Sabella

At that moment I fell in love with Sabella: as she set his clenched fingers to her mouth, drawing his footsteps after hers in spite of his shoulders withered back.

Right now her name is Sabella Cotter, but I might change her last name.

She's not being easy on me.  There's a lot to her, and she's just not going to show herself at once.  She's hard and cold and guarded and kind and affectionate and trusting.

“Stop the car.” Caleb said.

“What?”

“Pull over!”

I did, and before the key turned my friend jumped out.  I followed him.

We ran back the way we had come, turning into an alleyway.  Before us slouched a bundle of black wool.  Caleb knelt beside it, slipped back the hood to reveal a woman’s face.

“My God--”

“Hush.”  He eased the thin, still mouth to his ear.  A rapid instant later he had her in his arms and we ran to the car.

“How long?” he asked, in the back seat with the woman’s head on his knees.

“Just a few minutes.  Can she make it?”

He’d unbuttoned her coat, and now pressed his hand up and down her back.  “I’m trying.”

I don't know if her story will ever be told in the book.  Some of it will, at least, but probably not the entire story.  Caleb hears the entire story.  Evan, most likely, does not.

Sabella's parents are quite wealthy and quite distant; she was their problem child.  At fifteen she ran away with the guy she was in love with.  He, like most guys who would seduce a girl of fifteen, had no intention of marrying or taking care of her in any way.  He was abusive, but she loved him and is loyal by nature, and so took it for a long time.  Eventually she could't take more, and left.  She tried to go home, but her parents wouldn't take her back.  Thus she lives on the streets of San Francisco.

When Caleb finds her she is unconscious in an alley, having overdosed on some medication with the intent of committing suicide.  She is nineteen, at this point.  I don't know which medication.  Xanax (anxiolytic) has the exact side-effects, but is fairly difficult to obtain.  Prozac (antidepressant) has side-effects which would work though they are not exact, but is ridiculously easy to obtain.  Disgustingly easy.  My uncle went to the doctor for bronchitis and came home with an antidepressant.  Apparently his being a police officer was enough to demand one.  The only person to ever have trouble getting sufficiently strong medication is my father, who just happens to have bipolar disorder.  Go figure.  Anyway, Sabella is smart and knows how to get a hold of something, and attempts suicide.  If Caleb hadn't noticed her from Evan's moving car, she would have succeeded.

She came to slowly, rolling her head from side to side, extending and releasing her back.  Then her eyes opened, just tired, at first.  But shortly they turned confused.  Then remembering.  Then frightened.  Caleb cut to her side and knelt, whispering as he brought her into his arm and tilted her head toward him.  A little hand raised close, as if by weakness it could stay him, but he took the hand and pressed it, whispering while the fear in her eyes recoiled into blankness.  He stood; still I could not tell her age.

Sabella is five-foot six and on the slim side.  When she gets too thin the bones of her shoulders poke out rather noticeably.  Her hair is black when Caleb and Evan first meet her, but, naturally, it is a medium brown.  Her eyes are darker even than Evan's; when filled with water their pupils and irises meld together into unfathomable and beautiful darkness.

Sabella has a sweet voice, though not sweet in the way sweet voices are usually sweet.  It’s a rich, warming kind of sweet.  A low kind of sweet.  Maybe.  Really it has no tone, or else eddies soft as all tones rolled together.  If the whispers which swell along the ocean floor are low, then her voice, too, is low.

I recently shared a favorite film with some friends.  It's also one of Evan's favorites.

Tiny circle.  Sabella’s lovely hand sculpted a deep, tiny circle [on my friend's back].  She looked at me and I looked at her.

“Do you ever watch silent films?” I asked.

“I haven’t.  Should I?”

“I like them, but I like things like that.”

“What are your favorites?”

“That’s a hard question.  I was thinking of one called The Lodger when I asked, though.”

“What’s that one?”

“It’s a Hitchcock actually.”

“I didn’t know he made silents.”

“Neither did I, for a long time.”

“What's it about?”

“Jack the Ripper.  Sort of.  I guess that’s not exactly a nice topic.”

She laughed again.  Softly.  “Not exactly.  But you like the film, so it must be good.”

“It’s slow at first.  Almost like the editor drank too much before work.  But then you find that what you thought all along isn’t true, and the guy you thought the villain is actually a hero--which is nice because even though he’s set up to seem evil you can’t help but like him.  And at the end there’s some really great symbolism, and a love story throughout the whole thing.”

