The Tree Goddess

Preface

The light of a candle flickers, bobs and sways throughout the hours in a darkened, old house. Perhaps it sits at a dusty table in an attic or some corner of the basement. At the table, nothing more than a pen scribbles on sheets of paper by a seemingly unguided force.

This is the sight you might expect to see at some haunted house in the darkest hours of night. And this is the time of night when the material was written for this novel. 2:30 in the morning, I would sometimes joke with myself and wonder if I wrote as if something from the coffin, dead. Yes, arising during the witching hour can certainly lead one to feel drained of all life; especially as the day progresses long into the afternoon hours. But those many hours alone in the dark of night had proven to be the most precious moments of creativity.

Looking back at the entire growth of The Tree Goddess, I believe the initial spark that put the story in motion took place while my wife, kids and I were packing up boxes to move into a new residence. At the time, my 9 year old daughter (oldest) was cautioned of a box of fragile centerpieces that I claimed to be expensive antiques. Only being silly with the child, in truth, the items were cheap and could easily be replaced. Challenged by my daughter that the claim was fiction, the stories I made up for each item were enough to draw laughter from the wife and kids.

Writing off and on for a number of years, a website was created to showcase my short stories and unusual essays. Halloween week had always been a special celebration on the site as it featured spooky, Halloween-related material. And in the spring of 2009, the plan was to make Halloween really special with some fantastic, original material. The stories that were centered on the box of fragile items which entertained my wife and kids while moving were planned to be developed into detailed writings. Spending some weeks, 5 short stories were written. Upon their completion, I realized that they were all related. In fact, with only a few alterations, the same characters could have appeared throughout.

But writing a novel is no easy task! The Tree Goddess had been written not once, not twice, but three times! After my second try, it was realized that I needed to further develop the craft of storytelling. Since I had done much technical writing in my job, the first two drafts of the Tree Goddess were nothing more than technical papers with logical presentations that attempted to describe the bizarre and supernatural happenings of Mapleview.

My story book, Freaked out Horror was the training ground where I created a collection of strange and morbid tales and then added a macabre tone, something which I had never done before. It was written after my 2nd attempt of writing the Tree Goddess. Satisfied with what I had written, I was confident that the 3rd attempt of the Tree Goddess would prove successful. Now, in 2010, the novel is complete and ready to be released. I thoroughly enjoyed writing it and I hope you enjoy the completed product.

But there is one thing that I need to call to the reader"s attention. Being that there are four disappearances in the fictional town of Mapleview, I found it necessary to divide the book into four parts. It"s only right to venture into each character"s past and reveal the events which led to another disappearance in Mapleview. As you read part one, the story will unfold with Mary, who purchases the historic Trivelli house from her aunt and has some bizarre experiences. Towards the end of part one, we witness the first disappearance of Mapleview. But then part two will venture 10 years into a new character"s past. Towards the end, that character"s decade will track back into the running story of the book so that we resume where part one had left off. Had I not partitioned the novel this way, it would have been confusing for the reader. And had I given a proper, sequential three decades of the events in Mapleview, the work would have been extremely boring and lengthy. Presenting it as four parts is best.

Recently, I took a family vacation to the Black Hills of South Dakota. During this trip, I was fascinated with not only the mountainous, western landscapes that were highlighted by pines; but also the history of the area. Towards the end of my stay, I was very, much aware that the Black Hills region was victim to General Custer"s invasion and then a gold rush which further contributed to the interesting history of the area. And there were so many antique buildings, mining shacks and caves; each with stories of their own. One could become an expert of local history just by living there.

Returning home to polish my final draft of the Tree Goddess, I soon realized that there are history buffs who know many details of our nation"s history. I thought of this while noticing that the story goes into great lengths, describing the setting of the novel along with the region"s history. Wolves populate the dense forests, and of course, tribes of Native Americans had populated fictional Mapleview, long before the town was established in 1830.

But it"s important to know that Mapleview is fictional! Don"t bother trying to solve exactly where in America Mapleview is located. The very fact that Mapleview was founded in 1830 might lead an expert to pinpoint an area in this country that was settled in during that timeframe. And then one might conclude that dense forests shouldn"t be located in a particular area, or that wolves are not indigenous to a certain imagined part of the country. Again, Mapleview is fictional; and so are the accounts of its history.

I hope you enjoy this novel. And to all my readers who have read my daily edits all of these years: this book contains the material that was originally supposed to run on Halloween week of 2009.

Tom Raimbault

Frankfort, Illinois

July 16, 2010

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