To Swim Beneath the Earth

To Swim Beneath the Earth

MEGAN KIMSEY, born and raised in a small Colorado town on the edge of the La Plata Mountains, grows up haunted by images. Straddling cryptic glimpses of events that foretell her own future, and events remembered from a past in the highlands of Ecuador and Peru more than 400 years before she was born, she must challenge her Catholic upbringing and the stigma of a mental breakdown following a childhood tragedy, before she can strike out on a quest for meaning. <br /><br />Megan’s story shifts between present tense and flashbacks that recount her nervous breakdown and grief, when, as a teenager, a child she loves freezes to death on the family’s front porch. And later, when her father, the one person who believes her strange visions aren’t hallucinations, dies in a hit-and-run accident. His death and the belated birthday gift he leaves for her, launch her on a quest to face her phantoms and piece together the riddles in her dreams.<br /><br />Megan’s journey leads her to South America and an expedition among the remnants of the Inca Empire, and finally, to a wind-swept outcropping high atop Cotopaxi Mountain in search of the frozen child she sees in her dreams. Accompanied by a team of archeologists and an indigenous woman of wisdom who becomes her mentor and guide, Megan must confront her ghosts and claim her own redemption. <br />