“Mommy, I want the bunny cake!” squeals a six-year-old in a yellow tutu.
“Get in line, sweetie,” her mother mutters. “Half the town wants that cake.”
Not everyone. Case in point, number twelve.
I’m about to thank everyone for participating when I notice that Lyla Nell has stopped clapping.
This might not seem significant to most people, but my two-year-old daughter has been maintaining a steady rhythm of applause for the past twenty minutes. When she stops, it usually means something has captured her attention in a way that requires investigation.
“Mine,” she says while pointing at the ancient oak tree thatoverlooks the lake, her little finger aimed at something beyond the festival crowd. Her usual happy babbling has stopped, replaced by an intense focus that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
“What’s got Little Yippie’s attention?” Carlotta follows Lyla Nell’s gaze. “There’s nothing over there but trees and a big, giant... well, slap me with a furry tail and hide all the little yippies!”
I look that way and gasp.
There, sitting beneath the oak tree with the majestic presence of royalty surveying his kingdom, is a lion the size of a refrigerator.
A LION! As in those oversized cats that belong in either a savannah or a zoo! Not in Honey Hollow. Definitely not at a holiday festival designed with children in mind. Carlotta is right! We need to hide all the little yippies!
I squint out at it, trying to get a better look.
It’s not just any lion. It’s a translucent, shimmering, definitely-not-supposed-to-be-in-Vermont lion with a golden mane that seems to catch a pale blue light that simply isn’t there. He’s looking directly at us with eyes that hold more wisdom than the entire Honey Hollow town council combined. Honestly, that’s not hard to do.
He turns his gaze my way, belts out a menacing roar, and then vanishes like the morning mist until there’s nothing left but empty space beneath the oak tree and a few miniature blue stars that vanish right after him.
Carlotta and I gasp simultaneously while Lyla Nell starts clapping like mad once again, bouncing in her stroller with the enthusiasm of a toddler who just witnessed the world’s greatest magic trick.
“What’s wrong, Lot?” Noah asks as he follows our stare toward the now empty oak tree.
“What’s happening?” Everett demands, his voice taking on that judicial tone that means business.
“I think we just saw the ghost of the world’s biggest lion,” I say with my eyes still fixated on the spot it just vacated.
“Welp,” Carlotta says, blowing out a hard breath. “We all know what that means.”
Everett nods grimly. “That means a murder is afoot.”
The words hang in the air for exactly three seconds before a bloodcurdling scream ignites behind us, and we turn to see my sister Lainey howling as if it were her life on the chopping block.
Because in Honey Hollow, supernatural warnings come in all shapes and sizes—and this one has fangs, a mane, and a body count on the way.
LOTTIE
Iabandon the cakewalk faster than Carlotta abandons monogamy, shoving the microphone at the nearest volunteer and depositing both twins into Everett’s startled arms, as I run toward my sister’s bloodcurdling scream.
Lainey is only a few booths away, standing near the ring toss game where someone just won a stuffed rabbit the size of a small car. The Easter festival swirls around me in a blur of pastel chaos—children in bunny costumes, the scent of funnel cake mixed with lake water, and the distant sound of the high school band still massacring just about every tune they can get their hands on.
My heart hammers against my ribs because ghosts don’t lie, and when supernatural early warning systems activate, someone usually ends up horizontal with a permanent case of the quiets. And heaven forbid my big sister—any of my sisters—end up at the working end of that very morbid equation.
I reach Lainey prepared to find either murder or mayhem, and instead discover her jumping up and down while embracing a woman who looks like she stepped off the cover of a glossy magazine.
“Gina!” Lainey shrieks, still bouncing away as if her feet were on springs. “Oh my word, I can’t believe you’re here!”
My brain takes a moment to process this development. The scream that nearly gave me a coronary was from joy, not terror. The kind of joy that happens when you run into one of your childhood besties at the Easter equivalent of a county fair.
“Regina Kowalski?” I gasp, as the recognition hits me like a sugar rush from too many bunny cupcakes.
The woman turns, and there she is—Honey Hollow’s former bad girl, now polished to diamond-level perfection. Her platinum blonde hair falls in perfect waves that suggest either genetics blessed her or she has access to stylists who clearly know their way around a miracle. Her emerald green eyes still sparkle with the same brand of naughty that made her legendary in high school, and she’s still gorgeous enough to make all the bad boys cry.
