Emilie Richards's Blog, page 103

Fiction Friday: A Sneak Peek at No River Too Wide

Welcome to Fiction Friday, your opportunity to read along with me and with my friends.

Last week’s was a quiz and a giveaway, and I’m happy to say that within minutes of posting the blog, Kay Myhrman-Toso submitted the correct answer. The books were: A Truth for a Truth from my Ministry is Murder series, Whiskey Island, and Fortunate Harbor from my Happiness Key trio.  Congratulations, Kay. And thanks to everyone who took the time to play along.

Each Friday here is a bit different, and today is a first.  Since I want to make this fun for myself and you, today I’m giving you a SNEAK PEEK into my work in progress, No River Too Wide, the third book in my Goddesses Anonymous series.  In fact you’ll get to see this before my editor even gets the manuscript.

Why a sneak peek at a book that won’t be out until next summer? Because I’m living and breathing this book as I approach my deadline to deliver it. Since I’m living with it, I think you should, too.

Of course since this is still a work in progress, who knows if this excerpt will even make it into the final cut?

One of the characters here will be familiar to you if you’ve read One Mountain Away and/or Somewhere Between Luck and Trust. In fact she’s one of the goddesses. Another won’t be familiar. The “studio” is something new, as well. But I’ll let you find out more about that when the book comes out.

Enjoy this short look at what’s coming in July 2014. Next week, a look at Casey Daniels’ brand new Chili Cook-off series.

***

Adam arrived just minutes after Taylor called to tell him where to pick up his car. In the interim she had satisfied herself that Maddie was not only fine but basking in the joys of being home alone for a full half hour. She had also combed her hair and shed her clunky sneakers for sandals, telling herself as she did that she would have done both even if Adam Pryor wasn’t on his way.

Sandals, maybe, hair, most likely not. But she could pretend.

When he knocked she called for him to come in. She was putting the finishing touches on iced tea when he opened the door.

He filled the doorway but didn’t enter. “How did you know that was me? For that matter, how do you really know that ‘me’ is a safe person to let inside?”

“I read your resume. Even if I didn’t think you were safe, you could batter down my door in a matter of moments.”

“If that’s true we need to work on your locks.”

“As it turns out, you don’t need to worry. I have a security guy coming in a couple of days to turn my house into a fortress.”

He didn’t even take a breath. “And a resume is just a piece of paper until you’ve checked to be sure it’s legit.”

“Duly noted. A glass of tea is just a waste of ice and tea bags until it’s been drunk. Will you join me?” Taylor held up the two glasses. “A thank you for helping.”

“Sure. I’ll pillage and vandalize later.”

“I like a man with priorities.” Taylor inclined her head toward the sofa and carried the tea in that direction to place it on the coffeetable. “I have cookies, too, or I can rustle up something else if you’re hungry.”

“Thanks. I ate before I came over to the studio.”

Taylor thought a guy Adam’s size probably ate more than three meals a day, but how would she know? She was seriously uneducated about men and their needs.

All their needs, actually.

Tales of the Pacific and A New Online Magazine

Click to view Tales of the Pacific by Emilie Richards on GLOSSI.COM

I’ll confess that the internet is a guilty pleasure. And the new tools that come with it? I love them, too.

Let me introduce you to the newest toy in my digital toybox, a little something called Glossi. Can you guess what the word refers to?

Our family has always been computer  happy. Although it’s a cliche, we really were the first folks on our block to own one. I began my writing career on a Radio Shack Model One, yes, that’s One as in no hard drive and a tape back-up system.

I began writing romances on that little darling,  and she was a shy girl indeed. Model One tended to go berserk when I wrote love scenes and promptly deleted them. Last chapters often met the same fate, and I’m sure my screams are still echoing in outer space. But I was so glad to be able to make corrections in a chapter without using Wite-Out, and to duplicate my work without carbon paper, that I felt I was surfing at the peak of the technology wave.

You know the rest from your own experience. Internet we paid for by the minute and dialed up on telephones. Shabby, hard to access bulletin boards. Email. Remember when we didn’t have it? So it goes. Google, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest.

