Deadly Veils Book One: Shattering Truths

By Kyrian Lyndon

Some truths can be deadly.

Danielle isn’t mopey or filled with teenage angst. Danielle and her cousin were abducted, drugged, and raped. But her cousin doesn’t remember, and her best friend won’t believe her. Now, her predators have returned, stalking her, harassing her at every turn. Nightmares plague her sleep, pushing her to the brink of exhaustion. Isolated, terrified, and grief-stricken, Danielle is paralyzed, unable to face the unmerciful world around her. Can she awaken her spirit and blossom into a woman of defiance and courage before the darkness eclipses her sanity?

Shattering Truths, the first volume in the Deadly Veils series, is a haunting and heartbreaking coming of age story. In the tradition of Judy Blume, and following in the footsteps of Thirteen Reasons Why, author Kyrian Lyndon doesn’t shy away from exploring the darker side of life that every teenage girl fears. Filled with suspense, a heart wrenching emotional journey, and twists that will leave you breathless, Shattering Truths will take hold of you on page one and never let go.

“A dark, alluring and fascinating book about a girl trying to crawl out of the darkness and despair and grow in strength and spirit.” –Books Are Love

“A gripping and emotional story about trauma and abuse...” – Elizabeth Greschner

“...an emotional roller coaster...” –Love Books

“...a startlingly intense look into the lives of the young teens in present day America!” –Deepak Menon

“This book will catch you right in from the start.” –Peggy

“...a powerful story right from the start.” –Joanne Dore

“I can't wait for her next book because now I'm hooked!” –Lori Stanley

“I'm looking forward to reading more from this author.” –Denise Buttino Terrell

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kyrian Lyndon
• Release date: Jan 29, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370461493

Kyrian Lyndon

Kyrian Lyndon is the author of Shattering Truths, the first book in her Deadly Veils series. She has published two poetry collections, A Dark Rose Blooms, and Remnants of Severed Chains, as well as several articles for Rebelle Society and The Voice of Literature e-zines.She is the founder and publisher of Moonlit Dawn Publications and Brave Wings magazine and also the editor-in-chief of Brave Wings. Brave Wings magazine promotes healing and empowerment through the written word. “Its focus,” she says, “is on the human condition—whatever we experience in life that helps us learn, grow, and evolve.”Kyrian has worked in executive-level positions, particularly with major New York publishing companies, including McGraw-Hill Book Company and John Wiley & Son Publishers.She is forthcoming about being a person with many years of recovery, as well as a trauma survivor. Throughout her journeys, she has expressed her thoughts through poetry, embracing every challenge to triumph over adversity. In her conviction that learning, growing, healing, and evolving is a never-ending process, she remains as grateful for the dark days as she is for every flicker of hope and light. Her passion for awareness advocacy and sharing insight motivates her to entertain in ways that provoke, enrich, and inspire.Born and raised in Woodside, Queens, New York, Kyrian was the middle of three daughters born to immigrants—her father from Campochiaro, Italy; her mother from Havana, Cuba.She began writing short stories and fairy tales when she was just eight years old. In her adolescence, she moved on to poetry. At sixteen, while working as an editor for her high school newspaper, she wrote her first novel and then completed two more books at the ages of nineteen and twenty-five.Kyrian has always been passionate about music (all kinds). She loves nineteenth-century British literature, parallel universe fiction, thrillers, horror, and dark romanticism. She is also devoted to fitness which is a must, she says, if you enjoy cooking (and eating) as much as she does.

Book preview

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am forever indebted to you, Jesse, my son, for your input and advice, and for your unrelenting faith and unwavering support. There is no one dearer to me or more inspiring.

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Jimmy, my husband, who left this world too soon, but not without touching the lives of many, or making sure I got to do this thing I love. Above all, we created a very precious soul who continues to make sure of that.

Thank you, Karen Koehler, for your incredible talents, your kindness, and for all your hard work and dedication.

Thank you, David Antrobus, for your excellent work on the previous edition, and also for your patience, your kindness, and your friendship.

