Matt got down to his knees and hugged his little girl. Squeezing her one last time and inhaling her scent. “I love you Daddy…”
“I love you too my baby girl,”
She stepped out of the hug and wiped a ghostly tear from her eye. She looked more mature suddenly.
“Take good care of her Dad,” Matt pleaded as Jim stepped forward and took the little girl’s hand.
“I will son, I will. And I want you to know…” Jim faltered, overcome with emotions himself. “I want you to know,” he faltered again, tears rising in his eyes. “I just want you to know that I’m proud of you. You’ve made me so proud son…”
Matt sobbed violently still crouched on one knee. Terry placed his hands on his shoulders. There wasn’t anything he could do except be there. No words, or actions could help this moment.
Jim wiped his eyes and turned to Terry. “You’re a good man Terry, take good care of my son…”
“Yes Sir.”
And then Jim led Christine to the front door. He opened it to a brilliant pool of light.
With a brief backwards glance they stepped into the light. They were consumed by it and the door slowly shut behind them.
They were gone. It was done.
In a snap the pair of them woke up.
They were once more in the real world, in the darkness of their bedroom. Terry slowly retracted his hand. He couldn’t see the single tear that slid down Matt’s cheek.
A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR:
The original premise of this story has been knocking about in my skull for a long-long time! It was originally conceived in a very similar guise, but it was then titled “Angel’s Apathy” and it centred on a reborn Angel called “Terry” who partnered up with a cop called “Matt” and they solved a supernatural mystery together. Falling in love along the way.
It was always going to have a “gay family unit”, but back then I was starting right at the beginning. Not much of that original version survived beyond the characters. The children changed, though they was always a pair of girls.
Terry’s powers drastically changed. In the original story he had the power to read memories left behind, a power that would go on to be so extreme he would have to wear gloves constantly and was incapable of touching another human being. While an interesting idea, it was a difficult plot device. It meant Terry could only look backwards, which is very hard to juggle with a plot that’s going forwards. So I changed him to a more familiar skill-set and let him be quite capable of human contact. I also established the story firmly at point where the family was already complete and functional. I could’ve explored and told a tale of that family coming together, but ultimately I thought the story worked without all that set up. If it was a heterosexual family unit it would’ve been treated just the same. I think it’s an interesting contrast how the paranormal parts of Terry’s life make his family situation look very normal.
That big bad. I conceived the big bad for the book long before I had a reasoning to it, or even a villain perpetrating it. It was borne from wanting to give Terry and Matt an unforgettable story and me asking myself what’s the worst possible thing they could solve? What is the most despicable act? And how can I make it seep into the consciousness of the reader… The answer was pies. Now hopefully I ain’t gonna put all my readers off pie (because pies are delicious) but I couldn’t deny the sub-current of commentary on our ignorance to what we eat. The first original coherent plan for this book was built with two very different ideas that I struggled to stitch together. Terry and Matt and then the children pies, I couldn’t figure out a way to get them to solve this perfect crime. It was bittersweet when inspiration struck and it actually immediately secured the ending in my mind.
Writing it however was more than a little painful.
In the second draft of the book, the big bad guy never gave an explanation. He merely died on the way to the hospital and that was the end of that. Part of the appeal of it was that there was no explanation and it reflected the sometimes brutal and unanswerable events in real life. But I couldn’t shake the feeling the reader might feel cheated. Such an atrocious crime needed justice, it needs explanation. So I wrote the villain into a scene just to give reasoning behind his madness. The little hint he went to Hell at the end, well that was a third draft addition.
The only idea that I actually wanted to bring forward from the original story idea was of the reoccurring dream. Each night Terry was going to dream the same dream and each time get a little further before he woke up. It was going to be an apocalyptic premonition of an event in a book further down the line. Which is a really cool idea, but I need to stop with the sequel baiting. (I’m not JK Rowling, I don’t get to write a multi-million pound franchise!) It didn’t really work within the context of the book either, Terry was very pragmatic and the idea of a reoccurring vision didn’t work well with him.
So while a lot is owed to that original story, not much of it got recycled! Most because it was dreadful, but it was the first thing I wrote with serious intention of getting published. At the time I was failing at university, I’d gone with the great ambition of being a computer games designer and I wasn’t prepared for it in any shape or form. So I was going to return to university and pursue a writing career. (I was offered a placement on a course based solely on a submission of writing, I have zero qualifications beyond a C in GCSE English and a peculiar imagination.)
That never happened.
Instead I ended up getting a job and relinquishing my plans to head back to university. In the time between finishing university and getting my first job, I wrote a book that would become the first thing I tried to publish. It was called “The Black Winter”, and I shipped it to several publishers and got decent responses but the recession had hit. People were far less willing to take a chance on an unknown somebody from the north like me. I was offered a deal but I would have to contribute financially, which was impossible for a poor soul like me. So I put “The Black Winter” on ice and it only resurfaced when I learnt I could self publish with Amazon. Which I did, then subsequently (and deliberately) forgot about it.
At the time I was more interested in pursuing my art and my music-making, I put the book writing on the backburner. I figured one day I’d be too old to continue with my art in the same way and I’d have to switch to something different creatively. (I didn’t want to be an ageing idiot trying to appear young!)
But my love affair with my photo-manipulation art ran dry and my passion for song writing and music making went awry too, so I ended up gravitating towards book writing. It was around this point that I learnt of a brutal customer review for “The Black Winter”. It hurt and it definitely wounded me, I’d put a lot of heartache and passion into that book and its one and only review was a damning verdict. I sulked and I moped, but eventually I plucked up the audacity to rewrite the goddamned thing. I got rid of the old-world stylings and brought it slam-bang into the modern literary scene. I re-released the book, hoping to distance it from that awful review but the powers of Amazon merely reinserted this new book in its place and it inherited the review. (Thankfully a soul came along and gave it a positive review and took it off from it’s one star rating!)
My second book “Paradise” was my reboot. It was me deciding to go for it, to give writing the best shot I had! Now I’m on my tenth book. And it astounds me. Utterly astounds me.
How did I do it? I couldn’t tell you how many hours I’ve spent beavering away on the books, or how many knots I’ve tied myself into over grammar. I would dread to think of how many hours I’ve spent planning, analysing and internally editing.
It’s been quite the journey! There’s been the odd misfire for sure, (I’m looking at you “Puss In Boots”) but on the whole I think my entire catalogue of works is one of continuous pushing outside the box. There’s been; transgender themes, explorations of stereotypes, dissections of homosexual relationships, pugs, time travel, aliens, clones, murderers, vampires and so much-much more!
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So it was kind of fitting, though unintentional, that my tenth book - a significant book, would actually be a book I started my journey on. After everything I’ve written, it was appropriate perhaps to pay respect to the book that started me off proper.
So here we are! At the end of my tenth book.
I want to say thank you to everybody who’s helped me along this path, whether you’ve inspired some part of a story or just been a pillar of support that’s pushed me onwards. I owe all of you a huge thank you and I could never articulate how much your support has meant over the years.
Ten books down!
AJW
Ten Missing Children Page 17