Somebody Tell Aunt Tillie We're In Trouble! (The Toad Witch Mysteries Book 2) (21 page)

“It’s not raining in Devil’s Point. So, the faster we head in that direction, the faster we’ll be out of this storm.”

“Nice try. Not happening.” Paul said, pulling into a diner parking lot. “It’s not the Mansion, but we may as well stop and get something to eat. We’re going nowhere fast tonight.”

“Oh, come on! This is ridiculous. Don’t tell me a little bad weather is going to scare off your big strong he-man self.”

“You’re going to have to tough it out,” Paul shouted over the pounding rain as he opened the car door. “Gus is a big boy. I’m sure he’ll be fine.”

He took off his jacket and held it over his head. Then he ran over to my side and opened the door. “Let’s go. I’m starving.”

Together, huddling under his coat, we sloshed through the rain and into the diner.

*     *     *

The small restaurant shook in the storm. Paul wanted to stay away from the windows, but I forced the issue. There might not have been anything Paul could do about the weather, but there was something I wanted to try. Finally, he agreed and the hostess led us to a window seat in the mostly empty diner.

While Paul was studying the menu, I closed my eyes and slowed my breathing. I started running my finger around the top of my water glass, in clockwise circles.

Hekate, Lady, I call on you.

I waited until I could feel the tingling on my skin that meant she was paying attention. Then I continued.

Tame these winds around me.

Soothe the savage beast.

Tonight, grant me peace,

And tomorrow we’ll feast.

It might have been my imagination, but it seemed like the wind died down a bit. The window glass wasn’t rattling as hard as it had been when we sat down. But the rain was still coming down in sheets.

I was about to continue the spell, when the waitress came over to get our order.

“We’re in a hurry. What’s the fastest thing your chef can whip up?”

“Probably a salad,” she drawled.

“We’re not in any hurry,” Paul said. “I’m not driving in that storm. We’re going to stay here until it dies down.”

“We close at ten. But there’s a hotel on the other side of the parking lot,” the waitress oh-so-helpfully chimed in.

“Fantastic. That’s the only place I’m going.” Paul said.

“No freaking way! I didn’t sign up for an overnight stay,” I protested.

“So, you know what you want?” she asked, popping a piece of chewing gum.

“Just a tossed salad, no dressing.”

“Steak, baked potato and green beans,” Paul said. “And she’ll have grilled salmon, a baked potato, and a cup of cream of spinach soup with that salad. I want coffee and she’ll have a large milk.”

I looked at him, furious. I didn’t know whether to kick him in the kneecaps or be impressed that he managed to order food I wanted to eat.

The waitress finished writing the order, then took our menus and left.

Paul looked at me, daring me to bitch at him.

I glared at his reflection in the window.

When he got up to use the restroom—taking the car keys with him—I continued my spell.

I closed my eyes and circled the top of the water glass, until a childhood rhyme popped into my head. It was silly, but I figured there had to be a reason it showed up, so I used it:

Rain, rain, go away,

Come again some other day.

By the crossroads three,

As I will it, so mote it be.

“Ow!” I yelped as I felt a sharp pain in my fingertip. Blood dripped and blossomed into the water glass.

“Fuck!” Paul swore, returning in time to see the bloody water. “Are you all right?”

“Right as rain. Could you get me a Band-Aid?”

I wrapped a napkin around my finger and applied pressure, while Paul went to find the manager.

I closed my eyes and desperately bargained with the Lady, asking her what she wanted to quell the storm. The image of a fire opal popped into my head. I grimaced, hoping I could find a less expensive version online, and agreed to the exchange. 

By the time Paul got back with the apologetic manager, concerned waitress and a Band-Aid, the rain was starting to lessen in intensity. It had turned the corner from biblical deluge to standard downpour. The waitress whisked away the offending glass, the manager offered to comp our meals, and I smiled at the success of the rhyme.

After we finished eating, the rain downgraded from downpour to normal rain storm. I talked Paul into skipping dessert and dragged him out into the parking lot, so we could get back on the road. I offered to drive, but he said he’d rather race a freight train than trust me with his car, in the frame of mind I was in.

