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This story will be set in the same basic timeline as that of The Dreamrose Dancers and its related stories, for your information, people, just so you all know this well enough. It will conclude sometime before that story begins, but not be a direct prequel to it, even though it will be in the same basic timeline as that story and any other related ones to it. This story, written by me under my pen name “The Universal Storyteller,” is hereby dedicated to my earthly parents, for that matter. I hope you all enjoy this well enough, in fact, of course. Please read and review, if and whenever possible, and prepare to experience a rather action-packed adventure here, as well, by the way. With no further ado, then, I give you the first chapter of Songs of the Heart!
Chapter One: The Departure
“You need to stay here with us, not go gallivanting off on some foolish dream that may never materialize as well as you might think it will, Cassandra,” said a middle-aged woman of perhaps forty or so who looked at least five or ten years older than she actually was in her life.
“I’m leaving for Nashville, just the same, whether or not I might ever make the big time there in time,” said Cassandra Skylark, as she finished packing several hundred audio cassettes and/or compact disks into a few cases meant to hold them here well enough. Most of the things she’d decided to bring to Nashville with her were already packed into her old van that her father had bought for her future use when she was still a mere infant, just born to her parents at a much happier time for them both. Things such as her guitar and other musical instruments of hers, for instance.
“You’ll be back here before you know it, and I expect that you’ll have come back with more sense when you do,” said her mother, one Julia Douglas Skylark Ashton. “Perhaps then you’ll be prepared to finally get at least engaged, if not married, to the man we’ve already picked out for you.”
“You won’t see me before the Thanksgiving holiday, in any case at all. Duluth has no reason to keep me here sufficiently well, it seems to me. I have to pursue my dreams at least once in my life, and not even you or Vincent will be able to keep me from doing that well enough, somehow, in it.”
“I can’t support you in this idea of yours, Cassandra. But I can’t hold you here right now, seeing as you just finished high school near here, and as you’re now a legal adult in your life. At least for the most part, if not entirely, anyway.”
“Thank God for small blessings, at least, then. I will accept that you don’t support my plans to move to Tennessee to seek my musical fortune, but I still have to do as my heart’s music leads me to do in my own life,” said Cassandra, as she then picked up the last of her things that she’d be bringing with her to Tennessee, just before leaving, and locking, her bedroom well enough so that nobody would be able to get into it while she was elsewhere in the United States pursuing her musical fortune.
“Where will you live, exactly? And with who, exactly?”
“I don’t know either of those things just yet, but I trust that He who made the Universe will take care of me just the same as I seek my musical fortune in Nashville for as long as it takes me to find it out well enough.”
“So you have no ideas at all about just where you might find yourself, or who you might find yourself with?”
“None at all, to be honest. I’ll let God send me wherever the wind blows me to in the area, at His direction. He won’t lead me wrong, I’m quite sure. Now I must leave here while I still can, Mother. But I’ll still pray for everyone I’ll be leaving behind here, no matter who they might be, just the same,” said Cassandra, as she then got behind the wheel of her van, and turned her key in the ignition slot on its casing as needed here.
“Very well, then, Cassandra. Do what you feel you must, though I still wish that you’d stay here with us all, of course. See you later, if I must. You will write whenever you can, will you not?”
“Sure I will. But I’m still not coming back before Thanksgiving, in any case at all, no matter what.” Cassandra said nothing more to Julia Ashton here before she then drove out of the driveway outside her Minnesota-based family’s residence without any further delay on her part here. Her mother watched her drive away for as long as she could before finally going back inside the house when she could no longer make out Cassandra’s van well enough on the roads near it in a pricier-than-average part of Duluth, Minnesota.
That night, Cassandra pulled up outside a motel on the outskirts of Madison, Wisconsin, just before 9:30 pm, local time. She soon rented a room for the night at a price of about $15, more or less, from the operators of that motel, which had seen many better days in its heyday back in the 1960's and 1970's. The motel room she rented was Room 15 out of 42 on the premises, with two banks of rooms on the ground level of it. The room had recently been repainted after a previous renter had painted assorted graffiti on its walls on a dare from certain associates of theirs, and the room still looked like it had been repainted. Even after the application of at least two coats of paint meant to cover up or redecorate the walls now in question here, if not more. The beds were rather plainly-furnished with old bedding washed last after a visit by the most recent renters of the room two weeks or so before. The rest of the room was furnished with furniture that was considered to be rather fashionable at least a dozen years before, but which no longer was. She quickly unpacked a few things from her overnight bags, and prepared for sleep very soon after getting in the room that she’d just rented here.
“It’s not all that great-looking of a place here, but at least it’s a place to lay my head in this world the Lord made so long ago. And because I know He’s always with me now in my life, this place is at least a bit better than it might have been without Him in my life,” she eventually said, after taking a quick shower with surprisingly rather clean water in the bathroom area adjoining the sleeping area of her rented room.
