"Love is the currency of Heaven," is a line from the book I'm working on at the moment. It has a beginning, Nine Chapters, and an ending but it needs to be filled out a bit.

I will post exerpts from the book. I consider this material to be copyrited (copywritten?) It is my intellectual property, if you quote from it, please cite your source.

I'll start with the prologue. This part of the book has a different flavor from the rest of the book but it works, you may not see that until the end of the book.

Everything in the prologue (with a few exceptions wrt Lily's roomate,) is true particularly the dream sequence.

Book with new epilogue

August of Anna’s Tenth Year


Anna stretched in her sleep and curled back up into a tight little fetal ball. Birdsong was barely registering in her consciousness because she was in that transitional phase that provides us with a boundary between the realms of sleep and wakefulness. Lily startled to the sound of her alarm going off and silenced the offensive racket hoping to catch another five or ten minutes of sleep. In the distance, both girls could hear the shower running as well as water running in the kitchen. Anna was playing in a sylvan waterfall of some vivid dream world while the more practical Lily was calculating the time it would take Josh to finish his shower so she could successfully jockey for position ahead of Will.

A beautiful late summer day had dawned and the usual suspects were preparing for their day but forces were at work that were anything but usual and the foundation was being laid that would affect more people than Anna could even comprehend.

Being the youngest child in a large family, Anna had seen her siblings tentatively test their wings and fly away making dynamic lives for themselves. As much as Anna loved her brothers and sisters with fierce intensity and only wanted the very best for their lives, her heart ached at every departure and she dearly wished things would stay the same; that her sister, Lily, would not go away to college today.

Lily, on the other hand, was thrilled at the prospect of going to Carnegie Mellon. She had earned honors in high school and was ready to be the proverbial small fish in the larger pond.
Anna reluctantly shook the last memories of her other worldly dream from her consciousness and transitioned to the ordinary state we call wakefulness. All the household noises spoke of another lazy summer day, but it didn’t take long for Anna to remember today was the day Lily was to go to college for her freshman orientation.

Stilling her racing heart, Anna went into Lily’s room and offered her help packing bags and loading them into the family van.

The trip from Chester Springs to Pittsburgh was beautiful. The family took the turnpike through the rolling hills of Chester, Berks, Lancaster, and York counties. These rolling hills turned into lush green mountains characteristic of the Appalachian range. At high altitude, summer green was being touched by the earliest hint of fall color. As much as Anna willed things to stay the same, it is against the natural order, for change is the constant companion of all things that enjoy the status of being alive.

The kids, grown as they were, held their breath through the four mountain tunnels en route. Naturally each one ran out of resolve about ¾ of the way through the tunnel gasping for air and reminding themselves they would have drowned if they were actually being carried through a watery pass. Everyone enjoyed the sight of giant steel windmills that had recently been erected to generate energy and Anna used these giant landmarks as the halfway point to Pittsburgh although, in reality, they were located more than 2/3 of the way to that destination.
Anna and her family spent time exploring the campus of Carnegie Mellon. Anna saw new construction that would eventually become a bridge named for Randy Pausch who had just lost his battle with pancreatic cancer. They toured Baker hall which had the distinction of being built on such an incline that students made sport of rolling balls and even chairs down its corridors. Several students that self-identified as Nerds fell all over themselves in a gallant attempt to help Lily acclimate to her new surroundings. Of course, they saw, “the fence,” painted in some fraternity’s colors and guarded by several frat brothers who weathered the elements in pup tents.

Anna enjoyed the vibe of campus life and even managed to forget her dread for fleeting moments. Lily was given the key to her dorm room and the family started to help her move her belongings into the room that would be her home away from home. Anna and her mom helped Lily decorate the room. Lily roommate and Lily decided upon a green color scheme. Lily brought curtains that were green stripes with some yellow, red, and blue interwoven; the fabric came from India and had that chic hippie effect. The girls decided where to put the ‘fridge and microwave. The roommate placed her green patterned carpet down and the room started to reflect the personality composite of the two girls who would inhabit the space. Anna’s eyes started welling up with tears when Lily placed her collage of photos up on her new wall. In Anna’s eyes, the collage symbolized Lily and she knew the space the collage had previously occupied would be empty when she arrived home. Lily promised to have her over when the school hosted their annual, “Siblings Sleepover” during Family Week. Anna dried her eyes and started looking forward to the last week in October.

