“Well, that was annoying enough to put you right back at the top of my list,” Aunt Tillie said, rolling her eyes. “Don’t worry, Marcus, I wasn’t talking about you.”
The only adult Aunt Tillie never seems to lose her temper with is Marcus. She’s also particularly fond of Annie, the daughter of a woman who works at the inn, but Marcus has a special place in her heart. They have an interesting relationship.
“Does anyone want to tell me what’s going on here?” Landon asked. “I have a feeling you guys came out here for a reason.”
“We have a very big reason,” Mom said. “Do you know who was on the phone, Aunt Tillie? I think you do. That’s why you scampered out of the house like you did.”
“I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Aunt Tillie said.
“Who was on the phone?” I asked. Knowing Aunt Tillie, she could be up to almost anything.
“It was a sales representative from Manchester Printing in Traverse City,” Mom said. “He told me that her order of a thousand labels – the ones for her new wine business, mind you – were on their way and they would be here tomorrow.”
Uh-oh. Aunt Tillie’s wine business was a sore spot. Everyone, including Landon, knew she made it illegally. He’d been trying to shut her down for months, but he kept running into brick walls. Most of those walls were short and Aunt Tillie-shaped.
“Why would you need a thousand wine labels?” Thistle asked, confused. “You generally only make twenty bottles at a time.”
“How do you know that?” Landon asked, his eyes narrowing. “Have you been helping her?”
“Don’t get all huffy with me,” Thistle said. “She’s been making wine for decades. She used to make us help when we were teenagers.”
“Yeah, we were in charge of the sugar and yeast,” Clove said.
“And the manual labor of filling the bottles and waxing the corks,” I added.
Landon scowled. “I can’t listen to this,” he said. “She’s illegally making wine and now you’re telling me she used underage kids to do her dirty work? What do you expect me to do with that?”
“Ignore it,” Mom said.
“What’s in the past is in the past,” Marnie said. “You know very well you can’t arrest her for things she did more than a decade ago.”
One look at Landon’s face told me he might have known it in his head but his heart was putting up a fight.
“Why do you need a thousand bottles of wine?” I asked.
“I’m … expanding my business,” Aunt Tillie said. “I’m taking them to a consignment fair tomorrow afternoon.”
“You are not,” Landon said. “That’s illegal. You cannot sell that wine. It’s one thing to illegally make it and drink it yourself. It’s another to sell it. I can’t sit by and watch you sell it.”
I put my hand on his arm to still him. “What consignment fair sells wine?”
“It’s a special one over in Kingston,” Aunt Tillie said, studying her fingernails.
“She’s talking about the Renaissance fair,” Thistle said. “I saw it advertised on a billboard. I was going to suggest that we all go, but then I got distracted by … this.”
I glanced at Landon. “Can she sell homemade wine at a Renaissance fair?”
“Not that I’m aware of,” he said. “She needs a permit.”
“I have a permit.”
“Where did you get a permit?”
Aunt Tillie shrugged. “The permit fairies?”
Thistle chortled. “I’m guessing she used that computer Bay gave her to conjure one up.”
Whoops. That computer gift kept coming back to bite me on the … .
“You’re not selling that wine,” Landon said. “I can promise you that. I’ll be up here before dawn, and you’re not taking that wine anywhere. I can’t willingly let you leave when I know you’re going to be committing a crime.”
“I don’t need your permission to run my own business,” Aunt Tillie said. “I’m an adult. I can do what I want.”
“You’re not doing this,” Mom said. “I don’t care if we all have to band together to stop you. This is not happening.”
“We’ll see about that,” Aunt Tillie hissed.
“WELL, that was the worst dinner ever,” Landon said, lifting the covers and sliding in next to me in bed a few hours later.
“You’ve been to dinners where poltergeists threw all the dishes against the wall,” I reminded him.
“That was more fun than an entire table of deathly quiet people glaring at one another,” he said. “Even the food tasted different.”
