Spirit Warriors: The Concealing

Spirit Warriors: The Concealing

A Novel By: D.E.L. Connor

Booktrope Editions Seattle WA 2013Copyright 2013 D.E.L. Connor All Rights Reserved

Cover Design by Ida Jansson Edited by Michelle Hartz

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to similarly named places or to persons living or deceased is unintentional.

ISBN 978-1-62015-180-8

DISCOUNTS OR CUSTOMIZED EDITIONS MAY BE AVAILABLE FOR EDUCATIONAL AND OTHER GROUPS BASED ON BULK PURCHASE.

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To my parents, Phil and Beverly, for your never ending love and support, for showing me the value of hard work, for not giving me everything I wanted, but giving me everything I needed, for making the first letter of my first, middle, and last name spell out the first three letters of my first name, thus giving me an awesome author name! I am blessed to be Forever your daughter

As long as what you are afraid of is something evil, you may still hope that the good may come to your rescue. But suppose you struggle through to the good and find that it also is dreadful? How if food itself turns out to be the very thing you can't eat, and home the very place you can't live, and your very comforter the person who makes you uncomfortable? Then, indeed, there is no rescue possible: the last card has been played.

C.S. LEWIS, Perelandra

A battle was waging in our beautiful clearing and I watched it unfold. The winner had been determined before the battle had even begun. This battle was the same every time. We have re-enacted this battle for years, since we were in fourth grade. We didn’t play it anymore since we had gotten to be in high school but today for the first time, we brought my nine-year-old brother with us, and he begged us to play it again so he could finally be a part of the battle.

The battle wouldn’t always be this way. I knew I would die when the real battle came. I have known how it would end since I was a toddler. The dream followed me-- no, haunted me-- every night of my life. I had hoped my life would not end the way my dream does, but Charlie pretty much told me my life would end as I dreamt it.

In this battle being waged, I was always General George Armstrong Custer, only because of my long, blonde wavy hair and blue eyes. I hated it because I always had to die, every time. The irony did not escape me.

Lilly with her curly chestnut brown hair and soft brown eyes was portraying Chief Gall. Lilly was small and fragile. My mom called her petite. Lilly hated to be called petite, or small, or even short. Lilly had on a pink t-shirt and a pink headband holding her hair back. Her hair was almost the color of our quarter horse Princess’s mane. Lilly had soft, beautiful curls. The kind of curls that made complete strangers want to touch her hair. Lilly galloped Princess, her curls flying behind her, with her right hand in a cast holding the reins while she waved her “lance” in her left hand. Her pale face was focused as she rode.

Betsy with her strawberry blonde hair and green-gold eyes was Captain Benteen or Major Reno, “as every good fight needs a perceived coward,” or so Bets claimed. Bets was the beautiful one with her perfect curvy figure and wavy hair. When we were younger, she was the first of us girls to get boobs, and because I was still pretty much flat chested, I was envious. Lilly told me once, “More than a handful is a waste.” Where she heard that I had no idea. I think it was something that people gifted with big knockers told others who were hardly gifted with any.