so about my name...

Many of you who live in Greencastle and the surrounding areas know my full name. Many of you know my parents, my brother and sister, and you probably know both my maiden and married surnames too. When I decided to write this book, I struggled with whether or not to use a pseudonym. A close friend of mine suggested that I use my maiden name and after some discussion I decided to take his advice. But I decided to use my initials instead of my full given name.

Some of you may have already realized my choice is paying homage to one of my favorite authors of all time, L.M. Montgomery of  Anne of Green Gables  fame. I always liked to imagine that Lucy Maud was a long lost relative of mine. I also thought "Green Gables" was not too dissimilar to "Green Castles," and I'd like to think my three heroines are as spunky and lovable as Anne and that their friendship echoes the "kindred spirits" philosophy that Anne espouses.

Little did I know, though, that L.M. Montgomery also wrote a book about a colored castle! I was googling the phrase "green castles book covers" just to get some ideas about my own book cover when I came across The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery.

I'd never even heard of it. Has anyone read it? I just ordered a copy. But goodness, my book even seems more meant to be now. :) I only hope that I can do the name justice!

The Blood of Jesus Ring: An Excerpt

Please enjoy this excerpt from Chapter Seven of Green Castles.

 

Kat

    Kat headed up hills, around curves and then traveled down the long black-topped drive to her parents’ house. In the November twilight, the meadows on either side of their driveway were bare with withered hay, but she remembered many occasions that there would be dozens of deer perking their ears up and watching her fly past with huge, soulful eyes before turning and leaping back into the woods, their white tails the last flash seen before they disappeared into the dark canopy of trees. She kept rehearsing lines in her head, but not lines for a play, like usual. She thought it might be time to prepare her son for what he was going to see at the visitation the following day. She imagined looking into his big brown eyes and telling him not to be afraid or upset, but to be happy because Hope was now in heaven. And for a moment she didn't even ask herself if she still believed in heaven; she just cradled the thought in her mind so that she could feel at peace with with what she knew she must do.

    Campbell Manor was filled with the aroma of pot roast and potatoes. It all felt so warm and familial, the scent of homesick dreams. Dreams I never really had, she thought. Once I was out of here, I rarely looked back, and certainly not wistfully. She remembered one of the last times she had gathered with her family in their home before leaving for college. It was the day after commencement at her graduation party. It was the day she was given The Blood of Jesus Ring.

May 31, 1992

Throughout the entire spring of my senior year, my parents had debated about what they should get me for a graduation present. Somehow the idea of a ruby ring had surfaced as the winning gift. I had begged my mother to let me pick out the ring, but she refused. A few nights before commencement, I had a nightmare that the ring she chose turned out to be this huge, gaudy gold butterfly with a big, dull ruby right smack on top of it. It looked like something out of a bad sci-fi movie that had evil powers, like it could vaporize a robot or something. I woke up in a cold sweat, wondering how in the world I could graciously accept something so hideous and then actually make myself wear it perched like a monument to bad taste on my finger?

I made it through graduation. The gym was so loud with all of us cheering and the band grinding through Pomp and Circumstance. We tossed our purple caps into the air and I remember linking pinkies with Michelle and Jennifer and screaming “UNITED!!!” at the top of our lungs. For a moment we were the golden ones, the survivors, the initiates to the New Adult Club with our futures stretched before us, a diamond-strewn path to health, wealth and happiness.  In that moment, we forgot that we’d be parting ways. We suspended ourselves in time and simply cherished each other and what we had done to get us to that very tick of the clock’s hand as we walked across the stage to receive our freshly-printed diplomas, obligatory hugs from the principal and firm handshakes from the superintendent. Despite that suspended glory, there was still a little annoying voice in my head that wiggled its way to the surface faintly asking, “What about the ring?”

So the next day has arrived and it’s my graduation party. Campbell Manor is full of aunts, uncles, cousins, business associates, and church members. Michelle, Jennifer, Alex, Jason and a few others from youth group are in attendance, and at the moment I’m regretting having gotten stuck inside with the adults. I’m explaining to my Aunt Laura the way the theater program at NYU works when I see Alex and Michelle climbing the stairs back onto the deck from the direction of the woods. Michelle does not look pleased. I’m so distracted watching them that my aunt says, “It’s okay if you want to go hang out with your friends, Katerina.”