As we traveled, I kept up a running dialogue to Hekate in my head, to continue dissipating the storm. The rain slowed to a light drizzle and the winds quieted down. We were still feeling small gusts, but they no longer threatened to topple the SUV.

I looked at my watch. “Can we go faster, please?”

“Mara, I’m not going to hydroplane the car.”

“There’s got to be a speed between meandering and hydroplaning,” I snapped.

Paul grumbled, but he pressed down on the gas pedal.

Now all I had to do, was come up with a plan to keep Gus from leaving the house and heading to the stream. I had found a pair of fuzzy-covered handcuffs in the trunk in Gus’s room, when I was looking for the bones. Maybe I could sneak up on him and handcuff him to a chair until morning. Although, knowing Gus, that wouldn’t stop him for long. Maybe I could shove him into the basement altar room and lock him in until the full moon passed. It only lasted a few days, right?

Chapter 39

I
t took longer to get home than I anticipated. By the time Paul dropped me off, it was twenty minutes to midnight. I raced through the cottage, calling Gus’s name. All that accomplished though, was waking the puppies.

Since the cats were gone, I risked going into Gus’s room, and boy, did I regret that. As soon as the smell of cat hit my nostrils, I wasted precious minutes running for the bathroom. Stupid morning sickness.

The dogs, however, were having a field day rooting around in the cat toys. I had to drag them out by their collars. I locked them in my bedroom and I quickly checked on Gronwy of Rattenshire. He was sleeping in his cage, showing off a full round belly, his whiskers and paws twitching as he dreamt. His food dish was completely empty. If Gronwy was J.J., he certainly seemed to be enjoying his stint as a rat.

I tried to sense Gus, but the wards he put up when he was pissed at me effectively blocked my sight. So, I had to rely on logic and reason—two of my least favorite tools.

Gus would be at the stream, but where? It was an awfully large stream, and it meandered quite a distance.

Think, Mara, Think.

The stream was fed by a waterfall. At the bottom of the cascade, once you got beyond the rocks and roots and fallen tree trunks, about ninety yards out, the stream grew wider and not as rocky. An enormous weeping willow grew there, its roots dipping deep into the water, and there was a dusting of toadstool mushrooms that grew in its shade.

Gus called it his fairy garden, because of the importance of both the toadstool mushroom and the weeping willow to the Queen of the Fae. And since that was the widest section of the stream, that’s where he was most likely to incorporate the full moon into his ritual.

That’s where he
had
to be.

*     *     *

I raced out of the house and through the woods, sliding in the mud and catching myself on trees, trying not to trip on rocks and exposed tree roots. By the time I reached Gus and his faery garden, my palms were bloody and stinging.

“Gus, don’t!” I yelled from the top of the hill. The waterfall was beating down, churning the swollen stream into a frothy dance. I wasn’t sure if Gus could hear me over the sound of the rushing water. But somehow, he managed to sense me.

He turned and looked up, as I slid down the hill towards him.

He was wearing a shorty wetsuit and his face was handsome and determined in the moonlight. “It’s not your decision to make,” he hollered. “You can help me or leave me, but don’t get in my way.”

I kept moving forward, trying to get closer to him, but I was terrified I was going to lose my footing over the slippery tree roots, mud and large stones, and fall into the thundering stream below.

“Gus, be sensible. Look at the water. At least wait until next month, when it goes back to normal.” That would give me a chance to get the other toad bones delivered from China.

“Are you kidding? This is the perfect time. You heard the radio. It’s a Bad Moon Rising. I’m not wasting it.”

Gus’s watch alarm went off. He must have had it set for the stroke of midnight. He raised his arm…

“Fine! I’ll help. I can’t let you do this alone. You’ll kill yourself.”

…and he threw the bones into the river.

I heard a high-pitched scream come from the rushing water. “What the hell was that?!”

“It’s the toad bone!” Gus said, and promptly jumped into the stream, slipping on a submerged tree root.

He fell on all fours, completely going under the water, but he quickly emerged and regained his footing, holding on to a large rock to help him stand against the current.

“Do you see it?! Where is it?”