And today, Glossi.

When I mentioned that my family was computer happy I should have mentioned that my husband and three sons vied for first place honors. Our oldest is now an attorney who specializes in cybersecurity. Another is a photographer who shoots with a digital camera, puts his photos online and uses the internet to promote them. The third works in information technology and can’t remember a time without a computer.

And the husband? Well, he’s the one who took the Glossi link I’d sent a few weeks ago and promptly began to assemble a  Glossi magazine featuring my Tales of the Pacific ebooks, photos of the settings, excerpts, even a map to show where the four stories are set.

He’s a keeper.

I think Michael, who is now officially my project manager, had a ball. He’s planning a much more extended edition for my Goddesses Anonymous novels. Character photos and bios, synopses of all the stories, lots of fabulous Asheville photos, and links to organizations that reach out the way that the goddesses do in the novels. I can’t wait to see what he comes up with.

In the meantime, enjoy our Tales of the Pacific debut. Just click on the cover at the top, then click the arrows on the right to turn pages. Enjoy. I hope you have half as much fun with it as we did.

Sunday Inspiration: “Our lives are linked together…”

Humanity is like an enormous spider web, so that if you touch it anywhere, you set the whole thing trembling… As we move around this world and as we act with kindness, perhaps, or with indifference, or with hostility, toward the people we meet, we too are setting the great spider web a-tremble.

The life that I touch for good or ill will touch another life, and that in turn another, until who knows where the trembling stops or in what far place and time my touch will be felt. Our lives are linked together. No one is an island. -Frederick Buechner

This image of the world as a vast spider web — without the spider, thank you — connecting all people is inspiring for me.  I imagine myself linked to everyone around me whom I love, my family and friends, and beyond that to those I will never know from different cultures and countries.

We are one human family tied together by our struggle for a better life and the promise of hope.  Is this image of the web inspiring for you?

Fiction Friday: Name That Book

Welcome to Fiction Friday, your opportunity to watch my mind leapfrog about.  Each Friday here is a bit different, just to keep the boredom factor at a minimum. Sometimes you’ll read an excerpt from one of my novels, sometimes a friend or colleague’s. Eventuallythere may be some original offerings. I want to make this fun for myself and you.  So who knows what Fridays at Southern Exposure will bring?

Today Fiction Friday brings a quizz and a giveaway.  For fun I’ve chosen excerpts from three of my novels.  Your mission is to figure out which book each one is from.

Must you have read the books?  Not if you’re willing to look through my website book pages and get hints from the excerpts there or descriptions–like character names. If you need a list of my books, you’ll find one here, although I’ll warn you, when I created the printable booklist, I did leave off one by mistake. The first excerpt is, in fact, from that book.

Whether you choose to guess or carefully research, have fun.

Excerpt #1:

The Reverend Godwin Dorchester claimed he wanted to die in the pulpit, hands lifted toward the heavens, gaze riveted on whatever parishioner needed his message the most. Godwin, better known as “Win” to his congregations, thought his last breath ought to be put to good use, seeing as none would follow, and his chance to change the world would be over with one dramatic flourish.

Personally I’m hoping to use my final exhalations to say goodbye to the people who love me, but then I’m not a minister. I’m only married to one. And my husband Ed, Win’s successor to the ministry of the Consolidated Community Church of Emerald Springs, Ohio, is young enough that dying breaths aren’t high on his list of things to worry about quite yet.

In fact right now my husband is worrying about Godwin Dorchester’s memorial service. In half an hour Ed will raise his own hands and fasten his gaze on somebody in Win’s honor. Because Win did not die in the pulpit. He died taking out the garbage. And according to Hildy, his wife of almost fifty years, the last thing Win said was “911,” which was neither inspirational nor effective. Win was dead before he did a nose dive into the garbage can and found eternal rest on a biodegradable trash bag.

Now, was that hard?  I hope not.  It’s the opening of that particular book, which makes it easier.