Caleb started suddenly, apologizing.  Sabella crossed her arms over his chest and asked why.  Why, Caleb?  Because you relaxed a moment?  Relax again.  Relax again.  He had, laying only half-conscious in the bend of her arm. Yet his breath heaved wildly.  That was when I first realized how the dark terrified him.  Even more--even far, far more than the scathing light did the dark terrify him.  The woman’s magnificent eyes looked at me and I stretched out a hand to take my friend’s.

“What made you think of it?” Sabella asked.  “That film, why did you think of it?”

“You remind me of the daughter.”

“Do I?”

“I always liked her.  She’s gentle and comforting.  And lovely of course.  You remind me of her, anyway.”   

The scenes I have 'finished' are lame because Sabella is making herself a great deal of work.  I can't seem to write her right.  I think working with me a bit is the least she could do.

If you haven't seen The Lodger, by the way, you really should.  Don't watch the talkie--the story is different.  Apparently someone recorded new music to go with the silent version, which I hope is excellent.  The music on my copy is just so wretched.  There is no way it was actually written to go with the film.  It ruins the story for Matthew.

Matthew is my musically brilliant younger brother.  Who grows taller every day.  Who is incredibly thin.  Who is painfully shy.  Who is one of the best people in the world.  Hmm.......

I'm going to show you a photo from The Lodger simply because I can.  So there.

AW!!!!!

Recalled

Remember this little sentence?

[Caleb] was a young man at Telson’s: locked away from the sunlight so he would age faster.


Yeah? So?

“Anna,” I said.  He stopped.  “Anna’s in the living room.”

I felt his heart pounding through the hands holding mine.

“She didn’t die.  She’s been in that house all along.  I found her.”


What are you getting at?


"I don't know anything." [Caleb's] clenched jaw twitched; his eyes looked rapidly round at nothing at all. "I don't even know how old she is."
"You were seven."
"Yes."
"You're twenty-five now."
"She was three."
"Now she's twenty-one."
"Twenty-one. She doesn't remember me."
"I don't know."

Twenty-five minus seven? Twenty-one minus three? Eighteen years.

'Buried how long?'
The answer was always the same. 'Almost eighteen years.'
'You had abandoned all hope of being dug out?'
'Long ago.'
'You know that you are recalled to life?'
'They tell me so.'
'I hope you care to live?'
'I can't say.'
'Shall I show her to you? Will you come and see her?'
The answers to this question were various and contradictory. Sometimes the broken reply was, 'Wait! It would kill me if I saw her too soon.' Sometimes, it was given in a tender rain of tears, and then it was, 'Take me to her.' Sometimes it was staring and bewildered, and then it was, 'I don't know her. I don't understand.'

Yes, Anna's story is absolutely one of being "recalled to life," as the phrase is in Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities. The time span, even, is eighteen years. I'm not telling you this because I don't think you could figure it out. I'm telling you because it was entirely unintentional. I didn't see it until a week ago. Apparently my brain wakes up during a two a.m. shower.

I didn't add the Telson's comparison after noticing my own theme. Oh no: Telson's was already there. Evan compared Caleb's workplace to Telson's bank long ago.

Isn't that weird? And kind of awesome? I only wish it had been intentional.

If you feel like ditching this blog in favor of Dickens, I can't say I blame you. In fact, I encourage such action. My excerpts against Mr. Lorry's dreams: yeah, I better get started on that revision thing. Leave this blog. Go read some Dickens and come back in twenty years. Or eighteen, if you want to be all poetic.

Anna Mithun: December 6th

“You knew me first.  I didn’t think you were real.  I didn’t dare think you were real.”  I inched toward her, slowly extended my hand to her back.  “Tell me a little of you.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Your name.”

“You know it.”

“Anna Mithun.”

“Mithun?  Maybe.  I only know Anna.”

Anna, Caleb's younger sister, died when she was three years old.  At least that's what Caleb's mother told him.  That's what the hospital told him.

The dream I had centered around Anna.  A boy had a dream of a girl he'd never met, but the girl acted as if they'd grown up nearly as siblings.  They'd always been in love with each other.

