Somebody Tell Aunt Tillie She's Dead (Toad Witch Series, Book One) (29 page)

I rubbed my eyes and looked again, opening up my mind’s eye and activating whatever second sight I possessed. Next to each grave, the fog swirled and started forming human shapes. Was this real? Or was Gus’s ointment screwing with my head?

I blinked, but the shapes were still there. I slowly backed away, as one of the shapes beckoned me to come closer.

Instead, as soon as I got to the gate, I turned and ran.

Chapter Thirty-Six

After I got home, I took a long, hot shower and scrubbed my wrist about six times, to make sure I got all of Gus’s flying ointment off my skin. I was too wired to sleep so, once the sun was up and the morning fog had lifted, I decided to tackle the godawful mess in the cellar.

With sunlight streaming in through the small cellar windows, it didn’t seem as scary of a place. Most importantly, with Aunt Tillie trapped, I didn’t have to worry about a flying shovel whacking me in the head when my back was turned. Which ratcheted the fear level way down.

It took hours to sweep up all the glass and broken decorations, replace the lights, clean the blood stains from where the garden shears impaled my leg, and pick up equipment and various odds-and-ends that were strewn everywhere. Aunt Tillie’s little poltergeist-y tantrum had certainly been effective. Even the large, metal shelving unit in the back of the cellar had been knocked over.

I tried to prop the shelving unit back up, but it fell backwards and hit the wall, making a hollow thud. Hollow? I picked up a hammer and tapped the wall. It sounded hollow. I tapped on the East wall. That sounded solid. So I returned to the North wall and tapped it again. Definitely hollow.

I rooted through Tillie’s tools until I found a sledgehammer. As I was about to smash through the wall, I remembered the rowan tree out front and hesitated. Obviously, wanton destruction would have to be my last choice.

There had to be a way to get behind that wall. I pounded and knocked and prodded, but I couldn’t find an opening. I hefted the sledgehammer again. Did I dare risk it? But just as I drew my arms back for a swing, I saw something silver flash between the wall slats. I dropped the sledgehammer and took a closer look. It was a type of lock. I was going to need something long, thin and narrow.

I ran upstairs, grabbed a letter opener from Aunt Tillie’s desk, and went back into the cellar to try to jimmy the lock. The letter opener went partway in and stopped. I jiggled it back and forth, but it didn’t release the lock. I took a barrette out of my hair and inserted that into the lock. I closed my eyes and tried to feel where the pins were, but it was hopeless. Lock-picking was in Gus’s wheelhouse, not mine.

Somewhere, there was a key that fit that lock. But where?

I ran back upstairs and searched Aunt Tillie’s desk, pulling out all the random keys she had stashed in there. I tried them all, even the safe deposit box key, but nothing worked.

After I did the grocery shopping, I hit the bank. It was an old wooden building and, like the rest of the town, looked like it had been built in the nineteenth century. When I walked in, it seemed everyone knew everyone else. Which was no surprise, since it was the only bank in town.

The teller, Michelle, was super-sweet and chatty. “So, you’re living at the witch house?”

“That’s what I hear.”

“Poor Tillie. That’s a crime what happened to her. A real crime. She was real old though. Should never have been driving. Especially without her glasses. But she hated wearing them, so she forgot them whenever she could. Old people. I swear they need someone to parent them.”

I wondered what ‘real old’ meant to a barely-legal teller. “You seem to know more about my Aunt Tillie than I do.”

“Well, that’s the downside of a small town. We all live in each other’s pockets. And everyone loved Tillie, on account of her bein’ so sweet and all.”

I snorted and quickly covered it with a cough. Seemed like my lethal, posthumous Aunt Tillie was very different from the Tillie everyone else remembered. Death must have made her personality take a turn for the worse. “Did Aunt Tillie have an account here?”

“All her accounts transferred to her trust after her death.”

“Yeah, I’ve got the trust info,” I said. “I was just wondering if she had a safe-deposit box.”

