Falwyn Read online

  FALWYN

  By Ashley L. Knight

  An Otherside Press Production

  Otherside Press is an imprint of Crossroad Press

  Digital Edition published by Crossroad Press

  Digital Edition Copyright 2013 / Ashley L. Knight

  Edited by: Jo Graham

  Copy-edited by: Kane Gilmore

  Cover art created by: Laura Sauva

  LICENSE NOTES

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to the vendor of your choice and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Meet the Author

  Ashley Lorenzi Knight wrote The FINS Trilogy – FINS, FATHOM and FOREVER – while working as a professional mermaid in Idaho. Always one to try and experience all that life has to offer, she has worn many hats: a wife, mother, author, model, singer, rodeo queen, gymnast, scuba diver, Walt Disney World employee and lover of cats. On her list – parachuting, rappelling, diving off the Australian coast, trekking the globe with her husband, visit Machu Picchu, learn to waltz, and of course, try to write the next story that will touch other’s lives!

  You can learn more by visiting her website: www.ashleylknight.com or friending her on Facebook:

  https://www.facebook.com/authorAshleyKnight?ref=hl

  https://www.facebook.com/TheMermaidLady?ref=tn_tnmn

  Follow your dreams, my friends.

  Book List

  The FINS Trilogy

  FINS

  FATHOM

  FOREVER

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  Dedication

  I want to thank those of you who lifted me up and encouraged me while I wrote. This book is for you.

  Acknowledgments

  I wouldn’t be the person I was if I didn’t have the love and support of my husband, Greg, whom I love with every part of my being. You are the one person who never lets me fall. I love you for eternity and beyond, forever and always.

  Emma and Belle. I love you both more than you will ever know.

  My dad has been one of my biggest fans since writing FINS. It was he who bought my first copies, read them and offered his assistance as much as possible. Thank you for being proud of me when I tried my best.

  To my favorite author and good friend, Steven Savile: you offered your hand when I was under water and you pulled me into the boat. For that, I will forever be in your debt.

  John Williamson: thank you for the regular kicks in the pants! I cherish our friendship and always look forward to the long hours of phone conversation.

  I was fortunate enough to have a wonderful editor who wasn’t afraid to tell me what I needed to fix to make the book all that it could be. Kane Gilmour, thank you for sacrificing your eyesight and your sanity!

  David Nail Wilson: thank you for rescuing me from a sea of nastiness and broken promises. You instill hope.

  Laura Sava designed the gorgeous artwork for this book. Thank you so much for all your hard work!

  Gerry, Walt, Misty, John, Kane, Shirley and Iva – thank you for your invaluable feedback!

  To anyone who ever read any of my books: whether you enjoyed my stories or not – thank you for supporting me!

  FALWYN

  Lara

  Chapter One

  “Are you serious?”

  “What?”

  “This is where we’re going to live?”

  “What’s wrong with it?”

  Lara Dupree rested her hands on her hips and scanned the A-frame log cabin with a discontented look. At the back of their Scion, her father pulled on a duffel bag wedged between two larger suitcases. It finally popped free and tumbled to the ground. The dirt billowed around it like a wave of water, settling nicely onto his woolen socks. He swatted the powdery film away and reached into the car again. Grabbing an enormous package of toilet paper, he tossed it at Lara, and she groaned.

  “This place is a hovel!”

  “It’s homey!” he grunted, lifting the army-green bag. His knobby knees knocked together like a baby giraffe just learning to walk. As he staggered down the path, he called over his shoulder. “People would die to live in a place like this!”

  Lara shifted the toilet paper under her arm and tucked her long blonde hair behind her ear. Living in the wilderness was not her idea of fun. Sipping strawberry virgin daiquiris on the beach, watching Muse perform live from the Staples Center, shopping until her feet burned—that was fun and that was her life—and she loved it. LA was the best city in the world, as far as Lara was concerned. How the heck am I going to survive Idaho? She chewed on her lip and stared doubtfully at the mass of bugs hanging in the sun’s rays. The golden light slipped through the still branches of the pine trees circling the cabin.

  That’s just perfect, she thought. She’d spent most of her life trying to decimate every bug she encountered. This place was probably crawling with them. Literally.

  Severely disappointed, she followed her father’s footsteps to the cabin and paused to peer into the foliage outside the door. Wildflowers sprouted from the flowerbeds lining the front of the house. Lara withdrew in disgust; they wriggled with earwigs. Hurrying into the house, she hugged the toilet paper to her chest and surveyed her new home.

  A desperate surge of helplessness filled her as she realized that the inside of the cabin was just as unspectacular as the outside. Summer was well underway, and flies lazily dragged themselves along the edges of the walls, as if it took too much effort to fly. Lara stood in the middle of the tiny kitchen, staring at what would be her home for the next twelve months. It had as much room as a burrow.

