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

by Christiana Miller

I cast my sight out through the house again. Along with Tillie's energy signature, there was something else...

  Something darker and more malevolent...

  But I couldn't quite place where it was coming from.

  It was the same feeling I had in the kitchen, in front of the cellar door.

  I wondered if that was the mysterious Devil that Tillie kept referring to? Was it an entity that lived in the cellar? Was it the cellar itself?

  Damn it. I hated messing around with the spirit world. The problem, fighting with ghosts, is that they're not constrained by the laws of physics. And that automatically puts you at a disadvantage.

  I pounded on my defaced wall. "No! Do you hear me? No!!! I'm not going anywhere."

  I righted the furniture and rubbed at the magic marker. It was dry.

  "Couldn't you have used something that washed off?" I hollered. "Now I have to repaint the wall and it's not going to look as nice as it used to. And that's on you, Aunt Tillie. Next time you throw a fit, you better stick around to move the furniture back. Or I swear, I'm gonna trap your ectoplasmic ass in a brass vessel. Then you'll really have something to pitch a fit about!" I yelled, slamming a chair back into place.

  In response, I heard a window shutter slam back and forth in the wind.

  Okay, in all likelihood, I was probably talking to a ghost who was no longer listening. Damn, damn, damn. Gus would think this haunting was a hoot. And from the safety of two thousand miles away, it probably was. But it was kinda giving me the creeps.

  Yes, I know, I'm a witch. I should be used to interacting with the unseen world. But late at night, when something goes bump, it doesn't matter if you're a witch or not. You'll still be hiding under the covers. Well, unless you're Gus. And then you'd probably throw a welcome party and set out a plate. But I couldn't imagine anyone in this godforsaken town having the balls to party down with a ghost.

  Although, that wasn't a bad idea. It might even get Aunt Tillie to lighten up a bit. Maybe after I cleaned up the mess in the living room and repainted the wall, I'd be calm enough to think about throwing some kind of party in her honor. But right now, I was too angry to make Aunt Tillie the ritualistic Dumb Supper that's usually served to the dead. Maybe later. Once I no longer wanted to throttle her.

  After I finished pitching my own fit, I got down to work, cleaning and vacuuming the entire house. Tomorrow, I'd have to go buy paint for the walls, but for today, I did as much as I could before I tackled my treacherous bedroom. I stripped the sheets off the bed and dropped them in the washer, then vacuumed every inch of the room and bed, flipping the mattress, so I could get both sides. By the time I was done, there wasn't a single cobweb or dust bunny or spider egg left.

  After I was through, I called Gus and left him a message to ship me a case of Florida water and blue balls. As long as I was in a cleaning mode, may as well cleanse the energy of the cottage as well as its interior.

  There were fresh sheets in the linen cabinet, so I made the bed and, within seconds, I fell into a deep, dreamless sleep, exhausted. A sleep that didn't last anywhere near long enough.

  Judging by the light in the room, it must have been close to dawn when I felt something touch my leg. I threw back the covers, terrified it was spiders, but the bed was full of snakes. Slithering, hissing, snakes.

  I screamed and jumped to my feet. This country witch stuff was for the birds. Spiders, snakes, what was next?

  I zigzagged to the closet, trying to keep from stepping on the snakes on floor. But when I opened the door to grab my shoes, I saw a huge mound of slithering, hissing snakes.

  I slammed the closet door shut and clambered up on the window seat. There were snakes everywhere, slithering across the floor, across the bed. I opened the window and the window shutters, to see if there was a way I could climb down the outside of the house.

  The sun was just rising over the lake and the colors were breathtaking.

  Wait a minute... sunrise?

  Over the western portion of the lake?

  Since when does the sun rise in the west?

  This was a dream. This had to be a dream.

  I jumped down from the window seat and the snakes were no longer on the floor. Written on the bed coverlet, in blood, were the words "GET OUT!"

  "Fuck you, Aunt Tillie." I said. "I'm onto your game."

  I got in bed, pulled the sheets up over my head and closed my eyes, trying to go back to where I had been before this creepy dream started.

