Wonderland (Silent Springs #1)

Chapter 1

“Did I chip away at an egg on my birthday?” The sweet, angelic voice of my preteen daughter wraps around me like a warm shawl on a cold, snowy winter day.

All of that warmth comes to a screeching halt, however, when I realize what she just asked. Not that I hadn’t prepared myself for this day, but I didn’t think about how that conversation would begin.

Perhaps with, Mom, where do babies come from? Or even, What does kissing lead to?

Not, Did I chip away at an egg on my birthday?

If we bring in the technical side of things, I could absolutely tell her that yes, in a way, long ago on a planet far, far away, she did indeed swim until her little tadpole-like body slammed into said egg, and she chewed her way in there and then split herself over and over again until she became the beautiful little creature I grew.

Breathe.

Like I said, there really is no preparing for this day.

It’s just unfortunate that it happens to occur as we are driving north toward a new beginning and my baby brother.

Therefore, I couldn’t possibly be more distracted than I am right at this moment, as snowflakes splatter into chubby little pancakes on my windshield.

Lark clears her throat, making sure I know I can’t run from this question. I wouldn’t, not really, except it’s me, and I live by the hot mess mom code.

“Lark, my sweet little crotch goblin, are you trying to ask me if you hatched from an egg? Like a dragon?” I squint at the road ahead, watching for black ice. The farther north we go, the more treacherous it becomes, and I am not a fan.

I love snow just as much as the next person—when I’m not driving. Not to mention, it’s November and it only snows in January…or so I thought.

“Yes, Mom, like a dinosaur.” Dumfounded, I glance over at her for all of one-point-five seconds, just long enough to take my eyes off the road and make sure she knows I’m focused on this conversation.

What I see are her curious big brown eyes with more intelligence in them than any twelve-year-old should have.

“You know dinosaurs only exist in Iceland, right?” Sue me, I love a tall tale.

Her sigh, accompanied by an eye roll I feel more than see, releases all the frustration she’s holding in. She carries on as though my word vomit doesn’t faze her. And why should it? She’s been dealing with me for a solid twelve years.

“Chickens, Mom. Chickens are descendants of dinosaurs and they lay eggs.” Her exasperated voice holds the same slight twinge of amusement as mine, and I place a little notch next to my name in my head.

Mom one. Lark zero.

She’s my clone.

“That explains everything,” I reply.

“No, all chickens are vile little creatures, Mom.”

I snort. “Lark, we’ve lived in a city for the last decade. When did you come across a single chicken?” I shake my head, and with it, the steering wheel.

Focus, Wren, focus. Dangerous roads deserve your full attention.

I’m only going twenty miles an hour, and I have the feeling I’ll have to find a Bates Motel sooner rather than later. Best-case scenario, a little bed-and-breakfast where the coffee is hot and the pastries are warm.

“I have. There was a field trip last year to the farm show, and I saw many chickens and they were laying eggs. Not to mention the farmers who were in there with them. They didn’t get pecked once.” Her huff of annoyance tells me I need to focus a little harder on this conversation.

“Was that the field trip where the cows gave birth?” I shudder. That’s a scene I can never unsee, and believe me, I want to unsee that.

“Yes, you would have seen the chicks if it weren’t for your addiction to caffeine.”

“When the coffee god calls, you answer.”

“If by answer you mean run to the nearest café and thank the disturbed barista while kneeling on the ground, then yes.” Why does she always sound like she’s about to turn forty? Not only that, but it was one time, and it was an emergency. My coffee pot died.

“Tomayto—”

“Mom, this is not a tomayto, tomahto moment.”

“It’s always a potayto, potahto moment.” I smile at myself. “Fries.”

“Could you just answer the question?”

“Which question are we talking about here?”

“Am I a hatchling?”

“After thirty-two hours of labor, my little hatchling, I pushed you out, exhausted and running on Toaster Strudels from two days before because those vile nurses wouldn’t feed me.” Ice chips, they thought ice chips would satisfy me.

She hums under her breath in satisfaction. My little spawn is just like me in so many ways, and in so many ways, we are two entirely different people.

“What brought this on?” Darn my curiosity. If I were a cat, I’d have died a dozen times by now, thus eliminating my contractual nine lives. I’d have had to barter with another cat for extra lives.

