Somebody Tell Aunt Tillie She's Dead (Toad Witch Series, Book One) (37 page)

“As if that was really an option?” I snorted.

“Some things have changed since you’ve been gone,” he said, walking up to the porch and sitting on the oversized swing.

I followed him, curious. “What does that mean?”

“The evil Mrs. Lasio is gone.”

“Are you kidding me?” I curled up next to him on the porch swing. “What the hell happened?”

“Lenny caught his hot tamale wrapped around a Greek lamb kebob and he flipped.”

“Gus! You didn’t!?!”

“I sure as hell did. Did you see him? He was hot. With a capital H. Besides it serves that old prune right. No one disses my girl.”

“So that’s who your mystery boy toy was? Lenny’s Latin dreamboat? You are a skunk.”

“And you love me. You want to hear the rest of this? Or you want to bitch?”

“I’m all ears.”

“Well, Lenny told him to pack his crap and move out of his gatehouse, and then he turned around and booted Mrs. Lasio out of the apartment building. So now he’s got two apartments up for rent.”

“I’m surprised mine wasn’t rented the day after I moved.”

“That’s ‘cause no one can afford it. He totally upgraded your place. The minute you left, he had a crew in there, putting in a new bathroom and replacing the skanky carpeting with hardwood floor. And he’s jacked up the rent three hundred percent. Now he’s going to do the same to Lasio’s place. Think he’ll let me move in, rent-free? I can be the new building manager.”

“After you recycled his boy toy behind his back?!”

“You have a point. Lasio’s place too small for me, anyway. The living room is only slightly larger than my penis.”

“For someone who lives in a walk-in closet, you’re awfully judgmental about size. What were you doing checking out Lasio’s apartment, anyway?”

“Being nosy.”

Of course. He wouldn’t be Gus if he wasn’t nosy.

“But Lenny may let you move back in, now that she’s gone.”

I thought about it. I really didn’t want to leave my cottage. Especially after everything I had gone through with it. It was like a hard-won prize after a long, bloody battle. Most importantly, it finally felt like it was mine.

“I wonder where Mrs. Lasio’s going to go?” I said.

“Who cares? She didn’t give a shit about you finding a home, did she?”

That’s Gus. Loyal to the end. “Are you still bonking the hot tamale?”

“No. That only lasted until he came over and saw my temple room. I’ve never seen anyone run out screaming so fast. You’d think that church of his would teach him tolerance. Whatever happened to love thy neighbor?”

“Did you miss the Crusades? The Inquisition? Since when has any fundamentalist religion taught religious tolerance?”

“You have a point,” he snorted.

After that horrible night, Aunt Tillie started hanging out with us so much, it was like she had become our preternatural roommate. And she was no longer trying to kill me, which was a big improvement. Gus couldn’t see her as clearly as I could — something I lorded over him on a daily basis — but I talked the situation over with him and we came to the decision that, even though she wasn’t in the vessel anymore, Aunt Tillie was still trapped here. And it was probably my fault. Like Aunt Tillie said, messing with magic you know nothing about is not the smartest thing to do. It’s hard enough to deal with the consequences when you know what you’re doing.

Looking back on things, I was finally able to see how I had misfired so badly with the fetch. Poor Aunt Tillie. Not only was I inadvertently responsible for her death, I had then trapped her in this dimensional reality and bound her to me, when I put her in the brass vase. Gus and I had some very long talks about what we could do to fix Tillie’s situation.

Chapter Forty-Eight

Samhain Eve dawned cold and crisp. The leaves had dropped and the tree branches were bare and stark against the sky. I bundled up in my heavy ritual wear and placed two comfy deck chairs outside, positioning them next to a small table with a bottle of Absinthe, (Gus’s first bottle as an amateur brewer), a bottle of water, a bowl of sugar cubes and two glasses. Tillie shimmered and appeared on one of the chairs.

“What are you doing?”

I sighed. “Just behave, would you? No knocking anything over.”

