All Work
| Hi Everybody! Am I working very hard to catch up without breaking my body in the process? Yes! Am I making serious progress? Also Yes! Do I feel like I’m still failing? Wait… Crap. Fine. Yes, that too. But, it’s fine. I knew this was going to be a new reality I would have to slowly adjust to overtime, this kind of forced limitation to something I love. I’m figuring it out. This to say, if any of you are going through something similar, I feel you. Keep going. You too will find a new way to work on the things you love. That said… |
No PLay
| Next week is Spring Break at school and I am SO excited it’s ridiculous. There will be naps, ya’ll. Naps! But, there will also be a surprise for you all coming soon! EEP! Super excited about this. Keep and eye on that. Also, also, I may have discovered that I have a problem. A real one. Like an addiction problem. Everyone knows that I used to write all my books out long hand in notebooks prior to the arthritis. What you all don’t know is that means I have a metric *ssload of notebooks. Filled and empty. Just notebooks for days. Now, that should mean I will never need another notebook because my consumption of them will be so much less, right? Err. No. Not to my clearly addicted to notebooks brain. Because I bought more! WHHHHYYYY? Shhh! No one tell my family. I’m hiding these. They’re extra pretty. There are stars involved. Maybe I’ll take some pictures when they get here of my whole stash and show off the ridiculousness that is this cache of notebooks in my tiny house with too many people and pets packed in it. Wait… that’s it! I’m just framing this wrong. I’m not addicted to notebooks. I’m not taking up too much space. I’m a dragon and this is my hoard. Now I know I should show it off. 😉 |
Update
| One of the things that I have managed to start getting out on schedule again, besides this newsletter are new episodes of Crossroad Inn over on Vella on Amazon. It looks like, when all is said and done, I will have two seasons, or two books, of Crossroad Inn episodes. Something has to give, so even though I originally thought I would go on for at least another season of episodes after those two, I’m going to wrap up the main storyline a little faster. You don’t have to go anywhere special on amazon to check out the first three episodes for free, just put in Crossroad Inn Everly into the search bar and you’ll find to or follow the link below. https://www.amazon.com/Crossro… Editing is happening, writing is happening again, and I am evaluating and adjusting my plans going forward in the hopes that I can get back to a good flow and getting back on track with all the things. Thank you, everyone, for your patience as my body betrays me, but I’m also learning new ways to work on that as well so hopefully I will be able to start making even more strides there.One of the next things off my never ending to do list is to update the website. When that’s done, I will let you all know because then you’ll all be able to fully catch up to our story told here because I always post the old chapters on my blog. Remember, this story never had a hand written first draft. It is an unedited, typo riddled sh*tshow complete with changing POV part way through, changing character names, and a lit more. BUT, when this is all done, I’m going to rewrite it, restructure it, make it better, and put it out as a book. When that happens, I will start doing other projects for you all here. What those will be yet, I’m not sure. Maybe another full length book, maybe a novella, maybe some short stories. Sound like a plan? Now, let’s get back to our little wild ghost story. |
The Voice In The Forest
Chapter 59
My voice caught on my thundering heart as it bled in my throat.
The sudden need to grab Montgomery, cover his mouth with my hand, silence him, and drag him far away from the house and everyone who ever lived in it raged up within me in a ferocious gasping birth I didn’t know what to do with myself.
Instead, all I could do was swallow down the words, the terror, around my heart that was no where near its home in chest at the moment.
All along I wanted to know what happened to him, didn’t I? But his dead body…
Nodding, once, I tightened my hold on him, unable to speak but knowing he needed to tell me regardless of if I was ready or if it would be a good thing.
He turned his eyes away from me, biting his lip so hard his face pinched and the tender skin there became sapped of all color.
Finally, he took a deep breath.
“My mother and I were both killed.”
Sucking in a breath, the knowledge burrowed deep within me to find…no surprise at all waiting for it. As if I always knew what we would learn.
“Who?” It was the only thing I thought really mattered. This had to be the thing we needed to know, but if he remembered now, it didn’t make sense for him to still be here.
But he shook his head.
“It’s so strange. I know I was,” his voice stumbled and he coughed before he continued, “murdered.”
The word, spoken into the air, as lifeless as the body I was just looking at in that damn tent sent a shudder through me so deep my hands didn’t shake, but my soul did.
“But somehow, the details, other than dropping to my knees and knowing that it happened, won’t clear in my mind.” He shook his head again, rubbing the heel of one hand into his forehead.
“Maybe…” How could I explain my thoughts? They barely made sense to me and I wasn’t sure why I thought they were somehow true. What did I know?
“Ara,” he said, his eyes meeting mine with an imploring look, like he was begging me silently to keep going, to just say it. As if anything I had to say could be worse than the revelation that he remembered the feeling of falling as he died and knew it was at the hands of someone else and deliberate.
“I just thought, maybe your mind is trying to keep it from you because it would be difficult to remember everything. It would be hard on you.”
He laughed.
Laughed.
Yanking my head back, I froze. How was anything about this funny? Did he think my suggestion was that stupid?
“No, Ara,” he pulled me into him and I tried not to spiral further into the catastrophes pouring through my mind, “You’re right. I’m sure you’re right. I was laughing because this whole situation seems to be caused by my brain thinking it was helping me by blocking things from me and instead it’s left me as a ghost by myself for so long. I’m stuck. Never aging. Never learning. Never growing. I can’t even leave the grounds. But, sure, mind, keep protecting me from the very things that will help me. It’s ridiculous and wildly unfair that my own mind hates me this much. That’s all.”
“Oh. That’s all, huh?” I held tighter to him as he took in another shuddering breath and his words sunk all the way in.
Part of him, even now, regretted he was ever a ghost.
As irrational as it was, that felt like a fresh bruise forming over my heart.
“You’re right, again. There’s nothing small about the implications of all of this.”
I didn’t know how to take that, so I just held on and remained silent.
“This was always the plan, for us to learn, for me to know.” He paused and a shudder ran through him on the tail of the shaking in his voice. “But I can’t help wondering if the real reason my mind is blocking the answers out is because once I know, I would…”
Once he knows, he would pass on. He would leave me.
“Even of that’s true,” I rushed to reassure both of us, “You’ll never leave me. I’ll keep you with me. Always.”
“Beyond death.” His words were little more than a breath, and I wasn’t entirely sure I didn’t imagine them. But another thought struck me, a way we could still be doing what we said we would, but maybe it would alleviate the pressure on his mind to decide and it would give us some more time.
Pulling back, I squared my shoulders and tried to muster up every bit of bravery I held in me, all the shattered, jagged pieces I forced to hold together for all the years I lied to the doctors and mother and everyone else. They had to be worth something to me now, on Montgomery’s behalf. He was worth it.
“Then, to give your mind rest, we need to think about this like detectives in television shows do.”
“I don’t know what that means.” A line appeared between his brows as the corners of his mouth turned down and he looked around the room as if the answer would be on the walls.
How often did ghosts watch television?
Clearly not as often as a patient in the mental health section of the hospital. Although I would never understand why the doctors thought detective shows were a good option for a girl who said she saw ghosts who were sometimes bloody and wounded.
“Well, then let me ask you a question.”
Montgomery nodded, that confused look still on his face.
After all our research, it seemed clear he didn’t have any enemies in life, but there was something we didn’t look at before. To be fair, we didn’t know his mother had met the same fate then, either.
“Is there anyone you can think of who would benefit from you and your mother being dead?”
Everything about his face dropped, his jaw open, his eyes wide, the line disappearing, his shoulders slumping.
“Dear God,” he said.
