Q:    What is the timeline in House Key?

A:   The trouble begins when a small immigrant family settles on the wrong side of the Indian hunting path, inadvertently breaking a hard-wrought treaty established between the English and the Native tribes. There’s a hefty price to pay for the transgression, and the outcome is unexpected.

Generations later, the tiny log cabin that replaced an Indian longhouse becomes a bigger house. The house at center of the struggling farm becomes a manor that is the heart of a thriving plantation during the agricultural boom in the south.

But when the Civil War comes to town and crosses the threshold of Greigston Manor, the family homestead is once again threatened. The rippling consequences of compromises made in desperate moments affect the present day generation.

The current occupants of the manor are caught up in their own dysfunction and, given their circumstances, are hard-pressed to restore the dilapidated house to its former grandeur. They have all but given up, are tempted to sell out to developers, and move away.

That’s when a new tenant shows up, who naïve about southern culture, finds herself caught up in the midst of complicated household problems. Her awakening leads to discoveries about the mysterious past of the house, taking her all the way back to its origins through memories triggered by events in her life. Some of the memories she doesn’t even recognize as her own because they have been hiding in her DNA, tucked away by previous ancestors. The answers to her problems are tied to resolving those of the place she now calls home. The timeline, like memory, is anything but linear: setting the course for the future is directly related to examining the past.

Q:    Why is House Key non-linear?

A:   We may measure time chronologically, but I’m not convinced that’s how time works in our minds. After all, time is an invented construct so we can put events in order, helping us think forward and backwards. Our awareness of past, present and future is one of the attributes that defines us as human. We have the ability to learn from cultural narratives of the past, and use our own memories to define our trajectories. I’m a big fan of visual timelines, which tend to be historical, based upon what we have collectively agreed and consider true. These tend to be factual and hopefully objective.

But individuals form opinions and make personal decisions based upon biases that may be drawn from experiences, actual or perceived. Memories of singular events have tremendous power to color our worldview. Sometimes, isolated moments create lasting impressions. Usually, we can identify and reflect upon them, and if they are traumatic, we can work through them with the help of family, friends or professionals.

In extreme trauma cases, people can check out of their present moment and end up elsewhere. This dissociation may allow them to separate from painful memories. The problem itself remains unresolved, unless we examine the root of the matter by picking it apart, work at understanding its

In Chapter 6, Lockdown, for instance, we start seeing how Jordan dissociates under pressure. However, the story comes together in pieces, like a puzzle, from Jordan's disjointed memories. She's remembering her ancestors and their experiences... but who are these people? Jordan struggles to determine what is real or imagined, and what it has to do with her.  Sometimes it helps to sleep on things, waking up the next day with a solution or an idea that wasn't obvious the day before. Our bodies may sleep, but our minds never do. Often, we dream things that make no sense, but that has more to do with our inability to put language to images than with the message itself.

A critical event later on helps Jordan connect the dots on a spotty timeline. Isolated fragments of other times and experiences fall into their rightful places so Jordan can make critical decisions.

The story was never meant to be linear because, in this case, time has literally folded on itself, entwined like the double helix of a DNA strand. It is as full of promise of infinite permutations and possibilities as DNA itself. Please keep track of the loose threads, if you don't mind, because they all weave together as the story progresses.