Allison Tebo's Blog, page 10
November 13, 2018
A Royal Masquerade – Blog Tour: Day Three
And what day is that? *trying to be clever* *smiles like a champ anyway* It is DAY 3 of A Royal Masquerade’s blog tour!
Here are today’s beautiful blog tour participants!
Erika: Spotlight
Written Rest
Abigail: Spotlight
Books, Life, and Christ
And ze prizes!
Note: Due to the price of shipping, I’m afraid only the 2nd prize is open to international participants. If someone living internationally is drawn for the first prize, they will automatically win the second prize.
Every day you comment on this post, or on a participants post, you get another point towards winning the giveaway. I’m repeating myself but, hey, why not?
And don’t forget to swing by my giveaway and win some fabulous goodies!
November 12, 2018
A Royal Masquerade – Blog Tour: Day Two
Welcome, my mighty followers, to DAY 2 of A Royal Masquerade’s blog tour!
Today’s lovely blog tour participants are . . .
Faith: Spotlight
The Florid Sword
Liz: Spotlight / Author Interview
Home With Hummingbirds
Every day you comment on this post, or on a participants post, you get another point towards winning prizes!
A paperback copy of A Royal Masquerade, a fairy tale themed candle (Change Your Fate is quite important to the story, as you will soon discover!), an adorable little glass goose, and GODIVA CHOCOLATE (winner picks between dark and milk).
A paperback copy of A Royal Masquerade and a $5.00 Amazon gift card!
Note: Due to the price of shipping, I’m afraid only the 2nd prize is open to international participants. If someone living internationally is drawn for the first prize, they will automatically win the second prize.
Whatever you do, don’t forget to enter the giveaway!
And if you can’t wait to read A Royal Masquerade, you can purchase the book copy HERE .
November 11, 2018
A Royal Masquerade – Blog Tour: Day One
And so we begin DAY 1 of A Royal Masquerade’s blog tour!
In case you didn’t hear, the next book in my Tales of Ambia series has been published!! *blow air horn*
The ebook edition is LIVE on Amazon and the paperback will be available shortly!
To celebrate this endeavor, we are having (obviously) a blog tour!
November 6, 2018
October in a Nutshell
Like September, I haven’t been feeling tip-top lately and I’ve been focusing on trying to take things easy. Consequently, not a lot interesting happened in October and this will be quite a small post.
But I knew I had to post anyway. I couldn’t fail you!
Ahem, anyway.
October 27, 2018
KNOW YOUR NOVEL Part 1 – Introductory: Writer’s Link Up
Hey gang! The lovely Christine Smith has started a new writer’s linkup and it looked SO MUCH FUN (Christine started it, it has to be fun!) that I had to join!
Note Stolen from Christine: This will be a 3-part linkup series, one for each of these last three months of the year. Each one will feature ten questions you can answer on your own blog (or anywhere else on social media if you’d like!). The questions will be focusing on different parts of the novel/your writing.
And now –
-The Questions –
1. What first sparked the idea for this novel?
Honestly, I wish I could REMEMBER what sparked the idea for this particular take on Little Red Riding Hood. Naturally, Burndee is at the core of everything, and when I looked at Little Red Riding Hood as a possible tale to include in the Tales of Ambia series, I knew I wanted Burndee to be stuck with a child – that was an irresistible temptation. Burndee’s fate was sealed in a twinkling. Burndee is growing so much, and it was time to test his patience even further by saddling him with a tot. As for all the rest of it, the story is closely related to my Goose Girl retelling and my Beauty and the Beast retelling, so there was a lot of brainstorming across the series to tie it all together.
2. Share a blurb!
Burndee is still a reluctant godfather – and he is especially dismayed when his new ward turns out to be an accident-prone, over-imaginative child.
Tasked with escorting his charge and a pregnant sister-in-law to the quiet retreat of a titled grandfather—Burndee gets much more than he bargained for. He and his charges soon find themselves in the middle of a dangerous game in which Burndee will find himself tested as he has never been tested before.
3. Where does the story take place? What are some of your favorite aspects about the setting?
First there is Grandpapa’s Manor, which is quite pretty and moody, and then there is MistMere Forest – one of the most dangerous regions of Ambia. Like Sherwood Forest, it is full of bandits, but these bandits aren’t so merry. There are real bandits in these woods, people – and the MOST feared group of thieves that lurk in MistMere are the legendary Shadow Band – a band of supposed ghosts that haunt the forest and attack passersby.
A lot of Ambian’s think this is pure myth and superstition, but, who knows? Some travelers go into MistMere . . . and are never seen again.
4. Tell us about your protagonist.
Ella and Colin will have small but integral parts. Cynthia will also have much a bigger role than she has had before, as will Poppy and Horace from A Royal Masquerade. We’re finally going to see King Alfred (Colin’s Dad) as well as King Alfred’s lady love.
I’m also introducing a new role – the little joker in the cloak that goes by the name Red. I can’t say much about Red at this point, but obviously, they are a central character.
5. Who (or what) is the antagonist?
Well, this is a retelling of Little Red Riding Hood – so, you know – the wolf is a good option.
But then, of course, there’s always that woodcutter who just happens to bop into the story. Maybe he was stalking Red? Perhaps the grandmother is a nasty old lady who likes to stick children in hot ovens.
And what about Red? She never struck me as being very nice. She certainly didn’t obey instructions very well.
You’re darn tootin’ they warned her.
But there’s other options here. Is Red even a real child? Or are they merely pretending to be a child? Is it all an illusion??
What about some of the characters from A Royal Masquerade? One of them is seriously peeved with Colin at the end of A Royal Masquerade. And what about that new goofy character in A Royal Masquerade? Is he merely pretending to be a goofball? What about the goose girl herself? What about Meck? Is he really a evil monster in disguise? Is Burndee his own villain in this book?
I can’t say outright, because of major spoilers, so – WHO KNOWS? Does anyone know? You certainly don’t! Did I reveal the villain above, or am I holding them in reserve to shock you with later? WHO CAN SAY????
If nothing else, you got a really good glimpse at my brainstorming process when I sit down with a fairy tale with the plans to retell it in a new way.
6. What excites you the most about this novel?
Finishing it.
#JustKiddingSortOf
I have several things about this novel that really excite me. Seeing Burndee interacting with a “kid” is at the top of the list. Seeing more interaction between Burndee and Cynthia is another. There’s also a particular theme I am exploring in this book that goes quite deep and I’m anxious to dive into it. And the whole thing is sadder and more dramatic and epic so I’m nervous / excited about that.
Burndee suffers SO MUCH in this book. Every time I open the doc, my eyes well up – which really says something, because I am not a crier. I feel so sorry for everybody in this novel!
Actual conversation between me and my brother:
Me: I’m kind of worried – it’s a lot darker than the other two books.
Bro: That’s okay! Every series has a darker book/movie in it.
Me: That’s true. . . . Kinda like the Ambia version of The Empire Strikes Back or Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom.
Bro: That can be your title! The (*Spoiler*) of Doom!
Me: . . . . . Somehow, that sticks out a bit from the other titles.
7. Is this going to be a series? Standalone? Something else?
It is book 4 in The Tales of Ambia series.
In case you’re wondering, there are 14 books planned for the series.
8. Are you plotting? Pantsing? Plansting?
Plansting. There’s a plotter inside of me fighting to get out, but then I start Pantsing and . . . you see the problem? But it’s loosely outlined, so . . . let’s go with Plansting.
9. Name a few things that makes this story unique.
*grinning*
*and smirking*
*and laughing wickedly*
*and squealing*
*HYSTERICAL FLAILING*
*sniffing and wiping eyes*
*and clapping hands over mouth*
Let’s just say, switching-things-up is going to be the signature of Ambia stories.
A few twists are evident just from the blurb.
It’s a grandpapa, not a grandmama.
Red is not alone when going to grandpapa’s house.
Burndee will be tested as he has never been tested before. (Burndee has already been tested quite a bit in the first two books, so I’ll just leave you with that thought . . . #timetoWORRY)
And now I’ll tease a few things.
Cynthia was very pregnant in the last book (A Royal Masquerade) and this book takes place a a few weeks later . . . so . . . *looks mysterious*
Some very important elements of this story will tie in very closely with Book 5 – my retelling of Beauty and the Beast.
And that’s all I can say – and it’s probably too much.
10. Share a fun “extra” of the story (a song or full playlist, some aesthetics, a collage, a Pinterest board, a map you’ve made, a special theme you’re going to incorporate, ANYTHING you want to share!).
How about a very corny looking mood board?
I need more practice with my mood boards but, eh, whatever.
And that’s all I can tell you! This link up has been a mine-field of spoilers and I must now zip mah lips.
So what do you think of the tidbits I shared here? As a note, I am not writing Red for NaNoWrimo because I am not doing NaNoWriMo this year. I wish I could, but I’m skipping this time. BUT, Red is the next important novel on my horizon.
Shameless plug, you can add Little Red Riding Hood to your Goodreads shelf right here.
And after you’ve done that, for goodness sake, don’t forget to join this very awesome link up on Musings of an Elf RIGHT HERE!
Talk to you later, chums!
October 15, 2018
The Goose Girl Cometh!
It’s happening, my dear people! By November, Lord willing, my retelling of The Goose Girl (and the next installment in The Tales of Ambia series) will be RELEASED!
Annnnd . . . it even has a TITLE!
May I introduce to you . . .
A Royal Masquerade!
Because this is NaNoWrimo season, I’m trying to organize blog tour information as early as possible! The tentative date for the blog tour is from Nov 11th to Nov 17th – and I should have those dates nailed down very soon!
All information will be sent to participating bloggers before November 1st, ensuring that they can have posts scheduled early and out of the way during NaNo season.
There will be an epic giveaway and lots of fun! I would absolutely love to have you be a part of the blog tour!
Blog Tour Sign Up Form!
October 14, 2018
September In A Nutshell
*falls into the room like a dwarf tumbling through Bilbo Baggin’s front door*
Augh, sorry guys! I’ve been struggling with my health lately and now I’m behind in everything!
I know you’ve been pining away for an update from me. #justkidding And so without further excuses – onto the Nutshell!
– WATCHED –
I’m not going to post everything I watched – just the highlights!
Nim’s Island
This was so cute! Sometimes silly, but always with that fun, madcap element that keeps you engaged. Abigail Breslin is always a treat and undeniably what held this movie up, but my favorite part is the writer aspect of this film. Alexandra’s (Jodie Foster) peculiar and writerly neurosis was truly hilarious.
Alpha (in theaters)
My twin and I went to see this one in theater and I really enjoyed it! It’s such a pretty movie, in the fact that every shot feels like a painting come to life and composed so lovingly. It also features some of my favorite things to see in stories – the Ice Age, coming of age, and survival!
