Somebody Tell Aunt Tillie We're In Trouble! (The Toad Witch Mysteries Book 2) (23 page)

As soon as we caught up to Grundleshanks, he was on the move again, leading us down a very familiar path.

I looked around and goosebumps rose on my arms. “Gus, do you notice anything odd?”

“Other than we’ve gone into a toadstool, wound up in some kind of weird faery land and are now following an oversized, not-so-dead, magickal toad?”

“Yeah. Other than that,” I said.

“Nope. My brain’s been pretty preoccupied with just that. This place is like some kind of fever dream.”

“This is our backyard.”

“What? How can you tell? It doesn’t feel like home.”

“Look! There’s our cemetery.” I pointed to the ornate gate, which in this realm, was an elaborate wooden structure wrapped in ivy. In the center of the cemetery, instead of an angel statue, an old tree grew in the shape of an angel, with the branches forming the hair and wings.

“Fantastic. I need to be in a cemetery for the next part of the ritual anyway. Maybe this is all part of what’s supposed to happen.”

I snorted. “I seriously doubt that.”

“How do you know? Neither of us have ever done this ritual before.”

“If anyone else had wound up in a parallel Toadstool World, they’d have totally written a book about it. Or a script. Or at the very least, put an article on the Internet. Nobody does anything nowadays without telling the world about it.”

As Gus opened the gate, a huge, beautiful Doberman ran up from inside the cemetery, barking and snarling.

Gus slammed the gate shut, and backed up a few steps.

“Awwww, look at the cute little doggie,” I said. “He looks like Aramis, but all grown up.”

“Are you kidding me? He could eat Aramis and still have room for Apollo—and possibly us.”

I squatted down in front of the gate and held my hand out for the dog to sniff. “You’re so beautiful. What a pretty boy.”

The Dobe got down on his front end, his hips in the air, his lips bared in a grin, making
play-with-me
noises.

“What a good doggie,” I said, standing and unlatching the gate.

“Mara! Stop! Are you crazy?” Gus hollered. “Don’t go in there!”

“He’s not going to hurt me.”

“Mara! Don’t! I mean it!”

I ignored him and went into the cemetery.

From behind the safety of a tree, Gus’s voice called out to me again. “Mara, please, I’m begging you. Step away from the snarling beast! For your own safety.”

“Don’t be silly, Gus. He’s a sweetie.” I sat down on the ground and started playing with the dog.

“He’s going to eat you alive.”

“No, he’s not. Are you, boy?” I asked the puppy. I turned to Gus. “Having those cats at home has changed you. You’ve never been this weird around dogs before.”

The Dobie wagged its stumpy tail.

“That’s because he’s not a dog. He’s a giant, slavering Hell Hound who looks like he snacks on linebackers.”

“Oh, please. He’s just a sweet, oversized Dobie, who likes getting his chest scratched,” I said, as the dog rolled over on its back.

As I petted him, the oddest thing happened. It was like my perception shifted and I was suddenly able to understand the different sounds around me, in a way that I’ve never understood them before. The animal calls, even the whispering of the wind, they were all part of a song that made exquisite sense. They were all different vibrations, different strings on the same instrument, and their song was heartachingly beautiful. It resonated in my soul at a profound level. I tried to grab hold of a phrase here and there, to take what the wind was singing and translate it into English, to fix it concretely in my head, but it was like trying to hold onto quicksilver.

It’s all in your perspective,
I heard a whisper in my head say.

Was that Aunt Tillie’s voice?

As Gus tried to sneak past us and into the cemetery, the dog sprang to its feet, snarling. Gus screamed and ducked behind a tombstone.

“Hey, stop that!” I said, tapping the dog on the nose with a finger. “He’s a friend.”

The dog sat down next to me, but he continued to softly growl in Gus’s direction.

Gus peeked out from behind the tombstone. “Tell me you did not just tap a
hell hound
on the nose?”

“What is wrong with you? Ever since we got here, you’ve been weirdly overreacting.”

“And you’ve been weirdly under-reacting,” he snapped.

“Whatever happened to Captain Kirk and the Starship Pie-Eyed Optimist?”

“Hasn’t anyone told you it’s not nice to mock someone when they’re down?”

