How the Stories Came to be

 I was 18 years old when I wrote my first novel-"Come Love Someone Like Me."

After I finished writing, I put the manuscript in a shoe box under my bed and no matter where I moved, the box with my novel stayed under my bed.

At the age of 24, in 1984, I would write my second novel. Like the first, I typed it up on an old royal manual type writer and placed it in the box under my bed. This novel was named - A Return of Innocence. Little did I know that the novel would parallel my future more than 30 years later.

In 1989, I talked to my Grandmother - Grandma Jessie Gerrell, and I told her of the stories under my bed in a box and how one was written of where she grew up on the Pin Hook Road down on the St. Marks River. Grandma asked to read the story and I explained it was a little risque. She didn't care - so I brought the box to her on a Friday afternoon thinking she'd tell me she hated the story on Sunday in church.

Sunday came and Grandma wasn't in church. Terrified that she hated the story, I dreaded facing her. But at 4pm, I drove over to her house and asked her why she wasn't in church. She said that was my fault. She'd stayed up all night reading and editing my story. She LOVED it and even made notes on how to improve the story.

Yes, I sent it off to a publisher and got a letter months later advising that I make the story more risque, that it would sell better. I didn't re-write the story, I put it in a box back up under my bed.

Until 1993 there the stories stayed. I'd added to them - No Sound the Silence Makes and Beyond a Certain Surrender.

one morning I woke up and found my oldest daughter and several of her friends reading Come Love Someone Like Me.

All over the floor were the papers of my manuscript and three teenage girls reading every word I wrote. I was shocked as they begged to keep reading. But the stories went back into the box and back up under the bed with my intent for them to stay.

 

But - I kept writing and more stories entered the box. I divorced in the 90s and in 2000 I re-married. My husband found the box and read "A Return of Innocence." He immediately put a copy right on the stories and encouraged my 'hobby.' 

 

But life goes on and I had a little girl named Amy and a full life as a Military wife. The stories lay in the box under the bed largely forgotten. Until...

 

Amy got sick. My little girl became very ill and I knew it was bad. My mother had gotten sick and died with similar symptoms. I was terrified for my child and on a journey for a diagnosis and treatment - neither were found, the diagnosis found after her death on autopsy and later in my muscle biopsy.

 

To escape the 'horror' my child was facing - the endless seizures and pain, I sat near her and typed on my laptop story after story - only instead of putting them in the box under the bed, I used Amazon Kindle and published them, the money they earn I donated and still donate to the National Ataxic Foundation into research for Spinocerebellar Ataxia. 

 

What started out at the age of 18 in 1978 as a healing process of my childhood and of my Grandmother's home - became stories based loosely on my family and the trials and triumphs we endured for generations. 

And every word I wrote helped me escape the harsh reality of my life as I lost my little girl to this life and know she waits for me in Heaven.

And me - after Amy died I was diagnosed - thanks to Amy's autopsy I had an MRI and later the biopsy to confirm. I don't write any longer - the dementia is taking me away - hence why I write this while I still can. My fingers don't work, dystonic posturing - so I talk to type and my words aren't always clear so please, forgive mistakes.

I just wanted to share how I came to write all of these stories. From the age of 18 to the age of 58 - over the course of 40 years all hidden in a box kept under my bed through all the moves and changes in my life only found by some young girls and one read before they were copy written in 2000 and later on as I wrote them.

Almost all of my novels have a ballad which tells the synopsis of the story - you can find my novels on Amazon  Kindle App for $1 dollar with all money earned donated to research into Spinocerebellar Ataxia. 

Here's the ballad of the novel-"Breathe A Gentle Whisper."

 Breathe a cruel whisper, softly for all to hear,

So says the secret whisper, as it brings about hurt and tears.

Within the ugly whisper, there is no truth to be found,

To embrace this terrible whisper, is to be robbed of all sound.

 Of evil the whispered words are said, mean and with spite, the gossip is spread.

The words all wrong, without any right, the truth hidden deep and out of sight.

So warns the gentle whisper, of the lies that are told,

Do not believe all you hear, for lies are harsh and cold.

His desire for her, his burning love, his longing need,

For her to embrace the secret whispers, will cause his heart to bleed.

