Williamsburg Hill - Published

It has been a while since my last book was published, so I've forgotten everything that has to happen post-publishing...a lot! At some point, it's worthy of a blog post. So is the writing, proofreading, editing, rewriting, submitting, publishing process, which will include the nitty gritty of submitting to literary agents (and it's not pretty). But this post is about the finished product.

My book, Williamsburg Hill, is now published and available for purchase in paperback and Kindle on Amazon (Williamsburg Hill). A little back cover blurb is included below. It's mainly historical fiction, but crosses a few genres. If you're interested in the backstory of how this book came to be, a recent blog post explains it (backstory). The beautiful Ridge Cemetery plays prominently. Thank you to all who have purchased it so far. It's appreciated. Also, it's part of the Kindle Unlimited promotion on Amazon, so for those of you participating in that, it's a free read. That might apply to Prime members, as well. At any rate, thank you, and please, please, please...reviews are so very appreciated.
And that Halloween post isn't going to happen. Apologies, but I've been a little busy.

About the story...

When history touches the present through an old ghost town, its cemetery, and an ancestral piece of furniture passed down through the ages, a story connecting two generations and eras unfolds.  

Chicago, 2015.  One year after her divorce, Chicago antique dealer Rose Beecham suddenly acquires a beautiful 19^th century dressing table at auction. Intending to resell it, something about the piece of furniture makes her hesitate. Tagged with the maker’s mark Dunaway Carpentry, Established 1840, Williamsburg Hill, Illinois underneath it, Rose finds a hidden compartment in one of the drawers revealing a garnet ring and an old daguerreotype of a young couple.  One other item remains hidden within the drawer, just out of reach. Instincts tell her that is the answer to the item’s provenance, and she must find a way to retrieve it. But someone else is looking for the heirloom and is determined to acquire it at any cost. With the help of Robert Moray, the Scottish man who has reentered Rose’s life, they piece together the mystery, leading her to discover ancestors that she never knew existed, and allowing a reconnection with her adoptive family.

Williamsburg Hill, Illinois, 1880.  Evelyn Williams travels to Williamsburg Hill from St. Louis to visit her aunt, and to escape a ghost from her past. She meets Frederic Dunaway, a man descended from Potawatomi heritage whose family built much of Williamsburg. Can he protect Evelyn from the person who is in search of her because of the valuable land she will inherit?  As outlaws close in, and the new railroad threatens the future of the town and stagecoach line, things aren’t as they appear to be. With danger looming, including murder, will Evelyn heed the ramblings of a grizzled old loner named Erastus who says the dead speak to him?

Stardust

This is the first time I've written a short story that potentially wraps up a book that's still in the outlining process.  In other words, I haven't started the manuscript yet, but I'm giving a bit of a back story at the end of it.  At this point, I don't have plans for the book to be titled Stardust, and I don't really know where it's going until I start writing it.  I just have an idea and I'm sharing part of it (but the protagonist will see Ava again).

Nat King Cole's version of Stardust (originally composed by Hoagy Carmichael, lyrics by Mitchell Parish) was the song I had in my head when writing this.  Thanks to all for reading, and as always, copyright applies (©Veronica Randolph Batterson).

Stardust

By Veronica Randolph Batterson

(©Veronica Randolph Batterson) 

“That’s yours,” he told the waitress as she brought his change to the table. 

“Thanks,” she smiled, trying to strike up the nerve for conversation.  “It’s just that me and the others, well, we’re certain we’ve seen ye somewhere before.”

“I’ve often been told I look like somebody,” he replied, shrugging. “Casualty of having a common face, I guess.”

“Aye, a casualty maybe, but your face isn’t common, I promise ye,” she winked and sashayed back to the counter, whispering to two other women who had been working that afternoon.  They glanced his way.

He thought they were around his daughter’s age, much too young to remember who he was, and he certainly didn’t look as he did three decades earlier at the height of when everyone knew his name.  He’d primarily stayed out of the public eye by choice since then and was photographed very little.  It would surprise him if they knew.

Then as if he needed reminding, the background music in the little café nudged him toward his purpose.  The song began, stirring memories.  He grabbed his keys, got his coffee to go and strode outside.

And now the purple dusk of twilight time

Steals across the meadows of my heart

High up in the sky the little stars climb

Always reminding me that we’re apart

         He walked the sidewalks of Pitlochry, glancing into stores, recalling how the town used to be, and delaying the inevitable.  He had been in Scotland a little over twenty-four hours, yet still hadn’t found the courage to see her.  The flight from L.A. had been tiresome and when he landed in Edinburgh, all he wanted to do was go to the hotel, catch up on his sleep and figure out what he’d say once he lost the fear of facing her.  Instead, he took the rental car and headed for the Highlands to clear his head and think.  The more he drove, the farther away he was from the woman he’d traveled over five thousand miles to see again.  One more day didn’t matter to the twenty-five years that had already passed.

