Somebody Tell Aunt Tillie She's Dead (Toad Witch Series, Book One) (17 page)

“Go ahead, rub it in. Not bad enough I lose my best friend, but now I’m missing out on eagles.”

“Awww, that’s sweet. Am I your best friend?”

“I was talking about the toad.”

“Bastard. I’ll send you a photo.”

“Screw the photo. I already have photos of Grundleshanks. Send me an eagle feather.”

“I thought that was illegal.”

“If you stumble across an eagle feather on the side of the road, you’re not gonna pick it up?”

“Okay, well… You have a point. I’ll see what I can do.”

“Hey, you taking those vitamins and supplements I gave you?”

I sighed. “Yes,
dad
.” And I had been. Religiously. Even though it was kind of a pain to keep track of what I was supposed to take when and I didn’t know what half of it was supposed to be for. St. John’s Wort, magnesium, vervain, melatonin, evening primrose, 5-HTP, CoQ10, cat’s claw, DHEA, blah, blah, blah. One of these days I was going to look them all up on the internet, but as long as they kept working, I would keep taking them.

An hour later, I drove up to a crossroads and spotted a sign indicating there was a store nearby. But the sign was hanging at a crazy angle and barely attached, so the direction of
nearby
was a bit foggy. Great. Well, any direction was better than just stalling out in the middle of nowhere, right?

Eeny, meeny, miney, mo.

I picked up my phone and speed-dialed Gus. “Hey, do me a favor and pick a direction. I’m trying to find human life forms.”

“You’re the one driving the car.”

“Trust me, you have as much chance of making the right decision as I do.”

“You’ve gone soft. All right, let me grab a pendulum.” There was a pause, then he was back. I could just see him, swinging a pendulum over a map. “
Fe fi fo fum, I smell the blood of an
… Turn east.”

“Great. Thanks.” As we continued chatting, I turned right at the stop sign and drove down the road a bit. Sure enough, there it was. Big J’s Trading Post. There was even an honest-to-goodness hitching post in front.

“Yee-haw. You’re the best. Talk to you later. And don’t sell Sally! Or I will haunt your dreams and drive you crazy.”

After we hung up, I parked Zed. A trading post. I shook my head. I didn’t think trading posts still existed, outside of Indian reservations in the Southwest. And I’d never been in one before.

I slowly got out of the car.
Ouch
. I’d been driving so long, my legs were stiff and my feet felt like I stuffed my shoes with pebbles.

As I limped my way through the parking lot, it felt like I was walking into a piece of living history. I ran my hand across the worn hitching post and opened my mind’s eye:

I could see a row of horses tied up while their owners went inside to barter; smell the warm, musky scent of their hides and the well-worn leather of the saddles.

In front of the trading post, three oak steps, worn smooth down the center, led to the front door. As I matched my gym shoes to the grooves, I could feel a buzz from the energy that centuries of boot-clad feet had left behind.

I took a deep breath and opened the door, not quite sure of what I’d find on the other side, but ready to embrace the adventure.

Chapter Nineteen

I half-expected some Little House on the Prairie scene, with a pinched-face Harriet Olesen behind the counter, hoarding sugar and taking chickens in trade for flour.

Instead, I found blaring rock music and a tall, lanky kid who looked like he was stumbling through his early twenties. Long, stringy, brown hair that could use an “up-close and personal” with a bottle of shampoo, a face pitted by a thousand lost battles against acne and a pervasive aroma of cigarette smoke and stale sweat.

When I approached the counter, he turned down the radio. His name was J.J., he said, introducing himself with a crooked-toothed, nicotine-stained grin. “Jarvis the Fourth. I’m Little J. My dad, Jarvis the Third, is Big J.”

I found myself liking J.J., despite his appearance and slightly ripe odor. If the rest of the people in Devils Point were this friendly, I might actually enjoy living here. Even though I already missed Gus like crazy.

“This place seems a lot older than two generations.”

“Well, yeah, dude. It’s been in my family forever. We got us plenty of J’s to go around. Before it was my dad’s place, it was Grandpa John’s. Before that, well, it goes all the way back to Great-Great-Great-Great-Grandpa Jarvis the First. We’re like, the J-men.”

