Friday, September 19, 2014

A Taste of Chapter One

Here's a little something to tempt you with.
 It's a paragraph from Chapter One of The Tangled Roots of Bent Pine Lodge:



The Tangled Roots of Bent Pine Lodge
by Jane O’Brien

A guiltie conscience is a worme that never ceaseth.
Nicholas Ling
Politeuphuia, 1597

Kate – 2014

Chapter One


The gravel crunched under my tires as I turned onto the long drive through the woods that would take me to my parents’ cottage.  My car dipped and bobbed in the grooves made by the snow melt and runoff of the spring rains.  The two-track should be grated and then smoothed out to a hard, dirt surface.   It's one of many things I would have to take care of now that I had become the owner of the cottage in the woods.
I had forgotten what a long drive it was to get to the house.  I have not been here in several years.  The thick oak and white pine forest formed a canopy overhead, creating a tunnel effect.  The sun was blocked out completely, but I  was familiar with the setting and felt very comfortable here.  I knew what awaited me at the end of the quarter-mile stretch.  And there it was, coming into view as I rounded the last curve.  The sun was shining a welcoming ray, a beam that looked like it was meant just for this house, and this house only.  It illuminated the opening around the large log cabin.  It almost seemed as if a magical chord from the heavens should sound.  For this was no ordinary log cabin.  It was a work of art, created by my great-grandfather in the 1930s.  It was built to last, and last it had, providing a sturdy home for my great-grandparents and my grandparents, as well, to raise their children in, and then later, when all the children were grown with families of their own, it was used as a family cottage for all to share until the day my parents retired and moved here permanently.  They had not intended to be the sole owners, but as they liked to say, life happens.


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