I looked around. I was on higher ground than Gus, so I had a slightly better view. Gus was looking for the one bone that would go against the tide and float upstream. Although, with the strength of the current, I doubted anything as lightweight as a toad bone could fight its pull.

But in the moonlight, I thought I saw a small shadow coming toward me, spinning off one of the rocks.

“I see it! At least, I think I see it!”

“Where?!” Gus asked, splashing around.

“There! By the roots of that river birch.”

I slid closer to the stream. I could barely see a small, shovel-shaped piece of bone in the moonlight. It was standing still. I wasn’t sure if it was caught on something, or if it was resisting the pull of the stream.

“I think it’s stuck.” 

But then the bone began to move. It was definitely going upstream!

“It’s moving! Hurry!” I yelled, completely focused on the bone.

Gus pushed through the current towards me, fighting hard to keep moving forward, swimming through the deeper sections, wading and running through the shallower sections. Finally, he made it to a nearby grouping of rocks.

“It’s just ahead of you, slightly to your right.”

Gus lunged for the bone, but his foot got stuck in one of the rock piles. He fell forward, cursing. “Son of a bitch!” he howled in pain and anger.

“Hurry!” I said, all thoughts of Aunt Tillie and her warnings completely out of my head. All I could think about was getting that toad bone.

I slipped and slid up the bank, trying to keep the bone in sight. “It’s moving faster!”

“Ow! Fuck!” I could hear Gus splashing, as he waded through the water towards me.

I glanced over at him. The water was up to his chest and rising.

“This stream is freezing cold.”

So was the night air, for a change. My teeth were chattering and I was shivering, for the first time in weeks.

“Gus! The weather’s turning. We have to get out of here.”

“I’m not leaving without that bone!” He grunted.

“Look to your left! It’s in that shaft of moonlight.”

He lunged, grabbing it up with a war whoop. “I’ve got it! Mara! I’ve got the toad bone!”

I heard a shriek—I don’t know if it was from Gus or the bone or the churning water—as the stream seemed to rise up and shove him. He fell backwards, his feet losing their purchase on the bottom.

The current was angry and moving faster than I’d ever seen it. It slammed his body downstream, bashing him against rocks and roots.

“Gus!” I slid down the hill, trying to follow him as quickly as I could.

Gus’s screams made my blood run cold. I don’t think I’ve ever heard him make sounds like that in his entire life. Not even when the cats were carving him up. I didn’t want to think of the damage the rocks were doing to him.

The stream had turned into a writhing, living thing, punishing Gus and dragging him under the water at every opportunity. If I didn’t think of a way to save him soon, Aunt Tillie’s prediction was going to come true. I would lose him forever.

Lightning strikes lit up the sky, rain pounded down and a big, thundering book shook the ground under my feet. The hill seemed to shrug, and the next thing I knew, I was tumbling into the water.

Gus was rapidly heading towards the river birch and I was following close behind, spinning off of partially-submerged rock formations. I had to do something, before the stream killed both of us.

Without thinking, I opened my sight, turning my entire body into a conduit. The world looked different, like a weird, surrealistic representation of itself. In the sky, I could see electrical energy crackling through the clouds,

I reached up and called on Hekate to help me.

Hekate’s fire, Guide my hands,

as I this bolt of lightning send…

I gathered the spirit of the electrical sparks, and threw it as hard as I could, into the river birch. The tree moaned and shrieked, swaying in the wind.

Lightning struck the tree, in the same spot, and the trunk splintered. The tree fell across the stream, stemming the tide.

Gus caught himself on the trunk, seconds before I slammed into him.

“I’ve got it,” he said, weakly, holding up the toad bone. “I’ve got it.”

I nodded, trying to catch my breath, and felt a cold chill run through my body.

Gus may have the bone, but nothing ever came without a price tag—whether it was for a pound of currency or a pound of flesh. If Gus had the toad bone, who now had us?

Chapter 40

T
he rain petered out as the storm cell moved on. Gus and I hugged the tree, using it as a lifeline to get up to the shore. I climbed out of the stream, my feet squelching in the mud. Gus tried to climb out but fell back into the water. I grabbed onto his arms and dragged him onshore.