She eventually climbed into one of the two queen-sized beds in the room after reading her Bible for a little while at an antique desk elsewhere in it. She then turned off the light nearest it on a bedside table, and went right to sleep by 11 pm, local time, at the very latest. Cassandra slept normally quite like a log, and this night was no exception for her in her life, for that matter. She only woke again after the sun had been up for a while, and not before 7:30 am, in any case. Cassandra only woke up, in fact, once the sounds of a ringing phone reached her ears and registered in her brain well enough, at just after 8 am, local time. Before the call would be terminated on the other end, then, she quickly grabbed it up and answered it. Five minutes later, at most, she sprang to life as she literally flew out of the bed and into the adjoining bathroom area with a rather conservative set of clean clothes.
A quick shower later, she came out of it wearing a light blue full-sleeved blouse with narrow red and white piping near her collar and wrists and with slightly-puffed shoulders over a medium blue knee-length denim skirt and a pair of plain black cowboy-style boots. She then grabbed up all the other things she’d brought into the room with her, if she hadn’t already done so, and checked out of the motel soon after doing that here well enough. Ten minutes, at most, after checking out of the motel completely, she was off its premises, and heading for downtown Madison, hoping to find a good place to have breakfast at before she’d put too many more miles on her van that very day.
She eventually pulled into the parking lot of a roadside diner called Shakes, Platters, and Rolls. It was then about 8:45 in the morning, and the majority of the diner’s usual morning crowd had already cleared out by the time she parked her van outside it well enough. A waitress of about 25 or so soon calmly served her a breakfast of water, pancakes, eggs, cheese logs, ham, and a slice of cherry pie topped with whipped cream and several small pieces of red licorice. When she asked Cassandra where she was going, Cassandra said, “Nashville, to make my fortune.”
“Good. I was just waiting for the next Nashville-bound musician to come here, Miss. My boss will release me to accompany you, for sure, due to the rather unique terms of my employment contract here. I had been expecting someone matching your exact description to show up here eventually for at least the last nine months, in fact. When it came time for my next employment contract here to be negotiated, I pushed for, and got, an escape clause to be added to it that would lead to my immediate legal release from it, without question, if and whenever someone of your exact description might actually appear here well enough. Now that you’re here, I can ask for such a release from it, and I can’t be denied it by my boss here, per the terms of my contract.”
“What’s your name, then?”
“My name is Samantha Powell,” said the rather brown-haired waitress, in very short order. “My boss won’t be happy at all to lose me from his work staff, in truth, but he can’t hold me here, if I don’t want to be here, now. Besides, there’s someone else he’s had on his work staff here who wants my job, and who he seems to actually like more than me, here, it seems to me now.”
“I see. Will he release you from your contract here, then?”
“If he doesn’t, then he’ll be quite wide-open for a potential lawsuit, on the basis of my rather unusual employment contract here. My parents would perhaps sue, and win considerable money in monetary damages, if he tried to renege on his part of my contract. So he’ll have to release me from it, whether he wants to or not, Miss.”
“Cassandra Skylark. But if you’re going to be coming with me to Nashville, you should perhaps call me Cassie, Miss Powell.”
“Sure I will go there with you, Cassie. As long as I can call you that, then, you can call me Sam, if you’d like.”
“Acceptable enough, I suppose. Very well, I’ll do that whenever possible in the future.”
“Good. Now finish your breakfast here just as soon as you can, please, so that we can get out of Madison here well enough before 10 or so in the morning, okay?”
“Why do we have to do that, Sam?”
“Because we’re going to have to be in Decatur, Illinois, before we retire for the rest of the night. The next member of our future band will be there later on, for sure. I’ll explain how I know this more once we get close to Peoria in Illinois, Cassie.”
Cassie, who was now just about 5'8" and about 140 pounds, soon studied Sam as she finished the rest of her breakfast and brushed a bit of her short and slightly wavy black hair out of her medium blue eyes here. Her hair was about chin-length at present, with just a few small wisps, perhaps, on the back of her well-formed neck here. She was Caucasian, through and through, but Sam showed at least a few traces of mixed ethnicities from various places all over the world, unlike Cassie. Cassie soon asked, “Who’s going to be its lead singer, then?”
“You, of course, Cassie. I’ll be one of the other vocalists and play assorted instruments for it, once we all eventually come to form Dreamheart with each other. Our band will eventually be assembled from five or six up-and-coming musicians like us. Until it is formed well enough, however, three of us will support you as your personal band. Even though most people won’t know much about any of us for at least a little while, perhaps, we’ll still do so, just the same, then.” Sam soon smiled back at Cassie here, even as it now rapidly approached 9:15 in the morning, local time.
Fifteen minutes or so later, at most, Sam and Cassie left the diner’s premises with each other in Cassie’s van. Cassie pulled up no more than five minutes later outside Sam’s apartment building, and quickly helped Sam retrieve what little she still had left in her apartment there. Which wasn’t much more than a few suitcases and a few more musical instruments of assorted sizes and shapes to them. By 9:40 in the morning, then, they’d loaded all those things into Cassie’s van as needed. With them all loaded as needed now, they soon continued on their way towards Nashville, of course. They were sufficiently south of Madison before 10 am came and went well enough for them both, in fact. As that time came and went for them both, they were quite near to Janesville, though not yet past it at all.