  The kitchen took up the entire left wall of the house, save for an emaciated staircase that squeezed between it and what was the only bedroom. The steep stairs looked as if they had been fashioned from wood that barely survived the last Ice Age. They led to an open loft nestled in the rafters. Her gaze came to a rest upon a crudely whittled sign hanging over a small opening under the stairs.

  “The Throne,” she read out loud and realized, in horror, that it was the bathroom. A comment one of her friends had once made leapt to her mind: Hell is living in a house with only one bathroom. Dropping the toilet paper into the kitchen sink, she turned and grasped the handle of the bathroom. The door swung inward with a sad sigh. Lara tried not to cry out loud, and her objection turned into a sort of swallowed pig snort.

  To say the bathroom was small would have been an erroneous lie. It was miniscule. Measuring approximately 6x3 feet, there was barely enough room to undress. The toilet sat lodged between the sink and the quarter-sized shower. Clearly, they were going to have to use the toilet tank as counter-top space.

  Lara caught site of her reflection in the oval shaped mirror—she looked as if she’d just witnessed someone attempt to eat an entire horse in one sitting. It was just a bathroom, right? Right. Attempting to adjust her expression, she stared at herself. In a way, she was lucky. Pale skinned and blue eyed, she resembled her Swedish mother more so than her German father. Never having to need makeup certainly had its merits. There were more than enough girls at her school resembling clowns. As luck would have it, she had inherited more good traits than bad from her parents, and she was grateful for the fact. Her eyes fell to the strand of pearls about her neck.
They were her mother’s.

  She immediately extinguished the thought by running her fingers through her waist-length hair and dug a tie from her hoodie’s pocket. Pulling her hair into a ponytail, she sighed loudly and exited the bathroom.

  The rest of the first floor was comprised of a snail-sized living room and an open fireplace that hadn’t been used in eons. White sheets hid a sofa, a La-Z-Boy chair and a small dining room table that had been pressed against the window to make more room in the small space. Lara let herself into the lone bedroom and was greeted by a musty smell.

  “Oh God!” Lara breathed, pressing a hand to her chest and backing away. She began to pat her pockets in search of her iPhone.

  “Lara?” A lone figure struggling under a mountain of suitcases bravely inched toward the cabin. “Help!”

  Grateful for the distraction, Lara ran outside. “Geez, Michael,” she giggled as she rescued two of the bags, “you miss two days of working out and now you’re Mr. Weenie?”

  “Take the bags. Take the bags!” His voice verged on the edge of hysteria.

  “Maybe you should just carry my purse?” she offered, sarcastically.

  “It’s heavier than these bags,” he answered and rolled his neck, the vertebrae emitting loud popping noises. “So this is the ‘lodge in the woods’, huh?”

  “It’s not a lodge.”

  “Somehow, I pictured something a bit more—”

  “Grandiose?”

  “—true to what your dad described.”

  “Yeah. Well, don’t hold your breath. You should see the toilet. It was made by hobbits.”

  Michael plastered a fake grin on his face and pushed forward to the cabin. Most people thought Lara and Michael were brother and sister, but the fact of the matter was, their parents were friends and they’d been together since infancy. Michael was her best friend and constant companion. Although they were inseparable, this summer would mark an end to everything. Lara frowned, trying to understand why her father would force her to leave her life behind.

  Her father was a doctor who suddenly decided to tap into his inner hippie by accepting what he called the perfect job: working in the wilderness with the Idaho Forest Service. It was the first time he had taken such a job—the first time they had moved anywhere from California. This was Lara’s last summer before her senior year, and she was not thrilled she had to finish high school in the Gem State. She was sure it would ruin her chances of getting into a superior university.

  Michael had hitched along for the summer, because his parents were taking their second honeymoon in Fiji and didn’t trust him farther than they could throw him. Knowing Michael, the house would not have survived.

  “You know what we should do when we’re done?” Michael panted as they climbed the steps leading into the house.

  “Curl up and die?”

  “We should go check out the school.”

  Lara’s throat tightened. “I don’t want to see the school yet.”

  “Why not?”

  “We just got here. We have all summer to do that. I’d rather order pizza and watch TV.”

  Michael dumped the bags onto the wooden floor. “You wuss!” he cried, resting his hands on his hips. His white tee-shirt stretched across his muscled chest, making him look like a superhero. “You acted like you didn’t care what anyone thought and now look at you! You’re scared!”

  “I’m not scared!”

  “Yes, you are.”

  “No, I’m not!”

  “Both of you shut up and finish unloading!” Her father huffed as he passed through them. The two turned to follow him.

  “Big baby,” Michael mumbled and dodged her slap.

  It didn’t take them long to unload the small car and its tiny trailer. Within an hour, the three sat panting on the front steps of the cabin.

  “I don’t care what anyone says; Idaho is hot in June!” Lara’s father gasped, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand.

  “I thought it was supposed to be cool in the mountains?” Michael added.

  Dr. Dupree chuckled. “I’m going to make some lemonade. Does that sound good?”

  “Can we order pizza, Dad?” Lara asked, slapping at a mosquito.

