CANDLELIT CHRONICLES: HISTORIC HAUNTS

March 23_854 word count

March 23_





I completed Book Two of The Testament Logging Corporation Chronicles yesterday, and began Book Three today. Also yesterday the concept came to me for Book Four.


This morning I also found the concept (thankfully!) for the stage play I'm determined to write for April Script Frenzy


www.scriptfrenzy.org





I credit a “local” WDC author, who in 2007 suggested a sort of collaboration, in which I would bring one of my characters (a fictional historical figure) into the setting of one of his stories. A wonderful idea! Except that I quickly discovered the character to which he referred was not mine, but central figure in a historical -set short story on WDC which I had reviewed glowingly.


However, the idea seemed so promising that I quickly wrote a precis using a character of my own invention, set in 1750, on two topics near and dear to my imagination:

Slavery (both in the Caribbean and in North America)


and


Afro-Caribbean and African historical Spiritualities

So: yesterday morning I woke up knowing this precis would be mutated into a stage play, and actually, I think it might just work!





Today's free read, from Book One of The Testament Logging Corporation Chronicles (unedited version as yet),


The Phantom Logging Operation

Chapter 17

         The brown wooden door at the back of the narrow alcove, which I now noticed was just to the side and rear of a long shop counter, opened on to a very steep flight of stairs, with a narrow landing at the top marked only by a high key-shaped window. Presumably this window looked out over the back of the building, if I still had my directions correct. When I reached it, I found there was indeed a door to my right, which would place the attorney's office directly behind the front windows bearing his sign. Another door across the hall was unmarked, and I assumed it led to storage.





         I reached for the knob on the right-hand door, reading the sign which read “Benton Squires, Attorney-at-Law,” but before my fingers touched the knob, a deep voice indicated, “Come in.” I startled but proceeded, turning the knob and opening the door to a wide, spacious office carpeted in a dark green carpet-not plushy but still comfortable to cross. Diagonally across from the door perched a long partners' desk, angled perpendicular to the front windows and with the attorney's back to the side window. A rotund balding man in a shiny worn brown suit sat behind the desk, glancing at me as if my interests were of no particular importance. In fact, after his gaze barely touched me, he went back to turning over pages of a file with his left hand, smoothing his flabby jowls with the right.

“Excuse me, sir. I'm looking for-”





“You're looking for Benton Squires, I am he, and you are Rory Lewes.”

Chapter 18

         I realized I should have been surprised that he knew me-I couldn't say he “recognized” me-but after the events of yesterday it now took a great deal of shock to startle me. After all, once you have seen the dead driving-and the seriously dead- the charred- driving, beaming, and grinning-a mere Attorney calling out my name with recognition did not faze me. Not now. So instead I turned to him and nodded, unspeaking.





         

“And you are here about your parents' estates, are you not?”

          Parents, plural? Estates? News to me. If not for that county tax assessor notice this morning, the letter from the Testament Logging Corporation attorney at Madison Mills, and the packet of Mamma's papers, I wouldn't know there was anything “to know.”





         

“Take a seat, Mr. Lewes.” He waved toward the straight chair in front of the desk. I noticed then that his own chair was a nicely upholstered, nail-studded wood-a swivel. I had at one time been interested in cabinetry and furniture design-my Daddy had dabbled in that while working for Testament, before he went off to die in the European Theater. If he had returned from the War, I believe he would have taught me the art, and perhaps my future would have included woodworking in addition to, or in replacement of, mechanical employment.





                    I moved to the indicated chair and performed the suggested action, still without speaking, still without removing my gaze from his face. I waited in silence until he decided to speak. It was a rather lengthy wait; we must have remained in the tableau of still life for a good five minutes.








         

“Mr. Lewes. What do you know about Euphonia?”





“I know nothing-except that earlier this morning I received a county tax notice that I own a plot there. I have no concept of what, or where, is Euphonia. As far as I knew until an hour or two ago, I own only the plot on which I recently constructed my cabin, and which I plan to utilize for my business.”





“You refer, of course, to your rather extensive property on the Knox Road, five miles to the northeast of Knox.”