Based On True Events
THE DESCENDANT is book one of a trilogy of novels that chronicles the life of Penny, a present day intuitive and healer. It begins with the stories of the women who came before her, Vivian, Moms, Justine, and Vanita whose search for love leads them all on a path of controlling men, abuse, abandonment and broken dreams.
The story begins with Vivian Cumberford a married paper bag socialite, who in 1904, post Victorian New York, does the unthinkable when she has a secret tryst with a very dark skinned but wealthy Bill Calhoun. Their brief and loveless union produces a raven dark skinned daughter named Ethel. Born an outcast in their fair skinned community Ethel is sent away, at age four, to live with her biological father Bill Calhoun.
Abused and hated by her own father for the very same dark features he possesses, Ethel grows up searching for love and acceptance from anyone who will give it to her. In 1922 when she meets Theodore Winston Prawl, a West Indian rum heir, she believes she has found the love and acceptance that has evaded her entire life. Against his controlling mother’s wishes and her entourage of conjurers, Winston promises Ethel marriage and a ring so big, “she’ll need a tea cart to carry it.” With five potential heirs, a sixth on the way, and an impeding marriage proposal, Ethel’s dream of love, acceptance, and family seems to be finally within her reach until she receives word that Winston has been killed in a freak accident. At that moment, Ethel’s dream of having love and her will to live dies with him, and Ethel ceases to exist.
Abandoned and grief stricken Ethel’s world spirals out of control, and she becomes another woman whose life purpose and identity is labeled for her only function in life. She is forever referred to as Moms, the woman with the trouble making brood. Alone, desperate, pregnant with her and Winston’s sixth child, and forced to make all of her children wards of the state, Moms makes a decision that she hopes will salvage her life and the life of her unborn child. When the child is born she places her daughter in a laundry basket on the steps of King James Episcopal Church with hopes of freeing one child from the loveless life that has possessed them all. However the baby is quickly claimed by her inescapable fate, in the form of newlywed Justine Johnson.
Justine, who had taken a vow of celibacy after her husband sexually assaulted her on their wedding night, finds the abandoned child as she is leaving the church having just prayed to God to give her a child that she could love unconditionally. The miracle child inspires Justine to fulfill a dream that eluded her mother and enslaved grandmother, which is to create a woman who is completely free and independent. She places all of her hopes and dreams into her daughter who she names Vanita.
For a time it looks as though the cycle is broken. Vanita is flourishing. At thirteen she begins to crave love too. Her adolescent innocence and curiosity sends her out into her school hallways looking at boys and dreaming of love in her giggling circle of peers. Just when Vanita thought she could have love, Edsel, Justine’s abusive husband, “christens her” with a rape filled with jealousy and revenge. The rape tosses Vanita back into the vicious cycle of ancestral abuse and sexual promiscuity.
Now at the age of thirteen, Vanita is forced to resume the painful search for love her ancestors began. Her search comes to a screeching halt when at age twenty-six she meets John Chapple, a numbers runner with a bright toothy grin and florsheim shoes. Desperate to prove that she is worthy of love, and to create a family of her own, she gets pregnant. When John refuses to marry her, she gets pregnant again, with Penny.
Born by an emergency cesarean with her umbilical cord wrapped tightly around her throat, Penny emerges into her mother’s chaotic world without a whimper. Spiritually and intuitively gifted with the ability to break the cycle of abuse, she arrives to lead those who will follow her to a place of divine independence. When Justine lays eyes on her granddaughter, she immediately knows that her granddaughter will exceed the visions she had of her before she was born, “…this little one will go far…She’ll set things straight and do what you and I could never imagine….This baby is our future. She’ll be the one.” With her spiritual abilities to heal and nurture, Penny seems destined to succeed.
However when her father rapes her at the tender age of two and a half, the curse that is so deeply woven into the fabric of Penny’s ancestors’ lives seems inescapable. But by the age of four, Penny’s spiritual gifts and powerful soul emerges again right before her mother’s disbelieving eyes. With innocence and conviction Penny threatens her mother with the ugly truth of her parent’s abuse when she points a condemning finger at her mother and says, “I’ma tell.”
In retaliation Vanita locks Penny in a closet to silence her. However when the pad lock on the door is mysteriously shattered and Penny tumbles out, Penny utters two words that shake Vanita to her soul’s core. Desperate Vanita tries one last time to silence her child as she sleeps, only to have Penny’s life restored right before her eyes. Unable to silence her child and rid herself of her ugly truth, she runs. Vanita packs a bag and runs off into the night leaving four and a half year old Penny, her sisters, and their alcoholic father to fend for themselves. With no grandmother or mother to protect her, Penny’s mission of creating a new legacy of freedom and independence rests solely on her ability to remember and remain connected to the divine. Is her soul strong enough to remember the truth to free herself and lead future generations to freedom?
