Somebody Tell Aunt Tillie We're In Trouble! (The Toad Witch Mysteries Book 2)

by Christiana Miller

  Suddenly, I remembered the plum that made him ill—the plum that had fallen into the garbage disposal and the horrible stomach issues that resulted. I filled the doctor in on it.

  She nodded her head. “It sounds like a perfect storm. My guess is that he picked up a bacterial infection from that plum, which depressed his immune system and left him open to a parasitic infection from the cats. That then reactivated the dormant viral infection and sent it into acute mode. He’s lucky to be alive.”

  Bacterial infection, parasitical infection, viral infection. Fuck! Talk about a rolling snowball of hellfire and brimstone.

  “In fact, since you live together, we should probably test you as well. Especially in your condition.”

  I nodded, acutely aware of the danger my baby could be in, if I was affected. “Wouldn’t I be sick though, if I was positive?”

  “Not if you have a healthy immune system.”

  “Okay, then. Sign me up.”

  She nodded and then made a notation on his chart. “I’m going to put Gus on an antibiotic drip and an antiviral treatment. I’ll keep him here for a week, but then he’ll have to continue taking meds at home. I have to warn you though, you should not come in contact with the meds we’re putting him on. Not even skin contact. The antiviral is fairly toxic.”

  “But it’ll cure him, right?” I asked. “We’ll never have to go through this again?”

  The doctor shook her head. “He’s always going to carry Toxo and he may continue to carry CMV as well. It all depends on his reaction to the meds. We’ll cure what we can, but our main goal is to get everything back into a dormant state, so his liver and lungs can return to normal. If his immune system gets run down again though, this acute level of infection could happen all over again. In fact, when he gets old and is less able to fight it, it will probably be what kills him.”

  Son of a bitch.

  Chapter 48

  While Gus slept, I sat and thought about everything that had happened. And every thought led me back to Forrest.

  Aunt Tillie had said that the Devil had to play by certain rules. That he could exploit existing weaknesses to cause other weaknesses. In this case, Gus had a weakness in his immune system, and what had exploited that was Forrest’s cats. The cats that were too sick to go to Forrest’s stepsister, so Gus had to take care of them. The cats that were infected with toxoplasmosis and were the size of small leopards.

  Had Forrest been in league with the Devil, this entire time?

  When I had first met Forrest, he had looked so familiar. But I couldn’t quite place him. And J.J. and I had been looking at Forrest and the Sheriff when J.J. freaked out and had either vanished or been turned into a rat.

  Was Forrest capable of doing something like that? Did he have that kind of power? Was Forrest one of the Devil’s demons? Some kind of advance guard that’s sent out when a witch begins the process of the Toad Bone Ritual?

  What was it the Devil had said in the cemetery? That Gus and I were a hoot.

  Where else had I heard that phrase recently?

  I thought back, and pulled up a vague memory of Forrest calling me a hoot during the dinner in the cemetery.

  My blood ran cold. I suddenly realized where I had seen Forrest before, and why he would have wanted to get J.J. out of the picture. But if I wanted to prove any of my suspicions to Gus, I was going to need to get out of this hospital and track down the evidence.

  * * *

  I ran home and took Gronwy out of his cage. He chittered at me as he gnawed on a slice of carrot.

  “If I need to get into J.J.’s apartment, where can I find a key?” I asked , then I tried to look into his mind for the answer.

  Carrots, pumpkin seeds, rocks, grass, more rocks, pieces of watermelon.

  I gave up and put Gronwy back into his cage. I needed to get my hands on that picture of J.J.’s great-great-grandfather. It was the one that used to be on display at The Trading Post, but last time I was there, I had noticed it was missing. Maybe it had fallen. Or, maybe, since there was a new employee there who seemed pretty savvy, she had taken it to be restored and framed, since it was part of the Trading Post’s history.

  * * *

  Anna was working behind the counter when I walked in. She seemed a little frazzled, and her bouncy blonde hair was lifeless, hanging in clumpy strands. She rang up a customer and slammed the cash register drawer shut, looking frustrated, as I walked up to the counter.

