Somebody Tell Aunt Tillie We're In Trouble! (The Toad Witch Mysteries Book 2) (17 page)

I mean, who knew what could happen in Devil’s Point? Most of the town thought the cottage had turned J.J.’s great-great-great-grandfather into a rowan tree, and they seemed to be okay with that. And when I was looking up the history of the place, I learned that the Native American tribe who settled the area told tales of shapeshifting skinwalkers. But I always figured that was code for astrally shapeshifting, not physically shapeshifting.

Besides, J.J. wasn’t a skinwalker or a shaman or a witch. He was just a barely-out-of-his-teens stoner. If a potted plant had suddenly appeared in my car, it stood a better chance of being J.J. than this poor rat did.

I finally gave up, went back to the car and drove to the pet store.

*     *     *

The sun had come out and since it was too hot to leave the rat in the car, I opened my purse and looked at him. “Don’t poop in there, got it?”

The rat twitched his whiskers at me, got in the purse and settled down. I zipped it almost closed, leaving a small gap. Big enough for the rat to get air, not big enough for him to escape.

With the rat nestled in my purse, I went shopping. I bought dishes, a water bottle, cedar chips and a rat habitat. If the rat was J.J., giving him pet food seemed kinda rude. So, I stopped by the grocers and stocked up on nuts, seeds, fruits and veggies along with chicken, beef and fish.

Gus was going to get a kick out of this—when he started talking to me again. I was feeding the rat a better balanced diet than I usually fed myself.

*     *     *

At home, I put the Dobes out in the run, then gave the rat a bath in a flat Tupperware container. It was definitely not happy about the entire thing. It started eyeballing my thumb with a carnivorous look in its eyes.

“Knock it off,” I warned him. “You bite me, and I’ll turn you over the humane society.”

The rat twitched its whiskers and seemed to be thinking it over.

“I need a name for you.” I said, as I rinsed him. “You seem pretty smart for a rat.”

The rat poked his nose up and I stroked it.

“Let’s go with Gronwy. Duke Gronwy of Rattenshire.”

He squeaked and I turned the water off.

“Great. Duke Gronwy it is. Until you either turn back into a human, or J.J. shows up to claim you.”

Once he was dry, I crafted a cloaking spell on the cage. It wouldn’t work if someone was deliberately looking for him, but it should hold if someone (or some animal) was just passing by. But, just to be safe, I put Gronwy and his home up on top of the bookshelf in my room—out of the dogs’ reach, and away from cat territory.

I debated knocking on Gus’s still-closed door. I didn’t want to bug him if he was still mad, but if he wasn’t, we needed to talk. I tried the doorknob—although, I didn’t know why, really. If Gus had been in there, he would be pissed about me walking in uninvited, and if he wasn’t, I would risk letting his monster cats out for no reason. But Gus had locked the door.

I put my palm against it for a moment. Other than the cats, I couldn’t feel anything on the other side. Either he was out, or he had tossed mega-shields up around the room.

*     *     *

When I brought the Dobes in for the night, they made a beeline for Gus’s room. A cacophony of sound emerged—screeches, hisses and growls from the felines, earnest yips, barks and growls from the canines.

This had disaster written all over it. I ran to catch up to them. A closed door was the only thing between the dogs and death-by-cat and with the current assault from both sides, I didn’t know how long it was going to hold.

Chapter 31

W
hen I got there, the Dobes were hell-bent on digging their way through the door, scratching deep grooves into the wood with their nails. Above their heads, I could see the doorknob turning.

I grabbed the knob and held it, stopping its motion.

“Gus!” I yelled.

But the only reply was the yowling of the cats. Either Gus was still out, or they had killed and eaten him. Either way, I wasn’t about to go through that door to find out.

I let go of the doorknob and it immediately started turning again—the only thing thwarting the cats’ desires to emerge and engage was the lock. Although, for all I knew, the evil feline geniuses were on the verge of figuring that out.

I grabbed the Dobes by the collars and hurriedly dragged the fretting dogs into my bedroom, where I closed my own door and then read them the riot act. I wouldn’t have expected most dogs to understand, but these Dobes were super-smart.