His first stop the morning he arrived had been in Callander, just shy of the Trossachs where he had spent summers as a seasonal ranger in the park.  It had been a while, but driving the hills of his youth came back to him naturally, as did driving on the other side of the road.  His behind the wheel experience began at the age of fourteen when his dad suffered a broken leg, and no one else had been around to make the trek to the hospital.  He’d maneuvered the roads as well as could be expected and, for his efforts, had been rewarded a birthday present one month early.  A guitar.  He knew it had taken his father months of working and saving to afford it.  The instrument helped decide his career path; that decision led him to Ava.

You wander down the lane and far away

Leaving me a song that will not die

Love is now the stardust of yesterday

The music of the years gone by

Nat King Cole crooned the song over the radio the first time he saw her, and every time he heard it his thoughts returned to that time.  He’d found himself in Nashville in 1976, just as his career was getting started.  She was a pretty eighteen-year-old innocent with a transistor radio to her ear, leaning against a tree as it played.  She hummed and swayed to the music and instantly he’d felt a connection; a friendship took root that day and grew into something greater over time.  There was no attempt at impressing him; Ava treated him with genuine kindheartedness, just as she did everyone else.  It was needed in a business that was starting to suck the life out of him, even early on; he soaked up every bit of substance she exuded and that sustained him until demands of the road took him away.

It was nearly eight years later that they had their first date.  By that time, he was burned out with the music industry, had risen quickly, made the money, needed rehab and was ready to turn away from all of it.  Then Ava walked back into his life, a young woman with ghosts of her own, and their relationship took a different turn.  He fell in love. 

“Do you remember this?” he had asked her once, turning up the volume on the car radio as the Cole song suddenly played.

Sometimes I wonder why I spend

The lonely night dreaming of a song

The melody haunts my reverie

And I am once again with you

When our love was new

And each kiss an inspiration

But that was long ago

Now my consolation

Is in the stardust of a song

“Of course. It came on the radio when we first met. I was so nervous when I saw you, I’m surprised I remember anything though,” she’d replied.

“You nervous? You hid it well.”

“An act,” she’d laughed.

He remembered taking her hand then and what followed were the happiest eighteen months of his life.  They became inseparable.  When he had commitments that couldn’t be canceled, he made sure she was there with him.  The togetherness and relationship weren’t approved by everyone.  Their whirlwind romance was endured much to the chagrin of Ava’s aunt, along with his long-time agent, Sonny, who usually didn’t care what anyone did as long as a potential deal wasn’t axed as a result.  Both had expressed displeasure at them being a couple, often enough for him to suspect their hand in what ultimately happened.

The last day he ever saw Ava, she’d been excited to share some news with him.  He remembered how happy she seemed.  Before she could tell him, Sonny called to arrange a meeting, saying it was urgent and couldn’t wait.  Ava encouraged him to go and said they would talk that evening.  Three hours later she was gone.  It was as if she’d just disappeared.  The vanishing act caused him to panic and he called everyone they knew, including Sonny and her aunt Dorothy, asking if she had contacted them.

“Why, honey, I haven’t seen her.  You two have a lovers’ spat?” Dot’s voice had drawled, the southern accent accentuated a little too much.  He’d learned long ago that southern hospitality was genuine in some, but with Dorothy he had known to watch his back.  Her knives were sharp.  She was as tough as nails, and he didn’t believe her.  Sonny had been no help either, denying any knowledge of Ava’s whereabouts.

Hours turned into days; weeks followed, blending into months until a year had passed with no sign of her.  The police found no clues, ultimately deciding she had left him on her own free will, encouraging him to move on.  He never did.  He turned to the only ‘friends’ he trusted at that time, his old buddies he referred to as alcohol and drugs, once again finding solace in the vices that Ava had given him reason to leave.  An overdose and breakdown followed, and he spent two months in a detox facility getting clean and sober.  The day he walked out, he quit the business, fired Sonny, and became a recluse.  A marriage and divorce happened, but he never forgot the woman he loved.

