Whisper on the Wind [Preface of my book]

The north wind goes howling across the ridge and through the dark hollows where two little mortals spent their childhood. Throughout Eastern KY he whines in off key haunted notes, and he cries. He cries through the pine, birch and mapel. He cries through the oak, hickory and wild hawthorns. He cries through the weeping willows along the banks of the Big Sandy River, and the trees cry to high heaven- shedding red, gold, and brown tears across the mossy beaten paths where tiny feet once tread, and over wild mountain laurel where two child mortals once lay with their little arms high and lifted up as if in flight, fanning angels in the snow.
Angels that often burst to life beneath the influence of childish faith only to melt beneath the suns warm kisses and become no more than vapors of mist hovering above treetops in wispy dream colored smoke ever reaching toward the skies, then vanishing like gifts on a midsummers eve, and re-appearing as dark visions in the night. Dark lonesome visions that haunt the disoriented minds of poets on bouts of manic inspiration forcing them to write on impulse and exposing their souls like a whore's bare behind, then wearing off and leaving them alone to do battle with brain washed critics that fail to understand anyhing beyond the subject of old trains, dead mothers, lost lovers and serial killers. And the stunned poets not knowing how to name why such verses were written- patienty try to explain in hushed whispery voices, the side effects of Prozac causing them to slobber and their eyes to twitch in red remmed sockets. Then having to confess of being just plain lousy, they lash out in anger saying words to harsh to repeat in front of little children and things. A windsong blows the trashy words back ito flapping mortal mouths while they are yet yapping, then madness get into the pen...1

The north wind shrikes around the old graveyard where Dudy Cottle use to hide out among the gravestones as a child, and where a little ghost child lies dreaming. He whistles around the slab of crumbling river rock and across the snowy ground where the child's skeleton remains lie forgotton beneath a lost grave. In limbo it lies with two wooden figures clasped beneath it's fleshless arms- the only relics left to testify of love, and that the skeleton was once somebody's beloved child. A child whose tender baby flesh was lovelying caressed by the same work worn hands that had so painsakingly whittled the little dolls out of good stout hickory, and had placed them inside the casket before the lid was closed for the very last time. Christmas gifts that the poor child would never see in life having died on Christmas Eve at the first fall of snow.
''You are immortal O wind of the north, and its not your nature to grieve, the pines remind through long needeled tongues. ''Besides that you can't be grieving for anything as savage and crude as the wicked Dudy Cottle and that old vengnette bird ''Jalollybad'' whom she nested to her buxom like a child.
''We will weep in your stead- we will weep for the two little mortals and for the poor ghost child that lies dormat in it's tomb.
''We will weep for all the beaten paths that have long been destoryed by loggers in the piny wood hills- we will weep for the poor whippoorwill that has forever been silenced by the rape of the forest- we will weep for the bones entombed here beneath our branches, these that have no one to remember who they were, if they ever were, and who lie forgotton beside of everyone they knew and loved in life- we will weep for the old woman who dug us out of the red hills in our youth and planted us where we stand today- we will weep for the old man who toted moss from the dark hollow and laid the graveyard with soft green carpet.'' And saying that- moisture begins to seep down the tough bark of the tall old pines- Sticky sap colored tears of sorrow. They weep until their tongues fall in showers of green rain, and then their naked branches kneel tonguless on the hill for having wept in vain. The fate of Dudy Cottle had been sealed, and not even the tears of a weeping mother would break that seal- for it has been written that God cannot go back on His word. And it is with rage that the north wind blows up one of the worse snowstorms that ever was and that was ever to be. By first light KY is covered in a deep white such as none had ever seen...2

In the distance- danger speakes its mind from out of the mouth of a white stranger who shifts and drifts on humid colored wings and has nothing to do with the natural order of snow covered mountains.
The ravens take flight in dark winged terror fluttering from the naked pines to circle like a group of disoriented moths before soaring across the ridge toward the red hills to seek safety beneath rock cliffs. ''CAW-CAW-CAW, they warn in unison, but the warnings fail to rise above the harsh language that speaks in a damp humid voice through a strange tongue. The voice hisses like a serpent before fading into a ghastly whisper and taking the form of steam colored vapors which go streaking across the sky like gray and poisonus snakes with many voices. The voices speak of exotic rainforests, mad terrorists, and man made pollution. Over and above the wind they speak, and the odor of strange fruit comes seeping through the ozone layer to follow after this thing that speaks such mysteries, and has nothing in common with the ravens but was to call the common crows in the days to come.3

The little ghost child turns in it's grave, uneasy in eternal sleep, and haunted by dreams of war. The sad little dreamer sees the battle as through a glass darkly. Angels and devils beat out one anothers brains by bashing each others heads against jagged rock cliffs, and they choke one another from around every tree left standing on the battlefiel. One great angel hugs a mighty oak, his fire shovel hands clasped about his enemy's throat- who likewise stands on the other side of the tree with his claws clutched about the angels strong bull neck in a death grip. The mighty tree shakes between the two warriors but does not fall.
Two other spirits stand perched on gravestones facing one another.
They stand steady as the two rocks and will not be moved, their wings held aloft, their eyes locked in combat, each one watching for the chance to dash in and flog his enemy to death, then dash right back without getting hurt. Clouds whirl about them like a hurricane of serpents, and great swaths of rainbow colored down flutter to the ground along with a few giant heads towed in togas. All evil doers and guilty of Kold Kreepy Kapers...
The ghost child dreams on beneath arrays of pastel colored down and dying black feathered bodies. It is indeed a terrible sight to behold, a scene which no child dead or alive should have to witness. And the child weeps for it's friends, the ravens. Pellets of ice slip from each dreaming eye to roll down the dreamer's face- a stark white skeleton grinning beneath grief stricken dreams. Grief that cannot be named or endured in a wakeful state of mind, but cries from within the spirit gut wernching sobs- coughed from the core of ones being and spewed forth from trembling lips in howls of anguish. Grief that has been locked away so long that the keeper of the key becomes heartsick and vomits bitter green colored sorrow until dry heaves set in- then nothing. Such is the grief of the ghost child, and it weeps inside it's tomb but cannot awaken...4


About the Book5

The story is about a hill child and the 2 year old ghost child that befriended her when she was five years old. The ghost tells about it's death and it's escape from the grave, only to become earthbound once again because of it's love for the young mortal- the trip to heaven and the trip back to earth.
The young mortal grows up and leaves the little specter behind with her childhood and only remembers it when she herself meets her maker years later. He sends her back to earth to find the ghost and bring it back to heaven with her. She is told not to come back without it...
Though the book is fantasy/fiction, I consider it to be a love story.
145 pages that will keep you spellbound and leave you wanting more. I have six 5 star reviews in Barnes and Nobles. These reviews can tell you more that I can tell you here.6

About Me7

I was born in a log cabin down a hollow deep in the hills of KY. Most of the story centers around my childhood. I grew up poor but never realized I was poor until I started to school and my classmates made me aware of my raggety clothes by making fun of me.
I never had most things in life that money could buy, but I had almost everything that money couldn't buy. I had the woods to play in, the whippoorwills to sing me to sleep at night, a loving mother and father. I had mornings filled with songbirds and dusky nights sparked with lightening bugs. I had a secret place where wild strawberries grew side by side with wild baby roses.
Their sweet fragrance lingered throughout my childhood before fading away to days gone by.
I had the earth and I had the sky...
8

Judy C. Meeker
Author of ''Whisper on the Wind''