They had such guilty expressions on their faces, I was pretty sure they knew exactly what I was saying. And they tried their best to make their misbehavior up to me by becoming super affectionate.

But when they thought I wasn’t paying attention, I would catch them glancing over at the door, torn between staying put and behaving or sneaking out and engaging the still-yowling monster cats.

I couldn’t do anything about the cats, but I figured I could try calming the dogs. I sat on the floor with them and hummed, my thumbs rubbing between their eyes. I pulled in their energy and hitched it to mine. I slowed down my breathing and vibrational rate. Then I used long, slow strokes over their heads and down their backs, until I could gently roll them on their sides. As I stroked their chests, they started to yawn and close their eyes.

Soon, they were both asleep. Even the cats had settled down and stopped screeching for the Dobes’ heads on a platter.

I slid out of the puppy pile and checked on Gronwy of Rattenshire. He was curled up on his nest of shavings, sound asleep. The whole house was asleep except me.

*     *     *

I went downstairs to the library and looked through volume after dusty volume, trying to see if I had overlooked anything about the toad bone ritual.

I kept coming back to a sketch of a guy, kneeling on a riverbank, by the light of the full moon. And then it dawned on me. Gus was going to need a full moon.

I pulled out my iPhone and quickly looked up the moon schedule. We had a full moon earlier this month, so he wouldn’t be able to do anything until the beginning of next month. That gave me some time to get the delivery from China. And from what I was reading, for the week before the ritual, he’d have to keep the toad bones physically on his person.

Well, there was a plan—wait until the week before the next full moon, slip Gus a Benadryl, or get him passed-out drunk, then roll him and see if any bones fell out.

It wasn’t the best plan, but it was better than nothing. I filed it away as a last resort.

*     *     *

The next morning, Gus pulled up in Sally, my ex-little red Mustang convertible, while I was outside, picking up our delivery box of fruits and veggies.

As he got out, he glanced at me and looked away, his face still hard.

“Would you knock it off?!” I asked. “Aunt Tillie’s the one who said you’ll regret it. Not me. Stop hating on the messenger.”

Gus faced me, his eyes narrowing. “That’s calculated bullshit. You need to stop pulling your Aunt Tillie out as a trump card, every time I do something you don’t like.”

I set the box down and looked at him. “You don’t like it, talk to her. If she’s riding my ass about something you’re doing, what do you want me to do? Keep it from you? She’s perfectly capable of impaling you with garden shears if you ignore her. I have the scars to prove it.”

Gus snorted. “Right.”

“What does that mean?!”

“I think you’re seeing what you want to see.”

“Like hell. Look, I don’t know why you can’t sense her anymore, but Aunt Tillie is totally fixated on this.” I said. “She’s making my life miserable, trying to get through to you.”

Gus rolled his eyes. “Fine. Let’s assume you’re right—for the moment. Let’s assume you are actually talking to your dead, pain-in-the-ass, Aunt Tillie. Living with ghosts isn’t like living with people. It’s easier to misconstrue their messages—between their subtlety and your filters, she could be saying
do the ritual
for all you know. Not
don’t do
. You can’t be certain.”

“Are you kidding? This is my Aunt Tillie we’re talking about. She wouldn’t know the meaning of subtlety if someone smacked her upside the head with a dictionary. And she has more words for ‘no’ than Eskimos have for snow. I’m telling you, she’s talking to people on the other side and getting the low down.”

Gus snorted again. “So, she’s second-guessing me, because some dead Avon lady told her it was a bad idea?”

“I’m sure she’s talking to people who’ve done the ritual,” I said, annoyed. “Or who’ve studied it. She has access to everyone who’s crossed over.”

“You really believe that the most advanced witches and shamans are hanging around in the Otherworld, educating your Aunt Tillie about the perils of the toad bone ritual? The mere thought of that is ridiculous.”

“Why? Because you think they’re too good for her?”

“Because she’s insane. Can I remind you, she tried to kill you? Just a few months ago.”

“She was trying to protect me.”

“Some protection. She’s a lunatic from beyond the grave. And if you keep listening to her, she’s going to make you as nutty as she is.”

He started up the stairs to the front porch.