As they neared Peoria at about noon, local time, after a good deal of silence while Cassie drove, Sam suddenly said, “You wondered how I know that another member of our band is now in Decatur waiting for us. I know that she is there because of a dream quite like the one in which I first saw you quite some length of time ago, Cassie. We’ll meet her tomorrow morning at a gas station, it seems. She’ll be expecting us there by 9:15 in the morning, I think.”
“I see. What else did you see in the applicable dream of yours about her, then, if I might ask you this now?”
“She is half-Japanese and half-Jamaican, in terms of her ancestry, but was still born to two U.S. citizens during Ronald Reagan’s second term as President of the United States. She will mainly serve as our band’s drummer, I think, Cassie. Her name escapes me at present, though.”
“I see. When will she join us, then, perhaps, Sam?”
“That very day, for her own employment contract there will actually expire at noon local time, believe it or not. After which, she’ll be quite free to join us on our journey to Nashville, in fact.”
Cassie considered that for at least a little while in relative silence until she pulled the van into a Lincoln-area Italian-themed restaurant’s parking lot for a late afternoon bite to eat. They both soon ordered some pasta and fruit juice, among other things, for their late afternoon meals there, of course. Cassie though she should split the cost of things there, but Sam wouldn’t let her do so. Instead, Sam covered the entire bill, even while saying, “You have to save enough money for your van’s fuel and for the apartment’s rent, et cetera, that you’ll have to pay for after we all hit Nashville with each other, Cassie. It’s not necessarily going to be cheap, either, even when it should be. I’ve been to Nashville several times before, so I have personal knowledge of such things. In fact, my family once lived in the Nashville area with me, for that matter.”
“What about costs for other motel rooms and other expenses we might have until we get to Nashville, then, Sam?”
“I’ll cover the lodging costs tonight and the food, for that matter, at least until our next companion joins us on the road. As we pick up other members of our future band, I will split the necessary expenses with them, until we all hit Nashville well enough, Cassie.”
“How are you going to be able to do that now, Sam?” asked Cassie, as she and Sam got back in the van.
“I have access to a considerable sum of money in the bank at least partly inherited from certain relatives of mine. Once we get to Nashville, you and I then will rent an apartment there with each other. The other members of our future band will rent other places to live as they might see fit if they want to or need too, for that matter.”
Some length of time later, then, they eventually reached Decatur, Illinois, and Cassie soon pulled into a certain area motel’s parking lot, at Sam’s direct urging. Not much later, and by 9:10 pm, local time, in any case at all here, they were both inside the room that Sam thought they should rent now at it, in fact. They each soon claimed one bed apiece for themselves in it, of course.
They then scanned through the available stations on the television in that room, and eventually settled on a program on the History International channel about the Middle East, especially in terms of Israel and various Arab nations in it. It aired from 9:30 pm local time to 11 pm, after which they both soon went to bed in their claimed beds there. Both of them fell quite soundly asleep in them by no later than 11:30 pm, in any case at all.
The following morning, they both arose by 7:15 am, at the very latest. They spent a little time, at least, getting themselves ready for the day and whatever it might bring for them both, to the best of their current ability to do so here. And they were as ready as they then could be here by no later than 8:05 am, in any case at all.
They gathered up everything they’d actually both brought into their rented room by no later than 8:15, and checked out of the motel completely by 8:30, in any case. After which, they then set off for the gas station Samantha had mentioned earlier to Cassandra. They both arrived there in Cassie’s van by 9:05 in the morning, for that matter, and pulled up next to one of the various pumps there. While Cassie saw to the filling of the van’s gas tank as needed, Sam went inside to browse around the gas station as she then saw fit. Within logical reason, of course. The van’s gas tank was completely filled as needed by 9:10 am, at the very latest. And Cassie then went into the gas station to pay for the gas once the nozzle to the pump was back where it needed to be and once she put the gas tank’s cover back on it well enough, quite naturally enough. She soon found Sam talking to several of the workers at the gas station when she went into it. Sam soon saw her, as Cassie was then paying for the gas she’d just put into the van’s gas tank, and said, “Cassie, this young girl you’re paying for the van’s most recent tank of gas here and now is Miresha Hanobau. She will be joining us later on our journey to Tennessee, in fact.”
