Chapter 1 #2
The wheel jerks right out of my hand and I slam my arm across the seat, trapping Lark against the worn leather cushions.
The tires spin, and with it, my pulse jumps into my throat.
My little bug spins out of control. I can’t even scream as the car slides onto the side of the road and right into a ditch.
I don’t know how many times we mimicked an ice skater before we stopped, but I’m thankful the car now sits motionless.
My bug faces the giant moose, who I swear stares at us as though we are mere pests bothering him on his afternoon stroll.
He peers at me from fifty feet away, his head slowly lowering as he watches us.
Heart thundering in my throat, I find my voice. “You good?” I can’t remove my eyes from the road, or rather the very large, scary moose.
“I’m good.” I hate hearing the slight hitch in her voice.
Dragging my eyes away from the moose, I scan Lark from head to toe, taking in her insanely curly red hair that frames her pale freckled face, her large brown eyes, and her jeans and simple green sweater.
Everything looks as it should be. There’s not a hair out of place or a single cut, scrape, bruise, or broken bone.
Instant relief rushes through me, and with it, an adrenaline crash that I know only massive amounts of caffeine will counteract—or a good sixteen hours of sleep. Few things are more terrifying than the threat against a child, especially when that child belongs to you.
“This is the strangest moment in my entire life,” I murmur as I peer out of the windshield at the gigantic moose with more attitude than my grandma had.
“This is what you label the strangest moment of your life?” I glance at Lark and the incredulous look on her face, and she shrugs with indifference.
“There’s a creature I didn’t know existed staring me down in the middle of the road.”
“What do you mean you didn’t know it existed?” Lark blows out a heavy breath, shifting the frizzy red curls from her face.
“I mean, look at it!” I wave my hands frantically in front of me. “It’s one thing to see and hear about them on the little talking smart device, but an entirely different thing to see it staring you down.”
“It’s not a mythical creature.”
“It may as well be,” I grumble just as the engine lets out a low hiss. The car rumbles and dies. “What are the odds it’ll turn on?”
“Ten percent.”
“So a good chance?”
“No, Mom, those are not good odds at all.”
Regardless, I turn the key in the ignition and listen as the car starts with a volatile rumble. Preening, I give Lark a smile of triumph.
Then it sputters and dies all over again.
My little spawn smiles right back at me, mouthing, “Ten percent.” There are times when I wonder just where I fit into her DNA, and then there are moments like this, where she has snarky little zingers, and all I can do is grin with pride.
There I am.
“Now what?”
“You have a cell phone,” Lark reminds me.
“Ah.” The moose stares on as I fumble around in the car for my cell phone. “Where’d I put it?”
“Mom.” Lark points to the dash, where my cell phone sits in the little claws that hold it in place.
I rip it off the doodad and open up the app to make calls. “Oh no.” We crashed in a dead zone. Not one bar winks up at me from the corner of the phone.
“That won’t work for me, Mom.” Lark snatches the phone from my hand, her preteen self knowing how to work the darn thing far better than I do. “Oh no.”
“Yep,” I agree. “What did the last sign say? How many miles to the next town?”
Lark throws the phone back at me, reaching for the console, where a map rests. “Aren’t you glad I grabbed a map at the last rest stop?”
“No sense of adventure in that.” I point at the map. “It lies.”
“A map does not lie, Mom.” Her little fingers hover over the state as she frowns. “Mom.”
“Yes.” I tap the steering wheel as I continue my staring contest with the moose. I think I’m winning.
“See that mountain?” Lark points at the pretty snow capped mountain ahead.
“Skiing.”
“Mom. That mountain should be to the left of us.” She tosses the map to the ground, mumbling under her breath. “I don’t know where we are! You must have taken a wrong turn.”
“That’s entirely plausible.” In a conspiratorial whisper, I say, “Everything turned white from the sky diarrhea, and I can’t tell which way is up or down.”
“We could die out here!”
“Nonsense.” I unbuckle myself, wincing at the seatbelt bruise blooming across my chest. “If I go out there, will that thing kill me?”
“Do you want the probability?”
“Give it to me straight, kiddo.”
“It seems you’ve come across her territory, and she might attack you.”
“Might?” I squint at the moose. Can I outrun it? To the next town? I laugh to myself. No, no, I cannot.
“It seems she is standing there to see what you do.”
“There’s no way moose are that intelligent.”
“Do you really want to challenge a seven-hundred-pound beast?”
“I’m thinking about it.”
“It will eventually go away.”
I begin tapping nervously on the steering wheel as the sun begins a fast race toward the horizon. Despite my amusement, I know we don’t have a lot of time before the temperature drops. One way or another, I’m going to have to find a town and get us to safety.
“I see headlights,” Lark states, unclipping her seatbelt.
Sure enough, a mile away, two shiny lights flicker, drawing the beast’s attention away from us. The moose begins a slow amble across the road and back into the forest beyond.
“Stay here.” I crack open my door, and my achy body makes all kinds of noise as I push out of my busted up bug. A foot of snow swallows my feet as I trudge through the ditch.
“Mom, the door!” It’s all the warning I get before Cooper, our skunk, launches himself out of the car and darts toward the moose, hissing and chirping at him.
“No!” I shout as this moment turns into a train wreck.
The car in the distance flashes its headlights. It’s going to hit Cooper, who’s trying to protect his humans from the big scary moose.
I dive for Cooper as the headlights swerve and tires squeal. There is ice everywhere, and the truck slides to the right just as my body covers Cooper, who chatters happily in my hair.
I swear I lose consciousness as the truck almost hits me and stops a few feet away, spraying me in a fine layer of snow.
I thought the experts said I’d see my life flash before my eyes, not a layer of white. At least the moose left, taking the threat of a seven-hundred-pound beast squishing us with her—not that getting run over is much different.
A car door slams, and our savior jumps down onto the snowy road.
“Lady, did you want to die today?” comes a rumbling voice of unrestrained anger.
All I can do is laugh.