I am grateful to you, Michael John Sullivan, for your encouragement and support.

Thank you, Denise, my sister, Christopher, my nephew, and Victoria Smith, my dear friend, for the unconditional love that has survived decades of madness.

Thank you, readers of the world, because the reading statistics are alarming and somewhat depressing. When people pass along the love of reading to their children, they pass along a true gift that will reward them for a lifetime.

I also thank and appreciate every single person that has shown any amount of support, because it means so much more than you realize.

Finally, a world of thanks from the heart goes to my mother for simply believing in me from the time I was just a little girl.

* * *

Dear Reader,

This story, while not for the faint of heart, is about one young woman’s path to healing from trauma.

I believe that until we fully heal from whatever it is we need to recover from, we remain in bondage to something or another and prone to all kinds of obsession. Disentangling from all that is a painful process, and that’s where the path to healing begins.

Though some of the characters in the book allude to a supernatural existence, this is not a paranormal romance or adventure. It depicts the harshness of life’s rude awakenings, and I believe it will resonate not only with women, but also with the men who genuinely love and care about them.

Imagine, for a moment, being able to go anywhere on the earth at any time with absolutely no threat of danger lurking and luxuriating in that comfort of being safe. We felt it as children if we were lucky, and it’s sad to think many of us experience harsh reality and betrayal and then never feel safe again. Yes, that is life—the world we live in—but it’s often a rocky road to recovery.

And why did I commit myself to writing about it?

Let’s start with the assumptions—the one size fits all solutions, the one-size process of healing, and things others decide for us, like how we should behave and react, the determinations regarding what we should be doing.

Many draw conclusions with a lack of understanding and empathy, or attempt to justify what is unjustifiable. Some dole out additional punishment and shame. These reactions often discourage people from disclosing what has happened to them. As a result, recovery can be a much longer process if it happens at all.

That’s all I have to say on the book for now.

Thank you, dear reader, for showing up to read it. Enjoy!

November 30, 2016

Kyrian Lyndon

* * *

CHAPTER ONE

Connecticut, Summer of 1987

There was no blood. I was dead inside, but not bleeding. Zipping my shorts in a daze, I focused on the brown and gold hues of the wall tiles. I washed my hands over the sink, avoiding my reflection. The hexagon-shaped mirror was antique and gilded. I now felt debased in its presence as well as in these familiar surroundings. After turning off the faucet, I stood there for a moment, and then hastened to my room.

The brass bed, dressed in white eyelet sheets and frilly pink bedding, was an update of my choosing. The nativity scene plaque on the wall above it had been there throughout my childhood—Mother Mary in a protective stance over Baby Jesus. I suppose the intention was to comfort and protect me. Still, I lined the bed with stuffed teddy bears and kept a sixteen-inch porcelain doll with golden hair and dark blue eyes on my white dresser. She wore a pink Victorian dress with lace trim and glimmering beads and a hat to match. I picked her up now and held her tightly to my chest. A tear fell as I snuggled her to me for as long as I could. After setting her down, I approached the window.

I could see far from these foothills. A woodlot of mixed forest surrounded our home. In one direction, I saw the Hartford skyline—in another, steep, rolling hills in their divine and blissful glory. My room faced the direction of Old Buckingham, not half a mile away. The ancient cemetery was set back from the road, just beyond a fortress of trees. We heard stories of weeping spirits, distant cries of agony, and diaphanous circles of white light floating above and between the tombstones. I never knew whether people convinced themselves of these things or merely embellished the truth. One thing I knew did happen: Fierce hurricane winds had nearly destroyed the little church on its grounds.

Much as I loved this house, it was an eerie place to grow up. That had little to do with ghost stories. I would lie awake in my bed at night, listening to the sounds of darkness—imagining that the hoarse caw of the crows warned of impending doom. I got this sense of urgency from yapping dogs, yelping coyotes, and the ear-piercing whistles of the woodchucks. Some nights, even the benign chirping of crickets grew louder and more intense with each moment.

I prayed, always.