Miresha Hanobau was now about five inches shorter than Cassie, and about nine inches shorter than Sam, at about 5'3", more or less. She was also about twenty pounds lighter than Cassie, and about forty pounds lighter than Sam, at about 120 pounds, more or less, with a semi-athletic build for herself. Miresha’s roughly waist-length black hair was currently in what she normally referred to in her life as “Minako-style.” Which meant, essentially that it was mostly unbound, except for the part of it that actually was secured with a mostly orange bow with blue and red trim on it wherever needed and/or possible. It was quite similar, in fact, to the way that a certain Japanese anime/manga character named Minako Aino would most often wear her hair in her life. Miresha often wore her black hair in certain hairstyles reminiscent of assorted anime and/or manga characters whenever she possibly could do just that well enough, as well. At the moment, she was wearing a short-sleeved top bearing the gas station’s name and logo over a pair of rather decorated blue jeans and mostly black buckled and strapped open-toed sandals.
After Cassie had looked over the light chocolate-skinned Miresha for at least a minute or two, she said, “So you’re the potential lead drummer for our future band Dreamheart that Sam here told me about earlier, it seems.”
“Yes, it seems that I am, Miss Skylark. And I’m quite glad to meet you two now, in fact. I was already expecting to do so today, since about last Christmas or so, for your information.”
“If we’re going to work together, then, you might as well call me ‘Cassie,’ Miresha, if you don’t mind too much here at all.”
“Very well, Cassie. I’ll try to remember that quite well in the future. You can call me, then, ‘Miresha,’ ‘Esha,’ or ‘Anime Girl,’ if you like, in like manner, if and whenever possible. And I really hope that we all eventually become not just mere co-workers to each other, but also really close friends, in each of our respective mortal lives,” said Miresha with a semi-goofy grin on her face under her emerald green eyes, her wide-bridged nose, and two chains of painted-on interlocking pink and red hearts running diagonally over her roughly average-sized cheeks from the outsides of her eyes to the corresponding corners of her mouth.
“I see you’re not necessarily a conformist to many people’s ways of thinking, if I read your current look here well enough, then, Miresha.”
“I often don’t paint my face like this, Cassie. But it’s not every day people might actually meet someone they might know for the rest of their lives, for all the obvious reasons here, right?”
“No, I suppose not, Miresha. Sam says you’ll be done here at noon, but you still obviously need to work here until then, at least. So what should we do in the meantime?”
“Go to this address. Pick up the things that my sister Tymari will show you, and only those things. Then come back here by noon, and when I’m finally done here as needed, I’ll join you, so that we can all go to Nashville with each other,” said Miresha, as she handed a card with an address written on the back to Cassie here with another semi-goofy grin.
“Okay, we’ll do that. Let’s go, then, Sam,” said Cassie, in very short order to Sam, after taking the necessary card from Miresha here. Sam followed Cassie to her van no more than about thirty or so seconds later, then. After which, they then set off in Cassie’s van for the address written on the back of the card.
They both soon arrived at it, and met Miresha’s sister Tymari sitting on a swing on the front porch of a two-story house painted mostly red, white, black, yellow, and green on its exterior areas. Tymari soon escorted them to the bedroom she’d shared with Miresha ever since they’d both moved with their family to Decatur about fourteen or so years before in 1990, when Miresha was about four or so years old and Tymari was about two or so years old. Both girls had been born in Kyoto, Japan, and both girls also had twin brothers of their own. In Miresha’s case, her twin brother was named Jubilee, and in Tymari’s, Renato. Tymari briefly showed them the items of Miresha’s that they’d need to load into Cassie’s van. And she even helped load them, if and whenever they might need her to help them do so well enough then and there.
Eventually, several things of Miresha’s made it sufficiently well into Cassie’s van, no matter what they were. Once they were, Tymari soon said, “Take care of Miresha as best as you can, in the future, then, you two. And may you all have much professional and personal success in it as well, God willing, of course.”
“Thank you, Tymari,” said Cassie. “Will we perhaps see you again quite often in the future?”
“You never know, Cassandra. You just might.”
Then, without another word or look to Cassie and/or Sam, Tymari soon went inside the house again here. It was now rather rapidly approaching 11:40 in the morning, and both girls now in Cassie’s van realized that not more than a minute or so after Tymari went inside the Hanobau family’s residence here again, in fact. So they quickly set off for the necessary Decatur-area gas station, and arrived on its premises right near the station’s main doors by no later than 11:55 am, in any case. They waited for a little while longer outside them, and Miresha came out of the gas station’s main doors no more than about a minute or so after 12 noon, for that matter. Sam briefly got out to open the passenger-side main door for Miresha, who then climbed into the back seat of the van in very short order, even while also lugging another suitcase along with her then. The suitcase preceded Miresha into the van by only a few seconds or so, perhaps, and then Miresha quickly buckled herself up as needed into it, as Sam also did the same thing again, of course. Not too much later, then, the van was again heading towards Nashville as needed and/or desired for them all.
As they either drove, or rode, as the case might be for them all now, they began to get to know each other at least a little bit better in their lives. Cassie and Sam soon learned that Miresha’s Japanese father had played professional basketball in a few leagues all over the world, and Miresha’s Jamaican mother had been a moderately well-known professional musician and actress before suddenly retiring from doing those things in order to have a family of her own with Miresha’s father. And she hadn’t yet resumed her professional musical and/or acting career in her life, if she ever would in it. Miresha’s mother was beginning to consider it, especially since her four children were either done with high school, or would be done soon with it, in their respective lives, for that matter.
