Celestrina and the Wee Door to Life

By Ted Eldridge

Celestrina, a little summer azure blue butterfly, has selected two sensitive, young sisters, Amanda and Kate, to discover a peculiar, thick root of an ancient hemlock tree on the path that leads up a mountain to the home of a famous writer and poet. Through decades the root grew up, over and back down, making the shape of a tiny door. Those who have passed by have found it interesting, if they have noticed it at all. But, when the little girls follow Celestrina through her "wee door to life," with heightened awareness they hear, see and respond to others hiking along the trail: a family with a handicapped child, an old woman and her husband with dementia, a young couple of Park Rangers worried about the endangered hemlock forests, and an excited class of children who have just visited Cannemara, the home and goat farm of famous American writer and poet, Carl Sandburg, nestled in the Blue Ridge of the Appalachian Mountains in Flat Rock, North Carolina. Each meeting brings out the positive in human nature and hope for even the most fragile of human conditions through the eyes, optimism and wisdom of children. Once the little girls have seen and pondered some of life's challenges, Celestrina takes them back through the door, where they are introduced to a surprise visitor. Hand-in-hand, the sisters and this new friend walk down the path as he shares why Celestrina has had to leave them to complete the last obligation of her season. After the story is told, he turns to return to his family "and the goat out back," and little Kate and Amanda continue on to join their friends and family, waiting for them with the best apple pie in Henderson County at a picnic at the base of the mountain.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ted Eldridge
• Release date: Oct 24, 2013
• ISBN: 9781311858481

Ted Eldridge

Ted has been collecting stories as a writer most of his life. He has been an elementary school teacher and principal, university instructor, lawn maintenance worker, water meter reader, bank teller, ski bum, short order cook, small business owner, and Savannah (Georgia) walking tour guide.Many of Ted’s published stories center on images of the fascinating people of Savannah, his home and his hobby. Dispatches From the Deep South, Savannah Style, and Intimate Savannah chronicle incidents and traditions of this special place tucked down in the Deep South. His book, Savannah Then and Now, a coffee table book presenting the City’s evolution through photographs and narrative, was co-authored with his close friend, Polly Cooper, and has been on the local best-seller list.Ted is currently working on a trilogy of books for young adults. Teen twins, Alexandra and Ronnock, come down to Savannah from up North to visit their Aunt Polly on her family’s plantation land. When they canoe over to Gator Island they meet Hattie, a local voodoo priestess everyone else talks about as myth. Together, with Hattie’s gift of “knowing” and the little bags of her concoctions (gris-gris) they wear out of sight around their necks, the three investigate and solve mysteries that have left the experts scratching their heads.Ted’s recent ebook, Celestrina and the Wee Door to Life, is the product of a six-week stay in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. Ted walked from his lodging, an old mill house, about a mile up to Carl Sandburg’s mountain home daily. Sitting on Sandburg’s “rock” up behind his farmhouse during these visits, he was inspired to write the tale about a little blue butterfly, Celestrina, who teaches two young sisters about what is most important in life.Ted’s most recent short novel, Miss Martha’s Christmas, was written as a Christmas gift to his grown daughters. Through a unique snow ball globe that changes scenes daily, Miss Martha, a handicapped older woman, finds delight in experiencing simple traditions and memories of Christmas of one family. In the process of sharing her gift, Miss Martha’s circle of daily visitors and friends expands to include most of the community and results in her meeting the doctor who can change her life.Ted is a public speaker, program developer, and licensed tour guide, who has led over six hundred walking tours of Historic Savannah. He sings tenor in the Parish Choir at Christ Church Episcopal, the first church in Savannah, the “Mother Church of Georgia,” founded February 12, 1733. He sings with Savannah’s “World-Famous Crabettes,” as one of the few jimmy crabs in this band that offers local color at conventions, meetings, birthdays and, even, funerals.

Book preview

CELESTRINA AND THE WEE DOOR TO LIFE

by

by Ted Eldridge

Smashwords Edition

Celestrina and the Wee Door to Life

Copyright © 2013 by Ted Eldridge

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Chapter 1

The crickets were chirping their evening song as the sun receded behind the white pines at the summit of the hill. It was the cooling time when the breeze meandered through the low-hanging hemlock branches, nudging the rows of miniature needles to begin their delicate dance. They moved so gently they did not disturb another living thing. The thick English ivy that spread across the warm ground had turned each leaf to sigh at the slowly shifting colors. The sun would set and then soon fade into dusk.

Each evening this show was anticipated by those that inhabited this secluded spot, tucked in the foot hills of the Blue Ridge Mountains away from the pace of the rest of the world.

Tonight, more than on most of these late summer nights, Celestrina was a-flutter, flying from jasmine blossom to quartz pebble, grass blade to hemlock seed cone. She could hardly contain her excitement. She had a feeling -- and her feelings were always right -- that her visitors would arrive before sundown.

And, lo and behold, as she touched lightly on an orange-yellow flower of a jewelweed plant, they were descending around a bend on the path. It was a twisting trail that led through the woods – up and down at every turn.

She had planned to meet them here at this low place near the pond, beside the bridge over the dam that let the water fall fast and deep until it was lost in rhododendron, hemlock and rocks far below.

They squealed and they ooh-ed and aah-ed as they came – holding hands to stay steady as they made their way down.

Golden curls covered the head of one; soft, straight, pale yellow hair fell over the eyes of the other.

One sister noticed the little butterfly, just as Celestrina had hoped. Her pale blue color showed distinctly against the jewelweed on which she had paused.

Amanda let go of Kate’s hand and pointed. Oh, look, she whispered. Amanda was the