People keep handing me cards and I’m trying to set them aside in one place so I don’t lose track of any of them. My eyes are filled with visions of dollar signs as I hear my mother call from the family room. “Katerina! Come in here please and open the present your father and I got you!”

The french doors to the deck open and Alex slips in with Michelle right behind. She’s dragged Jennifer back into the house as well and is leaning down to whisper something in her ear. Jennifer smirks in response. I better get the scoop on that later, I think, smoothing my white pleated skirt down across my thighs as I stand up and head for the family room. The seats on the couches and the two matching wingback chairs are taken so I slide the piano bench out to sit there.

“Oh,” Jennifer says, loud enough that everyone hears and turns in her direction. “Play the song! Play the song!”

I shoot daggers at her with my eyes. I really didn’t want to give a performance. But then Michelle and Alex join in too, goading me to play the song I’d sung at graduation the day before in front of the entire school: teachers, students and parents. I sigh and turn around on the bench to face the keys. I silently pray that I can do it without the music because I’ve left it in my car. I start the intro to the song and turn to see that Jennifer already has tears in her eyes. She and Michelle move to the piano and start to sing with me, “Packing up the dreams God planted...”

It’s a Michael W. Smith song about saying goodbye to your friends. You know, the typical sappy stuff you’d expect to hear at a high school graduation in the middle of an Indiana cornfield in a gym that perpetually echoes with the sounds of dribbling basketballs and high tops squeaking on the shiny lacquered floor. In other words, the perfect song. And when we finish I can see that some of the adults have tears in their eyes too. After all, they’ve watched us grow up. This signals the end of an era for them in some ways too.

My mother starts the applause only I notice she has a small navy velvet box in her one hand so she isn’t making any noise as she tries to clap around it. The others are clapping loudly, though and Michelle, Jennifer and I each give a little curtsy. Then my mother takes over from the middle of the room. As soon as she extends the ring box toward me all I can think about is that gigantic gold butterfly from my dream and how I’m possibly going to feign delight in front of all these guests. Maybe this is an acting test meant to prepare me for NYU? I think.

She launches into this lengthy monologue about how much she and my father love me and how proud they are of me, and how they know this is only first of many great accomplishments I will achieve in my life. Then she transitions into a part about how difficult it is to let your child go off into the big, wide world. She’s still clutching the ring box and I’m dying. I just want to see the damn ring and get this over with. My heart is pounding.

“The ruby in this ring,” she continues dramatically, and I think in that moment not a soul wonders where I got my acting talents, “represents the Blood of Jesus Christ, who died for our sins. The Blood of Jesus not only saved us and gives us eternal life in heaven, but I pray it will also protect our only, precious daughter as she goes off to the big city to pursue her dreams.”

I see that Michelle is vigorously rolling her eyes, so vigorously in fact, that I develop an eye cramp just from watching her. Jennifer is also watching Michelle and about to burst into laughter and I’m just thinking, show me the ring for crying out loud!

Everyone is touched by my mother’s words, and I don’t know what has precipitated more tears: my song or her Blood of Jesus Ring speech. She finally, in what seems like slow motion, flips open the top of the velvet case and there nestled in ivory satin is a tiny, delicate marquise cut ruby with two diamond chips, one at the top left and one at the bottom right. The gold band is flourished with a double fluted edge that touches the top and bottom points of the ruby. I sigh as relief washes over me. I gently lift the ring from its satin nest and slide it down my right ring finger where it sparkles in perfection between my knuckles. The Blood of Jesus looks like it was made for my finger.

