Somebody Tell Aunt Tillie We're In Trouble! (The Toad Witch Mysteries Book 2) (29 page)

I thought about it. “You have a point.”

Gus and I believed that humans have both a spirit and a soul inside of them. The spirit evolves, growing ever closer to Divine Bliss. But the soul goes back into the fabric of the world.

“His soul may be
tree
, but his spirit is still
man
. Let his spirit move on. Stop keeping it trapped with his soul, in the tree.”

Forrest smiled in his unsettling way. “Fine. Consider it done.”

“And Aunt Tillie?” I asked him.

“I promise not to torment her for
all
of eternity.”

“Don’t torment her at all,” I said.

“My dear girl. She’ll be living with you. That will be
your
job. Torment her or not, I’m out of it.”

“I don’t want her trapped here, either.”

“Once she loses all interest in humanity, I’ll release her. Do we have a deal?” Forrest asked, smiling.

“Fulfill the rest of my requirements, and we do.”

Forrest snapped his fingers. Upstairs, I heard a crash and J.J.’s voice yelling, “What the hell?!”

On the floor, Gus stopped writhing in pain. Soon, he was even able to sit up and lean against the chair, as he tried to catch his breath.

On the skull, the black threads holding Aunt Tillie’s mouth shut, vanished. “Mara, don’t believe him!” she hollered.

When Forrest snapped his fingers again, the pouch around Gus’s neck opened, and the toad bone shot into Forrest’s hand. Forrest pressed down on it and crushed the bone into powder.

“Hey!” I said. “I thought you didn’t want it destroyed.”

He gave me a wicked grin. “I don’t. But trust me, you’re going to thank me.”

Then he threw the toad bone powder at my belly. Each particle carved its way through my skin, like tiny diamond-tipped razors. I screamed with the intense, searing pain and dropped to my knees. The bone dust penetrated my skin, my tissues, it even went through the placental wall and into the baby.

Within me, the baby screamed in pain.

“Fuck!” I hollered. “What did you do?!”

“You should be thanking me. If you thought that was painful, the bone in its entirety would have severed your spine.”

“I said I would hold it.
I.
Not the baby.” I said, as soon as I could speak again.

“Until birth, the mother and child are one entity. Anything you agree to, you agree to on both your behalf’s. There is no separation between you, until the umbilical cord is cut.”

“But why?” I asked, desperately holding onto the tears that were trying to fall. “Why would you do that to an innocent baby?”

Forrest laughed, a deep, booming laugh. “I have been waiting for that baby, for a long, long time. I should thank you. I thought I was going to have to work a lot harder.”

And with that, he was gone.

Chapter 53

“Y
ou stupid, stupid girl,” Aunt Tillie said, clearly furious.

“I didn’t know he was after the baby!” I yelled, frustrated.

“Of course, you didn’t. No one ever knows the Devil’s end game. But if you had trusted me to begin with, you could have avoided this whole mess.”

I looked over at Gus. He was getting his color back.

“It’s not Mara’s fault,” Gus said. “I was the idiot. I couldn’t see you, I couldn’t hear you, I couldn’t even sense you. So I stopped believing her.”

“Why does the Devil want my baby, anyway?” I asked.

“Don’t you understand?” Aunt Tillie asked. “Haven’t you noticed your magick getting stronger? That’s the baby. The baby’s heritage. That baby is part human, part witch and part Lucien. The Devil couldn’t block you because the baby kept him from it. You may be forming its DNA, but that baby’s also been changing yours. The power you’ve been showing? That’s the
baby’s
gift to you. ”

As I thought about it, a chill ran up my spine. “But what happens now that the baby’s got the toad bone in its blood?”

“I don’t know,” Aunt Tillie admitted. “But if it’s what the Devil wanted, it can’t be good. Not for you, not for the baby, not for any of us. After every warning I gave you, you made a deal with the Devil. And now we’re all beholden to him.”

Just then, J.J. came crashing down the stairs, a towel wrapped around his naked body, his feet crammed into my slippers.

As soon as he saw me, he started screaming. “I told you this house was evil!”

He slammed out the front door and ran as fast as he could in too-small bunny slippers.

We watched him go, in complete silence.

Finally, I closed the door and turned to Gus. “Well,
that
happened.”

Gus grinned. “Never a dull moment.”

“What is wrong with the two of you?” Aunt Tillie snapped. “None of this is funny!”

*     *     *

As the days went by, Aunt Tillie grew used to being in residence in the skull. She could still cross the veil, but she said it was like she was a scarlet woman on the other side. The Devil had left his mark on her, and while she could go for brief visits, she wasn’t welcome to stay. Which aggravated her to no end. But, considering her other option could have been
‘being tormented in Hell until the Devil got over his annoyance’
, I thought being stuck with us Breathers was the better end of the deal. I don’t know if she agreed with me, though.

Gus went back to the hospital for regular check-ups and took his meds, even though he hated them. Without the Devil’s interference, he was able to get healthy again and even regain his sense of humor.

