Sol's Solstice

By Leona Windwalker

Due to home instability thanks to their mother's mental illness, Sol and Ben are used to being shuttled between relatives. Sol is used to flying under his family's radar, unless focusing unwanted attention away from his more outgoing, older twin. The day comes when he pays a steep price for attempting to shield his brother when an abusive relative decides to vent his rage and own self-loathing. It means losing Ben, but both boys gain a life without fear. That is, until the day Mama and Daddy manage to track their sons down, wanting to heal their broken family at the urging of their new pastor. Finding himself running for his life after their brand of spiritual counseling bears unwanted fruit, he is nearly run down by a car driven by Seth. Can Seth help Sol find his way back from the darkness? And will he gain Ben back, only to lose himself once more?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Leona Windwalker
• Release date: Oct 28, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005300142

Leona Windwalker

Leona is a long time staunch supporter of human rights and environmental causes. Her favourite genre is m/m fiction and she particularly enjoys the sci fi, fantasy and action suspense subgenres, especially if they have a nice seasoning of romance. She has far too many books on her Kindle, has overloaded her phone with even more, and when not reading, writing, being driven to distraction by her children, or being overlorded by her three cats, spends time trying to locate the portal that the sock monster uses to steal socks from her dryer.

Book preview

Chapter One

Sol shifted in his bunk. He could hear the regular breathing of his twin through the stillness. The crickets had long ceased their chirping, and the only other sound that could be heard was the gentle rustling of the curtain as the occasional breeze made its way through the open screened window along with glimmers from the streetlight outside. The bed creaked as Ben shifted slightly in the top bunk. The bed was nearly as old as his father, and truth be told, some nights Sol feared he would awake with bits of lumber, a mattress, and Ben burying him. But this was not why Sol felt uneasy tonight. Something else had woken him, and he concentrated on the dark stillness to try to decipher what that something could have been.

There--what was that? He strained to hear, body gone tense, willing himself to discover the origin of the slight sound without opening his eyes or turning to look. He wanted to know, but he was very afraid that he already knew what it was. Wanting confirmation that his suspicions were correct, but not wanting to provoke that which was making the sound. A low chuckle, then a voice giving the dreaded confirmation, I know you're awake, boy. No sense tryin' to fool me none. Now, Ben, he's asleep. But you're awake, and I can see that just fine, even in the dark.

Sol stiffened, then forced himself to relax. No sense letting him see he's gotten to me. Creepy bastard, standing there watching us sleep. Best answer him, and maybe he'll go away.

What is it, Shane? he asked softly, turning his head towards the man who stood just inside the closed doorway.

"That's Uncle Shane, to you, boy. I might only be a bit older'n you, but I am your elder and you'll show me respect. As fer what it is, is I wanted to see if y’all were sleepin' like you should. Or if you were doin' bad boy things. Dreamin' what you shouldn't, or mebee touchin' yerself. I know what teenaged boys is like. So, tell me, what was you dreamin' about? And did you say yer prayers all proper like your mama and daddy and granny woulda wanted?"

Shit. Shane was on one of his kicks. From the way he was acting, he must've had more than just the one beer and a toke. Sol tried to calm his racing heart. With Shane in a mood like this, things could go one of two ways. He'd either be easily placated and go back to his couch and smoke some more weed and drink a few more beers until he went to sleep, hopefully without causing a fire, or he'd get aggressive. Sadly, there was no way to know which way things would turn out, as Shane was very unpredictable once he got this way. Sol inwardly cursed his parents for leaving him and Ben with this asshole in their absence.

Yeah, we said our prayers, Uncle Shane, and I don't recall if I was dreaming anything. Maybe I haven't had my dream yet. How about you? Trouble sleeping? Want me to cook a pizza and watch some TV with ya 'til you're ready for bed?

Yes, Uncle Shane, I said my prayers, mimicked Shane, sarcasm adding a dark edge to his voice that left a chill in Sol's bones as Shane's shadow fell across him. "Don't you go mocking me, boy!" The punch was half expected, but it still hurt like hell when it landed. Sol let out an involuntary cry of pain.

What? Sol? Ben startled awake,

"Back to sleep, boy." Sol heard the crack of a backhanded slap as Shane let loose his rage.

The last thing he remembered was shouting, That's enough! as he tackled Shane's legs, then a sharp pain in his skull, then nothing.

Chapter Two

Well, look who's awake! How you feeling, sunshine?

Sol blinked. He didn't recognize the room or the voice. As the owner of the voice came within his line of sight, he realized two things. One, the voice belonged to a nurse, so he must be in a hospital for some reason. Secondly, his head was pounding and his vision refused to focus quite right.

I'm... his voice sounded croaky and his lips and tongue felt sandpapery. He stopped speaking, and he licked his lips, vainly trying to gain some moisture. The nurse reached over to a small, lidded plastic jug in an unattractive shade of yellow seen only in hospitals and similar institutions. Yup, definitely a hospital. Please, God, let there be water already in that jug. So thirsty...

Here you go, she said, pouring water into a clear plastic cup and popping in a bendy straw. The water was lukewarm, but wonderfully wet. Slow down, now, just sip it. He obediently slowed down, then simply held a mouthful of water in his mouth for a moment as if to force his mouth to absorb the water like a sponge. Then he swallowed, and held a smaller mouthful in, removing his lips from the straw and turning them inwards to wet them as best he could.

Ben? he asked, afraid of the answer. If he was in a hospital, something really bad must have happened, and as he didn't see or hear Ben anywhere, he was afraid of what might have happened.

