Landon leaned over and kissed the tip of her nose. “For now. I’ll be happier when we find this woman in the woods.”
“That makes both of us,” I interrupted, drawing their attention to me. “If we do it today, I’ll make you a bacon cake. How does that sound?”
Landon’s eyes flashed. “That sounds like I have a new favorite witch.”
Bay scowled. “Oh, well, that hurts.”
Landon grinned as he kissed her cheek. “She’ll be my favorite only until the bacon cake digests. I promise.”
Even though they had a cute quality that often made me want to puke, I couldn’t focus on Landon and Bay today. “Let’s get moving. I want to finish this. Annie needs us to finish it.”
Landon sobered. “We’re going. We’re not going to leave that area until we find the woman who did this. I promise you that.”
Eight
We found Aunt Tillie in her greenhouse. She paced back and forth in front of one of her potting benches, her coat clutched around her, muttering to herself. I couldn’t quite make out what she was saying, but I knew she was concentrating because she didn’t bother looking up when we entered.
“What are you doing?” Landon asked.
“What?” Aunt Tillie finally jerked her head in our direction. “Oh, I’m making up my battle plans for the day. World domination is just around the corner. You should duck and cover before it’s too late.”
Landon’s lips twitched as he regarded her. “Your battle plans? Are you going to war?”
“Someone took Annie. Of course I’m going to war.” Aunt Tillie shook her head, as if trying to discard the heavy thoughts plaguing her, and moved toward a batch of herbs on the bench. “I’m going to cast a modified locator spell to find the person we’re looking for.”
“It’s a woman,” Bay volunteered. “Annie told us a little bit over breakfast. She’s still shaken up, but she said she walked out of the store on her own and then a woman grabbed her in the alley and took her to the woods. That explains the extra set of footprints we thought we found … and the discarded doll we thought was so weird.”
“She blames herself,” I added. “She thinks she was taken because she did something bad.”
“Well, that’s just ridiculous,” Aunt Tillie sputtered. “If that was the rule someone would be showing up to take me every single day.”
“Oh, that sounds like the best Christmas gift ever,” I teased, smirking. My spirits elevated once Annie started talking, and I was feeling much better about myself. My babysitting talents still left a bit to be desired, but I couldn’t worry about that now when I had other things to contend with. “I’ll keep that in mind for my Santa list this year.”
Aunt Tillie made a face and extended her finger in warning. “Don’t worry about Santa’s list. You’re on my list.”
“I’m fine with that. I only want things to go back to normal.”
“They can’t until we find whoever is in the woods,” Landon pointed out. “I didn’t want to push Annie too far in case she retreated again, but I’m guessing whoever is out there isn’t mentally balanced. Annie described a shack essentially, not a house. That means this woman is living a rough existence.”
“But why take her at all?” Bay asked, rubbing the back of her neck. “If you’re living that kind of life, why add to your troubles? Keeping a child under those conditions wouldn’t be easy.”
“Which makes me think that grabbing Annie was an impulse rather than a well thought out plan,” Landon said. “This woman saw her and took her. She obviously couldn’t keep control of Annie, because she escaped.”
“But why take her?” Bay pressed. “What possible reason could this woman have to take her?”
“Annie already told us why,” I answered. “She said the woman lived alone and was lonely. I’m willing to guess that whoever it is suffers from mental illness or has some sort of personality disorder.”
“That doesn’t mean it’s okay to take our kid,” Aunt Tillie barked, causing me to smile. I hadn’t seen her this agitated since someone tried to steal her pot stash a few weeks ago. This was a different kind of anger, though. This was the sort of anger that could consume a person if they weren’t careful.
“No one is saying it’s okay,” Landon said, holding up his hands in a placating manner. “We’re merely saying that it’s a situation that needs to be dealt with. If that woman is mentally unbalanced we can get her help.”
“Oh, I’m going to help her,” Aunt Tillie growled. “I’m going to put a boot up her behind and help her over a cliff.”
