An Agent's Inbox #24

Dear Agent:

When Katherine Brandt, newly nicknamed Sparky, comes to America in 1938, her dearest wish is to become a real American girl. Before she can realize her dream, though, she’s going to have to learn the ins and outs of the unusual town and group of friends she’s joined.

Sparky is taken under the wing of Cinnimin Filliard, the youngest child of the man who helped the Brandts immigrate. Cinni teaches Sparky a thing or two not only about American life, but also the strange town she’s come to. Cinni and her friends look, act, and talk like they’re at least five years older, all because of an esoteric, radical secret society of sorts that has been passed down for over a thousand years.

Sparky will do almost anything, as she navigates her way through American life, to become a real American girl and stop giving herself away as a greenhorn. Anything, that is, but compromise her faith. Will she ever be able to pull off being Sparky to her friends while remaining Kätchen to her family and staying true to her values?

THE VERY FIRST, a work of YA historical fiction, is complete at 43,000 words. The first in a series spanning 1938-41, it also works as a standalone. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,
A.M.


THE VERY FIRST

Foreword

In the year 233 of the Common Era, a girl child whose name had been lost to the many succeeding generations who followed her teachings was born in present-day Holland. For hundreds of years, the details of her life and the teachings and rituals she prescribed for the total liberation of the human race were passed on by means of chanting, singing, and word of mouth, mostly by women, her direct descendants, who passed them on in Old Dutch. When the Dutch people began slowly to evolve into speaking Middle Dutch, the Old Dutch information was passed on along with Middle Dutch chants and songs. The same thing happened when the nation began to speak modern Dutch, bit by bit, slowly. It became a highly esoteric path to follow, loved and cherished by everyone who was brought up to practice it but fully understood by very few. Only the most devoted few, even among the missionaries who went to distant lands to spread the word and to give new names to the woman who had started it all, knew the innermost secrets of what became known in America as WTCOAC, We the Children of Atlantic City. That was not the original name of the set of teachings, but they thought it came mighty close to what had perhaps originally been called We the Children of Amsterdam City.

The woman who had begun this became known as WTCOAC Woman. According to what had been passed down, it all started in 245, when she was twelve years old.