“No,” but that made me think about what the voice had whispered to me. It’s all about perspective. “Gus, when we went into the cottage, what did you see?”

“The place was in ruins. Everything was broken. I have no idea why you liked it so much.”

“And when you look at this dog, what do you see?”

“A black hell hound with red eyes and teeth like daggers.”

Well, that explained it. “I’m not seeing what you’re seeing,” I said. “Somehow, we’re out of phase with each other.”

“Fine. You hold onto your pet while I go over to that broken-down angel statue in the middle of the cemetery.”

“You mean the angel tree?”

“No, I mean the broken statue. I’m going to climb up on the base, so I can get an overview of the cemetery and figure out where I need to be in this blasted place. But I don’t want Fluffy there to use me like a chew toy.”

“Wait here,” I said to the dog. Then I walked over to Gus’s hiding spot. “We need to get back in sync with each other. You would not believe the awesome world you’re missing out on.”

He looked up at me. “Just how do you propose we do that?”

“I think we need to get on the same vibrational rate.” I carefully sat down and entwined myself around him. “Match your energy to mine.”

He held onto me, and we synchronized our breathing, until it felt like we were one organism, breathing together, our vibrations merging and smoothing out. It was all very up-close and sensual, and I don’t know at what point I realized Gus was kissing me. The kiss went on for a little while, sensual but not sexual. Luxurious but not heated. A feast for the senses. It felt like a merging of spirits, like I had returned home after a long absence and I was being welcomed back into the fold, made one again with the whole.

I opened my eyes and pushed him away. “Okay, I think we’re done.”

He nodded. “I think you’re right.”

“What was that kiss for?” I asked. Gus had never kissed me like that before.

“I thought it was important to merging our energies together. Kisses play an integral part in fairy tales.”

“Oh.” Well, that made sense. It had felt so right, I had almost hoped there was more to it than that. “You’re an excellent kisser.”

“So, I’ve been told.” He peeked over the tombstone and turned back to me. “I don’t think it worked.”

I stood up. The beautiful world of nature that I had seen before was gone. In its place was a giant, broken, overgrown ruin. Even the gorgeous angel tree in the middle of the cemetery was gone, replaced by a broken, water- and time-damaged angel statue. The once-lush grass was now an overgrown menace, resembling a jungle, with knee-high, sharp-edged blades of grass.

“Oh, no freaking fair!” I said, tears pricking my eyes. “You dragged me into your world! It was supposed to work the other way around!”

The sweet dog I had been playing with just moments before, stood and growled. It was huge and terrifying. Its eyes and the inside of its ears were blood-red, and as it got closer, I could see drops of blood dripping off of fangs as long as daggers.

Chapter 43

I
promptly ducked behind the tombstone. A sudden, very unwelcome thought occurring to me. “Gus, is it possible that we’re dead? Did we drown in the stream? If that’s a Hell Hound, is this the Underworld?”

Gus hesitated, then shook his head. “No… I really think we’re in some kind of weird, dark, Faery realm. The Otherworld not the Underworld. Although we may be at some kind of odd juncture where the two meet.”

“Are you
sure
we’re not dead?”

“We’d know if we were dead. Tunnels of light, dead relatives, the whole shebang. Do you see a crowd of dead people? Because I don’t.”

I shook my head. “You’re right. If anyone would be here, waving a pitchfork and trying to skewer us, it would be Aunt Tillie. She’s decided she does not want us on her side of the veil, under any circumstance. But that is one scary-ass dog out there.”

“I know,” Gus said. “Which is why I very sensibly chose to hide. You’re the one who was babying it.”

I peeked around the tombstone. I couldn’t imagine doing that now.

“What if we split up and go in different directions?” Gus asked. “It can’t take us both out at the same time.”

“I wouldn’t count on that. It looks pretty damn fast to me.”

“We can’t sit here all night. I should have gone while you were on its good side.”

“I tamed it once, maybe I can do it again,” I said, steeling myself.

“Are you nuts?”

“I’m being totally serious. Instead of both of us running, I’ll distract him while you get over to the statue and figure out where you need to be.”

Gus thought about it and nodded. “You’re sure about this?”

“Sure,” I said, but my voice was kind of shaky. “I treated him like one of the Dobies and he seemed to respond to that before. I just need to do it again.”

