Finding Joy - Seak Peek

Good morning Friday Fiction Fans,

I don't know about you, but I'm enjoying some cold winter weather with a little bit of snow on the ground. :) Not enough to do anything but look pretty, but it's here.

I'm actually getting this ready to post on Thursday afternoon because on Friday morning my sister and I will be heading over to my brother's house early, like before 7 AM early, to babysit all the kids except Nephew #4. They are taking him to a hospital a few hours away to see about his arm. Poor guy. He injured it back in October but after an x-ray were told it wasn't broken. It turns out, it is. And it's not healed yet. So . . . Please pray for him. He's almost 4. We'll be there until they get home. And no one knows when that will be.

I've had a lovely time actually getting to write this week! I'm so enjoying jumping back into this story. I have a feeling it's going to be longer than 60k words. You don't mind, do you? I didn't think so. Actually I have no idea how long this story is going to turn out. But I'm pretty sure I'm on the downhill side. Now, since I wasn't sure what to post today and didn't have time to go find one of my old stories to re-post, I decided to take the advise of a reader and drive you all crazy. Ready? I'm going to pull a section from my book "Finding Joy" and let you all tell me what you think.

Finding Joy

a snippet

    A little while later, as the family sat around on the tarp and had their breakfast of granola bars and slightly warm juice, Mr. and Mrs. Martin discussed where to start on the enormous task of cleaning. In the light of the morning sun, the place looked worse than the night before, and Paige was overwhelmed.
    “There are a few things that need done right away,” Zach remarked. “The bathroom needs cleaned and the kitchen should be scrubbed.”
    “But the kitchen is so big!” Paige looked around in dismay.
    “That’s why we’re going to start by cleaning the places where the fridge and the stove go. If we can get places for them, we’ll be able to enjoy cooked meals instead of just peanut butter sandwiches.”
    “I like peanut butter sandwiches,” Gina put in.
    “Would you like them breakfast, lunch, and dinner?”
    After thinking about it a moment, Gina slowly shook her head. “No. Let’s get the fridge and stove.”
    “I’m glad we brought cleaning supplies,” Paige remarked. “But I don’t think we have enough.”
    “Once we get the place for the kitchen appliances ready, I’ll go into town and pick them up, and I’ll buy more of whatever else we need at the same time.”
    Paige was about to speak, but a sudden harsh ringing shattered the stillness and made everyone jump.
    Gina’s eyes were as wide as saucers. “What’s that?” she gasped into a moment of quiet.
    The ring came again and Zach sprang up. “A telephone! I’ll buy ice cream for the person who finds it and answers it before they hang up.”
    Instantly Paige and Gina were on their feet. All three of them converged on a small hallway that led from the kitchen to the dining room. They hadn’t really noticed it before. There, hanging on the wall, was an old phone. Almost breathless, Zach picked up the receiver and said, “Hello?”
    Gina pressed close to her mom as they stood and listened to the one sided conversation.
    “Yes, it is. . . . We did. Thank you. . . . We were just talking about that. . . . Well, I was hoping to get places cleaned for them today and . . . I see. That would be very kind. I can’t pay but . . .” Zach smiled and gave a little chuckle. “Sure . . . I won’t turn down that kind of offer. And I’m sure my wife would appreciate it too.”
    Gina tugged at his arm. “Ask about a cat,” she whispered.
    “Um, my daughter wants to know if we can rent a cat for a few weeks. . . . Yeah, I’m talking feline here. She thought it would be a good way to get rid of the mice in the house. . . . No.”
    There was a longer pause this time, and Gina shifted from one foot to the other impatiently.
    “Yep. Thank you. We’ll see you later then. . . . Uh huh. Good bye.”
    As Zach replaced the receiver, making some remark about the phone being one with a cord, his wife and daughter, impatient to know who was on the phone, interrupted.
    “Who was that and what did they want?” Paige demanded. “Isn’t it awfully early to be calling strangers at this time of morning?”
    “Did they have a cat, Daddy?” questioned Gina. “Can we rent one?”
    Laughing, Zach held up his hands in surrender. “Hold it! I’ll confess everything if you’ll let me out of this narrow tunnel”
    “That’s what we can call this hall, Mom! We’ll call it the tunnel!” chortled Gina in glee. “Then we’ll have a hallway and a tunnel.”
    “Did you want to hear about that phone call?” Zach pretended to growl.
    Giving a skip, Gina landed on the tarp and sat down on her rolled up sleeping bag. “Yep.” And lifting her dark eyes, she stared right at her father until he laughed.
    “That was Mr. Davis. He’s the man that was mowing the fields here last year after his dad passed away. He’s letting us use one of his empty storage units in town for our furniture. Anyway, he was calling to see if we wanted him to bring out the stove and fridge. And his wife wanted to bring supper for us tonight, but it would have to go in the fridge and then be put in the oven later.”
    “So we have to get them today,” Paige said.
    “The cat, Daddy. Did they have a cat?”
    “He said he’d see what he could come up with.”
    “A cat?” Paige looked from her husband to her daughter in disbelief.
    Turning to her mom, Gina made haste to explain her idea of renting a cat just for a few days to get rid of the mice. “Wouldn’t you rather have one cat in the house for a few days than many mice for a long time?” she asked anxiously. She knew her mom disliked cats greatly.
    “I suppose so. But,” and Paige put up her hands as though to stop a flow of words, “can we please not talk about either one right now? We need to get to work.”
    “Right.” Zach gave a decided nod. “Can you pack up the food, Hon? Gina and I’ll take the sleeping bags and pillows back to the truck. They’ll stay cleaner that way,” he added seeing his wife’s puzzled expression. “We’ll take the tarp out too. I think it’ll be easier to work without trying to keep it clean.”