As Kat reflected on that memory, she was also reminded of the near loss of the Blood of Jesus ruby many years later when she was a senior in college. It was a weekend that Nelson was visiting, taking a break from a production he was wrapping up in London. Kat and Nelson were stepping out for the day and got caught in a torrential downpour, the water rushing furiously between the sidewalks and the streets. Kat needed to mail a letter so she’d sloshed over to the corner, an umbrella protecting her long dark mane from the dripping sky.  She’d folded down the tray of the mailbox and as she slid the letter onto the tray and started to flip it back up to send the letter down the chute and into the mailbox, she felt her ring catch on the metal edge. When she pulled her hand away she immediately saw that the ruby had been pried out of her ring. “Oh no!” she gasped.

Nelson had already gotten about a half a block down the street before he heard her cry out. He came running back, rain starting to dampen the curls around his face and pushing them down into his eyes. She explained what had happened and he shook his head as if it was a foregone conclusion that the ring was gone forever.

“No!” Kat insisted. “No, we have to call the post office and have them send someone to open the box.”

“You’re sure it went inside?” he asked.

“Yes! It must have!” she adamantly claimed.

“Okay, because if it fell into the street, I’m sure it’s been washed away,” Nelson said in his matter-of-fact British accent.

Later in the afternoon, the rain had ceased and the post office representative was on his way. Kat waited near the mailbox on the street corner for signs of the little white postal truck when something glittering in the sunlight caught her eye. She crouched just a few feet away from the mailbox and there, just inches from a grate was a tiny, marquise cut ruby. It was the Blood of Jesus. It had somehow stuck to the sidewalk despite the fact that just hours before a river of rainwater had rushed down the street. It was a miracle.

***

ancient history (in the days before internet and cell phones)

As I'm writing the flashbacks for Green Castles, it's really striking me how different my whole adolescent experience would have been if everyone had had internet and cell phones back then. There have been so many times while writing that I've thought, Wow, if she had a cell phone, that scene would have gone an entirely different direction. If we'd been able to text each other we wouldn't have been passing notes all the time. Or, whoa, if they could have just harassed that boy on the intrawebz, there would have been no need for prank calls. Kids don't even prank call each other anymore, do they? They just stalk them on Facebook. Sigh.

My first exposure to anything remotely like kind of technology was when I attended the Indiana Academy for Science, Mathematics and Humanities from 1990-1992. They had a VAX system which included email, an instant messaging feature called "phone" and a very primitive social networking interface called "Meet Market." I am not even kidding you about the name. It was a huge database of Ball State (and Academy) students and you could put in your hair color, eye color, height, majors, minors, hobbies, etc. and then search by those fields. I met many a cute male Ball State student that way. (Shhh. Don't tell. We weren't supposed to fraternize with them.) I know how big of an impact those resources had on my junior and senior years of high school and then on into college, so I can only imagine how they would have affected my earlier days at South Putnam.

We are all aware how much technology has changed our everyday lives, but to think about how it would have changed specific situations can kind of blow your mind. Also, this is a good time to point out as I'll be finishing up my fourth decade and starting my fifth in 2014 that having these kinds of reflections makes me feel really old! I remember my parents talking about how things were when they were kids and now here I am telling my boys the same sorts of things. Yikes!

What invention or advance in technology do you think would have had the greatest impact on your teenage years?

Operation Non-Participation - an excerpt

I thought you might like to read a portion of Kat's flashback from August, 1988, when she and Michelle go to church camp for the first time:

After the showers, we apply about three layers more makeup than one should really need during a camping expedition. The sun is now fully awake and the other girls in the cabin are starting to scurry about, some shrieking as the cold shower water pierces their skin, others complaining that their clothes are damp. One girl is so sunburned she looks like an angry lobster with a shock of nearly white blonde hair tufting off her bright pink scalp. But Michelle and I are smug, already dressed and busy outlining our plan for circumventing any more group activities.

Our first tactic is vowing to be sickeningly sweet and congenial so as to increase our chances of being allowed to stay together. We know if the staff detects any sign of hostility toward the camp, they will split us up faster than an Indy car can turn a lap at the Speedway.  We fully recognize that our sarcastic tongues render this task nearly impossible, but the rest of our plan relies on us being able to execute this step of Operation Non-Participation flawlessly.