This excerpt is not the opening.  Hopefully you’ll find clues in the paragraphs.  I will say it’s one of my best-loved novels.

Excerpt #2:

Megan had a second floor apartment in a tasteful brick building off Edgewater Drive. The neighborhood was convenient. She could stroll north to the lakefront for recreation or south for shopping. Although venerable maple trees blocked most natural light, the apartment did have wide windowsills that she filled with plants, a breakfast nook with built-in benches and a bedroom large enough for an antique cherry sleigh bed. She had bargained ruthlessly for the bed with a Lorain Avenue antique dealer, and she had repaired and refinished it herself, adding a cherry dresser and mirrored vanity as she came across them in similar shops.

The apartment was decorated in flea market and garage sale treasures. A collection of novelty teapots lined a shelf in the kitchen. In the bedroom a Fiestaware pitcher on the vanity sported fresh flowers, even in the winter. The sleigh bed sported a Grandmother’s Flower Garden quilt made of nine hundred and sixty-two hexagons cut from colorful feed sacks produced during the era when her apartment had been built.

Late one night she had counted the hexagons, and halfway through it occurred to her that other women her age had better things to do.

Megan loved the apartment, but she loved the solitude more. As a child and teenager she had never had a room of her own. Privacy had meant five full minutes alone in the bathroom. She had shared a bed with Casey or Peggy–occasionally both during thunderstorms. Even now, although she relished being alone, on most nights the bed felt empty, particularly when it rained.

And finally, not an oldie, but a goodie.  Even if you’re new to my books, this one should be easyish.

Excerpt #3

What would Janya do when Wanda was nowhere in sight?

She heard a rattle and a sharp scraping noise, and she figured the men were coming in through the side gate Mrs. Statler had mentioned. Her brain was spinning, but dizziness was the lone result. She realized the moment she heard voices she should have leapt for the door. She might have had time to get out, although that was iffy. She started forward and saw Janya come around the edge of the pool. Janya glanced toward the pool house, frowning, then she must have seen Wanda or Wanda’s shadow inside, because suddenly her expression turned from irritation to horror.

Janya looked right at Wanda, then at the men coming around the side of the pool house. As if she hadn’t even considered what to do, she took one step to the side and gracefully toppled into the pool.

Got them all, did you?  Or just think you did?  Send me your answers as a comment here (and only here), and I’ll post them together next week so that everyone has a chance to play without reading other answers.

Remember, I said GIVEAWAY?  That’s right.  The first commenter who correctly identifies all three novels will receive an autographed copy of Book #3–unless the commenter does NOT live in North America. ( I’m sorry. I wish international postage were cheap enough to include my international readers in every giveaway.) If you comment more than once, only your first comment will count for the giveaway.

What Do Decorating a House and Writing a Book Have in Common?

I’m going to make a confession. I’m addicted to decorating and renovation blogs. My favorite three letters are DYI. Do I have time for DYI? Of course not. Proof:  I am still hand quilting the first quilt top I ever made back in, oh, 1990, give or take a year.

Were I to try my hand at those adorable DIY projects I so relentlessly pin on Pinterest, I am sure that in another twenty or so years, I would still own a bottle of Mod Podge, and a plastic pumpkin from Dollar General, waiting breathlessly to come together in an ecstatic love match smothered with old book pages or Liberace style adornments. (If you click on those links, don’t say I didn’t warn you.)

Plain old decorating, though, is a different matter.  Every house needs furniture, paint, something on the walls, And no, pinning photos of fantasy houses on Pinterest is not good enough.  When you walk through your front door you deserve to feel happy and at home without running to your computer.

With that in mind, and with a renovation more or less completed (our crew came back for two days last week), I’m still deciding what to put on floors and walls. Under the circumstances decorating blogs are a guilty but sensible pleasure.

This morning I ran into this blog post.  View Along the Way: The Journey to a DIY Home is like other upbeat, helpful blogs that chronicle the successes and failures of rehabbing and decorating on a strict budget. Along the way we meet the bloggers’ families, share their life stories, and salivate over their finished projects. I’m a writer. I love peeking into other people’s lives. And Kelly’s blog is nicely done.