    Before long the Martin family were all at work. Gina had helped her dad open as many windows as they could so that the breeze would freshen the house. A few of the windows seemed stuck and these they didn’t spend time messing with. “We’ll work on them later,” Zach said.
    The water in the kitchen sink was clear and Paige filled a bucket with hot soapy water. They decided to all work in the kitchen, so that maybe the fridge and stove could be put in place when Mr. Davis brought them over. Cobwebs were swept from the ceiling, and then the floor was thoroughly swept. “I know it’ll just get dirty again,” Paige confessed, with an apologetic look on her face, when Zach raised an eyebrow, “but I just can’t stand to walk on such a dirty floor any longer!”
    “Go right ahead, Hon.” Zach gave her a quick kiss and handed Gina a rag. “Okay, Sunny Girl, let’s get at these walls.”

So, what did you think?

Do you think you'll enjoy more about the Martins?

You can see my small Pinterest board here.

Through the Tunnel - Part 2

Hello FFFs,
Yes, I'm back and bringing you the next part of "Through the Tunnel." Don't blame me for where it ends. I just pulled out the next thousand words for you today. :P
And now there is good and bad news. The bad news is: You won't be getting any more parts of this book here on my blog. (Unless I decide to do a page with the first chapter like I have for most of my other novels.) The good news is: I ordered my proof copy this morning! Now that doesn't mean the book will be published by next week. It still has to go through the final round of edits and have the corrections made before I can upload the final copy. But it's coming along. :) I spent nearly all afternoon yesterday finishing the layout, uploading that, and then getting the cover completed and uploaded.

On another note, I do have a Thanksgiving story written. That will be starting next week. I have hopes of writing a Christmas story or two, but right now I have no ideas for any. Perhaps that's because I've been too focused on "Through the Tunnel."

Now I'm wondering, how many of you just skipped the top part of this post and went directly to the story first. Anyone? :)

