toad witch 04 - aunt tilly were canning demons

by Christiana Miller

  “Oh, my gosh, Aunt Tillie, would you relax?”

  “The minute you grow a brain, I will.”

  “Rude,” Grundle-Z croaked. Wow. It was good to hear him communicating again. Maybe he would get his old mojo back. Maybe reanimating a dead body was the first step to him reclaiming his life.

  “You said it, Grundle-Z,” I replied.

  “I’ll thank the zombie gallery to keep its unwanted opinions to itself,” sniffed Aunt Tillie.

  “Glass houses, Tillie,” Gus said. “You’re barely a flesh suit away from sharing that category.”

  I swear, I could hear Aunt Tillie growl. “Except I have no plans of reanimating anyone’s skin bag, thank you. I’m not a savage.”

  I held up the paper bag I was carrying and turned to Gus. “One hundred percent, homemade, organic, hot fudge sundaes. They’re practically a health food. I got one for you. You’re welcome.”

  Aunt Tillie was still staring at me. “Are you going to tell us what happened or not?”

  “It was nothing. I wound up in the middle of a deer crossing. But it’s all good. I’m home, the SUV isn’t dented, I got to watch something miraculous, and the treats are intact.”

  Gus reached out to take the bag from me.

  “Hands off, bubba.” I handed him one of the sundaes and a spoon. “You only get one.”

  “How many are in there, exactly?” he asked, reaching for the bag again.

  I slapped his hand. I knew him. He didn’t actually want more than one, he just wanted to keep me from eating more than one.

  “Back off, pony boy. The other one’s for me. Do not get between a pregnant woman and her cravings. That’s a good way to lose fingers.”

  He frowned. “Didn’t you have one while you were out?”

  “Maybe I did and maybe I didn’t.”

  “So, how many deer?” Gus asked, finally giving up trying to poach my sundae, and settling down to eat his own.

  “I think it was every deer in the flippin’ state. It was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. And then this incredible white stag came out of the woods and stopped in front of me. I had a great picture of him, but it vanished off my phone.”

  “Check your deleted photos.”

  I did and to my joy, I found the photo. I texted the best three photos of the day to Gus. As he was looking at them, a xylophone sound indicated he had a new voicemail.

  “That’s weird,” he said. “It says Mama Lua called last night and again a few minutes ago…You didn’t hear my phone playing Black Magic Woman just now, did you?”

  “Nope. Is that your ringtone for her? What’s my ringtone?”

  “Witchy Woman.”

  “Cool. Maybe the pictures I sent interfered with the call.”

  Before he hit play on his voicemail, he looked over at me. “Mara, why don’t you go stand on the other side of the room?”

  “Hey!” I protested.

  “You’re lucky I don’t make you go outside.” Gus moved further away from me. “You’re positively radiating energy right now. I need you to keep your distance from any and all of my electronics.”

  I rolled my eyes. It’s not like Gus doesn’t have a reason not to trust me around his electronics. In the past, he had to replace his laptop battery three times, just because I walked into the room while he was on his computer and I was upset about something.

  Fortunately, I don’t blow Macs out as easily as I do PC’s. I have no idea why. Once he switched to a Mac, it worked fine around me. I don’t know why Gus doesn’t have the same problem with electronics that I do.

  I stood over by the kitchen, eating my sundae, the Dobes sitting beside me. “Can I just point out, that this is exactly why I didn’t want to get on a plane?”

  “Just sit as—”

  “—Far away from the cockpit as I can, and everything will be fine. Yeah, I know the drill. You’d better be right about it.”

  As the Dobes and I chilled by the kitchen, Gus played the message on speaker:

  “It’s Mama Lua. Thank you so much for stepping in for me. I overnighted the keys. There’s also a spare set under…(static). I’m leaving now, but I should warn you…(more static)…silly child and her demon…(static)…ridiculous…(static)…annoying baby…(static)…vampire. But what’s a store owner to do, but make nice? I’ll be back as soon as I can. Blessings of the Orishas on you.”