This post was a bit different. Kelly took the time to explain her six decorating rules. Simple, thoughtful rules. I needed those rules, thanks. How could I resist?

And after Kelly gave permission, how could I resist sharing them with you, since I saw immediately that each one is important for writers, too? So thank you Kelly, for sharing your ideas with your readers.

Now I’ll share mine.

Rule #1:  Kelly says: Don’t decorate for the Joneses.

Emilie says: If you write a novel to please a particular audience, you may well suceed, but it’s even more likely that unless you love that genre or subgenre, the book will be anemic, off-kilter and filled with cliches.

Almost more important?  Even if you write a masterpiece, not everyone will like it.  Got that?  Not everyone will like it.

In the immortal words of Ricky Nelson: “You can’t please everyone, so you’ve got to please yourself.” (Who knew all those years ago when I thought Ozzie and Harriet was so boring, that later in life I would find so many opportunities to quote Ricky?)

Rule #2: Kelly says: Your home, your tastes.

Emilie says:  You have to be able to sit down with a book you’ve written and be moved by the story you’ve told, the characters you’ve portrayed, the writing you labored over.  If you’ve written for someone else’s tastes, you won’t be moved, you’ll be bored.  It’s a simple test.

Rule #3: Kelly says: Don’t fight the season.

Emilie says: This is great advice.  Kelly’s talking about decorating to meet your present situation.  Small children and silk chairs don’t mix.

The same is true with writing.  You’ve always wanted to write a literary masterpiece, but you have exactly twenty minutes before work and an hour after you put the kids to bed to write?  And that’s on a good day.  You might need to save the masterpiece and choose something smaller, less intimidating that you can actually finish and possibly sell. Remember rules #1 and #2 though.  Choose something that you also love.  Be realistic as well as creative.

Rule #4: Kelly says:  The rules exist to help you.

Emilie says: While Rules #1 and #2 deal with writing for your own tastes, be sure you understand the basic rules of writing before you decide to break them.  Learn what’s expected in your chosen genre, and don’t set out to write something completely different just to be ornery.  Of course a grasp of grammar and spelling, not to mention proper formatting for submission, is absolutely necessary for writing.

You’d be surprised how many people don’t think so.

Rule #5: Kelly says:  Beautiful rooms take patience.

Emilie says:  So do books.  Don’t slap a book together and stick it online or send it to a publisher without making it the very best it can be.  A book takes time, humility and often professional guidance.  If you’re patient enough to take the time to turn out your best work, your chances of publication and reader enthusiasm increase by the power of ten.

Rule #6: Kelly says: It’s all temporary.

Emilie says: Not so much with books, unless you’re slapping yours up online and plan to revise at your leisure.  Even then, remember that readers bought and read the first version and might not be so enthused about your next book. In fact they might tell their friends to avoid it based on your slapdash mistakes and lack of respect for their hard-earned dollars.  You’ll hate it if that happens.

What is temporary?  No matter how hard you work on your first book, you’ll find that your writing improves with time and effort.  So while “temporarily” this book might be the best you can produce, you will have more and better books to look forward to if you continuously try to perfect your craft.

The Six Rules of Decorating and Writing.  Our work here is done.

Now yours begins?

Sunday Inspiration: “Sort Out All the Arguments”

I invented this rule for myself to be applied to every decision I might have to make in the future.

I would sort out all the arguments and see which belonged to fear and which to creativeness, and other things being equal I would make the decision which had the larger number of creative reasons on its side.

I think it must be a rule something like this that makes jonquils and crocuses come pushing through cold mud. –Katherine Butler Hathaway

Ethical decisions are usually hard to make.

There is so much to consider, so many pros and cons that it’s so easy to get confused, we let others make decisions for us, or we make decisions by not deciding.

I would like to try to make my next decision based on Hathaway’s guideline: Move away from fear and toward creativity.  I would only add compassion.

How does that work for you?

