Dear Friends,
Samantha and I have a history with our first guest blogger here, CJ Schepers. We’d hired CJ to help us polish the late-stage manuscript of THE TWO SISTERS’ CAFE. Sam and I came to call CJ our “angel,” when it became clear that she was doing more than technical work (i.e., proper grammar, better structure, correcting typographical errors, etc.). We saw that she was deepening the spirituality of the entire experience and lessening our angst as we ran the final stretch. She was our tranquility pill, professor, friend, partner, spiritual font, and a lot more that I can’t find the words to express.
Recently, I have become a fan of CJ’s exceptional blog, where she sometimes posts comments that stay with me all day and have me revisiting again and again. Then out of the blue she wrote Samantha and me an amazing letter that shook our rafters and rattled our walls. I not only wanted to say “thank you!” — I wanted to say it REAL LOUD. I also wanted to give my friends and readers the chance to share this amazing lady. And I could think of only one way to do this.
Friends, the impossible has happened . . . I became a blogger this morning just to say thank you to CJ Schepers, a true angel. (If you don’t believe me, visit her blog at cjschepers.com.)
Meanwhile, come on inside the cafe, pull up a chair next to the fire, and read what CJ sent us. It resonates deeply for Samantha and me because it embodies the key reasons we came to write SISTERS in the first place. Her writing brought tears to my eyes as I’m sure it did to Samantha’s. Rarely does anyone write with such frankness about her own past when that past was so very tough. CJ’s words are about much more than her own pain. Primarily, they are about healing, courage, survival, and how our angel came to find her own angels inside our book.
Here, in her own words, is CJ Schepers!
WHERE WAS MY ANGEL?
There are moments in life when goodness comes knocking and you don’t see it coming.
In 2009, I was hired to be part of The Two Sisters’ Café publishing team as editor. I hunkered down and started poring through every word, thought, and scene, when I realized: I’m having a profound experience.
Yes, boys and girls: it’s freaky-deaky time.
Little Sarah, the novel’s main protagonist, appeared to me on page twenty-nine, and suddenly, I was reading about myself. My childhood paralleled hers in many ways. Sarah was a child terrorized by a violent, drunk parent. We shared a dark journey of the soul.
I knew the primal fear and despair that mottled Sarah’s heart. As a happy, outgoing child, I’d once held hopes and dreams for myself—until my parents pummeled most of it out of me.
At the time, I didn’t know how much working on this fantasy novel (by Elena Yates Eulo and Samantha Harper Macy) would impact my real, grownup life. The more I read The Two Sisters’ Café, the more I questioned how the hell I’d ever survived my own childhood. Unlike young Sarah, I never had any magical fairy godmothers to step in and save my ass.
Sometimes, while reading this book, I found myself sobbing over my past and those nightmarish years. As I child I’d sit in my room, tucked knees under chin, rocking back and forth, and crying softly, “Where are you God? Why aren’t you stopping this? Please help me, someone, please . . .”
No one heard me. At least, I didn’t think so. But it was The Two Sisters’ magic that took me back to my childhood visits—from the talking, twinkling lights. (Ahem. Cough. Umm, I’ve never told anyone about those . . .)
I was eleven years old, curled up on my bed, door closed, blinds blocking out the sunlight. It was late afternoon when I heard something that sounded like radio static. I pulled the pillow over my head. But I could still hear it. I just couldn’t make out the words. Then I opened my eyes.
There, just a couple feet away, was a cluster of twinkling, multicolored lights—the kind you see on a Christmas tree—but hanging mid-air like crystal-tinted, flickering stars.
I squeezed and rubbed my eyes. The lights grew brighter, the voices louder. Terrified, I covered my ears and begged them to go away. I thought, Great, now I’m crazy! No wonder my parents hate me!
Over a period of three months the lights appeared to me at least half a dozen times. Each time, I’d beg them to go. Just leave me alone! I have enough to deal with! This is too much. Finally, they stopped coming and I never saw them again.
By the time I’d finished The Two Sisters’ Café, I’d fallen in love with the story’s unearthly sisters, Vannie and Alma, and their young apprentice Sarah. More than that, their supernatural journey had opened a portal to my pain, and subconsciously performed some major healing magic on my soul—seeping deeper and wider than thirty years of therapy.
It was one of those miracles you just keep to yourself.
I had some residual sadness, however, that I’d never had my own guardian beings to rescue me, or offer my parents a kind of “sliding door” second chance. There’s no such thing, right?
Well, shortly after, I’d read a book by psychic Sylvia Browne (her long talons still kind of freak me out) and she described that hearing spirits from the other side is like listening to radio static: the station’s slightly out of tune but if you listen closely, you can pick it up. It takes practice. Concentration. Wow. Ohhhh-kay. I read that part again. I thought about the mumbling lights that had frightened me as a child. I knew they were trying to speak to me. But I didn’t understand. I wasn’t ready. Too afraid. Didn’t want to be “crazy.”
Over the years, I’ve wondered about those lights. If they came back to me now, could I handle them? I think so. (Deepest breath.) I look back and wonder if they weren’t the answer to my prayers all along: my guardian angel or a familial spirit sent across the dimensions to comfort me.
Like little Sarah—what if I had a fairy godmother—after all?
CJ Schepers is a professional ghostwriter and editor of books, and a former religion and science journalist. As an indie author, she’ll be publishing her first book The Life Raft: Rise Above the Tides & Rescue Your Dreams this fall. She’s currently writing a fantasy novel called Blackcat-Whitecat: The Interdimensional Tails about two immortal cat beings sent to Earth to stop the annihilation of their species. Check her out at http://www.cjschepers.com
Elena Eulo 