Watching from the window now, I felt like some reclusive old person who got all the neighbors whispering. I watched for a dusty black Cutlass Supreme, needing to make certain it was nowhere in sight.

The phone rang, and I panicked. My father had mounted it to the wall between my room and the master bedroom, so I had to leave the room to answer it.

Hello, Danielle, the voice cooed.

Sickened to my core, I hung up.

It rang again, the innocuous ivory phone that seemed suddenly possessed. I wanted to rip it off the wall.

I lifted the receiver.

Don’t hang up. It was the other guy.

Stop calling here! I ended the call with a slam.

They had the gall to utter my name! They sounded so casual, so elated—as if the atrocity I had endured earlier that day had been mutually rewarding. Granted, it could have been worse, and yet a part of me had died. More unsettling still, they knew where to find me.

* * *

CHAPTER TWO

It might have been a glorious beach day.

Horned larks looked happy among the plum and bayberry shrubs, yellow sunflowers, and purple roses. The blue waters of the Long Island Sound were as beguiling as the landscape. Young men were perched on railings that glistened under the glare of the sun—ogling, whistling, and confessing their undying love. I witnessed this phenomenon whenever I walked to and from the bus stop in my school uniform, and came to realize I could easily disrupt traffic and possibly cause a collision.

I had never achieved a placid familiarity with the horn-honking and people clamoring for my attention. I had spent many years feeling like the ugly duckling muddling haplessly through the dark green marsh. If I had advanced from there at all, it was to become the tiniest winged critter, never able to keep up with the flock, and never certain I wanted to.

My metamorphosis was magical. I had the same golden brown hair—by then almost waist length—the same hazel eyes, coveted high cheekbones, enviable skin, and ravishing lips as before, but it had all become relevant! I believed I had willed and constructed this change. More accurately, I’d grown into my beauty, and my painstaking efforts to straighten my thick, wavy tresses made no difference. People looked mostly at my chest. I was a busty girl of five-foot-four who kept herself trim and toned with exercise.

Pain hindered my walking that day.

We should rent a summer beach house here—or a cabin, Farran said. You met those two older guys here the other day, didn’t you? The ones you made a date with?

Yeah, one of them was thirty, my cousin Angie chimed in. The other guy was twenty-nine. Her angelic voice was a touch above a whisper.

Well, they knew you were both sixteen, didn’t they?

Yes, they knew, I replied.

Mental images intruded—gold crucifix chains upon masculine chests. I had noticed those chains from the moment the men approached us on the beach. Perhaps I had an ingrained trust in that sacred symbol. I shouldn’t have. People wore things for different reasons. We adorned our arms with plastic jelly bracelets in neon colors because Madonna wore them, and she was the most fussed-about pop star. She also wore crucifix chains, which Angie and I had displayed with devotion since childhood.

We spread out our blankets in the middle of the beach. All eyes were on me when I stripped down to my halter-style swim top. In light of the ensuing commotion, I decided to keep the shorts on.

With you around, I get no respect for my B-cup, Farran complained. I saw the twinkle in her electric blue eyes when she smiled. Her high-cut one-piece elongated her pretty legs and flattered her figure. She was taller than me, with a nice head of light brown, shoulder-length hair that she often wore in a ponytail or chignon.

What about me? I have nothing, Angie lamented. She left her shorts on as well, with a skimpy bandeau top.

Angie and I had grown up together in Glastonbury. We’d been in the same classes since kindergarten. In a couple of weeks, we’d be seniors at the same high school. She was an inch shorter than I was, and always in sneakers, jellies, or flip-flops. Her dark hair was past shoulder length, framing a heart-shaped face and prominent brown eyes.

All three of us wanted admiration and, yes, adoration—from males, especially. When it became uncomfortable, I figured I wasn’t used to it. At the same time, I preferred being uncomfortable to being ridiculed and shamed.

I don’t recall which of the two men that day had asked what country I was from, insisting he detected a trace of European, and possibly Latin, in my New England accent. This extravagant attention to every detail did more than flatter me—I felt like it validated my existence. I’m certain I had blushed when I assured him I was a Connecticut native from Glastonbury.

