toad witch 04 - aunt tilly were canning demons Page 2

  “Whoa, did you see that?!” I asked Gus.

  “See what?” He was still staring at the toad’s body. He looked over at me. “Why are you recording the ceiling?”

  “No reason,” I said, putting the phone down. I’ll be damned if I’m the one who tells Gus he missed a cool supernatural phenomenon. He has the self-control of an infant, and I wasn’t ready to deal with the tantrum that would ensue. “I thought I saw a flash, but…it must have been a trick of the light.”

  “Focus, dear heart. This is why men rule the world. Women get distracted.”

  Before I could stop myself, I smacked him in the arm. Hard.

  “Ow! What was that for?”

  “Being a sexist pig.”

  “Just because I think men are superior? Gay, remember? I’d be in an awful pickle if I thought men sucked. Although some of them are quite good at it,” he grinned, waggling his eyebrows.

  I ignored him. Grundleshanks was settling himself into his new toad body, getting comfortable. He opened his eyes and started hopping around, checking his range of motion. Then, once he situated himself, he ate the cricket.

  Gus crowed with delight. “Holy Mother of Pearl. We did it! I mean, Grundleshanks did it! He actually reanimated a body for himself! That was wicked cool! Death is not the end, my friend.”

  “But…”

  “But what, my pregnant little potato?”

  “Doesn’t this make Grundleshanks some kind of weird…zombie toad?”

  Gus snapped his fingers. “We can change his name to Zombieshanks. Or…Zombieshanksenstein.”

  “How about Grundle-Z, the Zombie Toad.”

  “I like it.” Gus howled with laughter. “Grundle-Z rocks. Did you get any of that on your phone?”

  I opened the video folder. I had three recordings of the toad, but for some bizarre reason, my phone had recorded them all in slo-mo.

  I hit play. The first segment was Gus waving his hand over the tank. During the second segment, a ball of light slowly pushed its way into the tank and expanded into a giant spirit ball, obscuring the toad. Then the picture dropped out. The last video segment panned up to the ceiling, where everything suddenly went white.

  Gus grabbed my phone and flipped back to the second video. He froze the image to where the giant spirit ball hovered over the toad. Inside the ball of light was a huge, green matrix.

  Gus chuckled. “Grundle-Z, I bow before you. You are one scarily impressive toad. I’m going to put you in the big tank and move stuffed Grundleshanks to the mantle, next to Tillie’s skull.” Gus cackled as he rearranged the toads. “This is so cool.”

  “Don’t touch my skull with that thing, you delusional piece of flesh-bait,” Aunt Tillie snapped. That was one of her derogatory terms for humans. Along with flesh suits, breeders and mouth-breathers.

  “What if Grundle-Z gets a craving for brains?” I asked Gus.

  Aunt Tillie snorted. “If he did, he’d starve to death. Poor pickings around you two.”

  Gus made a face at her and turned to me. “I’m sure, if he did, it would be for cricket brains. Possibly toad brains. Humans are safe.”

  I gave him a look. “You say that now. Just wait until you wake up from a nap on the couch, and he’s plastered to your face, sucking out your eyeballs to get to your gooey tootsie roll brain center.”

  Gus grinned. “That would be awesome! We need to get a motion-activated camera. I’d love to get that on video.”

  “THAT WHOLE THING WAS SERIOUSLY DISTURBING,” I said, later that night, while we ate an early dinner.

  Gus had made us a healthy meal of fresh vegetables and wild-caught salmon, but the portions were ridiculously small, and I was seriously craving sweets.

  I had heard that food cravings were supposed to go away in the third trimester, but mine seemed to be getting worse. At least Gus got to have wine with his dinner. All I had was milk and he refused to let me put any chocolate in it.

  Gus was a total tyrant when it came to eating anything that he considered unhealthy. Everything had to be clean, organic and have under five ingredients. I mean, he was probably right. Eating food, where the ingredients resembled a chemistry set, was probably less nutritious than getting a book out of the library and chowing down on it.

  Gus looked up from his plate. “You have a weird definition of disturbing. That Grundleshanks transfer was seriously cool.”

