Where the Mountains Meet the Sea Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Part One

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Part Two

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Part Three

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Epilogue

  Author Note

  Acknowledgements

  Books By A.R. Breck

  About A.R. Breck

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by reviewers, who may quote brief passages in a review.

  Copyright © 2021 by A.R. Breck. All rights reserved.

  Cover design by PeechyKeenAS

  Editing by Nice Girl Naughty Edits

  Proofreading by Rumi Khan

  Formatting by TRC Designs

  CONTENT WARNING

  Where the Mountains Meet the Sea contains mature themes that may be triggering to some readers. Please proceed with caution.

  DISCLAIMER

  This book is based off true events. Names, ages, and locations have been changed for confidentiality purposes.

  And so it is, that you must go, where tall trees grow and rivers flow.

  And I in turn, will go my way, where seagulls soar over a sunlit bay.

  Perhaps, someday, we'll meet again, and talk of happy times.

  Where salty breezes sway tall trees… and the mountains meet the sea.

  - Westworld

  Dedication.

  To H. Your strength is inspiring.

  I love you.

  PLAYLIST

  Home Sweet Home by Mötley Crüe

  More Than a Feeling by Boston

  Blowin’ in the Wind by Bob Dylan

  Let it Be by The Beatles

  Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door by Bob Dylan

  Moonlight Sonata by Ludwig van Beethoven

  Imagine by John Lennon

  I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing by Aerosmith

  Highway to Hell by AC/DC

  Penny Lane by The Beatles

  Piano Man by Billy Joel

  Can’t Fight This Feeling by REO Speedwagon

  Für Elise by Ludwig van Beethoven

  Hey Jude by The Beatles

  Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin

  Canon in D by Johann Pachelbel

  The Flower Duet by Katherine Jenkins

  Keep on Loving You by REO Speedwagon

  Unchained Melody by The Righteous Brothers

  Time After Time by Cyndi Lauper

  Fade Into You by Mazzy Star

  Don’t Dream It’s Over by Sixpence None the Richer

  The Sound of Silence by Simon and Garfunkel

  One by Metallica

  Take Me Home, County Roads by John Denver

  Lithium by Nirvana

  Lick It Up by Kiss

  Beth by Kiss

  I Got a Name by Jim Croce

  Friend of the Devil by Grateful Dead

  Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd

  Amazed by Lonestar

  Freak by Silverchair

  Badfish by Sublime

  Wonderful Tonight by Eric Clapton

  You’re Still The One by Shania Twain

  Wonderwall by Oasis

  Love Song by Tesla

  When You Say Nothing At All by Alison Krauss

  Love Hurts by Nazareth

  Forever and For Always by Shania Twain

  Landslide by Fleetwood Mac

  Linger by The Cranberries

  Colorblind by Counting Crows

  No One’s Gonna Love You by Band of Horses

  Hallelujah by Jeff Buckley

  The Funeral by Band of Horses

  Is There A Ghost by Band of Horses

  CHAPTER ONE

  ROMAN

  1983

  There!

  I leap forward, my feet slicing through the cold water of the lake. My toes melt into the grainy sand, and I curl them, feeling the roughness scrape against the soles of my feet. The small, green, plastic pail swings in my hands and knocks against my knees. The thump echoes on the quiet beach, startling the school of tadpoles swimming around my ankles.

  “Ugh!” I grunt, slapping the water with the palm of my hand. The water splashes up and hits my stomach. “Stupid tadpoles.” I sit back against the chipped dock, the backs of my legs warming from the heated wood. My toes kick in the water, barely breaking through the surface. The tadpoles have scattered, long gone and leaving me only with the clear blue waters of Shallow Lake.

  I tilt my head up, pushing my damp brown hair from my eyes as I look at the sun. It feels hotter down at the beach, like the sun and water decided to make it almost impossible to sit here on the sand without dipping into the water.

  But that’s a Wisconsin summer for you.

  I watch the neighbor’s pontoon glide through the water, and Mr. Sorenson waves to me with his free hand, his other gripping the steering wheel. His tan fisherman’s hat creates a shadow over his eyes.

  Once he’s out of sight around the bend, I watch the water ripple all the way to the shore, the small waves rocking the dock back and forth.

  I’m bored.

  My friends, Clyde, Flynn, and Lonnie are all on summer vacation. Usually, I’d be with them. We like to go to the park down the road, Tip Town. It’s over on the other side of the lake and our parents let us stay there all day until the streetlights turn on. With them gone, I’ve got nothing to do.

  I look over my shoulder at my house. The big white cabin-styled home with a two-story wrap-around porch on the second level. It’s one of the biggest cabins on the lake.

  A lot of people around here only stay here during the summer months, but we’re one of the few families that stay here year-round.

  My dad, he’s the lead singer of The Ripsons. They’re one of the most popular rock bands in the world right now. My dad has toured with Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, and AC/DC. He’s touring with them now, actually, leaving my mom here by herself to watch me and my baby sister.

