This is a story of my heart. Three sisters torn apart by family tragedy and mistrust (that’s been rightly earned). This story explores: What if a mother’s grief was so big, it opened the door between this life and the next? And what do you do if the mother only believes this is the case…
The novel takes place in Ketchikan, Alaska. One of my most favorite places. I used pieces of the government-owned part of Pennock Island as inspiration for Lia’s island home.
Lia Royce sees magic in everything. In the way the birds use the wind, the way the eagles chitter at one another, and the way she’s sure her daughter now lives beneath the waves. Separate, but still alive. Lost. Not gone.
In the universe answering her need for someone like-minded, Lia meets Blue—a man who swims the frigid Alaskan waters each day. A man who swears he will find her angel and bring her back to land.
When Blue doesn’t return from a swim, the town assumes him drowned, but Lia knows he’s found her girl. She just has to find a way to get to them.
Lia fights against convention, her family, and the people she loves to find a way into the magic world she knows exists just beyond the borders people can see—they just have to let her go.
CHAPTER ONE (UNEDITED)
My father used to joke there’s no problem that time and money can’t fix, but that’s not true. The most important problems can’t be solved by either. My hurt is one created by the forces of the universe and my mind tickling on the edges of answers I cannot grasp. Money can do nothing for this ache. Time? Yet to be seen.
I swirl my feet in the ocean—the sun-drenched dock warming my body as my feet ache from the cold. My toes occasionally slip against the kelp as my right leg spirals and then my left. Right, left, right, left… Elsie and I used to do this together. We’d lean over the dark water as we watched the swirl patterns on the surface sparkle white in the light. I do the same now, the pattern relaxing me into the present as the familiar dead inside of me grows heavier.
Sun prickles heat across my back, the black shirt doing its job. My feet have stopped aching from the cold and are now warming underwater. This is the moment when I need to bring them to the surface, but I can’t stop the swish, swish, swish…The sun has shifted slightly higher in the sky.
Elbows on thighs, gaze fixed on the waving kelp just under the surface. Where my island sits, the current from the tides run fastest right at the midpoint between high and low.
No slips of fins or fingers have touched my feet, so I draw them onto the dock to thaw from the ocean. My skin warms as the wood hits my soles, and I reach to the side to grab my mug.
It’s one that Elsie made. Her small handprint rests on the side, and I match her small palm to my large one and remember sitting on this same dock as my stomach swelled with her tiny body.
The feel of her clay print under my hand doesn’t change. I need her to make me a new one.
My knees curl to my chest as my feet sit more fully on the warming wood. I clutch my mug in both hands now, the spirals of my messy hair touch the edges of my face and glint a pale gold in the sun. The rumble of a boat engine draws too close for casual, so I force my eyes up from the broad undulating strands of seaweed under the surface.
Shem’s bright aluminum boat idles about thirty feet from my dock. “Lee-yuh…” he sing-songs my name.
I peer up.
“You’re not answering your phone!” he yells over the side as the Maria bobs and sways in the waves.
Because I don’t want to. I shrug in response.
“You still game for tomorrow morning?” he asks, the red of his beard like fire in the spring sun. “I gotta check all the safety equipment for my insurance company before I do charters.”
Like last year and the year before and the year before. Since I was sixteen. Since he was twenty-one.
I calculate how long it’s been since I’ve left my island.
Thirteen days ago I took my skiff across the channel to town for a few groceries and to drop off artwork at Layla’s café. Layla had words for my appearance—she usually does. I had words for hers too because we live in a small Alaskan town, and she looked ready to hit the Seattle streets for shopping.
“Cecelia?” Shem’s head is cocked to the side.
Right, he’ll want an answer as people do when they’re conversing with another person. “Yeah. Tomorrow. Check emergency gear before charters start. Got it.”
Even as the words drop, my stomach twists. I don’t want to be away from here for a few hours. What if I miss something?