“Hold on, let me check.” She left and came back a few minutes later. “You’re right. She rented a safe-deposit box right before she died.”

My ears perked up and a soft wind whispered in my head. There was something in that box that I needed to see. I could feel it. “Can I see it?”

“We need you to bring in a copy of the Death Certificate and the Will.”

“Seriously? I have to prove that she’s dead and I’m her beneficiary? I bet this whole town could recite the details of her Last Will and Testament by memory.”

She smiled. “You have a point. I guess we could waive the rules. Just don’t tell Mr. Harding.”

“Mr. Harding?”

“He’s my new boss. He’s a stickler for rules. Even when they’re stupid.” She looked around, presumably for Mr. Harding. “Follow me,” she said, ushering me down a set of stairs and into the vault. “Do you have her key?”

I pulled the key out of my pocket and held it up.

Within minutes, I was ensconced in a small, private room, sorting through Aunt Tillie’s safe deposit box. Birth certificate, property deed, some pictures of Aunt Tillie, there were even a few of my mom, holding me when I was a baby.

I flipped through the pictures. Wow, my mom had been young when I was born. I studied her face, looking at the similarities between us. I had her eyes. And her jaw. And her hair. That must have been hell on my dad. A visual reminder of the woman he lost, every time he looked at me. Although, what surprised me most was that I looked more like Lisette than I looked like my own mom.

Under the pictures was an unusual-looking pendant. It was a pentacle, with most of the pentagram inside an ouroboris serpent, (a snake eating its tail), and where one of the pentagram arms jutted out of the serpent, it turned into a long stem, topped by an infinity symbol. I couldn’t imagine anyone wearing it. It looked more like a key than a pendant for a necklace.

A key.
This had to be it. I pocketed the pentacle key and the pictures of my mom, and returned the box to the teller.

When I returned home, Tillie shimmered and formed in front of me. She was bigger than usual and her anger was palpable. “You have to stop.”

“Really, I don’t have to do anything.” I held up the pentacle key. “I want to see what’s behind that wall.”

Tillie’s flesh dripped off so that all I saw in front of me was a rotting, worm-eaten corpse.

“I appreciate what you’re trying to do, Aunt Tillie, but I can take care of myself. You’re not going to scare me off with some sideshow theatrics. So get back in your vase.”

I really liked the new set-up, with Aunt Tillie being around, but not being able to physically hurt me anymore. I should have done that power-over ritual when I first arrived, instead of waiting until she almost killed me, to toss her in a brass bud vase.

I walked through her and towards the kitchen. It was kinda weird seeing my body go through Aunt Tillie’s, but I wasn’t about to let her see me get squeamish.

She stood there, looking martyred and annoyed. “Then meet your fate, you arrogant girl.”

She returned to her vase in a cloud of ectoplasm and I headed for the cellar.

Even though it would be dark soon, and going in the cellar at night was not something I really wanted to do, I was obsessed with finding out what was behind the wall. So I turned on all the cellar lights, located the hidden lock on the wall, and then slipped the key in.

The lock clicked and released, and a hidden door swung open. Behind the door were stairs that led down into black pit. A cold, malevolent breeze raced up from its depths.

Gooseflesh rippled across my skin and I felt my pineal gland kick into overdrive.

I took a camping lantern from the tool table, turned it on and slowly crept down the stairs, one hand on the light, the other hand on the wall.

  It was a small stone room, cold as a cave, with a stone altar in the center of it. It was the room I had been dreaming about for months. This must have been Lisette’s temple space.

I walked in and cast feelers around the room. I could sense vibrations of violence and tragedy. Something epic must have happened, to have imprinted itself on the space for so long. I placed the lantern on the altar. It didn’t give off a lot of light, but it was better than nothing.

I tried to open up my sight to the past, but I didn’t get anything. I needed to find a way to go back in time. Gus’s flying potion hadn’t really worked for me before. But what were my options?

