three centuries | Dragon My Feet

Excerpt from ACQUIESCENCE by Velya Jancz-Urban

April 15, 2015 — Pat Bertram

When Pamina Campbell learns of a murder committed over two hundred years ago in her Connecticut farmhouse in order to avenge an unforgivable crime, she accepts that she has no idea how the universe works, except that it requires acquiescence at every point.

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EXCERPT:

I used to think the antique cross-stitch sampler hanging in my friend’s tiny guest bathroom was kind of cheesy. Her sloping bathroom is tucked up under the eaves, and I’m one of the few people who can actually stand up straight at the corner sink. The other day, I dried my hands and read the sampler. For the first time, I thought about the words.

“Some people come into our lives and quietly go, others stay for a while and leave footprints on our hearts and we are never the same.”

In the last year, two such women have entered, and exited, my life.

I’ve thought a lot about these women. Both of them have left their mark on me. Both of them have changed me. My mother always told me, “Pamina, there is no growth without change.” They have made me grow.

The first woman was an intuitive who claimed to have psychic abilities. She was in and out of my life so quickly I often wonder if she was real. She helped me understand that sometimes we just have to accept the fact we can’t explain everything. Because we see the effects of wind, we believe it exists. Just because we don’t see the spirit world doesn’t mean it’s not there. As a skeptic, I resisted. Yet I didn’t question contagious yawning, the placebo effect, dreaming, nipples on men, intuition, the law of gravity, or female orgasms. It’s a very confusing dilemma to be open-minded, yet be skeptical. It sounds like an oxymoron, doesn’t it? I met the second woman only once – on a chilly October night when the maple trees blushed red and my husband and kids were out of town. That’s when I found out ghosts do exist. My ghost needed me. She had unfinished business in this world, and spirits are often people who can’t get over their past. I don’t think you have to believe in ghosts to know we are all haunted.

I used to think a lot of things. I used to know a lot of things. Now, I only know two things: I have no idea how the universe works, except that it seems to require acquiescence at every point. And disaster – the sort of disaster that leaves you numb on a park bench or aching for your husband to come back to you – can be a freaky thing of beauty.

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Bio:

Velya Jancz-Urban, and her Acquiescence protagonist Pamina Campbell, have a lot in common. Both are teachers and hoodwinked Brazilian dairy farm owners, and both share a 1770 Connecticut farmhouse with a spirit woman. Velya has been married for 32 years, and is the mother of two grown children. She has a few too many rescue dogs and cats, is happiest with a fresh stack of library books, loves thrift shops, and is passionate about alternative medicine. Her entertainingly- informative presentation, ‘The Not-So-Good Life of the Colonial Goodwife’ is a result of the research completed for this novel. http://www.acquiescencethebook.com