  “Any word from J.J.?” I asked, trying my best to hide my inner agitation behind a carefully-constructed, casually-concerned front.

  “No,” she growled, in her soft southern accent. “If you find him, tell him I’m gonna kill him.”

  “The police don’t have any leads?”

  “No,” she snorted. “I’m not worried. J.J.’s always going off on a bender and not coming back for a week or two. That boy’s walkin’ on a permanent slant. I’m surprised there’s a brain cell left in that smoked-out chamber he calls his noggin. But this time, I am done.”

  “Are you his girlfriend?” I asked, surprised.

  “As if. We’re cousins. That’s why I’m working both our shifts. You can report bad employers to OSHA, but when it’s your own family working you to the bone, you’re freakin’ stuck. I should have stayed in Louisiana.”

  “I thought OSHA was just for health and safety violations.”

  “Well, me working all these hours is not very healthful. Or safe, either. For anybody. If one more customer mouths off about anything—prices, politics, immigration—I don’t care what, I will knock them upside the head with a cast iron skillet.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” I said. “Hey, do you remember that picture J.J. had by the register? It was his great-great-grandfather, Jarvis, posing with a couple of other men? It was really old and kind of faded?”

  “Are you kidding me right now? I’m on my last nerve, and you’re fixin’ to grill me about some dang photo?”

  I grimaced. “Before you start sizing up skillets, let me remind you I’m pregnant.”

  “That’s the only thing saving your ass right now,” she said.

  “And I’m a customer, so I think you’re supposed to be nice to me.”

  “Do you really think that holds any truck with me?”

  “Tell you what, I’ll get you whatever you want for lunch, from the diner. That should earn me some ‘let the pregnant lady live’ points, right?”

  Anna snorted. “All right, funny lady. What do you want?”

  “I need that photo. I promised J.J. I would get it restored and framed, and I’d like to get it done for him, before he gets back.”

  “Then, you’ll need to find J.J. Last time I saw him, I was just comin’ on my shift, when he grabbed the photo, shouted ‘that’s him!’ and took off, lickety-split. Haven’t seen him since. Freakin’ no-account, air-headed moron. That boy ain’t got the sense God gave a June bug.”

  “Do you think he took the photo home?”

  She shrugged, having lost interest. “Who the hell knows. Why don’t you go to his place and take a look? He keeps a spare key in a hide-a-rock, for when he’s too stoned to remember how to get in. I’d say don’t steal anything, but I doubt the imbecile has anything worth stealing.”

  A hide-a-rock, of course! That’s what Gronwy was trying to tell me, with his little rat brain.

  As I turned to leave, Anna called after me: “Don’t forget my lunch. I want a Po’ Boy, completely dressed, with fried okra.”

  “Do they even have that?” I asked.

  “If they don’t, you’d best find me somethin’ similar. I am a woman on the edge.”

  “I’ll have it delivered,” I said.

  I was already on my cell phone with the diner by the time I got back to the car. By some miracle, they had the Poor Boy, but they were out of okra. But they had mustard greens and pecan pie. So I hoped those substitutions would do. If they didn’t, the next time I walked into the Trading Post, I’d need to wear a helmet
.

  * * *

  Once I got to J.J.’s apartment building, I was able to find the hide-a-rock and get inside. His place was small and dark. The bedroom had piles of laundry on the floor. In the bathroom, a rank-looking, maroon-colored towel hung on a bar by the shower.

  It was pretty much as I had pictured it, only the stench was even worse, after the dirty clothes had been marinating for a week in the locked-up apartment.

  I covered my nose and mouth with my shirt and tried not to hurl. Coroners dealt with the smell of dead bodies by putting a menthol rub under their nostrils. If I had any VapoRub on me, I would have totally tried it out.

  Well, that was an idea. I rummaged through J.J’s bathroom and scored a tiny jar of Vick’s VapoRub. I quickly smeared some under my nose, and put the jar in my pocket. I’d buy him a new one, if he ever turned back into a human.

  Oh, thank goodness.

  That made the place bearable.

  But I didn’t want to stay here any longer than I had to.

