Somebody Tell Aunt Tillie She's Dead (Toad Witch Series, Book One) (8 page)

After a week of apartment hunting and nightmares, I was exhausted. Since my only source of income was unemployment, pentacle or no pentacle, no one was willing to take a chance on renting to me. I signed up with another temp agency but they all said the same thing — business was slow, the number of available temps was ridiculously high and they’d let me know when they had something.

Thursday night, I sat out in the courtyard, watching the stars, as I tried to let go of my worry and angst. Not that there were all that many stars visible in the Los Angeles sky. But if I relaxed my focus, I could almost see a constellation or two twinkling behind the clouds and ever-present haze of city lights.

Gus walked up as I was about to turn in, a bottle of Ouzo in hand. “I thought I’d stop by and help you take the edge off,” he said, unscrewing the cap.

“A night of floating in a dreamless, drunken stupor sounds like bliss.” Anything to escape the nightmares. To sleep, perchance
not
to dream.

“That’s right. Any time you need a night you can’t remember, just keep me in mind.”

I went into the apartment and came back with a big bottle of Fiji water and two glasses full of ice. Gus mixed the drinks and handed me one.

I took a small sip. Cool, licorice-y and delicious. I sighed in contentment. It had been a long time since I had ouzo.

We drank in silence. I let my eyes wander about. The jacaranda trees were in full bloom, their delicate purple petals lazing about over the pebbled deck. There was a nasty crack that ran across part of the deck and down the pool stairs — a remnant of the Northridge earthquake, a scar that would never heal. But the underwater pool lights lent everything a wavy blue, surreal glow and made the courtyard seem magical.

I waved a hand at my plants. Poor things. They did their best to look like a menacing urban forest around the pool. “Who’s going to take care of them after I go?”

It was one of the few accomplishments I was proud of — turning my black thumb into a green one. The thought of Mrs. Lasio forgetting to water my babies was depressing.

“I’m disappointed in you. You’re being a lousy witch.”

“You try finding an apartment without a steady income.”

“You could have had that place on the corner if you didn’t go out of your way to fuck it up.”

“That was an accident.”

“I don’t believe you.”

He kinda had a point. I could have put up a shield, deflected the manager’s gaze. Bottom line was, I didn’t care. I hated the place.

“You could craft for Mrs. Lasio to have a change of heart. Or a change in circumstance. Something that would make her go away.”

“That old battle-axe? She’s as stubborn as they come. Besides, I don’t like the idea of using magic on people. It’s not right to take away their free will, just to impose my own.”

“So have her find her dream house. Positive karma points and it would get her off your back.”

Probably. But it really galled me to be nice to her and have her win the lottery or something like that. And being nasty tended to backfire. That’s how my dad found out I had inherited my mom’s ‘
witch’
gene when I was a kid. When I really wanted something, I would wish for it and more often than not, it would happen. I thought everyone could do it. I didn’t know it was something special.

But if I wished for something bad to happen… Man, did I pay for it. When I was seven, I was furious at Tommy McGregor, because he’d shoved me into a mud puddle and ruined my brand-new dress. So I wished that something bad would happen to him. I even drew a picture of him with spots all over his face. Three days later, he got chicken pox. Two weeks later, so did I. Even worse than him. Followed by the German measles. Karmic payback can be a bitch.

So, in general, even though doing it feels as second nature to me as breathing, I’ve tried to steer clear of magic whenever I could. For my own safety, if nothing else. Unlike Gus, who spellcrafted his way through life. How he got around karma, I have no idea. He must have done something really good in a previous life, because he sure seemed to get a free pass in this one.

A pair of curtains twitched up on the second floor. Gus looked up, curious.

“Mrs. Lasio,” I explained, “making sure we don’t toss any animal sacrifices into the pool.”

I was never gonna win her over. She was so full of preconceived notions, there was no room in her head for the truth. Gus must have seen the despair leaking out of me, because he topped up my glass with more Ouzo, then gave me the Gus version of a pep talk:

“You, my love, have got to change your attitude. You pull in what you push out. You keep putting out this negative,
I’m a victim of life,
bullshit and you are going to be living in a shoebox. In the streets of Vernon.”

Gus rummaged through his man-bag, (because, as he frequently told me, “men don’t carry purses”). After a few minutes, he pulled out a wooden pipe, hand-carved to look like a witch’s head. He filled the bowl with a vanilla-smelling tobacco and tamped it down with his thumb.

I looked at him in consternation. “What are you doing? You don’t smoke pipes.”

“I know,” Gus lit up and puffed on the pipe to get it started. “But this looks really cool. I mean, c’mon. It’s a head. I’m smoking head. How cool is that? And it’s a Hag’s head at that.”

“Well, that’s appropriate. As long as it’s going to kill you, why not carve it into the shape of the Hag? At least it smells better than those god-awful cigarettes.”

I leaned back in my chair, enjoying the vanilla scent of the tobacco. Above us, the moon was just rising, low in the sky and orangey red, like the glowing eye of a dragon.

“What kind of witch are you if you refuse to bend fate to your will?” That was Gus, getting back on his soapbox. Whenever Gus got rolling on one of his witchy tirades, there was no stopping him.  “You know what you need. Stop panicking and figure out how to get it.”

“Did you come over to lecture me or to hang out?”

“A bit of both, actually.” He re-lit the bowl and took another puff. “Call what you need to you. Your desire will create the void and the universe will rush to fill it. Spellcrafting 101. It doesn’t get any easier than that.”

“I just don’t think people should use magic to do things they can accomplish mundanely.” Besides, I couldn’t quite shake my Dad’s warning to lay low.

“Why the hell not? Might as well have everything working for you on all fronts. And if you have the ability, not using it is just criminal. Stupid. Criminally stupid.”

