Welcome to The INNterview, a three-part Sunday chat with Miss Mercy-Faith "Elm" Sunday, the star of the groundbreaking Visionary Fiction book, INN LAK'ECH: A Journey to the Realm of Oneness.
Eleyne-Mari Sharp: Welcome back, Elm. During the last episode, we spoke about your life in Little Blessing—your early teenage years before you stopped homeschooling.
Elm Sunday: Yeah. And there was way too much talk about Noah and Sarah. It turned my stomach for a week!
E-MS: I see their relationship still bothers you. Well, I think you’re going to enjoy today’s conversation because we’re going to focus on when you were discovering your powers and the changes you went through.
Elm Sunday: Like my hair?
E-MS: That’s one of the changes. But before we get to that, here is a question from—
Elm Sunday: Let me guess. Anonymous?
E-MS: It's almost like you can read my mind! Anonymous asks: "When did you first know you were a sea priestess?"
Elm Sunday: When my boyfriend told me I was.
E-MS: You're talking about Royce?
Elm Sunday: Yes. He was much older than me. He said I looked like a mermaid and he was fascinated by my beauty and he called me Priestess. He had powers of his own.
E-MS: I read that he does something interesting with cherries.
Elm Sunday: Don't make me blush.
E-MS: I guess that was too personal. Would you say Royce was your teacher?
Elm Sunday: He was one of them. I also got a mermaid to help. Her name is Nee-nah, and she's the youngest mermaid in Little Blessing. At least, that's what she told me.
E-MS: Didn't you have to steal something to get Nee-nah to help you?
Elm Sunday: Yeah, and I felt real bad about that.
E-MS: But not immediately.
Elm Sunday: What are you, my conscience?
E-MS: Just a concerned friend. This topic about becoming a sea priestess reminds me of a wonderful chant. Let's take a short break and listen to "Born of Water" by Lila Lilly.
Elm Sunday: Can I sing along?
E-MS: Sure. The words are: Born of Water, Cleansing, Powerful, Healing, Changing, I am.
Elm Sunday: I really liked that. It sounds just like me. Especially the word powerful.
E-MS: Okay, let's talk about your powers. I know you can taste colors. Out of curiosity, what does my name taste like?
Elm Sunday: With or without the hyphen?
E-MS: You choose.
Elm Sunday: Hmm. Your name WITH the hyphen is a combination of orange and white. It tastes like macaroni and cheese!
E-MS: And WITHOUT the hyphen?
Elm Sunday: Not as much cheese, although I always thought of you as a real cheesy person—ha ha!
E-MS: Nice. Well, at least you didn't say corny!
Elm Sunday: Um, it means the same thing, E-MS.
E-MS: Okay, moving right along—Anonymous wants to know what other powers you have. Can you fly or change shapes?
Elm Sunday: If I wanted to, Anonymous. I can pretty much do anything. But I'll tell you about my powers next week when we talk about my experiences at Inn Lak'ech. I got most of my powers there.
E-MS: Nice to know who's running this interview, Elm. So, what spells did you learn from the mermaid?
Elm Sunday: It's between me and Nee-nah. Mermaid sisterhood, you know?
E-MS: You're being awfully secretive today. You do know that this is Q&A?
Elm Sunday: Yeah, you want answers. I get it. Well, I'm not gonna tell you HOW to do the spells, but I guess I can tell you what some of them are. One was controlling the weather. I also learned how to summon a tidal wave and lots of other stuff.
E-MS: And you changed your appearance.
Elm Sunday: Oh, yeah! I dyed my hair black and wore heavy black eye liner. My mother freaked.
E-MS: Which you didn't mind a bit.
Elm Sunday: Not really.
E-MS: So, when you got all these new powers, you wanted to look and act the part. Some people were actually afraid of you.
Elm Sunday: Yeah. I was a real badass! Can I say that?