Secondly, we determine that some stuff will require a basic disappearance maneuver. “They can’t possibly count every single one of us all the time. In the bigger group activities, we’ll simply vanish,” Michelle suggests. 

“They’ll never notice," I add.

“Now, for the the smaller things, craft time and the discipleship groups, we’re gonna have to suck that up,” she says. I nod. “It’s the physical stuff we want to avoid. So here’s the deal and part three of our plan: It’s not that we don’t WANT to participate, it’s just that we CAN’T.”

“Oh, of course,” I agree. “We’d be perfectly happy to run around those bases with our legs tied together inside a burlap sack like total idiots, but we’re just unable to make that happen at this juncture.” I sound like a politician.

“I twisted my ankle during Capture the Flag,” Michelle explains, mustering up a disappointed tone and reaching down to rub the side of her leg as if she’s in agonizing pain for effect.

“Yeah, and I have cramps,” I say bluntly. I don’t mind leveraging my double x chromosome and playing the “period card.” Few counselors are going to argue with that, and especially not male ones.

“Excellent!” Michelle grins and links pinkies with me. “United, sister!!!” she decrees and we head up the hill to the mess hall to see if there’s anything edible for breakfast.

sentimentality, an apology and cave crickets

I've recently undertaken the monumental task of cleaning out my basement. We've lived here on the Eastern Shore of Maryland for six years now and although we lightened our load considerably through multiple yard sales before moving here, we've pretty much been in accumulation and hoard mode ever since. (Don't tell my mom. She would not be pleased.)

So I'm opening up all these plastic storage tubs that are coated with dust and I probably don't want to know what else, breathing in approximately four zillion mold spores as I pore over old documents and pictures. I think it's affecting my brain because I'm not feeling nearly as nostalgic as I thought I would. It's the entirety of my past, my legacy, in those boxes and I'm kinda like, "Eh. Those boxes are just going to take up room if we move to a smaller place with no basement." (Basements are a rarity out here where it's almost sea level.)

I thought I used to be a sentimental person but after this experience and also writing Green Castles I'm starting to wonder if I really am. While writing, it's been easy to separate myself from the memories, repurposing them with different characters, and shaping and embellishing them to heighten the entertainment factor. Maybe fiction writers can't be too sentimental because even though the truth is inspirational, we're driven by the need to spin it into a better story.

After unearthing all the novels I wrote in high school, I feel slightly bad that I wrote the bulk of those words while sitting in class at South Putnam Jr/Sr High School. Since I've taught college students with microscopic attention spans for the last ten years, I know how frustrating it is not to be able to engage students. So, if any of my teachers are reading this, I do apologize for not paying attention. Especially to Mr. Kroft, because I sure as heck don't remember anything from Geometry.

And I'll tell you one more thing: all you folks out there in Hoosier Land need to thank your lucky stars that you don't have to contend with Cave Crickets. Seriously. Google them if you dare.

the plot

So I've covered the setting and the characters of Green Castles in separate posts and I've also shared the inspiration for the novel via my friend Christina McClure in my last post. Now I'd like to say a little more about the plot of the book.

The book is told from each of the main character's perspectives, shifting the vantage between each one. As the first few chapters progress, we learn that Jennifer's daughter has passed and Kat and Michelle have traveled from New York City and Austin, Texas, respectively, to be at her side during the visitation and the funeral. Kat and Michelle have not spoken since the summer after high school graduation, having had a falling out that will be revealed during the course of the book. We learn about each of the women and what has been going on in their lives since high school. They've each had their share of struggles and reflect on the happier days of their youth.

This is where I want to make it clear that the personalities, looks, and circumstances of these characters are vastly different than their real-life inspirations. However, I will admit that many of the adventures our main characters reflect on are based on actual real-life events. That said, not all of them happened. I have to say that partially to protect the innocent, and also because I'm taking artistic liberties whenever I darn well please because, well, I'm an author and I can. So there! ;)

So just a few of the "episodes" that the girls flash back to (which by the way, are told in first person present tense from one of the three's perspective) include church camp, the Putnam County fair, productions at the playhouse, a DePauw frat party including a Boulder Run, basketball games, a late night rendezvous at Four Arches, and goodness knows what else I might come up with in the course of writing. The flashbacks are often funny which helps to mitigate the grief the women are feeling over the death of Jennifer's daughter.