  Momma and I have gone with him on tour before, but she always tells my dad that a tour bus is no place for a kid. I don’t mind it. It’s kind of fun, actually. But Momma seems to think I’m too young for whatever happens on the road.

  I like the music my dad plays. I love going to his concerts and letting the drums pound against my stomach. It’s so loud sometimes that it really feels like they’re playing inside me. My ears always ring after a concert, and I have to shout afterward so I can hear my own voice.

  My dad, he always looks so famous standing on the stage.
I watch as everyone reaches for him, like he’s the President of the United States. It’s funny to think that’s the same dad who tucks me in at night and who lets me climb on his back when we swim in the water.

  He even lets me pretend to play on his spare drum set in the basement. I’d like to play the guitar like my dad, but my fingers aren’t big enough to pull on the chords to play a tune.

  Someday, I’ll be a rock star just like he is.

  I watch the tadpoles come back. The water is still again, no ripples in the current besides my toes trailing along the surface. I dip my foot under the water, and they swim curiously around my ankle. One of them brushes against my skin.

  I wipe my forehead with a smile.

  The humidity is making my hair stick to my skin, and I want to slip into the water with the tadpoles to have a swim. They’d flee the moment I entered the water, though.

  I’m so bored.

  “Roman!” I glance up the hill, seeing my mom calling for me from the deck. She places her pointer finger along the line of her eyebrows, shading her eyes from the bright sun. “Roman! Meet me up front, please.” She turns around and walks back inside. Her long brown hair hangs in a curly ponytail at the back of her head and swishes with every step she takes.

  Her jean shorts are frayed with her striped shirt tucked beneath the waistband. She’s much like my dad in the rock style department, although hers is watered down. She tries to be a good mother to me, but I can tell when she gets nervous, biting her nails on the nights my dad has a show. She wants to be with him, but I’m getting too old to be on the road all the time, so she needs to stay home with me.

  Isn’t that funny? I’m too young to be on the road, and I’m also too old to be on the road.

  Life is funny.

  My dad is much more rock, with the bell-bottom ripped jeans, the leather jackets, his long brown hair, and his metal chains. He’s a rock legend, even here in our little town of Shallow Lake, Wisconsin.

  I pull my feet out of the lukewarm water, making wet footprints as I stand on the dock. I walk across the beach, which is only a few feet of dried sand before it turns to grass. I do a small jump, slapping my hand on the clothesline that hangs from one side of the yard to the other. Walking up the hill, I go around the side of the house and to the front yard. Across the street is a corn field—nothing but corn for as far as I can see from all the way to the top of the hill and over the other side. Sometimes I wonder what’s on the other side of that hill, but another part of me doesn’t want to know. A small part of me likes the mystery.

  My eyes widen when I see a huge moving truck and people out front at the next-door neighbor’s house. I didn’t hear all the commotion when I was out back, but I guess the tadpoles stole my attention.

  The black cement burns the soles of my feet as they hit the pavement. My mom walks out the front door, the screen slapping against the frame behind her. She’s shoeless herself as she walks over to me, her feet gliding through the green grass.

  “I saw the new neighbors pulled up a while ago. Thought we should go introduce ourselves. What do you say?” she asks, brushing her brown bangs away from her forehead.

  I shrug. “Sure.”

  I don’t really want to go say hi to the new neighbors. I was friends with the boy that used to live there. But their parents got a divorce and he had to move to Iowa. The small brown house next door has been vacant for the past month.

  My mom places a hand on my bare shoulder, giving it a light squeeze. “Then you can come inside afterward. Your shoulders are turning pink. I can put on some more sunscreen.” She ruffles my hair a bit, and my cheeks pinken.

  She sure likes to embarrass me. I’m seven, almost eight, yet she still treats me like a baby sometimes.

  We walk across the yard, and there’s a bunch of people trudging in and out of the back of the truck, moving furniture into the house. A woman steps out of the trailer holding a box, her eyes widening when she sees us standing there.

  “Oh!” She sets the box down on the edge of the trailer and slides off. “Charlie! Get over here! We have some guests.” The woman brushes her hands over her flowy dress as she smiles at us. Her smile is bright, her blonde hair wavy as it brushes over her shoulders. A man steps out of the house, shoving the door open and propping it with a brown box. His bell-bottom jeans are too hot for this humid day and his white button-up shirt sits halfway unbuttoned down his chest.

  My parents talk about people like these. What does she call them?

  Oh, yeah.

  Hippies.

  “Hi, we live next door. I’m Goldie, and this here is Roman.” My mom ruffles my hair again, and I want to look up at her and glare. She’s taught me manners, though, so all I do is smile at the new neighbors.

  The hippies.