I also watched Frozen again – for the third month in a row.
– READ –
– WRITING –
I finished a piece of flash fiction based on the Legend of Sleepy Hollow and submitted to a magazine! *blows air horn*
It’s been a while since I submitted anything to a magazine and it felt great to be back in the saddle again! More good news, since they’re publishing in October, that means I won’t have so long to wait to hear back from them and won’t be kept waiting here like –
Annnnd – I got another rejection on a different story. *tosses it in the pile to make snow angels with later* This piece of flash fiction will be put to use and see the light of day at some point – and I’m just happy I could meet a deadline again.
I saw another competition for even SHORTER flash fiction (500 words or less) and at the last minute I decided to enter that one. I wrote a piece one evening and sent it in at the eleventh hour. I think I do better when I have 1,000 words to work with but, we’ll see. I’m raring for rejection!
I also posted the next chapter of Life At Hedgerose here on Allison’s well! You can read Chapter Five right here and tell me what you think!
Lastly, I got Goose Girl back from my editor in mid-September and since then, edits have been in full swing!
I’m getting SO CLOSE, GUYS. Prayers for this final push would be much appreciated!
– RANDOMNESS –
Phoenix Crate
It was okay – but I probably wouldn’t order another box. Subscription boxes are fun in theory, but there’s always only one or two items that I’ll actually enjoy or use, and the rest of it not so much. It was interesting (my dragon soap was especially cool until the scent of musk forced me to hide it in a dragon grotto where I can’t smell it) but I probably wouldn’t order it again.
ALADDIN
I finally SAW IT!! *unintelligible crying, screaming and squealing*
Literally on my list of “Things I Want To See Before I Die” – and oh my goodness, people, the Broadway Aladdin is all I could have hoped for. I went “A Million Miles Away” and “Left Everything Behind!” The Broadway national tour for Aladdin is utterly stupendous!
If you’ve never seen a musical, I can’t describe the wonder, the ache, and the magic of that night. But if you have seen a high-quality musical before, I know you understand the sheer beauty of it.
Not to mention the venue I was in was utterly breathtaking and the perfect setting for this gem and I got to wear evening clothes, which is always a plus!
I can’t even begin to relate how much I enjoyed this production. I didn’t want to leave. If you haven’t seen Broadway’s Aladdin – you need to! THEY LITERALLY FLY ON A MAGIC CARPET! How could you not want to see that?
I wish I could write an entire blog post about Aladdin (maybe I’ll try) but I don’t think I can even scrap up the words, the experience was so deeply felt and so ephemeral. Big special thank you to my family for going through so much to get me there!
Reams of Rereads Blog Event
If you people haven’t heard about the Reams of Rereads yet, you should have! This super challenge was created by my friend Eva at her blog Coffee, Classics, and Craziness. Here’s the deal.
This October, we band together to celebrate the gift of rereading! Our old favorites are whispering to us from the shelves, inviting us to dust them off and peek inside.
I have been inhaling new books recently. It was the book version of Man Versus Food. I struggle with rereading, because I’m not crossing books off my TBR pile. I’m one of those people that has to be ACCOMPLISHING something ALL THE TIME. If I can’t cross a dozen things off my list at the end of the day, I’m not very happy.
But something else came up that forced me to take a break, and that included a mental break, as in – no new books. And then I saw Eva’s challenge. Suddenly, rereading wasn’t “wasting reading hours” – it became A PERSONAL GOAL TO WRESTLE INTO SUBMISSION. *pounds chest* BECAUSE I NEED TO CONQUERRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!
Me? Intense? Nah.
Actually, yes.
Ahem, anyway – I decided to start the challenge early and, oh my goodness, I am enjoying it so much! I am savoring what I’m reading again, relishing familiar stories and revisting dozens of old friends. It’s like a prolonged hug.
Participants are encouraged to compile a list of books they’d be interested in rereading during this event.
Like this!
Courage In Her Hands: Iris Noble
The Lion The Witch And the Wardrobe: C.S. Lewis
The Horse And His Boy: C.S. Lewis
Prince Caspian: C.S. Lewis
Voyage of the Dawn Treader: C.S. Lewis
The Silver Chair: C.S. Lewis
The Last Battle: C.S. Lewis
Outcast: Rosemary Sutcliff
Urchin of the Riding Stars: M.I. McAllister
Urchin and the Heartstone: M.I. McAllister
The Heir of Mistmantle: M.I. McAllister
Urchin and the Raven War: M.I. McAllister
Urchin and the Rage Tide: M.I. McAllister
There’s no requirement or expectation to read every book on the list, but it’s a starting point, this is to have fun!
So yeah, I’m not going to kill myself and try to read ALL of these books listed. This is a time to dial back that intensity and set some of the to-do list aside.
I’ve been enjoying these rereads mightily. It’s like finding a sunny spot to rest in after a long walk. I hope you’ll join me! And yes, this was/is for the month of October, but I started in September and that’s why it’s a part of my Nutshell!
Here’s that link again if you’d care to join up — all the info you’ll need will be in Eva’s post!
So, September wasn’t a very productive month for me – but things continue to tick along, as always.
September 29, 2018
Life at Hedgerose – Chapter Five
Chapter Five
Welcome Home
Titus scooped up a handful of earth, rubbing the cool soil between his fingers and then turning his hand over to let it funnel out of his palm, listening to its soft whisper as it fell to the ground. It was early in the morning and the hot sun on his back still felt pleasant. Titus hoped that he would be able to get his corn planted before afternoon when the heat would become unbearable. He leaned a little further back on his haunches and squinted up at the sky. It couldn’t have been ten o’clock yet and he had already planted his rutabagas and cabbages and beets and carrots. Surely such progress warranted a small break.
Titus sat down in the loam and reached a grubby hand into the bag at his hip to retrieve the scone he had pocketed on his way out into the garden earlier that morning. Leaning back, he snagged the bottle of mint cordial he had set beside the fence next to his gardening tools. He uncorked it and took a generous swallow, the cool sweetness burning pleasantly in his throat. He took a bite of scone and sighed contentedly, spraying crumbs as he stretched out his legs and dug them into the soil, whistling snatches of Possum In a Tree between oaty mouthfuls.
The sudden bleat of a goat exploded so loudly behind him that Titus positively erupted from his repose, a yell of shock involuntarily escaping his lips as he surged to his feet. The half-eaten scone flew in one direction and a stream of mint cordial showered a newly-planted row of potatoes, before the bottle slipped from his hand, crashing painfully on top of his foot and spilling the contents over his shoes.
Titus whirled and stared at the white-speckled goat standing at his feet, feeling rather sheepishly.
“For goodness sakes,” Titus muttered disgustedly, surveying the wreckage around him and tapping his chest to see if his heart was still beating.
The goat cocked its head and bleated again. It sounded less then friendly.
“Look what you’ve done,” Titus snapped, stooping to pick up the empty bottle.
The goat edged closer to him, sniffing at his shoes with a disgusted air and craning her head back to eye him with wicked yellow eyes.
Titus, beginning to feel a little uneasy, poked a foot at her. “Go on. You’ve made enough of a fool of me already. Go home.”
The goat shoved its head at Titus’s legs and Titus pushed it away with his foot. The goat bleated angrily and shook its head, prancing wrathfully and pawing the ground.
“Oh no,” Titus muttered, backing up a pace. “Nice goat.”
The goat eyed him balefully.
Titus smiled hopefully. “Nice?”
The goat charged.
Titus turned and leapt over a fence. The goat crashed into the middle rung of the fence so violently it caused the frame to shake.
Titus leapt to his feet, clawing cabbage leaves off of his head as he backed away.
The goat staggered for several moments, seeming momentarily dazed, then shook her and wiggled under the fence as easily as a small dog. Titus took off running as fast as he could muster, the goat hard on his heels.
Out of the corner of his eye, Titus saw a girl, a little younger them himself, keeping well abreast of them on the other side of the fence, hair ribbons and skirts streaming behind her as she leaped over a vegetable patch, waving a piece of rope above her head like a flag of surrender and screaming at the top of her voice: “Melinda! Come back here!”
Titus grabbed the branches of a small, ornamental tree and swung himself up into its branches. Melinda the goat braced her front legs against the trunk of the tree and bleated angrily.
A front window of the house in front of the ornamental tree popped open. Miriam Stonecrusher poked her head out. Being rather deaf, she didn’t hear the goat—and an abundance of leaves hid Titus from view, but she did see the young girl thundering past her window and through the Stonecrusher’s yard. She startled the old lady so badly, Miriam’s spectacles were dislodged from her twitching nose, falling into a window box as she yelled after the girl to mind her ways and stop acting like a hussy.
Heedless to Miriam’s disapproval, the girl vaulted over a fence and stomped even more heedlessly through a tomato bush as she made her way to the ornamental tree, Titus, and her wayward goat. Her pace had slowed to a march. Apparently she thought with Titus safe in his tree, and since Melinda was loath to leave her quarry, that the chase was over.
The tree bent ominously under Titus’s weight. He bobbed off the end of a branch like an oversized apple on a stick, bringing the majority of his body in butting proximity of the goat. The goat was quick to see this and jabbed savagely at Titus’s back end with her horns.
“Ow!” Her jab was more then enough to dislodge Titus from the tree and send him crashing to the ground directly on top of Melinda.
The goat let out the mighty yell of protest, jangling discordantly with Titus’s own yell of surprise. They were a mad tangle of hooves and hands as they scrambled to disentangle themselves. Titus stumbled to his feet, surprised, and a little disappointed, that the sudden and violent impact of his fall hadn’t killed Melinda. Far from it, the goat was already staggering to its feet, tottering weakly around, and bleating her desire for vengeance on whatever had sat on her.
Titus was just about to run for it again when the girl scurried up, seized the goat by the horns, and looped a rope around her neck.
“Melinda!” she scolded. “You naughty girl! What are you thinking, chasing the nice boy? My first day back home and this is the welcome I get. You should be ashamed of yourself.” The girl knotted the end of the rope around the Melinda’s neck and gave the goat’s horns one last disapproving tug. Melinda had subsided from her violent temper with amazing rapidity, and was now leaning against the girl as docilely as a lamb. The goat snuck a glance at Titus, her eyes glinting.
Faker, Titus thought.
The girl turned and studied Titus with an expectant look, her mouth quirking at the edges as if she were waiting—rather eagerly—for Titus to do something. It was the first time Titus had been able to see her when she not in motion, and her features began to register in his memory. The expressive, heart shaped face and bright eyes the color of acorn caps. The wild mane of reddish brown waves and slightly upturned nose.
“Hazel?” Titus gaped.
Hazel laughed. “That’s right. Don’t you remember me?”
“Of course, I do,” he said quickly. “How are you?”
