“Yes, just the way I remember when I prepared it for my sweet Diego.”
“Your memory must really be something, huh?”
“I told you. Steel trap.” She tapped an index finger to her temple. “It’s how I kept all of my best recipes secret from Gretta and Ellie. They always had to write every little thing down.”
“Did you ever read their books? Their recipes and rituals?” I asked, giving the skillet a shake at her hand signal.
“Yes, yes,” she grumbled. “Garbage. All of it.”
“But you did read them? And you remember it all, thanks to your exceptional memory?”
Mama Lois squinted at me and pursed her lips. “What are you after, bruja?”
“We need a ritual that lays spirits to rest,” Dylan blurted from a barstool at the island.
“Nieto!” Mama Lois hissed and spun around to face him. “Ellie’s rotten magic has brought nothing but shame and sorrow to this family.”
“That was an accident,” Dylan said. “She was trying to save Papa Nando’s life. Margo broke the curse and saved the house from being destroyed. And now we need her to save the house again. I need her to save the house again. The bats in the belfry are counting on us.”
“And laying spirits to rest will achieve this?” Mama Lois sounded skeptical. I reached for her, but the cold draft that rolled off her backside made me think better of it.
“If we don’t find a way to rein in all of these wandering ghosts, a greedy dog Shifter is going to level the house and put a Target in its place,” I said.
Her eyes lit unexpectedly. “Oooh. A Super Target?”
“Please, Abuelita,” Dylan begged. “Mama Ellie’s grimoire was taken. You’re our only hope.”
Mama Lois crossed herself again. “I do remember one ritual that might help.” She pressed her lips together, and her ghostly cheeks turned a faint pink. “You will have to leave the room, Nieto. I cannot speak such things aloud to my own flesh and blood.”
“Nooo problem.” Dylan handed off the pen and pad and hurried out of the kitchen and into the living room. A second later, I heard the bedroom door close and the shower turn on. He wasn’t taking any chances.
I turned back to Mama Lois, bracing myself for all the gritty details, but she was staring at the fish again.
“It’s burnt.” She sighed hopelessly.
Chapter 7
FOR AS FIERCELY AS she’d condemned Mama Ellie’s rituals, Mama Lois had certainly read the grimoire more than once. She even talked me through the illustrations—in graphic detail—sharing far more specifics about Dylan’s great-great-grandparents’ naughty bits than I was sure I’d ever need to know.
If my third eye hadn’t been welted over due to cookie warfare, I would have stabbed it out with the ink pen. I was never going to get these warped visions out of my head.
Documenting the ritual took a full hour of me wanting to rip all my hair out and run screaming from the house. But I hung in there for Dylan. Truth be told, I’d grown a little attached to the colony in the belfry, too. And I definitely wasn’t ready to roll over and play dead for the likes of Randal fucking Thorpe.
It would have been nice if the ritual was the only thing Mama Lois needed to give us. But whoever had wrestled up her spirit and sent her our way had made sure she wouldn’t settle for anything less than a full twelve hours of agony. That’s how long it took to relay all the recipes she had stashed in her steel trap of a brainpan.
I’d dragged Dylan back into the kitchen to help with that nonsense and forced him to eat Mama Lois’s terrible, over-seasoned masterpieces with me in between writing down her secret concoctions. She wasn’t convinced I’d remember them, and I prayed to the Goddess she was right.
“Eat. Eat!” she’d shout at Dylan and me, waving her hands in the air. “You’re skin and bones. You’re going to need your energy if you’re to perform this rite of debauchery.”
We endured the torment together. Aside from the stomachache and massacred taste buds, it was kinda nice spending time with my bat and his ghostly granny. Besides, we couldn’t very well send her off to terrorize the gophers who lived across the street. The Shifters of Assjacket were put out with me enough as it was, and we still hadn’t figured out who was behind the hauntings.
Whoever it was had done a good job of covering their tracks. Mama Lois never gave us any more than her initial description of a little bat.
