Episode Three - "Unearthing Identity"

By Shannon Muir

This suspenseful installment of Myanna's story takes Myanna and her new traveling companion Nolan to an old shop where a blind man has the wisdom to see what each of them seeks, as the origin story of the young woman who will become THE WILLOWBROOK SAGA's premier private investigator continues to unfold. The backing story to this collection is the previously released HALF TRUTH AND FULL LYE, which begins the tale of Firinne "Truth" Knox and her exposure to the world Myanna ultimately grows up in.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Shannon Muir
• Release date: Jan 31, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370099917

Shannon Muir

SHANNON MUIR's short stories include suspense and mystery elements such as those found in her first full-length story from Pro Se Press, CHARLES BOECKMAN PRESENTS DOC AND SALLY IN "THE DEATH OF BUDDY TURNER". Additionally, she's written short stories for Pro Se Press such as “Tragic Like a Torch Song” in THE DAME DID IT from Pro Se Press, "Pretty as a Picture" in the anthology NEWSHOUNDS, “Tropical Terror” in CRIME DOWN ISLAND and “Hidden History” in EXPLORER PULP. She’s also written the Single Shot New Pulp tale “Ghost of the Airwaves,” a short story offered in electronic format only from Pro Se Press.From her personal self-published projects, her best known titles in this area include the rural crime series THE WILLOWBROOK SAGA.In other genres, Shannon's published short stories include “Meeting the Monster” in the Emby Press anthology SUPERHERO MONSTER HUNTER: THE GOOD FIGHT and "Cover Story" in ARIA KALSAN: MYSTERIES OF THE FUTURE.Shannon holds a BA in Radio-TV and English from Eastern Washington University in Cheney, Washington, which she considers to be her hometown. She also holds an MA in Communications from California State University, Fullerton, along with additional education in screenwriting, project management, library technician studies, and most recently a certificate earned with distinction in General Business with Emphasis in Marketing from UCLA Extension. Currently, she is working on a Masters of Library and Information Science at San Jose State University.She is married to FLYING GLORY AND THE HOUNDS OF GLORY collaborator and fellow author Kevin Paul Shaw Broden. They live in California in the United States.She is a member of Sisters in Crime (national, Guppies, and Los Angeles, where she also served on the Los Angeles board for a two terms beginning in 2018), as well as the Toastmasters4Writers Chapter of Toastmasters International (where she serves as chapter Secretary), Women in Animation, and a Professional member of ASIFA-Hollywood.

Book preview

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COPYRIGHT

A MYANNA MOORE: HAUNTED BY THE TRUTH Serial

EPISODE THREE – Unearthing Identity

A THE PULP AND MYSTERY SHELF Web Serial Compilation

By Shannon Muir

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2017 Shannon Muir.

Includes previously released HALF TRUTH AND FULL LYE Copyright 2011 Shannon Muir.

First Smashwords publication January 2017.

This ebook is for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be given away or resold to others. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy from Smashwords or vendor partners. If you want to share this work with others, please purchase a copy for each person. Thank you for respecting the hard work of artists and creators.

