Whispers at Moonrise

reacting. The entire Shadow Falls breakfast crowd had ignored their runny eggs and raw bacon and had eyes only for Kylie’s newly emerged witch brain pattern. Or they had until Della, bless her cold heart, tried to help.
    The vampire had vaulted up in the air a good five feet, landing with big thump on top of the table—her black tennis shoes landing half on and half off several campers’ trays of food. Then with concern for Kylie, Della announced that Kylie had just whispered a curse and anyone gawking at her forehead would be turned into a flatulent goose.
    It was, of course, a bald-faced lie. Since Kylie had sent the heart paperweight zipping around the room, she’d been super-conscientious about not moving her pinky. Not an easy feat either when trying to fork up runny eggs. Nevertheless, her two pinky fingers were on time-out until Kylie figured out the witch thing.
    Kylie stopped out front of the office and debated popping in and asking Holiday if she’d ever gotten in touch with her stepfather. The two were playing phone tag. Kylie also wanted to check and see if Burnett had heard from Malcolm Summers, her real grandfather.
    He’d told Burnett he would be here tomorrow, but what were the chances of that happening now when he’d had his phone disconnected and dropped off the face of the earth? Kylie suspected it was because of Burnett’s tie with the FRU. Then again, maybe he just didn’t care about her. It wasn’t as if he’d even known his own son, her father.
    That thought stung until she realized it didn’t make sense. If it were true, why would he and her aunt have come to the camp pretending to be her father’s adoptive parents? The fact that they’d come disguised as humans reinforced that he didn’t trust someone at Shadow Falls. And that someone had to be Burnett because of his connections to the FRU.
    “Don’t you just love Della?” Miranda asked. “She’s a pain in the ass, but when it’s about protecting us, she steps up to the plate, or on the plates.” She giggled. “I’ll bet she stomped on about six breakfast platters this morning.”
    “I know. She’s great.” Even if the plan backfired.
    “I mean, really? A flatulent goose? Where does she get these ideas?”
    “I wouldn’t know,” Kylie muttered. Frankly, she wasn’t even completely sure what flatulent meant. Nevertheless, feeling overwhelmed, she decided to chalk it up to a learning experience. Not only did she have a word definition to look up, but she’d learned another important lesson—that being stared at wasn’t any worse than when people refused to look at you. Nope, not one person chanced even giving her a quick peek after Della’s warning. Flatulent must be really bad.
    “This is still so cool. You are a witch like me!” Miranda rubbed her hands together with complete glee.
    Kylie wished she shared Miranda’s optimism. “I still don’t believe it. I don’t care that even Holiday half believes it,” Kylie said, and then added, “You do know it could change, right? I was all human and now I’m not.” And her dad told her she was a chameleon. She believed him.
    “But this is the first time you’ve shown a real supernatural pattern, so it’s probably real.” The little witch did a butt-wiggling victory dance. “Aren’t you over-the-moon excited?”
    For Miranda’s sake, Kylie plastered a smile on her face, but the over-the-moon comment repeated in her head, reminding her of a certain werewolf.
    “I wonder why Lucas wasn’t at breakfast,” she said aloud. Not that she was all that eager to tell him the news.
    “I don’t know,” Miranda said, still wearing her toothpaste ad smile. Then her smile faded. “Are you worried he’ll be disappointed that you aren’t were?”
    “No,” Kylie said, not sure if it was an out-and-out lie. She wasn’t worried he’d be disappointed; she was worried he would be devastated. Her heartstrings gave her a few emotional pulls and a knot tightened in her throat.
    “Is there any legendary bad blood between weres and witches?” Kylie asked.
    “Nothing that I know of,” Miranda said. “I mean, weres don’t typically like any race but their own. But they don’t dislike witches as badly as they do vampires.”
    Kylie supposed she should be grateful she hadn’t morphed into a vamp.
    Then again, she had a feeling nothing other than her turning into a were would make her acceptable to Lucas’s family and pack. Could their relationship survive