Through the Tunnel

Part 2

    Raising his eyebrows slightly, Leigh stole a quick glance behind them before pulling his gloved hand from his pocket. Sometimes his sister had the strangest ideas, and he wasn’t sure where she got them. He didn’t mind holding hands with her, if no one was watching, but they were fourteen and it wasn’t exactly the thing to do when others were around.
    Lissa didn’t seem to notice her brother’s hesitation, but seized his hand and straightened her shoulders. “Are you ready?” she breathed.
    Leigh nodded, and in perfect silence, except for their footsteps, the twins entered the small arch in the stone bridge. The snow wasn’t as deep and the very center had only a thin dusting where snow had been blown in. The hand holding his own trembled as they neared the snowy world beyond the bridge, and Leigh squeezed it.
    Feeling the pressure, Lissa tightened her grip, and a tingling feeling of excitement and anticipation raced up her spine and then shot to the very tips of her fingers and toes. They were almost there; almost to the end of the tunnel and into their new world, their new life. In spite of the fact that the rational part of her mind was telling her that it was all her imagination, and the world they were about to enter was the same snowy one they had left on the other side of the bridge, Lissa refused to listen to anything rational.
    Stepping out into the white wonderland, Lissa and Leigh gazed about them a moment before their eyes met.
    Lissa nodded. “We are here. This, Leigh, is a new world.” She made a gesture with her hand. “See, there are no footprints. Everything is fresh and new.” Her eyes left her brother’s face and swept over the landscape once more until her gaze locked on the towering pine tree that was missing its top. Somehow, she wasn’t quite sure how, she felt that she was that tree,  stunted and suppressed. “I won’t stay that way,” she said half aloud.
    “What? You won’t stay what way?” Leigh asked.
    Tearing her eyes away from the tree, Lissa shook her head. “Nothing.” There were some things hard to talk about, even to her twin. As she put her hand in her pocket, she felt the orange Leigh had given her. Now was the perfect time to eat it. “Here,” she said, pulling it out. “Let’s eat the first food in our new world.”
    She took one glove off and tried to dig her nail into the thick skin, but she couldn’t get it started.
    “Let me try.” Taking the fruit, Leigh pulled a small pocket knife from his coat pocket and soon had the skin off and the orange divided into two parts. “Here.”
    Lissa took one half but said, “You eat the other half.”
    “No. I had lunch. You eat it,” and he set the second half on top of the first.
    For a moment Lissa hesitated. She was hungry, yet her desire to continue to pretend was stronger still. “We must both eat if we want our new life in this world to be better than the last.” She held a half out, pleading with her eyes for her twin to take it.
    “I’ll eat one piece,” Leigh agreed, peeling a small wedge from the juicy orange. “You have to eat the rest of it.”
    Lissa knew from his tones that he wouldn’t budge from his statement. Most of the time she liked the feeling of being taken care of by her brother, but sometimes she wished he wasn’t quite so protective. Giving in, Lissa nodded. “Let’s walk while I eat,” she suggested, popping a piece of orange into her mouth and savoring its sweet flavor.
    Neither twin said a word as they slowly strolled forward along the snowy path in companionable silence. Each was lost in their own thoughts. Finally, after Lissa had finished her orange, pulled her glove back on, and stuck her hand in her pocket, Leigh asked, “Why did you leave the cabin?”
    “To get away from everything. I was tired of the constant complaining, arguing, and shouting. There hasn’t been a moment of silence since we arrived. Even at night there are snores, or loud voices from those who don’t go to bed. I just couldn’t stand it any more.”
    “Yeah, it’s pretty bad. I’ll be glad to get back to school.”
    “Leigh,” Lissa looked up at her brother, “do you think we could ask Mrs. Harrel if she has a different home for us?”
    For a moment Leigh was silent. “I don’t know. We might end up in a worse place. The Grose family aren’t too bad back home, are they?”
    “N-o-o-o, I guess not.” Lissa had never liked living with the Groses. It wasn’t that they were mean to her, but no one really got along, the children, all middle school and younger in age, treated her like their personal slave, and when she didn’t comply with their demands soon enough, they would cry and carry on until Mr. or Mrs. Grose scolded her for causing such a fuss.
    With Leigh it was different. He was gone much of the time to one sports practice or event or another and when he was home, he wasn’t at the beck and call of the younger ones.
    “Perhaps I should have joined a sports team,” she muttered.
    “You? Ha!” Leigh chuckled. “You know you hate playing sports.”
    Lissa knew that well. She had been made to join a sports team when they lived with another foster family, and she had been miserable.
    A few flakes of snow began to drift down from the white sky. Tilting her head back, Lissa squinted up and tried to catch one on her tongue.
    “Lissa, perhaps we should be heading back now.”
    Slowly Lissa readjusted her scarf, glanced back the way they had come, and shook her head. A sudden fit of independence or recklessness had come over her, and she folded her arms. “I’m not going back yet. They’ll only scold us for going out anyway and, if that’s the case, we might as well take our time.”
    Leigh’s eyes widened. He’d never heard his usually compliant and eager-to-please sister talk in this fashion. “Lissa, what’s gotten into you?” he asked. “Do you just want to make Mrs. Grose worry? Come on,” he placed a hand on her arm. “The snow is coming down a little harder. We don’t want to be caught out here in a storm.”

Are you ready to buy the book?

Do you wish it was out now?

Will you be back to read the Thanksgiving story?

Through the Tunnel - Part 1

Good morning Faithful Friday Fiction Fans,
I imagine many of you are just here to read the first part of my new book. :) That's okay. I don't mind, really. I'm just glad the cover was appealing. Since it was the first "real" book cover I've done, I wasn't sure if it would catch attention. I'm happy to know it does.
Creating that cover was quite an experience for me, but it was really fun. I had to learn how to crop someone out so that it didn't look strange and to change the color of the eyes. :) I still have to finish the back of the book once I get the interior layout finalized. (And I can't do that until I have the rest of my snowflakes.)

