Path of Breath, page 20
part #1 of Path of Life Series
GABRIEL: 6’0, African American descent, and as Kate points out, she doesn’t know who he is. He begins the story as a nerd, but it is revealed that not only is he Rachel’s secret fiancé, but he is also the leader of the Calais Colony. However, though he is in his mid-twenties, he does find a peculiar friendship with Kate.
ABALUH: 5’2, of French-Iranian descent, she did not make her first appearance until late in the story. Abaluh’s name comes from the name Abella (the pronunciation didn’t fit out Abaluh). She is very beautiful, with dark hair and eyes, the sister of Olivier and wife of Charles. Abaluh became one of my favorite characters to write.
JULIA CARTER: Pretty, young romantic interest of Nick, she is a naïve and puzzled by the future. Yes, she is the younger sister of Marian DeBeaux, a main villain, but she also has a brother, Carter, who is captured by PATHS. This explains her reasons for betrayal, and the reason why Christoph deems it necessary for her help in Boston.
A LITTLE BACKGROUND ON WISTILLA, MAINE:
Wistilla is the central setting for Path of Breath. Maine is a beautiful, outdoorsy place. I enjoyed writing about it, and instead of using an actual town, I did a bit of research to make up my own town. There, I came up with the idea of Wistilla, located on Moose Cove in Northern Maine, on the Grand Manan Channel. Yes, Moose Cove, Sandy Cove, Calais and Cutler all exist – but Wistilla is only a figment of my imagination.
The town is small, but it is big enough for many families to reside, five or six populated streets, and the wealthy Stone family to claim their home. While not many live there, some come because they find the peaceful atmosphere intoxicating and a perfect place to raise their families. In the story, Wistilla was an actual town before PATHS deemed it theirs for the experiment on the Hessen family, with its old and attractive seafront homes, cobblestone roads, and peculiar people.
THE FUTURE OF THE HESSEN FAMILY:
While I found myself running long in Path of Breath, this story is not close to being done. I have a picture painted in my head of where each Hessen will end up. I already have the picture completely painted, but as I’m sure you know, it can take a long time to clearly portray each hue and color on a canvas.
In the sequel to this book, I plan to spend more time on secondary characters, stitch up unresolved plotlines, and the integral romance between Christoph and Izzie, which I spent much time on in the beginning, but less in the end of this novel.
As for Christoph’s journey to Boston, this will be a theme to the next story, but do not expect his whole storyline to be about Boston. He will see Izzie again.
A SPECIAL THANKS:
You, as a reader of this story, make me so thrilled to write! You have been there for me and I hoped you enjoyed the story.
I’d like to thank my Savior most of all, nothing could be done without you!
EXCERPT OF ROSES IN DECEMBER:
This is an excerpt to my upcoming (possibly standalone) romance novel, Roses in December. After delving into science fiction, I was pleased to return to a sweet, simple love story between 29-year-old Candice Michelin and hunky Dr. Henry Desrosiers. (For all of you interested in the sequel to Path, I am working on that, too!)
ROSES IN DECEMBER
ONE
I WISH MY life was like an 80s movie – sweet, to-the-point, and implicit. I would get the guy when I was sixteen, I would have great friends who supported me through trials and tribulations, and my parents would wake up and realize I wasn’t my sister.
I wouldn’t mind my life being an 80s song, either. There’s no replacing the techno vibe of the 1980s. I was never a big rock fan, anyhow, and I had to support the decade in which I was born. Yeah, I grew up in the 90s, but I spent the 90s pretending I was in the 80s.
“Candice is curling her hair again!” Ellie would complain, being six years my junior. While everyone else was into the grunge look, I spent my nights parading around in bright colors and dangly earrings. Little Ellie looked more decent than I ever did, and once I finally got the note that humanity was in 2003, the year I graduated, I changed my ways.
Being a loner isn’t all that bad, but I will say I understand why no one liked me back in high school. I wasn’t into makeup or clothes, unless it went against the rules of the era. I had friends, but I liked spending Friday night curled in my blankets reading Dracula and Frankenstein. I hated cheesy romance novels in which the girl always got the guy until freshman year of college, when I realized that Candice Michelin never got the guy.