  “Honey, they don’t have pizza here,” he said as he stood. “If you want pizza, we have to make it ourselves.”

  “No!” It was not the news Lara wanted to hear. “Where are we? The Boonies? Hell?”

  “Worse,” Michael said in a quivering voice, “we’re in Potato Land!”

  Lara grimaced. “You don’t have anything to worry about. It’s me who has to worry! I bet everyone plays banjos and spoons here.”

  “Spoons?”

  She laughed, despite herself. “Yeah, don’t all rednecks play spoons?”

  Michael shrugged and leaned back on his elbows.

  “So what are you going to do all year without me?” Lara asked.

  “I don’t know. Chase girls. Race my car. You know: guy stuff.”

  “Are you going to miss me?”

  “Nah,” he grinned, poking Lara playfully in the ribs.

  Lara withdrew from his touch. Michael had never been more than a friend and that was all she wanted. He was practically her brother. But lately, she suspected he wanted more. He held a special place in her heart, but she doubted she could ever be in love with him. Something told her that there was a difference between loving someone and being in love with someone.

  It wasn’t as if he wasn’t attractive—the yellow-haired boy already had offers from several modeling companies. He was cute and had always been sweet with her. But the idea of Michael being her boyfriend made her cringe.

  “Of course I’m going to miss you!” he added, distracting Lara from her thoughts. “Are you gonna miss me?”

  “You’re my best friend,” she answered and looked away from his meaningful stare.

  “Here we are!” her father interrupted, squeezing between the two as he sat down. “Lemonade!” Handing Lara a pink Care Bear cup and Michael a plastic Solo cup, he lifted a white mug with the words ‘Winter Sucks’ to his lips, and sighed in content. “This is the life!”

  “I love your choices here, Dad.” Lara nodded to the pink monstrosity she held in her grip. “I feel so grown up holding a sippy cup from my childhood.”

  “Yes,” Michael added, “and this Solo cup makes me feel so rich.”

  “For goodness sake!” Dr. Dupree shook his head. “Why don’t you two go for a walk or something?”

  Lara and Michael downed their lemonade, abandoning their cups to the top step.

  Her father watched as she walked down a well-worn path leading away from the cabin. “Kids,” she heard him mutter as he leaned back, enjoying the solitude.

  “You have to admit, this place is pretty cool!” Michael slapped at a mosquito on his arm.

  “If you can stand the bugs,” Lara leaned against a tree, immediately pulling away, “and the tree sap.” She flicked her hand to dispel the sticky substance.

  “I wonder where this path leads.” Michael waved his hands in front of his face, batting mosquitoes away. Lara laughed out loud.

  “What?” he asked, skeptically.

  “We must look hilarious!”

  “Why? What’s wrong?”

  “You look like a woman!”

  Michael glared. “A woman?”

  “Yeah, a woman!” she repeated, imitating his feminine hand gestures. “We’re typical tourists. I’ve heard Idahoans don’t like Californians. I can just imagine the reception I’m going to get my first day of school.”

  Obviously too engrossed with being eaten by bugs, Michael uttered some sort of agreement before whining, “Do you know how many bugs are trying to eat me? I’m dodging death here!”

  Lara cackled at his remark. “Dodging death? You make it sound heroic! Ha ha!”

  Michael slapped the side of his cheek, and Lara doubled over in laughter. “Hey, shut up!” he warned.

  “Wait, wait! What’s tha
t noise?” Lara asked.

  They held their breath, listening to the eerie silence of the forest. The strange feeling of being watched settled upon Lara, and she rubbed her arms. The forest seemed more alive than before. The wind moved the trees and the trees moved the earth. Maybe the creatures of the earth were watching them. An ominous shiver ran down Lara’s spine.

  “Something’s not right,” she breathed.

  That was when they heard it. A whip slashed through the air, meeting its target. Lara’s hair stood on end, as the breeze carried the sound of a body collapsing to the ground.

  “It came from over there!” Michael whispered, pointing to a small hill. Moving to the top of the hill, their footsteps seemed to grow louder, and Lara found herself tiptoeing around broken branches and dried pine needle mounds just to keep quiet. Peeking from behind the trees concealing them, the two surveyed the gruesome scene below them.

  An enormous man, brandishing a whip, towered over his victim, who had collapsed to the ground on his chest, a hand outstretched, grasping at the loose soil. Shirtless, the red streaks of blood running down the victim’s back looked like they’d been carved into his flesh with a knife.

  When the large man circled the whip to strike again, Lara grabbed a thick branch and launched herself over the edge of the hill, shouting a battle cry the likes of which William Wallace would have been proud. Skidding to a stop, she wielded the branch like a baseball bat.

  “Stop!” she yelled, her heart in her mouth.

  The man’s surprised look turned to thunder. Her pretty image momentarily reflected in his wide eyes.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he shouted.

  Lara shrank back, praying Michael had followed her.

  The monstrous man smirked at her, revealing yellowed teeth. “You think you can take me on?”