“Better, now.” She glanced sideways at Titus and laughed and added hastily. “Now that I’m back.” She cast an eye over Titus’s disheveled appearance. “Are you all right?”
Titus nodded and sat down on the grass to catch his breathe. Hazel sat down next to him and Titus reached forward and plucked a blade of grass, peeling it absentmindly while he pondered Hazel’s sudden return.
Hazel Firestroke, the blacksmith’s only child, had been gone from Hedgerose for nearly a year. For six months she had been miles to the north with her father, caring for a sick great aunt. After that, she had been sent away to stay with relations in CotterGlen for another six months, due to the nattering of the partially-revived and ever-interfering aunt in the vain hopes that time spent with the “townified” relations at the more refined CotterGlen would produce a “genteeling affect.” Judging from the spectacle Titus had just been witness to, he thought it safe to guess that the attempt to tame Hazel had not succeeded.
He and Hazel had used to be good friends, but then a year ago she had left Hedgerose and now, Titus felt strangely tongue-tied. Hazel’s year-long absence could easily explain the awkwardness, but it was not that alone. He felt different. He had begun seeking his place among the boys of the village. Folrolf had discharged their cook and housekeeper and Titus had begun caring for both of them. His study periods had become more complicated as Folrolf began tutoring him in advanced mathematics and languages. Hazel and their friendship had faded more-or-less comfortably into the background. In that year before she had left, she had always seemed to have plenty of other friends and always be busy, so Titus had thought she hadn’t minded.
Titus pulled himself out of his private thoughts and asked politely, “Did you like CotterGlen?”
Hazel poked a finger through a clump of moss. “I hated it, actually.”
“Oh.”
Hazel tossed a dandelion into the wind and threw herself down on the grass, staring at the sky and smiling dreamily. “It really is delicious to be home. Has anything changed much while I was gone?” She waved a hand at their surroundings.
“Folrolf adopted a hatchling.” Titus ventured, offering the most exciting news he had to give to someone who had spent a year in the outside world and outside of their unexciting village.
“No!” Hazel squealed. “Tell me everything!”
“Some blasted gypsy left it on our doorstep and now Folrolf wants to raise it. You can see it sometime, I suppose. Mostly it just sleeps.”
“Of course, I want to see it! You don’t sound too happy about having a dragon around. I wish I had one!”
Titus shrugged, beginning to regret bringing it up. He changed the subject. “That’s really all that’s happened. Nothing changes too much, here.”
“No, no it doesn’t.” Hazel said quietly, smiling suddenly. “Perhaps that’s what makes it so lovely to come back to.” She grinned at him. “This is just like normal too, isn’t it?”
“What?”
“Dustfinger and Lyonesse.” Hazel sat up. “You didn’t forget did you? The Fearless Two? All those wild scraps we were always in?”
“That was a while ago,” Titus said, and not wanting to see whether she looked hurt or ruffled by that comment he added hastily. “All of those scraps you were always getting me into.”
“You have tomato on your shirt, Titus,” Hazel said, pointing at his shoulder. “Here.” She pulled a handkerchief out of her apron pocket and un-crumpled it.
“Is that clean?” Titus sniffed.
“Cleaner than your shirt,” Hazel said tartly.
“I’ll use mine.” Titus removed a spotted handkerchief from his back pocket and Hazel took it from him. “Did you . . .” She paused, looking wicked, as she nodded towards his shirt. “Fall in a garden path while you were . . . running?” She made an explosive sound as if she were trying very hard not to laugh.
Titus glared at her.
“Don’t tell me you’re still scare—don’t like animals,” said Hazel, scrubbing at his shirt front. “Oh dear. Now I’ve just made it worse. May I spit on it?”
“Certainly not,” said Titus, taking the handkerchief from her.
“Hmm, I’d forgotten how fussy you are.”
“I’m not fussy!” Titus protested.
“All right, all right. Neat, then.” Hazel crammed her handkerchief back into her pocket. “Anyhow, don’t be fractious; I’ve had my full share of fusspots this last year. We are going to be nice and easy again, aren’t we? Now that I’m back?”
Titus scratched his head. It was as if she had forgotten that they hadn’t been spending time together even before she left. “Of course, if you want to.”
“And you don’t?” Hazel asked sharply, looking suddenly close to tears.
“Of course I do,” Titus said quickly. “I just thought you had other friends now.”
“Why Titus! We’ll always be good friends. Don’t you remember? We promised we would be years and years ago when you first came to Hedgerose.” Hazel crushed a dandelion, looking forlorn. “I thought you had made other friends and had forgotten me.”
“No, I didn’t. That is, not like—you.” Titus felt confoundedly awkward, but he’d thought he better keep on feeling foolish, or Hazel would think he didn’t mean it. “You’ll always be my first friend in Hedgerose.”
Hazel examined him a moment then smiled, seemingly satisfied. “Good.” She thrust out her hand and they shook on it, then Hazel wrapped her arms around her knees and rocked back on her heels. “How is Folrolf?”
“He’s well. He’s . . . Folrolf.” They both smiled with affection. “He’s not in Hedgerose today, he’s gone to Coridoor.”
“What a shame, I was hoping to say hello to him. Jack-By-The-Hedge Carbunkle and I are meeting at the White Raven for lunch, would you like to come?”
”Oh—well—all right,” Titus said involuntarily, thrown off balance by her abruptness.
“Wonderful,” Hazel said cheerfully as she sprung to her feet, “I have to go. See you then.” And she was gone, leaving Titus quite at a loss after the sudden whirlwind.
***
Hazel certainly had a lot to talk about and Titus was content to let her rattle on while he ate. Hedge, who never had much to say, listened to Hazel’s animated account of her months at CotterGlen with a rapt expression, while Titus tried in vain to stab one of the shiny and slippery little potatoes on his plate. It squirted off of his plate and skittered across the floor after the handful of others that had been shooting helter-shelter off the table for the past ten minutes to land under chairs, tables, and startled feet.
There was a sudden commotion outside, pushing at the edges of the gentle and busy hum of the tavern, and then a legion of Totkins erupted into the room, laughing and singing at the top of their voices. A fat one in their midst—Titus thought it may have been Laban Totkin—fell down with a startled whoop, the small object that had caused him to slip bouncing off the neck of another Totkin. It might have been a boiled potato. A squabble instantly broke out and was quelled a few moments later by a sharp rap from a beer mug on the heads of the offenders as Adam Totkin bawled: “None of that now, lads!”
“Oh no,” Titus mumbled.
Hazel was watching with interest. “Why are they here? It’s not Saturday, and they always brawl on Saturdays, not Mondays.”
“They must be celebrating something. Come on, we had better go.”
“A round of ale all around!” one of the Totkins shouted.
“’Cept for Broom.” Bracken Totkin—Broom’s twin—cackled. “He’s too likkle for anything but cordial.”
Broom’s peevish answer was drowned out by a thunderous bout of laughter.
“But if it’s a celebration, why can’t we join in?” Hazel said to Titus, smiling at the Totkins. “Or at least congratulate them on whatever’s happened.”
“Hazel!” Titus hissed as she jumped up from her chair and made her way to the nearest Totkin, giving him a hearty slap on the back just as he was swallowing an immense mouthful of ale. The Totkin turned around, irritated, then stopped when he saw Hazel and beamed. “Well, if it isn’t pretty Hazel! Come back from CotterGlen are you? Did you like it there?”
“You can bet to kiss a pig I didn’t!”
The two of them roared with laughter like a pair of old army friends.
Titus got up, watching uneasily, and began making his way towards Hazel and the door trying to look as unnoticeable as possible as he gestured at Hedge to follow him.
“Pleased to be back, then?” Another Totkin bellowed in Hazel’s face.
“Yes!”
“Missed us?”
“Very much.” said Hazel, laughing.
“C’mon then!” said the first Totkin. “Give a handsome codger a hug to show how much you missed us!”
“Just as soon as you point out any handsome codgers!” Hazel responded merrily.
The two Totkins dissolved into laughter, clutching one another as they slid to the floor.
Titus grabbed Hazel by the elbow. “Don’t you’d think we’d better leave now?”
“Whatever for, lad?” a Totkin asked.
Titus forced a smile. “Because . . . Hazel has someone she has to see. Don’t you?” he demanded, hoping that she would take the hint.
“Who do I have to see?” Hazel asked, puzzled.
“Why . . . everyone!” Blast.
“But everyone’s here, me bucko!” a Totkin yelled good-naturedly. “Everyone important, that is.” He winked at his fellow Totkins and gave Titus a friendly buffet that sent him stumbling into the lap of Ira Totkin who was seated at a nearby table. Titus was still holding Hazel’s elbow, and she crashed into his lap with a squeal of protest. Ira promptly deposited them on the floor with one twitch of his immense frame. There was a general struggle of arms and legs as Hazel and Titus were helped to their feet by several too-helpful Totkins who nearly pulled their hands off in their friendly efforts.
“There, now.” Carl Totkin said comfortably. “Set to uprights again. Didn’t hurt you?” he asked peering at Titus.
“Of course not.” Titus stuck his bruised hand into his pocket and cast a desperate look over his shoulder at Hedge. The boy was still at the table and seemed to be having some difficulty over the bill as he sorted through numerous pockets in an apparent effort to locate coins to pay for their meal.
“Who are you calling a tangletwit?” a Totkin snarled suddenly behind Titus. “I was mending fences before you were born, you blockhead. I knows how to mend “em!”
“Here lass, wrap your chops around that lot!” a Totkin pressed a tankard into Hazel’s hands. “Don’t worry, it’s only lemonade.”
Carl Totkin raised his mug, roaring. “Down with CotterGlen! And all of its namby pamby, ninny pinnys!”
“Down with CotterGlen and all its namby pamby, ninny pinnys!” Hazel echoed him enthusiastically, clinking tankards.
“Perhaps we had better be going.” Titus suggested forcefully, tugging on Hazel’s arm.
Hedge was still emptying his pockets, and the collection on the table was growing sizably, from caterpillars to firecrackers . . . but still no coins.
Griffin Totkin dug an elbow into Titus’s ribs. “Awh, now. Don’t be selfish. There’s lots of friends wanting to welcome Hazel back to Hedgerose. Want some lemonade?”
“No thanks,” said Titus. Hedge had disappeared under the table and was patting the ground, presumably for anything he might have dropped.
A Totkin passed Titus a mug. “You have to have drink with us—to celebrate.”
Titus realized in the one moment he had looked away he had lost sight of Hazel. He looked about wildly and was about to stand on a table to see if he could spot her under one of the half a dozen squabbling knots of Totkins when he spotted the top of her head. She was worming her way to the other end of the room, waving at someone.
Titus pushed the mug back at the Totkin who had offered it to him. “Thanks, but we really have to be going.”
“Anxious fellar, ‘idn’t he?” said a Totkin, eyeing Titus.
