Page 62 of Last Witch Attempt
From memory.
My heart started racing as I remembered the Aunt Tillie dancing on the other side of the window at Mrs. Little’s house. She hadn’t been wearing the same clothes as the real Aunt Tillie. Close, but not exact.
It wasn’t Aunt Tillie who danced naked at the Dandridge. It was a different Aunt Tillie.
And it wasn’t Aunt Tillie doing costume changes and jumping between vehicles downtown. There were two Aunt Tillies.
“Oh, crap,” I murmured as reality set in. “Crap, crap, crap.”
The Aunt Tillie in the dream grinned. “You’ve met me before,” she said. “It was only briefly, when you were younger. You may call me Millie.”
My stomach plummeted. “Where are you?”
“That’s for me to know and you to find out.”
With that, the dreamscape tilted, and I began to slide. I didn’t stop until I bolted awake in my bed.
“Son of a witch,” I hissed as Landon rolled and grunted next to me. “We are in big, big trouble.”
15
FIFTEEN
“What do you mean there are two Aunt Tillies?”
Landon stared me down, abject horror in his eyes. He was shirtless, still in bed—the promised workout never took place, just as I predicted—and waking up slowly. I didn’t give him a chance to adjust before I dropped my dream anvil on him.
“It happened when we were at Mrs. Little’s house.” I tried to keep my voice calm, even though so many emotions were bubbling inside me that I didn’t know where one started and the next ended. “She was casting a memory charm, and it got too big. She needed help reining it in. Before that happened, it was like something exploded out of the spell. We didn’t realize it at the time, but it was Millie.”
“You mean the Millie that Aunt Tillie made up to be her scapegoat?”
“Yes, but…” I thought back to the dream. “Millie made it sound as if she had been free before.”
“Meaning what?”
“I don’t know. I need to find out … and I need to do it away from Steve and Spencer.”
“Crap.” Landon rubbed his cheek, the reality of our situation setting in. “This is bad, Bay. The last thing we need under normal circumstances is two Aunt Tillies. These are not normal circumstances.”
I was right there with him. “I’m not sure Aunt Tillie realizes she has a doppelganger running around. We need to get to her, explain things, and then see what we can do to get rid of Millie.”
“The fact that you’re talking about her as if she’s a separate entity makes me uncomfortable.”
“Sheisa separate entity.”
“I still don’t like it. Two Aunt Tillies is one and a half too many.”
“Kind of like four and a half abs is three and a half too few?” I adopted an innocent expression. It didn’t fly. Landon was furious.
“Keep it up. You’re the reason I lost my abs.”
“Yes, because I invented bacon … and chocolate cake … and pot roast.”
“Stop it.” He rolled away from me to escape the bed.
“Where are you going?” I demanded to his retreating back.
“You just said that we have to talk to the others away from Steve and Spencer. We have to catch them before breakfast.”