Of all people, it had been his daughter who found her.  Dear sweet Haley and her tech-savvy boyfriend who, until that point, he’d always found a little annoying.  They broke the news to him a week ago with Haley giving him a hug and saying before she left, “Dad, there’s something else, but she owes you that explanation.  Go to her.”  He had no idea how Haley had known about Ava, yet she’d made the same mistake he had all those years ago with the assumption Ava meant something to an old friend of his.  Uncertain what had given his daughter that notion, his own belief at the time had been driven by stupidity and insecurity.  He had wasted too much time then, and he was doing so now.

Beside a garden wall

When stars are bright

You are in my arms

The nightingale tells his fairy tale

A paradise where roses bloom

He glanced at his watch; Edinburgh was about an hour and half away.  If he left now, he might just miss the worst of the traffic, have time to check in to his hotel and shower.  Beyond that, it was anyone’s guess with much depending on Ava. 

As he drove away, the sights of Pitlochry behind him, he started to have hope.  He’d told himself to expect nothing, but insist on answers and to walk away with assurances she was happy.  He made no promises to himself.

Though I dream in vain

In my heart it will remain

My stardust melody

The memory of love’s refrain

  

(©Veronica Randolph Batterson)  

  

Hang the Moon, Molly Byrd

I'd like to share a short story I finished in 2006 called Hang the Moon, Molly Byrd.  I tweaked it a little, shortened it a bit and now it is a flash fiction piece telling a basic story of two people.  It's written simply to relay the simplicity of the characters.

I have shared over a dozen original short stories on this blog and all can be found in a listing to the right of the posts.  I'll continue to share more. Thank you for reading my work and I hope you enjoy this story.  As usual, copyright (©Veronica Randolph Batterson) applies.

Hang the Moon, Molly Byrd

By Veronica Randolph Batterson

(©Veronica Randolph Batterson)

They say she talks to angels.  She says they answer her.  Most say she’s just crazy, but he thinks she “hung the moon” and he told her once.

He was proud when he did it and euphoric.  It made him feel good and he wondered if people who got high on drugs had the same experience.  Not the drugs he had to take but the ones people used to change their moods.  He possessed no sense anyway, but telling her how he felt made him dopey and silly.  He couldn’t focus on anything and he knew he wore a ridiculous smile on his face for the rest of the day.  Others thought him simple but it was what she thought about him that mattered.  And she told him.

“I think you make the sun rise, Harold Brown,” she said.

It was to the point and direct, but she smiled when she said it.  And Molly Byrd never said anything she didn’t mean.  He couldn’t remember his immediate reaction but it must have been good.  He knew it because she asked if she could push his wheelchair.  He had said yes and he never let anyone do that for him.

They became inseparable then.  Wherever Molly Byrd went, Harold Brown was nearby, observing from his chair and admiring with all his being.      

 

On clear nights, when the stars and moon hung brightly, Molly Byrd wandered the streets, face affixed toward the heavens, oblivious to her surroundings. Harold Brown watched out for her. It was during this time that Molly Byrd would have her celestial discussions, with the angels relaying their messages to her.  So she said and he believed her. 

One particular night, a shooting star sent Molly running.  It took everything Harold could muster to keep up with her.  He found her standing on a rock by a lake, her face upturned and her body still.  Her silhouette reminded him of a statue, proud and strong.  The sight made his heart catch in his chest.  He wondered what messages were being exchanged as he watched.

When Molly Byrd finally slumped from exhaustion, the stellar conversation over, he thought she might fall right off the rock.  He got as close as his chair would allow, which wasn’t near enough to grab her as she slid.  She collapsed on the dew-covered grass; her face hung limp upon her shoulders.

When she finally gazed up at him, her eyes were drooping and confusion marked her face.  She looked right through him.

“Harold Brown, what are you doing here?” she asked.

The question hurt him.  Didn’t she remember they went everywhere together?  He looked up at the sky as if he’d find the answer there.  She lit up his life just as those stars illuminated the darkness.  Molly Byrd was his guiding light.

Things changed after that night.  Molly became more distracted than usual, often venturing off without Harold and forgetting him altogether.  He tried not to be disappointed but despondency began to stifle him.  He no longer wished to face the day each morning.  Eating took effort and he lost weight and forgot to take his medications.  Harold Brown hadn’t the energy or will for life.  Others noticed.

They gave him words of encouragement, helped him dress and took him on outings.  His new friends fed him and read to him, nursing him to better health.  The will to live grew stronger; he began to care again. 

When he was able, Harold ventured out alone, as he had before sadness took control of him.  It had been weeks since he’d seen Molly.  He remembered it clearly, as if only hours before.  He forced thoughts of her from his mind as he watched children playing tag in the park, the parents mindful of their whereabouts.

“Where’ve you been, Harold Brown?” came the question from behind him.

