Teagan's Books

Tuesday, April 22, 2025

Welcome to my sanctuary.  Sit down and relax with me for a moment.  

Photographer, songwriter, and critter-dad, Timothy Price did a re-write of his original song “Moments” and asked if I was interested in recording the vocals.  Of course, I was honored.  He also made an animated video for the song.  My post today is meant to be a companion post to Tim’s where he’s presenting the music video.

Click here for Tim’s post/music video

For my part, I’ve revised a short story that I wrote in 2022.  I made small changes to make it better fit the song “Moments.”  I hope you’ll enjoy it.  Also please click over to Tim’s blog for the music video.

Moments of Metamorphosis

Sunset seared the sky, casting an orange glow across the lines of my notebook.  I sat beneath the mulberry trees.  In that secret place each moment belonged to me.  Clumps of sage grew randomly, here and there.  Looking around at the tenuous serenity, I inhaled the fresh air and took in the calm of the evening — and the joy of not doing my homework.

---

My bare toes dug into the grass.  I flexed my toes making a pop-pop-pop with the middle three toes.  Then I wiggled all ten, enjoying the sensations.

---

That happened in a long-ago time, when assignments were written in cursive with ballpoint pins.  Books were printed and bound.  School libraries were constructed of brick and mortar.  Cars and planes belched odors from their fuel, like the ones on the highway that was just out of sight.

---

And when misfit girls sat alone under mulberry trees, dreaming of moments that had never been and likely never would be.

---

Rousing myself from such a daydream, I was only vaguely aware that the sun was on its way down the horizon.  I looked at the book in my lap.  My assignment had been a report on World War II.  However, when I went to the library to collect the four required “sources,” I also picked up a wartime romance book.  I gave a little smirk, thinking of the delicious way the story made me feel. 

---

My mind filled with moments from the romantic novel — iconic images from the story, the Statue of Liberty, fighter planes, Pearl Harbor, the strange straight-arm salute, the swastika, the horrors… and the lovers who had been separated.  My thoughts took off on a path of their own choosing.

---

However, the teacher wouldn’t accept the romance book as a reference source.  With a reluctant sigh, I spread all the library books in front of me.  Only then did I notice a book that didn’t belong.  I was certain that I had not taken that one from a shelf.  I wasn’t likely to forget that one.  It was tattered and smelled musty.  It was not just old, but ancient.  The title wasn’t written in English or any language that had a familiar look.  Strange emblems decorated the aged leather cover.

---

“Maybe the librarian was trying to be helpful.  The expression on her face was disapproving when she saw the romance book I was checking out,” I murmured.  “She was talking about symbols and how the swastika had been something good before the Nazis corrupted it for their own use, but I wasn’t listening.”

---

I clicked my pen and opened my three-ring binder style notebook.  Staring blankly at the books, I wondered what to title my report.  The report had to be given aloud to the whole class.  Everyone would make fun of me before I finished the first paragraph.  The classes changed, and so did the students, but the ridicule was there every year.

---

“That never changes.  Every day, every year is one awful, endless moment,” I mumbled.

---

Knowing that, the title had to be perfect.  I made a sloppy start, misspelling a word.  Angrily I tore the page free of the notebook, getting a paper cut in the process.  I stuck my finger in my mouth.  When I glanced down, a tiny blue-tailed lizard sat on the old book, gazing up at me.

---

“Get off!” I yelled, startled, and scrambling to my feet, I picked up the book and caused the lizard to flee.

---

Distracted, I stumbled on the uneven ground.  I dropped the book, which fell open on the grass.

Looking up, I used my right hand to shield my eyes against the brilliance of the sun.  My left hand hung at my side.  I didn’t realize the paper cut was still bleeding.  I continued to gaze after the plane and I watched the vanishing contrails, imagining faraway places and people.

---

The moisture of the blood on my finger and the burn of the cut finally displaced the daydreams.  When I looked down, I saw a deep red bead of blood.  Moving at an impossibly slow speed, it dripped onto the open page of the book.  With a tiny splash, the blood landed in the center of the symbol of a star inside a circle.  It was a pentagram surrounded by other strange emblems that I didn’t recognize.  On the opposite page was a picture of a sun, overlaid by a line drawing of an eclipse.

---

Distantly, I heard mom’s voice, calling me to dinner.  My parents’ yelling would transfer from each other and be redirected at me if I didn’t hurry.  Clipping my ballpoint pen to the notebook, I began stacking the library books on top.  When I reached to pick up the old book, I was fascinated by the way the setting sun cast light on the pages.  It seemed to make the book glow orange.  The drop of blood in the center of the pentagram glittered ruby red.

---

My blood.