  “Do you think all spirits can do that? Just wham themselves into a body like that? I mean, Lisette and Lucien did it, but they needed an ‘in’, they couldn’t just throw themselves willy-nilly.”

  Gus sipped his glass of wine and thought about it. “I think…most bodies, when they’re vacated, are done. They’re toast. They’ve been used up. They’ve been ridden hard and are sliding into the grave by the skin of their teeth. Even if a spirit could take it over, there wouldn’t be any point to it. But with this body…I think the toad got tired of being cold and gave up the ghost, so to speak. There was nothing wrong with the body, per se. So…Grundleshanks recycled it. And maybe the rules are different for animals than they are for humans.”

  I shuddered. “I think I may need a hot fudge sundae to get over it.”

  “I’ll make you one.” Gus volunteered.

  “Oh, no you don’t.” I laughed as I stood up and cleared the plates. “I am so not falling for that again.”

  “You wound me, woman,” Gus said, putting his hand on his chest. “Can’t you see I’m trying to be nice? Even though being nice to others is typically against my morals.”

  “Oh, please. Like you aren’t planning to do something nauseating, like make it out of coconut-milk ice cream and vegan carob sauce? I want real ice cream and real hot fudge.”

  Gus raised an eyebrow. “There is nothing about hot fudge that’s real. Even if there was, we don’t have any. But, against my better judgement, I shopped in some organic cashew-milk ice cream that you might actually like.”

  I counted to ten inside my head. “Ruby’s Diner makes kick-ass sundaes. World renown. They’re even listed on a Best of Wisconsin website.” I looked out the window, and then back at him expectantly.

  Even though it was June, it was snowing outside—again—and it was getting dark, and I didn’t particularly want to drive alone. My night vision wasn’t the best.

  Gus pointedly frowned at my belly. “Forget it. I am not contributing to the food delinquency of a minor. I’ll be happy to shop in more fruit, but I refuse to feed your addiction to faux-food.”

  Fruit sounded tempting. Preferably, sweet chunks of everything in the melon family. Followed by a hot fudge sundae…

  Gus broke into my train of thought with a stern: “Have you looked in the mirror lately? There’s no way that belly is all baby. You’re going to wind up on an episode of My 600-lb. Life if you don’t knock it off.”

  I looked down. I was getting pretty big, but pregnancy bellies were supposed to get big, weren’t they?

  “I’ll go on a diet after I give birth. You know what I hear? Breastfeeding burns like, a bazillion calories an hour. So, I’ll be fine.”

  “You’ll have to breast-feed the entire town to burn that chub off.”

  I gave him a slit-eyed look and my best martyr-level sigh. But he wasn’t budging. Before I could say anything, my phone vibrated on the counter, where I had plugged it in to charge.

  At the same time, Gus’s phone started dinging in his man-bag, in the mudroom. I checked my phone while Gus went to get his. It was a text from Mama Lua to both of us.

  Checking in to see how you’re doing. I need to leave town. Family emergency. Looking for someone to run the Crooked Pantry while I’m gone. Crazy people trying to shut me down. I’m desperate. Can you help? It’s been too long since I’ve heard from you. Is everything going well in the frozen tundra?

  Gus walked out of the mudroom. “That was nice of her to check in like that.”

  “Nice?” I asked, dubiously. “More like self-serving. She wants us to go back to Los Angeles an
d run her store.”

  “No, she doesn’t.”

  “Yes, she does. Look at your text.”

  He gave me an odd look and held out his phone. His text read:

  Checking in to see how you’re doing. It’s been too long since I’ve heard from you. Is everything going well in the frozen tundra?

  “What?” I asked, confused. “That’s not what my text says.”

  “Show me.” I handed him my phone. “Your text is the same as mine.”

  “What?!” I took the phone back.

  Sure enough, my text was the exact same as the one on Gus’s phone. “I swear to you, a minute ago, my text was all about how she needed to leave town and she was desperate for us to run the store.”

  “That’s…weird,” Gus said. “You’ve been in serious sugar withdrawal lately...”

  “Chocolate deprivation does not cause hallucinations,” I said, frowning.

  Gus shrugged. “Let’s call her and see who’s right.”

  So, we did.