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

COPYRIGHT

TABLE OF CONTENTS

MYANNA MOORE EPISODE THREE - AUTHOR’S NOTE

MYANNA MOORE EPISODE THREE – CHAPTER ONE

MYANNA MOORE EPISODE THREE – CHAPTER TWO

MYANNA MOORE EPISODE THREE – CHAPTER THREE

MYANNA MOORE EPISODE THREE – CHAPTER FOUR

MYANNA MOORE EPISODE THREE – CHAPTER FIVE

MYANNA MOORE EPISODE THREE – CHAPTER SIX

MYANNA MOORE EPISODE THREE – CHAPTER SEVEN

MYANNA MOORE EPISODE THREE – CHAPTER EIGHT

MYANNA MOORE EPISODE THREE- CHAPTER NINE

HALF TRUTH AND FULL LYE – PROLOGUE

HALF TRUTH AND FULL LYE – CHAPTER ONE

HALF TRUTH AND FULL LYE – CHAPTER TWO

HALF TRUTH AND FULL LYE – CHAPTER THREE

HALF TRUTH AND FULL LYE – CHAPTER FOUR

HALF TRUTH AND FULL LYE – CHAPTER FIVE

HALF TRUTH AND FULL LYE – CHAPTER SIX

HALF TRUTH AND FULL LYE – CHAPTER SEVEN

HALF TRUTH AND FULL LYE – CHAPTER EIGHT

HALF TRUTH AND FULL LYE – CHAPTER NINE

HALF TRUTH AND FULL LYE – CHAPTER TEN

HALF TRUTH AND FULL LYE – CHAPTER ELEVEN

HALF TRUTH AND FULL LYE – CHAPTER TWELVE

HALF TRUTH AND FULL LYE – CHAPTER THIRTEEN

HALF TRUTH AND FULL LYE – CHAPTER FOURTEEN

HALF TRUTH AND FULL LYE – CHAPTER FIFTEEN

HALF TRUTH AND FULL LYE – EPILOGUE

ALSO BY SHANNON MUIR – MYANNA MOORE: HAUNTED BY THE TRUTH EPISODE ONE

ALSO BY SHANNON MUIR – THE WILLOWBROOK SAGA: THROUGH THE GENERATIONS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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MYANNA MOORE EPISODE THREE - AUTHOR’S NOTE

Thank you for continuing to follow Myanna Moore’s adventure into her own identity. As I’ve written elsewhere, the more I worked on some other stories, the more I uncovered that Myanna’s story – which I hadn’t fully unearthed – became the one I want to tell. It’s been an interesting experience watching loose threads come together where the seeds were laid years earlier and I never saw the possibilities. They are matching up with what seems to be minimal effort, and I sincerely hope you are enjoying the results.

As I did with the release before this, I have as backing material to this compilation of the web serial the next in the series of manuscripts that inspired. It. Below are my notes that appeared originally at the front of HALF TRUTH AND FULL LYE.

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I decided for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) 2011 that I would try something a little different. My decision was to experiment with a paranormal romance, or at least that seemed the best category to put it in. As with all my other tales, it began with a what if scenario – what if someone who grew up with an unusual gift but a religious background ached to find her family so much she was willing to stand up against everything she'd embraced growing up. The quest to set up that scenario and answer that question became HALF TRUTH AND FULL LYE, which uses the nicknames of the two leads for a play on words.

Over the course of November, the first draft of this book – without hardly any editing or spellcheck – became available for downloads at Smashwords, who was offering this ability though not an official sponsor of the event. My goal for promotion was that people could see the twists and turns of a first draft unfold. What you have in your hands now is the spell-checked and edited post-NaNoWriMo version, which is no longer considered a work in progress but a final manuscript.

The end result, like most of my works, doesn't seem to fall in the traditional romance category. Yet there's a lot about men and women and how they deal with one another. Also, there's a lot of the paranormal (including the stuff on religion, which technically is also belief in the paranormal), and it is by these factors that paranormal romance is really the only place to file it. The gifts people have are real in the story context, and while I have my personal sides of things, in this story I try to take no sides as to who is right and who is wrong. Some think the gifts are from nature, others from God, still others the devil, and yet others in the story claim it all to be scientific. It is not the goal of the story to claim which side is right, but rather to show a wide variety of people and viewpoints while the character arc is explored.

By the time I finished National Novel Writing Month, it became quite clear that Truth's story did not end here with my fifty thousand words, but didn't make sense to all be in one book. It will ruin the ending if I tell you why that is. I know what comes next but am going to take time to see that it comes together. In the meantime, please enjoy HALF TRUTH AND FULL LYE: Book 1 of the TRUTH REVEALED series.

My deepest thanks to the over one hundred folks who downloaded HALF TRUTH AND FULL LYE from Smashwords over the month of November; seeing those numbers climb and that you were interested in finding out more about me and my writing meant a lot.

Shannon Muir

Glendale, CA

January 2017

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MYANNA MOORE EPISODE THREE - CHAPTER ONE

Myanna planned on taking the quest on alone to discover who she really was. However, upon following the trail back to an old mansion to find a crucial piece of evidence for her mission, she befriended an orphaned young woman named Nolan who needed to find her place in the world. According to Nolan, she just turned eighteen after being on the run from a foster home for the last few months. Now Myanna needed to find that place for Nolan before she could continue on her mission. As tempting as having help would be, Myanna knew she ultimately needed to go on this journey alone. Yet, she hadn’t figured out how to let Nolan go.