“You’d almost think we weren’t proper fit company, the way he’s actin’!”
“No! Of course not!” Titus protested weakly.
“Too good to hang about with Totkins, ay?” Nob demanded.
Hedge must have found some coins for he was collecting his possessions again and returning them to his numerous pockets as he made his way slowly towards Titus.
Alt poked Titus in the chest with a finger. “Think we’re below you, is that it, you little taterhead?”
“No!” Titus fairly shouted.
There was a deafening whistle from someone in the crowd as Tobias Totkin waved his hands above his head impressively for silence, inadvertently drenching a neighbor with his full tankard.
After the room had resided into reasonable quiet, Tobias began to heave his considerable bulk onto a table. There were one or two anxious moments when it seemed as if he wasn’t going to make it. Several Totkins moved behind him, shouting encouragement and giving him a helpful push. Tobias finally stood erect and staggered to the center of the table and it creaked ominously under his weight. He lifted his hands for silence again and spent the good part of a minute staring solemnly about as if he had quite forgotten what he was going to say. It wasn’t unlikely. Tobias had an infamously bad memory. Some people said thoughts went in one ear and out the other quicker than a lizard in and out of a hole.
“Speech!” Alt Totkin prompted him.
“Of course.” Tobias answered automatically, hooking his thumbs into his trousers as he pulled them further up over his stomach, leaning back on his heels as he began. “Ladies and gentlemen,” Tobias gazed soulfully into the crowd, bobbing his head several times. He ran a tongue along his lips. “Gentlemen,” Tobias repeated soberly and stared gravely into his empty mug for several moments before someone kicked him. “Ladies and Gentlemen.”
“Ladies and Gentlemen what?” said Laban.
“Ladies and Gentlemen!” Tobias repeated. “Today is a momentous occasion. . . .” He thought a moment, rubbing his nose, “A day among days. An epoch in this fair village of Hedgerose. Today is—
“Get on with it!” Ted complained.
Tobias turned around quickly, frowning into the knot of Totkins, trying to locate the speaker and, failing, turned again to the crowd, clearing his throat and raising his hands. “Ladies and Gentlemen!”
“You just said that!” Ferdy yelled in exasperation.
Tobias ignored him “Ladies and Gentlemen . . . today is a momentous occasion. A day among days, an epoch in this fair village of Hedgerose. A time for celebration. Tansy Totkin, my cousin,” he thought hard for a moment and brightened, “On my mother’s side—had a baby girl only an hour ago this very day.”
The room burst into applause and Tobias beamed and bowed. When the room quieted down again he flourished his cup dramatically. “Her name, is Daffydil,”
“That’s Daffodil,” Laban hissed.
Tobias swayed around and glared at him. “I’m giving this speech,”
“Well get it right, bufflehead!”
“Wot? I’ll teach you to call me bufflehead!”
Tobias came off the table swinging, but his considerable weight was against him and when the table went out from under him, so did his feet. He crashed stomach-first into Robin Totkin, sending the smaller man toppling to the ground. Ted swung at Tobias but missed, and he hit Griffin instead, thwacking him in the jaw with a painful crack. Griffin went down, taking several others with him, and the frenzy began.
Carl, ever the one to cross his t’s and wanting to make sure this was official yelled, “Fight!” and was promptly knocked unconscious by his great uncle Ira.
Titus made a mad dash for the bar and someone’s elbow caught him in the eye, knocking him to the floor. He laid there a moment as blackness jangled in his head and before his eyes. Someone stepped on his hand and he let out a yell of pain. He turned furiously and seized the ankle of the offender, yanking it as hard as he could and sending the Totkin crashing to the ground. A flailing shoe caught Titus in the nose and he reached up dizzily to touch his nose and pulled it away to see blood. Titus looked about lividly, spotted young Bobbin Totkin and grabbed him by the shoulders, lifting him off of his brother and dragging him through the flailing battle.
“What are you doing, what are you doing, what are you doing, aweehhhaweh!”
Titus picked Boffin up bodily and dumped him over the bar on his head before grabbing the open mouth Hazel and Hedge by their elbows.
“Get out, quick! Get behind the bar—something!” Titus yelled.
“Look! Look!” Halfred was screaming excitedly as he jumped up and down—still holding his brother Ferdy by the hair—and pointed at Titus, “He just put Boffin over the bar!”
“Get him!” yelled Peridan.
The three Totkins charged and Titus caught up a chair and threw it at them, sending them sprawling to the floor.
“Look what he did!” Robin Totkin shouted. “He just hit Per and Hal and Ferdy with a table!”
Adam Totkin—Hal’s father—turned and sent a beer bottle flying at Titus.
Titus ducked and heard it shatter behind him.
“Get him, son!” Adam bawled as Robin lunged over a table, snatching at Titus.
Titus skipped to one side and thrust out a leg, sending the clumsy Robin stumbling to the floor.
“Look what he did!” Nob yelled, pointing. “He tripped Robin!”
Boffin and Ira turned from rolling up Alt Totkin in a table cloth and charged towards Titus.
Titus pointed at Nob and bellowed back. “Look what he did! He just hit Uncle Ephi with a beer mug!”
Nob paled. “No I didn’t!” He shrieked.
Boffin and Ira stopped short, looking from Nob to Titus. Displaying true teamwork, Boffin charged Titus while Ira descended on the squalling Nob.
Titus turned and ran for the bar, vaulting over it and landing with a jarring crash on the floor, directly between Hedge and Hazel.
“I told you to get out!” He wheezed.
“You also said or get behind the bar or something, so we did.” Said Hazel primly.
“Your nose is bleeding, Titus,” said Hedge.
“You were wonderful!” Hazel added admiringly as she peered into Titus’s face. “Yes, you do have a little bit of blood on your nose, and I think your eye’s swelling shut too. Hold still.” She jabbed at his nose with a handkerchief and Titus jerked away.
“Ow! Let me do it!” Titus grabbed the handkerchief from her and pressed gently at his nose. “I don’t how I’m going to explain a black eye to Folrolf,” he said sullenly.
The three children sat a moment in silence, listening to the battle raging above their heads and Hazel suddenly gave a small happy sigh.
“It really is wonderful to be home again.”
This is copyrighted by Allison Tebo 2018© Please do not use or copy without permission.
If you missed Chapter One, you can read it HERE.
If you missed Chapter Two, you can read it HERE.
If you missed Chapter Three, you can read it HERE.
If you missed Chapter Four, you can read it HERE.
Add Life At Hedgerose to your Goodreads shelf HERE.
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Welcome Home
Titus scooped up a handful of earth, rubbing the cool soil between his fingers and then turning his hand over to let it funnel out of his palm, listening to its soft whisper as it fell to the ground. It was early in the morning and the hot sun on his back still felt pleasant. Titus hoped that he would be able to get his corn planted before afternoon when the heat would become unbearable. He leaned a little further back on his haunches and squinted up at the sky. It couldn’t have been ten o’clock yet and he had already planted his rutabagas and cabbages and beets and carrots. Surely such progress warranted a small break.
Titus sat down in the loam and reached a grubby hand into the bag at his hip to retrieve the scone he had pocketed on his way out into the garden earlier that morning. Leaning back, he snagged the bottle of mint cordial he had set beside the fence next to his gardening tools. He uncorked it and took a generous swallow, the cool sweetness burning pleasantly in his throat. He took a bite of scone and sighed contentedly, spraying crumbs as he stretched out his legs and dug them into the soil, whistling snatches of Possum In a Tree between oaty mouthfuls.
The sudden bleat of a goat exploded so loudly behind him that Titus positively erupted from his repose, a yell of shock involuntarily escaping his lips as he surged to his feet. The half-eaten scone flew in one direction and a stream of mint cordial showered a newly-planted row of potatoes, before the bottle slipped from his hand, crashing painfully on top of his foot and spilling the contents over his shoes.
Titus whirled and stared at the white-speckled goat standing at his feet, feeling rather sheepishly.
“For goodness sakes,” Titus muttered disgustedly, surveying the wreckage around him and tapping his chest to see if his heart was still beating.
The goat cocked its head and bleated again. It sounded less then friendly.
“Look what you’ve done,” Titus snapped, stooping to pick up the empty bottle.
The goat edged closer to him, sniffing at his shoes with a disgusted air and craning her head back to eye him with wicked yellow eyes.
Titus, beginning to feel a little uneasy, poked a foot at her. “Go on. You’ve made enough of a fool of me already. Go home.”
The goat shoved its head at Titus’s legs and Titus pushed it away with his foot. The goat bleated angrily and shook its head, prancing wrathfully and pawing the ground.
“Oh no,” Titus muttered, backing up a pace. “Nice goat.”
The goat eyed him balefully.
Titus smiled hopefully. “Nice?”
The goat charged.
Titus turned and leapt over a fence. The goat crashed into the middle rung of the fence so violently it caused the frame to shake.
Titus leapt to his feet, clawing cabbage leaves off of his head as he backed away.
The goat staggered for several moments, seeming momentarily dazed, then shook her and wiggled under the fence as easily as a small dog. Titus took off running as fast as he could muster, the goat hard on his heels.
Out of the corner of his eye, Titus saw a girl, a little younger them himself, keeping well abreast of them on the other side of the fence, hair ribbons and skirts streaming behind her as she leaped over a vegetable patch, waving a piece of rope above her head like a flag of surrender and screaming at the top of her voice: “Melinda! Come back here!”
Titus grabbed the branches of a small, ornamental tree and swung himself up into its branches. Melinda the goat braced her front legs against the trunk of the tree and bleated angrily.
A front window of the house in front of the ornamental tree popped open. Miriam Stonecrusher poked her head out. Being rather deaf, she didn’t hear the goat—and an abundance of leaves hid Titus from view, but she did see the young girl thundering past her window and through the Stonecrusher’s yard. She startled the old lady so badly, Miriam’s spectacles were dislodged from her twitching nose, falling into a window box as she yelled after the girl to mind her ways and stop acting like a hussy.
Heedless to Miriam’s disapproval, the girl vaulted over a fence and stomped even more heedlessly through a tomato bush as she made her way to the ornamental tree, Titus, and her wayward goat. Her pace had slowed to a march. Apparently she thought with Titus safe in his tree, and since Melinda was loath to leave her quarry, that the chase was over.
The tree bent ominously under Titus’s weight. He bobbed off the end of a branch like an oversized apple on a stick, bringing the majority of his body in butting proximity of the goat. The goat was quick to see this and jabbed savagely at Titus’s back end with her horns.
“Ow!” Her jab was more then enough to dislodge Titus from the tree and send him crashing to the ground directly on top of Melinda.