---

Trying to pick up the book without bleeding on it anymore, I lifted it one-handed.  However, it was big, heavy, and too awkward to manage with just my left hand.  I held the right side, but the left dangled vertically.  The droplet ran downward, making a red trail to the drawing of the eclipse.  As the blood connected the heart of the pentagram to the eclipse, the orange light of sunset shone on the pages.

---

The scents of sage blossoms and grass filled my nose.  Light blossomed all around me.  It was so bright that brilliance overwhelmed sight and even hearing.  Yet I could still smell the sage.

---

My grip on the book went slack.  The heavy tome landed painfully on my toes.  I jumped backward with a curse that would have angered both of my parents.  As the blinding light receded, I cast an accusatory glare at the book. 

---

However, the ancient tome was gone.  I beheld a pair of feet, that were as bare as my own.  The toes flexed, making a pop.  Hearing the sound, I automatically made my own toes pop the same way.

Being so dazzled by the burst of light, my reaction was belated.  I looked at the bare feet.  Blinking away the last of the glare, my eyes took in a long airy skirt, then waste-length hair, and then a vaguely familiar face.

---

“Do I know you?” I asked suspiciously.

---

She looked a little bit like my mother, I realized.  Although that wasn’t exactly what made me feel I should know her.

---

“I wasn’t expecting to see you for quite a while yet,” the woman remarked casually.

---

A breeze rustled through the mulberry trees.  Their scent came to my nose again, but it was different, clearer, cleaner.  Abruptly something seemed off to me.  I looked up, thinking it was about time that another plane would pass overhead.  However, the sky was empty except for birds and fluffy white clouds.  I turned toward the nearby highway, even though it would be out of view.  I listened, and then I listened harder.  There were no sounds of horns or engines.

---

I looked at the woman uneasily.  She returned my gaze with a little smirk.  That expression seemed familiar to me too.  She scrutinized me as if gauging my age.  Then she nodded to herself.

---

“I recognize this moment.  The bullies at school… mom and dad fighting all the time.  Never feeling good enough?  Dreading every new week before the weekend is even over?” she asked although it was clearly not a question.

---

“How—” I mouthed the word, but nothing came out.

---

“You’re right.  It never really changes.  The people who make life seem unbearable never change.  Mom and dad will argue with each other for as long as they both live, and they’ll never give you the relief of splitting up either,” she said, astounding me that she could know those things.

---

“All you can do is cope with it as best you can.  Steal away every moment that you can.  Lose yourself in your books.  Sit under the mulberry trees and dig your toes into the grass.  Whatever gets you through the day.  Then, as soon as you are old enough, you walk away from everyone who wants to break you,” the woman added.  “You can, and you will.”

---

“You don’t get it.  You don’t know what it’s like!” I cried.  “Who are you, anyway?  How could you know what I can or can’t cope with?”

---

She gave me that smirk again.  Then she popped her toes as she had done when she arrived.  As I had popped my own toes…

---

She was only a couple of inches taller than me.  I looked at her lips, lifting my hand toward her face, but stopping.  Instead, I put my fingers to my own lips.  Finally, I understood what was familiar about the woman.

---

“How do I know you can cope, survive, even thrive someday?” she asked.  “Because it is-was-will-be.  Because you can-did-will-do.”

---

Suddenly the brilliant light engulfed me anew.  Soon it dissipated and the noise of another jet overhead filled my ears.  My notebook sat open under the mulberry trees, and my books were again spread across the ground as they had been a short time before.

---

However, the ancient leather book had disappeared.  The enigmatic moment was gone.

***

The end.

***

Thanks for spending a moment here.  Friendly comments are welcome.  I very much hope you’ll also visit Tim’s blog and watch our video.     Hugs!

♣ ♣ ♣

Of course, I must include the obligatory shameless self-promotion.  An urban fantasy set in a small town, with characters you won’t soon forget.

The Atonement Series

Atonement, Tennessee

Full series of e-books with one click:  relinks.me/B087JV25JT

Kindle:  rxe.me/HGSVA8A

Paperback: relinks.me/1481826948

Also in Spanish, translated by Olga Núñez Miret! The title for the Spanish-speaking market is Expiación y Magia

Atonement in Bloom

Kindle:  rxe.me/5RRBLH

Paperback:  relinks.me/1726882128

The Glowing Pigs, Snort Stories of Atonement, Tennessee

Kindle   rxe.me/LTBDNH

Paperback   relinks.me/1725891972

♣ ♣ ♣

This is a work of fiction.  Characters, names, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, locales, or events is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2025 by Teagan Ríordáin Geneviene.

All rights reserved. 

No part of this work may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission.  Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights.

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