“That’s because my mother and aunts were angry when they made it,” I said. “Their magic works differently than mine. When they feel love, it goes into whatever they’re doing. That includes the food.”
“Well, in that case, I always want your mother to be happy,” Landon said, brushing my hair from my face so he could study me. “You know I’m going to have to get up before the sun and go to the inn, right?”
“I know.”
“I can’t let her leave with a thousand bottles of wine that she plans to sell illegally.”
“I know.”
“I’m not going to arrest her,” Landon said, his eyes reflecting worry. “That’s not what you’re worried about, is it?”
“What makes you think I’m worried?”
“I know the way your face works,” he replied. “I know when you’re sad, and I know when you’re happy, and I know when you’re worried the second I see you.”
“Maybe you’re magic,” I said.
“I think you’re magic enough for the both of us,” Landon said. “I … I’m just going to confiscate the wine. I promise.”
“I know you would never arrest her,” I said. “I just … do you have any idea how rough tomorrow morning is going to be? If you think Aunt Tillie is bad on a good day, wait until you try to stop her from doing something she’s obviously been planning for weeks.”
“It will be fine, Bay,” Landon said, slipping his arm around my waist and pulling me closer until my chin could rest against his shoulder. “We’re going to have a big fight, and Aunt Tillie is going to curse us with something nasty, but then we’re going to have the whole day - just the two of us. Doesn’t that sound fun?”
It did sound nice. “Did you set the alarm?”
“You can stay in bed when I get up tomorrow. You don’t have to get up.”
“It’s my family,” I said. “I should be there.”
“It might be better if you’re not.”
“I’m going,” I said. “Don’t bother arguing.”
Landon gave in. “Okay. If that’s the case, then we need to get some sleep. We’re going to need all the energy we can muster if we’re going to take on Aunt Tillie tomorrow morning.”
“Really? You just want to go to sleep?”
“Oh, well, I have one last detour I want to make before we travel to dreamland,” he said, giving me a soft kiss. “I want to make sure you’re tired enough to pass out. It’s really for your benefit.”
“I’m always glad to be your personal charity,” I said, smiling.
“Be prepared for my donation.” Landon made a face. “Huh, that went to a creepy place I wasn’t really expecting.”
“Shut up and kiss me,” I ordered. “Morning is going to come before either one of us is ready to deal with it.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The first bed was too hard. The second bed was too soft. The third bed was just right. What’s the lesson here? Don’t touch other people’s stuff or you risk getting eaten by bears.
– Aunt Tillie’s Wonderful World of Stories to Make Little Girls Shut Up
Two
I woke before the alarm clock the next morning, taking the opportunity to stretch languidly before getting a grip on my surroundings. It was still dark, no light filtered through the curtains, and my internal clock was muddled. What woke me?
I rubbed my bare feet along the sh
eets, pushing them to my left and searching for Landon’s warm presence. I found only emptiness. I reached over with my hand, thinking he must have rolled to his other side in sleep. Just touching him would be enough to let me settle down and drift off again. There was no sign of him, though.
I propped myself up on my elbow, scanning the room. It was too dark to see anything and yet I knew Landon wasn’t here. His heavy but always regular breathing couldn’t lull me back to sleep because he wasn’t in bed with me.
I swore under my breath, threw the covers off and swung my legs over the side of the mattress. He’d gone up to the inn without me; his worry about instigating a scene with Aunt Tillie caused him to sneak out without waking me. Part of me thought it was a sweet gesture. The other part was irritated. I wasn’t a child. I could handle a fight. Heck, I’d grown up with the woman. I was used to fighting with her.
My bare feet landed on the bedroom floor, and I groped along the rug until I found my jeans, T-shirt and tennis shoes from the night before. I’m not much of a housekeeper. I don’t generally pick up my clothes until it’s time to wash them. At a time like this, my slovenly ways were a godsend.