The goat let out the mighty yell of protest, jangling discordantly with Titus’s own yell of surprise. They were a mad tangle of hooves and hands as they scrambled to disentangle themselves. Titus stumbled to his feet, surprised, and a little disappointed, that the sudden and violent impact of his fall hadn’t killed Melinda. Far from it, the goat was already staggering to its feet, tottering weakly around, and bleating her desire for vengeance on whatever had sat on her.
Titus was just about to run for it again when the girl scurried up, seized the goat by the horns, and looped a rope around her neck.
“Melinda!” she scolded. “You naughty girl! What are you thinking, chasing the nice boy? My first day back home and this is the welcome I get. You should be ashamed of yourself.” The girl knotted the end of the rope around the Melinda’s neck and gave the goat’s horns one last disapproving tug. Melinda had subsided from her violent temper with amazing rapidity, and was now leaning against the girl as docilely as a lamb. The goat snuck a glance at Titus, her eyes glinting.
Faker, Titus thought.
The girl turned and studied Titus with an expectant look, her mouth quirking at the edges as if she were waiting—rather eagerly—for Titus to do something. It was the first time Titus had been able to see her when she not in motion, and her features began to register in his memory. The expressive, heart shaped face and bright eyes the color of acorn caps. The wild mane of reddish brown waves and slightly upturned nose.
“Hazel?” Titus gaped.
Hazel laughed. “That’s right. Don’t you remember me?”
“Of course, I do,” he said quickly. “How are you?”
“Better, now.” She glanced sideways at Titus and laughed and added hastily. “Now that I’m back.” She cast an eye over Titus’s disheveled appearance. “Are you all right?”
Titus nodded and sat down on the grass to catch his breathe. Hazel sat down next to him and Titus reached forward and plucked a blade of grass, peeling it absentmindly while he pondered Hazel’s sudden return.
Hazel Firestroke, the blacksmith’s only child, had been gone from Hedgerose for nearly a year. For six months she had been miles to the north with her father, caring for a sick great aunt. After that, she had been sent away to stay with relations in CotterGlen for another six months, due to the nattering of the partially-revived and ever-interfering aunt in the vain hopes that time spent with the “townified” relations at the more refined CotterGlen would produce a “genteeling affect.” Judging from the spectacle Titus had just been witness to, he thought it safe to guess that the attempt to tame Hazel had not succeeded.
He and Hazel had used to be good friends, but then a year ago she had left Hedgerose and now, Titus felt strangely tongue-tied. Hazel’s year-long absence could easily explain the awkwardness, but it was not that alone. He felt different. He had begun seeking his place among the boys of the village. Folrolf had discharged their cook and housekeeper and Titus had begun caring for both of them. His study periods had become more complicated as Folrolf began tutoring him in advanced mathematics and languages. Hazel and their friendship had faded more-or-less comfortably into the background. In that year before she had left, she had always seemed to have plenty of other friends and always be busy, so Titus had thought she hadn’t minded.
Titus pulled himself out of his private thoughts and asked politely, “Did you like CotterGlen?”
Hazel poked a finger through a clump of moss. “I hated it, actually.”
“Oh.”
Hazel tossed a dandelion into the wind and threw herself down on the grass, staring at the sky and smiling dreamily. “It really is delicious to be home. Has anything changed much while I was gone?” She waved a hand at their surroundings.
“Folrolf adopted a hatchling.” Titus ventured, offering the most exciting news he had to give to someone who had spent a year in the outside world and outside of their unexciting village.
“No!” Hazel squealed. “Tell me everything!”
“Some blasted gypsy left it on our doorstep and now Folrolf wants to raise it. You can see it sometime, I suppose. Mostly it just sleeps.”
“Of course, I want to see it! You don’t sound too happy about having a dragon around. I wish I had one!”
Titus shrugged, beginning to regret bringing it up. He changed the subject. “That’s really all that’s happened. Nothing changes too much, here.”
“No, no it doesn’t.” Hazel said quietly, smiling suddenly. “Perhaps that’s what makes it so lovely to come back to.” She grinned at him. “This is just like normal too, isn’t it?”
“What?”
“Dustfinger and Lyonesse.” Hazel sat up. “You didn’t forget did you? The Fearless Two? All those wild scraps we were always in?”
“That was a while ago,” Titus said, and not wanting to see whether she looked hurt or ruffled by that comment he added hastily. “All of those scraps you were always getting me into.”
“You have tomato on your shirt, Titus,” Hazel said, pointing at his shoulder. “Here.” She pulled a handkerchief out of her apron pocket and un-crumpled it.
“Is that clean?” Titus sniffed.
“Cleaner than your shirt,” Hazel said tartly.
“I’ll use mine.” Titus removed a spotted handkerchief from his back pocket and Hazel took it from him. “Did you . . .” She paused, looking wicked, as she nodded towards his shirt. “Fall in a garden path while you were . . . running?” She made an explosive sound as if she were trying very hard not to laugh.
Titus glared at her.
“Don’t tell me you’re still scare—don’t like animals,” said Hazel, scrubbing at his shirt front. “Oh dear. Now I’ve just made it worse. May I spit on it?”
“Certainly not,” said Titus, taking the handkerchief from her.
“Hmm, I’d forgotten how fussy you are.”
“I’m not fussy!” Titus protested.
“All right, all right. Neat, then.” Hazel crammed her handkerchief back into her pocket. “Anyhow, don’t be fractious; I’ve had my full share of fusspots this last year. We are going to be nice and easy again, aren’t we? Now that I’m back?”
Titus scratched his head. It was as if she had forgotten that they hadn’t been spending time together even before she left. “Of course, if you want to.”
“And you don’t?” Hazel asked sharply, looking suddenly close to tears.
“Of course I do,” Titus said quickly. “I just thought you had other friends now.”
“Why Titus! We’ll always be good friends. Don’t you remember? We promised we would be years and years ago when you first came to Hedgerose.” Hazel crushed a dandelion, looking forlorn. “I thought you had made other friends and had forgotten me.”
“No, I didn’t. That is, not like—you.” Titus felt confoundedly awkward, but he’d thought he better keep on feeling foolish, or Hazel would think he didn’t mean it. “You’ll always be my first friend in Hedgerose.”
Hazel examined him a moment then smiled, seemingly satisfied. “Good.” She thrust out her hand and they shook on it, then Hazel wrapped her arms around her knees and rocked back on her heels. “How is Folrolf?”
“He’s well. He’s . . . Folrolf.” They both smiled with affection. “He’s not in Hedgerose today, he’s gone to Coridoor.”
“What a shame, I was hoping to say hello to him. Jack-By-The-Hedge Carbunkle and I are meeting at the White Raven for lunch, would you like to come?”
”Oh—well—all right,” Titus said involuntarily, thrown off balance by her abruptness.
“Wonderful,” Hazel said cheerfully as she sprung to her feet, “I have to go. See you then.” And she was gone, leaving Titus quite at a loss after the sudden whirlwind.
***
Hazel certainly had a lot to talk about and Titus was content to let her rattle on while he ate. Hedge, who never had much to say, listened to Hazel’s animated account of her months at CotterGlen with a rapt expression, while Titus tried in vain to stab one of the shiny and slippery little potatoes on his plate. It squirted off of his plate and skittered across the floor after the handful of others that had been shooting helter-shelter off the table for the past ten minutes to land under chairs, tables, and startled feet.
There was a sudden commotion outside, pushing at the edges of the gentle and busy hum of the tavern, and then a legion of Totkins erupted into the room, laughing and singing at the top of their voices. A fat one in their midst—Titus thought it may have been Laban Totkin—fell down with a startled whoop, the small object that had caused him to slip bouncing off the neck of another Totkin. It might have been a boiled potato. A squabble instantly broke out and was quelled a few moments later by a sharp rap from a beer mug on the heads of the offenders as Adam Totkin bawled: “None of that now, lads!”
“Oh no,” Titus mumbled.
Hazel was watching with interest. “Why are they here? It’s not Saturday, and they always brawl on Saturdays, not Mondays.”
“They must be celebrating something. Come on, we had better go.”
“A round of ale all around!” one of the Totkins shouted.
“’Cept for Broom.” Bracken Totkin—Broom’s twin—cackled. “He’s too likkle for anything but cordial.”
Broom’s peevish answer was drowned out by a thunderous bout of laughter.
“But if it’s a celebration, why can’t we join in?” Hazel said to Titus, smiling at the Totkins. “Or at least congratulate them on whatever’s happened.”
“Hazel!” Titus hissed as she jumped up from her chair and made her way to the nearest Totkin, giving him a hearty slap on the back just as he was swallowing an immense mouthful of ale. The Totkin turned around, irritated, then stopped when he saw Hazel and beamed. “Well, if it isn’t pretty Hazel! Come back from CotterGlen are you? Did you like it there?”
“You can bet to kiss a pig I didn’t!”
The two of them roared with laughter like a pair of old army friends.
Titus got up, watching uneasily, and began making his way towards Hazel and the door trying to look as unnoticeable as possible as he gestured at Hedge to follow him.
“Pleased to be back, then?” Another Totkin bellowed in Hazel’s face.
“Yes!”
“Missed us?”
“Very much.” said Hazel, laughing.
“C’mon then!” said the first Totkin. “Give a handsome codger a hug to show how much you missed us!”
“Just as soon as you point out any handsome codgers!” Hazel responded merrily.
The two Totkins dissolved into laughter, clutching one another as they slid to the floor.
Titus grabbed Hazel by the elbow. “Don’t you’d think we’d better leave now?”
“Whatever for, lad?” a Totkin asked.
Titus forced a smile. “Because . . . Hazel has someone she has to see. Don’t you?” he demanded, hoping that she would take the hint.
“Who do I have to see?” Hazel asked, puzzled.
“Why . . . everyone!” Blast.
“But everyone’s here, me bucko!” a Totkin yelled good-naturedly. “Everyone important, that is.” He winked at his fellow Totkins and gave Titus a friendly buffet that sent him stumbling into the lap of Ira Totkin who was seated at a nearby table. Titus was still holding Hazel’s elbow, and she crashed into his lap with a squeal of protest. Ira promptly deposited them on the floor with one twitch of his immense frame. There was a general struggle of arms and legs as Hazel and Titus were helped to their feet by several too-helpful Totkins who nearly pulled their hands off in their friendly efforts.
“There, now.” Carl Totkin said comfortably. “Set to uprights again. Didn’t hurt you?” he asked peering at Titus.
“Of course not.” Titus stuck his bruised hand into his pocket and cast a desperate look over his shoulder at Hedge. The boy was still at the table and seemed to be having some difficulty over the bill as he sorted through numerous pockets in an apparent effort to locate coins to pay for their meal.
“Who are you calling a tangletwit?” a Totkin snarled suddenly behind Titus. “I was mending fences before you were born, you blockhead. I knows how to mend “em!”