Landon ran his tongue over his teeth as he regarded her. “You can’t kill her,” he said after a beat. “We need to focus on finding her, but when we do, you have to let me take over. Do you think you can do that?”
Aunt Tillie didn’t hesitate before answering. “No.”
Landon growled. “We need you when we go out there, but I can’t risk you killing someone in front of me. We don’t know what happened yet. Other than being frightened, Annie wasn’t physically harmed. You can’t uncork a big bottle of vengeance until we know what’s going on.”
“Who told you about my big bottle of vengeance?” Aunt Tillie deadpanned.
“I know what you’re doing.” Landon leaned over so he was at eye level with Aunt Tillie. “I’m not saying what happened here is right. It’s pretty far from all right. That doesn’t mean this woman is a criminal mastermind. I need you to remain calm when we find her.”
“You seem pretty convinced that we’re going to find her,” Aunt Tillie mused, avoiding Landon’s pointed comment. “Why is that?”
“Because I know you … and Bay … and Thistle,” Landon replied. “You won’t stop until we have the answers we’re looking for. I want to make sure we don’t make a mistake in our zeal to find the woman who took Annie.
“We would all die for her,” he continued. “We all love her. That doesn’t mean we can do something stupid when we get out there.”
Aunt Tillie’s expression was challenging when she locked eyes with Landon. “Fine. I won’t fly off the broom handle. I’ll react in a calm and rational manner.”
Landon made a rueful face. “We both know that’s a load of crap. Promise me you won’t kill her until I can ask a few questions. That’s all I ask.”
“Fine.” Aunt Tillie moved to the bench and swept the herbs she’d been gathering into a plastic bag. “You know, I don’t really make a habit of going around killing people. Torture is more my style. I enjoy torturing people. It wasn’t hard to make you that promise, so don’t go patting yourself on the back for convincing me to do it.”
“Yes, well, you’re a woman of your word,” Landon explained. “You might do some kooky stuff that drives everyone crazy, but when you say you’ll do something, you mean it. I’m worried that things will get out of hand, that you might lose your cool when we get out there. I want to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
“And you naturally believe I’ll keep my word?” Aunt Tillie was clearly surprised.
Landon bobbed his head. “I do. You’re loyal. You can’t help yourself, because at your core you’re a good person.”
The corners of Aunt Tillie’s mouth tipped down. “I think that’s the meanest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
Landon snorted. “We leave in five minutes. We’ll pick up Clove at the lighthouse on the way.” He moved toward the door, but Bay stilled him with a hand on his arm.
“Where are you going?”
Landon smiled. “I’m going inside for a care package. I need bacon for the road.”
Bay scowled. “Answer truthfully. If there’s a fire, will you save me or the bacon?”
Landon didn’t waste time before answering. “Bacon can’t walk by itself. Your legs aren’t broken.”
Bay made a disgusted face. “That’s what I thought.”
Landon smiled as he gave her a quick kiss. “Meet me out front in five minutes. If you’re not there, I’ll leave without you.”
>
“IT’S COLD and wet out here.”
Clove wrinkled her nose as she picked her way through the underbrush and struggled to keep up with Landon and Bay. They were at the front of the group, while we brought up the rear, with Aunt Tillie sandwiched between us.
“It’s the woods in the fall,” I said dryly. “What did you expect? Did you think you could wear a bathing suit and get away with it?”
Clove scalded me with a dark look. “I don’t need your attitude.”
“Obviously you do,” I shot back. “You’ve been complaining since we picked you up. I’m sorry Annie being kidnapped has been such a hardship on you.”
Clove balked. “That’s not what I said.”
“Isn’t it?”
“I … um … I’m sorry.” Clove struggled to find the correct words as she rubbed her mitten-covered hands across the front of her coat. “I didn’t sleep well last night. I wasn’t trying to offend you or anything. I know that Annie going missing was hard on you.”
