Wendel the Wonderful: Short Story Preview

 A story about childhood and the delight of new things and friends.

Blurb: 

Wendel is a small girl enjoying things that all little girls do. Mud pies, climbing trees, decapitating bugs, plush toys, painting, reading adventure books, kidnapping faeries.... ok, maybe not NORMAL things little girls do, but just the same, she loves her family and, like all children, wishes for a friend, one who understands her. 

In the midst of family drama, moving to a new home, and threatening secrets, Wendel has made it her mission to sleuth around, have fun, paint wonderful things, and hopefully make a long-lasting friend, because the clock is ticking and secrets never stay hidden forever. Whether Wendel figures it out, or the skeletons in her mother's closet get to her first.  

"To the divine, mischievous spark in you."

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In the stillness, her heart beat magnified, her nose numb and tingly, her limbs immobile. A sleepy drowse fluttered over Wendel, and she lazily smiled, the flickering fireflies jumping beyond her vision. 

All was quiet and still. 

After a while, the silence seemed to amplify a noise. A soft rushing, a gurgling moan. Wendel knit her brows together and sat up with a huff. Brushing off the leaves and dirt, she turned in the new sound's direction, net in hand, the sun now low and the light fading fast. She stretched and looked around. The noise was to her left, and she took off running, leaving behind the fireflies hovering near the odd rock. The gurgling noise turned into a loud rushing that thrummed in her ears, parting some pine branches. Wendel gasped. 

A loud foaming blue stream rushed over a bank strewn with colorful rocks, and up the bank of the small river, the water gushed out between a large gnarly tree split down the middle. It looked like the tree was the source of the water, like it was spitting or bleeding the stream out. The trunk was thick, and its stump was mossy; the split tree looked like the large heads of a hydra looming out of the ground and bending over its waters or like a two-headed serpent warning anyone nearby away. As the sun moved ever lower, the fractured golden light shone through the trees, and the ever chirping of the insects grew louder. Wendel crouched by the stream and took off a glove. She bent down and cupped some of the ice-cold water to her lips; the water was freezing her fingers, but it was so fresh and sweet that she drank more. After a little while, a strange feeling began to make her feel uncomfortable. Like she was being watched. Wendel glanced up. She looked up the bank of the river, nothing, she looked behind her, nothing, she looked over the bank, and paused. 

More dense and taller trees were over the other side of the river, and the ground was littered with the remaining leaves of autumn: gold, yellow, green, and brown. A peculiar fog settled on the opposite bank, and it was hard for her to see; someone could well be over there, and she wouldn’t know it. 

Though she really doubted it. No one lived in these parts; this was Wynona Woods, no one but her and her mother were here for miles. 

Wendel scoffed and cupped for refreshing water in her hand and bent her head again, the sun now so low it cast her long shadow and lit up her messy curls in fiery waves. But the feeling of being watched never left her, and as she glanced briefly up when she bent down near the stream, she nearly fell over with shock before she blinked, and the shadowy figure she thought she saw was gone. Deeply uneasy, Wendel quickly got up and ran from the river and past the rock with the fireflies until she saw her house, now at the end of the forest. 

She nervously looked behind her, but now there was no sun, and it was dark; she saw no one. Wendel sighed. There was no one. She knew. Silly imagination. It was only the light and shadows and whatever shape of nature presented a figure. That was it, of course. Though assured, Wendel couldn’t help but feel queasy. She hurried out of the woods just as the last rays of sun sank below the horizon and the stars winked awake.