Sam soon asked Esha, “Do you plan on going to college this fall anywhere, by any chance?”
“I’m going to Vanderbilt University, and I’m going there to study foreign languages and about theological-type matters, Sam. What did you study in college, and where?”
“I went to Edgewood College for two years to study political science, and rather unexpectedly found love and a husband after my sophomore year. We had about three years of relative bliss with each other after we married, but no born children yet, when he was rather unexpectedly killed when the plane he was then flying crashed near Milwaukee on a routine flight between Milwaukee and Madison not long after he’d taken off from an airport’s runway there. It turned out that some small birds got suddenly sucked into both engines, causing them to not be able to keep his plane aloft well enough. He and three others were lost, ultimately, in the crash. I gave birth to twins three months later, about a month or so earlier than expected. You two will meet them later, whenever we go to my parents’ house near Owensboro, Kentucky. The rents are too high, generally, where I was living in Madison, to allow them to have them with me more often than not, even with the money I got from the insurance companies after I lost Jeremiah in his plane crash rather suddenly. He was a rather wonderful man, and I still miss him very much. But he would want me to try to find love again if anything ever happened to him and he could no longer be with me in this life. So I may eventually do that, but just not yet, you two.”
“Are you going back to college anywhere, then, in the near future, Sam?” asked Cassie after about ten miles of relative silence between the three of them once Sam had told both Cassie and Esha at least a bit about her life before they’d met each other in it.
“I might. There are most certainly at least a few schools there I might consider enrolling at by the time they open up again in the fall. But right now, I’m just not sure if I will go back to school this fall, Cassie.”
Quite some length of time later, after skirting around Indiana, Cassie drove her van to Sam’s parents’ house, once she’d gotten the necessary directions to it from Sam, of course. It was about 8:30 at night when Cassie pulled into the necessary driveway there. About ten minutes or so later, then, Sam’s parents appeared to greet their daughter’s return to them at it, quite obviously enough.
After the necessary introductions were made here, Sam soon asked, “Mom, how have Jason and Emily been since I last saw them during the Easter weekend?”
“They’re just fine, at least for the most part. But they still really miss you very much, of course, Sam. Will you want them in Nashville with you before long?”
“Sure I will, but until I can get a musical career going well enough there, I really don’t think I’ll be able to support them well enough to be able to live with them full-time. They’re also Jere’s kids. But since he’s no longer here with us, I’ll unfortunately have to let them stay with you here, at least a little while longer, if not at least a good while longer. I really want them with me full-time, but I can’t have them with me full-time, right now, Mom.”
“I understand that, Sam. But your Dad and I won’t likely be able to take care of them both for the rest of our lives, you know. We love having them here with us, and so do your siblings’ family members, generally speaking, but we won’t likely still actually be alive when they are both then just about Cassandra and Miresha’s age here in their lives.”
“Where are Jason and Emily now, then, if I might ask?”
Sam’s Dad said, as he then went briefly to the kitchen, “They’re already in their cribs after being fed, cleaned, and played with, Sam. Em got tired first, so she got put to bed earlier than Jase did. Jase didn’t want to go to bed at the same time, but we tired him out enough, eventually, and put him right to bed not too long after we did so well enough.”
“I don’t suppose I should wake them up, then, if I get your drift well enough, Dad.”
“Right, Sam. But they should be awake again by 7 tomorrow morning, I think,” said Sam’s Dad Luther Winberry, even as he then brought at least a bit of cherry-covered cheesecake over to the dining room table that Cassie, Sam, Miresha, and his wife Janelle were now sitting at here. Everyone took some of it, once Luther was back in his current seat at it well enough.
“Are Ariana Walker and others still here or have they already left here for the summer, Mom?”
“Almost everyone you know from here is gone for the summer now, if they don’t normally stay for it. However, Ariana is still here, at least. She just got done with high school here, in fact. And she’ll be expecting you to meet up with her at least once before you leave here to continue on your way to Nashville with Cassandra and Miresha, if not more than once, by the way, Sam.”
“Where does she want to meet up with me, then, Mother?”
“Her family’s farm outside of town. And she’s even hoping to join the rest of you on your trip to Nashville, for that matter. She said that she thought you girls might need to have another singer and/or a keyboardist in the group, if I remember my last conversation with her well enough here, Sam.”
“What do you think, Cassie?”
“Might as well check her out, Samantha. So far we don’t have at least a keyboardist, it seems to me, for the future band you said we might have in the future.”
“Very well, then. We’ll go to her family’s place first chance we get to do that in the morning, then, Cassie and all.”