  So I quickly searched through the tiny apartment. I finally found the picture, at the bottom of an overflowing mail tray. I held the photo to the light, and there, standing behind J.J’s great-great-grandfather and his two friends, was Forrest.

  Chapter 49

  I wanted to run to the hospital and show Gus the picture, but for once, I didn’t act on my first impulse. Instead, I stopped and thought. Before I did anything, there was still a lot I needed to figure out. And the person who had the answers—at least, a heck of a lot more answers than I did—was my Aunt Tillie.

  As much as I didn’t want to go into Gus’s room, I had a feeling everything I needed was in there. I reapplied the VapoRub under my nose, tied a bandana around my face to filter the air, then pulled on a pair of latex gloves and went in.

  * * *

  Gus was on every esoteric mailing list and had even more books than I did. While I wasn’t into the darker side of magick—I wasn’t all that interested in calling up, compelling or canning demons or delving into possessions and exorcisms (my adventure with Lisette and Lucien had pretty much cured me of a lot of my curiosity)—Gus was interested in everything supernatural. And the more dangerous the better.

  What I was looking for was Gus’s Grimoire. His personal Book of Shadows. I knew Gus had gone through a ceremonial magick phase where he had done all sorts of research in how to exert power over the spirit realms. And knowing Gus, that probably led to more than a little experimentation. I needed to find the ritual details and the list of results.

  Unfortunately, he either hid his Grimoire extraordinarily well, or he didn’t keep one. Not every witch did. I tried, when I was younger, but I kept forgetting to write things down.

  Okay… if I couldn’t rely on his magic, I’d have to rely on my own. I left Gus’s room, took the mask and the gloves off, and thought about what I could do.

  * * *

  After a quick trip to the butcher shop, I went down to Aunt Tillie’s grave. It had been snowing off and on all day, and the snow made the cemetery look normal. Although, when it melted, I wasn’t sure if we’d have a cemetery full of dead toads, or if they’d have vanished as magickally as they appeared.

  I created a circle around Aunt Tillie’s grave with white candles and a handful of black crow feathers, then consecrated it as sacred space. I opened my sight and built up energy, calling upon the Keeper of the Keys to the Underworld, until I felt that mixture of unbearable dread and ethereal excitement that signaled Hekate’s presence.

  I never in my life thought I’d ever do what I was about to do. But I pushed down my unease, raised my arms and called on Hekate’s powers to help me bind the Spirits of the Dead. Specifically one Tillie MacDougal.

  Pouring bull’s blood in a circle, so that it connected the candles and the feathers, I chanted:

  Tillie MacDougal, tell me true

  So I may share your secrets with you

  By the blood of the bull, the wings of the crow

  By the tongues of the Fae, these seeds I sow.

  Tillie MacDougal, I call you here, bound to me.

  Speak only the truth, for if you lie to me

  Tonight, you will burn in hell for me.

  I finished pouring the blood. The ground shook. Thunder clapped in the sky. And suddenly, Aunt Tillie was standing there, in the middle of the circle.

  “What kind of spell is that to spring on a defenseless old lady?” she asked, clearly agitated. “You have a real mean streak. You undo that little ditty right now. Break this circle and send me back.”

  I snorted. “If you were a little more forthcoming, I wouldn’t have needed to resort to this. I want to know exactly what’s going on. The full truth, not some half-assed whitewash of truth.”

  “You can’t handle the truth,” she cackled. “I’ve always wanted to say that.”

  “Or you could stay right here for the next twenty years, waiting for me to release you.”

  She gasped. “You little ingrate. Do you know what happens to spirits who rat the D-bag out? I tried to warn you. I’ve left you hints. I thought you’d figure it out with the radio playing relevant songs when your visitor was in the cottage. But you’re as dense as a two-headed woodpecker, staring at a pencil.”

  I glared at her. “I’m not kidding around, Aunt Tillie. Gus is in serious trouble. I need you to tell me the truth.”

  “The truth is you and your non-boyfriend are a huge pain in my arthritic ass. You’re menaces, the two of you. You should have both been raised as mortals and stripped of your magic for your own good, and the good of everyone around you!”

  “That’s your opinion.”