He felt a grin begin to form and it spread so wide that he thought it might split his face in half.  Everything appeared brighter, as if a light bulb had suddenly been turned on in a darkened room.  He wheeled himself around to face her.

“Where I’ve always been, Molly Byrd,” he replied.

She stood before him, looking the same as always.  A red balloon reached for the sky beside her, its freedom hindered by the string she held in her hand.  He suddenly felt like the balloon, bridled and controlled by Molly Byrd.  It confused him.  She tied the string to the arm of his chair.

“I thought you might like this,” she said.

Harold watched the balloon dance in the wind, fighting against constraint.  His voice cracked as he asked the questions he needed to ask.

“Why did you leave me, Molly Byrd?”

“The angels said to,” she responded.

“Will you leave again?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she shrugged.

It wasn’t what he wanted to hear but Harold Brown was glad he asked.  And Molly was just being honest.  She never said anything she didn’t mean.  When the night sky was clear and it looked like the flickering stars were ropes of light hanging the moon in the darkness, he knew where she would be.  She described those words to him and he saw it.  And he believed her.

Harold untied the string and let the balloon soar above him.  They watched the red orb grow smaller as it floated higher, finally out of sight.

“Goodbye, Molly Byrd,” he said.

Then Harold Brown turned his chair and wheeled himself away.  He felt himself floating higher, just like the red balloon, but in control.  Away from Molly Byrd.

 ©Veronica Randolph Batterson

  

O Mio Babbino Caro

For my latest blog post, I'm sharing a short story that I recently completed.  The title is "O Mio Babbino Caro" and it is a story of lost love, aging and dying and the significance of a Puccini aria (which is also the title of the short story) to the couple in the story.  As usual, I'm appreciative of all who read my blog. Thank you and, as always, copyright applies (©Veronica Randolph Batterson).

O Mio Babbino Caro

By Veronica Randolph Batterson

The old man blinked.  His vision was cloudy but he knew someone was standing in front of him.  He could barely make out a shape, but he sensed it was a woman.  The scent told him so.  He’d long since lost his vision and the ability to taste much of anything, but his sense of smell was as sharp as ever.  And the smell was perfume.  It was a fragrance that took him back to a time he was recalling more often lately.

She was saying something to him.  He was trying to listen but it was difficult to hear.  He’d lost that, too.  The hearing aids no longer helped much so he’d stopped using them.  He tried to concentrate, straining his ears but he couldn’t make out the words.  The woman’s voice continued causing him to wonder if the person standing in front of him was even saying anything.  Damn it, was he losing his mind, too? 

Then he heard the music.  The sounds from the violin were clear and sweet and took him back just as the fragrance did.  She was smiling at him, and he could now see her face.  The brown eyes were soft as they gazed back at him, and she began to hum along to the music.  It was more than familiar to him.  It had been their song.  The beautiful aria from that silly Puccini opera had mirrored their lives.  At least he had thought so.

“O Mio Babbino Caro, mi piace, è bello, bello.”

She would always translate for him, singing the Italian lyrics, then translating the meaning to English. She’d done it so many times that he remembered, even after all this time, the meaning.  “Oh my beloved father, I love him, I love him!”

He smiled as he remembered.  Oh, Sophia, he thought as he closed his eyes.  The longing and sadness for something that never was threatened to envelope his heart as strongly as it did decades ago.  He had loved a woman he couldn’t have.  She loved him in return.  Parental interference doomed their fate, sealing their separate lives.  Emptiness followed.

He had been a young, American art student studying in Rome when he met Sophia and her family.  Her father had hated him instantly.  It was Easter and a long holiday weekend loomed for him, as his friends were spending a few days in Greece.  He hadn’t the money to travel, so he stayed behind.  His apartment felt empty with everyone gone, so he’d wandered out for the evening and found himself amongst tourists, sitting at an outdoor café in Piazza Navona. 

Crowds moved in and out of the nearby Pantheon, with most stopping to pose for the obligatory photo in front of the historic structure.  Children played tag and parents bustled them closer.  The atmosphere was light and laughter rang through the twilight, enhancing the charm of the evening.

“Scusi,” a female voice interrupted his trance.

She stood before him smiling, the young woman he’d noticed in one of his classes.  The one with the soft brown eyes and smile that could light the night.  He recovered his wits and stood.

“You are the Americano, sì? The one in my class?” she asked.

“Yes,” he replied.

“May I join you?” came her voice.

