~ NEW ~ EXCERPT BELOW ~
What’s a rabbit shifter to do to keep a roof over her ten siblings’ heads? Maybe go into the fullmoonshine business herself.
Check prices before you buy.
“Holly?” a small voice said through the bedroom door. Well, bedroom was a generous way to describe the space containing her twin mattress on the floor. It was really meant to be a storage closet.
“Holly?” repeated the voice that belonged to Poppy, her youngest sister.
“What?” Holly rolled onto her back and stared at the dark ceiling. She sounded like a two-pack-a-day smoker. The vocal cord damage was the result of shouting drink orders over the dance music all night as she tended bar in the city of New Port.
“I’m cold. Can I sleep with you?”
Holly blinked. Poppy knew better than to wake her too early in the afternoon. She’d barely crawled into the house before five a.m. She turned to look at her old clock radio and saw nothing glowing where the time should have been. Sitting up, she stared closer. Still nothing.
She patted the ground alongside the mattress where the clock should have been. “What time is it?” Had she slept until Poppy’s bedtime? And where was everyone else? She wasn’t the only adult in the family. If they’d left Poppy alone again, heads would fly.
“I don’t know.” Of course, she didn’t. Poppy was only five.
Reaching forward, Holly cracked the door open and spotted the weak fall sunlight glowing through the hall window. Okay, so not night. It lit her room where she could see her dead clock radio.
Poppy hopped onto the bed, her thin arms covered in white, downy baby fur. She curled under the blankets. “The TV is broken. Daisy and Fern are scared.”
That sent a bucket of ice-cold fear down Holly’s spine. Daisy and Fern were capable young women who didn’t scare easily. Then again, this information was coming from a little bunny shifter. Everything seemed scary at that age. “Is Iris home yet?”
The little shifter shook her head, the tips of her ears growing longer. Young shifters couldn’t control their shape-changing like adults. Any upset and they reverted to their animal form. Poppy shook her head. The shift to full rabbit was complete and a little white rabbit girl curled close to the pillow.
Shifters couldn’t change to full animal, thank goodness, or she would have ended up in someone’s soup by now. They, as in the whole family, were supposed to send Poppy to school this fall but her little sister wasn’t ready to face the predators—human or shifter—in the public-school system, but private schools in the city were above their income.
Holly tucked the blanket around the chilled bunny. They kept the furnace set at a balmy sixty-five degrees, but the cold bit at Holly’s nose. She slid out from under the cozy warmth of her bed and tiptoed across the icy wood floor to the thermostat. Yep, set at sixty-five but the house temperature was really fifty. She opened her mouth and exhaled. It misted the air slightly.
Leaning her forehead against the wall, Holly listened past the regular noise of her family. She sighed. The familiar hum of the furnace was missing. Holly closed her eyes. Was this the beginning of the end? They could barely afford the monthly bills, let alone fix the furnace. They had no fireplace or woodstove. The rusty coal barbeque could provide some heat if they wanted to risk carbon monoxide poisoning.
It was times like this that she really missed her parents. The weight of the world lay heavily on her narrow shoulders and a cold front was on its way. The beginning of winter in Sweet Bay.
“You awake, Holly?” called Daisy from downstairs.
“Yeah…” How could she go back to sleep now? It was going to be a long day. At least she had the night off. In hindsight, she should have picked up a shift since they obviously needed the money. She shuffled down the stairs.
Daisy held the bill jar in her hands. “The power is out.” She was three years younger and five inches shorter than Holly.
“What?” Holly crossed the kitchen and yanked the electric bill from the fridge magnet. “The bill says we have until tomorrow.” They were six months behind.
On her tiptoes, Daisy peered over her shoulder. “That’s yesterday’s date.”
“Corn nuts!” Holly glanced at the blank clock on the stove. “What time is it?”
Daisy shrugged.
“Who has the cell phone?”
“I do,” called Fern from the living room. She was sitting on the couch in the fading light, texting.
“What time is it?” Holly gestured to Daisy to give her the jar. She then proceeded to pour the contents on the counter.
“It’s four-thirty.”
Daisy leaned forward. “Do we have enough money?”