  When I opened my eyes again, the room was dark. The sheets were clean. No blood, no snakes, no spiders.

  In the corner of the room, the figure of a woman glowed with an otherworldly light. She turned and walked towards me.

  I looked at her face. It was so familiar and so strange, all at the same time.

  I could feel tears streaming down my cheeks. "Mom?"

  She sat on the edge of the bed and gently brushed away my tears. "Hush, baby. It's okay. I'm here now."

  "I missed you." I was crying like an infant, but I didn't care. She got in bed with me and held me in her arms.

  "I've always been with you, dear heart. Now listen to me. I don't have much time. Do not trust anyone or anything you see in this place. Everyone has their own agendas. Tillie will kill you before she'll let you help Lisette. Lisette will kill you if you don't help her. The danger for you is great. If you don't leave, you will have to face them all on your own."

  "Who's Lisette?"

  "Your great-great-great-great-grandmother."

  "Is she the Devil that Tillie keeps mentioning?"

  "One of them."

  I leaned against her and she stroked my hair.

  "Mom, do you think I should leave?"

  "Yes." She was quiet for a second, listening to something only she could hear. "But it's too late. Lisette knows who you are now. She's watching you, plotting her move. You will have to face her sooner or later. Whether it's here or somewhere else."

  She kissed my cheek. "Trust no one. Not even yourself. The danger is great, no matter what you do." And then she vanished.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  I gasped and sat up. This time, I really was awake. No snakes, no sunrise in the West, (just to make sure, I looked out the window), and no mom.

  Obviously, I had underestimated this place. And Aunt Tillie. I had no idea a ghost could invade your dreams and so thoroughly, totally screw with your reality. It made me wonder if the dreams I had about the cottage to begin with, weren't actually mine -- or what I had fancifully assumed as the cottage looking for me -- but planted in my subconscious by someone with an agenda. Maybe an astral-projecting Aunt Tillie warning me to stay away if she passed on?

  I could ward the bedroom, to keep Tillie out of it, but anything I did to ward this room against spirits would also interfere with my mom contacting me again.

  So I paced and mulled it over. I couldn't actually guarantee that my mom would ever contact me again. But I was damn sure Aunt Tillie would screw with me again. And how long would it take before Lisette jumped into the mix? Mom or no mom, I needed to carve out a safe space for me to sleep, where I'd be protected from unseen entities and their agendas.

  So I went downstairs, dug through my supplies, grabbed what I needed and headed back upstairs.

  In the bedroom, I lit up a censor and dropped the tiniest bit of asafoetida on the glowing charcoal.

  I tried to hold my breath, as I made sure the smoke got in every crevice of the room.

  "The good stay in and the bad stay out. By air and fire, I banish you from this space."

  Man, the smell was nasty. Although nasty was an understatement. It smelled like sulfuric crap. No wonder it was called Devil's Dung. Even though I was trying to hold my breath, the smell was still making me nauseous.

  I had to open the window before I gagged. The second I was done with the incense, I quickly doused the charcoal with water, dumped the nasty mess into the toilet and flushed it.

  Then I mixed four glasses of wate
r with salt and placed a horseshoe nail in each glass. I put one glass in the east, one in the south, one in the west and one in the north.

  "By earth and water, I ward this space and cleanse and claim it as mine. Allow in only those I invite."

  I picked up the sword I had made years ago, in a medieval weaponry class, and using a lancet on my finger, squeezed out a drop of blood and ran it down the blade. Then I swung the blade in a large, slow circle, around the room.

  "By blood and iron this room is bound. So mote it be."

  I felt the cottage shake and I heard a low boom as if I had crossed the sound barrier. Just in case, I checked to see if my heels were growing roots, but so far, I had no foliage on me anywhere.

  "Guess my work here is done." I rested the sword next to the bed and finished washing the incense censor out in the attached bathroom.

  I knew doing a warding that heavy was like using a canon to kill a rattlesnake, but I didn't want any more nights like I'd been having. I needed at least one safe place for me in this cottage.