He nodded and blurted, “I’m happy you speak English. My Italian is almost non-existent.”  That made her laugh, he remembered, and gave him confidence.  They sat together and shared some wine, talked of life and who they were, what they thought of the world and their hopes for the future.  Time passed quickly and a shadow suddenly appeared, even though the sun had long said goodnight.

“Sophia,” the masculine voice bellowed, “Vorremmo andare a casa.”

Behind the voice stood a stern faced man and next to him was his wife.  Sophia’s parents.  The tone and look of the man were enough to make Sophia rise without question.  “I must go,” she whispered, slipping a piece of paper discreetly across the table to him.

“Ciao,” she said more loudly, turning to leave, and added, “Buona Pasqua!”

Happy Easter, he understood, as she walked away with the couple.  He watched until they were no longer distinguishable, blending into the mass of people enjoying the night.  Glancing down, he opened the note.

“Tomorrow, noon, Trevi Fountain,” she’d scribbled on the paper.

That time couldn’t get there soon enough, he thought, remembering how he got to the location an hour early.  The beautiful fountain was swarming with tourists, many tossing a coin over their shoulders into the water in hopes of returning to Rome one day.  A ritual for all who visited the fountain and something he had yet to do.  Perhaps he’d have a reason to do so, afterall.

She greeted him with a smile, touching his arm as he turned toward her.  Sophia was wearing large-framed sunglasses with dark lenses. The sunlight, reflecting on the water in the fountain, danced across her face and highlighted the caramel and chestnut colors in her dark hair.  An awkward silence was brief, as a child squealed with delight at a bird that fluttered too close.  They laughed in response and their nervousness vanished, allowing a comfortable ease to settle between them.

That spring went by quickly, he remembered.  They spent most of their free time together, meeting after classes, taking walks along the River Tiber, spending Sunday afternoons lounging in the Villa Borghese gardens and eating gelato.  He’d found time for them to be alone together in his apartment, too.  Her kisses made him dizzy and the sweet perfume she wore would always make him remember.  They would lie together on his bed with the window open and that was when he’d first heard the aria. It was as if the wind carried the tune up to them, drifting in the breeze and fluttering past the curtains for their ears only. 

“O Mio Babbino Caro, mi piace, è bello, bello.  Vo’andare in Porta Rosa a comperar l’anello!”

Sophia sang along, her voice close to his ear as he held her.  He didn’t care what the words meant.  It was her voice and her presence that held him intoxicated, like a drug that had taken over his body.  He had no control and he didn’t care because it was relaxing and comforting, erasing all thoughts from his mind. 

“Aren’t you curious?” her English broke through his trance.

“Tell me,” he replied.

“Lauretta loves Rinuccio, but there’s trouble between their families that threatens them being together,” she explained.

“Sort of like us?” he asked.

“She sings this to her father,” Sophia continued, ignoring him.  “She wishes to die if she can’t be with Rinuccio.”

“Why doesn’t your father like me?” he persisted.

“He’s set in the old ways.  He wishes me to marry Giancarlo,” she said.

Giancarlo.  His rival.  The tall, muscular young Italian, with model good looks and a chiseled face.  The one who had his eyes on every female he passed, yet seemed to look straight through Sophia with impatience and disinterest.  Why would a father want that for his daughter?  He knew there would be no happiness for Sophia in a marriage such as that one.

“Sì, sì, ci voglio andare! E se l’amassi indarno, andrei sul Ponte Vecchio, ma per buttarmi in Arno!”

She continued to sing in his ear but his mood had changed.  His future didn’t include Sophia, as he knew she wouldn’t defy her father. The aria didn’t exactly tell their story but he felt the pleas to a father to understand how a daughter loved were about him.

On the day Sophia married Giancarlo, he left Rome, never to return.  It was a good thing he hadn’t tossed a coin into the beautiful Trevi Fountain, he remembered.  He had no desire to ever go back.

Searing pain ripped through his chest, his attention on the present yet he still sensed the woman nearby.  He seemed to be in a hospital room, reclining on a bed with shadows standing around him.  The pain was unbearable.  He faintly heard the steady beeping of a machine somewhere.  Was that his heart beating?  Was he dying?  The shadows shuffled, merging together then parting into several forms.  It was getting harder to breathe, but he felt light for some reason and the pain started to recede.

Then the beeps were replaced by the music.  The lovely aria played through his head while his surroundings turned white, the shadows disappearing.  He saw her clearly as she stepped forward, her eyes just as bright as he’d remembered.  She took his hand and he walked with her.  He had no pain and he felt the youth of sixty years ago with the woman he loved walking beside him.

O Mio Babbino Caro, no more.

©Veronica Randolph Batterson