ReadBooksBy.Faith

All about author Faith Phillips

Oklahoma

Stella and A Parliament of Owls

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Original painting by Cherokee artist Kindra Swafford.
https://www.kindraswafford.com

Let me tell you a little story about owls. Some of you know the peculiar tale about how a parliament of owls gathered around the night I told my sisters the story that became my first fiction novel. It scared my baby sister so badly that she ran away and cried.

But this is not that story. This is yet another true and very bizarre tale about what happened one night in Proctor, Oklahoma. I stayed over at my family home that night for some reason I cannot now recall. I woke up in the 2 o’clock hour with the strong urge to make water. I might’ve consumed some of my Dad’s wine before retiring. I stumbled into the bathroom and felt struck by a strange compulsion to look out the small bathroom window. Again, I can’t explain why. An old Oak, some wild blackberry bushes and honeysuckle were the only things to be seen back there. Our neighbor Herbie’s field stretched out beyond the fenceline.

My eyes were still bleary with sleep when I peered out the window. But the spectacle I witnessed in the backyard caused them to go cold-sober and wide as saucers. There, sitting on the lowest branch of the old Oak under the yellow light of a full moon was the largest bird I had ever seen. He looked to be four feet in height, his eyes easily the size of my mother’s tea cup saucers. The owl was looking down, directly below his perch. I followed his gaze with my own. Sitting there on her haunches and looking up was Stella, my mom and dad’s gentle-giant St. Bernard. She was a beautiful darling and we treated her as such. My parents sometimes put a pastel beret on her head, which she wore with aplomb.
So there they sat, these two, just staring at each other. I had to get closer for I could scarce believe the spectacle before my own eyes. As I bolted to the door I thought it must have all been a hallucination. By the time I eased the screen door open and crept along the side of the house I had convinced myself that nothing would be there. I knew I would go back to bed feeling very silly.

I slowly maneuvered around the corner. To my horror and great delight there they sat even still, only now I could hear a very strange sound the owl made at Stella. It wasn’t a hoot at all but rather a rapid series of low staccato sounds. I shouldn’t have done it but I felt I had to move closer. The moment I took a forward step, the great horned owl dropped out of that tree like an open-air glider. The staggering sight of it was made all the more spectacular by the whipping sound of those massive wings as they carried him away, off into the darkness. Stella looked at me and if I didn’t know better, I’d believe she had a countenance of embarrassment on her face, to have been caught cavorting after the midnight hour with, of all things, a creature of the night.

When I think about it now I know that it is one of those visions in life that will go with me to the grave. One of those lucky snapshots that can never be replicated. Stella is gone now and she is sorely missed. But she never quite looked at me the same after that. I guess I will spend the rest of my days wondering what message he delivered to her that night, perched up on the gnarled old Oak branch in the light of a full Harvest Moon. #okienoir

Okie Noir and the Waters of Renewal

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Pictured here: the Mark Twain portion of the Mississippi River Tales Mural. The paintings cover the Great River’s flood-wall in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. (I think he likes me, he really likes me…)

 

What is Okie Noir? It is the struggle and pain, survival and rebirth of people in this land, the place where we descend from outlaws and survivors of attempted genocide and the Dust Bowl. Speaking of Okie Noir, can I get a do over and can I get a witness about these last two months? Remember that song A Long December by Counting Crows? Specifically the part where Adam Duritz sings:

“it’s been a long December and there’s reason to believe Maybe this year will be better than the last…

If you think that I could be forgiven I wish you would…”

That song’s been fluttering around my brain for weeks now and not just because I’m a Gen X’er with a penchant for melancholy 90’s tunes. The end of 2018 stretched on so looooong, I wasn’t sure it was ever going to let us go, even into January. 

Life’s been rough around here of late, from illness and death, depression and anxiety, friends and loved ones wrestling with old ghosts we believed long buried, myself included. While we know these things are continuously present in existence it’s still difficult to grasp what others experience until those same birds come home to roost with you. The one good thing that comes from a painful struggle is renewed empathy for your fellows. Empathy can pull us from the brink when we put it into practice as a community. When you discover the person who disagrees with all your politics and all your dogma just lost a beloved family member all those things that created a gulf between you go right out the window (or at least they should). The proper human reaction is to go to him and offer comfort of some kind. You don’t ask questions, you just go.

