Page 55 of The Magical Bed & Breakfast

And it was. Although getting the sugar to coat the hollows in the muffin pan took some effort.

“That’s it. Get your hips into it,” laughed Ivy, and Kate did a little dance around the kitchen.

“Don’t fill them too much. You don’t have to worry about filling up a silly paper. You can make them any cute size you want this way.”

Once the first pan was in the oven, Kate added dark chocolate shavings to the batter and readied the next pan to go in. Ivy was right. It was fun to mix it up a little. And baking should be fun.

“Now, we need to watch because every oven is different, and you need to learn how long to cook your muffins during each season. Baking them at 400 degrees instead of 350 will make the muffin tops prettier.”

“You know all the tricks.”

“Well, I should. Are you having fun?”

Kate nodded.

“Good, because I feel like you need more fun in your life.”

Kate thought of all the bills piling up for the renovation of the inn. She’d placed Derrick Cross’s offer letter at the bottom of the stack. Each time she wrote out a check for repairs, she knew the offer waited at the bottom, mocking her, reminding her she could be free of all this financial angst. She could make a tidy profit on the inn and go back to working for her father.

And this afternoon she would be doing exactly that, working for QHM when she went down to the paper to meet with the editor. Just thinking about donning her professional mantle made her tense. “I do need more fun,” she admitted.

“So what happened out front?”

Kate blinked. “Oh, did I miss a spot? Someone smashed my pumpkins on my front door. Two of the largest ones, and they slashed the others. I think they would have thrown those too, if Rory hadn’t stomped to the front door and flung it open.”

“That’s awful. Do you know who did it?”

“We didn’t catch them. I thought it was teens.”

Ivy frowned. “Maybe, but that’s not really a thing around here. And no, you didn’t miss a spot. I was curious about all the tiny bones scattered about. Looks like a voodoo ritual in your front yard.”

“Bones?” Kate blinked, imaging something ghoulish and almost cartoonish. She shivered. “What are you talking about?”

“Oh,” Ivy motioned to the oven. “Time to take them out and test them with a knife in the middle.”

Kate grabbed her oven mitts, still disturbed by their conversation but unwilling to ruin yet another batch of muffins. She set the pan on the burners and slid a knife into the center of a muffin and pulled it out clean.

“Perfect! Okay, so you’ll want to cook your muffins for twenty-two minutes.”

Kate slid in the next pan, then popped the muffins out of the first and set them to cool on her wire rack. Then came the moment of truth. Kate took a test bite and almost moaned in delight. Ivy sampled one too.

“See, you did it. These are lovely.”

“I couldn’t have done it without you. Thank you. Now, show me those bones.” Kate imagined a scene from a horror movie with human bones scattered about, but surely that was ridiculous. Ivy would have said something when she came in, and they would have noticed anything crazy last night.

When she saw all the itty-bitty bones scattered below her window box, she sagged a little. “With everything else going on, I’d forgotten I moved them out here. My little gift skeletons are all broken.” Kate’s spirits dropped. She’d been so careful to preserve them, and then to set them out for display on Halloween. Now they were just bits scattered beneath her window box. It did look like some weird voodoo practitioner was cursing her inn. That was the last thing she needed.

“Gift skeletons?” Ivy’s question penetrated her thoughts.

“My mystery cat leaves them for me, all picked clean. It’s weird, and really, I was surprised they stayed together at all without being wired. It never did seem normal to me. First that a cat would pick a small animal skeleton clean like that, and then that the bones stayed intact rather than just falling apart.”

“What were they exactly?” Ivy’s voice rose.

“A mouse, a bird, and what I think was a tiny lizard.”

“And why do you call it your…mystery cat?” Ivy raised her hands and put imaginary question marks around the words.

“Well, because I never see her. Just her shadow—usually on the stairs, sometimes in the hall or the parlor. Even in my room on the third floor. She never acts skittish or scared of me, not really, but she never gets close enough for me to pet her, and when I turn on the lights she’s just gone, like she vanished into thin air.”

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