By C. David Murphy
About the book:
A Diary's House is of a young boy's attempt to become a man, the once-lost secrets of a diary, a sweeping romance which transcends time and place. It is more than a boy's journey into manhood, but the mysteries of so many lives unknowingly intertwined, now brought together in a climatic ending; all from the engrossing world embedded in a forgotten diary; a diary of a woman.
Book Excerpt:
The Spirit Of The Unknown Chases Me
The fog was unrelenting. It
smelled; an old, tired smell. Like the dead from the graveyard smoked their
skins for a hundred years and just now let out the fumes. That fog rolled and
cut my sight to an arm’s length in front of me.
“Let me be,” I gasped, whispered,
and exhausted out.
I could hear the tormenting echo of
his galloping ride trample to that edge and stare out to me as I landed with my
feet into the wet sands. My eyes gleamed high into his direction. I felt his
sight locked on me with a disturbed glare. I stumbled, though I charged
desperately forward down into the shoreline. My legs were tumbling out from
beneath me and they were nearly of no use at all. Still, I managed a few yards
away.
“Please,” I huffed with a spin, “Let
me be. I have nothing.”
My greatest fear was before me now.
I felt I was meeting the largest tidal wave on the Randola; just before the
very moment of my death. I knew this must be it and I made my frantic grace
with God there. I wept on that final breath of wind and life.
“Oh God,” I shook and whispered a
prayer, “Protect me…”
I feared all would conclude
shortly. My father and mother going forward now without my presence there;
grandmother knowing nothing further on her grandson, and me not seeing my
sisters become women.
“Please,” I called, “Be as real as
these ghosts to me…”
The trauma almost swept me into
these wicked seas just before me. The tides rolled in as the waters pushed up
the shoreline on this side of the island. My Cherokee foe was not seen, though
clearly was to be heard in the deep crevices of those shadows about; and one of
them, awaiting me; was him. The vaulted sounds of that gallop ricocheted
through the airs round me; punishing my ears with its sound. Seconds drew out in
long stretches to see which one would go next.
Then the moments drew still; deafly
quiet, calm, held frozen in what seemed to be an eternal play on time. It was
pushing ever closer; huddling next to me. I was gripped with a grave sense and
suffocating hold of fear. I could see into nothing and my smell was inactive;
my touch numb all over; but to my ears, that riveting horse rider choked me
nearly into a faint.
“Answer me,” I called on God one
last time.
My eyes were collapsing to every
possible motion about, straining to see in that dying night and atmosphere; and
I propelled forward in a sprint. I stumbled, head-first, on a rock. I looked to
that horizon; there he sat as a stern figure atop his horse and mane. His eyes
were like two darting glows in the dark. The anger rode in his face like he
rode maddening on his horse.
The moment stopped and silence fell
to the area. All sound and movement seemed to end then, and the lone reply was
the mesmerizing verse of my own heavy breathing. Then, in what appeared to be a
whisper, the rolling waters trickled in, tickled to my feet and hands, and
awakened me into that stark reality.
“tsa-la-gi,” he cried, and
so forced his gallant white horse into a gallop towards me.
“No!” I pleaded, “Let me be. I don’t
have anything!”
The echo of his hooves struck to
the sand and brought absolute fear to my soul. Those wet clumps rose to his
rear like backfiring shots of residue. I grabbed myself into a stand and I
began my final flee away from him. But before I could gain a full sprint, I
fell, front-first, into a cluster of rocks.
The Cherokee vaulted his spear just
before my fall, as it whistled past my ears, free of cutting me into two and it
landing into that soft sand nearly two feet deep. The waters rushed and roared
over my collapsed body and my face rose to meet his once more. He came in a
steady step. His eyes were never leaving where I lay. He appeared to circle
with a manner of simple delight. He seemed as though he had finally captured
the body and spirit of his prey. He retrieved his spear and he moved back to me
a final time. Those eyes were still dark-to-coal; now glowing fire red from
what light was penetrating our scene, and displaying the blazing rage which was
playing in his soul…
Disclosure of Material Connection: No payment was received by me in exchange for this post. All opinions expressed here are entirely mine and may not necessarily agree with those of the author, the book's publisher and publicist or the readers of this review. This disclosure is in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part255, Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.
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