Somebody Tell Aunt Tillie She's Dead (Toad Witch Series, Book One) (28 page)

Or a temple room, for that matter. Gus would disown me if my home didn’t have a temple room. And a room where you could see both sunrise and sunset… That had temple space written all over it.

I sighed and got to work, cleaning. Well, as best as I could with a sore ankle, aching head and various bumps and bruises. I lifted a mattress and a family of mice scattered. I screamed and limped to the other side of the room, trying not to think too hard about where the mice might be scattering to.

What I needed was cats. Lots of cats. No wonder witches had cats. Forget the whole ‘being familiars’ thing. It was to keep the rodents away.

By the time I stopped screaming, the mice were gone. I gingerly kick-pushed the mattress over to the discard pile, wondering if I could pay J.J. to come over and take the discards to the town dump. Then I went back to the bed and pushed off the box springs, steeling myself against another rodent explosion.

Which never happened.

Thank goodness.

Instead, I found a wrapped painting between the bed frame and the box springs. I slid it out and took off the wrapping.

It was
me
.

It was a portrait of me. Minus tattoos. Wearing a corseted, floor-length gown and a necklace with a five-petaled rose pendant.

I flashed back to the reading room at Lyra’s mansion and the image in the mirror. The way it felt like time had been fractured. Like I had been transported to the sixteenth century and was looking at myself through the wrong end of a telescope. And Mr. Roake telling me how much I looked like Lisette.

Lisette
.

This must be the infamous Lisette.

I searched the painting, looking for any clue as to when it was painted but I couldn’t find anything.

I traced Lisette’s cheek. The paint felt warm under my fingertips, as if it was flesh instead of canvas.

I looked at the path my finger had traced. A light pink hue brightened the pale skin, as if she was blushing.
Or as if life was starting to return to her.
Wait, had she been blushing a minute ago?

I took the portrait downstairs and hung it over the mantle. It felt so right, hanging there, the focal point of the room. I stepped back to admire it.

“Put that back where it came from, right now, young lady.”

I jumped, but the voice was Aunt Tillie’s. “Aren’t you supposed to be in your vase?”

“There’s no lid, you know.” She shimmered beside me, a barely-visible ghost, but she didn’t take solid form. Even her voice was quieter. More of a whisper in my head.

“Semantics,” I snapped. “A mirror’s better than a lid. Just ask vampires. You’re still contained, right? You can’t go off on your own or anything?”

“That’s right. Congratulations. I am now powerless and bound to my vase. Where it goes, I go. And I can’t do anything about it.”

“How bound? How far out can you wander?”

She shrugged. “Thirteen foot radius.”

“Is that how it works?” I thought about it. “I can live with that. And you don’t have enough power to go nuts anymore? They way you did before?”

She snorted. “This is the thanks I get for trying to save your sorry hide.”

“You tried to kill me. The whole brass vessel thing is your own damn fault.”

“You’re a fine one to talk.”

Well, she had me there. I never intended or wanted to hurt anyone, but it happened anyway. That’s why magic sucks sometimes.

“I can’t apologize enough for that, Aunt Tillie. But it still doesn’t give you the right to launch a full frontal assault.” I turned back to the painting. “So that’s Lisette?”

“Christ on a crutch, I told you not to mention her name. Although I don’t know which is worse — constantly calling her attention to you, or hanging her eyes on your wall.”

“Don’t you think you’re overreacting?” I straightened the painting a smidge. “Look at her. We could be twins.”

“More’s the pity.”

I wasn’t quite sure about the care and feeding of a trapped spirit, so I thought I’d ask Tillie if she needed anything. “So, are you good?”

“By good, do you mean trapped? Unable to affect you? Imprisoned and bored? Astounded by your na•vetŽ? Wishing I had pushed you a little harder? Or aimed the garden shears higher? Then yes, I’m good.”

“Every time I get sucked into caring about you, Aunt Tillie, you find a way to set me straight. Thanks.”

That night, I dreamt of Lisette. She was in a cemetery, humming to herself, weeding. She stopped and sniffed the air, as if she could smell a shift in the winds.

She looked around, searching.

Then she locked eyes with me.

“Help me,”
she whispered.

I sat up with a gasp. The dream had been so vivid. It left me with a burning desire to find out more about my ancestral twin.

I wondered how aware Aunt Tillie was of my actions and thoughts while I had her trapped. Could she sense me all the time? Or just when I was physically near her?

And, most importantly, how she was going to react if she caught me researching Lisette? She may not be able to throw me down staircases anymore, but Aunt Tillie still seemed to be holding onto her Olympic gold medal in nagging.

It was too late to go back to bed and too early to wake up. So I went down to the kitchen, made a pot of extra-strong coffee and hopped on the internet to research Lisette McDougal. Just to be on the safe side, I worked in the kitchen, away from Aunt Tillie’s vase and her radius of movement. But all I pulled up were ads for professional finding services.

Once morning officially hit, I drove over to the local newspaper office. An impossibly-young intern led me to their archives. It was like a mini-library with multiple computer terminals and three microfiche machines, minus books. I mean, there were a few books visible on the counter, but they were mostly directories and atlases. On the other side of the counter, an older woman in brown polyester pants and a fall-motif sweater, presided over a large scanner, a fax and a photocopy machine.

She was having a slow day, so she showed me how to work their archaic DOS-based computer archives and their microfiche machine. But after hours of trying every search string I could think of and scanning through years of Halloween issues, (after all, what better day for an article to appear on the town’s infamous witch house?), I still hadn’t found anything useful.

After I left the newspaper building, I went over to the main library building on Vermont and Cherry Ave. I knew it was probably a long shot, and sure enough, I didn’t find anything in their archives either. Although that didn’t surprise me. But it sure made me wish I could turn back time to when the town’s written history actually went back to accounts of the first settlers in the area.