So warns the gentle whisper, softly for only her to hear,

Do not trust the gossip, of him you must not fear.

Beneath the secret whispers, buried deep in the lies,

The truth can be found, by looking in your true loves eyes.

With love and honor and faithful  prayers,

The gossip will die; and the truth will be theirs….

Thank you for taking the time to read how my stories came to be. We couldn't save Amy's life from this killer disease, nor my mom's life, nor my own. BUT we can donate to research and hope that soon, someday, medical science will catch up to this killer disease and no parent will suffer the loss that we have. For Amy - Forever Amy

I used Amy's photo on 4 of my novels

 Sample Read:

South of Ft. Meade, Florida on the Peace River

January 1^st 1916

 She lay on her side in the dirt. A light sprinkling rain was falling down upon her. She pushed herself up onto one elbow looking all around and within an instant he was all that she could see. “Cole,” she gasped his name on a single breath, a breath that held the sound of horror, the sound of fear.

“Please, tell me that you don’t have feeling for this man.” She turned her face away from the face of her lover and she met the eyes of a man that she could hate. “You didn’t think I would find you? You’re my wife, Mignon. I would move this earth to have you.  With your value, I’d go into hell to find you.” She saw the man that she could hate look up and away from where she lay in the dirt as he turned in his saddle to look all around where they were before he turned his eyes back onto her face. “Oh wait, maybe this place is hell.”

She heard the sarcastic tone of his voice. She felt as though his words were a slap in her face. This place where she’d run to, this place far away from him – her husband,  the very dirt that she was laying in was heaven on earth. No hell here. She looked away from the man that she could hate with the reality that she didn’t want to hate anyone. And she didn’t want anyone to hate her. Neither did she want to leave here. She never wanted to go back to the life that she’d lead before coming here.

Her eyes were held captive by his eyes. The windows to her husband’s soul revealed more than anger, for Mignon could see his fury. The cruel smile that was on his face caused a cold knot of fear to consume her as she realized that she was going to have to leave here, she would have to go with him back to their home because he was her husband. She would have to leave her lover and the peace that she’d found in this place never to return because she didn’t belong to her lover. She belonged to the man with the cruel smile on his face and this cruel man meant to keep her.

“Don’t hurt him, Harold,” her voice was weak and pathetic when she heard herself speak. She held perfectly still and she looked only at the man that was looking at her, afraid that if she made one single move her lover would die.

“I won’t hurt him, if you obey me as you promised to do when we married,” Harold Bellville spoke to the woman lying in the dirt beneath the hooves of his horse, the woman that was his wife. “What I’ve done here,” he waved his hand toward her lover. “I’ve done to show you what I’m capable of doing if you ever think to leave me again.”

“I won’t. I won’t leave you again,” she spoke to the man that was her husband glancing quickly to where her lover was and knowing that her lover’s life depended on her words and her vow to her husband.

“You come home with me, and he lives. And Mignon, if you even think of this man ever again, I’ll see his life ends.”

“I’ll do whatever you want me to do, Harold. Please, let him go.” She saw Harold nod his head. She recognized the satisfied look on his face.  She had said words that her husband wanted to hear. She had spoken words that she had no other choice but to say.

“You’ve committed bigamy with this man,” Harold nodded his head toward his wife, a confident look in his eyes. “You could go to jail for what you’ve done.” He saw her head shaking, the look of concern that touched her brow. And he smiled. Harold smiled because he knew that as of this moment and onward, he would have complete control over his wife. She would do whatever he told her to do, and he’d have what he wanted as her husband. “But I think, seeing him like this and knowing what I’m capable of doing to him that you’ll be no more trouble to me, will you, Mignon?”

“No, Harold, I’ll be no more trouble,” she spoke in a meek and mild voice knowing that her husband knew what she’d done. But him - her lover, Cole Collier, all Cole knew of her was lies. She looked back to where her lover was and she saw him sitting slumped over on his horse only a few yards away from her with a rope around his neck. And that rope was tied to a tree branch. His life depended on her. His life depended on the words that she said to her rightful husband, words that would see her lover safe. Or words that would see him hang.