“Here lass, wrap your chops around that lot!” a Totkin pressed a tankard into Hazel’s hands. “Don’t worry, it’s only lemonade.”
Carl Totkin raised his mug, roaring. “Down with CotterGlen! And all of its namby pamby, ninny pinnys!”
“Down with CotterGlen and all its namby pamby, ninny pinnys!” Hazel echoed him enthusiastically, clinking tankards.
“Perhaps we had better be going.” Titus suggested forcefully, tugging on Hazel’s arm.
Hedge was still emptying his pockets, and the collection on the table was growing sizably, from caterpillars to firecrackers . . . but still no coins.
Griffin Totkin dug an elbow into Titus’s ribs. “Awh, now. Don’t be selfish. There’s lots of friends wanting to welcome Hazel back to Hedgerose. Want some lemonade?”
“No thanks,” said Titus. Hedge had disappeared under the table and was patting the ground, presumably for anything he might have dropped.
A Totkin passed Titus a mug. “You have to have drink with us—to celebrate.”
Titus realized in the one moment he had looked away he had lost sight of Hazel. He looked about wildly and was about to stand on a table to see if he could spot her under one of the half a dozen squabbling knots of Totkins when he spotted the top of her head. She was worming her way to the other end of the room, waving at someone.
Titus pushed the mug back at the Totkin who had offered it to him. “Thanks, but we really have to be going.”
“Anxious fellar, ‘idn’t he?” said a Totkin, eyeing Titus.
“You’d almost think we weren’t proper fit company, the way he’s actin’!”
“No! Of course not!” Titus protested weakly.
“Too good to hang about with Totkins, ay?” Nob demanded.
Hedge must have found some coins for he was collecting his possessions again and returning them to his numerous pockets as he made his way slowly towards Titus.
Alt poked Titus in the chest with a finger. “Think we’re below you, is that it, you little taterhead?”
“No!” Titus fairly shouted.
There was a deafening whistle from someone in the crowd as Tobias Totkin waved his hands above his head impressively for silence, inadvertently drenching a neighbor with his full tankard.
After the room had resided into reasonable quiet, Tobias began to heave his considerable bulk onto a table. There were one or two anxious moments when it seemed as if he wasn’t going to make it. Several Totkins moved behind him, shouting encouragement and giving him a helpful push. Tobias finally stood erect and staggered to the center of the table and it creaked ominously under his weight. He lifted his hands for silence again and spent the good part of a minute staring solemnly about as if he had quite forgotten what he was going to say. It wasn’t unlikely. Tobias had an infamously bad memory. Some people said thoughts went in one ear and out the other quicker than a lizard in and out of a hole.
“Speech!” Alt Totkin prompted him.
“Of course.” Tobias answered automatically, hooking his thumbs into his trousers as he pulled them further up over his stomach, leaning back on his heels as he began. “Ladies and gentlemen,” Tobias gazed soulfully into the crowd, bobbing his head several times. He ran a tongue along his lips. “Gentlemen,” Tobias repeated soberly and stared gravely into his empty mug for several moments before someone kicked him. “Ladies and Gentlemen.”
“Ladies and Gentlemen what?” said Laban.
“Ladies and Gentlemen!” Tobias repeated. “Today is a momentous occasion. . . .” He thought a moment, rubbing his nose, “A day among days. An epoch in this fair village of Hedgerose. Today is—
“Get on with it!” Ted complained.
Tobias turned around quickly, frowning into the knot of Totkins, trying to locate the speaker and, failing, turned again to the crowd, clearing his throat and raising his hands. “Ladies and Gentlemen!”
“You just said that!” Ferdy yelled in exasperation.
Tobias ignored him “Ladies and Gentlemen . . . today is a momentous occasion. A day among days, an epoch in this fair village of Hedgerose. A time for celebration. Tansy Totkin, my cousin,” he thought hard for a moment and brightened, “On my mother’s side—had a baby girl only an hour ago this very day.”
The room burst into applause and Tobias beamed and bowed. When the room quieted down again he flourished his cup dramatically. “Her name, is Daffydil,”
“That’s Daffodil,” Laban hissed.
Tobias swayed around and glared at him. “I’m giving this speech,”
“Well get it right, bufflehead!”
“Wot? I’ll teach you to call me bufflehead!”
Tobias came off the table swinging, but his considerable weight was against him and when the table went out from under him, so did his feet. He crashed stomach-first into Robin Totkin, sending the smaller man toppling to the ground. Ted swung at Tobias but missed, and he hit Griffin instead, thwacking him in the jaw with a painful crack. Griffin went down, taking several others with him, and the frenzy began.
Carl, ever the one to cross his t’s and wanting to make sure this was official yelled, “Fight!” and was promptly knocked unconscious by his great uncle Ira.
Titus made a mad dash for the bar and someone’s elbow caught him in the eye, knocking him to the floor. He laid there a moment as blackness jangled in his head and before his eyes. Someone stepped on his hand and he let out a yell of pain. He turned furiously and seized the ankle of the offender, yanking it as hard as he could and sending the Totkin crashing to the ground. A flailing shoe caught Titus in the nose and he reached up dizzily to touch his nose and pulled it away to see blood. Titus looked about lividly, spotted young Bobbin Totkin and grabbed him by the shoulders, lifting him off of his brother and dragging him through the flailing battle.
“What are you doing, what are you doing, what are you doing, aweehhhaweh!”
Titus picked Boffin up bodily and dumped him over the bar on his head before grabbing the open mouth Hazel and Hedge by their elbows.
“Get out, quick! Get behind the bar—something!” Titus yelled.
“Look! Look!” Halfred was screaming excitedly as he jumped up and down—still holding his brother Ferdy by the hair—and pointed at Titus, “He just put Boffin over the bar!”
“Get him!” yelled Peridan.
The three Totkins charged and Titus caught up a chair and threw it at them, sending them sprawling to the floor.
“Look what he did!” Robin Totkin shouted. “He just hit Per and Hal and Ferdy with a table!”
Adam Totkin—Hal’s father—turned and sent a beer bottle flying at Titus.
Titus ducked and heard it shatter behind him.
“Get him, son!” Adam bawled as Robin lunged over a table, snatching at Titus.
Titus skipped to one side and thrust out a leg, sending the clumsy Robin stumbling to the floor.
“Look what he did!” Nob yelled, pointing. “He tripped Robin!”
Boffin and Ira turned from rolling up Alt Totkin in a table cloth and charged towards Titus.
Titus pointed at Nob and bellowed back. “Look what he did! He just hit Uncle Ephi with a beer mug!”
Nob paled. “No I didn’t!” He shrieked.
Boffin and Ira stopped short, looking from Nob to Titus. Displaying true teamwork, Boffin charged Titus while Ira descended on the squalling Nob.
Titus turned and ran for the bar, vaulting over it and landing with a jarring crash on the floor, directly between Hedge and Hazel.
“I told you to get out!” He wheezed.
“You also said or get behind the bar or something, so we did.” Said Hazel primly.
“Your nose is bleeding, Titus,” said Hedge.
“You were wonderful!” Hazel added admiringly as she peered into Titus’s face. “Yes, you do have a little bit of blood on your nose, and I think your eye’s swelling shut too. Hold still.” She jabbed at his nose with a handkerchief and Titus jerked away.
“Ow! Let me do it!” Titus grabbed the handkerchief from her and pressed gently at his nose. “I don’t how I’m going to explain a black eye to Folrolf,” he said sullenly.
The three children sat a moment in silence, listening to the battle raging above their heads and Hazel suddenly gave a small happy sigh.
“It really is wonderful to be home again.”
This is copyrighted by Allison Tebo 2018© Please do not use or copy without permission.
If you missed Chapter One, you can read it HERE.
If you missed Chapter Two, you can read it HERE.
If you missed Chapter Three, you can read it HERE.
If you missed Chapter Four, you can read it HERE.
Add Life At Hedgerose to your Goodreads shelf HERE.
Okay, lovely readers, you know the routine!
What do you think? Most importantly – is there something you would like to happen next? What are you anticipating in this story? Tell me everything!
(more detailed rules about how this serialized and participatory story works (think Wattpad) can be found HERE )
September 20, 2018
Psalm 23 Meditation: Praising God In Times Of Pain
Some of you know that I deal a lot with continual pain. Recently, while reading Psalm 23, I was struck by how every verse could minister to a specific need someone has when they are suffering from pain.
I wrote this post specifically to share things I’ve learned about being in physical pain (and the fallout emotional, mental, spiritual pain) but in reality everyone around you is experiencing pain of some kind. Everyone in this world is trying to swallow something or limping from a wound.
You’re not special – I’m not special. We’re quick to label ourselves, to think we’re the only ones, but it’s not true. Everyone’s hurting.
As you read this post and reread Psalm 23 – I hope it helps you. I pray that the Holy Spirit would minister to you as He has graciously ministered to me.
“The Lord is my shepherd”
If you have experinced reoccuring pain for years, you know it’s a hard path to navigate, full of twists and turns, roots to trip us and holes to swallow us. We need a guide to help us navigate this difficult trail.
But he’s not just a guide – someone hired to do a job – he is a shepherd. A shepherd guides and protects not just because it is his job, but because he loves those he is shepherding. This isn’t a forced jog/march of endurance to be completed in a certain time frame. The shepherd pauses to find the lost sheep, to disentangle this one from a patch of briers, to pull this one out of a stream. He isn’t someone who is concerned with just fulfilling the minimum of their task – he is a friend. He’ll talk to his sheep; he knows them each by name. At night, he shows them the stars. When it storms, he quiets them with singing. When the bear and lion come to attack, he leaps into the breach. The shepherd is constant, He is tender, He is firm, and He loves.
Not just any guide, not just any shepherd – it is the Lord who walks beside us. I’m not part of a guided tour with a leader who punches the clock, waving a hand and bellows: “Move it, people!” to the stragglers.
When a sheep is wounded, the shepherd carries his ward on his shoulders. I can testify to you, as I sit here and write this, I have ridden on his shoulders during this time of pain. If I’m strong enough, He sets me down and holds my hand over the rough patches, but He is always touching me, always near. He is our GOOD Shepherd, full of eternal love for us.
” . . . I shall not want.”
Anybody who is in constant or reoccurring pain knows that your day is pretty much taken up with a burning, persistent want.
I want to be healed. I want to be pain-free.
Looking at this Scripture, I am confronted with the truth . . . I have everything that I need, because I have Him. Even in my pain, I shall not want.
I promise you, once this truth becomes real in your heart, the battle is half-won. He is EVERYTHING, and He is greater than my pain, greater than any wish. He IS my desire. Beneath it all, beneath every hope and every whim, HE has always been what I wanted, the one I seek, the one I long for. His presence is my goal, his arms are where I want to be. Oh, how can I even begin to describe how much I want Him. That empty space behind every success, that feeling that something or someone is missing while standing amongst my friends, that ache I feel when I experience beauty. I want Him.