“What are you?” I asked.
She giggled and cupped her chin in my hand.
I thought.  “My sister!”
She nodded, turning her eyes in a playful circle.
“Sort of my sister?”
She shook her head.
“All my sister, but not at all my sister.”
She jumped and clapped like a child, then took my sleeve and pulled me further into the house.

But as the dream went on the boy saw inferences of the horror the girl lived in. The images darkened and darkened and darkened, until the girl died. Of shame? Because she couldn't take being alive anymore? The clearest memory of my dream is the boy saying, "He killed her. He killed her, so I killed him."

Caleb wasn't even in my dream, but the boy (who, of course, became Evan) has a friend. In his dream the girl takes him to their childhood bedroom, where there is a single bed and a set of bunks. The girl also gives him a set of three identical rings. Originally I meant to use some sort of token in the story, but rings were just too LOTR, and the whole token thing wound up not working. Anyway, in my dream there was an understanding of a friend, with whom the boy (in the non-dream world) sets out to find the girl.

Anna is just over five feet tall, with a small (though not especially thin) frame. Her eyes are green and bright: identical to Caleb's. Her hair is brown with definite red undertones.

I know: her hair and eyes are like mine. That wasn't intentional. She was quite clear in my mind--she had green eyes and reddish-brown hair. She really doesn't look like me, but the basic description hints otherwise!

I personally think Evan gives the best description of her. This conversation in one of the first in the story. Evan has just dreamt of Anna, but he doesn't know her name is Anna or anything else about her.

“Tell me how she looked." [Caleb said.]
“Remember that sculpture exhibit last summer?” 
“Absolutely.” 
“She looked like one of the statues.  If you could take one those beautiful marble faces, and crush a peach over it to bring it to life, it would look like her.” 
He smiled.  “Poet.  Tell me of her eyes.”  
“Green,” I said.  “A whole lot like yours, actually.”  
“Well that kills the poetry.”

As I'm sure you've all deduced, Anna is not actually dead. I don't want to tell too much, because I want my finished story to hold at least a little interest!

Caleb Mithun: March 12th

Usually my head holds pictures of my characters which are perfectly clear until I try to focus in on them, upon which time they deform into entirely different people.  I have to neglect them a while before they’ll turn back into my characters.  But, walking through the Cuesta library, I saw an exact picture of Caleb on a book cover.  I stared at the book a good while, then proceeded to check it out in order to stare at it some more.  Sadly I didn’t have time to read it as it deserves to be read; it’s about the situation faced by foster children as they age out of the foster system.  As an aside, the situation is disgusting and should never be allowed to happen.  You’re entirely alone in the world?  We can no longer collect funds on you?  Poor Dear!  Allow me to point you toward the nearest bridge; looks likely to rain.  Disgusting.  Anyway, Caleb entered the foster care system at age eight, which makes his picture appearing on the cover of a book about foster children especially trippy.  



So, that really is exactly what he looks like. The facial expression is even more exact than the rest of the picture.

Caleb is six foot three, all legs, and terribly thin, with hair somewhere between blonde and brown, and a practically translucent complexion.  His eyes are a bright, startling green: easily his most distinctive feature if the scar on his neck; a jagged, raised, red line; is disregarded.  He received the scar in an extremely traumatic way, which left him phobic of crowds and closed-in places.

“Caleb?  Are you all right?”

He hunched his stiff shoulders forward, creasing further and further into himself.  It took him a long time to speak; I saw the clatter of voices and heat of forms crushing him to powder.  “I can’t sit here anymore,” he whispered.
“Then let’s leave.”
“I don’t know if I can.”  His eyes finally yielded the the pressure bearing on them, shutting out the world with little hope of reopening.  “I don’t think I can.”
I stood and threw on both our packs.  “We’re leaving.”
“I can’t move.”  His fingers were white around the table.  “They’re trampling me already.  I can’t move at all.”
“Yes you can,” I whispered back, taking and squeezing his arms from behind.  “You just need to stand up.”
“This won’t stop.  Not until they’re gone.”  He clenched his teeth, desperate to hide his suffering.  “That’s why I never come in here.  They’re never gone.”     

Further circumstances of his young childhood make eating difficult and sleeping nearly impossible.  Evan’s friendship tremendously lessens his anxieties, but still he is haunted by wickedly, truly tangible memories, mostly that of his scar's origin.