I smiled and looked around at the store supplies. Camping equipment, sporting goods, vintage clothes, camouflage gear, hunting rifles, children’s toys, freeze-dried rations. There was even a small food section. I was surprised to see a row of cast iron cauldrons, but soon realized they were utilized as camping cook-pots.

“Is there anything you don’t carry?” I asked, glancing at the boxes of ammunition stacked behind the counter. Charlton Heston would have loved this place. I could just picture him waiving his rifle at reporters.

“Lots of stuff. Mostly we do a lot of trade-ins, second-hand stuff. One man’s junk and whatever. Recycling, North Woods style.” He made a dismissive gesture and I noticed that his nails were bitten down to the quick and his fingers were stained the same color as his teeth.

“Well, I’m just glad I found you. I was starting to think I was in the Twilight Zone,” I smiled, mentally nudging him to tell me more while I put on a flirty facade. Not that I was interested in J.J., I mean, he seemed harmless enough. But I was definitely interested in getting the scoop on my new hometown and a little bit of flirty could go a long way.

He smiled back, warming up. “Nah, we’re real enough. In a pain-in-the-ass, out-the-way, bad-teeth kind of way. At least, that’s what the city folk say when they get lost up here.”

“Well that seems rude.”

“City folk wouldn’t be city folk if they weren’t rude. It’s either that or they’re all gushing about our quaintness. Like we’re some kind of weird, old-fashioned, zoo exhibit.”

I laughed. “You like living up here?”

He shrugged. “It’s okay.”

“That doesn’t sound like a ringing endorsement.”

“Dude, whadda you want from me? If you’re down with boring, it’s a totally righteous place to live.” He leaned on the counter and flashed another gap-toothed smile at me. “We got a penny candy store, a diner that serves homemade meals, a librarian who remembers what you like and sets books aside for you. The schools are safe, the teachers are strict and the principal gets his house TP’ed every Halloween.”

 ”Please tell me that’s not the height of fun around here.”

“We’re not that backwoods. We got an arcade where the games are a quarter and a movie theater that shows double features for a dollar. It’s Homage to 1939 this week.
Wizard of Oz
and
Some Like It Hot
.” He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “We also got some righteous skunk weed growing in the woods, if you know where to look,” he said, winking.

I laughed again. “I’m sure the cops love that.”

“Every now and then, they’ll pull up a plant and the paper will run a story on their big drug bust. Usually they just leave it alone. It’s not like it belongs to anybody specific. Besides,” his eyes twinkled, “the sheriff’s uncle has glaucoma and he likes a toke now and then. So bustin’ us would be kinda hypocritical.”

“Sounds like a pretty laid back place to live.”

“Mostly. But we got us our crazies up here too.”

A customer walked in and while J.J. finished ringing him up, I picked up a copy of the local newspaper. It was pretty thin. Mainly social stuff, syndicated columnists, cartoons and opinion pieces. Although it looked like two farmers were getting all heated up about the ownership of a prize-winning cow.

“You guys have any festivals or craft fairs or anything like that?”

“Depends on the time of year. It’s all seasonal. We’re havin’ our Harvest Fest next month. We also have a happenin’ antiques row, if you’re into that kinda thing. You here on a visit?”

“Nope. I’m moving in. Three forty-five Oldway Lane.” I put the paper back on the stack. “You have any idea how to get there from here?”

“Aw, dude, the witch house? Everyone knows that place.” He lit up a cigarette and I shifted to get out of the path of the smoke. “You don’t look like no witch to me. Way too young and cool-looking.”

“Thanks,” I coughed and quickly tried to change the subject. “Why’s it called the witch house?”

“‘Cause that’s what it is, dude. Lotsa stories about that place. It seemed to like old Tillie though. She lived there forever. Until it decided to kill her.”

“That’s ridiculous.” I said, but my voice wavered. I took a breath and tried to sound sure of myself. “Houses don’t kill people, people kill people.”

“Whatever. Wait until you actually move in. Then tell me it’s not a crazy killer cottage.”

