● OH SINNERS, LET’S GO DOWN;
Samuel Proctor was always the reasonable one, the rational one who grew up in a middle class family in a town where the gap between the rich and the poor was huge. To the poor he seemed rich, to the rich he seemed poor, but he was hardworking and industrious, and people noticed that about him. Something about Samuel, even as a child, was quietly cautious, which would come in handy in his teenage years when he saved a young Gillian Beckett from drowning. He was the one on the look out, taking care of everyone which threw him into stark contrast with his reckless best friend, Gideon Miles. Little did he know he would spend most of his life looking after Gideon and trying to dissuade him from making horrible decisions. Everyone knew that together the boys were destined for greatness because one could simply not do without the other. They were a proverbial yin and yang friendship. Gideon kept Samuel wild, while Samuel kept Gideon grounded.
The two cooked up the idea in high school that they would go to law school together and open a firm together, and the two did just that. Samuel became a lawyer, one who was always by the book, doing what needed to be done, an exact opposite of Gideon, who was more of the fly by night type. They eventually opened Miles and Proctor, their law office that has done a pretty good job in Barton Hollow where there’s always someone on trial that is in need of some good defense at semi-reasonable prices. After all, a man has to eat and pay the bills.
Samuel continued to keep Gideon in check, as well as the whole the whole law firm in check due to the hiring of Felix Fitzgerald, who Samuel did not want to hire in the first place. He had a bad feeling about Felix working with them, and he worried for Gillian, but he was happy to see that Gillian was still holding her own and that Felix wasn’t a terrible lawyer. It wasn’t long ‘til Sam decided he wanted to go into local politics and realized that he should run for mayor when the time came. This caused a bit of strife in the office seeing as none of them wanted him to leave, yet they all respected his wishes. Samuel started having strangely vivid dreams of another time, one perhaps of a pre-Civil War life that seemed familiar to him. Samuel, being rational, liked to think they were just reoccurring dreams, but they only became more and more vivid.
● DOWN TO THE RIVER TO PRAY;
After the death of the mayor and Marilyn’s ascension to the mayoral office, Sam became even more determined to become mayor. The elections are approaching fast, and he knows that he can win this, but he wonders if Marilyn will put up a fight. He’s had to put his preliminary campaigning on hold a bit to help patch up Gideon because of his recent divorce from Rosemary. Sam never liked Rosemary and thought that the day she left Gideon would be a happy one, but instead, he was just filled with sadness for his friend. He’s promised himself never to let Rosemary break Gideon like that again.
● ALL OF BARTON HOLLOW KNOWS;
Gideon Miles is Samuel’s best friend and law firm partner, and he would do just about anything (within reason) for him. Gillian Beckett is the secretary at the law firm. Felix Fitzgerald is Samuel’s employee and the bane of his existence. Rosemary Beckett is Gideon’s ex-wife, and Samuel has been wary of her and her intentions for as long as he can remember. Samuel is worried Gideon may have a repeat of Rosemary, so he is wary of Madeleine Watson and her intentions with his best friend. Marilyn Fitzgerald is Samuel’s likely political foe, but the two have a connection related to those vivid past life dreams that Samuel needs to uncover. Little does he know that that past also involves Gideon and Gillian.