He edged the smooth black oval under his chin.  At that time he couldn’t even wear a collar, but a violin’s delicate, red-gold arc pressed into his neck like the quieting fingers of a friend.  Although this particular instrument knew nothing and couldn’t be as careful--but when he flinched it understood, and molded itself to soothe him.  The bow and string met with a shiver.
“Don’t make me play.”
The girl hushed him, running her hand along his bowing arm.  Then she began to hum.  By the second note he was safe at home, with closed eyes and comfortable smile.  The lullaby came so easily that I didn’t begin hearing it until halfway through; then I turned to see the little clerk on his toes with the music, and Sabella swaying lightly back and forth.  I cannot write of music.  To learn the notes and write them down would be meaningless.  Caleb’s music isn’t made of notes.  It’s made of himself and his loves and his fears and a young woman’s touch and a great foggy city and a seagull’s cry and a pair of weeping eyes hidden behind his own.

When Caleb was eleven he had a rather well-to-do foster family.  Their daughter took violin lessons, and when she practiced Caleb did anything he could to hear her.  However, the daughter did not care for her own playing, and decided to quit lessons.  Caleb was utterly heartbroken, and had visible tears in his eyes for two straight days.  The family was kind and generous, and secure enough to charitably part with the violin.  They gave it to him for his twelfth birthday.

While living in dorms at SF State he never played.  That is, of course, he never played until Evan began kidnapping him and his instrument and driving out to various hidden corners of the city. He only had a couple months of instruction before changing families, and never learned to read music. For this reason he believes that he is not a real musician.

“My playing isn’t good,” Caleb half-whispered.
“He plays brilliantly,” Sabella said.
The clerk shuffled into a closet, wrenched out a case and began to unhinge it.  My friend looked to my eyes. “Thank you,” I said to the man.  “He’s supposed to perform whenever he criticizes himself.  This is the perfect venue.”  That was probably the closest Caleb ever came to hating me.

Caleb somehow manages to be both highly coordinated and terribly awkward. He has a tendency to constrict his shoulders into an uncomfortable knot, clench his jaw, walk as if encased in plaster, and stare at the ground. When walking through crowds he'll often watch Evan's feet. When still in a crowd he may look quite hard into Evan's face, if not always into his eyes.

At SF State Caleb studies accounting, because "it's quiet and has jobs."

I was currently in my second year of grad school and just months away from earning my Master’s, while Caleb had left school after the basic four years.  Although accounting jobs were always available, finding one that only required a Bachelor’s Degree had proved quite challenging.  Once he found one he didn’t lose it, performing every task flawlessly, but the firm paid him in bottle caps and treated him like a packhorse.  I’d visited him once when my composition teacher unexpectedly cancelled class, and though glad to see me he could hardly acknowledge my presence.  He was a young man at Telson’s: locked away from the sunlight so he would age faster.  He looked pale and sick in there, just as he looked pale and sick in all cold, heartless places.  He looked alone, a look I rarely saw now.  He brought take-out home with him that night, trying to assure me that he was happy and unhurt.

However, Evan maintains that his friend should have gone to medical school. One day Caleb and Evan come across a poll just begging to be jumped over. Caleb easily clears it, but Evan does not. He barely squeaks over and manages to get a nasty metal sliver in his thumb. This annoys him into a sour mood. They wind up in a coffeehouse (Ugh!!! I forgot to mention in Evan's post that he is a coffee addict. He drinks at least three cups of the motor oil variety each day, and has done so since the tenth grade. Caffeine now has little effect on him. Going to an actual coffeehouse is a treat.). Caleb starts messing with Evan's hand and further annoys him, but manages to eventually get him talking. After a bit of time Evan glances down to see the shard on the table and his thumb neatly wrapped in a napkin.

 

“Maybe I will be a doctor; I’m not old.”

“You’re studying to be an accountant.”

“I’m not smart enough for med. school.”

I didn’t favor that comment with an answer.

He nodded to my compliment, then leant back in his chair and stretched out his legs.  “I can barely handle a classroom.”

“But you wouldn’t be in school forever.”

“It’s not the school, it’s that a doctor’s job is to be around people.”

“You’re excellent with hurt people.”

“Not really.  She just needed anyone to care for her a little.”

“You’re always doctoring me.”

“You always manage to hurt yourself.  And you don’t count, anyway.”  He sighed.  “I wouldn’t worry about patients too much, at least I don’t think.  It’s the other people: other doctors, nurses, secretaries, families.”  He shook his head.  “And doctors rarely see their patients, they have so many.  I probably would’ve been a good doctor 150 years ago.”