The whole thing was a nightmare, I blurted out, as if Farran and Angie had been following my thoughts.

A nightmare! Why? Farran looked at Angie, probably to gauge her reaction. "Wait, I thought it was a date you all went on yesterday? I mean, you were both there, right? Angie said she liked the guy."

Yes, Angie had liked Phil, the muscular, tattooed one with the mustache and short blond curls. When she’d unexpectedly begun kissing him, I had wanted to pull her away and shout, What the hell has gotten into you? She had always been painfully shy, but while surrendering to Phil’s embrace, there were moans coming out of that girl that she would not likely have emitted in private, let alone in a room with three other people.

I remembered how horrified we’d both been in seventh grade when a group of boys from our class began following girls to the bus stop. They would wait for an opportunity to grab a girl, and then pull her into the bushes or woods. They did whatever they could get away with before she broke free. Angie and I had had to walk, sometimes run, in a different direction, and wait until they were gone before we could return to our bus stop. They never caught us. When I told my brothers, they made it stop.

Angie and I had clung to our perception of that sacrosanct bequest—being saved for the right person. Our parents had never talked to us about defiled reputations or unwanted pregnancies, but in school, there were proclamations that only bad girls welcomed attention from boys. I didn’t think Angie had intended to go beyond kissing, but these men could not have known that. She had this tranquilizing humility, and though she kept her composure now, I could see a trace of fear in her large, haunted eyes. Could Farran not see it, or was I wrong about that, too?

It was supposed to be a date, just to Pleasure Beach, I explained. We sat on the blanket. I used some of Angie’s lotion on my already bronzed skin.

Farran applied sunblock. Pleasure Beach … my parents used to go there back in the fifties.

Things came to me in shadowy flashes. Phil had carried Angie away, and I was alone with the other guy. Sergio was his name. Though I did think he was cute with his close-cropped brown hair, brown eyes, and pencil-thin mustache, I was not attracted to him. I had felt dizzy trying to stand. The room spun, and I fell back on the sofa with only a blurred impression of the room. Sergio’s voice sounded like it was a distance away. I couldn’t see his face.

They told us they’d forgotten their camera and wanted to stop and get it, since it wasn’t far, I explained. It might have been one of the beach cottages on Long Beach West. I had to fight them …

Yet I remembered them driving us home. Angie was in the front seat, talking to Phil, who was driving. She appeared to be okay. Sergio was in the back with me. I had slept most of the time, with my head resting on his shoulder. We’d gone over that rickety bridge.

Come on, Dani! Farran’s smile was ingenuous. Sounds like you had some wild experience that maybe got out of control, and you’re feeling guilty. You shouldn’t. Guys would be celebrating! I mean, you can’t take it back. It sounds like that’s what you’re trying to do. Maybe it’s time you grew up. I’m serious! Don’t be such a baby! She laughed.

Farran was generous with smiles and laughter, right down to the wrinkling of her nose and an occasional wink. I imagined those eyes would shine until her dying day, and she would forever be as lovable and sweet as she was. I adored her. With her self-deprecating humor, people liked her in an instant. I expected boys to be falling all over her. What I didn’t understand was their interest in me. My assets were merely the luck of the draw.

It was horrible, I insisted. I thought about going to the police.

She looked dumbfounded, and that solidified for me the idea that going to the police would be futile.

I looked to Angie, and she didn’t avert her eyes. Those dark pools were now an ocean, with depths I couldn’t fathom. I saw her concern for me. Farran seemed to latch onto how Angie hadn’t confirmed any of it, but she ignored that Angie never denied it. Still, I backed down. My sense of reality had been undermined, but I didn’t doubt what I’d recalled, not for a moment.

Farran grabbed her radio, reminding me of how she and I would sing at the beach. When she turned up the volume, I looked away.

I thought about my family.

My dad had liked this beach when we were kids. It was Hammonasset in Madison, a two-mile stretch from Tom Creek on the western end to the Hammonasset River and Clinton Harbor on the east. He used to take us to West Beach. We were on East Beach now, which we preferred. It was quieter, with fewer kids.