Just before sunrise, we made it to the final dessert recipe. Jalapeno flan. Not in my cauldron, Lois. I kept my criticisms to myself, but I was out of fake smiles. My cheeks hurt from the all-night effort, and I was pretty sure my intestines were plotting an escape. I laid my head down on the breakfast nook table and squinted out the bay window at the sky as it grew lighter over the pawpaw trees.
“You got that?” Mama Lois asked Dylan a third time. “The peppers, they must be very, very ripe.”
“Yes, Abuelita,” Dylan groaned and underlined the note on the page. Bags hung under his eyes. I could feel them under mine, too. “They will be the ripest peppers you’ve ever seen. They will put all other peppers to shame they will be so ripe.”
“Good,” Mama Lois said. “Then my work here is done. Your bruja can at least feed you properly now.”
“Really?” I pulled my chin up off the table and looked back at the island where she’d been standing a moment before, but she was gone.
“Mama Lois?” Dylan called, his gaze scouring the kitchen. Then he reached across the table and took my hands in his. “Please, never make jalapeno flan.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m sure I can’t possibly find peppers as ripe as the recipe calls for.”
“Nope,” he agreed. “Impossible. So, what time of day does this ritual call for?” he asked, pushing his chair away from the table.
“Sunset.”
Dylan had done his best to avoid any talk of the sex ritual in Mama Lois’s company. She’d scarred him enough with her cooking when she was alive. An erotic bedtime story from his bitter-sweet old abuelita would require the sort of therapy that couldn’t be found in Assjacket—not from the likes of Porno Cottontail, anyway.
“Sleep?” Dylan asked next, eyelids drooping as he stood. I yawned and stretched my arms over my head before taking his hand and letting him pull me to my feet.
“So much sleep,” I answered. “Sleep and then more sleep.”
He nodded dreamily. “The most sleep.”
I hardly remembered making it to the bedroom or crawling into bed, but once we were there, my brain shut down. I laid my head on Dylan’s chest and drifted off to the slow and steady drum of his heartbeat.
This was how I wanted to go to bed every night. Minus the exhaustion, of course. And definitely minus the rude awakening that followed too soon after.
“IS THAT THUNDER?” I mumbled against Dylan’s neck.
“Mmmm. Nnnn,” he replied in his sleep.
Then the noise came again, louder. It felt as if the house were trembling. Had there been storms in the forecast?
Broomzilla rushed into the room, rasping out an SOS on the hardwood and waving her handle toward the front of the house. She angled her bristles at the floor in the universal symbol to mount up so we could make a swift getaway, but I really hated traveling in bad weather.
The alarm clock showed it was a quarter past seven in the morning. From the ache in my bones and the fuzzy sensation in my head, I took a wild guess that Dylan and I had only been asleep for a couple of hours and not an entire day and night. Still, remembering that we’d only been given 48 hours sent a jolt through me that urged me out of bed as I realized the thunder was someone—or rather, several someones—trying to beat down the front door.
“Dylan,” I hissed and shook his arm before throwing my bathrobe across his chest.
“Huh? What?” He blinked stiffly, and then his eyes opened all the way as he heard the swelling commotion. He rolled off the bed and stuffed his arms through my pink terrycloth robe, quickly ty
ing the belt around his waist.
The package of Dylan’s personal effects had gotten lost in the mail—or stolen off the porch. We weren’t sure which, but there were plenty of vengeful suspects at the moment. Several of whom I could now hear shouting on the porch. I ran to the front door and yanked it open before someone tried to kick it in. Outside, at least two dozen angry Shifters waited.
“Finally!” Unibrow Bob greeted me.
“What do you want?” I held my hand up to shield my face and squinted in the harsh morning light, trying to take a headcount and picking out familiar faces.
Bob huffed and put his hands on his hips as if offended that I was unaware of his plight. “I just attended a six-hour lecture on natural dam maintenance against my will.”
“And I had to go digging for a long-lost acorn stash!” another Shifter whined.
The complaints kept coming with no end in sight.
“I don’t even like checkers!”