“Caleb the country doctor?”

“Exactly.”

Caleb can be closely observant. He isn't of everything, but if he tries to observe or truly cares about what he's observing he can interpret it. This has made the academic portion of school incredibly easy for him. It makes him a perfect violinist. It also makes his analysis of Evan even better than Evan's analysis of him.

I'll end with a scene which, though wanting revision, shows some of my favorites of Caleb's and Evan's qualities. They're visiting Evan's parents for Thanksgiving, and these said parents annoy and anger their son so that he consciously decides to intoxicate himself so as to stop caring. But he has a high alcohol tolerance (which he knows, by the way), and winds up just giving himself a killer headache.


When at last my parents tiptoed off to bed he collapsed onto the couch.  “Are you all right?” I asked.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.”

“I think I’ll walk outside a bit.”  

I nodded, then left to take a shower.  When I came back the front door was locked and my door was just slightly ajar.  I had one of those bunk bed sets which had a full bed on the bottom and twin on the top.  Tiffany had her own room, but the bunks had always been useful when friends stayed the night.  Caleb’s shoes were tucked beneath the sloped ladder; he’d slunk up before I claimed the less comfortable bed.  I stumbled beneath the covers, groaned my head onto the pillow.

“Caleb?” I mumbled after some moments.

“Hmm?”

“You are allowed to move.”

“I’m fine.”

“That bunk creaks with breathing.  You’re not moving at all.”

He turned over stiffly.

“We don’t have to stay,” I said.  “We can leave now.”

“Nothing’s wrong here.  It’s only me.”

“Don’t be stupid.”

He leant over the railing so I saw strands of light hair in silhouette against the window.  “Say something else.”

“Hello, Caleb Mithun.”

“I am stupid.”  He hastened down the ladder in two strides.  “You have a terrible headache and I didn’t even notice.”

“It’s my fault.”

“Before tonight I’d never drunk anything.  How am I not sick?”

“You had enough water, and do remember that I made your sunrise.”

“I didn’t think tequila was that sweet.  You drank my dose.”

“I drank it three times over.”

He left the room, then, soon returning with an aspirin and glass of water.  After I ingested both these offerings he bid me lay back with closed eyes, then began to massage my temples with the pads of his fingers.

“All right?” he asked.  I replied with a sort of hum because he helped immediately and immensely.  “Is anyone coming over tomorrow?”

“My dad’s mother and sister, and her three kids.”  My stomach churned audibly.  “Can’t wait for dinner.”

“Morning coffee should help.  And a walk.”

“Good luck dragging me on a walk.”

“Are there any coffee shops here?”

“A million downtown.”

“Are any a walkable distance away?”

“That depends.  But we should go even if we drive.”  His hands curled around my head so that their thumbs rubbed where my neck and skull met.  Apparently I tensed up a bit, because he softly told me to relax.  

“You’re good at that,” I said.

“One of us has to sleep.”

“Maybe we should switch off.”

He laughed a little.  “Sounds fine.  Tomorrow you get the orange juice.”

I was reluctantly falling asleep now, forsaking my friend’s soothing hands for the rough coddling which accompanies holidays.  “You’re welcome to play, if you like.”

“Too loud.  And my violin is in the car.”

“It’s under the bed.”

A thrill caught him to the fingertips.  “No it’s not.”

“I tossed my coat over it and carried it in.  Couldn’t stay outside all night.”

“Really Evan?”

“Of course.”

At the time I thought the tremble in his voice a shiver.  “That was good of you,” he said.  “I can’t play, but I’ll have it near me.”

That’s the last I remember him saying, though he insists more came after.  All I knew was lapping of dreams I pledged to keep, engulfing and beautiful swells and my friend healing me quietly.

    

Evan Black: September 20th

Throughout the story, Evan (my narrator) fluctuates between the ages of nineteen (although very late nineteen) and twenty-six.  He is five foot ten with fairly broad shoulders.  His eyes are deeply dark brown, his hair is light brown, and his complexion is rather ruddy.  That is, compared to Caleb, his complexion is rather ruddy.   He is a bit of a cynic and an adept quipster.  He can feign no tolerance for apathy.  He reads, both prose and poetry, constantly; his favorite authors vacillate between Ernest Hemingway and Robert Louis Stevenson, while his favorite poet is decidedly Ezra Pound.  He is quite the poet himself, although his verses usually wind up crumpled on the arm of the couch until Caleb discovers and rescues them.  His wordiness leaks into his speech; he uses what my public address teacher calls ‘SAT words’ regularly, for which Caleb loves to tease him.