  “Okay, we have to go now,” Gus said, looking excited. “A child carting around a demon and a baby vampire? Let the fun begin!” He actually chortled. “I can’t wait to see what’s going on in that store.”

  “Stop, just stop. Would you call her back, please? I want to know what she was talking about.”

  “Fine,” Gus tried calling her, but the phone went straight to voicemail.

  “I don’t know why you think this Otherworld stuff is so much fun.”

  “Because it is! Tell me that this last year hasn’t been the most intense, most magickal, most exhilarating time of your life?”

  I thought about it and had to agree, for the most part. “I don’t know about exhilarating, but intense and magickal, yes. So, two out of three.”

  “That ain’t bad,” Gus said. “I hope you’re ready, because we’re leaving tomorrow afternoon. I was able to snag a couple last minute tickets. Keep your fingers crossed my invisibility spell doesn’t wear off before we get Tillie stashed on the plane. I don’t want to get booted off this flight.”

  “Or tossed in some TSA jail,” I added.

  “Your optimism overwhelms me,” Gus said.

  “After hearing that message, I’m rethinking my enthusiasm about going.”

  “There’s nothing to rethink. Can’t you feel the flames under your feet? We’re cooking with speed, now. Jumping from the stovetop into the grill. This is going to be awesome.”

  “Witless Wonders. The pair of you.” Aunt Tillie clucked, breaking into our conversation. “Has anyone told the hairy monkey that he’s not immortal? He can be snuffed out, just like any other human.”

  “All the time,” I said. “He just never believes me.”

  “While I’m all for him taking his chances, doesn’t he have family out there that you can stay with? You don’t need to be in the middle of whatever’s going on at that store. Leave that to me and Boy Wonder here.”

  “If Gus is at the store, I’m at the store. I’m not going to swan around his mom’s house, doing nothing, while he’s having all the fun.”

  “Aha!” Gus crowed. “I knew it. You do think it’s fun.”

  “To a point,” I said, trying to hide a smile.

  If nothing else, all the otherworldly stuff did keep life interesting. And I’d much rather tangle with things that go bump in the night, rather than human criminals. Mouth-breathers, as Aunt Tillie says, are way scarier.

  WHILE GUS WENT off to finish packing, escorted by the Dobes, I wandered over to the library/music room. I spotted my Crowley tarot deck on one of the bookshelves.

  I got it down, shuffled the cards and pulled three of them:

  Death, the Tower and the Priestess.

  Oh, crap, I thought to myself. Here we go again. It was going to be an interesting ride.

  One of these days, I was going to take that stupid Tower card out of the deck and rip it to shreds. I was so fed up with pulling it. Although, if I did that, I’d probably be cursing myself to constantly have the Tower as an on-going leitmotif in my life. Sudden, catastrophic or large scale change.

  What’s broken on this side, is whole on the other side. I looked at the cards again.

  Death was fairly obvious, a huge life transition was coming up. That could be anything from this trip, to having to run the store, to giving birth to the baby. Close your eyes and throw a dart, and you’d hit a major transition in my life.

  The last card was the Priestess, so it looked like my immediate future was going to be plagued by otherworldly machinations and hidden human manipulations. Layers of deceit, half-truth and misinformation. Great. J
ust what I needed.

  I sighed and went upstairs, to set out the last-minute items I would need to pack in the morning, and to hassle Gus a little while he was getting ready to go. But by the time I got halfway up the stairs, I was winded and my knees were aching.

  I couldn’t believe I had actually turned the attic into a combination bedroom/nursery, before Gus talked some sense into me. Having to walk up and down all those stairs would have been a nightmare.

  Now, the nursery was on the second floor, in the room that used to be Gus’s room (and Aunt Tillie’s sewing room before that), but even that was going to suck.

  “I hate these stairs,” I said to the cottage, as if it could hear me. “I hate having to go up and down them all the time. I don’t know how I’m going to carry the baby up and down. This is going to be a nightmare.”