“Get up out of the dirt, Mignon,” Harold ordered his wife as he motioned for one of the two men that worked for him to go to his wife, that man holding the reins of a horse that was meant for her. “Mount the horse.” She watched her husband motion to the second man and that man moved his horse closer to where Cole was. Looking over her shoulder, Mignon took a hold of the saddle horn and with her foot in the stirrup of that saddle she pulled herself up and onto the horse.

“He’s coming around,” the man that was close to Cole spoke to Harold as Mignon heard her lover moan as though in pain, her husband moving his horse closer to her.

“If you want him to live, you’ll convince this man that you want to be with me. I don’t care what you have to say. But in the next few minutes you will earn his hatred forever. Neither you nor I will ever see this man again. And Mignon, I know what a good actress you are. The world has been your stage as you’ve manipulated everyone around you all of your life. If you fail me in this, he will die.”

This was the end of her freedom. What she’d known these past weeks was slipping away from her. What she’d known with him, this man that was her lover, would soon be lost. When he learned even a fraction of the truth about her, he’d never want her near him again. And she wouldn’t blame him. She had lied to him. She had thought that here, in this place in the middle of nowhere that she could start her life over again. That with him, her lover, she might be someone that she could like, she might be someone that he could love. She had meant to put her past behind her and never be known as Mignon Bellville again. Here she had been known by the name of Mignon Walker when she first arrived. She was not known as the wife of Harold Bellville, nor was she known as the daughter of Henry Butler. She was Mignon Collier, the wife of Cole Collier. But the wife of Cole Collier, she could be no more. Her past had caught up to her, and her past was now her present. And worse, her past would again be her future.

“I’ll do as you ask,” Mignon spoke to her husband. “Please, let him live, Harold. I’ll spend the rest of my life making up to you for having runaway.” She turned in the saddle and she saw Cole was lying forward on his horse, he wasn’t moving. And because he wasn’t moving, she thought that she had time to plead for his life before she destroyed herself in his life. “I’ll go anywhere with you,” she spoke further to her husband. “I’ll stay forever with you. But please, take that rope off from around his neck. Let him go. He’s blameless.”

“You’ll go anywhere with me and stay forever with me no matter what I do with that rope,” Harold spoke in a savagely barbaric tone of voice to his wife. “You lay with that man as his wife when you’re my wife. You’re lucky I don’t have a rope around your neck as well.”

“No, I was never with him the way I was with you,” Mignon spoke the truth knowing that even though she’d never laid with Cole, Cole Collier was her lover. He was the only man that ever would be her lover.

Harold stared hard into his wife’s eyes knowing that she was a charmer, knowing too that she was full of pretense. He knew her best, this woman that was his wife. She could sweet talk a bird into a cat’s mouth. She could lie while looking someone straight in the eyes and smiling with the lie that she told. But right now, Harold thought, she looked different. He thought he saw a sincere look about her that he’d never seen before. One thing he knew for certain, that stupid, silly, ridiculous smile that he’d often seen wasn’t on her face.

“I almost believe you,” he spoke to his wife aware that he was a fool to believe anything that she might say to him. “For the first time in our marriage, my dear, you and I will be on the same page of the same book in seeing that this man knows he has no future with you. Don’t turn the page of this book on me Mignon, or I will kill him.”

“I won’t,” her husband heard her vow and he knew that this vow she would not break. As manipulative and spoiled as his wife was, Harold knew that she wouldn’t want to see anyone harmed. “He doesn’t know my real name. He knows nothing of me, Harold. When he learns the truth, that I’m really married to you, he won’t even not look for me, he’ll never see me again. He’ll hate me. And I’ll never see him again. Please, just let him go.”

“He doesn’t know anything about you?” Harold asked his wife in a voice that held his disbelief of what she was saying to him.

“I took on my maid’s name,” she told her husband something of the truth of what she’d done. “I took on my maid’s life. He has no idea who I really am.” The last few words she spoke while looking at the man on horseback that was nearest to her lover and she knew that man, he was Sam and he’d worked in her father’s stable.

“He knows nothing of the money,”

“Nothing. As God as my witness, he knows nothing beyond that of my maid,” Mignon interrupted her husband to say this in a strong, firm and certain voice that she prayed he would believe as her words were the truth.