“Can you pull it off with the same degree of conviction, now that you can see what he really is?”

“I don’t know. But you’re the one with the toad bone. You’re the one who has to be in the cemetery. I’m just along for the ride. So, I’ll… stay here and play with Fluffy.”

Before Gus could stop me, I stood up and walked toward the growling beast. “Who’s a good boy?” I asked, my tone bright and chipper.

The growling got stronger as the beast fixed its eyes on me.

I continued to talk to it, skirting the edge of the cemetery, heading towards the gate. As I moved, it turned its head, its eyes staying on me. Behind the beast, I could see Gus slinking off towards the middle of the cemetery.

It must have seen a shift in my eyes, because it started to turn its head to where I was looking.

“Here, Fluffy!” I hollered, “Wanna play catch?” Then I turned and ran away from it as fast as I could.

With a
whumph
, it turned and started chasing me.

I was really tempted to look over my shoulder, to see if the beast was closing in, but I kept thinking about the myth of Orpheus where, because he looked over his shoulder, Eurydice was lost to him forever, pulled back into Hades. What if I looked over my shoulder and that was the hesitation it needed to bring me down? If anything happened to me here, would I be trapped here forever? Would Gus?

I must have slowed down while I was thinking, because in my head, I heard Gus’s voice saying
“Don’t look, Mara. For fuck’s sake, just keep moving!”

So, I did. I ran and ducked between tombstones, until I ran out of them.

I ran in circles around the last large, crumbling tombstone in the row I was in, trying to keep it between me and the Hell Hound. But the beast didn’t respect the boundary. He leapt over the grave and landed on me, knocking me off my feet.

As he stood over me, his front paws pinning my shoulders, his fangs getting closer to my face, the smell of blood and decay was almost overwhelming.

I closed my eyes and tried to hang onto that moment of perfection when we first entered the cemetery and I had been petting that sweet-faced dog. When it felt as if I could suddenly understand the whispers of the wind and the calls of the animals, as they wove around me in a grand symphony. That brief moment in time, where the language of nature merged with the language of humanity and they vibrated in complete harmony. And then I thought of the child within me and the unspoken language we shared, and tears started streaking down my face.

I opened my mouth to—cry? yell? scream?—and instead, what came out was music. Not a song. Notes. Tones. One after another. A deep vibrato, a soaring soprano lilt. The pressure on my shoulders eased, and I sat up, still singing. The beast lay down next to me, its head on its crossed front paws, listening. Its eyes seemed to tear up and it closed its eyelids, with a heavy sigh. As its breathing became deeper, and it lost itself into whatever dreamscape the music was evoking, I slowly stood up and crept away, still singing notes, but making them slower and longer, more of a lullaby. I didn’t stop singing until I reached Gus at the angel statue.

As Gus gave me a hand up onto the base of the statue, I looked around and noticed the tombstone arrangement wasn’t the same as home. Instead of looking like a haphazard smattering, the tombstones formed corridors, in every direction, with the giant Angel in the middle of the graveyard compass.

“We should totally do this with our cemetery.” Gus said.

“I am not digging up graves and moving tombstones, just to give you an
isn’t-it-cool
thrill.”

“
Eh
, win some, lose some. Nice job with Fluffy. Guess it’s true that music soothes the savage beast. How’d you come up with that?”

I snorted. “I have no idea. The notes just bubbled up from somewhere inside me.”

Gus shrugged. “Maybe it was the baby.”

“If it was, then she’s already a heck of a lot smarter than I am, and she’s not even born yet.”

“You mean, ‘he’.”

“Knock it off.”

“Not until the baby is born without a penis.”

I rolled my eyes.

“I have some good news for you,” Gus said, looking around. “I know why Grundleshanks was leading us here and why the Hound of Hell tried to stop us. I think we’re right where we need to be.”

“How do you know?”

“The layout of the tombstones. All paths lead to the center. This is the crossroads. Not just a three-way or four-way. This is an eight-way crossroads. It’s the Cosmic Crossroads, where you can turn the Hand of Fate. This is where the ritual will be completed.”

“Great. So there’s no more running around, trying to avoid being chomped on by Fluffy. What do we do now?” I asked.