  “Oh! So lovely to meet you. My name is Jane, and this here is Charlie,” the woman says, wrapping her arms around her husband’s arm. “We have a little girl, too, just about your age. Where’d she go, Charlie?” She turns around, looking toward the house I know inside and out. “Luna!” Her voice is soft, unnatural in a way that shouldn’t be used for yelling. Maybe for singing or humming a lullaby like my mom used to do for me at night. But yelling? No.

  It’s feels like the school of fish from down in the lake made their way into my belly and are bumping into every wall of my insides as a little girl walks outside.

  My entire body freezes. My entire mind, and maybe a part of my soul, too.

  Her skin is as pale as freshly fallen snow, and her hair is black like a night sky without any stars. Kind of weird-looking, if I were to be honest, but I can’t take my eyes off her. Her face is round, with a dainty nose and eyes too big for her face. Her black hair matches her dad, who has stick straight hair just as dark as hers. But her eyes.

  Her eyes.

  They don’t match her dad or her mom. Her dad has blue eyes, and her mom has a weird hazel.

  Luna has gray.

  No color against the whites of her eyes or the black pupils in the center. Only a pale gray.

  She’s wearing a blue dress that flows to her shins, with two bright yellow suns crocheted onto the sides.

  I stare at her, this unusual creature that came out of nowhere. I’ve never seen anyone like her.

  And I don’t think I’ll ever meet anyone like her again.

  “Luna, these are the new neighbors. Roman, and his mom, Goldie,” Jane says, smiling at her daughter. Her entire face brightens with her smile, like there’s nothing wrong in the world.

  “Hi.” Luna gives me a small wave, and I stand like a big dummy in front of her. I can barely form the words on my tongue as I look at her. Her voice sounds like when my dad plays a soft song in the evenings, only plucking the strings on his acoustic guitar.

  It makes the world around me freeze.

  Luna stands a few inches taller than me, but that doesn’t really surprise me. All the girls are weirdly tall in my grade, towering over my short frame.

  “Hi.” I puff my bare chest out, suddenly feeling uncomfortable in my red swim shorts and nothing else.

  “You know,” my mom starts, getting the tone in her voice that she usually gets when she wants to be best friends with someone, “I have a daughter, too. Her name is Nora. How old are you, Luna? You look to be about Nora’s age.”

  “I just turned six,” she says, the x in six coming out more like a th.

  My mom’s hands clap together. “Oh, lovely! That’s the same age as Nora. Are you going into first grade this year?”

  Luna nods, and I suddenly feel useless standing here as the new girl takes over my old friend’s house. It feels like she’s taking over my sister, too.

  I clench my fists, so I don’t shove her onto the grass beneath her.

  “You’ll be in the same grade as Nora then. Roman, here, is going into second grade. But I’m sure he’d still love to play with you. Wouldn’t you, Roman? You can introduce her to Nora.” My mom looks down at me, the be nice smile on her face.


  “I guess,” I grumble, kicking a small rock with my bare toe. It rolls over on its opposite side and stops.

  Luna stares at me, a curious look on her face.

  The parents stare at us, waiting for one of us to make a move.

  Waiting for me, actually.

  “Come on.” I grumble, nodding my head. It feels like now I’m not only going to be dealing with my baby sister, but now I have to deal with the neighbor girl, too.

  I listen to her bare feet slide through the grass as she walks behind me. Cutting through my yard, I walk toward the front door. It’s only early afternoon, and the sun is at its highest point in the sky. We walk up the couple of steps onto the deck and up to the front door. I pull on the screen, the hinges squeaking with its movement.

  “Wow, you have a big house,” she says, her big eyes wide and wondrous as she looks around my kitchen. The gray seems to grow, swallowing up her pupils and making her look even more unusual.

  My house has two levels. The upper level has a kitchen and dining room, which lead to the living room. A glass sliding door off the living room goes out back to the deck which overlooks the backyard and lake. Inside and down the hall leads to my parents’ room, mine, and my sister’s. Downstairs has a couple of extra rooms for guests, a living area, and a band room where my dad and his bandmates practice.

  I shrug, feeling like it’s not all that big, but then again, she’s moving into one of the smaller homes on the lake.

  Nora sits on the living room floor with her Barbie dolls that she’s been obsessed with. “Nora, this is the new neighbor, Luna.”

  Nora looks up, one hand on a small yellow brush as she combs through Barbie’s hair. “Hi. Do you want to play dolls with me?”

  I swallow down my groan. I am not playing dolls.

  Luna’s gray eyes swing to mine. “What are you going to do?”

  I think about the tadpoles that I’ve been trying to catch for a week. I’m not going to do anything besides just catch them and let them go. But they’re fast, and I’m getting closer with each try.

  “I’m going back down to the lake.”

  Luna looks over her shoulder, glancing out the window and out onto the blue waters. The sunshine casts a glow through the window, lighting up her pale skin. She really is pale. Mostly compared to me. The moment the ice thaws in the spring, I’m usually outside until the first snowfall the next fall. This girl looks like she hasn’t been outside a day in her life.