“Fine.” She smoothed her skirt and looked down at her black Mary-Janes. “I’ve always liked these shoes. Comfortable, sensible, good looking. I must say, I’m pleased with the care to detail at Del Angels mortuary. I was afraid they’d bury me in a nice top and my skivvies and flip-flops. After all, who sees you from the waist down?”

“Who picked out your clothes?”

“That nice boy, J.J.’s, mother. J.J. would never come here. His grandfather…”

“Is the tree. I know. I’ve been watering him.”

I sat down next to her, to have a serious, girl-to-ghost chat. “Aunt Tillie. While we love having you around, it’s time to go. You have to cross over. We don’t want you to get stuck here forever.”

“Why not?”

“Because you need to continue your journey. You can always come back and visit. I’m just trying to avoid having you trapped here, without choices. Like Lucien was.”

Gus walked up, dressed in his ritual garb and carrying Lisette’s brass vessel and a jar of ointment. “Look out, Samhain, here we come!”

At the mention of Samhain, Aunt Tillie stiffened and glared at us. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“It’s for your own good, Tillie.” Gus said.

Every Samhain, Gwyn ap Nudd rides with the Wild Hunt, gathering lost souls and crossing them over through the veil, to the Otherworld. He also lets his hounds loose on evil souls, to harry and torment them from one end of the earth to the other, before tearing them apart. So it’s kinda like getting two birds with one stone.

Gus set the vessel down and handed me the ointment. “Anoint yourself, woman. We’ve got work to do.”

I looked at him. “Are you sure? I mean, what if it doesn’t work? We’ll be unleashing Lisette, all over again.”

“Oh ye of little faith. Have I ever let you down?”

I opened the jar and sniffed at the goo. “Oh my Gods, that’s putrid. What the hell’s in here?”

“Aconite, toad sweat, all the poisonous goodies.”

Tillie slammed the lid back on the jar and practically threw it at him. “Are you crazy? She can’t use that. She shouldn’t even have sniffed it.” She said, glaring at me.

A look of annoyed confusion crossed Gus’s face.

“And you want me to leave you in his bumbling, not-so-capable hands?” Tillie sniffed.

I almost laughed. Gus looked like puppy who’d just been swatted with a rolled up newspaper.

“It’s okay, Gus. I don’t think I’m going to need anything to help with my sight. It’s been in overdrive for months.” I reassured him.

As midnight approached, Gus and I were both shivering, even in our heaviest robes and cloaks. I guess we could have done the ritual in parkas, but there was just something magical about changing into ritual clothes, that puts you in a different head space.

I put up a circle of protection and Gus called upon Gwyn ap Nudd and the Wild Hunt to come for Lisette and Lady Rhiannon for Tillie. There was a crackling in the sky. Far off, I could hear the braying of the Hounds of Hell.

At the stroke of midnight, my sight shifted and I could suddenly see them. Hundreds of white hounds with red ears, streaming through the sky. Braying with a sound like hundreds of geese in full voice, flying overhead. Gwyn ap Nudd’s pack had been unleashed upon the earth.

“Don’t look at the hounds’ eyes, Mara!” Gus yelled over the din. Death was said to come to the mortals who looked into the flaming red eyes of the hounds.

Then the Hunt Master himself, Gwyn ap Nudd, galloped out of the portal, riding his Night Mare across the sky. He had the body of a man and the head of a stag. He would ride the hunt to the ends of the earth, as they collected all the lost souls.

Gus opened the brass vessel. As the spirit of Lisette rose up, towering in her fury, two hounds broke off from the pack and harried her, biting at her, herding her into the hunt. She had now become their prey and they would chase her to the ends of the earth. She would either return with them to the Otherworld, where she belonged, or they would rip her to shreds and send her back to the Cauldron of Creation.

Gwyn ap Nudd looked down and I could swear he gave us a salute as he rode by.