I put my hand on his shoulder, stopping him. “You saw how sick you got after the Supper for the Dead. Can you tell me that didn’t have anything to do with what you’re planning?”

“I ate a contaminated plum—one that
you
dropped into the garbage disposal and didn’t throw out. Thank you very much. That wasn’t the ritual’s fault. I haven’t done the ritual yet. That was yours.”

“You took the garbage can away!” I said, exasperated. “You know damn well that one of the ways magic works is through serendipity.”

He shook my hand off and slammed into the house.

I sighed and picked up the box. This was the first time Gus and I had been in a serious, ongoing fight and it felt horrible.

I wondered how long he’d continue living with me, if we didn’t make up soon. Would he leave me and move into Forrest’s home, full-time, once the cats had been delivered to Forrest’s stepsister? The thought of not having Gus around made my stomach sink.

Chapter 32

T
he weather had been so warm, for so long, we beat a couple of national records—not only hottest days, but longest warm spell. It was impossible to turn on the TV and not hear someone discussing it. Weather people tried to figure out how long it would last, while religious zealots and conspiracy theorists claimed it was a sign the world was ending—albeit for very different reasons:
Hell has come to earth
versus
the poles are flipping
versus
secret government weather tests
.

No one mentioned anything about
spoiled rotten rogue witch wanting his own way and wanting it now
.

*     *     *

Once Gus saw the grooves in his door, and I filled him in on what had happened, he did something to it—either doused it in some kind of keep-away spray, or figured out how to put a hex on it. He didn’t say which. But it was effective enough to encourage the Dobes to give Gus’s door a wide berth, instead of trying to get in and meet those cats, face-to-face. Unfortunately, it didn’t work on the cats. They were constantly trying to turn the knob, or poke their claws through the gap beneath the door.

While Gus and I were polite to each other on the surface, underneath, Gus was still pissed off at me for snooping and interfering and I was still pissed off at him for not believing me and honestly, for the cats.

If he wanted to make sure I was never going to go in his room again, he couldn’t have picked a better weapon than those cats. The smell coming from his bedroom was insane. And it never ended. I got that it wasn’t the cats’ fault, they were sick. But, wow. It was totally stomach-turning. I had to hold my breath just to walk past his door.

It must have affected Gus as well, because he was rarely around anymore. He only came home to clean the litter box, feed the monsters and give them their meds.

I finally left Gus a nasty post-it on his bedroom door, telling him that he needed to clean the litter box more often—like maybe two or three times a day, or teach his monster cats how to use the toilet and flush.

The next day, I found a nasty post-it on my bedroom door, saying that if he could put up with my all-day morning sickness,
Princess Vomitron
could put up with his kittens.

*     *     *

Finally, I (intentionally) ran into Gus one day, after breakfast. He thought I had left—and I had. I slammed out the front door, then snuck in around the back. I was tired of him avoiding me. And sure enough, the minute he thought I was gone, he headed into the kitchen.

He froze when he saw me. He looked like hell. His feet and hands were covered in SpiderMan and Disney Princess Band-Aids, he had bags under his eyes and he wore old sweats that smelled like cat spray.

“What happened to you?” I asked, grimacing. “You almost look like a straight guy.”

“Not in this lifetime,” he snorted.

“Did you forget to tell the cats your extremities aren’t on the menu?”

He looked at me, eerily calmly. “Those cats will be the ultimate test of the toad bone. Today, the cats. Tomorrow, the world.”

It was my turn to snort. “Because if you can tame them, you can tame anything, is that what you’re thinking?”

He nodded and carefully poured himself a cup of coffee, yawning.

“Those cats are about as normal as a three-headed snake. Before you try world domination, maybe you should drop them off at a zoo.”

Gus shrugged. “They don’t like being held. They’ll grow out of it.”

I looked at his feet, where blood was seeping through one of the bandages. “I think they’ve developed a taste for human. You may want to start sleeping with your shoes on.”

“They’re just rambunctious.”

“Are they even real cats?”

“Of course they’re real.”

“They seem like were-cats to me. Or demonic leopards. Are you sure Forrest got them from a breeder and he didn’t conjure them up out of your Goetia?”