  AFTER GUS GOT Mama Lua on the phone, they exchanged pleasantries and caught up on all the pagan gossip. I didn’t realize how tight they had gotten while Gus was on his own in Los Angeles. By the time he finally told her why we were calling and put her on speaker, I was starting to feel a little jealous and left out.

  “Mama Lua, Mara said that her text was different from mine. It was about a family emergency, and you needing help. Is someone trying to shut you down?”

  Silence.

  Gus and I looked at each other.

  Finally, Mama Lua said, “Oh, child. I was thinking all that. I even wrote it down, but I didn’t send it. I deleted it. It wouldn’t be fair to ask you to bear that big of a burden for me.”

  Whoa. So, I could see deleted texts now? That was actually kind of cool. Would it be like that with all texts or only those that had a lot of emotion behind them? What about emails? Was it the baby causing it? Or was it the cottage? Or was it Mama Lua’s personal juju?

  Gus grinned, gave me a thumbs up, and whispered, “That’s so cool,” before he responded to Mama Lua. “Fair, schmair. We owe you. Of course we’ll help you.”

  My eyebrows shot up. I grabbed the cell phone out of his hand before he could do something even dumber, like give her an arrival date.

  “We have to run right now, but we’ll get back to you tomorrow, Mama Lua.” I hung up on her and glared at Gus.

  “What? It’s Mama Lua,” he said.

  “Exactly!” I said, exasperated. “I’m not sure which one is scarier—Mama Lua or her store. This is a really bad idea. I’m not going.”

  Gus folded his arms and raised an eyebrow. “Au contraire, mon ami. I’m going, and you’re coming with. I am not leaving my pregnant friend here, alone.”

  “If you really cared about me so much, you wouldn’t go either. You’d stay here.”

  He gave me a weird look and pursed his lips. “I’m sorry, who are you? This scaredy-cat version of you can’t be the Mara I know. If it wasn’t for Mama Lua’s help, you’d still be possessed by Lisette. We’re going. End of discussion.”

  He turned on his heel and walked out of the kitchen.

  CHAPTER 2

  The next day, I tried one last time to talk sense into Gus. “She doesn’t have a return date, and we can’t go to Los Angeles indefinitely. Do you realize how pregnant I am?”

  “Like there’s any way to miss it?” he asked, throwing a log into the fireplace. “You look like a circus act.”

  While he warmed up in front of the fire, I took my sweater off and stripped down to my tank top. Being pregnant was like having a built-in furnace. It was the first time in my life I was consistently toasty warm, no matter what the temperature was. Gus used to tease me about being a reptile, in need of a hot rock. Not anymore.

  “How are you sweating?” Gus complained.

  “How are you cold?” I asked. “It’s got to be sixty degrees in here.”

  “Exactly,” he said, before returning to Mama Lua’s unspoken request. “We owe her.”

  “I’m pregnant,” I repeated.

  “No kidding. I know, the world knows, I’m pretty sure the astronauts in the space station know. That belly is tough to miss.”

  “Gus, if I go to Los Angeles, I won’t be able to come back. They have rules about pregnant women and planes. I’m almost at the cut-off point, now.”

  “So? We can stay there. They have better hospitals in Los Angeles.”

  Aunt Tillie’s eye sockets lit up. “Los Angeles? As in, Hollywood? Are we planning a trip?”

  “Where have you been?” I asked, thankful she had finally shown up. Aunt Tillie was exactly who I needed. If there was anyone could make Gus see reason, it was Aunt Tillie. She may be dead, but she was extremely bossy and had absolutely no boundaries when it came to getting her own way.

  Gus explained the situation to her, while I sat there trying to look as pregnant as possible, leaning back on the couch, my belly sticking out. She was going to take one look at me and for sure, put an end to any discussion of leaving.

  “I’m in. When are we going?” Aunt Tillie asked.

  “What?!” I sat up, totally shocked. “Are you nuts?” Oh, man. This was going to suck, so bad. I needed to find a foolproof way out.

  Gus grinned. “Not nuts, she’s smart. If you’re going to have a problematic delivery, or give birth to some half-demon baby, you’d obviously be better off in Los Angeles.”