Fiction Friday: Death and Enchiladas

Welcome to Fiction Friday, your weekly opportunity to read excerpts of my novels or novels of other writers that I think you might like.

Today’s excerpt is from New York Times bestselling author Diane Mott Davidson with the permission of her publisher William Morrow and Diane herself. This seems particularly appropriate because Diane was one of my brainstorming buddies and this novel was part of our conversations. I’ve been looking forward to reading it ever since. The Whole Enchilada debuted at the end of August.

Diane’s wonderful mystery series features Goldy Schulz, Colorado caterer and amateur sleuth, and I can truly say from experience that Diane, herself, is a fabulous cook.  The recipes are her own creations.

Diane’s Goldy mysteries may well have been the first series I read (listened to) and truly enjoyed, and I think Diane planted the seeds for my own series.

Entertainment Weekly says this about The Whole Enchilada: Caterer and sleuth extraordinaire Goldy Schulz jumps from the frying pan into the fire as she tries to solve a puzzling murder that is much too close to home, in this latest entry in the New York Times bestselling series from “today’s foremost practitioner of the culinary whodunit.”

Can you resist?

***

Prologue 

My friend Holly Ingleby died after a party I’d organized. She collapsed while walking with her son, Drew, to her car–less than a block from the house belonging to another close friend, Marla Korman. I knew I shouldn’t have blamed myself. But I did. 

The seventeenth–birthday celebration for Drew and my own son, Arch, was not an official event put on by my business, Goldilocks’ Catering, Where Everything Is Just Right! It was a Tex–Mex potluck featuring sizzling–hot enchiladas, crunchy salted tortillas, cool guacamole, fresh–baked corn bread, and chile relleno tortas, those quivering, picante–laced custards brimming with lakes of cheddar and Jack cheeses. For dessert, there was dulce de leche ice cream accompanying a birthday cake with sparkler–style candles. The whole thing was supposed to have been carefree and fun. 

What was the opposite of carefree and fun? That party. 

Years before, Holly, Marla, and I, along with a few other women, had been in a support group, Amour Anonymous. We’d all given love to the wrong men for the wrong reasons. With a few banjos, we could have played Nashville. Ha ha, so funny I forgot to laugh. 

More important, we kept each other upright as we marched through hell. 

When I saw Holly lying inert on the pavement, an icy abyss opened in my chest. Tom, my second husband– as wonderful as the first one had been horrific– grasped my shoulders to keep me from pitching onto the concrete where Holly lay. 

Afterward, I thought, That could have been me. 

I knew people differed in their opinions of Holly. In our mountain town of Aspen Meadow, Colorado, perched at eight thousand feet above sea level, forty miles west of Denver, the charitable called Holly a loving mother who’d come from nothing, then shared her creative gifts with the world. 

The uncharitable called her an untalented slut who chased rich men and charged too much for her work. Marla and I always stuck up for her– not that it did much good. Still, no matter what the charitable or the uncharitable said about Holly’s personality and ability, they all would have agreed that she worked hard to maintain her slender, muscled body. At thirty–eight, she was still leggy, still blond, with a bright–eyed, surgically enhanced face and a vivacious personality. She had no history of disease and was not on medication. As it turned out, there were many uncharitable people around my old friend. At the time, I didn’t know who these individuals were. Nor did I have an inkling as to their motives. 

Most people were stunned by her death. Most. Not all.

***

The Whole Enchilada is available at your favorite brick and mortar bookstore as well as Amazon, B&N, BAM, Kobo, iTunes and Indiebound

Brainstorming 2013

This week I’ve welcomed my brainstorming buddies to our Chautauqua hideaway to spend four days tossing around ideas about upcoming novels, everything from entire plots to key ideas we need help with.

If you missed my previous posts about previous brainstorming sessions and the way we conduct them, you can find them here and here and even here.

My brainstorming group has changed as people’s careers and needs changed, but this year I’m meeting again with the group I first met with last year. We got along so well that I’m delighted to invite them here to spend most of this week together. Let me introduce you to the gang.