  I put fresh charcoals on the censor, lit them, and loaded the glowing charcoals with sweet-smelling frankincense. I was hoping the sweet, heavy frank would chase the aggressively noxious remnants of asafoetida out of the room. But after a few minutes, I had to leave. Even with the window open, the dueling smells were about to make me hurl.

  I quickly ran around upstairs, opening all the windows in the cottage, before I raced out the door to go paint-shopping. It was time to clean up after my spectral vandal.

  After I picked up a couple gallons of cream-colored latex paint and supplies, I headed over to the Trading Post, to see if they had anything I might need. J.J. was working the counter. Since I was the only one in the store, he followed me around, helping me out.

  "So, how you liking that witch house?"

  I hesitated. "It's... gorgeous."

  "But haunted, right? Was I right? I was right, wasn't I?"

  I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, you were right."

  "I knew it!" He pumped a victory fist into the air, pleased to get confirmation of his family legend. "See? I told you. Didn't I tell you?" He leaned forward to whisper to me. "There was even a book written about that house, like a ton of years ago. My ma told me about it when I was a kid. Not many houses are so creepy, people wanna pay to read about them."

  "Really? There's a book about my cottage? That's so cool. Is it still in print?"

  "Hell if I know. Did you see the J-tree?"

  "Seen him, watered him. He seems pretty happy. For a tree." I picked up a bottle of citronella and dumped it into the basket.

  "I heard about that cottage my whole life. I always wanted to go check it out."

  "Why didn't you?"

  "No way. I didn't want to be turned into no tree, taking root right next to my kin. I expect you'll be moseying on then."

  "Oh, hell no. That cottage is mine. Any and all ghosts will have to take a back seat." I wasn't sure where this streak of bravada had come from, but I was feeling distinctly like Ripley in Alien. Or Sarah Connor in Terminator. I am woman, hear me roar.

  "Ain't you ever seen any horror flicks?" J.J. asked. "People say crap like that, right before they get chopped up in little pieces."

  I laughed. "Don't worry, J.J. No one's going to mulch me." At least, I hoped not.

  Female roaring aside, I was starving. I'd been so busy dealing with the cottage, I hadn't stopped to eat. So I grabbed some beef jerky and pretzels to snack on in the car and a large chocolate milk. I was trying to stay away from high fructose corn syrup and trans fats, but they were ubiquitous. Even the milk had high fructose corn syrup. Oh, well. One bottle wasn't going to kill me.

  I took my basket back from J.J. and handed him one of the big, black, cooking cauldrons, just in case I needed to put together something with more spellcrafting oomph. All I had brought with me from Los Angeles was my mom's small one. J.J. groaned under the weight as he put the cauldron on the counter.

  "What kills snakes?" I asked, setting my basket on the counter next to it. Just in case my dream was actually a portent of things to come, I wanted to be prepared.

  "Ferrets. They're nasty little things though. Mean tempered."

  Couldn't be any worse than a room full of snakes. Snakes creeped me out almost as much as spiders. "Know where I can get one?"

  "Pet shop."

  "They're legal to keep as pets? They're not legal in California."

  "Well that's just weird." He gave me a look, as if all Californians were mental.

  "Don't give me that look. I don't know why they're not legal. I'm not responsible for California's weird pet laws."

  "Maybe it's a smell thing. They can be kinda stinky."

  I laughed. "Somehow, I don't think B.O. is illegal in California. If it was, a whole lotta people would be in trouble." Like half of the pagan community. I'm all for back to nature, as long as it includes soap and deodorant. And clipping toenails. And regular visits to a dentist.

  "In Hollyweird? I thought y'all were supposed to smell like money and gold." He took the items out of the basket and started ringing me up.

  I snorted. "Maybe in Beverly Hills."

  Just then, a cute thirty-something guy walked in. Not my usual type -- short hair, respectable looking, wire-rim glasses. Normally (according to Gus, at least), the guys I go for look like drug dealers and thugs. But there was something about this guy. The thickness of his neck. The way his sweater caressed the muscles in his chest. The fit of his jeans.

  My breath caught in my throat and my heart beat so loud it drowned out the sound of J.J.'s voice. I caught myself staring at the stranger, my mouth hanging open.

