When children claim to have imaginary friends, it's normally harmless play, but in Shroud Of Beckoning: Part One of the Ice Water Mansion Series, they're actually demonic and angelic apparitions that are battling over the child's soul.
Blending the supernatural world with the essence of daily life, Woody transports readers back to the spring of 1964 to begin her tale of good vs. evil. Within a dysfunctional family in California, four-year-old Carla lives with her older sister, parents, and a secret friend. Clad in black, this precocious apparition poses as a friendly playmate. However, Schatten is no ordinary companion—he's pure evil and feeds off human souls. When Carla cries and seethes, his outward features rejuvenate. In turn, when she laughs and finds love, he ages into a hideous form that terrorizes her. Deceiving her into believing she's his only friend, he actually knows her sister, mother, and others, but unlike them, Carla is bait to help find a boy's soul, Tony, who his adversaries stole from him years before.
Adding a new addition to the family, Carla's mother gives birth to a son who Carla instantly loves. Unfortunately, this pushes Schatten to plot the baby's demise, resulting in Officer Jarred Blanton arriving to investigate. Blanton, a well-loved man with a good family, is everything Schatten despises and must destroy to keep his plans on track, but in doing so, he alters his own plans and creates a chain of events that intertwines Blanton's life with Carla's.
As Carla and Blanton embark on a horrific path to save their very souls, Woody chronicles their dark stories while everything and everyone they love is slowly destroyed because Schatten will never stop until their souls are his and Tony is found.
Born and raised in California, Debora Woody's interest in law enforcement began with the TV shows that were on during her childhood—Adam 12, Dragnet, and Mod Squad, to name a few. On the other side, shows like The Twilight Zone, Night Gallery, and The Sixth Sense sparked a curiosity about the supernatural. Becoming a police explorer, Woody dreamed of being a police officer, but because of her age, she had to wait several years. In the meantime, she worked as a security guard until her delayed enlistment into the Air Force allowed her to experience her chosen profession—Law Enforcement first hand. Stationed in Virginia, back in her native state—California, then, through marriage, in Arkansas, her current home, she then became a civilian police officer near Little Rock while raising two daughters. Both on and off the job, Woody witnessed many tragedies, miracles that never made the news, and the downfall of successful people descending into a life of crime, but thankfully, she almost always found a smiling child—even in the saddest or corrupt homes. To her, the biggest 'pat on the back' was a child running to hug the police officer walking down their neighborhood street. Infusing these experiences with a touch of supernatural, it isn't a surprise that in her first novel, Shroud Of Beckoning, a dysfunctional family and police officers come face to face with good and evil and how it changes, not only the family, but the police officers as well, although not without a surprising twist. Woody knows, as anyone else, that a person's life can't be told in a single book, so she's currently working on the chilling installments to the Ice Water Mansion Series.
For more information, visit www.shroudofbeckoning.com.
Straining to hear a voice or a sound, Jarred heard nothing, not even the odd chanting. His awkward gait made him stumble into a painting of a sad girl in a red dress whose black eyes hid amid brown bangs. Her right hand was on the arm of a high-back brown chair; her left was up, as if trying to touch the artist. After Jarred tried to rub away a building headache behind his bloody gash, his bloody fingers touched her painted fingers, which he swore began reaching toward him. Looking down, he saw colorful flower petals amid a foggy haze on the red carpet. Curious, he picked some petals up and squeezed their odd freshness between his calloused fingertips. Unable to resist, he inhaled their scent, which made his exhaling breath opaque in the chilly air. When an out-of-place emotion told him to flee, he didn’t listen. Instead, he continued down the hallway of painted children that studied his every step, anticipated his every move, heard his every thought, and savored his every emotion.
Busy glancing into the rooms opposite each other, which Jarred had already checked, Ty didn’t see Jarred staring at a painting of a sad girl, whose painted nostrils flared as she inhaled Jarred’s exhaled breath. Jarred didn’t know why he did this, but his bloody fingers touched her lips as they mouthed, “Thank you.” Then without thinking, he whispered, “You’re welcome.” The instant that he turned away, the girl’s painted fingertips stretched the tight threads of her canvas in a selfish bid to touch his aura.
Stopping at the next painting, he stepped back to get a better view. Behind him, hazy fingers slithered out of a ripped canvas and accidentally touched his shaggy hairline. Certain that Ty had touched him, Jarred whirled the shotgun around. “Aanson, if you fucking touch me aga …” He didn’t finish when he saw that Aanson was nearly four feet away. Feeling caught, he lowered the shotgun as his tingling back fell against the ripped painting. Rubbing his neck, his shaky fingers slid over the childhood scar behind his ear, then over the fur on his coat collar. He had to drag a breath into his lungs, but his tight vest limited it. Across from where he stood, his blurry eyes saw a little girl’s oily hand motioning him closer. Shaking his head at the unbelievable sight, he was beginning to believe he did have a concussion after all.
“Officer Blanton, what did you say?” Ty saw Jarred leaning against a painting. However, he didn’t see the boy’s hazy hands hovering around him or flower petals blowing over his boots.
As Jarred kept an eye on the girl trying to push her way out of her canvas, he cracked out, “Nothing.” Behind him, he was unaware of the boy’s fingers stroking the tips of his hair.
Apprehensive with Jarred’s quivering voice, Ty stepped closer because something suddenly didn’t feel right; hell, something didn’t feel right about this whole night. Had Ty noticed that, as they walked by each painting of entrapment, painted lungs inhaled their exhaled breaths, he might’ve demanded they leave, but he didn’t. Nor did he notice a pink blouse rise slightly off a canvas before floating back into ruffled oily cotton or a boy’s green painted shirt crack when he inhaled Jarred’s exhaled emotional breath. At that, he didn’t hear soft voices chanting, “Our savior is finally here,” but Jarred did, however, he refused to admit to it for obvious reasons. Nevertheless, Jarred paused at each painting of tightly woven cotton because he swore that their rosy lips mouthed, “Touch me, set me free; it’s so cold in here.”
At the end of the hall, a whispering voice made Jarred slowly turn his flashlight toward a painted eleven-year-old boy sitting on the lap of an obscure man. Like the other paintings, the boy’s hand was reaching upward. Shoulder-length blonde hair dusted the boy’s olive green eyes and lured Jarred’s bloodshot-hazel eyes closer. Just as Jarred touched the reaching hand, a memory flashed through his thoughts of clenching two boys’ hands high into the air. As if pushing the hands farther upward to seal a bond of blood brothers, he saw blood dripping down their arms. Though it seemed so real, he couldn’t recall ever doing such an act. To change his thoughts, he began petting a white baby falcon that stood amid white snow that had fallen on a white tablecloth draping a white table. When warm blood dripped off Jarred’s hand, it melted the snow until it bled through the tablecloth’s fine threads and stained the table red.