Another noxious cloud of nicotine wafted towards me and I coughed again. “You know, those things’ll do you in faster than any cottage.”

“That’s what they say now. Ten years from now, they’re gonna say a cigarette a day will keep the doctor away. Just like butter. They said butter and bacon and eggs was evil, but now they found out they’re our friends.”

But when I coughed again, he put the cigarette out. “Thanks,” I smiled at him and took a deep breath of toxin-free air.

“So how’d you get hosed with it?”

“What, the cottage?” Well, there was no way I could tell him the truth. Somehow, I didn’t think saying
I did a ritual to get a house, the cottage heard me and decided to off Aunt Tillie
would endear me to anyone. Although Gus had been pretty successful at drilling his version of events into me: Aunt Tillie was nearing the end of her thread, so the cottage reached out to see who the next owner was going to be and I was just psychic enough to feel it.

“Tillie was my Aunt. Technically, Great-Aunt.”

“That explains it. Next of kin and all.” J.J. looked me up and down. “You’d be better off just forgettin’ about it. Check into the B&B, have a little vacation away from the city, buy an antique, then turn around and go back home. Life’s too short.”

“I can’t forget about a house. That’s kind of impractical, don’t you think? I mean, even if it’s a nightmare, I can sell it.” At least, that was my plan. Go, face my fears by spending a few nights in the cottage, fix it up and put it on the market. Then use the money to go back to Los Angeles.

“Not in this town, you can’t. Tillie tried for years.” He laughed. “Trust me. It ain’t worth it. No one’ll buy it and you can’t burn it down neither.”

So not what I wanted to hear. “Why not?” I asked, wondering if the cottage was a featured player in other peoples’ nightmares. Or if it had a history of owners dying tragically. Maybe it was infested with termites. What if it was a white elephant built on a toxic waste dump?

“The cottage won’t let ya. My Great-Great-Great-Grand-daddy tried to light it on fire and it turned him into a tree. Swear to God.”

Well, that was an answer I wasn’t expecting. I gave J.J. a sideways look.

“Seriously,” he said, pointing to a faded picture above the register, of a nattily-dressed, middle-aged man wearing a bow-tie and an eye-patch.

“Wow, he’s quite a looker.” I said, fascinated. “Bet he had an interesting life.”

“He was stylin’, he was. Old ‘One-Eye’ Jack Wilbur. He was on the cutting edge. Until he became a tree.”

“Get out,” I said, laughing. He had to be pulling my leg. Either that, or he’d done one acid trip too many. “There’s no such thing as a man-tree.”

“Yeah? Well, when you find roots growing out of your heels, I’ll send someone to water you.”

“Forget water, send a documentary crew. If I turn into a tree, I want it on camera.” If my fears about the cottage sounded as ridiculous as J.J.’s, no wonder Gus thought I was being an idiot. “So, how do I get to this vengeful, yet ecologically-proactive, witch house?”

“Hold on,” he took out a piece of paper and drew a map for me. “You sure you want to do this, dude?”

I smiled — probably for the first time, when it came to the cottage. “I think I can handle a bad-tempered house,” I reassured him. And for the first time, I actually believed it.

He shook his head, clicking his tongue against his teeth.

“Besides, I kinda like trees. In moderation.” I said, thinking of Gus. “They’re not as good as a Coffee Bean, but they’re better than a strip mall.”

He shrugged. “Your funeral,” he said and handed me the makeshift map. I raised an eyebrow at him and he put his hands up in surrender. “Hey, it’s all good. You’ve got it now and Tillie can finally rest in peace. Everything’s totally righteous.”

Before I left, I wound up buying some emergency equipment — first aid kit, flashlight, a map of the area, that kind of thing. I eyeballed the guns and ammo a few times. I mean, what if some rabid wild animal broke into the cottage? Eventually, I brushed the thought aside. I’d probably just wind up shooting myself anyway.

I spent a few more minutes chatting with J.J., but when another customer came in, I took advantage of the opportunity and left. If I hurried, I could take a quick tour of my new hometown and still be at my infamous cottage before sundown.