Some length of time later, then, Sam led Cassie and Miresha up to the bedroom she’d spent many of the free hours for her life outside of school-related events while she was still in high school. Sam was the baby of a family with a dozen children in it, all born to Luther and Janelle from 1951 to 1979. They were born in places ranging from Bangkok, Thailand, to Copenhagen, Denmark, to Fairbanks, Alaska, to Maseru, Lesotho, and various points in between them all. Including Nashville, in Sam’s case. By the time Sam had been born, four of her siblings had left home, and she was also an aunt to four children. Three of them were her eldest brother and his wife’s, while the other one was her eldest sister’s by her own husband. By the time she moved with her parents to Kentucky, six more of her siblings had left her family to make new lives for themselves in the world. Only one of her brothers still lived with Sam and her parents when they moved to Kentucky with each other. And Sam had also become an aunt to sixteen other children by then of various siblings she then had in her life, for that matter.
Sam, Cassie, and Miresha soon changed into some appropriate sleepwear, once Sam pulled two sleeping bags out of a closet in her high school bedroom quite well enough here. It was just about 10:15 at night when she then did so, in fact. The three of them conversed for at least a little while longer after either getting into their bed or getting into their sleeping bags before eventually turning off the necessary lights in and around Sam’s bedroom. They were all quite soundly asleep in them, then, by no later than 11 at night, in any case at all, by the way. And so they all slept.
Several hours later, all three of them woke up in either their bed or their sleeping bags. Sam woke up first, at about 5:45 in the morning. Esha woke up next at about 6:15. And Cassie woke up at about 6:30.
By the time Cassie was sufficiently ready for the day, Sam was already giving Miresha a home-cooked breakfast of French toast, sausages, fruit salad, carrot sticks, and some chocolate milk, at the very least, if nothing else as well. Cassie joined Esha and Sam in the Winberrys’ dining room not much later, at about 6:50 in the morning. The three young women conversed for a while as they then had their breakfasts with each other, or as they made more food for others currently present here.
Not much later, though, Sam said, all of a sudden, “My kids are up. Esha, please attend to the French toast and sausages I’ve been making for people here while I take care of them as needed.”
“Okay, Sam. Please do try to hurry back as soon as you can, though.”
“Of course, Esha,” said Sam, as she then set off for the room her nearest brother normally occupied in the house before he left it to make his own way in the world. She remained away from the dining room until about 7:45 in the morning. Sam eventually returned with Jason and Emily tagging along behind her when she did so.
“What took you so long to get back, Sam, if I might ask you this here?” asked Cassie.
“I had to feed them both a little bit, for instance. They’re not yet fully weaned from my milk, but they’re getting there. I also had to take care of them in other necessary ways, of course, Cassie,” answered Sam, as she then put Jason and Emily in two high chairs near the Winberrys’ dining room table here.
Jason had a slightly more tanned skin tone than did Emily, courtesy of their now-dead father who had been half-Oglala Sioux, one-quarter Peruvian Incan, and one-quarter Japanese prior to his rather untimely death near Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His hair was dark brown, but often appeared to be black whenever certain light conditions might actually prevail near enough to him in his own life. While his sister appeared to have a little bit more of a Caucasian look to herself, courtesy of Sam’s presence in her family tree, as evidenced by her slightly lighter skin tone and her medium brown roughly shoulder-length hair.
Emily was now mostly in pink and silver, while Jason was now mostly in blue and gold, here. She was wearing a dress, and he a pair of overalls, for that matter.
Sam soon introduced Jason and Emily to Cassie and Miresha as needed here, and vice versa. After she did so well enough here, Jason asked, “Mama, there is much unpleasant stuff yet to come in the future, now that you’ve met up with Misses Skylark and Hanobau, it seems to me here. Must you really leave for Nashville with them and/or with Miss Ariana Walker?”
“Yes, I do. I feel I must go there in order to be able to have you and Emily with me full-time, eventually. I want you two with me now that much, but that’s just not possible for any of us now. I’m not scared of what may or may not happen in the future, Jason. Concerned, maybe, but still not scared, of it, in fact.”
Some length of time later, Luther and Janelle eventually appeared in the dining room as well. Sam soon gave them some things that she’d made earlier for their own breakfasts here, in fact. Luther soon asked, “When do you have to leave Owensboro behind here well enough, perhaps, in order to be in Nashville early enough tonight, Cassandra?”
“I really don’t know, Mr. Winberry, in truth. You see, this is the first time I’ll be heading to Nashville through Owensboro, if I’m not too mistaken here.”
“So how many times have you likely been to Nashville, as far as you can recall well enough in your life, Cassie?” asked Janelle.
“Perhaps at least fifty times, if not more, I think. Especially when I’m with my father and his new family. When I’m with my mother and her new family, I’m generally living with them in the Duluth area of Minnesota, in fact. Mother was, and is, against this idea of mine to go to Nashville to seek my musical fortune. But I still must go there to seek it, just the same.”
“I see,” said Sam. “And you’re not really all that scared of the future either, are you, Cassie?”
