14. Fourteen #2
“You shouldn’t have believed in Santa when you were eight.” Aunt Tillie looked disgusted. "One man with one sleigh delivering millions of presents in a few hours? How does that work?”
I shrugged. “I was eight.”
“Thistle figured it out before you.”
“No, I was pretending for her and Clove by that point.”
“If that’s what you want to tell yourself.”
“I was.” In truth, it was possible that Thistle figured out Santa Claus wasn’t real before me. She took Aunt Tillie’s lessons on questioning authority to heart. I had always been softer than Thistle, and yet nowhere near as soft as Clove.
Aunt Tillie moved to the edge of the bluff and looked down at The Overlook. “I never thought the property would turn into … this . I preferred the old homestead. This is too organized. And opening my home to strangers?” She made a face. “That is pretty much the most annoying thing in the world.”
“You’re the one who gave them the okay,” I argued. “When Mom and my aunts came to you and told you about their dream, you told them to go for it.”
“That wasn’t me.”
“Yes, it was.” I vehemently shook my head. “I remember talking to you after the fact. I was surprised you agreed. When I asked you about it, you said they had dreams and they deserved to explore them. The only way they could do that is if you let them do it here.”
She stared at the inn. I took it as an opening to keep talking.
“I know you were angry earlier,” I continued. “I get it. Nobody wants to believe they’re slipping.”
“I would tread lightly if I were you,” she warned.
“Nobody wants to hurt you. We want to take care of you. Forever. If something is shifting, you have to give us the opportunity to help you.”
“What is it you think is shifting?” Aunt Tillie’s eyes were like lasers, and for the first time I realized there was something off about the dream.
“Your eyes aren’t green,” I said.
Aunt Tillie’s lips curved as she waited for me to answer her question.
“You’re getting older,” I said. “Sometimes, when people get older, they lose certain things. They gain others,” I added hurriedly.
“Like what?” Her tone told me she was definitely playing a game. Since I had nothing to lose—she was going to hex me anyway—it was best to give her something to genuinely think about.
“You gain wisdom with age, and the ability to weigh two sides of an argument,” I replied. “When you’re a kid, you’re myopic. You used to tell us that, but I didn’t get it. I do now. I can see more now, and I know I’ll see even more when I’m your age.”
“Right.” Aunt Tillie cocked her head. “That’s all very good and nice. There’s just one gigantic problem with your little speech.”
“And what’s that?” Here comes the snark, I told myself. She was going to give me a lecture before slapping me back with whatever punishment she’d decided I’d earned.
She leaned closer, her green eyes—really, why were her eyes green?—flashing. “I’m not Tillie.”
I waited for her to finish. She would follow up the declaration with something like, “I’m the Devil” or “I’m the ass whooping that you’ve deserved your entire life” or “I’m the nightmare you’ll never escape.”
“Come on,” I prodded. “I know you want to say something funny.”
“I don’t particularly find most of what’s happening funny,” she replied. “In fact, I’m angry. I’m angry that she let me out. I’m really angry that she put me back in. This time I made sure that she won’t be able to put me back in.”
“I don’t understand,” I said. “What game are we playing?”
“Oh, it’s not a game, little girl.”
“Aunt Tillie.”
“I’m not Tillie.”
“Suddenly you’re not my aunt?” She was going too far. It was one thing to hex me—yes, that was still coming—but it was quite another to engage in a stealth attack and try to gaslight me in my dreams.
“I didn’t say that.” A smile spread across her face.
I was dreaming, but I still managed to put it together.
The image that flashed in my mind was from two nights before, when we “fixed” Mrs. Little’s memory.
The spell had gotten away from Aunt Tillie.
It had grown too big for her to handle so I had to help.
It had grown so big in fact that another person—another entity actually—had managed to escape.
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.”