salem song

Audio Book “SALEM” finished! Chapters 35-37 here, plus a song!

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Another book is finished–whew! I will begin Book 6 in a few weeks, I promise. Here are the last three chapters of Book 5, SALEM.

I was floored a few years ago when Bethany Cousins emailed me saying she’d been inspired by the books and she and her husband wrote a song about the series! Recently they redid it, adding more harmonies. (I LOVE the bridge! Gives me goosebumps.)

She graciously let me use it, and today I tried my hand at making a VERY basic music video with the lyrics. Yeah, I won’t be doing this professionally, but boy, it was a very fun way to spend the evening! (Yes, I also know there’s a missing “n” in Darkness. I’m trying to figure out how to fix that.)

(Most of the photos I took in Yellowstone, Utah, and even Florida; the others, such as the very first one, I’ve purchased the licenses for.)

Lyrics below: V1

Darkness covered our steps

The woods were calling us deep into the night

What once meant danger has now turned Into the safest place to hide PC1 The impossible came to be before my weary eyes

C

When I found my life

Over the mountains, beyond the trees

My heart found a home

When I stepped out into the valley

V2 I cannot begin to count the years

That I have searched for something more

A life spent fighting for the truth

And now I’m hiding from the world

PC2

But I’m already forgetting what I left behind

C

When I found my life

Over the mountains, beyond the trees

My heart found a home

When I stepped out into the valley

B

Here is peace, here is mercy

Long-awaited happy ending

Promises of something different

This is what it feels like to come home

How could I ever wish for

Anything more than this

It’s everything the Creator intended

This is what it feels like to know

We are a family

We always have been

C

I found my life

Over the mountains, beyond the trees

My heart found a home

When I stepped out into the valley.

Bethany wrote a song, guys! To accompany Book 5—”Safety Assured Leaving East of Medicetti.” Come listen and wear a sweater (because it gave me chills)

trishmercer 2 Comments

I hardly know how to write this post because nothing like this has happened before. I’m on the floor (because I was floored, literally) to receive an email from Bethany Cousins, a reader who’s become a friend (a side benefit I never realized that comes with writing: new friends!). She, with her husband (i.e. NuminousBand), wrote a beautiful song to go with Book 5, Safety Assured Leaving East of Medicetti: “I Found My Life.”

I’m floored (and this floor needs mopping, but I can’t focus on that right now) because this song is so amazing: the melody, the key shifts, the words all so perfectly fit the book. I pictured Mahrree singing it, and I sobbed. Seriously, I sobbed. Listen to it, right here: (lyrics are below)

“I Found My Life”

V1
Darkness covered our steps
The woods were calling us deep into the night
What once meant danger has now turned
Into the safest place to hide

PC1
The impossible came to be before my weary eyes

C
When I found my life
Over the mountains, beyond the trees
My heart found a home
When I stepped out into the valley

V2
I cannot begin to count the years
That I have searched for something more
A life spent fighting for the truth
And now I’m hiding from the world

PC2
But I’m already forgetting what I left behind

C
When I found my life
Over the mountains, beyond the trees
My heart found a home
When I stepped out into the valley

B
Here is peace, here is mercy
Long-awaited happy ending
Promises of something better
This is what it feels like to come home

How could I ever wish for
Anything more than this
It’s everything the Creator intended
This is what it feels like to know
We are a family
We always have been

C
I found my life
Over the mountains, beyond the trees
My heart found a home
When I stepped out into the valley

Like Versa Thorne (books 6 and 7), I believe in “never letting them see my tears.” But I couldn’t hide them when I listened to this song.

I’m also floored (thank goodness my son just swept it) because I feel like I just became part of something actually magical. Someone was actually inspired by something I wrote, and they created a song for it?! An original melody is a precious gift—an exceedingly rare commodity–and for me, an impossibility. I can never come up with something original, so I’m always astonished when someone else can.

So to have the Cousins take this unique and beautiful melody, and apply it toward something I wrote, to so succinctly condense five massive books into one pure song . . . that’s gotta qualify as magic, doesn’t it?

(I also stink at poetry, as my students will testify to, so to see this story turned to poetry is another piece of magic.)

I’m so honored, and so tickled, and so needing to mop this floor, if ever I can pull myself off of it again.

Thanks, Bethany (and hubby), for “I Found My Life.” Amazing.

(And if this series is ever made into movies, I’ll insist this song gets played in the credits.)