The waves were no more than one or two feet, and I liked the gentle breeze. I loved watching the birds—osprey, piping plovers, sandpipers, willets, snowy egrets, and all the amazing herons. Birds resonated with me.

Innocent singing on the beach was a pleasant memory, as were family days when we searched for shells and copper scraps, marveling at starfish. Joey liked big-clawed hermit crabs and breaking rocks on the pier to find garnets. Uncle Dom usually brought a kite to fly—Angie’s favorite thing. Joey and Robbie played Frisbee. There were coolers with food and drinks. When the adults had had enough sun, we packed up and moved over to a picnic table in the shade. We could spend hours at the beach and still not want to go home—until Robbie had about had it with the stinging black flies that came up from the marshes. By his reaction, you would have thought they targeted him alone.

Are you okay, Dani? Angie was searching my eyes.

She’s fine, Farran assured her.

I held back tears. "They keep calling me. They called me five times when I got back from the so-called date and a few more times this morning."

"Well, tell ‘em to call me," Farran quipped.

"I don’t want them calling!"

Dani? Angie called out.

I’m okay. I didn’t know what else to say.

Her wide-stretched lips eased into a smile, endearing her to me, as always.

Farran, however, was off on another tangent. Hey, we’re not far from Marauders Cove. It’s about twenty minutes from here. Isn’t that where your brother, Joey, hangs out? And doesn’t he live only two blocks from there?

He hangs out with bikers, I reminded her.

I know. She beamed.

Besides, you have to be twenty-one.

Well, Joey’s not twenty-one.

"He will be in a couple of months."

She waved if off, flashing an ear-to-ear grin. Danielle, Marauders Cove is an old-fashioned pub owned by the McGrath family. I practically grew up with them.

Yes, and the McGrath family included Mike McGrath, my first and only love—someone I had always been able to trust. The mention of his name now evoked a twinge of melancholia that fanned the flames of my anguish.

I’m sure your brother will be looking after you anyway, and so will his friends, she went on. I can get us phony proof. Hey, I’m starting college in the fall! It’s a rite of passage!

This behavior was typical of Farran. She thought nothing of suggesting we hitchhike to the beach if we didn’t have a ride. Thankfully, a neighbor of hers had given us a ride that day. The plan was to meet up with the woman by three-thirty at Joshua Rock, just to the east of the park entrance.

I’m not sure we should be barhopping, I said.

Oh, please. She lit a cigarette, took a long drag, and exhaled. You are always so uptight, Dani. You have to live a little.

I wanted to address the absurdity of that second statement, but I didn’t know where to begin.

School starts in a couple of weeks. It’s probably our last beach day. We gotta do something for excitement—like meet up with people. Maybe if I were a total knockout, I could sit home and wait for them to beat down my door, but that ain’t gonna happen. She laughed. Hey, I’m surprised you didn’t bring one of your car magazines. Still looking for a Nissan? She was making nice, I could see, piling on the sugar.

Yeah. I’m hoping by my birthday I will finally pass the road test.

Third time’s the charm, right?

Angie laughed, a gentle laughter, but I saw the change in her. She looked more fragile to me.

* * *

CHAPTER THREE

Our house was an antique colonial nestled in the hills—all muted gray and charcoal, even the brickwork. It was a marvel of rusticated stonework. We had a spacious garden, a well on our expansive lawn, and a private wooded lot. The steep staircase had the look of stone and slate, and only those of us under the age of twenty-one managed to hear the bell by the arched gray door. My grandmother would embroider pillows for the seat of the wrought iron bench on the porch, where she liked to sit. She would cut flowers from the perennial gardens and arrange them in vases on the windowsill.

"Tsk, I heard now. Get away from the window."

I turned as my mother approached. There was no need to ask whether her concern was about me putting smudges on the glass or what the neighbors might think. I’m sure it was both, although I couldn’t imagine what she thought the neighbors would think: A girl is looking out the window—oh, no! Something is not right in that house. Surely, her mother is to blame.

