The Journey Home

The Journey Home is a novel set in a fictional countryside of Virginia. The story embraces the friendship between two people nurtured over many years a young boy, named Billy, spent working on a farm for a wise old man, named Elias. There were many things that he never fully understood during those years, but upon his return to the farm as an adult, the understanding and commitments finally became apparent. Billy, his wife Mae, and their young daughter, Natalie, plan on making the old farm their home. Elias left the farm to Billy, as he had promised he would many years ago. Standing behind the weathered rundown farmhouse for the first time in many years he thought about the day he knocked on the front door to ask if Elias could use a hired hand. He thought of the summers he spent here as a boy with the man he admired more than anyone in the world. He thought of the valuable life lessons his old friend had shared as they worked side by side. His fondest memories of Elias took place beyond the bog in the forest and alongside the meadow pond. Elias had a bond with the inhabitants that Billy had never witnessed before, or since, in his life. Elias could communicate with these creatures and would spend hours visiting as the young Billy observed in awe of this man and the wildlife that called this woodland home. He could not accept that the animals and his friend were talking to one another. It simply wasn’t possible. Elias told him to listen to the feeling of his heart and in the quiet of his mind and with this he could hear things he once thought were impossible.