Other themes which emerge throughout the book are those of acceptance, forgiveness, tolerance and reconciliation but I won't give away the ending. ;)

What do you think? Does it sound like a good story to you?

Brooklyn

I'm diverging a bit from setting up the story to share the inspiration for Green Castles, a beautiful angel named Brooklyn, who would have celebrated her ninth birthday today, July 15, 2013. And with that, I'm turning over this post to my oldest, dearest friend, Christina McClure, Brooklyn's mother. Take it away, Chris :)

“Every 30 minutes, a child is born who will develop a mitochondrial disease by age 10. Each year, 1,000 to 4,000 children in the United states are born with a mitochondrial disease....we now know the disease is approaching the frequency of childhood cancers.”~ United Mitochondrial Disease Foundation, http://www.umdf.org/site/pp.aspx?c=8qKOJ0MvF7LUG&b=7934639#m6

Exactly nine years ago today, July 15, 2004, my daughter, Brooklyn Corinne was born. As with the birth of any new child, that day changed my life forever. Brookie was born at 36 weeks via C-section and weighed in at 8 lbs 7 oz and 19 inches long. My pregnancy had been a high risk one and complications had forced the early delivery and an extended stay in the hospital NICU. There was a week of being on a ventilator, jaundice, apnea and bradycardia with feeds, and reflux, which turned into a month stay in the NICU.

Once she was more stable, she was sent to a pediatric rehabilitation hospital to focus on her feeding issues and frequent projectile vomiting. The reflux and vomiting was on such a level that the doctors wanted to do a surgery (nissen fundiplication) when she was about a month and a half to prevent the vomiting, but decided to use meds to control Brookie’s reflux and delay the surgery. Instead, they placed a G-tube to help her feed. She was finally released to go home on September 24, 2004.

Brookie continued making slow progress toward the typical milestones, but something seemed a bit off and I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. At about 14 months, the pediatrician agreed to do some basic genetic tests to help alleviate my concerns. Everything came back “normal.”

In January 2006, Brookie got a high fever (106.7 without adding the degree). After giving Motrin and calling the pediatrician, I loaded my screaming daughter in the car and headed to the ER. At one point she stopped screaming and I was terrified that something was even more seriously wrong. We got to the ER and she was back to “normal” and her fever was down considerably. We were sent home.

Over the next few months, Brookie regressed. She could no longer sit, pull to stand, crawl, or babble. I tried, in vain, to get referrals to the neurologist. Finally, I took a video of my daughter in to the pediatrician for her to see the changes in my daughter. By March, we had an appointment with the neurologist. Several tests indicated that she could have had a very rare type of leukodystrophy, but mitochondrial disease was also a possibility. Several tests were done for specific types of leukodystrophy, but all came back negative. While we were waiting for the test results, I attended a conference on leukodystrophy. After speaking with one of the doctors there, he told me that he suspected it was a mitochondrial disease and urged me to have a skin and muscle biopsy done.

We got the results on November 8, 2006. Brooklyn and my son William (who just turned 10 on July 10, 2013) were both diagnosed with Mitochondrial Myopathy, Complex I. Thus, beginning my life with what will forever be the bane of my existence, mitochondrial disease.

There were many more tests, countless sleepless nights, hospital stays, seizures, illnesses, surgeries over the next several years. In January 2011, Brooklyn finally had the surgery that they wanted to do when she was a month old.  In May 2011, she developed a urinary tract infection. We discovered that she was now unable to tolerate one of the major antibiotics used to combat severe UTI’s. To use that antibiotic would send her into true anaphylactic shock. Mitochondrial disease took its toll on my daughter. On September 18, 2011, my little girl  passed away from complications of mitochondrial disease, urinary tract infection, and sepsis. She was 7 years old.

For more info please refer to www.umdf.org www.mitoaction.org or http://brookesway.homestead.com/