Chapter 7

Mola jumped when the door opened. "Chistery!" she shrieked. "Do you mind?!"

Chistery did not know what to say. "I … you … what – what's going on? It's … eleven at night!"

"Yeah, it's early," Danal agreed with a grin. "The night is young! Right, Mol?"

"Mol?!" Chistery repeated, outraged. "You're nicknaming her after a rodent?!" He could not figure out why he was so affected by this, but for some reason, he felt abandoned.

"Chistery, what is your problem?!" Mola asked. "I like Danal. It's natural! Oz, take a pill!"

"But a storage closet?! At least find a room to … do … this in. You're going to wake the whole castle, and especially Mistress Elphaba, who has had a very stressful night!" And then he stormed off to his room.

The next morning, Chistery woke up to find Gabrialus sitting beside his bed, right up in his face, staring at him. "Morning, Chist," he said with a touch of relief in his voice.

"Dude," Chistery groaned. "Thought you were with Zalida."

Gabrialus laughed. "I was with Zalida! It's eleven o'clock in the morning! You missed breakfast, and when Mistress Elphaba told me to come get you, I could literally see the smoke coming out of her ears."

"What did she say?" Chistery asked, sitting up.

"Something along the lines of, 'Tell Chistery to get the fuck in here before I wear his entrails as a dress.' Yeah. You'd better fly double speed, dude." He looked sympathetically at Chistery.

"Yeah. See you later, Gabe."

As soon as Chistery entered her room, Elphaba whipped around to face him. "Where the HELL have you been?!" she screamed at him. He could suddenly see why all of Oz was afraid of her. "I came to your room FOUR HOURS AGO, and you were dead to the world! Little Miss Innocent and her ragamuffin crew of idiots are this close to the Emerald City, and we need to make this tonic NOW if we want to stop them! Now open those jars over there!"

"Yes, Mistress."

So Chistery and Elphaba worked, making this red stuff that looked disgusting but actually smelled pretty good. All the while, Elphaba muttered things under her breath like "poppies," and "this Ozdamned book." Chistery, meanwhile, was lost in his own dark thoughts about Mola. Why hadn't she told him about Danal? What gave Danal the right to eject his slobber all over Mola? Mola would never go for a pinhead like Danal! It was against all laws of nature …

"Aha!" Elphaba exclaimed triumphantly when they were done. "This will do the trick! Now, all I need to do is sift this smoke in her general direction, and say a few words. If this stupid book will actually cooperate …" She made a face as she opened her impossibly huge book of magic. "Let's see, flores dormiendo influene … flores dormiendo influene …" The smoke drifted out of the window at an alarmingly fast rate.

"Excuse me, Mistress?" Chistery started. "What exactly will this do to Dorothy?"

Elphaba got a distant look in her eyes, and Chistery could tell that she was about to go on a trip down Memory Lane. "I was at the train station, getting ready to go meet the Wizard, back when I thought he could actually help me, and Yero … I didn't think he would come, because back then we barely knew each other, but he came, carrying the finest bouquet of poppies, for me." She grinned. "I should've known then how he felt, but …" She returned to the present. "Poppies will put them to sleep. Then I'll get what's rightfully mine, and they'll see."

"Sounds like a good plan," Chistery said approvingly. "Now, Mistress, I hate to leave you, and if you need me, I'll stay, but I really want to go flying right now. There's … just a lot of things on my mind at the moment."

Elphaba smiled understandingly. "Go ahead. I can actually manage without you, you know."

"Nah, you never could, and you know it!"

Chistery flew the circumference of Kiamo Ko several times, much like he and Elphaba had done when they had first arrived at the castle. He remembered her first smile after her man had died, and how gratified he had been. And Chistery knew that Elphaba was by no means over Fiyero; she didn't talk about him much, but there were definitely days when she was more irritable, more like the wicked witch that people made her out to be. It saddened Chistery, and it made him wish that he could just wave his paw and make all her problems go away. Of course, there was the Mola issue on top of all that, but Chistery didn't want to think about that.

At dinner that evening, Mola plopped down next to Chistery, making him jump in surprise. "Look Chistery," she started. "We need to talk."

"Oh, do we?" he asked, taking a big bite of apple.

"Yes, we do. I'm sorry you had to see me with Danny last night. I … I didn't even mean for it to happen; he just asked me if I wanted to hang out with him and I said yes."

"So hanging out somehow turned into making out?"

"Oh, for Oz's sake, Chistery!" Mola exclaimed, slamming her spoon down. "I asked you if you wanted to hang with me, and you said no!"

"I had to help Mistress Elphaba!"

"Okay, we need to stop." Mola sighed. "We're both being really childish."

"Yeah, we are." He grinned at her a little bit. "Wanna fly with me to the western part of the castle?"

"Sure."

It was eerily like their first day at Kiamo Ko. They were actually enjoying flying around the castle, despite the awkwardness between them. But as they were flying past Elphaba's room, they heard banging, and, "FUCK! FUCK MADAME MORRIBLE! SOMEBODY ALWAYS HELPS THAT GIRL!"