  But the cottage didn’t respond. Not that I expected it to. My cottage tends to be on the sentient side, but only in terms of self-protection. When I first moved here, I was told that it had turned a would-be arsonist into a rowan tree. And sure enough, I found a human-looking rowan tree in the yard.

  I would have written it off as a local legend, but I had seen the cottage wards go into overdrive when the cottage was threatened by two out-of-control cars. It’s why we’ll never be able to remodel anything. The demolition phase would be a blood bath, in a very literal sense. Which kind of sucked, because I would have loved to make this cottage more baby-friendly.

  AS I WAS CATCHING my breath, Gus met me on his way down, dragging a massive rolling suitcase behind him.

  “Yeesh. Did you pack enough?” I asked.

  “This is only half of it. Witch, remember. I need to be prepared for anything.”

  “If you say so. When’s Paul getting here?”

  Gus looked at his watch. “Should be soon. He said he’d stop in after his class was over.”

  “I can’t believe he agreed to watch Grundle-Z. I thought for sure he’d freak out over the zombie-ishness.”

  Gus snorted. “Exactly why I didn’t tell him. Paul thinks the toad’s a Grundleshanks descendent. And he is…just a very hungry, reanimated one.”

  I shook my head. “If Grundle-Z gets a craving for brains…”

  “Oh, relax. Paul will be fine. We would have noticed if Grundle-Z was staking out our brains by now. Crickets beware, but I think humans are safe.”

  I looked around. “Where are the Dobes?”

  “Locked in your room. They were getting underfoot. Can you grab my blackthorn staff and the box with Tillie’s skull? I left them at the bottom of the attic stairs. I’ll get the other suitcase on my way back.”

  “There’s another one? How are you planning to TARDIS everything into the SUV? The trunk’s not that big.”

  “I have my ways,” Gus said.

  “Sure you do… But if we run out of room, you’re the one who’s leaving stuff behind. Will the airlines even let you bring that much?”

  “It’s an extra charge, but it’ll be okay.”

  I WENT up the stairs and found the staff without a problem. But where was Tillie’s box?

  “Hey, numbskull, would it kill you to poke some holes in the box?” Tillie’s voice screeched from the floor. “Like maybe around eye-level?”

  Of course. Gus’s spell was still working. I picked up the box and said, “Aunt Tillie, you’re not trapped in the skull anymore. Just use your powers and push out of it.”

  The box was silent, but I could swear it was radiating embarrassment.

  “It’s not that easy,” she finally said. “It takes effort to manifest. I’m at a point where I need to conserve energy.”

  Oh. “Maybe if you hadn’t expended so much energy trying to kill me when I moved here…”

  “If you weren’t a walking menace to yourself, I wouldn’t have had to,” Aunt Tillie said.

  “So, that’s seriously why you want to go to L.A.? You used up your ectoplasm and you need a vacation?”

  “A girl’s got to rest and recharge,” she sniffed. “I’ve turned into a shadow of myself. It’s disturbing.”

  I picked up the box and got an exacto knife out of the hall table drawer. “Okay, tell me where to cut. Can’t have you sitting in the dark for the entire trip. But, I warn you, they’re going to be really small holes. I don’t want to mess with Gus’s spell.”

  AFTER GUS MOVED our bags to the mud room, so they’d be ready to load in the morning, he drove over to the trading post, to see if J.J. had gotten any interesting witchy supplies in.

  The cottage with just me in it, was super-boring. I wished the Dobes were still here, but Paul was very punctual about picking them up. That was a horribly strained meeting. He looked good, as usual. And when I saw him, with his tousled sandy blonde hair and his bright blue eyes, my heart jumped into my throat, as usual. I wish I could stop having that reaction, but it seemed to be hardwired into me.

  But those eyes of his were being shifty, looking everywhere else other than directly at me and my burgeoning belly. And he seemed to want to leave as soon as possible. I get that he wasn’t a fan of being in my home—getting accidentally possessed will do that to a person—and he wasn’t happy about the pregnancy, but this seemed like it was more than that.

  I stared at him. He looked good…he smelled good…and I suddenly realized the effort wasn’t for me.