  She snorted. “No, that’s my truth. You want a specific truth, you need to come up with better questions. I’ll give you five questions and that’s it. Five. That’s more than generous. After five, you send me back or I will sit here in silence for the next century, and you can kiss my granny-panty-covered ass before I talk to you again.”

  “Fine. Is Forrest the—”

  She gasped. “—Don’t say his name, lest you invoke him! Are you not paying attention to how much I’ve been trying to avoid that?!”

  “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  “Four questions left.”

  “No! That should not count as one of my questions. You didn’t even answer it, really.”

  “Letter of the law.”

  I gave a cross sigh. “Fine. Why does the fact that the toad housed Lucien make such a difference? Who is Lucien? Is he a demon, like we think he is? Wait! Don’t answer all of those. Let’s just go with… who or what is Lucien?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Lucien is a nickname for one of the fallen angels. He was cursed to walk in a mortal’s body, so he could feel their pain. He was almost set free by Matthew Gilardi, but then he was unexpectedly imprisoned in a skull by your ancestor, the witch Lisette. Isn’t that rich? Neither one of those idiots realized what they were doing. Matthew thought he was killing a savage, Lisette thought she was rescuing her lover. She was just as stupid and impulsive as you, back then. Three questions left.”

  Wow. That was insane. “So… Lucien… Lucifer?”

  She gave me a questioning look and opened her mouth.

  “Wait! Stop! Don’t answer that. I have other questions and I don’t really care about that one.”

  Boy, did I have a lot to think about.

  “Is that why Gus hasn’t been able to sense you, or any spirit, for that matter? Because the De… his new boyfriend is blocking him?”

  “That would be my guess. The last thing he’d want is Gus to be able to sense the truth about anything having to do with the spirit realms. Now you’re down to two questions.”

  “Wait! That shouldn’t even count! I answered that question, you just confirmed it—and it wasn’t even a hard confirm, more like a soft maybe.”

  “You win some, you lose some,” she said, shrugging.

  I bit my lip and tried to think of a way to phrase my next question. �
��And the toad bone…”

  “What a ridiculous ritual. I can’t believe anyone’s still stupid enough to try it. Idiot-boy would have been in trouble with that one anyway. But boy, howdy, did he pick the wrong toad.”

  “What does that mean? Why is Grundleshanks so different?”

  Aunt Tillie clucked. “I swear you two are perfectly matched, in the impulsive but brainless department.”

  “Aunt Tillie! By the power of Hekate, I compel you to give me the answer—the full answer—to what exactly the deal is with this toad bone and why it’s so special.”

  “And then you’ll let me go?”

  “No! Nice try, Aunt Tillie. I still have one more question left. Answer my last two questions, then I’ll break the circle and let you go—but only if you give me full answers.”

  She sighed. “Grundleshanks was not a normal toad.”

  “No, he wasn’t,” I agreed. “It was like he was a witch in a toad’s body.”

  “Mmmm. What does the toad bone normally confer?” she asked me.

  “Dominion over horses.”

  “And what is a horse?”

  “An animal,” I said slowly, wondering where she was going. Then I gasped. “Is that what the problem is? Because it’s Grundleshanks’s bone, it confers dominion over the entire animal kingdom, instead of just horses?”

  Aunt Tillie nodded. “You do have a brain. But thanks to Lucien’s influence, this particular toad bone gives dominion over the spirit realms as well the earthly realm. The D-bag will never let Gus have that bone. He wants it for himself, to increase his scope of power. And if he gets it, there’s no telling what he’ll do with it. Suffice it to say, it will probably amuse him while harming everyone else.”

  “But why doesn’t he just take it? He’s the Devil.”

  She glared at me. “I told you not to say his name. And this makes question five. Even the D-bag has to play by certain rules. He can’t take anything against your will. It has to be a willing sacrifice on your part. Even if it means the D-bag manipulates the extenuating circumstances to encourage you to be willing. Which he will do, so don’t trust him. After you make an agreement with him, he can enforce it however he wants. There you go. That was your last answer. Now break the circle, or I will cause you every misery known to mankind and then some.”