out from Logan’s position at the bathroom door. A shadow slithered into the room at floor level, and a single soft retort sent Logan to the floor, firing wildly several more times before the pistol dropped from her limp hand. The shadow rose to human height and the pistol fired once at Roger, who was struggling to extract his own weapon from its shoulder harness. He fell back, eyes closed, the gun dropped to the thin carpet. 

Leo froze in his chair, waiting for the shot he wouldn’t hear, the bullet that would end his search for the truth about the Federation and the Primordials. The shadow materialized into a familiar shape and face.

“Let’s go, buddy. We don’t have all day because the cops are already on their way.”

Leo needed a minute to wrap his head around this. Adam had just killed two federal agents ... but why? Leo was in no danger, or at least not immediately. Why kill two people who were just doing their job? That was no different than when he’d killed two innocent NASA contractors for the sin of being the first to receive a message from the Federation. Anger exploded from his chest.

“You fucking asshole! Why did you have to kill these guys? I guess you just get a kick from it, you sociopathic son of a bitch!”

Adam went to Logan and felt her wrist. “She has a pulse. So does the other one, I’m sure. I shot them with a tranquilizer. No big deal. After my experience with Sukka and Gan, I won’t kill again except in self-defense. Got it?”

Leo leaned over Roger and took his wrist, feeling a steady pulse.

“We have to bug out ASAP!”

His mind reeling, Leo followed Adam through the door, wondering if he was still working for President Kraft ... maybe the Chinese. They joined some other nervous residents on the balcony and pretended to be confused, as they made their way to a gas station next door. Adam led the way through some overgrown shrubs and stopped at a white sedan. He opened the rear passenger door and motioned for Leo to get in the front seat. Leo slid in and turned to the driver.

“I was so worried about you, Leo. Your horoscope said you were in grave danger ...” Gan put the car in gear and continued as they sedately pulled onto the busy street. “I convinced Adam to save you –“ She looked into the rearview mirror and said to Adam, “Thank you so much. You’re the best friend I’ve ever had, and our guardian angel. Don’t you think so, Leo?” 

Leo briefly felt like the luckiest man alive, having a friend like Adam and a girlfriend like Gan ... maybe she was more like a fiancee? Then the moment of feeling good was gone and he was on a fool’s errand, endangering Adam and Gan in his paranoid delusion. He turned halfway and started to thank Adam, but he was cut off by Adam. 

“No need to thank me. You’d have done the same thing, in fact you’re risking your freedom and life to try to save the world. I mean the Peacekeeper hasn’t stopped you, so maybe this is what you’re supposed to be doing, right? But I don’t think the same destiny applies to me, so I arranged for a berth for you two aboard a container ship bound for Venezuela –”

“I have your passport and I packed a bag for us, Leo,” Gan interjected as they crossed the Potomac River into Maryland. “I’m coming with you.”

The good feeling flickered, so he said, “I would kiss you but I don’t want to get in an accident. You’re the best, Gan, and I ... well, what I mean is that I have to get in touch with The Sons of Earth. I’d been avoiding it because they’re probably on the UN’s terrorist list. But you don’t need to come. There’s no reason for you to –”

She smiled smugly and said, “Try to stop me.”

These are the first few pages introducing Katherine Briçonnet, the first Chenonceau woman

Chenonceau, 1512

 The rounded tip of Chenonceau’s tower pierced through the morning mist, and Katherine Briçonnet caught her breath. Everything she had been working toward, all her quiet ambitions, culminated in this moment.

The journey from Tours had taken nearly half a day along the River Cher, but her anticipation had been waiting much longer—weeks, perhaps months. While Thomas was away in Italy, attending the king on his tiresome effort to dominate the disjointed peninsula, Katherine had busied herself in the minutiae of estate affairs. Livestock ledgers, supplies reports, and her children had offered distraction from the greater, gnawing worry: Would the builders respect her voice? Would they follow the designs she dared share with them, unsigned, unacknowledged, but precise? Or had they dismissed them, deferring reflexively to her absent husband?

Now, her mule’s hooves crunched along the gravel path, shaded by ancient chestnuts that framed her view. She sat straighter in the saddle, urging her mount ahead of her entourage. The trees parted, and the southwest tower revealed itself fully. She braced herself, one hand instinctively rising to her heart, and then a smile formed on her lips. The once-stern fortress of the Marques family rising above the riverbank had been transformed. Where arrow slits once pirced the stone, elegant windows were now framed in creamy limestone. The tower’s medieval roof had given way to a soaring conic spire that rose like a prayer. Intricate dormers graced the upper rooms, their white stone gleaming against slate shingles still dark from the morning dew.

“It’s perfect,” she breathed, just above a whisper. Then, louder, with impressible joy: “It’s perfect!”

Spurring her mule forward, she dismounted with uncharacteristic haste, silk skirts hiked into her hands. She took the stone steps two at a time, hardly noticing the Marques’ coat of arms above the old water well. Her attention was fixed on the doorway—her doorway. Around it, a curled garland of stone adorned with seashells, birds, vines, flowers, and, most delightfully, mermaids. Not the grotesque sailors’ sirens of popular imagination, but graceful, willowy creatures, delicate and serene. Even though she had never been to the sea, she had insisted on them. They represented the mysteries of the feminine as a source of life. Without women, there would be nothing, she thought.

“Madame Briçonnet?” came a voice, rough and familiar.

She turned to find a wiry man emerging from the shadows of the portico. His face was sunworn, his hair graying beneath a dusted cap, but his eyes twinkled with pride.