January was supposed to be the month I neared completion of my masterpiece, my fourth book that I optimistically like to call my River Book. Let us just say that as of today, I’m three weeks behind schedule. Nonetheless, I intend to publish my River Book this year (***Lord, please let me live long enough to finish my River Book***).

The book is inspired by the true story of bones my sister found on a creek bank in Adair County. That discovery inspired me to imagine this person’s life in the place where we call home. It is the story of all of us in the Ozark foothills; our struggles, connections, spirituality, addiction, grief, humor, music and family… all set alongside the life giver of the Illinois River and its tributaries that tumble down to us from the mountains. This book will be my ultimate expression of #okienoir . 

I’ve known all along that water would be a central character in this book. The Cherokee people are intrinsically connected to the water as a source of food, medicine, celebration and cleansing, to name just a few. The river was known as The Long Man with his head(waters) in the mountains and his feet in the sea.  The ancient ritual of “going to the water” was a cleansing practice performed every morning to start the day. Cherokees would go to the river to pray and submerge themselves regardless of the temperature. The old Cherokees would wade out waist deep just after daybreak and throw water over their heads and pray, “wash away anything that may hinder me from being closer to you, Creator.“

Research for the River Book caused me to seek out some of the most amazing locales in the Ozarks.  The headwaters that flow clean and clear down ravines come together to create a mighty force greater than anything man can control. Gushing underground rivers bubble up out of mountains in some places, the source of which remains quite unclear, even to geologists. These things stoke my fire and renew my dedication to remain childlike with wonder and awe even in these days when I feel like an old woman, weary of the world.

I make no attempt to obscure the obvious influence of Mark Twain in my own work. Life on the Mississippi is the reason why I’m calling this fourth book my River Book. The genius in what he did was to shine light on the darkness and even mine humor from it at times. If my River Book is done correctly it will do the same. Sometimes we are the shadow, sometimes the sun. 

Now you must pardon me as I submerge myself onecet again.

“wash away anything that may hinder me from being closer to you, Creator.“

 

Your Exclusive First Look At the True Crime Novel ‘Now I Lay Me Down’

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Original book cover design by Oklahoma artist Kalyn Fay Barnoski.

This is your exclusive first look at the true crime novel Now I Lay Me Down, the third book from author Faith Phillips. Sign up with your email at http://readbooksby.faith/ to be notified when the book becomes available for purchase. You can be the first to order your copy of this riveting summertime page turner!

 

 

Chapter 1

The Prosecutor

 

The prosecutor stood in the road. She surveyed the scene and said not a word. A denim blouse hung loose on her slender frame. She stared at the ditch, one hand shoved deep in her back pocket. She remembered.

This particular stretch of County Line Road had once been an obscure place in an obscure county, familiar only to the few locals who made their homes on the back road. Obscurity is just another way of saying concealed, and the town of Weleetka meets that definition. Interstate 40 runs just a few miles north as the crow flies, ferrying interlopers past long-forgotten Oklahoma towns. It is very much concealed and out of view, hidden by stands of trees in rural Okfuskee County. An outsider would never expect to come across a town in this pastoral location. Out of sight, out of mind.

The quiet lane that runs through Okfuskee County’s back country is populated by trees, underbrush and an occasional family home. The lawns often hold collections of defunct automobiles and plastic toys left out to fade in the weather. Maxey Parker Reilly hadn’t been sure she could find her way back again without some sort of navigation. It had been such a long time since she last visited. She careened her S.U.V. along the blacktop and slowed at each turnoff, eyeing the road signs. But when she came to County Line Road the physical reaction was instant. Total recall took hold and she cut a sharp right. She didn’t need to look for signs now. She remembered.