  “It’s not a demon, it’s just a baby!” I yelled. I had gone through enough of that demon baby crap with Paul.

  “That remains to be seen,” Aunt Tillie sniffed. “Make sure you pack my skull carefully.”

  Ah-hah! That could be my way out. “There’s no way we can fly to Los Angeles with your skull. Look it up.” I turned to Gus. “We can’t put Aunt Tillie’s skull in the overhead, and they’re not going to sell us an extra seat for her.”

  Gus quickly googled skulls and planes on his phone. “Mara’s right. We can’t take a human skull on a passenger plane.”

  I stretched out on the sofa, feeling better. “So, that’s settled. We can’t fly and there’s no way I can drive.”

  “Au contraire. Tillie can’t fly. You can. Tillie and I will drive and we’ll meet you out there,” Gus said.

  “No! Absolutely not. There’s no way I’m getting on Roy’s helicopter or taking some unsafe, tiny puddle-jumper, to get to one of the larger airports.”

  “No need. Tillie and I can drive you to the airport on our way out.”

  “Let me make this clear. I’m not flying to Los Angeles alone. I hate flying.”

  It wasn’t hate, as much as it was terror. I was terrified of flying. Especially with the way electronics went wonky around me. I’ve only been on a plane twice in my life. The first time, the cabin depressurized and we had to make a crash landing. The second time, there was a problem with the brakes and we almost plowed into the airport. I didn’t want to risk a third time.

  “Besides, I would get there what, three or four days before you do? What am I supposed to do? I can’t afford a week at a hotel. If I camp out in the airport, I’ll probably be arrested. And there’s no way in hell I’m going to Mama Lua’s without you.”

  Gus gave me an exasperated look. “You’re going to have to get over yourself at some point, Miss Thing, and stop being such a scaredy-cat, pain in the ass. If it wasn’t for Mama Lua helping me—for free—you’d be lost in limbo and Lisette would be prostituting your body all over the state.”

  “I know. You don’t have to keep repeating it.” Mama Lua and her magic potions had been instrumental in saving my ass—literally—from a long-dead ancestor who wanted another go-round in this world. “I’ll send her flowers. A box of candy. A gift certificate for a free massage. But I’m not getting on a plane.”

  Aunt Tillie piped up, sounding weirdly cheerful: “All you do these days is complain. It’s enough to give the dead a headache. If you ask me, we could use a vacation from Debbie Downer her
e. Why don’t you and I go, boyo? It’ll be an adventure.”

  I narrowed my eyes at the skull. “You should talk, Aunt Tillie. You’re the Queen of Complaining.” Why was she so gung ho about going? This was so not like her. She and I were going to have a little talk later.

  Gus looked at my belly, considering. “She’s too pregnant. I can’t leave her here alone, in the middle of eternal winter.”

  “Stop being so considerate,” I snapped. “I survived without you before, I can do it again.”

  “Tillie, can’t you just…float out there and meet up with us? You’re a spirit. You’re not bound by physics. That way I can fly with Mara.”

  Aunt Tillie sniffed. “It’s a little more complicated than that. I need to be there in person, not just be some haunt in a dream. The easiest way to do that, is to take the skull.”

  Aunt Tillie actually answered a question about her state of non-being? Willingly? Wow, she must really want to go.

  “That’s interesting,” Gus said. “So, it’s easier for you to manifest in a new location, if an object you’re attached to is physically moved to that location?”

  “Afterlife physics is on a need-to-know basis, and you don’t need to know,” Aunt Tillie snapped, her eyes narrowing, as she slammed shut the small window into her world that she had opened.

  “I’ll bet you’re right,” I said. “When she was trying to haunt me, back when I lived there, she was just a voice and a dream, until I got to Wisconsin. And then she became all too real.” And I had the scars to prove it.

  “Me too,” Gus said. “Always in dreams, until I got here.”

  “Knock it off,” Tillie growled. “I can do whatever I want, whenever I want.”

  Gus and I looked at each other.

  “No, you can’t,” I said.

  “Yes, I can. What’s the point of dying if you’re still constricted by the laws of physics? You two know nothing about the afterlife.”