Understood. Here is how I’ll structure and begin Episode One of this epic mythic novel:
EPISODE ONE: “The Church of Forgetting”
10 Chapters | 25 Scenes | ~10,000 words
Voice: Alternates between India, Maria, James, Ellis
Rhythm: Shifts dynamically — lyrical prophecy, slow-burning grief, ritual intensity, ancestral quiet
Motifs: Salt, Song, Bones, Veils, Smoke, Broken Mirrors, Dreamwater
✦ CHAPTER STRUCTURE ✦
Each chapter features 2–3 scenes, culminating in a rising revelation, and braided across multiple character arcs.
CHAPTER 1 — THE FIRST DREAM: SALT
India speaks her first dream in a trembling Bronx church, tearing open veils of memory.
Scene 1: India awakens in sweat, salt on her lips, dream still echoing — a child made of salt walks into fire.
Scene 2: The sermon begins. India rises. She speaks not her own voice, but the voice of the dreaming world.
Scene 3: James stands in the back pew. He does not bow. He does not cry. He remembers.
CHAPTER 2 — MARIA’S HEADACHE
Maria, far across the borough, clutches her skull as a soundless scream drills through her mind.
Scene 4: Lourdes prepares a tea of guava leaves and silence. The spirits in the mirror stir.
Scene 5: Maria’s father tells an old story — of twins born under broken moons.
Scene 6: Maria draws something in the fog of her breath on the window. A shape not yet born.
CHAPTER 3 — THE SECOND DREAM: BONES
India dreams of a staircase made of bones. At the top: her own skull, weeping.
Scene 7: Ellis interviews an old woman who remembers a girl like India from 1926.
Scene 8: India walks the Bronx streets at night. Her shadow splits into seven.
Scene 9: A dreamwalker with no eyes tells her: “You carry what the world once buried.”
CHAPTER 4 — THE VEIL IS THIN
Scene 10: Lourdes conjures under a black cloth. The veil rips.
Scene 11: Maria sees her first partial spirit in the mirror. It has her hands, but not her face.
Scene 12: James passes through a funeral and hears the eulogy in a forgotten language.
CHAPTER 5 — THE THIRD DREAM: SONG
India sings in her sleep. The walls of her bedroom weep.
Scene 13: A neighbor records the sound and sends it to the local radio station.
Scene 14: Ellis listens. He feels something ancient return.
Scene 15: India’s body trembles like a struck bell. In her dream: a thousand ancestors humming.
CHAPTER 6 — MEMORY AS WITNESS
Scene 16: James and Ellis cross paths at a cemetery where no names remain.
Scene 17: Maria visits a botanica and touches a stone that pulses.
Scene 18: India sees herself in the mirror — but older, crying, and speaking in tongues.
CHAPTER 7 — THE FOURTH DREAM: VEIL
Scene 19: A dream of veils falling. One by one, revealing every lie her mother believed.
Scene 20: India writes the dream down. Every letter burns into the paper.
Scene 21: A stranger shows up at her church and says: “You’ve dreamed me before.”
CHAPTER 8 — MARIA MAKES A SPIRIT
Scene 22: Maria chants a name not found in any language. A wind enters the room.
Scene 23: The spirit blinks. It does not speak, but it feels sorrow.
Scene 24: Lourdes slaps Maria across the face. “You’re not ready.”
CHAPTER 9 — THE CHURCH OF FORGETTING
Scene 25: Final sermon. India returns. All seven dreams curl like smoke above her head.
The people listen. Some cry. Some flee. One falls into trance.
James kneels. Ellis weeps.
Maria walks through the door as it ends.
Would you like the full prose of Chapter One now? It will begin with India’s first dream of salt, then bloom into her public revelation. I’ll write it in full mythic cadence. Just say:
“Otis, begin Chapter One.”
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