I considered brushing my hair, knowing my mother would make a stink if she saw it disheveled, but I was too annoyed to care. I don’t like fighting with Landon, but I could feel a big one brewing. It’s one thing to try to protect me. It’s quite another to take charge. I hate that about him. I love the man dearly, but he often falls into that trap of having to be right. Of course, since I have trouble being wrong, we’re quite the couple.
I moved around the end of the bed, smacking my shin into something hard, causing me to inadvertently cry out. “What the … ?”
I aimlessly felt around, my hands running over a hard surface that I recognized as a trunk. The only problem with that realization is that there’s no trunk at the end of my bed. There’s nothing. Had someone moved furniture in the middle of the night and not told me?
I carefully shuffled across the bedroom floor, slowly extending my feet like antennae in hope I wouldn’t run into another piece of errant furniture that wasn’t supposed to be there. When my outstretched hand hit the wall, I started feeling around for the light switch. After a few seconds of searching, I gave up. Did someone move that, too?
I pushed open the bedroom door and stepped into the living room, pulling up short and letting my eyes adjust to the brightness. Once they did, I wanted to turn around and go back into the bedroom. I’d walked out into a living room – but not my living room.
“I … .” I didn’t even know what to say. What do you say when you go to sleep in your own bedroom, your smoking hot boyfriend at your side, and wake up a few hours later alone in a strange house?
My gaze bounced across the room, confusion and dread braiding to pool heavily in my stomach. I was in a cabin. Well it looked like a cabin. Without seeing the outside of the building there was no sure way to tell.
Other than the bedroom, which I’d just exited, the cabin consisted of one room. The fireplace on the far side was roaring, an iron pot of … something … steaming above the flames. The sofa appeared to be made out of sawed and split logs, but there were no pillows or cushions to offer comfortable seating. On the other side of the room stood a wooden counter, three bowls placed neatly atop it. That was it. There was nothing else in the room.
“This has to be a dream.”
No one answered me. There was no one there to answer. I strode back to the bedroom door and threw it open, narrowing my eyes so I could stare inside. Without a better light source it was hard to make out, but it looked as though there were three beds in the room, including the one I woke up in.
I ran my hands down my clothes, breathing a sigh of relief when I recognized them. They were my jeans, T-shirt and tennis shoes. I wasn’t wearing someone else’s clothes. What’s going on here?
For lack of something better to do, I pinched my forearm. The pain shot through me quickly, and it was enough to tell me this wasn’t a dream. Well, mostly. You can’t feel pain in dreams, right?
I opened my mouth to call out, Landon’s name on the tip of my tongue, but I swallowed the urge when the door of the cabin swung open and three … Oh, holy crap, this has to be a dream. There’s no way I saw what I thought I saw.
“Oh, I see our guest has finally awakened. How did you sleep, my dear?”
I’d always been taught that it’s polite to answer a question when it’s asked of you. Of course, I’ve never had the opportunity to talk to a bear. That’s right, a bear. There, standing in the doorway of the tiny cabin, was not one but three of them. They stood on their hind legs, their faces curious, and they stared at me as though I was the anomaly.
“I … um … I think I’m dreaming.”
“You’re not dreaming,” the first bear said. “I think I would know if you were dreaming.”
“Uh-huh.”
The second bear, the one with the darker coat and bigger snout, pushed past the first bear and ambled in my direction. Instinct took over and I jumped back. “Don’t bite me.”
“We don’t usually bite people,” the bear said in a gravelly, male-sounding voice. “That’s considered bad manners.”
“Oh, well, that’s good,” I said, fearfully scanning the cabin. “I … how did I get here?”
“You let yourself in,” the first bear said. If the second bear’s voice sounded male, this one definitely sounded female. “You were tired, and you needed a place to sleep.”
“First you tried my bed,” the male bear said. “You said it was too hard.”
“Then you tried my bed,” the female bear said. “You said it was too soft.”