As the Hunt continued across the night sky, a female rider separated out from the back of the hunt. Lady Rhiannon, one of the Queens of the Underworld.

The Lady was gentle and beautiful. And she was riding right for Tillie. She stopped in front of us, glowing so brightly and so beautifully, it hurt to look at her.

Aunt Tillie reached up to grab her arm and I felt a sob catch in my throat. Gus put his arms around me. “It’s for the best,” he yelled in my ear. “You don’t want her trapped here forever, do you?”

Aunt Tillie smiled at me and I gave her a teary smile in return. Then she mounted the horse behind the Lady, holding onto her waist.

As Rhiannon whirled her horse around and rode up into the night sky, Aunt Tillie gave us a last wave. Then I watched Rhiannon’s horse change from white to grey to black as it jumped over the moon and sailed back through the veil, to the other side.

Epilogue

After Samhain, Gus was more determined than ever to do his toad bone ritual — he figured that between Grundleshanks’s inherent personality and toad-sight, and whatever extra kick the bones had gotten from housing Lucien for a brief nanosecond — he was going to have the toad bone to end all toad bones.

I figured it was just going to be more trouble than it was worth.

But Gus had read, in an old book about East Anglian farmers, that if you can wrest the toad bone away from the Devil, it would give you the ability to charm all animals. Knowing Gus, once he got the bone, he was going to get himself killed trying to charm a grizzly bear. But there was no talking to him once he had his mind made up.

The two Doberman puppies were doing well, although they were no longer so little. We named the black-and-tan one Aramis and the red one Apollo, and ate everything in sight. They were adorable though. Aramis followed me everywhere, while Apollo was pretty sure Gus had hung the moon.

Me, I’d been debating what to do with my life now that all my ghostly squatters had been evicted and the cottage was finally mine. I started an online witch store, which seemed to be going well. Gus had been carving wands and staffs for me to sell. And we converted part of the cellar for herbal and essential oil storage. Although I had to be careful about what fumes I inhaled, or what I got on my skin. Especially now.

Oh, yeah. All those sexcapades while I wasn’t in control? Well, I went to the doctor’s office and had a bunch of tests run. No AIDS, no STD’s (thank the Gods!) but the pregnancy test came back positive. No wonder Tillie was so protective of me at Samhain.

The idea of becoming a mom alternately thrilled and terrified me. I had no idea if the baby was Paul’s or Lucien’s or a complete stranger’s. I thought about terminating, but I couldn’t. Even now, in the first trimester, this little being inside of me was responding to my thoughts, as if she was aware and could hear me. I don’t think that’s normal for a fetus to be conscious while still in the womb, but since mine definitely was… I decided to take my chances and hope for the best.

In the weeks that have passed since the incident, Paul’s been plagued with nightmares. Every now and then, he’d call me up or come over and I’d try to soothe him as much as I could. But it hasn’t been often. He’s still freaked out about what happened. He says he needs time. And since I’m the person who inadvertently brought hell raining down on his head, I just smile and nod and wish him well. I miss him something fierce, but I have no right to force the issue.

Aunt Tillie, on the other hand, has been surprisingly supportive. She often hangs out at the cottage with me, just to chat. but the difference is that now, she’s definitely a visitor in my home — I’m not an interloper in her’s. She has stayed on her best ghostly behavior. And she’s much sweeter. She seems to enjoy having the power to cross the veil whenever she pleases.

Gus tried to convince me to move back to LA with him, but once he found the small cemetery and the stream that ran through the forest, it was pretty clear (to me, at least) that he was going to be here for the long haul. He’s fallen just as much in love with the place as I have. Which was fortunate, because, when he went back to Los Angeles to pack his things, he found out that Lenny had been so pissed at him for ‘recycling’ his boy toy, he bought Gus’s building just so he could evict him.

So Gus has moved in with me, permanently. He’s in Aunt Tillie’s old room and I moved into the gorgeous attic room that I remodeled into a bedroom/nursery.