And as difficult as it is – the more that is taken away from me, the more that I lose, the more that He gives. When there is less of me, there is more of Him. The trade is worth it. He is life itself.
“He maketh me to lie down in green pastures”
The word that most interests me here is “maketh.”
My middle name is Hustle. I have to literally schedule in breaks for myself – if I’m not forced to rest, I won’t rest. Enter pain – and now I am forced (made) to rest with great frequency.
I’m going to be honest with you, I don’t like it. A minimum of eight hours out of twenty four is supposed to be set aside for sleeping. Obviously resting (and learning how to rest) is important! It causes us to understand an aspect of our faith.
God is pleased when we’re not idle and work hard, but He also wants us to rest. If a soldier doesn’t have leave now and then, he’s not in top form for upcoming battles. If an invalid doesn’t rest, they’ll never recover from the flu. If we are never resting and still, we cannot know what it’s like to rest in His arms and in His peace.
“He leadeth me beside the still waters.”
There is nothing calm about being in pain. We are like so much floatsom and jetsom being tossed around on choppy waves, caught in an endless cycle of one typhoon after another. Like a thunderstorm battering at a roof, we are in constant peril of collapsing under the onslaught of not only physical pain, but mental, emotional, and spiritual torment.
When I start to feel overwhelmed, I reach out to Him. Where else could I possibly go? There is no other recourse. But when I am truly surrendering to Him in the pain, not complaining, not fighting His will, not asking why – there is peace. The raging stills and I rest in Him.
“He restoreth my soul.”
There are some scenes in films we shall never forget – that radiate within us. For me, one of those scenes comes from the 1954 film Robinson Crusoe.
Alone on his island, Robinson is literally starting to lose his sanity. His eyes grow wild, something inside him is on the verge of snapping. He turns and races through the jungle, finally breaking free of the brush and pausing on the edge of a precipice. Does he jump? No. He begins to scream Psalm 23 into its depths – simply to hear the echo. If he does not hear another human voice, he will go mad.
Robinson pauses as he shrieks “He restoreth my soul” and then shouts it repeatedly. The echos of restoration fill the chasm with thunder and melt back to him in whispers and he slowly sinks to his knees, because in the echoes of his frantic cries, he hears the voice of the Restorer of Souls and His unfailing promise.
In times of reoccurring pain, the mental torment can often exceed any physical pain. Racing thoughts, obsessive thoughts – a mind that feels like an engine about to tear itself to pieces, emotions spiraling wildly out of control and a spirit that feels like a boiler about to implode from too much pressure as our hope dies again and again. The fear of closed doors, the inevitability of our future, the panic of not being able to find the emergency exit overtakes us. I understand, I’ve experienced it.
In those moments, I start to pray, almost chanting: Praise be to my God, the Restorer of my Soul. Great is the Soul Restorer, our great Physician, great is His name – I thank you, Christ Jesus, that you restore my soul.”
And he does. Every. Single. Time.
I have not always been granted relief from physical pain – but He has always, without fail, restored my soul.
Oh praise be to my Lord and Father who lifts me high upon a rock. He is all powerful, all gracious, all good, all knowing. He is the beginning and the ending, the source of all, the one I live and long for. In Him I live and move and have my being. Blessed be the Father, The Son, and the Holy Ghost, who has not withheld His love from me!
“He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.”
The world is full of victims.
I’m a victim of a bad diet. I’m the victim of my emotional problems. I’m the victim of an accident. I’m the victim of abuse. I’m the victim of prejudice. I’m the victim of what other people have done to me.
I’m offended that this is allowed and that this has happened – and because of that my identity is now – victim.
Our culture is a sinking ship that is being swamped by victims – they’re crawling through the port holes, hanging from the ratlines. And there’s a line of them standing at the pier.
As God’s child, I have no right to play this card. I do not have the option to be victimized. How can I? I have been given salvation and life itself. God has sent His spirit to dwell inside of me. I can’t behave like a child having a tantrum – I know better.
I have no right to complain, no right to rebel and crawl behind the wall of Taking Offense. He is the potter, I am the clay. I don’t know why some have one lot in life and some have another, and I will not ask why – because only God knows. It is when we grasp at knowledge that is too high for us and we have no business reaching for that we fall into pride. Just ask Eve.
I will not, and cannot be a victim. I will not be miserable. For His name’s sake. I bear HIS name and thus I will walk in righteousness – the righteousness of obedience, surrender, and joyful trust.
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me;”
I’m not proud to admit it, but in my very weakest and worst moments – a thought would sometimes slither through my mind: “What’s the point of living like this? I might as well be dead.”
Please understand, I was not suicidal. This is simply an example and a reminder of how when we are discouraged and feel defeated – Satan throws darts at us. That was not my thought, it was his. We must be careful, very, very careful, to be active against those darts – to bat them away with the shield of faith before we let those thoughts take seed. These sorts of ideas are fiery darts from Satan, nothing more. He wants nothing less than our utter destruction, he craves our defeat, and, always cruel, he stalks the wounded ones.
But even in the shadow of the one who craves our death, we need not fear him. the fiery darts of death will attack us – darts that will kill our peace, our joy, our hope, but Christ is with us, and has given us all the equipment we need to defend ourselves and for those moments when we feel that we can’t even do that – Christ himself intercedes for us.
“Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.”
Our physical pain will bring all kinds of hidden problems to light.
About midway through this bout with pain (roughly two years ago), I was in my room really struggling and begging to be healed. And then He spoke to me, and I heard Him clearly say: “Allison, I’m trying to heal you of things you can’t feel or see.”
Because of this pain, I have learned to truly surrender self. Because of this pain, bad habits have been forced into the light and given over to Him. Because of this pain, my faith has grown. Because of this pain, my relationship with Christ has grown in leaps and bounds and I am in a place with Him now that I don’t believe I would have ever been without this trial.
“Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies,”
Under the daily assault of all that entails being in reoccurring pain – I can assure you, I have feasted.
I have been fed like a queen – because I was in the presence of the King. Evil spirits and demonic attacks of despair, anger, panic might assault me – but there are many times when my shields have been up – and I have been able to stare those spirits in the face and eat and drink at God’s table.
How insulting, how infuriating it must be to these forces of darkness to see their enemy munching and slurping and staring insolently at them when they want to destroy me. The thought makes me laugh – which incites them even further!
My greatest “mountain top” moments have been when I was in great pain (mentally or physically). I reached out a hand to claw my way out of the pit – and that’s all He needs. The will to not let it overtake us, the will power not to wallow in self-pity, the desire to get out, a cry for help that throws us at his feet . . . and he does the rest and he leans down and pulls me out and for a beautiful respite, I am in glorious light.
“Thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.”
Most of us know that being anointed with oil represents healing – but I don’t want to talk about that aspect right here. I want to talk about another aspect of being anointed with oil.
In the Bible, several people were anointed with oil to confirm their royal identity.
Humans are funny creatures, and it’s so easy for us to find comfort in labels. If we’re not careful, our pain can become our identity. “Oh, I suffer from fill-in-the-blank-here. But I’m a survivor, and I’m the initiated. I KNOW what it is to suffer and to be different.”
Our fallen human hearts are so susceptible to running after any label but God’s, that even in our misery, we can hold that up as our identity. But as Christ’s child, I have no business accepting any identity but HIS. When we embrace our identity as a child of Christ, nothing more and nothing less, there is no room for any other identity because our cup will runneth over with purpose, with knowledge and with fulfillment as we recognize our true identity is in Him.
“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,”
This verse could puzzle at first glance. Why have goodness and mercy follow me? Surely it would be better to have them before me, clearing my path like the prow of an icebreaker. How about goodness and mercy surrounding me? A super-duper force field, that’s something that sounds useful!
But then I studied the words again and applied them to chronic pain – and I understood.
Goodness and mercy feel like the things most out of reach for someone in continual pain. What can be good about continual pain? What can be merciful about prolonged suffering?
But then I saw it.
Anyone in continual pain knows that we drag chains around with us, a heavy weight whose clanking always reminds us of its presence. Chains of uncertainty, of loss, or even anguish as we struggle to get by or to understand and to accept.
But goodness and mercy behind us. That is our jet pack.
It is a driving force to propel us forward. We are no longer a victim caught in a spiraling dive – we are a unstoppable force racing across the sky and instead of chains, we leave behind a vapor trail – a beautiful, elusive trail that causes people to look up and wonder.
When people see us in painful situations with goodness and mercy flowing from our wake – they stop and wonder. Like a vapor trail in the sky, our interest is caught, our sense of beauty is aroused, and we begin to reflect, to wonder about what caused that vapor trail. And that answer is God’s love.
The goodness and mercy isn’t just for us, it’s for all those around us, watching us in our trials. Perhaps because of our trials, someone’s faith might be strengthened, or a seed might be planted to guide someone to the Truth.
“and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”
We won’t be in pain forever. One way or another – the pain will end. We will stand before Him and He will wipe away every tear and we shall finally be in His presence and free of a world suffering from sin, free of bodies that won’t work, minds that torment us, and emotions that betray us.
We shall be with Him – FOREVER – and our joy shall overflow for all eternity. We shall receive new bodies with no room left for pain. There will be no distractions, no hardships, to distract from our praise of the King of Kings. The One who holds us in the palm of His hand will welcome us home at last.
“He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” ~ Revelations 21:4
I wrote this post specifically to share things I’ve learned about being in physical pain (and the fallout emotional, mental, spiritual pain) but in reality everyone around you is experiencing pain of some kind. Everyone in this world is trying to swallow something or limping from a wound.
You’re not special – I’m not special. We’re quick to label ourselves, to think we’re the only ones, but it’s not true. Everyone’s hurting.
As you read this post and reread Psalm 23 – I hope it helps you. I pray that the Holy Spirit would minister to you as He has graciously ministered to me.
“The Lord is my shepherd”
If you have experinced reoccuring pain for years, you know it’s a hard path to navigate, full of twists and turns, roots to trip us and holes to swallow us. We need a guide to help us navigate this difficult trail.
But he’s not just a guide – someone hired to do a job – he is a shepherd. A shepherd guides and protects not just because it is his job, but because he loves those he is shepherding. This isn’t a forced jog/march of endurance to be completed in a certain time frame. The shepherd pauses to find the lost sheep, to disentangle this one from a patch of briers, to pull this one out of a stream. He isn’t someone who is concerned with just fulfilling the minimum of their task – he is a friend. He’ll talk to his sheep; he knows them each by name. At night, he shows them the stars. When it storms, he quiets them with singing. When the bear and lion come to attack, he leaps into the breach. The shepherd is constant, He is tender, He is firm, and He loves.