“And he married you anyway?” Harold’s voice still held disbelief though not of his wife’s words to him, but of the fact that any man would want her without her money. “Imagine that.”

His face was against his horse’s neck. His forehead was resting on his horse’s mane, that mane was as soft as a feather down pillow. But despite the softness, Cole felt the pain in his head. For a moment he thought that he’d been thrown from his horse and he had hit his head on the ground hard. But the moment passed as he realized that he was sitting on his horse. He wasn’t on the ground. There had to be another explanation for the pain that he was in.

Cole had to force his eyes to open, and the force of opening his eyes was not easy. He fought for a full minute at least to look beyond the pain that he was in.  His head felt broken in half and he moaned as he grabbed a deep breath thankful that he could see the ground below where he sat on his horse. And seeing the ground, Cole grabbed another deep breath and he moaned again as he sat up straight becoming aware that his hands were tied behind his back and there was something tight around his neck.

“You,” Cole heard a man speak in a loud voice. “Untie him and take the noose from around his neck.” Harold Bellville motioned with his hand to his hired man that was closest to Cole Collier. “My wife has convinced me that she’s lied to this man as she lied to me. There will be no hanging today.”

“What?” Cole gasped this word as he became aware that he was sitting on his horse with his hands tied behind his back. He looked up and right away he realized there was a rope made into a noose around his neck and that rope was also around a tree branch. One wrong move and Cole knew that he would die and he would die hanging from a tree within a mile from his own house.

 Mignon saw her husband give her a hard fast look as one of the men that worked for her husband pulled the noose from around her lover’s neck, a lover that believed her to be someone that she wasn’t. A lover that believed her to be his wife when she was the wife of Harold Bellville.

“Cole,” she cried as she spoke his name. The time had come for her to tell him the truth and in telling Cole the truth of what she’d done, she knew that she would lose him forever. God help me, she thought these words as she lowered her head, the truth of what she had done should see her hanging from that tree.

“Who are you?” Cole focused his gaze on the man that sat on a horse next to his wife. “And why was I tied up with a noose around my neck?” He reached down and absently Cole rubbed his now free wrists as he continued to look at the man and not his wife.

“My name doesn’t matter to you. Nothing about me will ever matter to you.” Harold words were sharp and hard when spoken. “I thought that you’d stolen my wife away from me. As it’s a hanging offense in this part of the country to steal a man’s cattle, I thought you should hang for having stolen my wife.”

“I didn’t steal anything from anyone, Mister.” A look of anger came over Cole’s face as he looked away from the man speaking to him, his eyes crashing into the eyes of the beautiful young woman that he believed to be his wife.

 “I’m not who I said I was,” Mignon spoke to Cole, her lover, a man that knew her as his own wife when she couldn’t be his wife because she was already married to Harold Bellville and she had been married to Harold for almost a year. “He’s telling you the truth. He’s my husband. We had a disagreement and I wanted to run away from home. So I took on my maid’s name of Mignon Walker and I wrote to you pretending to be her. I even sent you my photograph. You were just a game I was playing, Cole. I didn’t mean to run away and leave my husband for good. I just wanted to have some fun.” She thought to say these words to him knowing that in his eyes she had to tear herself down. She had to make him hate her so that Harold would never harm him. No one must harm Cole.  “And you were so sweet, nothing like a real man. Only a boy for me to tempt and tease.” And saying this, Mignon cringed and she cringed inwardly where no one would see. “I was just playing with you. Nothing that happened between us was supposed to be real. You were getting to close to me and I didn’t know how to tell you the truth without hurting you. Honestly, I never meant to hurt you. Who would have guessed any man would fall in love with a woman that wrote him silly little letters? So yesterday, while we were in Ft. Meade and you were getting supplies, I sent my husband a telegram begging him to forgive me our argument and telling him where he could find me. And he’s come for me, haven’t you darling?” And with the last three words, she turned and met Harold’s eyes with her own.