E-MS: I wish you hadn't. So you got into a lot of trouble in high school. I also read that you started hanging out in all these dark corners of the internet. Chat groups and such.
Elm Sunday: So?
E-MS: So...when you got all these new powers, Elm, your personality changed. You were no longer sweet, but scary.
Elm Sunday: Yeah, and I was powerful. Like nobody better mess with the Sea Priestess, you know?
E-MS: But somebody did try to mess with you. Wasn't it Grandmother Ruth?
Elm Sunday: She tried. In fact, Grandma did something really bad to me, something I hope she goes to the fires of hell for. But it didn't change me. It just made me madder and I still got to go to England with Snow. Nothing was going to keep me from that trip, not even that crazy old church lady!
E-MS: So you went and you had a chaperone, Kat, the massage therapist. She's the woman with the crystal healing bed who helped your mother. Tell us about that trip.
Elm Sunday: It would have been better if Kat hadn't been there to babysit us. She thinks she's real spiritual and connected with the Divine Feminine or whatever. Snow likes her but I tried to ignore her whenever I could. But you know what? Something really amazing happened on the plane to London, something I would never have guessed in a million years.
E-MS: This sounds juicy.
Elm Sunday: It's unbelievable. But I can't tell you about it.
E-MS: What if you said "spoiler alert?"
Elm Sunday: No, people just have to get the book. But I will say that I went to Glastonbury and meditated on the top of The Tor. And we went to Bath and I did something magical to the water, something that only we Sea Priestesses know how to do.
E-MS: Hold on. I think I've got an image of The Tor somewhere.
Elm Sunday: That's it! I climbed all the way to the top. It's so beautiful up there.
E-MS: Impressive. And you went to Scotland, too.
Elm Sunday: Yeah. It rained a lot. That's where I met the Loch Ness monster and got to party with fairies and a bunch of other so-called mythical creatures—
E-MS: You're kidding.
Elm Sunday: You sound jealous.
E-MS: Well, a little. My husband and I were in Scotland on our honeymoon and we never saw Nessie. Or fairies, for that matter.
Elm Sunday: Sorry. I guess it only happens if you're magical. Anyway, just when things were getting really good, my trip got interrupted and we had to go back home and my entire world fell apart and I hated everybody.
E-MS: I remember. It was a tough time for all of Little Blessing.
Elm Sunday: Yeah, so please don't ask me about that.
E-MS: Readers already know what happened.
Elm Sunday: Yeah, but you want to make me cry like Barbara Walters.
E-MS: That's not my style. Okay, so after the funeral—don't worry, I won't say who died—you ran away to live with your boyfriend and his cats. But that boyfriend wasn't Royce or Noah. This is the one with the motorcycle.
Elm Sunday: Yeah, and Noah hated him. I wished I had listened to him about Garrett, but I didn't. I mean, Noah was a jerk to me most of the time, but at least he wasn't dangerous. So when I started worrying about my safety, I moved out of Garrett's trailer and lived with a bunch of witches in High City.
E-MS: Weren't they much older than you?
Elm Sunday: WAY older!
E-MS: But they bullied you and didn't believe you had any powers. Do you think they were jealous?
Elm Sunday: Probably, but I really blew their minds later when we were on the Blue Moon Cruise on Halloween. Oh, boy, did a lot of things happen that night!
E-MS: And a lot of surprises. And that was the incident that set you on your journey to Inn Lak'ech?
Elm Sunday: Let's put it this way, E-MS. I scared the HELL out of those witches. And I changed a lot of lives that night! I showed everybody that I had the power—that I was invincible! And then I went to Inn Lak'ech.
E-MS: By plane?
Elm Sunday: Nope. By water. And this is way before I started walking on it!
Are you intrigued? One more Elm Sunday to go! Meet us here next week at the Seashell Carousel for Part 3! (And CLICK HERE to order your copy of Inn Lak'ech: A Journey to the Realm of Oneness.)
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