“But magic can be tricky. Uncontrollable, cantankerous. It’s always a risk. You get what you want, but in a way where you don’t want what you get.”

Like on my last birthday. I had made a wish that the universe would help me figure out what I was supposed to be doing with my life. You know, the old “what am I supposed to be when I grow up.” And the universe responded by promptly taking away my dead-end job, so I’d have time to find my bliss. Magic can be a tricky thing.

“God is in the details. Bind it with specificity and you’re good to go.”

I sighed again and sipped my drink. I’d been sighing a lot lately. “I miss the days when getting laid was my biggest problem. Maybe I should become a kept woman. No responsibilities, no bills, just lots of sex and high-priced gifties.”

“If that’s what you want, Little Miss Difficult, you’re gonna have to stop saying no.” Gus tapped his pipe into a pot of dirt, getting rid of the used tobacco. He slipped the pipe into his man-bag, then stood up. “I just stopped by to light a fire under you. And now, I have a hottie waiting for me at Rage.”

“Rage?! Bastard. I never get to go anywhere fun.”

“That’s because you’re always broke. Go forth and be witchy, little woman. The echoes of one realm makes ripples in the other.” He kissed my cheek and then he was off, trailing scents of amber, patchouli and vanilla behind him.

As I watched Gus get into his SUV, I couldn’t stop thinking about what he’d said. He had a point. Why was I being so reluctant to use magic? It’s not like I was making a frivolous request. Incipient homelessness combined with joblessness was a big deal. Could I really afford to be hamstrung by a dream about my dad? 

As I stood up to go in, a crow flew into the courtyard and a long, black, wing feather slowly floated down. I caught the feather as the crow settled on the second-floor iron railing, loudly cawing.

I looked up at him. “I’ve already had one lecture tonight. I don’t need one from you, too.”

He cawed one more time, turned around on the railing and lifted his tail. I dodged under the overhang, barely avoiding a runny white plotz. While some cultures considered it lucky if a bird poops on your head, I considered it kinda gross and something to be avoided at all costs.

Later that night, with Gus’s words ringing in my ears, I decided to put my doubts aside. After Mrs. Lasio was asleep, I closed my blinds and got out all my witchy accoutrements. I wasn’t quite sure what I was going to do, but I had a feeling it would require more
oomph
than just wishing.

I lit two candles: a red one for illumination and a blue one for the ancestors. Given Mrs. Lasio’s hypersensitive nose, however, I skipped the incense.

Then I placed the cauldron in the center of the room, poured in a little bit of rubbing alcohol and fired up the liquid with a long-handled lighter. The sudden flare quickly spread into a small pool of blue fire. Flames licked up the side of the black iron, casting playful shadows across my tattoos.

I waived the crow’s feather over the cauldron, sweeping the air currents in a circle, as I waited for guidance from the ancestors, for words to pop into my head.

Within minutes, I heard myself chanting: “Lady of the Cauldron, Lady of the Grail. Be with me here, guide me through this trial. Show me strong, show me true, just what is it I need to do.”

I got a clear visual in my head and opened up a box of Sculpty clay. As I softened and shaped the clay in my hands, I circled the cauldron, continuing to chant:

“From the currents of the air, from the feathers of the birds, from the darkness of the void, I make you.”

I formed the clay into a rough image of a bird. I pushed the crow’s feather into the clay.

“By the power of the Goddess of the Witches. By the power of the Horned God of Old. By the power within me, until your task is accomplished, live and be free!”

I brought the clay bird up to my lips. “With my breath I give you life. Fly where I can not. Fly and search on my behalf. Fly and bring me back a home.”

I took a deep breath, so deep it felt like I was pulling it up from the center of the earth. It went through my entire body until I exhaled loudly into the clay bird fetch, with the intent of breathing life into it. I tossed the bird into the cauldron and blue flames flared up.

To my shock and amazement, I saw the spirit of the fetch as it left the cauldron, soared through a closed patio door leading to an outdoor alcove, and out into the night.

When I looked back at the cauldron, the blue flames curled in on themselves, then were sucked back into the iron and extinguished. Utter darkness enveloped the room.

Chapter Nine

I turned on the lights. What the hell was going on? I had never seen a fetch take life like that. I mean, as much as all those fantasy books and movies about witches would have you thinking that Otherworld realms are three-dimensional and you can interact with fairies as if they were solid beings, the reality is usually quite different.

As a witch, you can ‘
see
‘ other dimensions, but it’s a third-eye thing. It’s almost like having an overactive imagination, but one that’s eerily accurate. Fleeting impressions on your mind’s eye. Not full-on, 3-D hallucinations that are as solid as my hand.

Was it because of my birthday? Did turning twenty-seven activate some kind of latent powers? Did it have anything to do with entering my Saturn return, astrologically? I thought about it for a second and then shook my head. It was probably a brain tumor. That made more sense. And it would explain the impending doom portents in my tarot cards. If I had any health insurance, I’d go see a doctor.

Unless I was just losing my mind. I’d certainly seen it happen to others. Traveling too far into the Otherworld, too often, can negate your ability to return to the mundane world.

What if my dad had been right with the
Do No Magic
warning? Even if it had been just a dream, what if it was my subconscious warning me that I was about to go too deep and cross a line I couldn’t uncross? I just hoped it wasn’t too late to find my way back.

That night was the worst yet. When the nightmares hit, they hit hard.

I was walking through a forest, when I emerged onto the shoulder of a paved road. It was early and the sky was a swollen bruise, all purply-red, as the sun violently erupted into morning.

On the other side of the road, a forked pathway lead back into the woods. If I took the right fork, I knew the path would lead me to a lake. Even though I couldn’t see it, I could smell the algae-filled water and the rotting fish.