Not just any guide, not just any shepherd – it is the Lord who walks beside us. I’m not part of a guided tour with a leader who punches the clock, waving a hand and bellows: “Move it, people!” to the stragglers.
When a sheep is wounded, the shepherd carries his ward on his shoulders. I can testify to you, as I sit here and write this, I have ridden on his shoulders during this time of pain. If I’m strong enough, He sets me down and holds my hand over the rough patches, but He is always touching me, always near. He is our GOOD Shepherd, full of eternal love for us.
” . . . I shall not want.”
Anybody who is in constant or reoccurring pain knows that your day is pretty much taken up with a burning, persistent want.
I want to be healed. I want to be pain-free.
Looking at this Scripture, I am confronted with the truth . . . I have everything that I need, because I have Him. Even in my pain, I shall not want.
I promise you, once this truth becomes real in your heart, the battle is half-won. He is EVERYTHING, and He is greater than my pain, greater than any wish. He IS my desire. Beneath it all, beneath every hope and every whim, HE has always been what I wanted, the one I seek, the one I long for. His presence is my goal, his arms are where I want to be. Oh, how can I even begin to describe how much I want Him. That empty space behind every success, that feeling that something or someone is missing while standing amongst my friends, that ache I feel when I experience beauty. I want Him.
And as difficult as it is – the more that is taken away from me, the more that I lose, the more that He gives. When there is less of me, there is more of Him. The trade is worth it. He is life itself.
“He maketh me to lie down in green pastures”
The word that most interests me here is “maketh.”
My middle name is Hustle. I have to literally schedule in breaks for myself – if I’m not forced to rest, I won’t rest. Enter pain – and now I am forced (made) to rest with great frequency.
I’m going to be honest with you, I don’t like it. A minimum of eight hours out of twenty four is supposed to be set aside for sleeping. Obviously resting (and learning how to rest) is important! It causes us to understand an aspect of our faith.
God is pleased when we’re not idle and work hard, but He also wants us to rest. If a soldier doesn’t have leave now and then, he’s not in top form for upcoming battles. If an invalid doesn’t rest, they’ll never recover from the flu. If we are never resting and still, we cannot know what it’s like to rest in His arms and in His peace.
“He leadeth me beside the still waters.”
There is nothing calm about being in pain. We are like so much floatsom and jetsom being tossed around on choppy waves, caught in an endless cycle of one typhoon after another. Like a thunderstorm battering at a roof, we are in constant peril of collapsing under the onslaught of not only physical pain, but mental, emotional, and spiritual torment.
When I start to feel overwhelmed, I reach out to Him. Where else could I possibly go? There is no other recourse. But when I am truly surrendering to Him in the pain, not complaining, not fighting His will, not asking why – there is peace. The raging stills and I rest in Him.
“He restoreth my soul.”
There are some scenes in films we shall never forget – that radiate within us. For me, one of those scenes comes from the 1954 film Robinson Crusoe.
Alone on his island, Robinson is literally starting to lose his sanity. His eyes grow wild, something inside him is on the verge of snapping. He turns and races through the jungle, finally breaking free of the brush and pausing on the edge of a precipice. Does he jump? No. He begins to scream Psalm 23 into its depths – simply to hear the echo. If he does not hear another human voice, he will go mad.
Robinson pauses as he shrieks “He restoreth my soul” and then shouts it repeatedly. The echos of restoration fill the chasm with thunder and melt back to him in whispers and he slowly sinks to his knees, because in the echoes of his frantic cries, he hears the voice of the Restorer of Souls and His unfailing promise.
In times of reoccurring pain, the mental torment can often exceed any physical pain. Racing thoughts, obsessive thoughts – a mind that feels like an engine about to tear itself to pieces, emotions spiraling wildly out of control and a spirit that feels like a boiler about to implode from too much pressure as our hope dies again and again. The fear of closed doors, the inevitability of our future, the panic of not being able to find the emergency exit overtakes us. I understand, I’ve experienced it.
In those moments, I start to pray, almost chanting: Praise be to my God, the Restorer of my Soul. Great is the Soul Restorer, our great Physician, great is His name – I thank you, Christ Jesus, that you restore my soul.”
And he does. Every. Single. Time.
I have not always been granted relief from physical pain – but He has always, without fail, restored my soul.
Oh praise be to my Lord and Father who lifts me high upon a rock. He is all powerful, all gracious, all good, all knowing. He is the beginning and the ending, the source of all, the one I live and long for. In Him I live and move and have my being. Blessed be the Father, The Son, and the Holy Ghost, who has not withheld His love from me!
“He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.”
The world is full of victims.
I’m a victim of a bad diet. I’m the victim of my emotional problems. I’m the victim of an accident. I’m the victim of abuse. I’m the victim of prejudice. I’m the victim of what other people have done to me.
I’m offended that this is allowed and that this has happened – and because of that my identity is now – victim.
Our culture is a sinking ship that is being swamped by victims – they’re crawling through the port holes, hanging from the ratlines. And there’s a line of them standing at the pier.
As God’s child, I have no right to play this card. I do not have the option to be victimized. How can I? I have been given salvation and life itself. God has sent His spirit to dwell inside of me. I can’t behave like a child having a tantrum – I know better.
I have no right to complain, no right to rebel and crawl behind the wall of Taking Offense. He is the potter, I am the clay. I don’t know why some have one lot in life and some have another, and I will not ask why – because only God knows. It is when we grasp at knowledge that is too high for us and we have no business reaching for that we fall into pride. Just ask Eve.
I will not, and cannot be a victim. I will not be miserable. For His name’s sake. I bear HIS name and thus I will walk in righteousness – the righteousness of obedience, surrender, and joyful trust.
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me;”
I’m not proud to admit it, but in my very weakest and worst moments – a thought would sometimes slither through my mind: “What’s the point of living like this? I might as well be dead.”
Please understand, I was not suicidal. This is simply an example and a reminder of how when we are discouraged and feel defeated – Satan throws darts at us. That was not my thought, it was his. We must be careful, very, very careful, to be active against those darts – to bat them away with the shield of faith before we let those thoughts take seed. These sorts of ideas are fiery darts from Satan, nothing more. He wants nothing less than our utter destruction, he craves our defeat, and, always cruel, he stalks the wounded ones.
But even in the shadow of the one who craves our death, we need not fear him. the fiery darts of death will attack us – darts that will kill our peace, our joy, our hope, but Christ is with us, and has given us all the equipment we need to defend ourselves and for those moments when we feel that we can’t even do that – Christ himself intercedes for us.
“Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.”
Our physical pain will bring all kinds of hidden problems to light.
About midway through this bout with pain (roughly two years ago), I was in my room really struggling and begging to be healed. And then He spoke to me, and I heard Him clearly say: “Allison, I’m trying to heal you of things you can’t feel or see.”
Because of this pain, I have learned to truly surrender self. Because of this pain, bad habits have been forced into the light and given over to Him. Because of this pain, my faith has grown. Because of this pain, my relationship with Christ has grown in leaps and bounds and I am in a place with Him now that I don’t believe I would have ever been without this trial.
“Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies,”
Under the daily assault of all that entails being in reoccurring pain – I can assure you, I have feasted.
I have been fed like a queen – because I was in the presence of the King. Evil spirits and demonic attacks of despair, anger, panic might assault me – but there are many times when my shields have been up – and I have been able to stare those spirits in the face and eat and drink at God’s table.
How insulting, how infuriating it must be to these forces of darkness to see their enemy munching and slurping and staring insolently at them when they want to destroy me. The thought makes me laugh – which incites them even further!
My greatest “mountain top” moments have been when I was in great pain (mentally or physically). I reached out a hand to claw my way out of the pit – and that’s all He needs. The will to not let it overtake us, the will power not to wallow in self-pity, the desire to get out, a cry for help that throws us at his feet . . . and he does the rest and he leans down and pulls me out and for a beautiful respite, I am in glorious light.
“Thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.”
Most of us know that being anointed with oil represents healing – but I don’t want to talk about that aspect right here. I want to talk about another aspect of being anointed with oil.
In the Bible, several people were anointed with oil to confirm their royal identity.
Humans are funny creatures, and it’s so easy for us to find comfort in labels. If we’re not careful, our pain can become our identity. “Oh, I suffer from fill-in-the-blank-here. But I’m a survivor, and I’m the initiated. I KNOW what it is to suffer and to be different.”
Our fallen human hearts are so susceptible to running after any label but God’s, that even in our misery, we can hold that up as our identity. But as Christ’s child, I have no business accepting any identity but HIS. When we embrace our identity as a child of Christ, nothing more and nothing less, there is no room for any other identity because our cup will runneth over with purpose, with knowledge and with fulfillment as we recognize our true identity is in Him.
“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,”
This verse could puzzle at first glance. Why have goodness and mercy follow me? Surely it would be better to have them before me, clearing my path like the prow of an icebreaker. How about goodness and mercy surrounding me? A super-duper force field, that’s something that sounds useful!
But then I studied the words again and applied them to chronic pain – and I understood.
Goodness and mercy feel like the things most out of reach for someone in continual pain. What can be good about continual pain? What can be merciful about prolonged suffering?
But then I saw it.
Anyone in continual pain knows that we drag chains around with us, a heavy weight whose clanking always reminds us of its presence. Chains of uncertainty, of loss, or even anguish as we struggle to get by or to understand and to accept.
But goodness and mercy behind us. That is our jet pack.
It is a driving force to propel us forward. We are no longer a victim caught in a spiraling dive – we are a unstoppable force racing across the sky and instead of chains, we leave behind a vapor trail – a beautiful, elusive trail that causes people to look up and wonder.
When people see us in painful situations with goodness and mercy flowing from our wake – they stop and wonder. Like a vapor trail in the sky, our interest is caught, our sense of beauty is aroused, and we begin to reflect, to wonder about what caused that vapor trail. And that answer is God’s love.
The goodness and mercy isn’t just for us, it’s for all those around us, watching us in our trials. Perhaps because of our trials, someone’s faith might be strengthened, or a seed might be planted to guide someone to the Truth.
“and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”
We won’t be in pain forever. One way or another – the pain will end. We will stand before Him and He will wipe away every tear and we shall finally be in His presence and free of a world suffering from sin, free of bodies that won’t work, minds that torment us, and emotions that betray us.
We shall be with Him – FOREVER – and our joy shall overflow for all eternity. We shall receive new bodies with no room left for pain. There will be no distractions, no hardships, to distract from our praise of the King of Kings. The One who holds us in the palm of His hand will welcome us home at last.
“He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” ~ Revelations 21:4
September 7, 2018
August in a Nutshell
*slides in* I’m BACK! I’m late, but I’m back.
I can only assume that you noticed and grieved my absence.
Ahem.
I can only assume that you noticed and grieved my absence.
Ahem.