The family enjoyed a visit with the Anna’s older brother, Matt, and his girlfriend, Maria both of whom were students at Duquesne University. Anna enjoyed visiting the beautiful campus that occupied a bluff overlooking the Allegheny River in downtown Pittsburgh. Matt took Anna and the rest of the family up to the top of the, “Tower,” to see his new dorm room. He was at school early because he was working for the university, but he would soon be sharing his quarters with one of his football buddies. The entire floor would be occupied by other friends giving the fellows a lounge room and bathroom to call their own. The dorm occupied the seventeenth floor of the Tower and the view out the window was breathtaking. Anna could see the entire skyline of Pittsburgh. From the inclined plane all the way to the Pitt tower. She could even catch a glimpse of Heinz Field between the downtown skyscrapers.

The family went to the waterfront district of Southside. The girls did a little bit of shopping while the guys hung out in the pseudo-town’s square and passed the time with shallow chitchat. Finally, their pager became animated with lights flashing and unmistakable buzzing. A table was waiting for them at The Claddaugh, an Irish pub with a castle motif. Everyone enjoyed his dinner and the environment lent itself to, at the risk of being arcane, merriment. As the sun was setting, they realized this was the moment Anna was dreading Everyone tried to keep composure if only to provide Anna with the moral support she needed; it was time to kiss Lily, Matt, and Maria good bye.

The ride home was miserable for poor Anna. Try as she would, she couldn’t stop crying. Anna normally had such a sunny personality; her parents simply didn’t know how to handle this protracted foray into melancholy. Her brother, Will, didn’t help the matter with his commentary. “What’s wrong?” “You know you can have Lily’s room, it’s bigger than yours.” Or the classic, “Stop being such a baby.”

Will was trying to distract Anna, but he was, in reality, being obtuse.
Finally, her mother got out of the, “Shotgun,” position and sat next to Anna in the back of the van and snuggled with her.

“I’m so happy with the way things are, I don’t want them to change. I don’t want people to grow away from me.” Anna sobbed.

“I know how you feel, I’m sad, too, but I’m also happy for Lily.” Her mother replied.
“How do I stop feeling so sad?”

“I’m not sure, but I start looking forward to things we have planned soon. I’m looking forward to the new semester.”

“School, ug, everyone says fourth grade is hard.”

“Don’t listen to naysayers, it might be more challenging, but I bet you will enjoy it nonetheless.”

“But I don’t want things to keep going on, I want everyone back at home like before.”

“Let me tell you about a dream I had a long time before you were even born.”

“Is this story made up, real or just a dream?”

“A real dream, but the dream was so vivid, it was almost real to me.”
“Sure.”

“I had the dream when Matt was the baby in the family so that would have been about 1988. In the dream, I wasn’t me but an investigator. I was either an undercover news reporter or an Agent Scully type of FBI officer (but I had the dream before the X-Files went on TV.) The family, which was our family, was living on this farm. It was an old timey sort of house with cinnamon and other baking spices wafting in the air. It felt as though we were back in time in Pennsylvania but when I went outside, we were surrounded by tall mountains like the Rockies or Sierra Mountains in the West. It was arid and the mountain tops were bare and snow-capped. The land on which the family lived, in contrast, was lush and green reminiscent of farmland in Amish Country in Lancaster County. There was a barn with farm animals and a stream running through the property. All along the stream was lush grass; green in spite of the desert environment of the surrounding land. When I went into the living room, there was a talisman on the wall. It was triangular with a Celtic knot pattern. In the middle of the triangular knot sat an emerald egg that seemed to pulse with energy.

I felt a strong sense that the talisman was powerful and the source of an enchantment, but I didn’t know what and I didn’t know if it was good or evil. I had spent the day with the family and they were kind and charming but they also had a timeless quality about them. Finally, we were at the table in the family’s large country kitchen and the mother snuggled her baby up to her cheek. He was in on of those perfect baby stages wherein the baby is happy smiling and laughing all the time. The baby, Matt, just laughed and grabbed her nose. That when I realized what type of power this enchantment held upon this family; they didn’t change. Everyone and everything was stuck in this perfect day in time. I knew it was wrong to hold the family in a state of blissful suspended animation and knew I had to destroy the talisman. I wasn’t sure how long the family had been under the spell or if they would just turn into dust if they had been suspended for too long. I smashed the talisman to pieces and…..woke up.”

“What happened to the family?’

“I woke up.”

“But.”

“I don’t know, but what I did know was that change is good; it is part of being in the flow of life. If I could have stayed in that pleasant moment, Matt would still be a baby instead of the man he is today. Lily, Josh Will, and you would have never been given the chance to be born; to have your lives.”

“Mom?”

“Yes?”

“What the heck is a talisman?”

“It is an object thought to hold special powers.”

Anna thought about the dream and watched as the rugged beauty of Appalachian highlands as it transitioned into the lush green hills of fertile Carlisle, York, Lancaster, and Berks counties By the time they returned to the soft green countryside of Chester County, the sun had set behind their backs and Anna was carried into their waiting home, asleep, in her daddy’s loving arms.