On my way home, I dropped in on Daniel Roake at the nursing home. But he couldn’t recall anything more than what he had already told me. Although I had to laugh when he told the head nurse that I was his new girlfriend.

“You know what they say,” I told her. “One hundred is the new sixty.”

“Va-va-va-voom.” Daniel said.

She scurried away, looking scandalized and he, very gentlemanly-like, kissed the back of my hand. “If I was ten years younger,” he said.

“I’d probably be too old for you,” I laughed.

He winked. “Stop by anytime, sugar. We’re having a boxing competition this weekend. I’m the resident champ.”

“Seriously?” I couldn’t even imagine it. “You old people are tough.”

“You better believe it.” He laughed. “It’s that Wii,” he explained. “I thought all you young hep cats were hip to the Wii.”

 Wii boxing. That made more sense. Too little sleep must have been making my brain fuzzy.

“And my grandson should be back by then,” he said, teasing me. Sly old fox.

“Back?” I tried to sound nonchalant. “Where did he go?”

“New York. He’s a hotshot writer now. Runs in the family, you know.”

I laughed and promised to visit him again soon. When I left, he was watching re-runs of
The Golden Girls
on the communal TV.

Later that night, I called Gus. “What’s up, girlfriend?”

I explained the situation to him and all he did was laugh at me. “You’re the witch. You want to know about someone who’s dead, ask her directly.”

“And I’m supposed to do that how, exactly?”

“Don’t make me spell it out for you. S-e-a-n-c-e? Sabbatic dreaming? Astral projection? Mean anything? The ways to contact the dead are only limited by your imagination.”

“That’s the problem. I’m too close. I don’t know if I’ll be able to separate fantasy from reality. Besides, I’ve been up since four. I’m exhausted.”

“That’s the best time to try to contact the other side. Did you ever open that present I gave you?”

“What present?” I cast my mind back to the last time I had seen him. He had given me Grundleshanks and then… Wait, there had been a small box…

“Find it. Open it. Use it. Then you can sing my praises.” And with that, he hung up.

So I went looking through my things until I found it. Inside the box was a small jar of homemade flying ointment. I checked out the ingredients label. Belladonna, mugwort, wolfsbane, datura, magic mushroom tincture and toad secretions. There was also a warning to apply the ointment sparingly.

I was really skeptical about taking this any further. I love Gus to pieces but he’s insane when it comes to mixing up alchemical goo. I’m perpetually amazed he hasn’t poisoned himself. And now he wanted me to try his latest concoction?

I pulled a quarter out of my jeans pocket. “Heads, I try it. Tails, I go to bed.”

Heads. Damn. I put up a protective circle, sat on the floor and applied the flying ointment to the inside of my wrist. Sparingly. Very, very sparingly. Knowing Gus, this was going to be potent stuff and I didn’t have a designated driver.

When I came to, the sun was dawning. Well, that had been a waste of time. All I had seen was vivid colors — red, silver and green — flying at me from all directions. A vortex in space opening up. Voices talking so fast, they were impossible to make out. Everything was fast. Fast, fast, fast. And then Lisette, standing in a room, in front of a stone altar, her hand on a skull.

It was the same room I’d seen in my dreams, back in Los Angeles. But what did that mean? What did that have to do with me? And why was Tillie so dead set (no pun intended) against Lisette and I connecting?

I stood up, wincing. My legs were cramped, every muscle hurt, and my feet, hands and butt were numb. I hopped around, shaking my hands and feet as the pins-and-needles pain hit. It felt like they were on fire. Ugh. I hated this part.

As soon as I could move without pain, I went out for a walk to let the early morning air clear my head. The sky was just beginning to lighten. Normally, it would be showcasing the rising sun’s artistry. But today, the sky was awash in a uniformly flat color, tinged with the promise of rain, and a low-lying fog hovered over the dew-soaked ground. A lone bird trilled its morning aria, only to cut off its song mid-note.

As I walked around, I noticed a well-worn path, leading deep into the woods. And, because I never seem to be able to leave anything alone, I followed it.

It led me to the old-fashioned family cemetery I’d been dreaming/hallucinating about. So it actually did exist. The place was just starting to fall to neglect. Some of the fence planks had rotted through and random plant life was beginning to encroach on everything. Aunt Tillie must have tended to the cemetery, until she became one of its residents. Willows, yews, poplars, oaks, apple and cherry trees stood guard over the tombstones, like ghostly sentries shrouded in mist. 

I pulled my jacket tighter around me and walked among the old-fashioned tombstones, reading the inscriptions. It seemed to be my entire family, on my mom’s side. Gus was going to be green with envy. An old family homestead, replete with ghosts and a private, family cemetery, was his idea of a dream come true.

In the center of the cemetery, a broken granite angel watched over a riotous overflow of roses. At first, I thought it was just a sculpture, but it was actually an elaborate tombstone. It was the oldest grave here, and it was where I had seen Lisette in my dream.

Here lies a promising witch — too promising for her own good. 1650 — 1677.

It had to be Lisette’s grave. Damn, she was young when she died. Only twenty-seven.

The age I am now.

A shiver crawled up my spine.

A raven cawed and landed on one of the tall, standing tombstones.

In the silence that followed, I heard someone say,
“You overestimate your talent, witch. And your importance. It will be your undoing.”

I whirled around, trying to find the voice, but I was alone. Had I actually heard that with my ears? Or had it been my imagination? Was it meant for me? Or was it an echo from the past? Something someone once told Lisette?

I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye. I whirled back to Lisette’s tomb, but there was no one there.