“Who needs to know how to repair a wagon wheel anymore?”
“That’s why god invented loofas!”
“My great-uncle was addicted to porn and forced me to watch it all night!” Everyone fell quiet and turned to stare at Roger. “Well, it’s true,” he said, sounding less hostile and more like he just didn’t want to be left out.
“Enough!” I shouted. “I didn’t have a spectacular evening either.”
“Zelda said you would fix this.” Bob’s unibrow dipped into a droopy, disgruntled line.
“And we will,” Dylan said, popping his head over my shoulder to assess the crowd. He tugged at the hem of the pink bathrobe and cleared his throat. “But Mac said 48 hours, and it’s only been 24. So get off our porch before I guano-bomb all of your cars.”
It was that last line that finally lit a fire under everyone’s ass. They scrambled down the front steps and scattered across the lawn, some shifting as they made their hasty departure. I sighed and leaned back against Dylan’s chest.
24 hours.
“Can’t do the ritual until sunset, right?” he asked, rubbing his hands over my shoulders. I nodded. “Then back to sleep we go.”
That was easier said than done, especially after such a rude awakening. But when Dylan closed the front door and stripped out of my robe, I realized there wasn’t anywhere I wanted to be more than under the covers with him.
For the next 24 hours or forever. I’d take what I could get.
IT WAS AFTER THREE in the afternoon when Dylan and I next woke. I still wasn’t eager to get out of bed, but we had shit to do. Ritual ingredients to gather and leg fur to eradicate. Scarecrows and rabbit traps to purchase for the garden.
I was grateful that Mama Ellie had preferred doing her naked spell work after dark. But a quick internet search on rabbits revealed that they could see in the dark. Wonderful.
Half the candles in the box in the pantry were busted, thanks to the interrupted reunion booty on the breakfast nook table. I added them to our new elicit shopping list. We’d kept it short. An in-and-out job intended to keep Dylan under the radar—since he wasn’t the one being accused of a magical misfire. Candles, salt, sage, a feather duster, lube.
At least Mama Ellie’s collection of crystals had mostly survived. I loaded them into a picnic basket along with the newly acquired items once Dylan returned, and together we ventured past the privacy fence to scope out the old cemetery.
Under the pawpaw trees in the backyard had been secluded. Romantic, even.
The abandoned, weed-choked graveyard... Yeah, not so much. I tried to picture us out here, groping around in the dark, avoiding poison ivy and grasshoppers. It sent a creepy-crawly sensation down my spine. Even worse than the thought of Roger peeping on us.
I couldn’t be sure if the fading daylight or the tall grass was more to blame, but before we’d made it very far, I stumbled over a shallow hole in the ground and twisted my ankle. Dylan dropped the picnic basket and was at my side in a flash. He lifted me out of the bramble and deposited me on top of one of the taller headstones. I mumbled an apology to whoever I was sitting on top of and winced as Dylan massaged my swollen foot.
“Think it’s broken?” he asked.
“Maybe just sprained,” I said hopefully. “I didn’t see that—whatever it was.”
Dylan angled his head to examine the ground, his sweep of dark hair shadowing his face. He released my foot and pushed back the lump of grass to get a better look at the hole. And the stone marker beside it.
“What’s it say?” I strained to see it over his shoulder.
“Not much. There’s a beaver engraved on it, and the year 1892.”
“Wasn’t that the year Bob said his great-great-whatever went off the to the eternal dam in the sky?” I frowned and gazed out over the graveyard, taking note of several more holes that seemed more obvious now that I was looking for them. “Dylan, where’s Mama Lois buried?”
“She’s just over...” His voice trailed off as he gazed across the ragged landscape.
Something had been doing an awful lot of digging. I guessed that was to be expected when you didn’t throw a dog a bone.
Angry tears burned my eyes. “That sleazy, good-for-nothing, bag of fleas.”
“Is this going to be a problem for the ritual?” Dylan asked softly.
If me bursting into tears wasn’t answer enough, I wasn’t sure what to tell him.
