Avery Thorn
Into The Seas Embrace
This book is dedicated to my long time best friend Amber. For without her this book would have never been created.
I would also like to thank my other best friend Emilee. If she and Amber hadn’t worked together my dream of seeing this book published on time would have never happened.
Chapter One
Atalanta
“I know I’ve said it before, but I believe this is it. This is the one!” My father exclaimed as he, my sister, and I stood outside of our new home.
It was hard to believe that sentiment when he had said the same about our last house not five months before. Low and behold, two days ago, Dad came home and told us to start packing.
In a record four hours, the three of us had packed up the few boxes we had even bothered to unpack, loaded up the rusty Ford pickup and left our home/not home of Forks, Washington to move less than an hour south, to the small town of Argos. After spending a day hiding out in the nearby Inn, Dad had secured us a new house and drove us out of the tiny town, up into the mountains.
I scrunched up my nose. “Dad, it looks like a murder shack.”
The small house had definitely seen better days. The wood was wearing away from the constant beat of the ocean’s salty breeze. What was probably once a nice wood cabin looked like something dragged from the ocean, dark and damp with areas covered in moss. The window panes were no better, as they were cracked, murky, murky and cracked, or just plain missing.
“It’s far bigger than a shack, Pumpkin. And what murder shack ever had such a nice view?” he gestured over to the left of the shack, out to the cliff drop-off.
I had to begrudgingly agree that the ocean view was to-die-for as we admired a glimpse of the setting sun, with purple, gray, and blue layers of clouds dancing with the sun’s yellow and orange flames. It was a rare sight at the moment, as it was late January in northern Washington state, which was known for its constant rainy days.
I crossed my arms and tried not to smile. “Fine! It looks like a murder cottage. Though, have you ever read A Series of Unfortunate Events? That’s also a cliff and nothing ever goes right with having a house this close to a cliff.”
“That house was actually hanging off the cliff, Atalanta. This one is not. So don’t exaggerate,” he said matter-of-factly.
I gave him a bit of cool father credit there. I didn’t know he ever read the series.
“Well, I think the view is nice,” my sister popped in.
He looked over and beamed at my sister. “Thank you, Cal.”
“But she is right,” Cal sighed and tilted her head to study the house. “it is a murder shack. I’m expecting Michael Myers to come walking through the door any moment.”
“Aw, come on! Stop your whining! It’s much nicer on the inside, I promise. You big babies.”
Apprehensively, my sister and I each heaved a box out of the back of the truck and carried them through the heavy wooden door that our father held open for us.
He wasn’t totally wrong. The inside didn’t look like the set of a classic horror film but it did look like it hadn’t seen human life in a while. On the checklist there were cobwebs, leaves on the ground, rat droppings scattered in every corner, the air so thick with dust an asthmatic person would die instantaneously, and last but not least a bat who had been sleeping up in the rafter till our entrance had spooked him into exiting.
“Seriously, Dad?”
“Yep,” he said, popping heavily on the P.
I rolled my eyes and stepped further into what seemed to be the living room.
The walls were probably in the best condition, with only slight water damage and made of modern drywall instead of wood. They were painted an ugly sea-foam green, though. Ugh.
The laminate wood floor was coming up in spots and had definitely seen some rodents if the chew marks were any indication. There wasn’t any furniture, but there was a really nice brick fire place, and when I cautiously stepped further into the room I could see into the kitchen, which was rather big, and did have relatively new equipment.
My ever-optimistic sister put down her box and looked around. “With lots of paint,”
“A bulldozer,” I chimed in.
“And a lot of hard work, I bet this place would look just as nice as the other ones.”
With our constant moving, we really couldn’t afford a lot of nice places, so our father would scoop up rundown properties that the bank had foreclosed on and we would fix them up. Since picking up forgotten places had the additional benefit of being inconspicuous, we really didn’t mind too much.
My father pulled my sister and I close into a hug as he looked around our new home. “I know it hasn’t been easy…but thank you for hanging in there.”
I stared at my father. He looked much older than his actual age of 38. Dark midnight skin, haggard by the stress of raising my sister and I so young and being the bread winner of the family for years. His close-cropped hair was far more salt than pepper but at least his eyes, while heavily bagged, sparkled with humor.
I smiled. “I’ll get the broom.”
If there was one thing my sister and I had learned early, it was to clean before unpacking—otherwise there would be twice as much to clean. So, after pulling the boxes out of the truck, we stuffed them on the porch and got to work while Dad ran to find the nearest grocery store to wrangle up dinner.
Sweeping out all the cobwebs, dust, and rat shit we could find, we moved on to the washing. If given the option, I would have hosed the whole inside down with soap and water, but the next best thing was the good old mop, bucket, and Fabuloso.
“So, which room do you want?” Cal asked as we finally finished up the front of the cabin.
I only stared at her, unsure of how to answer. As the older sibling, she normally just claimed whichever room she wanted and let me take what was left.
“Oh, don’t give me that look. Yes, I’m going to actually let you pick this time,” she said, her hands at her waist.
Squinting at her suspiciously, I slowly opened the door to bedroom number one. This one was the master and looked rather nice, with an actual carpet and very few cobwebs, but this one was for Dad so I shut the door until it was time for Cal and I to clean it later. Behind the second door was a much smaller room, also carpeted, but with large bay windows that looked out into the forest back down the hill the cottage was propped on. Finally, behind the third door was an identical room to the second, except it partially faced the ocean and partially the forest.
I gave a small smile. “I’ll take this one.”
“I thought you might.”
I looked back over my shoulder at my sister. Like me, her skin was a warm espresso brown, but unlike me, she was very feminine looking with gorgeous forest green eyes and long, soft curls that I had never been able to achieve. My hair was uncooperative and would sooner form into a giant rat’s nest than behave. So I opted to keep it as short as Cal would let me rather than deal with it.
I also tried not to be envious of her curves that the guys loved to stare at everywhere we went. I looked like a little boy next to her with my stick figure and B cups. I say tried not to be envious, because I knew the green monster reared its ugly head when I saw how easily she could pull off booty shorts and a tank when I only looked good in frumpy hoodies.