The third and smallest bear finally decided to speak. “And then you tried my bed and declared it perfect,” the bear said. The tinny tone of the voice made it hard to ascertain whether it was male or female. “That meant I had to sleep on the floor. In my own home. Thanks for that, by the way.” I couldn’t tell whether it was a boy or a girl, but it definitely sounded like a petulant teenager.
“Sebastian, there’s no reason to be rude,” the male bear said. “The girl was exhausted. She needed her sleep.”
“Maybe I was exhausted, too,” Sebastian said. “Did you ever think about that?”
“Not particularly,” the male bear said. He turned his attention back to me. “Are you hungry?”
I couldn’t eat if someone put a plate of my favorite cookies in front of me and told me they were calorie-free. “I’m good.”
The female bear urged Sebastian away from the door and used her shoulder to push it shut. Since she was a bear, her expression was impossible to read. “So, do you want to tell us how you got here?”
“I have no idea,” I said. “I’m still convinced this is a dream.”
“It’s not,” she said. “Trust me.”
“See, um, I can’t really trust you because you’re a talking bear,” I said.
“I don’t understand what me being a bear has to do with my trustworthiness,” she replied.
“Mrs. Bear, the thing is, where I come from bears don’t talk,” I said.
“My name is Sheila, and I’m confused,” she said. “If bears don’t talk where you’re from, how do you communicate with them?”
“I generally just run,” I said, “although, to be fair, I’ve never seen a bear anywhere but in a zoo. Some people claim there have been some in the woods that surround our house, but I’ve never seen one. I honestly think Aunt Tillie would frighten bears so they stay away.
“My cousin Thistle says people are really seeing Bigfoot,” I continued, rambling. “I don’t know what to think. I mean, I went to bed last night with my boyfriend and I woke up in a cabin that belongs to a bunch of talking bears.”
“I told you she was crazy,” the male bear said. “Didn’t I tell you? Only a crazy person would let themselves into a stranger’s home and try out all the beds in the house.”
“Craig, please,” Sheila said. “You’re upse
tting the girl.”
“I’m upsetting her?” If bears can look irritated, Craig was doing a mighty fine job. “She’s upsetting me.”
“And me,” Sebastian chimed in.
I rubbed the heel of my hand against my forehead, my heart pounding as I tried to ascertain exactly what was happening. “You said that I let myself into your cabin last night and … tried out all your beds,” I said. “That’s what you said, right?”
Sheila nodded.
“Did I say anything?”
“You said you were tired and needed the perfect bed,” Craig said.
“I have no memory of that,” I said.
“I’ll bet it’s drugs,” Sebastian said. “She looks like a pothead.”
“Hey!”
“I think she’s just confused,” Sheila said. “Maybe she got hit on the head or something.”
My hand flew up and checked my head, going over the entire expanse twice to see whether I could detect a bump or open wound. There was nothing. Crap. “And we’re entirely sure I’m not dreaming, right?”
“Why do you keep thinking you’re dreaming?” Craig asked.
“Because you’re bears … and you’re talking … and I didn’t fall asleep wherever this is,” I replied. “Where is this, by the way?”
“It’s the woods,” Sheila said.
“What woods?”
“Just … the woods.”
“There’s no name for the woods?” I pressed.
“What woods have names?”
“I have no idea,” I said. “I just … I really want to wake up right now. You’re not supposed to fear passing out when you’re dreaming. That doesn’t happen. Oh, and Sherwood Forest is a wooded area that’s named.”
“You’re not dreaming, pothead,” Sebastian said. “I can’t believe we let a pothead into our house. This is so wrong. All I’ve heard for the past two years is how bad drugs are, and now we have a druggie in our house. This is a great way to set an example.”
“I am not a druggie,” I snapped. Wait, how do bears know about pot? “I’m just … confused.”
“This bites the big one,” Sebastian said, throwing himself dramatically on the wooden sofa. “If we’re going to have a human guest, it should at least be someone fun … like Kim Kardashian.”
Once Upon a Witch: A Wicked Witches of the Midwest Fantasy Books 1-3 Page 2
