ONE
I’ve always thought that once upon a time should really come with some sort of warning label, but never has that felt more true than today. My sweaty hands white-knuckle the steering wheel. I would go faster, but this road scares the hell out of me, so I have a strict policy of never taking it at more than eight miles an hour. Hugging my prehistoric Chevy Spark to the craggy cliff face, I inch past a sign on the side of the road, gnawed away to near invisibility by the creeping vegetation, rampant in a way that doesn’t quite seem natural.
whisperwood park
2 miles ahead
It’s unnecessary. The only thing on this road is the amusement park.
Elongated belts of rock glare down at me as leftover winter fog drifts in patches across the road. Night quickly creeps in through the newly budding woods. My radio is tuned to a special program where B-list celebrities are working their way through all the Der Flüsterwald stories in honor of the centennial celebration. Stories written by my great-great-great-grandfather.
“Ella Walker-Strauss is with us—”
The name over the radio catches my attention. Ella’s my cousin, legally speaking. She might as well be holding up a neon sign that says not really a strauss, and not just because she’s a five-foot-two genius, but because Strausses don’t do interviews.
Not that anyone would want to be a Strauss, anyway. We’re all essentially one minor inconvenience away from a complete nuclear meltdown.
I turn the radio up.
“You’re only fifteen, but you already have an interesting story yourself,” the host says, giddiness in his tone. He continues, “Would you share, in your own words, how you came to be the go-to Flüsterwald expert?”
“Well,” Ella replies, her voice all confidence and charisma, “I was fascinated by Der Flüsterwald. It’s hard not to be. What kid can resist a story about sketchy peddlers, invasive vegetation, and monsters steeped in greed? Anyway, as a kid that moved around from place to place—my mom worked locum tenens—the fact that all the stories are linked back to this singular location, the Whisperwood, made it all the more magical. Not to mention some of the stories are actually quite scary, and I was kind of weird.”
I glance over at the passenger seat next to me. Along with two paper bags filled with Oma’s weekly milk and eggs and—yuck—All-Bran, is a frayed copy of Der Flüsterwald. Oma insists it’s delicious with blueberries. The All-Bran, not the book. Then again, Oma is full of shit.
Well, not literally. Because of the All-Bran. But anyway.
“I started my blog when I was only nine years old,” Ella explains. “By the time I turned ten, I had thousands of subscribers and a personal invitation to the park.”
“An invitation you accepted,” the host says. “An invitation that—I don’t think anyone would argue—changed your life."
“Yes. It was a magical experience, to say the least. I saw so much of the park, including, as you know, the Gallery portion of the Vault. It’s all documented on my blog. But I think my favorite part was being the first to come right up to Der Stiller Mann. The glass was so filthy I could hardly see him inside, and my photos couldn’t capture the little I did see. I remember wondering why they’d called him man when he looked so young, but anyway, I felt like Charlie Bucket at the chocolate factory. The behind-the-scenes photos I took were the only in existence. When I put them up on my blog, my site’s traffic exploded. It’s what prompted the Der Stiller Mann exhibit to be moved up into Zauberwald.”
The host clears his throat. “On that visit—that was when your mother first met Preston Strauss, was it not?”
She sighs. “They met and kept in touch for almost a year before eloping. By that time I was trying to pivot the content on my blog. Writing essays and think pieces. You know, like a normal preteen. I didn’t know it then, but going off and eloping… that’s so not like Preston. But my mom has that effect on people, I guess. After a couple years Preston asked my mom and me if he could adopt me.” You can practically hear her shrug. “And that is how I became a Strauss.”
“And how is it?” the host prods as I enter one of the hairpin turns. “Being a Strauss?”
“It’s not so bad,” Ella says, coyness sharpening the edges of her words. “Even though everyone says they’re by and large all—”
The rest of her sentence is bleeped out. I clench my teeth as I exit the turn and quickly switch the radio off. As I do, I notice my phone’s screen is lit up with a missed call. Five of them, actually. I could stop. Check to see who is so impatient and what is so goddamn urgent to warrant so many calls in a row, but I’m nearly there. I’ll check when I arrive.
But then my phone starts softly buzzing.
Oma.
I nearly run off the road as I snatch it from the middle console and answer on speaker.
“Oma,” I say.
“Did you have your phone on silent?” she asks, angry.
“Maybe?”
“What is the point of having a phone if you can’t hear it?”
“I’m sorry. I—”
She groans so loudly it makes my speaker buzz. “When I find him, I’m going to strangle him.”
“And who are we strangling today?” I ask, as if I’m oblivious to the massive party we’ve planned behind her back. I knew she’d be livid when she found out. Lord knows she would have tried to stop it before it even got off the ground.
“Geoffrey,” she growls. Geoffrey’s my other uncle. She continues, “This is such a bad idea.”
“Oh, come now, it’s not so bad.”
“Is this because of the other week? Are you trying to make a point? Because the only point you’re making is—”
“Everything will be all right, Oma. I’m almost—”
I slam on the brakes. A mash-up of expletives bursts out of my mouth as I narrowly miss something darting across the road. My heart hammers in my throat. Goddamn deer really do have a death wish. At least, I think it was a deer. My brain cramps up as it tries to make sense of what I saw. The thing was so fast I only barely caught a glimpse of it. I blink hard, scanning the woods, but it’s already disappeared into the undergrowth.
Don’t drive distracted, kids.
The book and Oma’s groceries, by some magic, are still in the passenger seat. I throw the car into park and shut my eyes. The memory of the shadowy silhouette presses against the darkness of my eyelids. Deer. Something twists inside my chest as I try to tease out the specifics. Its gait, its shape, its speed. Is there anything I’ve learned about that might fit the bill?
I swallow hard. Just a deer. Or a bear. Probably.
Hopefully.
“Frankie?” My name comes from somewhere on the floor. “Frankie, what’s going on?”
“Dammit.” I fish down between my feet, fingers curling around my phone.
“Francesca Montgomery-Strauss! I told you it’s not safe out—”
Double last name? Shit. That’s not good. She hates my dad. And rightfully so, because Phillip Montgomery is a jackass.
“I’ll be there in a minute, Oma. Bye.”
I switch my phone off before she can say another word and slap it down on the console
at my elbow.
Pressing myself into the seat, I roll down the window. Only a crack. Nothing more. Not here. Fresh spring mountain air drifts in, thick with autumn olive (because around these parts, nature deals heavily in irony). For minutes upon minutes, my body refuses to understand that the worst a deer could do is dent my bumper or maybe pass on ticks (which, granted, is really disgusting, and Lyme disease is certainly a negative one-star experience). But it’s not really about the deer, is it? Not entirely.
The fragrant air washes over my face, dragging me back to the time I made flower crowns and held a séance in the greenhouse with a red-and-white-striped gallon bucket of buttered popcorn sitting between me and her. Not Oma. Her. She was everything.
Suddenly, it’s like someone’s deployed an inflatable rescue boat in my chest. All I want—all I’ve ever wanted—is to go back to before. Before things all went wrong.
Gooseflesh chases down my arms as bird trills bounce around in the trees outside like a Plinko game. My hands are shaking, literally trembling. The kind of nonsense reserved for dramatic gothic novels. I ball them into fists and try to steady myself, breathing deep, but the air stutters down my throat. What is wrong with me?
“You’re okay,” I tell myself. And I almost believe it.
I pinch my eyes shut and grip the wheel again. Then something hits the window next to me, and I scream. ...
We hope you are enjoying the book so far. To continue reading...
Copyright © 2025 All Rights Reserved
Please log in to recommend or discuss...