Chapter 8
“NEW PLAN,” DYLAN SAID, carrying me back through the privacy fence gate and into the house. “Fuck this town.” He set me down at the breakfast nook table and began pacing the kitchen.
“But the bats in the belfry?”
“I’ll relocate them.” Dylan scratched the back of his head, and his brow furrowed. I’d completely fallen apart. Again. And here he was, formulating a solution despite my uselessness. “There’s a nice cave I used to visit as a kid a lot, between here and D.C. Maybe it could work.”
“But...but this house has been in your family for over a century.”
Dylan stopped his pacing and knelt at my feet. He wiped the tears from my face with his calloused hands and pressed a gentle kiss to my mouth. “My family abandoned this house twenty years ago in an attempt to escape the curse you broke. I’ll happily abandon it again as long as you come with me.”
“What? Where would we go?”
“Anywhere we want. What’s stopping us?”
What was stopping us. I gave the question some serious thought. I loved the idea of running off into the sunset with Dylan. Who wouldn’t? He was gorgeous and heroic. He was the full package—brains, heart, and nerve.
But then I thought of Glinda and how badly she wanted Gran’s broom. Would she ever stop searching for it? Could a fresh start be enough to get away from her for good? Or would she see to it that Dylan and I spent the rest of our lives trying to outrun my wicked family?
Then there was the matter of Randal Thorpe. Ducking tail and running from the notorious West witches was one thing, but from a creep like Randal? Could I live with myself if I let someone like him chase me out of a town I had finally begun to consider home? I was sure there were more jerks where he’d come from. And what if Dylan and I found them wherever we settled next?
“Think it over,” Dylan said, taking my silence for the deep thought that it was. “I’m going to go check on that cave. Just to make sure it’s still there and roomy enough for the whole colony. I’ll be back before morning.”
He planted another kiss on me and then was gone. A man of action with a plan. I hobbled my way into the living room and flopped onto the sofa. Broomzilla scuffed along behind me, her bristles scratching out a desperate sound that hung like a question mark between us.
Were we really giving up? Was this all the witch I’d ever be?
Too many questions plagued my aching mind. The room began to spin. I covered my face and let darkness swallow my fears and doubts.
NOT TO BE OUTDONE BY the good Shifters of Assjacket, WV, Broomzilla woke me in the middle of the n
ight with a sharp poke to the ribs. I swatted her away and rolled onto my opposite side. The goosing she delivered next evoked curses that would have made a demon blush.
“Who shit in your broom closet?” I snapped as I sat upright on the sofa.
The living room was dark, lit only by a trickle of moonlight that crept between the boards over the front window. I held my breath and listened for Dylan or the belfry bats, but the house was quiet. All except for Broomzilla’s anxious scuffing in the doorway to the kitchen. I gave her a dirty look.
“What’s your problem?” I demanded. “Did little Timmy fall down the well?” When she made to gouge me again, I threw my hands up and stood. “Fine! I’m coming. This better be good.”
My ankle was still sore, and when I didn’t move fast enough for Broomzilla, she angled her bristles at the floor beside me, demanding that I climb on.
“Just don’t try to fly me through the bat flap like last time,” I said and threw a leg over her handle.
We zipped through the kitchen, and for a second, I thought she might crash us right through the bay window. She stopped just shy of impact and allowed me to open the back door. Then I held on tight as she zipped us up above the pawpaw trees, over the fence, and into a heap of prickly grass.
I resisted the urge to bark at her—there was already plenty of that going around.
“What are your panties in such a twist for? I delivered everything I promised,” Randal Thorpe said. I peeked through the weeds, following the sound of his voice to a spot near the center of the graveyard.
“Do you see my gran’s broom?” Glinda snapped.
“I told you where it was, didn’t I?” Randal sneered at her. “Can’t you just use one of the spells in that book to get it?” He bobbed his chin at the grimoire clutched in her hand, but then took a cautious step back when she pointed it at him.
“These spells are all sex rituals! Useless without a second player.”
Better Haunts and Graveyards Page 5