Provided by Sindy, a peripheral character who’s been falsely accused of murder in the last two Redwoods Country Mystery novels. Although a lovely young woman, and innocent of those accusations, she continues to struggle to keep a job, boyfriend, or consistent career goal. Sindy is prone to inventing new words and threatens to create her own language—a thought which causes Andy Shirley a lot of heartburn as a retired copy editor.
Dear Journal,
My day began blissfully. Thank goodness all that craziness of yet another dead person is over. Following a timeless meditation in the forest, I allowed velvetmist to permeate my being with its typical sense of comfort and serenity. Keeping my eyes closed, I felt the accompanying subtle sensation of floating.
Given the magic imbued within a fairy circle of redwoods, created by sprouting redwood children birthed by the death of a parent tree, I peeked my eyes open to see if my legs had left the ground. My disappointment was soothed knowing letharglow, and its pleasant heaviness of contentment had elevated my response to gravity. Clearly that was the only thing which had kept me rooted to the earth.
I remained in my pose contemplating my options. My work teaching water aerobics had swum away as the community center cancelled the classes for the foreseeable future. I acknowledged my feelings of glumphoria—the bittersweet joy of ending something I enjoyed. I was happy to have experienced the class, yet sad it was over. And now what would I do next?
As I considered switching careers yet again, my mood began to shift into dreadlight, the strange excitement of anticipating something you’re also terrified of. I’d last felt this when I tried skydiving for the first time a few months ago. Charlie had chickened out but I’d had a vision that I’d land safely so I went ahead with the jump. She’d tried to convince me it wasn’t a vision, just me being high, but I’d done it anyway—and lived to brag about it.
Shaking away the negativity, I drew in one more cleansing breath to stay in the moment. But before saying my departing blessing to Earth Mother, I felt vibrations of quellowarm spread in my chest. Like a tiny proof that the world is okay, at least right now, I felt a calming warmth inside from the unexpected kindness of Andy Shirley. Once again, he’d got me off the hook for murder by finding the actual killer.
I’d known I wasn’t guilty, but now everyone in town knew it was true also. Watching him unveil the killer was quite the experience—as it usually seemed to be with Andy. But despite Charlie’s hope of experiencing sorrosmugness (the guilty satisfaction of being right about something going wrong), Andy hadn’t blown it. He solved the case and then immediately solved a second one.
Pretty wild for an old dude. I smiled and left the forest. It was time to figure out what was next for me.