“Monsieur Dubois!” she exclaimed, taking his hands warmly. “You’ve done it. You’ve brought my vision to life—more beautifully than I ever dared to hope.”

“You have the eye of an Italian, Madame,” he said with a wink. “A true connoisseur of beauty. And a fair patron, too. You kept us well fed and better paid.”

She laughed, her heart full. His loyalty had not come cheaply, and she thanked the heavens for her husband’s familial wealth, but the results spoke for themselves.

Now only one obstacle remained: her husband. When Thomas returned from Italy, he would expect to see the château—his design, his command, his triumph. How would he react to find her imprint on every stone?

It had all begun innocently enough, when Thomas was appointed General Finances to the King in 1490, some twenty years earlier.

“My position requires a noble estate,” he stated matter-of-factly one evening over dinner in their grand, wood-paneled dining room. Their hôtel particular in Tours, though elegant, had suited Thomas the mayor—but it did not befit a nobleman. “And I believe I have found the perfect property,” he added, motioning for the steward to refill his goblet with wine. “Fortified, historic. A proper statement.”

Katherine’s mind whirled at the prospect of building a château from the ground up.

“A château?” she exclaimed, perhaps a little too eagerly.

He raised a brow. “You sound surprised.”

She tempered her tone. “It’s only that … I have often dreamed of building such a place. Something beautiful. Lasting.”

He frowned, slicing his roast with a bone-edged knife. “And what would you know about architecture?” he asked.

She almost reminded him of her childhood in her father’s study, snuggled in his leather-bound armchair, losing herself in ancient texts on Greek philosophy, Roman history, and, above all, architecture. She had devoured sketches of classical temples and civic buildings, marveling at the miracles of arches and vaulting, critically evaluating how they might be reimagined in modern-day construction. Even as a child, roaming her family’s estate in touring, she had stacked stones into crude arches, puzzling over how each piece ft together to create something greater than itself.

 Of course it was silly of her to let her mind wander even a little bit. He would not be on board with a woman, much less his wife, sharing in the design process. She was determined, however, to view the property, to imagine what form an elegant château might take, so she changed tactics, squarely meeting his gaze. She held her tongue.

“Nevertheless,” she said carefully, “I should like to see the property. To support you. And … to imagine what might become of it.”

She saw it immediately—the brief, involuntary flicker in his expression, the way he stiffened at her words. Had he truly never noticed how closely she followed his discussions of the king’s fascination with the new Italian architectural styles, the same ones that he despised?

“You? Why?” he asked.

Because I see what you do not, she thought. Because while you marvel at power, I see the possibility for grace and beauty, an opportunity to build something livable and human-scale. But she said nothing.

Instead, she leaned forward, softening her voice. She had learned early with him that a sugar fig tempts more than a bitter root. “Mon cheri,” she said sweetly, “your vision, your taste, your mastery of design, these are the very qualities that will make the château a marvel. But who better than I, your devoted wife, to admire and support your genius from the very beginning?”

He hesitated. The silence stretched.

He paused, his lips pressing into a thin line. For a moment, she thought he might refuse again. Then, with a scowl, he exhaled sharply. “Oh, very well,” he relented. “You may come tomorrow. But you must stay in the background. Do not interfere.”

Katherine allowed herself a small, victorious smile. That, she could manage—for now.

**

On that first trip to Chenonceau, she had ridden behind Thomas and his advisers—this time sidesaddle, to satisfy social norms. But she didn’t mind, as she stayed close enough to capture their words. 

“The estate belongs to the Marques family,” Thomas explained to his posse. “They’re knights from Auvergne who spared no expense in building a fortress in the 1430s. But their descendants have not managed their money well. While they are ensconced for now, they will find their financial demise. And I plan to be there, to pick up the pieces.” His voice was full of scorn.

They approached the estate from the opposite riverbank—Thomas did not want the residents to know they had company. The small group stopped amid a copse of tall, regal trees, the ones Katherine supposed had given the property its name: Chenonceau, a Celtic term for “oak forest near the water.” From a distance, she saw the crumbling fortress, square in shape with four round corner towers rising above, surrounded on three sides by a moat connecting to the adjacent River Cher. A separate mill, built directly over the river, stood on two giant pedestals ground into the riverbed for support.

Jumping off his horse, Thomas strode along the riverbank, his pensive blue eyes scanning the blocky facade of the structure. “The site is strategic,” he said, measured. “We can easily renovate the existing frame.”

Katherine stood near him, her long violet gown billowing in the soft currents of wind rolling off the River Cher. With a practiced hand, she pinned a hazelnut curl behind her ear, her silver clasp glinting in the sunlight. She hesitated briefly, choosing her words carefully: “As a nobleman,” she began, deliberate, “you deserve a structure that reflects your vision. What if we demolished the fortress entirely and built something new—over the river, where the mill stands?”

There. She had said it. The first spark of the vision she longed to bring to life—a magnificent château that would endure for generations.

Thomas turned to her, one eyebrow raised in incredulity.

“No, really, cheri,” she said, keeping her words even, like the precise clucking tongue of their youngest daughter Chloe’s harpsichord tutor, Madame Sevigny. “That’s the only way to make it remarkable. A château on the river, not beside it. The mill’s foundations are perfect for such a structure. And, let’s be honest—modernizing that old fortress will only result in an awkward blend of eras. It won’t command admiration. It will look like we’ve tried to update a block of stone.”

“It will work,” he said, folding his arms and slivering his eyes. “It can be done my way. But first, we need to acquire the property.” He didn’t sound confident, but Katherine let it rest for now. Little did they know then, as they stood there by the River Cher, it would take sixteen long years to turn their conflicting visions into reality.