Ben? Don't know a Ben, she replied cheerfully. You came in yesterday by yourself. A doctor will be here in just a little while to have a look at you, and he'll answer your questions. If this Ben is family or was with you, the doctor will likely know where he is or find out for you. She fiddled a bit with what he saw was an IV drip attached to his left arm and to the gently beeping machine that he thought must monitor his vitals, and then left the room.

Shortly thereafter, a frazzled looking older man in a white doctor's coat came in, along with another man he didn't recognize. It was all very surreal, as if it was a strange dream or something happening to someone else. Hit his head on a piece of furniture? Tripped in the dark? Since Daddy was working abroad and couldn't be contacted, and Mama was off making pottery and doing macramé across town while recovering from her latest episode at the local private mental hospital, maybe Ben was still with Shane? Damn Shane, he must have been drunk and/or high again when the ambulance came. Sol struggled to remember. Yes, Shane had been, and he had come into their room and started shit. He told the doctor and the man who turned out to be a police officer what he remembered happening.

They listened grimly, the officer making notes and the doctor shining lights in his eyes and doing other things that Sol wished he'd stop. He was fine, just thirsty, headachy and missing Ben. The officer informed him that Uncle Shane was currently in a cell, having punched an officer when they’d responded to a domestic disturbance call from a neighbor. As a minor, Ben had been picked up from the station by a social worker.

This added to Sol’s distress. The boys had never been apart before, and now Ben was in some strange place without him. He must be so lonely and scared. He needed to get to Ben. Unfortunately, as it turned out, that was not exactly how the system worked. He had a concussion and since he had been unconscious for several hours, his doctor insisted he remain in for observation. Sol was on board with that, his skull feeling as if several jackhammers were going at it all at once. A social worker came to see him let him know she had been assigned Ben and Sol, that Ben was okay, and that they were trying to contact his father.

A few days later, vision clear and headache mostly gone, he was declared fit and ready to be discharged. The social worker he met before turned out to be the person who came to pick him up to take him home. Daddy was unable to return, he’d said. Mama was still in the facility, and Daddy had told them they had no one but Uncle Shane to look after them, so it was Uncle Shane or nobody at all. He wasn't going back home to Shane, which was a relief. He was going to a foster home. His heart ached though, as it also wasn't back home to Ben. The group home was overcrowded and no family would take two teenaged boys at once so Ben was in a different home all the way on the other side of Griffin and probably would go to a different school. They'd finish the few short months until their graduation apart, but Sol was damned if he’d be kept from his brother! He'd find Ben, and then they'd fix it so they'd be back together, somehow. Besides, they'd be eighteen very, very soon, and out of the system then. They could get jobs and an apartment together, maybe go to college even.

Sol sat in the passenger seat of the social worker's car furiously planning what he and Ben could do once they got back together and out of the system, so that at first he failed to notice that the car had stopped in front of a modest clapboard home. It wasn't an up-scale neighborhood, but that came as no surprise. It also wasn't the sort of middle-class neighborhood he was used to finding himself in. They'd moved around a lot, thanks to Daddy's work and Mama's episodes. If a job didn't transfer them first, Mama would have an episode and Daddy would suddenly find a new job, in a new city and possibly even a new state, so they could all get a fresh start somewhere else. But despite all the frequent moves, and even the different types of housing they'd find, they'd always lived in middle-class surroundings.

The street was filled with nearly identical clapboard houses built on top of bricks, with gaping crawl spaces beneath. Some of the homes had scrubby looking grass struggling to grow, others had attempts at landscaping, with shrubs and flowers straggling along. The house they were parked in front of had cheap plastic toys strewn about, the color fading from the once bright plastic. The house was probably once a crisp white, but it was now a dingy peeling mess. A porch swing hung to one side of the covered porch, and its paint was in better condition than that of the house, which somehow made it look worse. The other side of the porch held what appeared to be a chest freezer with a potted plant of some kind sitting on its lid. It was so close to the front door that if you opened the screen door too far, you'd probably smack it.

There was a dirt driveway of sorts. It wasn't paved, but there was a break in the bent chain link fence where a matching driveway gate stood closed and you could see long worn dirt tracks through the scrubby grass where a car regularly drove itself into the yard there. Another, smaller, gate stood in line with the cracked concrete path that ran from the pavement to the porch steps. Altogether, it was a gloomy looking sort of place that more than adequately fulfilled his imagination's conjuring of foster home. Sol’s heart sank at the prospect of staying here, especially without Ben to keep him company. Ben always had good ideas for things to do and he always made friends so easily, friends who readily accepted Sol as part of the package deal.

Here we are, the social worker said. She'd told him her name more than once, but he didn't recall it. He'd be only around a couple of months anyways, so it didn't matter. A couple of months, then he and Ben would be out of here. Mrs. Kincaid is expecting us.

No shit. Like you'd take me anywhere else except to my foster

Reviews for Sol's Solstice

[Dwaler · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

There are a horrendous amount of formatting issues. I don't know whether it's just scribd or the book itself. But it gets worse as the book goes on. Repeating paragraphs. Sentences cut in half that suddenly continue 2 paragraphs further on.

And when I say repeated paragraphs, I'm talking unfinished ones that repeat 4 times with little tidbits in between, until the story goes on afterwards. Every time you try to skip them you miss stuff. And they're so jarring that I honestly forgot half of the events that occurred within the book.

As it is, I do NOT recommend.