I got tested for Toxo and CMV and by some miracle, I was negative.

As Gus’s health improved, I picked Aramis up from Paul, but he asked if he could hang on to Apollo a little longer. Considering he was almost back to his cheerful, sweet, funny self, I was fine with that. Having the Dobies around obviously agreed with him.

*     *     *

J.J. finally calmed down, once his memories of rat-hood faded. Oddly enough though, he actually started exhibiting better hygiene. I was able to go into the Trading Post and talk to him, without using a menthol rub under my nose. And once he started washing his hair and taking better care of himself, he actually landed his first girlfriend.

After he returned to work, Anna, his cousin, smacked him on the backside with a skillet, leaving a generously-sized bruise. Then she promptly left town on an extended vacation.

I finally did have that dinner with Daniel and Raoul, and Raoul’s pregnant wife. I had it catered, and we shared it with the other residents of the nursing home. I’m currently their favorite visitor.

*     *     *

When it came to the baby, Gus and I still couldn’t agree on male versus female. I think the baby was enjoying the debate, so it was deliberately keeping that information to itself.

But ever since the ordeal with the Devil and the intense pain the toad bone transfer had caused, the baby had reached a new level of self-awareness. I hoped it wasn’t developing as quickly physically as it was mentally, or else I was going to be in trouble. I fully expected it to walk out of the birth canal, kick the doctor’s ass for evicting it from its watery womb-home, and demand my car keys.

*     *     *

I was rapidly going broke and just as I was eyeing that failure as a loophole to get out of my contract with the Devil, a letter showed up from an out-of-state bank. Apparently, Aunt Tillie had a ROTH IRA account there from when she was young, and it had been quietly growing all these years. Now it was mine, providing a monthly income of $1,500. So much for my loophole. Not a fortune, but enough to fulfill the Devil’s side of the contract.

I went out and bought Hekate three fire opals with the first disbursement check. After all, you don’t want to make a bargain with a deity and then bow out of it. They have a way of taking what they feel is theirs. Besides, I had a feeling I’d be needing her help again, in the near future.

Sure enough, the minute I got the opals, I was holding them on my hand, admiring their fiery colors, when a cold gust of wind blew them off my palm and they vanished. I could feel Hekate laughing about how she snagged them from me, the entire drive home.

*     *     *

With the next disbursement check, after I paid the bills, I was going to use whatever was left to hire a private investigator to help me find my brother. I had grilled Aunt Tillie and my mom about his whereabouts, but they were no help. I wasn’t sure though, if they were really as clueless as they claimed, or if they were being intentionally obtuse.

*     *     *

The toad bone skeleton I ordered arrived from China just after New Year’s. I thought long and hard about what to do with it. I didn’t want Gus to find it and try another toad bone ritual. So I shellacked the entire thing to make sure the bones would stay together and then I posed it, super-glued it onto a miniature skateboard, with a skull-shaped bead in the toad’s outstretched hand, and put it in the library as a decoration.

Grundleshanks was still hanging around, in an uneasy truce with his stuffed doppelganger—until yesterday, when the UPS guy arrived with an overnight shipment. Andwyn had sent us another toad from the Grundleshanks line. Unfortunately, the little guy didn’t do well with our extended winter and the shipping process, and died soon after arrival. But our Grundleshanks was more than happy to slide into the vacated body.

Now, we have Zombieshanks—as Gus sometimes calls him. Thankfully, the only type of brains he’s interested in eating belong to crickets.

*     *     *

While the rest of the world is looking forward to the arrival of spring, we’re deep into winter. The snow has reached epic proportions, and it doesn’t look like we’ll be out of it, anytime soon. The weather is getting colder every day. And the snow! We have snow banks the size of small mountains. Everyone in Devil’s Point is paying for Gus’s brief stint of shifting summer into winter. While the rest of the nation is warming up, our entire town is blanketed in snow and we’re making the national weather news again, this time for cold temperatures and snowfall.

Aunt Tillie’s been bugging me to leave town and go somewhere warm with Gus, until the weather gets back on track and the baby’s born. Today, we got an S.O.S. from Mama Lua, the Voodoo Queen who runs the Crooked Pantry in Los Angeles. She says she’s being plagued by vampires and demons, and needs our help. So, it looks like Aunt Tillie may get her wish after all.

About the Author

Christiana Miller is a novelist, screenwriter and mom who’s led an unusual life. In addition to writing for General Hospital: Night Shift and General Hospital, she’s had her DNA shot into space (where she’s currently cohabiting in a drawer with Stephen Colbert and Stephen Hawking), she’s been serenaded by Klingons, and she’s been the voices of all the female warriors in Mortal Kombat II and III. If her life was a TV show, it would be a wacky dramedy filled with eccentric characters who get themselves into bizarre situations. She enjoys hanging out with her kids, her Dobes and writing stories with a supernatural twist.

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SOMEBODY TELL AUNT TILLIE WE’rE IN TROUBLE!
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