“It was hard on all of us,” Aunt Tillie corrected. “She’s safe now, though. We’re going to make sure she stays safe.”
“That’s right,” Landon confirmed. “There will be no killing.”
“I already agreed, Copper,” Aunt Tillie snapped. “Stop being a kvetch. We don’t have room for two of them in our group today.” She sent Clove a pointed look. “If Landon is going to be the kvetch, you have to take on a new persona. A woman can only put up with so much, and two kvetches is my limit.”
Clove mustered a slit-eyed glare as she crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t know why I put up with so much abuse from this family.”
“I think you like it because it plays to your martyr complex,” Aunt Tillie said, unruffled. “Still, you mentioned you didn’t sleep. Did you have nightmares?”
I shifted my eyes to Clove, curious. “Yeah. Did you?”
“I … .” Clove chewed her bottom lip, conflicted. “I’m afraid you’ll laugh, but I did have nightmares. I was lost in the woods and I heard someone following me. They were … whispering … or something. I think I might’ve been projecting Annie’s ordeal onto myself or something.”
“We all had the dream,” Bay offered, her hand clasped tightly in Landon’s as we moved toward the spot where we found Annie the night before. That’s where Aunt Tillie would unleash her spell. “We all woke at roughly the same time.”
“Really?” Clove was understandably intrigued. “Did Annie wake up?”
“She slept through it,” I replied. “She was tucked in between Marcus and me the entire night.”
“That must’ve made the romance difficult,” Clove mused.
“No one was in the mood for romance,” I said, annoyed. “We wanted to take care of Annie, and that’s what we did.”
“I was just joking,” Clove muttered. “Sheesh.”
“I think you’ll find everyone in serious moods this morning,” Bay offered. “Until we deal with the Annie situation, no one wants to take a chance and have a little fun.”
“Speak for yourself,” Landon interjected. “I had a riotous good time with my bacon this morning.”
Bay snickered. “Riotous?”
“I saw it on television this morning,” Landon admitted. “It was in a movie review. Someone said that new sex movie was a ‘riotous good time’ and it stuck in my head.”
Bay knit her eyebrows. “Sex movie?”
“That one where they tie each other up and use a leather riding crop to spank each other,” Landon replied. “We should totally see that, by the way.”
Bay still looked confused, so I filled in the gaps for her. “He’s talking about one of the 50 Shades of Grey movies.”
Realization dawned on Bay. “Oh. Eww!” Bay smacked Landon’s arm. “We’re not playing any perverted games like that. The bacon fetish is weird enough.”
“We’ll see.” Landon squeezed her hand and smiled before ceasing his forward momentum and glancing around a small clearing. “This is where it happened, right? This is where she found us.”
I followed his gaze and nodded. “She came through the bushes right here.” I moved to the spot and knelt, running my finger over the stark footprints. “We still have no idea what happened to her shoes.”
“I forgot about that,” Landon admitted, rubbing his chin. “I assume that the woman took Annie’s shoes because she figured she wouldn’t risk running away barefoot. Annie didn’t realize how sick she could make herself by doing it, so it wasn’t a very good tactic. We’re lucky that Annie wasn’t lost outside by herself for the entire night because she might’ve lost a few toes otherwise.”
Aunt Tillie snorted derisively. “I would never have allowed that to happen.”
Landon challenged her with a look. “You can stop frostbite with magic now, can you?”
Aunt Tillie merely shrugged, her smile enigmatic. “I am the most powerful witch in the land,” she reminded him. “I’m capable of a great number of things.”
“Including finding this woman, right?” I asked, drawing Aunt Tillie’s gaze to me. “You brought the ingredients to cast a spell. You’re going to lead us to the woman who took Annie. That’s what you said.” For some reason, returning to the spot where we found Annie heightened my sense of unease. I couldn’t fathom how close we’d come to losing her.
“I said I would find her and I meant it.” Aunt Tillie’s expression was odd as she looked me up and down. “I don’t know how I missed it, but you’re still being consumed with guilt even though I thought you’d shake it off during the night.”