“I’m at least curious about it here, of course, for all the obvious reasons. And I realize many may be at least a bit opposed to the notion that I actually should seen now my musical fortune in Nashville, Tennessee. But I’ve never really been the kind of girl or woman who’d let virtually anyone at all keep me from whatever I might then want to do at least periodically in my life if I don’t absolutely have to at all. If not even more often than just periodically, for that matter, Sam. I’m going to go to Nashville to seek my musical fortune. And not even my mother, my step-father Vincent, nor the greedy man that they want me to marry someday, among many others, will be able to keep me from doing so, if it’s not God’s will that they do so at all in our lives, I’m quite sure.”
Eventually, Cassie said, “We should perhaps be on our way to Nashville fairly soon, Sam and Miresha, if it’s not too much of a problem for you, then. Let’s get our stuff together here as quickly as we can, ladies.”
Sam looked at her twins for a little while, and also played a bit more with them for a while, before finally saying, “Very well, Cassie. I suppose we can do that very shortly, after all. I just wish Jason and Emily could go with us here and now, of course.”
“Perhaps one day, they can be with you full-time as you want them to be, you know, Sam. But, at least in the meantime here, we still do have to get back on our journey to Nashville so we can seek our musical fortunes in our own lives, of course.”
“Of course we do, Cassie. Of course we do,” said Sam, as she then began to get ready to go elsewhere with Cassie and Esha as needed here. She reluctantly also began saying her goodbyes here to her parents and her children not too much later, for the obvious reasons.
Cassie, Sam, and Esha left the Winberrys’ residence behind as needed by 2:30 in the afternoon for the Walker family farm just outside of Owensboro’s city limits. They arrived just outside the Walkers’ brick and stone-walled home not much after 2:45 pm, for that matter. Ariana was nowhere to be seen just yet, but her mother was just outside that building hanging a few baskets of laundry on several clotheslines running between the main house and several tall posts about twelve feet high at their very tops. Pulleys were available for use to raise or lower any or all of the lines to at least some degree, if not to a total degree, if and/or whenever needed or desired by those who worked on the laundry outside the main house, by the way.
Sam soon piled out of Cassie’s van and went over to Ariana’s mother Zakliara as she was still hanging assorted clothing items. Zakliara was somewhat glad to see Sam here, in fact, and said to Sam, after greeting her briefly, “Ariana is upstairs in her room just finishing the packing of various things she’ll be bringing with her to Nashville.”
“Do you think she’d mind too much if I joined her in her room very soon from now?”
“No, I don’t. How about you go up to her, while I talk to your companions for a while?”
“I suppose I could do that, but let me see if that’s all right with Cassie first, please.”
“Of course,” said the roughly 49-year-old Zakliara here as she finished hanging whatever laundry she then needed to hang here. “That’s perfectly all right with me, in fact. It’s good to see you around here again, Sam. Even if it’s only briefly.”
Minutes later, Sam was in Ariana’s bedroom after introducing Zakliara to Cassie ad Esha, and vice versa, quite well enough here. When she joined her several years-younger friend Ariana in her room, then, Ariana was just packing the last few books on a shelf of assorted novels from assorted literary genres into two medium-sized undecorated cardboard boxes.
Ariana Walker was a young woman perhaps a few weeks or so younger than Cassie was now in her life. She had been known to gather much interest from boys in it, but would generally date only one boy at a time in it. Her favorite literary genre was actually inspirational contemporary romance, but she still would read a rather wide variety of things put out in assorted literary genres. Ariana’s wide eyes were bluish-green. Her hair was mostly straight and roughly neck-length black hair normally worn in a somewhat precise style, such as the one she was then wearing here. She was just about an inch shorter than, and about was about the same weight as, Cassie, for that matter, with a mostly feminine build for herself. Her skin tone was unmistakably Caucasian in its nature, as well. Her eyebrows were thin, and a birthmark that looked quite like a pair of crossed canoe paddles with somewhat intricate designs on them was located somewhere just above her left knee. At the current time, though, that birthmark was completely hidden from view by the mostly medium blue and light green roughly knee-length overalls-style dress that buttoned to the waist and that she was now wearing. The dress also had a mostly matching hood that hid most of her face from view and a similarly-colored cape-like collar that fell to about the middle of her back.
“Ah, so we’re being mysterious today, Ariana? Why?”
“I just feel like it right now, Samantha. I take it Mother is talking to your companions here by now.”
“Yes, she is. Are you about ready to show your stuff to them, by any chance at all?”
“I suppose if I want to go with you all to Nashville, I’ll have to do just that, Samantha. They don’t seem like they’ll just allow anyone to tag on without sufficient enough need or reason, do they?”
“Cassie let me join her, and she let Miresha do the same. I see no reason why she wouldn’t let you join her as well. But it still wouldn’t hurt for you to show them at least a bit of your stuff here before we resume our journey to Nashville, just the same, I think.”
“Very well. Give me a few minutes to find my necessary musical instruments. If she lets me come with you to Nashville, then we can bring more stuff down to load into her vehicle.”