Anyway, it's been a crazy week. My brother and sis-in-law signed a contract on a rental house last Saturday and my mom, sis and I spend two afternoons over there cleaning it. Today we'll probably be watching at least some of the kids while the others work on starting to move. Tomorrow is the big moving day. Everyone is eager to get into their new house. :)

Okay, I'll cut this short and let you get on with the story. :)

Through the Tunnel

Part 1

    It was all so quiet and still. Lissa drew in a long breath of the cold winter air and relaxed. The beauty of nature surrounded her. The awe inspiring slope of the rugged mountain in front, almost hidden behind clouds, seemed nearly close enough to walk to. Below the clouds, wearing their winter coats of snow, stood the towering pines and smaller, shorter deciduous trees. One tree in particular caught Lissa’s attention. It was a pine, tall and straight like the others, and holding heavy loads of wet snow, but its top was missing. There it stood, as grand as the others, yet it wore a scar which no other tree nearby bore.
    “Probably snapped off in some storm,” Lissa mused, gazing at the tree for some minutes before dropping her eyes to the stone bridge below it.
    The bridge, when one first glanced at it, appeared to be just another stone bridge spanning an icy river, but a second look showed three arches; the larger and most noticeable one was across the water, while smaller ones on either side, not as obvious, formed tunnels over the walking paths. Piled up on the walls of the bridge were layers of snow, mounded and white. Lissa smiled as she noticed that something or someone had knocked the snow off in a few places, and she wondered who had done it. Had it been knocked into the river, or had someone picked it up to eat? Shrugging, her gaze shifted.
    The soft, almost musical melody of the river drifting its slow way between banks of snow was the only sound to be heard, and Lissa’s head, still pounding with the almost constant noise, clatter, and raised voices of a cabin full of people, felt relief, and the throbbing subsided to a dull ache. Along the bank before her, she could see ice had formed along the water’s edge. Rocks, each wearing a cap like the top of a cupcake piled with sugar crystals, dotted the bank and even stuck up through the ice of the river itself, as though the sugar piles were sitting on a silvery tray just waiting to be served.
    A rumble sounded in the still air and Lissa glanced around before realizing the sound had been her stomach. “Those rocks are making me hungry,” she giggled to herself. Reaching down, she scooped up a handful of the pure, mountain snow and took a bite. With a sigh, she closed her eyes, reveling in the sensation of the powdery crystals melting into ice cold water in her mouth.
    With a glance back the way she had come, Lissa hesitated, then, lifting her chin just a little, she resolutely continued on toward that alluring bridge before her. She knew she wasn’t yet ready to face the turmoil of the cabin again, and she didn’t think anyone would even miss her until supper time. Leigh might realize I am gone. The thought of her twin brother made her look back once more. Perhaps she should have told him she was going out. He might have liked to come along.
    But then someone else would have heard, and before I could say anything, they’d either all be coming out and disturbing the quietness or someone would have forbidden me to go out. A slight frown came over her young face. For the seven hundredth time she wondered what life would have been like had she and Leigh not lost their parents when they were two. Bouncing around from one foster family to another for twelve years had been very difficult.
    Tears welled up in her eyes, but she blinked them back and continued trudging through the snow toward that tunnel under the bridge.
    “Lis–sa!”
    The call rang out loud and clear in the stillness of the snowy mountains. Lissa recognized her brother’s voice at once and paused, sighing inwardly. She wasn’t ready to go back and face a lecture from Mrs. Grose nor the constant commotion of the cabins. Life had been better before the Grose family had decided to have a family reunion in the mountains. Now seven adults, five teenagers, and half a dozen noisy, crazy kids were sharing two cabins for a long three day weekend. Why couldn’t she and Leigh have been allowed to remain behind? After all, they weren’t a part of the Grose family. Not really.
    The soft squeak of snow-boots stepping through the blanket of cold whiteness came closer. “There you are. Why didn’t you tell me you were leaving?”
    Lissa looked up at her brother. Though they were twins, Leigh was nearly three inches taller than she was and had the build of an athlete. “I would have,” she said, “but you were talking with Tony, and I was afraid of letting anyone else know I was going out.”
    “You missed lunch.” It was all Leigh said as he shoved his hands in his pockets and started slowly forward.
    “Didn’t anyone miss me? Except you, I mean.”
    “Nope. At least no one said anything. Here, I brought you an orange.” Leigh pulled out a golden ball and handed it to his sister.
    “Thanks.” Taking the fruit, Lissa slipped it into her pocket. She would eat it a little later.
    “Where are you going?”
    “I don’t know. To the bridge first. I want to see the tunnel.”
    The quiet of the winter afternoon was only broken by the soft sound of the twins’ footsteps in the snow as they neared the old stone bridge. Suddenly grabbing Leigh’s arm, Lissa whispered, “This is a tunnel to a new world. The entrance lies before us, and beyond–anything is possible. But we must enter holding hands and not speak a word from the moment we step foot inside this special passageway until we are out on the other side.”
    Raising his eyebrows slightly, Leigh stole a quick glance behind them before pulling his gloved hand from his pocket. Sometimes his sister had the strangest ideas, and he wasn’t sure where she got them.

So, what did you think?

You want a little more next week?

How did I guess?