Their current mission was to find out who hand manufactured a talisman they’d found buried at the old mansion. They took it to antique shops, jewelry appraisers and historian contacts Myanna’s contacts got lead on in various cities, folks she had been advised could be discreet, gathering opinions but no real leads. As they traveled, signs of the impending holiday season and the arrival of year’s end began to pop up all around. Both Myanna and Nolan found themselves reminded of the families that circumstance now left them without.

I wish I had a family to miss, Nolan said as Myanna pulled her car into the parking lot near another store her sources said might be able to give them a lead. But once the authorities split us all up, whatever family network I had was completely destroyed. What about you, Myanna? Do you have a family to miss?

I thought I did. Now I’m starting to learn my family isn’t all at who I thought they were. My mother wasn’t my real mother. I thought my love Davis and I shared a half-sister through her named Shanley, but that’s not the case. But I still want to find out what happened to Shanley, and I think this talisman could provide a valuable clue. I still feel like I owe the woman who took care of me, for all that she did.

Did she love you, you think? asked Nolan.

As well as she could. The people she was with tricked her and manipulated her into using a new identity, to stop being who she’d been born to be. I’ve now learned that when I was born in a home birth after she’d supposedly being used and abused, the people who helped her switched me with her real child and left me to be raised with her instead. She doesn’t know, or if she’s ever been told she probably doesn’t remember. For some reason, she remembers the details of other people’s pasts and not her own.

Yowch. Sounds like some kind of, what do they call, stress from trauma kind of thing?

Myanna swallowed hard.

Yes. Something like that. Her mother Muriel always told her it was because she had special powers, but maybe they were lying to her to cover up an awful truth. I really don’t know anymore.

Myanna threw open the car door forcefully.

And I hope I finally get some answers. You coming with me or not?

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MYANNA MOORE EPISODE THREE - CHAPTER TWO

Nolan nodded her head with great anticipation.

Hopefully this will be the last place we have to ask. I’m as curious about this as you are. I mean, it ties into where I grew up. I want to understand what this talisman was used for.

Together, they entered a small shop labeled THE CURIOUS ONES – USED BOOKS AND MORE.

A bookshop seems an odd place to get information on something like this, Nolan told Myanna.

Not if the proprietor is well-read and researched on the subject, Myanna told her. Or at least that’s what my contacts assure me is the case. When I told them more standard appraisal leads came up empty, I was told this is the guy to see.

Nolan and Myanna waded through stacks of musty old books in the front of the storefront to get to a desk at the back. An old man with a greying beard and silver eyes sat behind the counter. They were the only customers in the store.

I’m looking for Driskell. My name is Myanna.

Ah, you are Donnell’s friend. He told me your story, what he knows of it anyway. I sensed there is much you withheld from him.

Myanna noticed the man didn’t make eye contact with them. Her friend Donnell failed to mention he man was blind.

He didn’t tell me much about you, either. Donnell felt you could help identify an object for us. However, and please excuse any pretense of insensitivity, but I am unclear how you can assess it when you cannot see.

The older man held out his hands.

Let me feel it, he said. These eyes used to see, and I should be able to ascertain a lot about the workmanship just from handling it.

You going to trust this guy? Nolan whispered to Myanna.

My friend Donnell trusts him, so I will. Right now, he’s the best lead we have.

Myanna placed the talisman with the carved unicorn head in the man’s hands. He ran his fingers over the design.

Ah, yes! I remember this. It’s not as ancient as your friend Donnell suggested, though the use of the symbol itself as a fertility talisman is. I remember when these were carved, and even how many were made.

Myanna saw the look of surprise on Nolan’s face, which mirrored her own feelings.

How would you know all that.

For I was the maker, he said. In the service of Edana the Extraordinary.

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MYANNA MOORE EPISODE THREE - CHAPTER THREE

You worked for Edana? Why didn’t Donnell tell me that? seethed Myanna.

Because if he had you would never have come. Am I mistaken in that thought? Driskell countered.