It was pretty sad waking up one Sunday morning to discover that my fourteen-year-old sister was dating when I had never had a date in my life. At that point in my dismal relationship status, I began to look for a significant other. The fact was, though, that there were no good significant others at the University of Arizona who were a mixture of the Big 3: godly, handsome, and American. The other priorities on my “relationship list” were as follows:
Relationship List
BIG 3 (kudos to Reesey)
Godly
Handsome
American
LESS IMPORTANT BUT STILL IMPORTANT (kudos to Stacey)
Drives a truck
Makes enough cash to fill multiple piggy banks
Good kisser
Wants kids
Honest, humble
Smart (can’t be like Jerome Wilson)
Hot as h-e-double-hockey sticks
Can actually drive a car (can’t be like Roger Nash)
The list went on and on thanks to my two best friends in college, Reesey Smith and Stacey Jernigan. Stacey wrote her portion of my list after breaking up with Jerome Wilson, who couldn’t compete with Roger’s knowledge, but then Roger couldn’t compete with Jerome’s truck because he couldn’t drive. I love my friends, but they can sometimes be a handful.
Anyhow, a few weeks after Reesey and Stacey dubbed this a new phase in my life, I ran into (literally ran into) Kurt Kapelmann, a handsome, German immigrant who immediately broke two of the Big 3s.
It was a summer day when I was twenty, so this would be in 2005. I was jogging with my pet lab, Peppermint, who was a baby at the time. We were working out together (because Peppermint was a plump pooch) at a secluded park on the outskirts of the city. The park had a central, manmade lake that overlooked some of the desert seclusion famous to Arizona.
Peppermint wasn’t a good runner back in those days. She constantly barked at bees and trees, and I would trip over her leash, probably not because of her, but because of my awkwardness, but that doesn’t matter. She would either run with so much vigor that I couldn’t keep up, or run without any energy so to make me fall over her golden body.
It was that day that Peppermint stopped in the middle of a trail that weaved into some brush and found her soul-mate, a darker-hued lab named Rico. At the fast rate we were going, I was proud of my puppy for staying at a jog for more than five minutes, but she spotted Rico, and halted, causing me to trip over her.
It was luck that day. Any given hour, I would have skinned my knee because of Peppermint. But Rico’s owner, a tall, blond German boy named Kurt Kapelmann, dropped his phone and caught me before I embarrassed myself for the record books.
“Are you okay?” he squealed, his cheeks turning a rosy pink as he watched me huff. “That could’ve been a messy fall.” His accent was beautiful, and though I had German ancestry, I had never heard a true-blooded German speak such perfect English.
I couldn’t say anything. My eyes were locked on his pure blue eyes, the color of the sky. He was draped over my body, which was inches to the woody trail, mind you, and I didn’t say a word. Instead, I held him and flavored his eyes. Finally, he smiled, and lifted me back to a standing position. “You okay?” he repeated, his broad shoulders relaxing.
“Oh, fine? Yeah, yeah,” I countered, trying to regain my balance. I looked down at Peppermint, ready to scold her, but she was looking into the eyes of Rico the same way I looked into Kurt’s.
Kurt smiled again, leaving me feeling what most high-schoolers like my younger sister experienced for years. “You sure you’re okay?”
I was enamored by his care for my wellbeing, and I batted my eyelashes like Stacey had taught me to do in the presence of a handsome being. However, Kurt told me years later that I looked like a complete idiot trying to bat my eyelashes, and I never forgave Stacey for it. But Kurt never stopped smiling, and I left that trail with a man who would stay with me for years.
After our first meeting on the trail, I expected Kurt to call in the next few days. He didn’t, and Reesey, the fiery Mexican goddess she is, ranted in fluent Spanish how much she was ready to have her brothers – Armando, Julio, and Rufus – find him and give him a lesson on the properness of American romance behavior. “I don’t know how they do it over there, but in America, we have decency,” Reesey proclaimed.
“You do remember you’re from Mexico, right, Reese?” I laughed, trying to ignore the tears in my eye sockets, but Reesey ignored me as she continued her spiel in her native tongue.
Three weeks later, after I had gotten over the fact that Kurt thought I was an imbecile, or an alien, I ran into him at the grocery store outside of the campus. He waved and hurried to me, not mentioning that he hadn’t called or anything, when he hugged me and asked if I would come to a German dinner that night with his parents.
Though Stace and Reese were upset I accepted, I happily obliged and spent the night learning basic German from his sister Kara who was sullenly missing her homeland. After that night at his household, and acceptance from his parents, Hans and Kirsten, for me to marry into the Kapelmann family, I officially began dating Kurt.
By the time I graduated with honors in creative writing, I was happily in love and engaged to my significant other, who I readily agreed to spend the rest of my life with. Kurt promised me he was Protestant, but as time passed, I saw his darker side.