  “Are you…going out on a date?” I asked, flabbergasted. His face flushed red. “You are! Seriously? We’re about to have a baby, and you’re dating?”

  I mean, I knew we were off-again right now, but come on. It was just because I was waiting for him to come to his senses about the baby, it wasn’t because I wanted our relationship to end.

  He found something fascinating to look at in the corner of the room. “It’s not like I’m cheating on you,” he said.

  “Isn’t it?” I asked.

  “No. I mean, we’ll always be connected because of the baby, but we’re not dating each other.”

  “Currently,” I said. “That doesn’t mean it’s over, it means we’re on pause.”

  He finally looked at me. “Well, on pause, to a guy, means we can see other people.”

  “On pause was your idea,” I protested. “It’s not like I paused everything.”

  “It still works the same way,” he said, checking his watch. “I’ve got to go. I’m on a tight schedule. Am I taking the menagerie, or not?”

  I tried not to sound angry, but I failed. “Yeah, take them. Have fun on your date.”

  The thought of Paul dating other women…I mean, I thought we had a semi-committed relationship, at least. Enough of one that he would, if nothing else, talk to me before he started dating anyone. I would have talked to him.

  Paul moved Grundle-Z’s tank to his SUV, and came back for the dogs. As he left with Aramis and Apollo, I slammed the door shut behind him.

  After my anger cooled down, the complete quiet of the cottage started creeping me out a little bit. Which was odd, because I remember when I used to live completely alone back in Los Angeles—before Gus, before Aunt Tillie, before the dogs, and I loved it. I don’t know why it was weirding me out so much now.

  Yes, I know, I’m strange. I’d rather have a ghost around for company, rather than be alone. My baby stretched and danced a little in my belly, reminding me I wasn’t as alone as I thought. But still…the quiet was deafening. I turned the TV on to a sitcom channel and fell asleep on the couch.

  When Gus finally got home and woke me up, I threw my arms around him and sobbed into his shoulder.

  “Hey, there,” he said, stroking my hair. “What’s going on?”

  “You were gone a really, really long time.”

  “I started talking to J.J. and his cousin, and they insisted I go with them for a crawfish dinner.”

  “Gross. Sea cockroaches,” I said, into his shoulder.

  “Tasty crustaceans,” Gus corrected. “They just take a bit of work. Are you all right?”

  “Don’t ever leave me, oka
y?” I never realized before how quickly you could get used to a life full of people—even if not all those people were alive.

  “I won’t. But if this is how I’m going to be greeted whenever I go out for a few hours, I may have to go shopping more often.”

  I pulled away, got some tissues from a box on the credenza and blew my nose. “Where’s Aunt Tillie?”

  “On the laundry table in the mudroom.”

  “You are a good witch. I thought you already packed her in the SUV. I didn’t know she was still in the cottage.”

  He grinned at me. “Gus’s cloak of invisibility at work.”

  I started crying again. Stupid pregnancy hormones.

  Gus pulled me in for another hug. “Mara, relax. You can trust me. You and me are solid. I’m never going to leave you. I’m going to have your back. Always.”

  CHAPTER 4

  The keys to the Crooked Pantry arrived the next morning, as I was leaving to pick up a doctor’s note, to clear me for flying. When I got back, Gus was on his computer, smiling.

  He looked up at me. “Loophole! See? It’s meant to be. Everything’s falling into place.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked.

  “If you google skulls and air travel, you find the restrictions. But if you google our specific airline and look at their restricted items, they don’t mention anything about a skull.”

  I looked over his shoulder and pointed to one of the banned items. “Cremated human remains.”

  “But the skull isn’t cremated. It doesn’t have a body attached. There’s no flesh. It’s a religious artifact. If my spell wears off and someone gives us grief, we can prove that it wasn’t on their list. This is great.”

  I patted his shoulder. “You keep telling yourself that.”

  “Don’t worry. I have her box stashed in a bag of Halloween decorations from the Trading Post. A bit of camouflage, just in case.”