The second edition of The Descendant will be published under My Portalstar Publishing winter 2021. Please check back for news about the launch of My Portalstar Publishing website. My Portalstar Publishing's mission is to share meta human stories that show the power of the human spirit, provide inspiration and enlightenment.
The story begins with Vivian Cumberford a married paper bag socialite, who in 1904, post Victorian New York, does the unthinkable when she has a secret tryst with a very dark skinned but wealthy Bill Calhoun. Their brief and loveless union produces a raven dark skinned daughter named Ethel. Born an outcast in their fair skinned community Ethel is sent away, at age four, to live with her biological father Bill Calhoun.
Abused and hated by her own father for the very same dark features he possesses, Ethel grows up searching for love and acceptance from anyone who will give it to her. In 1922 when she meets Theodore Winston Prawl, a West Indian rum heir, she believes she has found the love and acceptance that has evaded her entire life. Against his controlling mother’s wishes and her entourage of conjurers, Winston promises Ethel marriage and a ring so big, “she’ll need a tea cart to carry it.” With five potential heirs, a sixth on the way, and an impeding marriage proposal, Ethel’s dream of love, acceptance, and family seems to be finally within her reach until she receives word that Winston has been killed in a freak accident. At that moment, Ethel’s dream of having love and her will to live dies with him, and Ethel ceases to exist.
Abandoned and grief stricken Ethel’s world spirals out of control, and she becomes another woman whose life purpose and identity is labeled for her only function in life. She is forever referred to as Moms, the woman with the trouble making brood. Alone, desperate, pregnant with her and Winston’s sixth child, and forced to make all of her children wards of the state, Moms makes a decision that she hopes will salvage her life and the life of her unborn child. When the child is born she places her daughter in a laundry basket on the steps of King James Episcopal Church with hopes of freeing one child from the loveless life that has possessed them all. However the baby is quickly claimed by her inescapable fate, in the form of newlywed Justine Johnson.
Justine, who had taken a vow of celibacy after her husband sexually assaulted her on their wedding night, finds the abandoned child as she is leaving the church having just prayed to God to give her a child that she could love unconditionally. The miracle child inspires Justine to fulfill a dream that eluded her mother and enslaved grandmother, which is to create a woman who is completely free and independent. She places all of her hopes and dreams into her daughter who she names Vanita.
For a time it looks as though the cycle is broken. Vanita is flourishing. At thirteen she begins to crave love too. Her adolescent innocence and curiosity sends her out into her school hallways looking at boys and dreaming of love in her giggling circle of peers. Just when Vanita thought she could have love, Edsel, Justine’s abusive husband, “christens her” with a rape filled with jealousy and revenge. The rape tosses Vanita back into the vicious cycle of ancestral abuse and sexual promiscuity.
Now at the age of thirteen, Vanita is forced to resume the painful search for love her ancestors began. Her search comes to a screeching halt when at age twenty-six she meets John Chapple, a numbers runner with a bright toothy grin and florsheim shoes. Desperate to prove that she is worthy of love, and to create a family of her own, she gets pregnant. When John refuses to marry her, she gets pregnant again, with Penny.
Born by an emergency cesarean with her umbilical cord wrapped tightly around her throat, Penny emerges into her mother’s chaotic world without a whimper. Spiritually and intuitively gifted with the ability to break the cycle of abuse, she arrives to lead those who will follow her to a place of divine independence. When Justine lays eyes on her granddaughter, she immediately knows that her granddaughter will exceed the visions she had of her before she was born, “…this little one will go far…She’ll set things straight and do what you and I could never imagine….This baby is our future. She’ll be the one.” With her spiritual abilities to heal and nurture, Penny seems destined to succeed.
However when her father rapes her at the tender age of two and a half, the curse that is so deeply woven into the fabric of Penny’s ancestors’ lives seems inescapable. But by the age of four, Penny’s spiritual gifts and powerful soul emerges again right before her mother’s disbelieving eyes. With innocence and conviction Penny threatens her mother with the ugly truth of her parent’s abuse when she points a condemning finger at her mother and says, “I’ma tell.”
In retaliation Vanita locks Penny in a closet to silence her. However when the pad lock on the door is mysteriously shattered and Penny tumbles out, Penny utters two words that shake Vanita to her soul’s core. Desperate Vanita tries one last time to silence her child as she sleeps, only to have Penny’s life restored right before her eyes. Unable to silence her child and rid herself of her ugly truth, she runs. Vanita packs a bag and runs off into the night leaving four and a half year old Penny, her sisters, and their alcoholic father to fend for themselves. With no grandmother or mother to protect her, Penny’s mission of creating a new legacy of freedom and independence rests solely on her ability to remember and remain connected to the divine. Is her soul strong enough to remember the truth to free herself and lead future generations to freedom?
The second edition of The Descendant will be published under My Portalstar Publishing winter 2021. Please check back for news about the launch of My Portalstar Publishing website. My Portalstar Publishing's mission is to share meta human stories that show the power of the human spirit, provide inspiration and enlightenment.