First, you’ve already met Casey Daniels (aka Kylie Logan). Casey/Kylie write several cozy mystery series, including the Pepper Martin series as Casey, the League of Literary Ladies series as Kylie, the Button Box mysteries as Kylie, and the soon to be released Chili Cookoff Mystery series beginning with Chili Con Carnage. Casey (I know her best as Connie) has had a full and varied career. There’s not a genre she can’t write in and she has the books to prove it. She was a member of my first brainstorming group, too, and a pal from my Cleveland days.

Second, you’ve met Serena B. Miller on these pages, too. Serena writes inspirational fiction, with many of her books set in Amish communities in Ohio as well as historicals set in Michigan. She and I share a common bond since we’re both the wives of minister’s. We learned long ago that we share the same joys and sorrows despite being from different denominations–she relates to my Aggie books, too. Serena recently learned one of her books, Love Finds You in Sugar Creek, is being filmed as a television movie. Her newest novel, Under A Blackberry Moon, comes out in October.

Shelley Costa writes the Miracolo mysteries, about life at a Northern Italian restaurant outside Philly, and her first novel You Cannoli Die Once was released in May. But Shelley has always been a writer with lots of published short stories, and she’s also a faculty member at the Cleveland Institute of Art where she teaches writing. I didn’t know Shelley until last year, but I’m so happy I know her now.

So there you have our merry band. Hoping to take lots of walks and talk lots about publishing in between our brainstorming sessions. Maybe I’ll report back and tell you all the good gossip I hear.

Or maybe. . . not.

Sunday Inspiration: “One step at a time…

People say, what is the sense of our small effort? They cannot see that we must lay one brick at a time, take one step at a time. A pebble cast into a pond causes ripples that spread in all directions. Each one of our thoughts, words and deeds is like that. No one has a right to sit down and feel hopeless. There is too much work to do. –Dorothy Day

Dorothy Day was a passionate activist who lived her words.

We can all do so much if we take one step at a time, keeping in sight how all our small efforts can lead to better things.

I have tried to imbue the characters in my books, especially in the Goddess Anonymous series, with hope despite obstacles, because I believe without the courage to cast our pebbles into a pond, life becomes meaningless.

How have your small steps led to better things?

Fiction Friday: Another Time and Place, and Another Author

Welcome to Fiction Friday, my chance each week to share excerpts of my own novels or novels of  other writers that I think you might like.  Today is one of the latter.

If you’ve followed my blog you know that author Diane Chamberlain is a good friend and one of my own favorite reads.  Diane’s newest book Necessary Lies, came out this week and she’s graciously agreed to let me share an excerpt with you today.  Thanks Diane for the excerpt and another riveting novel.

Diane’s new book takes place in North Carolina tobacco country in a time of state-mandated sterilizations and racial tension.  Diane handles difficult issues so deftly that she draws in her reader immediately.

After losing her parents, fifteen-year-old Ivy Hart is left to care for her grandmother, older sister and nephew as tenants on a small tobacco farm. As she struggles with her grandmother’s aging, her sister’s mental illness and her own epilepsy, she realizes they might need more than she can give.

When Jane Forrester takes a position as Grace County’s newest social worker, she doesn’t realize just how much her help is needed. She quickly becomes emotionally invested in her clients’ lives, causing tension with her boss and her new husband. But as Jane is drawn in by the Hart women, she begins to discover the secrets of the small farm—secrets much darker than she would have guessed.

Enjoy this excerpt from Diane Chamberlain’s Necessary Lies, on sale at your favorite bookstore.

***

JUNE 22, 2011

1

Brenna 

It was an odd request—visit a stranger’s house and peer inside a closet—and as I drove through the neighborhood searching for the address, I felt my anxiety mounting.

There it was: number 247. I hadn’t expected the house to be so large. It stood apart from its neighbors on the gently winding road, flanked on either side by huge magnolia trees, tall oaks, and crape myrtle. It was painted a soft buttery yellow with white trim, and everything about it looked crisp and clean in the early morning sun. Every house I’d passed, although different in architecture, had the same stately yet inviting look. I didn’t know Raleigh well at all, but this had to be one of the most beautiful old neighborhoods in the city.