Friends told us she had an exotic accent—northeast Brazilian; I’d suppose—but we didn’t hear it any more than we heard our father’s Italian accent.

I relinquished my hold on the drapery and turned from the window. You look nice.

She did, indeed. No one would believe the woman was forty. Nor, in my estimation, could anyone sufficiently praise her beauty. Her dark chocolate hair reached her shoulders. Long mascara-laden lashes enhanced her dark eyes. I noted the familiar beauty mark next to her round, pouty lips, the red lipstick, and the hint of blush on her fair skin. The dainty summer dress she was wearing for another day of work at my Aunt Zuza’s dress shop complemented her well-proportioned figure. Pearls glistened around her neck, and tiny diamonds sparkled from the bracelet on her wrist. She had elevated her five-foot frame with high heel sandals.

It was hard to fathom that this delicate creature was the same woman who became enraged during her Saturday cleaning, as I had witnessed throughout my childhood. She would go on and on about these people.

All these people do is make a mess. These people don’t give a damn about nobody.

Like she was referring to people we didn’t know, or who weren’t there, and she hated these people.

The anger seemed to consume her. She would say she wished she’d never had kids, and that we had ruined her life.

I thought I should help at the time, but the energy flowing around us had an incapacitating effect. We sat on the couch, watching cartoons and movies, while she cleaned around us like a robotic toy gone mad.

Back then, she frightened me. Not that she harmed anyone physically. Aside from tossing her tiny slippers at us from a distance, she merely scolded or resigned us to sitting in separate corners of the dining room.

She grilled me now. What are you going to do? It’s a beautiful day. You should go out, take a walk somewhere. What a paradox she was—loving one minute, and then preoccupied and oblivious the next. I didn’t feel as connected to her as I once had.

Maybe later, I said. I’m just going to write.

She smiled, and, of course, to me, there was nothing in the world prettier than or as gracious as my mother’s dimpled smile. It soothed me now, and then she was gone.

I went upstairs to my room. My father had recently furnished it with an old wooden desk and a six-foot-tall bookcase to accommodate my collection of books. When I was eight, he bought me a journal to write in. Five years later, he’d allowed me to take a home correspondence course for writing. We bought a series of books, which I read cover to cover. Now he seemed to think I was wasting my time.

It made little difference that I’d completed a novel, or that I had gone ahead and contacted a literary agent. Given a rare opportunity, I traveled to Westport, hours on the bus with my five-hundred-page manuscript bound in a three-ring binder, holding it close to my heart, as if it were everything in the world I owned and as precious as a child from my womb. I was excited, full of confidence. The agent I had spoken with on the phone seemed eager to introduce me to her colleagues, all of whom were in awe. They must have thought it was cute, me traveling all that way, novel in hand—a novel about everything I had witnessed in my sixteen years of existence. They saw my passion and hope and wanted only to do right by me. I thought we needed people like that in the world, and happily left that copy of my book with them.

While awaiting their response, I dusted and polished my office furniture daily with a pitiful Cinderella kind of hope. The bookcase, like the desk, was solid wood with a mahogany finish, and displayed volumes of classic literature, poetry, and philosophy books, as well as books on writing. More recently, I’d begun collecting books on astrology, occult history, and witchcraft, in part due to my thirst for knowledge and my boundless curiosity. Perhaps I needed to believe, as many do, that there were other miraculous realms beyond our comprehension providing infinite hope, and that anything was possible. I needed to believe that now more than ever.

Anyway, I was alone—something I’d come to dislike intensely, despite my tendency to isolate myself. Working at my desk, every noise distracted me, compelling me to rise and investigate. I don’t know if I expected the two men who’d been circling my house or some unknown intruder, but I was afraid. That fear had to coexist unnaturally with my passion and drive, which it did, right up until I heard the vigorous thunder of a motorcycle. Certain it was Joey, I went downstairs and ventured out the door.

He was in the driveway, perched on his black Harley, wearing no helmet. The sun was blinding after a day of symbolically dark isolation, and I struggled to transition from my fictional world to reality.

I knew why Joey had foregone the helmet. He used