An image of Grundleshanks flashed across my mind’s eye.
Sometimes, you have to kiss a lot of toads…

I ran upstairs, got Grundleshanks’s tank, brought it down into the hidden room, and placed it on the altar. Then I drew a circle of protection around us with my trusty blackthorn staff and called on the Gods in all directions to keep us safe.

I reached in the tank and picked up Grundleshanks. For a long minute, I felt paralyzed by doubt. Did I really want to do this? I could already feel the effects of the toxins from his skin, traveling up my arm.

I took a deep breath and, before I could change my mind, brought Grundleshanks’s cold little toad body up to my lips and kissed him, ingesting the poison he carried, before I dropped him back in the mud.

Soon, my whole body was vibrating. The vibrations grew stronger, until I couldn’t tell if I was feeling vibrations or having a seizure.

I collapsed in the circle, my body twitching on the ground.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

I could feel my spirit rise, up, up, up, until it was free of my body. I journeyed through the blackness until I had left the confines of the cottage, my spirit traveling through the celestial heavens.

A vortex opened up and pulled me in, hurtling me backwards through time, until I landed back outside the cottage. It looked newly built and much smaller than it was in my time, and the woods were much grander. I settled down on a tree stump and asked the universe to tell me about Lisette.

Lisette appeared in front of me and I felt a pull between us. Suddenly, it felt like I was both inside of her, experiencing her life, at the same time I was outside of her, watching her.

Lisette had quickly and joyfully settled in to her new life, with visions of ‘happily ever after’ floating in her head. She loved the cottage and her new-found status in this American community that both feared and adored her. She was so busy looking forward, she forgot to look back. If she had, she would have seen that Fate was hunting her around every corner, waiting for her in every shadow. Even Death himself crossed the ocean, seeking her out by her scent. For Death does not relinquish his loved ones so easily. And the hangman’s noose still ached for her lovely, white neck.

One beautiful summer day in the North Woods, Lisette left the baby with Lucien and went out to collect fresh herbs for her wortcunning. As she walked, a layer of morning dew soaked the hem of her skirt.

Lisette paused and let the scent of the forest flow through her. She loved the dark, rich smell of the soil, the sharp green of the leafing plants, even the dank smell of rot. She loved everything about the forest, from its perfectly contained cycle of life and death to the soft light that peeked through the tree branches.

Humming, she turned down a path that was scarcely more than an impression on the foliage; the work of small, hooved animals over time. She always seemed to find her best herbs in the most out of the way places.

As she walked, she tied up her skirts so they wouldn’t drag in the grass or catch on twigs, exposing the small dagger she kept sheathed on her thigh. If the villagers could see her now! Walking about with bare legs. That would be guaranteed to stir gossip for months.

But with every scratch on her exposed legs, she cursed the unwritten rule that trousers were for men. She vowed to begin wearing them from this point forward. It was guaranteed to shock the villagers, which was almost reason enough and it might just start a trend. Women everywhere would thank her for their liberation from their treacherous, cumbersome wardrobes.

Every now and then, Lisette stopped and cut various herbs for her basket. A bit of sage, some mugwort to open the sight, a few sprigs of hemlock. She handled the hemlock carefully, touching it as little as possible, cautiously placing it inside a handkerchief to separate it from the other plants. The deadly herb’s resemblance to its edible cousin yarrow was the downfall of many ‘not-as-cunning-as-they-thought’ folk. She could already feel the vibrations of her body increase from the small amount of toxin she had absorbed through her skin.

Half a mile later, she unknotted her skirts so her legs were covered, and rejoined the main path. As she left the sheltering woods for the well-trodden road to the Village, the sun blazed high overhead and the heat made her long to run wild and naked and free, without any concern for modesty. A body should be allowed to have its skin warmed by the sun and cooled by the shadows. Although, she thought, as she tripped on a rock, it would also help to have hard hooves to run on, rather than these soft-skinned, easily-bruised feet.