Page 58 of Ghosts, Ghouls, and Growls
“Buffy?” I inch backward involuntarily as if physical distance might somehow make this revelation easier to comprehend.
Hammie Mae clears her throat and points to the festival still raging on. “I think Matilda and I are going to head to the midway. I could use some hot apple cider right about now.” She makes tracks faster than I can think to stop her—or at the least apologize.
Skittles sits dutifully by Buffy’s side, her ginger fur glowing amber in the jack-o’-lantern light. For a heartbeat, the world seems to pause as I trulyseeBuffy’s face—the slight dimple in her left cheek that mirrors my own, the shape of her eyes that I’ve seen looking back at me from the mirror my entire life. Dark hair, denim blue eyes, she’s a Baker through and through.
Jasper appears at my side, his Frankenstein’s monster makeup cracking around his furrowed brow. “What’s going on?” he asks, looking from one stunned face to another. “Did someone find another body? Please tell me no one found another body.”
“No bodies,” I manage to whisper. “Just...family.”
“Like I mentioned to you earlier, Bizzy. My name isn’t actually Buffy Butterwick,” she says, her zombie librarian makeup doingnothing to hide her nervousness. “It’s Elizabeth. Elizabeth Butterwick. I did change my first name after... well, after my ex. But Elizabeth is my birth name.” She looks directly at my mother with the kind of intensity usually reserved for courtroom dramas. “You asked the adoption agency to make sure I was given that name.”
Mom’s witch makeup runs in green rivers down her cheeks as tears flow freely.
“Elizabeth?” She staggers forward. “It’s really you? Oh, I tried to find you! For years, I tried!”
Dad steps forward, too, his plastic vampire teeth falling out of his mouth, and his cape dragging in the dirt. “The adoption was closed. We couldn’t... they wouldn’t tell us anything.”
In a heartbeat, both my parents have wrapped their arms around this woman—this sister of mine—who appeared in our lives under the guise of selling books and hunting ghosts.
This is better than the soap operas Georgie watches,Fish meows from a safe distance.Although I notice no one’s dramatically revealed they have an evil twin yet. The night is still young, I suppose. My money is on Macy having the twin—and we know who the evil one would be.
I don’t understand.Sherlock looks genuinely confused.Does this mean more people to give treats and belly rubs? If so, I’m in.
Heath would have loved this.Fudge gives a little yip.He was always saying everyone has secrets.
The distinctive sound of stilettos on pavement announces Macy’s arrival before she appears in my peripheral vision like a fashion-forward harbinger, her red dress costume showcasing more cleavage than should be legal in a town with this many senior citizens and heart conditions. Behind her strides Huxley in a hunter costume, complete with a ridiculously oversized prop rifle that’s probably the only weapon in his arsenal Mackenzie hasn’t confiscated yet.
“What’s with the family hug circle?” Macy demands, eyeing the tearful embrace with suspicion. “Did someone die?Again?”
“Actually, it’s the opposite,” I explain, keeping it bare bones. “We just found a sister we didn’t know we had.”
Macy squints at Buffy. “The bookstore zombie? She’s a Baker? Are you sure? Because she reads actual books. Forfun.”
“Quite sure,” Dad says, pulling back from the emotional embrace but keeping one arm firmly around Buffy’s shoulders like he’s afraid she might disappear if he lets go. “Your mother and I... we had a baby when we were young. Before any of you.”
“We weren’t going to stay together,” Mom adds, wiping at her tear-streaked green face. “I wanted to give her a decent life, a stable home. So we agreed to put her up for adoption.” Fresh tears spring to her eyes. “It was the hardest decision of my life.”
“And my adoptive parents were wonderful,” Buffy—Elizabeth—says softly. “They told me I was adopted from the beginning. They passed away last year. Mom from a heart condition, and Dad in an accident. That’s when I started wondering if I had family out there.”
“You discovered us a few months ago?” I ask as the picture begins to grow clearer.
She nods, looking somewhat sheepish despite her zombie makeup. “Please accept my apologies. Since your profile wasn’t locked, I knew immediately who you were. I... I moved to Cider Cove on purpose. I wanted to wade in slowly, to get to know you all first.”
“So you were basically stalking us?” Macy asks, arching a perfectly penciled eyebrow. “That’s not creepy at all.”
Huxley huffs out a laugh. “Says the woman who once followed her ex-boyfriend to a dental convention in Portland and pretended to be a floss model.”
“That wasmarket research,” Macy sniffs.
Tears well in my eyes, completely ruining my deathly pale makeup. “Apology accepted,” I say, moving forward to embrace my newfound sister. “I would have done the same thing. Well, maybe with fewer zombies and paranormal investigations, but the principle stands.”
Huxley joins our embrace while Macy maintains a safe distance, offering only a curt nod of acknowledgment.
“That’s Macy-speak for welcome to the family,” I explain to Elizabeth. “She once sent me a text that just said ‘not dead’after surviving an avalanche in Colorado.”
“It was a very small avalanche,” Macy protests. “It was hardly worth mentioning.”
We all laugh, the sound rising to join the Halloween music and distant shrieks from the haunted house. Against all odds, our family—already a hodgepodge of quirky personalities, mind-reading abilities, and adorable pets with opinions—has grown by one more.