   “I’m wretched,” [Caleb] said. “Utterly abhorrent, odious, repulsive, ghastly -- I’m also a Lit. major, and do use such words in everyday conversation -- hateful, boorish...” He settled the instrument beneath his chin. “And, now, I’m performing.”

And, my personal favorite:


   “What about me, though?” [Caleb said.]   
   “That you were ridiculously tall.”
   “I was sitting down.”
   “Yes, but when a person’s legs stretch eight feet across the floor one makes assumptions.”
    He relaxed now, rolling the scarf about his hand.
   “What did you notice first about me?” I asked.
   A smirk lit across his mouth. “When a person’s robe reaches only to one’s knees--”
   I pushed him into the wall and we were happy.

Evan has never been close to his family: i.e, he doesn't know that he frequently talks in his sleep until Caleb tells him.  At one point he visits his parents over the Thanksgiving holiday, but his parents annoy him even more than they used to.  This is primarily because he has Caleb with him and can be quite protective.  Not weirdly protective.

   “Don’t ask him about that scar. If you unearth his life story, leave that scar out.”

   “You know how he got it?” [my mother asked.]
   “No.”
   “Then how do you know it was bad? You have a scar on your knee, and that’s just from falling on broken concrete.”
  “I know it’s bad because he never speaks of it. He never motions toward it, he never touches it, he never lets anything else touch it.”
   “That means nothing.”
   “When he puts on a sweatshirt he holds his head sideways, works one arm in, eases the collar over his head and pulls it down until the other arm is in and able to arrange an air pocket around his neck.” I clenched my teeth a moment. “For mercy’s sake, just don’t ask about it!”

Protective like that.  When he says this he is actually running water over his hand at the kitchen sink, because his mother did ask about the scar and he promptly burned himself, securing her immediate attention.

Hi Mom and Nana!  Yes, laugh away.  I know Evan and I had the same mishap with broken concrete.  It was more interesting than falling of his uncle's bed, and less interesting than climbing over a low rock-and-barbed-wire fence to escape angry Sardinian sheep dogs.

Also, Mom and Nana!  Evan does talk in his sleep because Matty talks in his sleep and it's the CUTEST THING EVER.

Sorry, I'm back now.  Evan, from the moment they meet, easily knows what would pain his friend, and can't at all understand how other people do not.  Sorry for that sentence: it refuses to be clear.  I trust you see what I'm trying to say.

Evan enjoys teasing Caleb as much as Caleb enjoys teasing him.  Although most of his teasing is entirely serious and only barely disguised as teasing.  He says stupid things while doing caring things.


I pulled a metal rod from his hand. “What do you think you’re doing?”
My friend assumed an admirable look of utter confusion.
“This is my bed. Go mess with your own stuff.” I pushed him to his violin case.
“We have to put the house together.”
“In silence? Do you really expect me to work without music, Caleb?”


You know what I'm finding difficult?  Writing just about Evan.  He is one of those people who is brought out by others; in this case, by pulling someone else out.  He becomes himself through his friendship.

Things I Know

But do not necessarily tell you.  I just read a post on a blog I recently discovered.  Here's the link:

http://cj-wordpainter.blogspot.com/2012/12/nullifyer-cast-part-i.html

Yeah, just figured out how to actually make that link work like, you know, a link.

Anyway, in the post the author introduces the main characters of her in-progress novel, Nullifyer.  Which, by the way, I can't wait to read.  I absolutely must learn more about Bryn Hogan.

The thought of writing little snippets about my characters was too great a temptation.  Although I'm rather bad at snippets.  Let's take snippet in a relative sense.  I wanted to write about some little things I know about my characters but may never actually write.  I thought that, maybe, the excerpts I post here will be less boring if readers know upfront what is learned by reading the whole book.

Okay, I won't tell that much.  I'll say that Caleb received the scar on his neck in an extremely traumatic way.  I won't tell what actually happened.    

I wrote of four characters from Dreams We Remember: Evan Black, Caleb Mithun, Sabella Cotter, and Anna Mithun.  Evan is coming right up.