I thumbed through novels and made up stories to fit the illustrations. My first book? The Black Stallion by Walter Farley.
After I learned my ABCs, a door opened into fresh new worlds. I walked beside Laura Ingalls Wilder, shared a campfire with Louis L’Amour, and piloted a spaceship created by Robert Heinlein. Frodo and Tavi are my BFF, Flicka my horse and I live on Dune. I ride dragons, fight vampires, and tiptoe through the Ways beside the Ta’veren. I’ve held the Star of the Guardian in one hand and wielded Ice with the other, cried with Katniss and murmured, Alas Babylon.
I have lived these worlds.
Somewhere along the way, Life Happened. I married my best friend and still farm at his side, spent eleven years as a Corrections Officer, discovered Nickelback, and believe Ranch dressing and Doritos are essential to my happiness.
About Marcy and Charity, my more-than-friends in the land of Query, all I can say, the good Lord was looking out for me when our paths crossed in the blogosphere. Luck had nothing to do with it. I firmly believe in Fate.
I can make butter, milk a cow, and plaster a wall, crochet quilts, break a horse to ride and beat a computer into submission. Sometimes. When it lets me.
And.
I am a writer.
As a kid, I read a short story about a boy recovering from a lengthy illness. This is the updated version of that story.
As a kid, I read a short story about a boy recovering from a lengthy illness. This is the updated version of that story.
Horn of the Unicorn -
I wanted to get out of bed, out this room and escape the pneumonia that had kept me prisoner for two weeks. Doctor Mom said I could play outside tomorrow. But that was tomorrow, a whole day from now. When the guys yelled outside my house and I heard the crack of a baseball bat, I could have chewed rocks.
They needed me. I just knew it.
But Mom said no and that was that. Not till tomorrow.
Dad had made a face. He knew what I was going through. I mean, the guys had to have a pitcher, right?
I fingered the hand-sized chunk of dingy ivory Dad had given me. A horn or a tooth, big-like and grubby. Sometime it had been white but it was long past that stage now.
Dad said it was the horn of a unicorn, but you know parents. They’ll tell you anything for amusement.
He also said, “If you make a wish on it, a true, unselfish wish, it will come true.”
And I tried. Starting with the big one, like get me outta bed.
Of course it didn’t work. Not even with a pretty please tacked on.
Then I wished for rain to drown the ball game going on outside my window.
It didn’t happen so I wished for my favorite TV program. Nope.
After that, I made wishes like make the curtain move, a new bike. Or fly a bumblebee in the window.
Nothing.
My jaw cracked in a yawn. Mom had slipped the last of my cold meds, the sleepy kind, in the glass of soda I drank. I didn’t mind too much. Mom didn’t laugh much these days, not with my pneumonia and Dad out of a job. She used to laugh a lot.
The surface of the horn felt rough under my fingers as I stroked it. My eyes wouldn’t stay open. No way around it, I might as well give in and sleep it off.
My last thought was of Dad and the job he should have gotten. Wish he could get it.
“And I wish Mom would laugh like she used to,” I murmured into my pillow. “Like bells ringing. Like silver bells.”
#
The chirp of a robin woke me, telling the world Good Morning. For a tiniest moment, the only movement was my eyelids. I threw my covers back and jumped out of bed.
It was the next day!
Something clattered to the floor when the blankets flew back. The horn rolled to a stop by my desk chair but I was too excited to notice or care whether I had broken it.
I tugged on my clothes and rushed downstairs to the kitchen where my parents beamed at each other and then at me as I slid into a chair.
“It’s tomorrow,” I said. Captain Obvious. “So I can go outside now, right?”
Dad grinned a wide toothy smile and his eyes sparkled. “Sure can. It is, after all the next day.” He laughed.
Parents – what a deal.
I shoveled my breakfast down as fast as I could without choking and headed for the door.
“Wait,” Dad said. “I’ve got some news for you. The supervisor, the one who said I didn’t get the executive position at the plant?”
I nodded and edged for the door.
Dad beamed. “He called this morning. I got the job.”
“Hey, great, Dad, really. Um, I gotta go.”
The screen door banged behind me and I was almost across the porch when I heard my mom laugh.
The clear, silvery sound was like bells.
Clear and ringing. Silver bells.
CD Coffelt lives outside Maryville, Missouri with a bemused husband and way too many cats. She adores all things fantasy with a special love for urban and epic.
Debut writers dream of hitting the hundred-sale threshold. Wilder Mage, Ms. Coffelt's first outing in the realm of published author, sold nine hundred copies in the first two weeks of release. In March 2014, she entered the arena of self-published author when Out of Magic, a prequel to Wilder, became available.
Mage Revealed, the second book of The Magic Withheld trilogy, was released in 2014.
After her publisher closed their doors in 2015, Ms Coffelt decided to go Indie all the way and self-published her novels.
She is a member of the Missouri Writers Guild and Science Fiction Writers of America.
CD Coffelt lives outside Maryville, Missouri with a bemused husband and way too many cats. She adores all things fantasy with a special love for urban and epic.
Mage Revealed, the second book of The Magic Withheld trilogy, was released in 2014.
After her publisher closed their doors in 2015, Ms Coffelt decided to go Indie all the way and self-published her novels.
She is a member of the Missouri Writers Guild and Science Fiction Writers of America.
