When Octavia Winston was 15 years old, she and her mother were in a terrible car accident that left Octavia without her memory, and her mother confined to a wheelchair, unable to talk. She dreams of a house on the edge of a cliff, a house was filled with love and secrets. But the more she tries to remember, the more things seemed to slip away.
Ten years later, her mother dies, and the truth begins to come out, starting with the house on the cliff, a house that used to belong to her grandfather and now belongs to Octavia. Secrets upon secrets are revealed, including the secret of the shadowy figure from her dreams, Tiamat, the boy she once made a pledge of eternal love to. But with the secrets comes danger. Someone is trying to kill Octavia and Tiamat, the Guardian of the Sea, is the only one who can keep her safe.
When I opened the document for this novel I got the distinct feeling I already posted the beginning of this story. I couldn’t find it in my archive, but I couldn’t shake the feeling so I decided to use a scene a little further on.
This takes place shortly after the death of Octavia’s mother. She has just learned she inherited a house on the coast from her grandfather, and her control freak father had been keeping this information from her. She also overheard her father and her fiancé, Roger, saying a few unflattering things about her. Her father has gone away on business, giving her some breathing room.
Octavia sipped her coffee absently, dark blue eyes riveted on the raging lake in front of her. The wind buffeted her Chevy Cavalier but she seemed oblivious to it. The water surged against the shore, splashing the windshield of her car and that of the three other cars that were parked beside her on the pier.
Stormy weather often found her parked on the pier. The angry lake drew her like a magnet. Something about the violence of the waves, something familiar, comforting. It was also one of her favorite places to think, to work things out in her mind. There was a lot she needed to work out in her mind before she went home to Roger.
The raging water was mesmerizing. Suddenly there was a flash, a sliver of memory. In her mind she could hear her Grandfather’s voice. “Next summer when you come to visit, I judge you’ll be ready to learn the most important secret the sea has to offer.”
Shaken, Octavia placed the takeout cup into the cup holder. Her grandfather hadn’t lived long enough to show her that secret. But just before he died he mentioned it again, as had her mother. A family secret, something to do with the sea….
More flashes of memory came. Her mother and father arguing, something to do with a secret. And another, her father questioning her about her grandfather when her mother wasn’t around to stop him. She clenched the steering wheel in frustration.
Every doctor she’d consulted told her the same thing. There was nothing physical impeding her memory. The trauma of the accident ten years ago was causing her subconscious to block her memory. But there was more to it than that. She knew it in her gut.
Octavia came to an abrupt decision. Gravel spun under the wheels of the car as she put it in reverse and headed for home. She was in luck, Roger’s car wasn’t in the driveway. Quickly, she packed an overnight case and left Roger a brief note explaining she’d be out of town for several days.
She flipped open her cell phone and pressed number one on the speed dial.
“Vanessa? Remember how you’re always saying we should get out of the city and visit the countryside? What are you doing for the next couple of days?”
A weight seemed to lift from her spirit as she pointed her car towards the coast and started driving.
When her cell phone began to beep insistently at her, Octavia’s grip tightened on the steering wheel as she sped through the twilight. She glanced at where it lay on the passenger seat, then quickly concentrated on the road in front of her again. It might be her father, but more likely it was Roger – the same person who’d been calling for the last fifty miles.
She didn’t want to talk to either of them right now, they’d only try to talk her into coming home, or worse, they’d insist on coming with her. She didn’t want to see either of them and after what she’d overheard she definitely didn’t want them knowing where she was headed.
The beeping stopped and she breathed a sigh of relief. She couldn’t blame them really, she was never this impulsive, this independent. Good old biddable Octavia.
“Biddable!” she snorted.
Consulting a map, she turned off the highway onto a narrow road that wound its way towards the coast. This is where her grandfather’s property started, he had held title to almost the entire peninsula. He left a considerable portion of it to the wildlife conservation society to use as a sanctuary, but the rest of it, including the large house on a cliff, belonged to her. She still had trouble believing it.
She drove for twenty minutes through the dense forest broken up by out-croppings of sandstone. Then the trees began to thin and the landscape flattened out into a plateau. In the distance, drawing closer, was a large stone and timber house with a lighthouse like tower.
The road petered out about a hundred yards from the house. A red sports car was parked off to the side and at the sound of Octavia’s car the figure standing at the cliff side turned. She was backlit by the setting sun, but there was no doubt in Octavia's mind who it was.
Vanessa's bright red hair flamed even brighter than usual and she tucked a strand behind her ear as she picked her way over to where Octavia parked. Octavia always thought her friend looked more like a photographer’s model than the photographer she was; today was no different.
“Well, I must admit. I doubt you can get much further away from the city than this.”
“I'm so glad you were able to make it, Vanessa,” Octavia said, getting out of her car.
“So, let me guess. You’ve decided to give up accounting and write that novel you’ve always talked about. It’s going to be a gothic horror and this is the setting.”
Octavia smiled. “Have you been waiting long?”
“Bout fifteen minutes or so. Wanna tell me what we’re doing here? What is this place?”
Looking up at the house, Octavia felt like her mind had been wrapped in a fog and it was slowly lifting away. The seasoned timbers, the stone, the smell of the sea in the air. They were all so familiar to her she wondered how she had ever forgotten. “Remember that dream I told you about, the recurring one about the house on the coast?”
Vanessa nodded.
“This is it. This is the house.”
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