Lewis Tetch had always loved spring. The daffodils, the pastel colors, the sunshine finally winning its long battle against the gray skies of Gotham—it all made his heart feel just a little lighter. And this year, Easter had arrived with a rare promise: the whole family together in one place. No distractions. No experiments gone awry. No peculiar disappearances into the attic for "theoretical purposes," as his father liked to say.
Lewis had taken it upon himself to plan the day. It was going to be perfect.
In the garden behind their slightly crooked, ivy-wrapped house, pastel eggs were hidden behind every bush and under every teacup. Yes—teacups. His father, Jervis Tetch, insisted that all proper Easter egg hunts required fine china in precarious places. ("Balance, my boy! Balance and whimsy!")
Lenoir, Lewis's twin sister, had helped dye the eggs. Which meant, of course, some of them were dyed with glow-in-the-dark ink, others filled with glitter bombs, and one particularly cursed one was... humming softly. Lewis buried that one deep beneath a gnome.
Their mother, Dorothy, had set up a picnic table with sweets and tea, wearing rabbit ears and a shirt that said "I'm eggstra." Ophelia, Dorothy's ever-patient girlfriend, was already sipping lavender lemonade, trying to pretend she hadn't just watched a sentient chocolate bunny hop into the rose bushes.
Then came the door creaking open.
John Crane—tall, tired-looking, and dressed far too formally for an Easter brunch—stepped out, holding a wicker basket in one hand and a suspiciously large book in the other.
"I've hidden three eggs that contain philosophical riddles," he announced to no one in particular.
"We're just trying to find chocolate, Dad," Lewis called from behind a lilac bush.
John blinked. "...The chocolate is the answer."
"Of course it is," Lewis muttered with a fond eye-roll.
As the hunt got underway, laughter and yelling echoed through the garden. Lenoir chased a particularly stubborn rabbit that had stolen her prize egg. Jervis recited Easter rhymes in perfect iambic pentameter while tossing sugar cubes to anyone who passed by. Dorothy and Ophelia attempted to referee an argument between John and a squirrel (again). And Lewis?
Lewis sat in the grass, holding an egg he'd painted himself—a tiny painted portrait of the whole family crammed onto one shell. A chaotic, colorful mess, just like them.
He smiled.
It wasn't a normal Easter.
But for Lewis Tetch?
It was perfect.