  As he turned toward me, I quickly looked away. But as soon as he was out of earshot, I grabbed J.J.'s arm. "Who was that?"

  "Who?"

  "The guy who just walked in. Cripes, J.J., it's not like this store is full of people."

  "Dudette! Like, I don't check out guys. I don't swing that way if you know what I'm sayin'. If you're looking for a date, the J-ster is at your service. Where would you like to go?"

  "Sorry, I don't date smokers."

  "Well that's not fair. I thought you California types were big on non-discrimination. It's that weird smell thing you people have, isn't it? Admit it. Y'all are smell snobs."

  "J.J., focus!" I felt like shaking him. "Do you want me to keep watering Ol' Jack? Because he's looking like he could make a nice piece of furniture."

  That got to him. He sighed. "Paul Raines. He's the new teacher over at the high school. Humanities or something."

  "Really? So he just moved here too?"

  "Oh, yeah. About three years ago."

  "I thought you said he was the new teacher."

  "He is. He's only been here three years. Have you seen how ancient the other teachers are? They've been here like, forever. Hatched out of eggs when dinosaurs roamed the earth."

  "Somehow, I doubt that." I paid for my stuff. "Why do you think he moved here? It's not like this place is such a big tourist attraction."

  "Hey, we're not that backwater."

  I shot J.J. a look and he sighed. "Okay, yeah, you have a point. His family's from here. Guess he got lonely in the big city."

  "Which city? Chicago? New York?"

  J.J. looked at me like I had grown a third head. "No, dude. Trinity Harbor."

  "Of course." I should have realized the term 'big city' was dependent on perspective. I snuck a look down an aisle and just glimpsed his tush as he turned the corner. I thought about hanging around until he cashed out, but that was just too high school for words. A place this small -- I was pretty sure I'd run into him again. Besides, thanks to J.J., I knew where he worked. And I still had another stop I needed to make, one that might help me deal with my cottage's little eccentricities.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  The librarian, Mrs. Anderson, was a sturdy, older woman with a kind face and sensible shoes. I explained to her that I had just moved into my Aunt Tillie's cottage,
and I'd heard it had been featured in a book on the area.

  "We did have a lovely little book about the old houses in town. It was written by one of the locals. Daniel Roake. He was the librarian here when I was a girl." She flipped through the card catalog -- an honest-to-goodness, index-card system, not a computerized one. "Here it is. Historic Cottages of Bayfield County: Myths, Legends and Facts."

  She wrote down the Dewey Decimal number on a post-it and handed it to me.

  I searched the shelf but couldn't find it. So I searched every shelf in the area, in case it was misfiled. Nada.

  I returned back to the librarian, empty-handed. She searched the return cart, the back room, and the shelf of books that needed to be repaired, but couldn't find it either.

  She finally gave up. "We must not have replaced it after the fire. What a shame."

  "Fire?" I looked around. I couldn't see any sign of water damage.

  "Round about fifty years ago. A group of kids were smoking by the feed store, and one of the hay bales caught fire. The feed store, library, newspaper office and school all burnt down before it was brought under control. Tragic."

  "Oh." I paused. "That seems like an awful lot of damage from a single hay bale."

  "Oh, dear." She chuckled. "You are a city girl, aren't you?"

  What did that have to do with anything? "I guess so," I said, blowing out a sigh of frustration.

  She took pity on me and explained. "That one hay bale ignited the hundred and fifty bales next to it, and the wooden shed, and the wooden store, and it just kept spreading."

  "Oh, my gosh." I said, taken aback. I could see the fire in my imagination, way too clearly. "That's horrible."

  "Yes, it was, dear."

  "Wow. Well, okay. Maybe I can get a copy on Amazon."

  She laughed. "I seriously doubt it. The book was never widely published. Daniel -- Mr. Roake -- just made a handful of copies. It was a passion project for him, I'm afraid. He bound each copy by hand, with goatskin leather, and included a hand-painted frontispiece. They were truly a work of art. Back before computers were ever conceived of."