Cole heard her words and he knew that she was a cheat. He saw her turn away from him and look at the man that was her true husband. Her hand reaching out and taking hold of that man’s hand as they now sat side by side of one another on their horses.  He should have known that no woman would be with a man like him without some sort of a reason. And her, the way that she came to be here with him, writing him letters and agreeing to marry him in the post. He was certain now this that had gone on between them had been a game to her. She had been playing with him from the start. She had acted nervous and jittery and he had expected her to bolt at any given moment and now he knew why she’d been the way that she’d been with him. She was married and it wasn’t him she wanted. It was her husband that she wanted. She’d fooled him. No, he amended his thoughts. She had made a fool of him. She had him trusting her to be frightened of the act between a man and a wife. From the minute he’d met her, she had him believing that she was someone she was not. And now, seeing her for who she really was, all Cole wanted was to get away from her.

He saw her look away from her husband and when she did, his eyes slammed into her eyes as he remembered the day before. He’d been breaking the Reverend’s horse while she’d been sending a telegram to her husband to come get her. She wasn’t afraid of the marriage bed, Cole realized. She hadn’t wanted to be with him in the marriage bed. She wanted to be with her husband.

“Everything was a game to you,” Cole didn’t ask this of the woman that he’d believed was his wife. He made his words a statement of fact as he knew beyond question that was what he had been to her – a game. Cole saw her physically flinch and for a moment he thought maybe, just maybe, she was ashamed of what she’d done. He felt a knot in his throat as he reached for the reins of his horse feeling sick with this headache and feeling more sick for being a fool for having fallen in love with another woman that trampled all over his heart. “I hope you had fun,” his words were broken as he nudged his horse closer to where she was.

“I did,” Mignon nearly burst into tears as she made this reply holding her head up high as though her words were sincere, but her head was held high for only a matter of second. 

 “Go to hell.” And following these words, Cole spit in her face. His horse reared back as Cole kicked the animal hard, the horse lunging forward fast and running away with the rider leaning low over the horse’s neck.

 “Well,” Harold Bellville laughed in his wife’s face, “you certainly won’t run to him again. And you won’t run from me again either, will you?”

“I want my money,” the man named Sam that worked for him said to Harold while the other man lit a rolled cigarette.

“She’s what I came here for and I’ve got her,” Harold nodded his head toward his wife seeing her give her horse a gentle nudge of her knee and go under the branch where the rope hung from the tree. “You can have your money now.”

Mignon looked at the man that was her husband and she shuddered in horror that she was his wife. She would have to go home with him. She would have to be with him again. Harold would own her again and her life would become pretend with nothing real about her life or even about herself. “Oh God,” she cried in a prayer like way as she lowered her head feeling sick over what she had done. She had seen that Cole would hate her for all eternity. And she would hate herself for all eternity. The only man that she had ever loved was leaving her with the belief that she was some sort of person that she wasn’t. She was the sort of person that she had become because he was her lover.

“He changed my life,” she spoke within her mind to no one other than herself. Cole had saved her from Harold. If only she’d told him the truth from the start, this regret she’d live and die with. A sigh of agony escaped her as she rode under the tree branch and she reached for the noose that had been around his neck. He was safe from this, she thought as the hot tears flooded her face. Harold wouldn’t hurt him now. Harold would only hurt her now.

“What are you doing?” Mignon heard one of the men that was here with her husband ask her this question and she looked up seeing the man had turned in his saddle smoking a cigarette and facing her. The man was rugged looking, big certainly, but his eyes, there was a kindness that she could see there in his eyes.

“Take that rope from around your neck right this minute, Mignon.” She heard her husband, Harold give her this order knowing that the rope was right where the rope belonged. Cole was safe. She was not. But she soon would be.

Suicide was a sin against God and mankind, and Mignon knew that to be true. But what she was doing wasn’t suicide. She was already dead. The minute that Cole had ridden away from her she had died. “Stop playing games.” Harold turned his horse around and he nudged the animal forward intent on taking the noose that she’d slipped around her neck off of her.

No more games to play. Nor more hurt or pain or horror over what was being done to her. Not even heaven would welcome her. She hadn’t been real. She wasn’t real. He had never been real. Cole. Only Cole had been all that was real in her life.

“I can’t have him,” she spoke in a voice that didn’t sound like her own to Harold as her husband moved closer to her. “And I don’t want you.” And with these final words, Mignon Bellville kicked her horse hard, the animal bolting out from under her  lightening fast and her, she felt herself falling and that was all that she felt.