Kurt, a few years older than me, became a successful lawyer who made plenty of money. While the rest of us graduates struggled for a paycheck, Kurt bought an expensive Camaro three months into his job. His parents, Hans and Kirsten, didn’t particularly like this splurge, but were proud of their son. Kara and I had grown closer, and she didn’t like the Camaro as she told me, “In Germany, we were poor. And now he comes to Arizona to buy a nice car when our relatives are hungry at home!”
When I was twenty-five and there still wasn’t a wedding ring on my finger, I went to Kurt. We were in love, I told him, and I wanted to marry him soon. We had been engaged for two years, and time was ticking. Kurt angrily dismissed me and told me he wasn’t ready.
I spent the summer with him in Germany, falling in love with his family, experiencing a different culture, and growing in my relationship with God at the local parish. I wasn’t Catholic, but they didn’t mind, and I enjoyed my summer. I returned to Arizona, wrote my first novel, and self-published it, but it went nowhere. I continued writing in my spare time, and planned the wedding when I wasn’t working at the newspaper or pursuing my master in English.
It was in December of 2010 when I experienced Kurt’s new-found Americanization to be harmful. He was drunk, and made sexual attempts at me. I refused, repeatedly asking him where my wedding ring was. He came at me, and pulled my long hair. At that point, I left, crying to my mother, who flew into town and consoled me.
She, along with my partners-in-crime, told me to end my relationship with Kurt. I was too dependent on him, they said, and I had never experienced another man’s love. My mother told me that I was a gift, and I needed to be cherished. So I returned the engagement ring to his parents. I didn’t tell them about his angry bout with me, because I loved them and I loved Kurt.
Kurt came to me as his normal self, begging me to marry him, promising me the best. He apologized, but I told him I needed time. He left me as a gentleman would, and kissed my forehead. Two years later, I ran into him again and we went on a coffee-shop date. We had grown up, and he was no longer a young big-shot. He was very successful, and had purchased a big house nearby.
“Listen, Candice,” he whispered as he reached for my hand. “I can’t live without you. Would you like to try this again?” he asked, motioning to us, but I couldn’t say yes.
Though he was very handsome, and humble, and all the things on the unimportant list, there was something missing. And I couldn’t be with him anymore. I kissed him goodbye that day and left, heading back to my apartment in Oro Valley.
Twenty-nine now, I’m still alone. I wasted ten years of my life with that boy, but somehow found my own inner-peace. Peppermint, my loyal ally, and I spend Saturday nights camped in my bed with popcorn and a good TV-romance that leaves us in tears. Sunday nights are reserved for time with my best pals, and Monday-Friday I am all about work with the newspaper.
My second book was rejected by nine publishing houses. I had Stacey edit with me, as she is an editor for one of the publishing companies in town, but they didn’t accept it. The book isn’t what editors classify as modern, and though I would rather write a decent, wholesome book, I can’t help but feel like a failure. My friends try to convince me that famous authors’ books were rejected many times before being accepted, but I don’t know about mine. I’m not exactly a prolific writer. I’m an Arizona native who is pushing thirty and single, and I write romance? Fifteen years ago I would have slapped the person who handed me a Jane Austen classic.
I tell you this because I’m writing all of this down. Since my second book doesn’t convey my exact feelings about the writing world, I’m going to tell my story. I’m still the fifteen-year-old girl who was lonely and wished her life was like an 80s movie. The only thing different is that I spend my nights crying with a Labrador by my side.
ROSES IN DECEMBER – OUT IN MARCH/APRIL 2014!
SEQUEL TO PATH OF BREATH – OUT IN APRIL/MAY 2014!
KATIE GEORGE (aka KATE STRAILMAN) is a freelance writer who devotes her time to writing, piano, and volunteer work. While her main love is writing, she loves films, her favorites including Pan’s Labyrinth and I Am Legend. Katie frequently travels, which is the main inspiration of her stories. She likes to write about different places she has been to, including Maine, the spectacular setting of Path of Breath. In addition to Path, she has written three novels (Whatley, Some Fiction, and Frail Endings) and two short stories (“The Cube” and “Dim Eyes”), with two novels on the way (Roses in December and a sequel to Path of Breath). You can contact her through her Smashwords account.
PATH OF BREATH REFERS TO THE COBBLESTONE PATHS NICK, CHRISTOPH, AND KATE WALKED IN THE BEGINNING OF THE STORY. IT WAS HERE THAT THEIR RELATIONSHIP GREW AND MEMORIES BEGAN TO OCCUR. THEREFORE, THEY WERE ON A PATH THAT THAT BREATHED LIFE AGAIN INTO THEIR LUNGS. ALSO, IT COMES FROM THE IDEA OF THE “PATHS” SCIENTIFIC GROUP IN THE STORY.
Katie George, Path of Breath
