Paranelope, a ghost hunter who's been cancelled for faking evidence, must discover the truth behind a local cryptid in order to clear her name.
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Penelope, better known as the ghost hunter PARANELOPE to her millions of followers, has only ever want...
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The fire cast dancing shadows across the stone beach. Henry leaned back in his folding camp chair, enjoying the fire's warmth. He sipped at a beer—the odd beer had grown on him, over the years—as he watched the flames dance...
A log shifted, sending a flurry of sparks into the night. It was a beautiful night. Clear and quiet. Perfectly fucking quiet. The little private beach was a perfect retreat from the campground's customers and their usual nightly racket. Family-friendly or not, they sure were loud. Beth always teased him about being so bothered by it, reminding him that 'this is the sound of good business.' But out here, on the edge of their little lake, none of that could reach him. Out here, his only company was the lapping of the water, the crackle of the fire, and the moon overhead.
The moon tonight was huge. Soon it would approach the peak of its cycle... just in time for the Raven Festival. By then it'd be even bigger—a supermoon, they called it.
"Gunnar must be pleased," Henry grumbled to himself and then snorted. A big, glorious moon would be the cherry on top of Gunnar's precious festival sundae. A perfect stroke of luck. Things always had a way of working out just fine for him. "That bastard must have a horseshoe up his ass or something..." He raised the beer bottle to his lips and drank deeply—
With a shrieking squeak, something shot out of the forest—right at Henry's head. It turned at the last second, swooping low over him, making him spit out his mouthful of beer which sizzled as it hit the hot rocks around the fire.
The thing turned again, grazing the tips of the fire's flames before coming to rest on the log across from Henry. Under the firelight, its glossy black feathers and beady, insistent eyes shone gold.
A raven.
The bird focussed on Henry. It stared hard at him like it was trying to tell him something.
Henry stared back, narrowing his eyes.
It had been a long time since the ravens around town hadn't looked at him like that, with meaning. A long, long time.
He had always figured that he had been meant to do something that night. What, exactly, he still didn't know. But instead, he ran away like a coward... And the ravens had gone back to ignoring him like they—and whatever he had seen that night—had given up on him.
