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“Sure, hit me,” I replied as I drove us along a narrow road in the car the lawyer had arranged for me at the airport. We followed the curvy, upward climb, gripping the steering wheel to hold her steady. Even with chains on the tires, I wasn’t experienced in driving in these conditions. Give me traffic and wide roads any day.
“What do you get if you cross Christmas with an apple?” Britta stared my way, hugging the tiny reindeer plush toy to her chest. She’d insisted on bringing the gift I’d gotten her last year for her birthday rather than leaving it in the bags in the back. And as far as I was concerned, she could do whatever she wanted as we were starting a new life.
“Hmm, a holly apple pie?”
“What? That’s terrible. You’re bad at jokes, Nickie.” She grinned, well aware she’d never wanted me to guess the correct answer, so I played along.
“A pineapple,” she declared, then broke into a laugh.
“Ah, that’s a good one.” I glanced her way and smirked. “Are you writing these down in your notebook?”
She nodded, her tiny brown curls bouncing across her shoulders. Her crystal green eyes were a mirror match to our mother’s while I had Dad’s hazel eyes, along with his dark chocolate hair. Mine reached halfway down my back after having it short while growing up. But our mother and father were two people I preferred to pretend didn’t exist, and for years, I’d done a solid job. They were both serving sixty years at Louisiana State Penitentiary for the attempted murder of a drug peddler. Yep, I’d grown up with narcotics in the house, and shady characters who’d paid too much attention to fourteen-year-old me, but I’d give Dad some credit. He’d always protected me against them. That was when he hadn’t been drinking and beating me.
An acute pain tensed in my gut as I remembered how Britta and I had spent days in the room under the stairs so my parents wouldn’t find us when they’d gotten drunk. A shiver trailed down my arms at the memory, the fear that kept me company. The endless tears. I wanted to forget that part of my life, put it down to a terrible nightmare. I’d dealt with that shit, even after seeing them once do weird shit like try to summon something demonic by drawing a circle with rum on the living room floorboards. I promised myself to never waste my thoughts on them again.
After my parents had been imprisoned for attempted murder, childcare protection had stepped in and taken Britta and me away, keeping us together from one foster home to another. I’d always felt lonely, but we’d stuck together, and three years ago when I turned eighteen, I’d become her legal guardian. With the few hundred dollars the from the foster care system, I got my bartender’s license and gained a full time job with help from my last foster parent. I worked my butt off at the pub to rent a small apartment. No other family had stepped forward to claim Britta, so the court had ordered her under my protection. I’d wanted only the best for her. To offer her the life I’d never had.
“I’ve collected eighty-seven jokes so far,” she said. “Thirteen more, and I’ll reach a hundred.”
“Are you still thinking of printing them?”
She nodded. “Everyone will be telling jokes this Christmas.”
“Can’t wait to get my copy.” I smiled, unable to remember the last time I’d seen her so happy. She’d never complained once on the long flight over here. Leaving California was the best decision even if we were taking a risk moving to a small town in Austria. It wasn’t every day I found out I had a long-lost uncle, Leon, who’d just left me his whiskey distillery. He was apparently Dad’s step brother. My grandma had fallen pregnant when she was young to a man from Austria who visited the States. The relationship didn’t last. But the lawyer said Leon had moved to live with his biological father in Austria when he turned nineteen, cutting all dies with our family.
This was the change I’d needed, where I no longer worried about our apartment getting broken into, steal my belongings, and hurt Britta and I. Most importantly, where I didn’t get paid shitty hourly rates at the local pub with drunks who tried to either grope me or start a fight.
Now, we’d inherited a freaking distillery!
I buzzed all over with excitement each time I thought about it, my stomach swirling in anticipation. I expected someone to tell me our trip was a massive joke. According to the lawyer, the distillery was making a decent profit.Please, God, let this be our chance to start fresh and make enough money so I can get Britta a speech therapist and tutor to teach her German.Her condition was related to all the messed-up crap we’d gone through growing up coupled with her timidness around others, but this was our time to leave the past behind.
The next song on the playlist hit, and we both broke out into an upbeat Christmas song as the white landscape around us twinkled beneath the sun.
Around the next bend, a sudden blur shot out in front of the car. Fear gripped my chest, and I slammed my foot onto the brakes.
Everything happened so fast. One minute we were singing, now Britta was screaming as the car spun across the road. The biggest deer I’d ever seen darted inches out of the way of being struck by the car.
I spun the steering wheel to control us, but my head whirled with my sister’s cries. Terror raked through me. I pictured us slamming into a tree. Freezing to death out here with no phone reception because I’d stupidly forgotten to buy an international roaming plan for my cell? We’d end up stranded. Eaten by wild animals. Frozen to death.
Another deer appeared out of nowhere, flying toward us with such speed, I screamed. It landed on the hood of our car for a split second, then leaped off.
Our spin slowed. We glided sideways, both Britta and I lurched sideways, held in place by the seatbelts.
A loud thud sounded behind us.
My stomach sunk to my feet. We whipped forward and back in our seats from the impact. I struck out an arm across her stomach and twisted my head round to see that the backside of the hatchback had slammed into a pine. The world stopped spinning, and I stared outside to find we hadn’t fallen over the edge of the steep cliff running alongside the road.
Fuck, that was so damn close.
“Britta, are you hurt?” I cried out, scanning her face, her arms and body, not seeing any bruises or cuts.
Tears crammed her wide eyes, cascading down her blanched cheeks. She cried into her stuffed toy.
“We’re all right, sweetie.” I leaned toward her and drew her closer and kissed her head. “We’re safe now.”
Outside were three of the biggest mother freaking deer I’d ever seen, each with enormous, multi-pointed antlers. They had to be close to fifty inches high. They stood several feet away. These weren’t the small kind I’d seen back home. And I was sure these animals ate Santa’s reindeer. Hell, they had to be at least eight feet in height; they towered over me. Covered in a thick white pelt, the animals had dark shading around their ears, eyes, and nose. If I was anywhere but staring at them in the wild, I’d be in awe at their beauty. They were gorgeous. On the plus side, none of them seemed to be bleeding, so I hoped they were okay, or were they pissed that I’d almost hit them? One of them snorted, wisps of hot air floating from its flaring nostrils, while another dug at the dirt with its front hoof.
My heart banged so hard in my chest while Britta trembled in my arm. Would they ram into the car, their antlers breaking the glass and piercing us? God, that would be my luck. Get stabbed to death before I even reached my new home.Not loving your sense of humor, Universe.