Five minutes or so later, at most, Sam and Ari made their ways outside to where Ari’s mother was still talking to Cassie and Esha. A few brief words later, Zakliara stepped away from Cassie’s van so that Cassie and Esha could exit it in order to better hear Ari musically making her case for addition to their little traveling group.
Shortly thereafter, Cassie began calling out random song titles she then knew of well enough, as if to test Ari’s knowledge of them at the current time. She also tested Ari on her knowledge of several classical music composers’ works, for that matter, at that same time.
Among the pieces of music that Ariana played parts of were several parts of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, some of Rhapsody in Blue, and Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, to name just a few. She also played parts of songs from such singers as Kathy Mattea, Willie Nelson, Amy Grant, Gloria Estefan, Sara Evans, Rebecca St. James, and Lionel Cartwright, to name several more people’s work she was sufficiently familiar with in her life now.
Eventually, Cassie, Miresha, and Sam had heard at least enough music from Ari to satisfy themselves well enough about her current musical ability here. And then they briefly consulted with each other, as if to debate whether or not they should let her join them on their trip to Nashville. When their brief consultation was over well enough here, Cassie soon said, “Get your stuff together, Ariana. You’re coming with us, if that’s all right with your parents.”
Ariana smiled, and as she did so, she then saw her father Jonoshoi coming into their farm’s driveway after working as a lawyer in Owensboro that day. When he pulled to a stop not far away from Cassie’s van, Zakliara and Ariana soon went to stand near it for a few brief moments. A five-minute-long conversation later, Ariana and her parents came over to where Sam, Cassie, and Miresha were sipping water from tall glasses that Zak had provided to them while Ari was still showing her stuff to them here quite well enough. The necessary introductions were made as then needed, before Jonoshoi said, “So you three will be taking Ariana with you now, it seems.”
“Yes, Mr. Walker, it seems so,” said Cassie. “Is that all right with you and your wife?”
“We would have preferred she to stay here for the summer, at least, but we can’t hold her back from her dreams. She has to fly, or at least try to fly, at least once in her life, we know. And the time for her to do that as best as she can is now here. We knew a day would come when that sort of thing would be quite clear enough to us. Until this morning, however, we had no idea that it would be today, Miss Skylark. We always hoped it would be much later than now, but it’s obviously not now. You take real good care of her, then, if you can possibly do so well enough.”
“Of course we will, Mr. Walker. All of us will, in fact. She will be to us all a sister, at least in heart and spirit, I believe, for the rest of our respective mortal lives,” said Cassie.
From about 4 pm to about 4:30 pm, more or less, then, several people, including Zakliara and Jonoshoi, helped load several boxes and assorted other things of Ariana’s into Cassie’s van here. By the time they’d all done that well enough to suit Cassie sufficiently well enough here, then, only four somewhat small areas were still present for all four young ladies to occupy in the van while they were still traveling to Nashville. And there was hardly any room for them to move around in, either, if they didn’t or wouldn’t need to do so before they hit Nashville later that day, in fact.
After the van was completely loaded as needed, Ariana began saying goodbye to her parents and several other people who were perhaps somehow unconsciously drawn to her and her soon-to-be companions here. It was about 5:30 pm, more or less, then, before she and they were all actually able to climb into Cassie’s van and drive away from the Walker family farm well enough to get sufficiently back on their journey to Nashville, by the way.
It took them all about another hour or so to get to Nashville and find a suitable enough place to spend the night there in. But they were eventually able to find such a place in the Nashville area to do that at. They rented two adjoining rooms for at least one night at a motel called Willow in the Wind Motel, by the way. They would continue to do just that until such time as they were all sufficiently able to find places to live in anywhere in or around Nashville, in fact, of course.
By 8:15 or so in the local evening, then, they were all quite settled in their two just-rented rooms in the motel, for that matter, and beginning to just enjoy themselves in them both. Cassie and Sam were in one room, and Miresha and Ariana the other, by the way.
They all eventually spent a little more time with each other in Sam and Cassie’s room before parting one final time as needed from each other by 10:30 at night. By 11, then, at the very latest, they were each quite soundly asleep in one of the four beds now present in their rented motel rooms, quite obviously enough. And so they all slept, not likely to wake up again by 6 or 7 am, at the very earliest. If not even later than that, in fact.
There’s the very first chapter of Songs of the Heart. I hope you all enjoyed it, of course. In the next chapter of it, you will meet Cassie and Sam’s new landlord, at least, and perhaps at least one other member of their future band, if not more than one. The potential romantic pairings other than the main one have not yet been sufficiently determined here, but I still do have the main romantic pairing in mind, just the same. Expect the next chapter by this time next month, if at all possible. I will let you all know, though, if I can’t make that deadline as soon as I know well enough for sure. I plan on posting at least six more chapters to this by Christmas, then, for that matter. Until next time, then, take care, everyone, and may God hold you all quite safely in His Holy Hands until the very next chapter of this particular story here is posted, I hope. This is The Universal Storyteller now signing off!