I parked close to the curb and headed up the walk. Potted plants lined either side of the broad steps that led up to the wraparound porch. I glanced at my watch. I had an hour before I needed to be back at the hotel. No rush, though my nerves were really acting up. There was so much I hoped would go well today, and so much of it was out of my control.

I rang the bell and heard it chime inside the house. I could see someone pass behind the sidelight and then the door opened. The woman—forty, maybe? At least ten years younger than me—smiled, although that didn’t mask her harried expression. I felt bad for bothering her this early. She wore white shorts, a pink striped T-shirt, and tennis shoes, and sported a glowing tan. She was the petite, toned, and well-put-together sort of woman that always made me feel sloppy, even though I knew I looked fine in my black pants and blue blouse.

“Brenna?” She ran her fingers through her short-short, spiky blond hair.

“Yes,” I said. “And you must be Jennifer.”

Jennifer peered behind me. “She’s not with you?” she asked.

I shook my head. “I thought she’d come, but at the last minute she said she just couldn’t.”

Jennifer nodded. “Today must be really hard for her.” She took a step back from the doorway. “Come on in,” she said. “My kids are done with school for the summer, but they have swim-team practice this morning, so we’re in luck. We have the house to ourselves. The kids are always too full of questions.”

“Thanks.” I walked past her into the foyer. I was glad no one else was home. I wished I had the house totally to myself, to be honest. I would have loved to explore it. But that wasn’t why I was here.

“Can I get you anything?” Jennifer asked. “Coffee?”

“No, I’m good, thanks.”

“Well, come on then. I’ll show you.”

She led me to the broad, winding staircase and we climbed it without speaking, my shoes on the shiny dark hardwood treads making the only sound.

“How long have you been in the house?” I asked when we reached the second story.

“Five years,” she said. “We redid everything. I mean, we painted every single room and every inch of molding. And every closet, too, except for that one.”

“Why didn’t you paint that one?” I asked as I followed her down a short hallway.

“The woman we bought the house from specifically told us not to. She said that the couple she’d bought the house from had also told her not to, but nobody seemed to understand why not. The woman we bought it from showed us the writing. My husband thought we should just paint over it—I think he was spooked by it—but I talked him out of it. It’s a closet. What would it hurt to leave it unpainted?” We’d reached the closed door at the end of the hall. “I had no idea what it meant until I spoke to you on the phone.” She pushed open the door. “It’s my daughter’s room now,” she said, “so excuse the mess.”

It wasn’t what I’d call messy at all. My twin daughters’ rooms had been far worse. “How old’s your daughter?” I asked.

“Ten. Thus the Justin Bieber obsession.” She swept her arm through the air to take in the lavender room and its nearly wall-to-wall posters.

“It only gets worse.” I smiled. “I barely survived my girls’ teen years.” I thought of my family—my husband and my daughters and their babies—up in Maryland and suddenly missed them. I hoped I’d be home by the weekend, when all of this would be over.

Jennifer opened the closet door. It was a small closet, the type you’d find in these older homes, and it was crammed with clothes on hangers and shoes helter-skelter on the floor. I felt a chill, as though a ghost had slipped past me into the room. I hugged my arms as Jennifer pulled a cord to turn on the light. She pressed the clothes to one side of the closet.

“There,” she said, pointing to the left wall at about the level of my knees. “Maybe we need a flashlight?” she asked. “Or I can just take a bunch of these clothes out. I should have done that before you got here.” She lifted an armload of the clothes and struggled to disengage the hangers before carrying them from the closet. Without the clothing, the closet filled with light and I squatted inside the tight space, pushing pink sneakers and a pair of sandals out of my way.

I ran my fingers over the words carved into the wall. Ancient paint snagged my fingertips where it had chipped away around the letters. “Ivy and Mary was here.”

***

Necessary Lies is available at your favorite brick and mortar bookstore, as well as Amazon, B&N, BAM, Kobo, iTunes and Indiebound.