When She Thaws by Lily Craig

Author:Lily Craig [Craig, Lily]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-04-28T22:00:00+00:00

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"I spy... a car!" said Lina, happily strapped into her booster seat in the back of the Audi. Marieke sat up front, directing the music for the voyage, and Helmut kept Sadie company in the back with Lina as a divider.

"That doesn't count, dear. It's too vague," said Inga. They were an hour into the journey to Hallstatt and no one had managed to teach Lina that her I Spy picks were either woefully obvious or impossible to guess.

"Is it our car?" Marieke asked her sister. The disdain in her voice made it clear what she thought of that choice.

"Technically, this isn't a car," added Helmut. "A sport utility vehicle is a different class of auto."

"Like Lina cares about that," said Marieke. "Lina, is it our car?"

"No!" cried Lina, upset that her secret had been discovered. "It's another car. You can't see it."

"All right, children. Let's play another game. Does anyone want to tell a story?" Inga said. Her attention was divided, by necessity, and she misread the mood in the vehicle.

"No," said Marieke, her voice chiming together with Lina's outraged refusal to let go of I Spy.

"No thanks," said Helmut.

The A1 road twisted along through the valleys and hills, past brown-roofed buildings that still charmed Sadie more than she knew they should. Some of them were farmhouses, others industrial operations that likely housed nothing more interesting inside them than concrete blocks or chickenwire. The magic of Europe hadn't worn off for her yet, and she wasn't sure it would.

Though Inga and the children thought of their drive as a long journey, to Sadie it was much more normalized. In the Midwest, people often opted for a car over plane trips just to save a few hundred dollars. But that fact hadn't ingratiated the teenagers to their fate, even though they'd been interested in the destination of the trip.

"How about we just listen to the music for a while?" Sadie asked, raising her voice so that Marieke knew she was talking to her. "Marieke?"

"Or we could do a sing-along," Lina said. A hopeful smile crept across her face.

"Do you know how to rap, Sadie?" Marieke asked. If it was meant as a joke, Sadie would have to weigh her answer carefully.

"Lord, no. Pity the person who has to listen to me rhyme anything at all, let alone spit some verses."

Marieke shrugged and kept staring at her phone. "I don't know what to play, then."

"Why not something you like?" asked Inga.

"You always say it sounds bad," said Marieke. Her shoulders slumped inwards in a protective curve.

"That's cause it does, Mari," Helmut added. "And you know it does. They try to sound abrasive."

"Yeah, but she doesn't have to say it!"

"Why aren't we listening to music already?" Lina asked, her voice screeching above the din of arguing siblings.

"Hold on," Marieke sighed.

"How about something by Coldplay?" Sadie interrupted. A peace offering of sorts. No one could have a strong opinion about such a popular, easy-going sound. At least, Sadie didn't think the Webers could.

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