The topography along the road was flat and tree-lined, strewn with thick underbrush. Stationary oil wells provided a gaudy juxtaposition to the otherwise quiet countryside. After a couple of miles hints of color appeared in the ditch like a mirage. Glints of sunlight reflected from multiple points of glass and metal. At first glance it appeared as though flowers had managed to spring up and out of the drab undergrowth. But then a fraction of light angled down from a tree limb, and a plastic whirligig spun in the wind. Then came the teddy bears at the heart of the place, long worn by exposure. Wind chimes played a hollow tune and a light bulb hung from a tree.

The dusty white crosses finally identified the place as a roadside memorial. They are a familiar sight along Oklahoma’s highways; a family’s way of marking the mournful spot where a loved one drew their final breath in a violent clash of glass and steel. But this roadside memorial was atypical. Small details indicated something very different from a car crash. An American Girl doll with long dark hair and platform heels lay smiling in the dirt. It was the first hint that something might have happened to a little girl here. In the midst of all the odd memorial objects an angel arose. She stood, once gleaming white, now covered in layers of dust thrown up by passing vehicles.

The statue as it stood that day was four feet in height; an elegant effigy with shoulders proud and tall; folds in the long ceramic robe revealed a bent knee. The delicate wingtips of the angel nearly touched the ground. At her bare feet a ceramic puppy and a smiling bear sat on guard next to a basketful of plastic lilies and sparkling beads. The angel cradled a great bouquet of field daisies across her chest. The statue’s presence represented a statement to onlookers. Someone had cherished the person who was lost in this place. The angel was carefully chosen to memorialize a child. It was meant to solemnize and express community grief. They placed her at the center of all the other tokens of loss left behind.

But then someone came along, pointed a shotgun at the angel’s head and blasted it clean away. It was not the first time the memorial had been violated. Maxey was filled with emotion and anger at the sight of it.  Snapshots flashed in her mind from a hot summer evening ten years previous. That night she had been called away from her newborn child to this place on County Line Road.  It was one of her very first jobs as the new Okfuskee County Assistant District Attorney. Fresh out of law school, she had imagined that her first case might be a drug prosecution or perhaps domestic violence. But the pretty young woman was afforded no chance to ease herself into the prosecutor’s role. She had been thrown in the deep end by the brutal execution of two little girls on County Line Road, just a few miles outside of Weleetka, and she had no other choice but to swim.

Now I Lay Me Down: The Third Book by Faith Phillips

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Here we are, nearly finished with April, and I wonder how the full moon’s treating you? Here in Okieland, the moon always makes for prodigious creative output, just like clockwork.

Speaking of creative output, my third book will be released this summer.  Here’s the blurb:

“From the author of Ezekiel’s Wheels and It’s Not That Hard To comes the true crime novel Now I Lay Me Down. Ten years ago, two little girls went for a walk down a dirt road and never made it back home. Their brutal murders sent a sleepy Oklahoma community into a spiral of grief and sparked the largest investigative pursuit in OSBI history. Pressure mounted when the investigative team ruled out an exhaustive list of suspects and the remains of another young woman were discovered in a smoldering fire. The untested Assistant District Attorney, not long out of law school, found herself heading up a “War Room” assembled by officials to catch the killer. This is the true life story of three murdered girls and the Oklahoma woman who pursued their killer.”

I’ve been working on this book for just over a year now. It was wild work, serving as proof that the truth really is stranger than fiction. Since I began writing books a great number of people have approached me to ask if I would write their story – and while I believe every life is book worthy, I always decline because I have enough material swirling in my own head to last a lifetime.

But one fine September evening a couple of years ago I sat around a campfire by the river with several women. One of them told me she had a true story that she thought I ought to write down. I rolled my eyes in the dark thinking, “here we go again”. But then the things she told me made my hair stand on end. I knew that very night that I would have to write the book.

The research and interviews took me to murder sites, courthouses, isolated back roads and sleepy little towns. The paperwork included thousands of court documents, news articles, web sites and yes, some correspondence with a convicted killer.

While the catalyst for the book is very sad, there is also redemption. That redemption is found in a young, struggling Okie girl who grew up to seek justice for other girls much like herself, who never got that chance.

Look for release dates, book signing dates and all new announcements right here on ReadBooksBy.Faith

Shine ON, as always.

Faith