“I am not,” I protested, averting my gaze. She has a way of seeing into people’s souls, and that was the last thing I wanted to grapple with. “I’m … fine.”
“No, you’re not fine.” Aunt Tillie’s voice was almost kind as she moved closer to me. “You didn’t lose Annie. She wandered away and then someone took her. That’s not on you.”
“Was it on you when you lost me in the woods?” I challenged.
“Of course not.”
I didn’t believe her. “Really? If I’d never been found, are you telling me you’d have been fine with that?”
Aunt Tillie held her hands palms up and shrugged. “I had two other kids to replace you.” She winked, but the amusement was fleeting. “Mouth, you were never going to be lost in the woods forever. I was always going to find you … just like you were always going to find Annie.”
“But I didn’t find Annie,” I reminded her. “She found us. We didn’t do anything but happen to be in the right place at the right time.”
“I’m going to step in here,” Landon said, shuffling closer. “That’s not what happened. You heard Annie this morning. She heard our voices. That’s how she knew which direction to run. If we weren’t out here she would’ve been wandering around on her own until … .”
“But … .”
Landon shook his head and made a clucking sound with his tongue. “You didn’t do this. Annie didn’t do this either. We need to work on her guilt issues when we get back. It was a perfect storm of events. There’s no need to shoulder blame because it’s no one’s fault.”
“Oh, the woman who took her is at fault,” Aunt Tillie countered. “She’s at fault, and I’m going to crush her like a really ugly bug.”
Landon made a face. “Didn’t we have this discussion?”
Aunt Tillie’s face turned from menacing to angelic in the blink of an eye. “We did. And I was totally serious about doing what you asked.”
“Great.” Landon shook his head and glanced at the plastic bag. “It’s time to put your spell together. We need a trail to follow. I would rather not meander around forever without knowing in which direction we should be heading.”
“I’m on it.” Aunt Tillie’s forehead creased with concentration. “You don’t have much patience, do you?”
“That’s rich coming from you,” Landon shot back.
“Yes, but I’m old, so people can call my lack of patience quirky,
” Aunt Tillie pointed out. “When you’re impatient it’s annoying. When I’m impatient it’s cute.”
Landon didn’t look convinced as he shifted his eyes to Bay. “Is that true?”
“I don’t find either of you cute when you’re impatient,” Bay answered. “In fact, I’m feeling impatient right now. It’s cold. Can we save this discussion for when it’s over and we’re sitting in front of a fire?”
“Is there bacon when we’re in front of the fire?” Landon asked.
Bay rolled her eyes. “Yes.”
“Sold.” Landon squeezed her shoulder before moving closer to Aunt Tillie. “Let’s do this. What do you need?”
“Space and five minutes of quiet,” Aunt Tillie replied. “The spell will be ready and working before you know it.”
Landon was understandably dubious. He’d seen more than one backfiring spell since falling in love with Bay. “That will be a nice change of pace.”
Nine
“This way.”
Aunt Tillie took the lead once she enacted the spell. The ball of light – which was usually blue or white under normal circumstances – was purple today. She added a little something special to the ingredients, although I had no idea what.
“So tell me about the time you lost me in the woods,” I instructed, falling into step with her. “How did it happen?”
“I was supposed to be babysitting. I told you that you couldn’t have pineapple juice even though you really wanted it,” Aunt Tillie replied, her gaze focused in front of her so she didn’t accidentally stumble. “You decided to teach me a lesson and hide. It backfired a bit.”
“I was gone a long time, though,” I prodded. “You must’ve panicked at some point. I mean … you told my mother. On any other day you would’ve bribed me and lied about it. Sure, you said you tried to bribe me after to smooth things over, but you had to be worried.”
“I was worried enough to tell the truth,” Aunt Tillie admitted. “Is that what you want to hear?”
Thistle While You Work: A Wicked Witches of the Midwest Short Page 7