Excerpt From My Novel "The Glory Within"

Written by Grace Brown

Chapter 1: Basil

I presumed she had been speaking towards me, and that she had been repeating my name over a number of times before gently touching my arm to wake me from my opulent slumber. The days of my youth were…charismatic if you must. So much so, that I appreciated every chance of the peace and tranquility that came upon me whenever I got the chance.

My grandmothers had run a library when books were the soul to a winsome earthborn. After being accepted by The Council, Agnes and Florence Withers bought an archaic university; stretching from the corner of Fawn st. all the way to Olive Blvd. The Sabaism University was positioned just enough steps away from the theatre on the other side of the block. Opulent arches and breathtaking doors formed from cedarwood bordered the university. It itself, was a token, a sheer divine to our juvenescent town. From miles away, you could perceive the university, since the gold plated statue of David, stood quixotically at its domed roof. A sight to behold if I must say. Some days I would walk a few miles away from the school, just to look up and view the shining light that the sun commended onto the statue. I would forget who I was at that very moment and get lost in the glare.

Edmund, the caliginous, public piano player, would compose a dwale melody every time I was in such a mood. I’m not positive nor sure of his reasoning behind his melodies. Each time I would snap out of one of my “glare dreams”, as I like to call them, we would make eye contact and a furrowing of his brow would appear; I walked away before he tried making any conversation with myself; back to the university, I walked.

“Basil.”

When my mother and father fell in love through a bond of music, and their parents were introduced to each other, my grandmothers from both sides fell madly in love with each other; struck by cupid’s arrow if you will. It wasn’t a romantic love between them, no, the love they had for each other was deeper than such, smarter. A bond no other could have, and that was the love for literature. The arts, an elongated passion for knowledge and architecture. And most importantly, a passion for books. It was kismet, a virtu, as my late grandfather would presume in his throaty voice. Abbott Owens had such a distinctive voice; one that could be sought out in a crowd of hundreds. What a tremulous man my grandfather was. One of the many reasons he and my grandmother, Florence, couldn’t stand each other. As I said, just one of the many reasons. After her lover passed and was buried swiftly in a garden prosperous with resplendent lavenders, Florence Owens was taken in the care of Agnes Withers. The opal of her eye.

“Basil.”

I quit faking my slumber, turned, and kissed my grandmother on both cheeks.