“Before we left the city, Jessica told me that there is no way I’m a real girl and that I crawled from an egg.” I glance over at her for that one-point-five seconds and watch her perfect button nose wrinkle in distaste.

I could tell her that this Jessica is just jealous, but she wouldn’t buy it. My sweet Lark has the analytical mind of Rain Man, so she’d see right through the white lie anyway.

“Jessica probably failed a class, and seeing that the principal just offered you the chance to skip a grade—”

I fail. That is complete and utter jealousy.

“I’m not sure,” she ponders, her inquisitive little mind whirring. “Jessica only failed that class because they caught her kissing Bobby in the bathroom, and she was so embarrassed that she refused to come back to school for a week.”

Now this is the part where I should insert some kind of motivational speech.

It could be about waiting for that perfect kiss, the kind that makes your leg pop up like a faulty spring.

Or about how as preteens jumping into those vital teen years, their hormones are going to run the equivalent of an Olympic sprint and keep on going.

Let’s get one thing straight—I am not that kind of mom.

I know Jessica’s mom, the crunchy kind where her kid does no wrong.

There’s one in every classroom. The PTO president who never sleeps and always looks so put together, you can’t help but wonder, How?

She arranges every single bake sale, and she always stares me down when I show up with my store-bought mini cupcakes.

She didn’t like my argument when I told her to name one person who didn’t like those cupcakes.

She couldn’t.

But more than that, she named her daughter after herself. I mean, come on, who does that? And then she called herself Jessie and her daughter Jessica. It creeped me out.

So of course me, being the hot mess mom who can’t do the whole motivational speech, I reply, “Family tradition.”

“Mom!”

“Am I wrong?” I might be, but I’ve got a hunch.

Her grunt of annoyance is all I need to feel validated. “Can we talk about something else?” she asks, dropping the hatchling conversation.

“What’s on your mind, little bird?” I squint out the windshield, seeing the mountains in the distance. The area truly is beautiful, and a part of me hopes I can find a home there. My brother loves Maine, and since he is all we have left, the choice was simple after Eric died.

“Why are we moving?” A pang sparks my heart at the hurt in her little voice.

It’s a question she’s asked me a hundred times, and a hundred times, all I could tell her was that I had to.

The truth of the matter is I couldn’t stay in the city with the reminders around every corner, the service men smiling at me in that pitiful way, or the grocer giving me that look that spoke volumes.

I couldn’t take the looks. The pain. The reminders. There was nothing left for us there. No family, not even Eric’s family, lived there. It was a place we found on our own and made it ours.

Eric wasn’t even Lark’s father, just my partner in crime.

He was my best friend who became my roommate and my platonic life partner.

He felt natural, and right, and everything that a friendship should be.

He was there for Lark and me when we had no one, and then he became our everything.

Our friendship reminded me of a fairy tale.

Then, one day, he went to work and never came home. I knew when he became a cop that the possibility was always there. I just never expected it to happen to us.

Our life was perfect, full of love and laughter, and all of it was snatched away because of a senseless crime.

Sure, it’s been two years, so this move was due, but he will always hold a piece of my heart that I will never get back.

Then there is Lark’s biological father. Just the thought of him has me tapping my thumb on my steering wheel. I was pregnant at sixteen and a single mom at seventeen.

I was far too stubborn to give up high school, and my grandma supported my brother and me the whole time. Until her dying day, she pushed us to do more, to be more. We did, and we survived.

So why are we moving?

“I heard skiing is fun.” There’s no way I’m telling my very analytical preteen any of those thoughts.

“You don’t fool me, Mom. I hear you talking to Uncle Robin.” What did I say? She can see right through me.

“It’s an adventure. Think of all the coffee shops we can find.” Maybe I should have purchased a recreational vehicle and traveled the United States in search of the very best coffee shop. That sounds like the best idea I’ve had in a long time, if I’m being honest with myself.

“What’s that?” Lark asks.

“What’s what?”

“That!” Lark points out the windshield.

“There’s nothing there.”

“Mom!” she screeches.

In the back, I hear Cooper, our pet skunk, chirp, but that isn’t what has me slamming on the brakes. Oh no, it’s the moose casually strolling across the road.

Bad idea. Very, very bad idea.

Black ice.