No, Myanna admitted with a heavy sigh.

I don’t understand, what are they for? Why did you make them? Nolan interjected.

Shush, child. You are an impatient one. Seems too young to be one of your own. Who are you, my guest?

Donnell didn’t mention her? Myanna said, wondering why Donnell would have omitted that fact. They’d certainly discussed it over the phone.

I never said that. He mentioned someone would come with you, but that he didn’t know too much about this person. I am asking the young woman who she is. Step forward, so I may hear you clearer.

Nolan looked uncertainly at Myanna, and then stepped forward.

There’s not much to say. I grew up being raised on Cleveland Knox’s estate. I have a feeling you’ve heard of him. My mother came to live with him, I don’t know how they met, but she died when I was born, or maybe soon after. I don’t remember her at all.

Myanna watched as the old man reached out one of his hands towards Nolan. She started to step back and shudder, but in that second looking at the way the two stood she saw something she’d missed before.

No, let him touch your face, she whispered to Nolan. He needs to see.

See what? whispered back Nolan, even as she started to comply. He’s blind.

The old man ran his hand down Nolan’s nose, and then found and caressed her cheekbone.

And apparently, so are you, the old man chuckled. Look closely at me, my dear, and not at my old tired eyes. What do you see?

Myanna watched Nolan scrunch up her face, clearly perplexed.

Some old guy. I don’t see what good this game is doing for us. We need to find out about that talisman.

Can I show her? Myanna finally asked aloud.

Certainly, Myanna. Perhaps it is just too much of a shock for her.

Myanna stepped up alongside Nolan, and took out a small mirror she carried with her to investigate behind corners and the like; she certainly wasn’t the vain type. She held the mirror up next to Driskell’s face.

Look at your own face, and then his. I think it’ll be clearer then.

Myanna watched Nolan comply, and her expression turn from being perplexed to amazement.

I don’t believe it. He looks like me.

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MYANNA MOORE EPISODE THREE - CHAPTER FOUR

Or you look like him, Myanna pointed out. I think Donnell knew something when he sent us here and I told him what I knew about you., and what you were hoping to find.

Ah, Donnell. I recall that name. One of Edana’s last few followers. A decent young man, he was, and I presume still is.

You think you can measure the decency of someone, Myanna told Driskell, but yet could help someone like Edana?

I didn’t know everything that she did. I thought she used them for her stage shows and needed them custom made. It wasn’t until everything became made public after that unfortunate incident with the poor deluded Tracey Wrightwood girl did I understand entirely what had been going on. By then, it made me thankful that my physical vision began to leave me. I cannot be punished enough for my role in such horrible things happening.

Nolan reached out and touched the old man’s hand.

I don’t care what you’ve done, Nolan told him. Right now we’re both alone, we’re family. All I’ve wanted is somewhere to belong. I will stay here and help you.

Driskell laughed uncomfortably.

The young lady will stay with me simply on noting a few features that are alike. Is she simply so trusting, or is she so desperate?

Myanna watched Nolan snatch her hand away.

How rude! I would think you would be happy not to have to live alone this way anymore. Sorry if I misunderstood.

Myanna stepped up next to Nolan.

You weren’t listening, Nolan. I think Driskell feels he doesn’t deserve any help from anyone. I sensed a lot of shame and guilt in his remarks. Am I right, Driskell.

I sent my own daughter to her death, Driskell replied. When I began to suspect things, she volunteered to try and infiltrate Edana’s world and find out what my talismans were really being used for. I told her she’d never get away with pretending to have a gift, and I was right, but I didn’t stop her from going.

What happened when she was found out? Nolan asked.

I can answer that, I think, Myanna replied. Edana doesn’t tolerate being played at all. She would have turned someone over to the worst punishment imaginable. I suspect your daughter got put in the hands of someone Edana knew would enslave her to his will… her father, Andreas Joosteen, rival of Cleveland Knox.

I believe you are right, Driskell responded, with a sad heavy sigh. But when I got word of her death, it was from people formerly of the household of Cleveland Knox who said she came among them and had her child there before she died. I haven’t been able to make sense of that part of the mystery.

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MYANNA MOORE EPISODE THREE - CHAPTER FIVE

"So you’re saying that her