19. Good God

"You have to help me."

"Okay?" he said, scratching his head and his chest, swiping at his sleepy eyes.

I pushed past him and shut his door.

"Come in," he joked.

I held out a bottle of Jack like an offering. "Weird shit is happening and you're the only one that can help me."

Mark took the bottle and drank. "Alright, I'm awake. Come on." He moved to the living room and plopped down on the couch, patting the cushion next to him. "So... what's going on?"

I took a deep breath. "Booze first." I started describing the past few days to him, about the library, about Mary, about Seth. The more I drank, the easier it got to spit it all out.

"You really think Seth would hurt you? Does he have some kind of vendetta against witches that I don't know about?" he half joked.

I couldn't explain the wolf stuff - that was still top secret info, because the secret wasn't mine. "Something with him is just totally off lately. It occurred to me on the way over here that it might be supernatural... but that may just be wishful thinking on my part, and even if it's not that still leaves me with zero answers."

"Just doesn't seem like him at all." He offered me the last of the bottle and I drank it gratefully. "You can stay here if you're scared to go home. Just please, please don't let Seth think that we're messing around or something. My face can't take it."

I looked down at my clasped hands, nails picking at the skin around my thumbnails. "I never thought that I would actually be afraid of him. He's always treated me like..."

"Like you're perfect," he mumbled. "He loves you. I think it's a spell." As soon as the word left his mouth, he got a funny look on his face and started scratching at his ear, pacing the floor.

"Are you okay?"

"A pen. I need a pen," he said. "Too many voices!" he yelled loudly.

I found a pen and my bag and slid it across the coffee table. He grabbed both the pen and the hand that was still on it and yanked me towards him, scrawling furiously on my arm. "Hey!" I yelled.

A calm settled over him and he examined my arm. "Looks like a phone number."

"What in the ever loving fuck was that?!"

"It was like... a tickle in my brain. Lots of talking. They're trying to reach you."

I grabbed his phone and went inside, trying my damndest to just keep a lid on my angry and negative feelings. Never an easy thing for me, made at least doubly worst by the amount of Jack Daniels in me. It took three rings for someone to answer.

"Who are you?" I spoke into the receiver.

"Elizabeth? Thank goddess, we've been trying to approach you for awhile now - "

"I wouldn't recommend you do that. Things tend to get a little out of hand when I'm placed in threatening situations."

"We're no threat to you," the voice said, matter of fact. "We want to help you - "

"If you or anyone of your... coven or whatever put a spell on my boyfriend, I will personally find each of you and beat the living fuck out of you. Don't come to my house again, don't get into my friends head, and do not ever, ever fuck with my man. Ever."

I hit the end button and went back inside. Mark's cat, Salem, came over to the door as I was closing it and started rubbing against my calves, meowing at me like he wanted something. I leaned down and scratched under his chin.

"Does your papa need to feed you?" I baby talked. Salem was an inside cat so he was always around when I came over, but he'd never shown interest in me aside from passively staring on occasion. I was a sucker for a cat that would love on me, though. "Pretty little kitty."

"He's not pretty, he's regal," Mark said as he came around the corner.

"He's a little sweetie baby," I cooed to Salem. "Yes he is."

I handed Mark his phone and it immediately started to ring. He held it up so I could see the screen.

"Don't answer." I couldn't talk to Seth right now. I wasn't even mad at him, I was just... totally lost. I needed to sort my head out first.

He wanted to answer. He didn't want to be caught up in the middle of our drama. But he respected my wishes.

"What's the plan?" he asked once the ringing stopped, leaving behind a tense silence.

"I really don't have one right now. I mean, the guy I love might try to kill me, but beyond that..." I shrugged my shoulders and started back towards the living room.

There were three distinct knocks against the front door, and we stared at each other.

"It's him," I mouthed slowly, and I was certain I was right. I padded quietly through the familiar dining room to a kitchen I had never set foot in before, searching for a door that wasn't there. I'd essentially trapped myself. There was nowhere to go at this point, so I ducked into one of Mark's cabinets. And, I knew it was stupid; my car was sitting outside, my scent was all over the place. There was no hiding.

"Liz? Liz!" Mark was yelling through the house. "He's gone."

I popped back out of the cabinet and met him in the middle. "What did he say?"

"He said he was sorry and gave me this for you." He held up my backpack, packed full of something.

"He packed me clothes," I said, rifling through the pack. There was a note inside that was him apologizing again, telling me that he didn't know what was wrong with him, that he didn't feel like himself and he didn't actually harbor any anger towards me. More signs that made me question if this was a supernatural issue.

"I think I'm with you on this spell theory," I finally said. "No way could he be like that for real. He's..." I didn't have words for how sweet and gentle Seth was to me. It was kind of funny because he was this huge, beefed up guy and I was a tiny woman but when it came down to it, he was the soft and I was the hard in our relationship. I was the one who angered easily, I was the one that could be unpredictable. Not him.

"What are you going to do?"

I sighed. "I'm going to drink some more, because this is depressing as fuck and I literally have zero ideas on how to find out if a spell was cast or how to undo one if that's the case." I really wished I would have brought my notebooks with me when I left home earlier - they were my only source of knowledge on any of this craziness, though they hadn't proven all that helpful yet. I had hit a point where I couldn't make out the text at all.

We were already tipsy when we started the second bottle, but half of that one got us to the point of sloppy drunk. We blared music and danced like wild people, knocked shit over and fell down repeatedly, and by three in the morning we were outside climbing a ladder to the roof so that we could better examine the stars.

"Wow," I smiled at the sky. "Great view. I think I'd live on a rooftop if I could."

"I used to go up on the roof of my old apartment building a lot."

"You don't come out anymore?"

"Nah. It makes me think too much, and that's never good." He held up the bottle we'd been sharing. "Alcohol, good. Thinking, bad."

I kind of smiled as I sighed. "I know the feeling."

The very tips of his fingers met the edge of my hand. "I always figured you would talk to me," he said.

"What?"

"About... things you went through. Were going through. I thought you would talk to me."

It kind of took me off guard. "I don't know how," I finally said. "I don't even know how to think about it. There aren't enough words in me."

He smirked. "Says the girl who writes her days away."

"Music is the only way I know how to express myself to my satisfaction."

"Speaking of which, are you leaving for the summer?"

I sighed. "I'm supposed to. Seth was totally against it and then he said I should go, and then he turned into Crazy Seth. So now I don't know again." Who knew where things would stand by then?

I stretched a bit and stood up, shivering.

"Careful," he warned.

"I won't fall."

"Famous last words."

I stepped upwards, towards the crest of his roof. I was definitely drunk and I was always clumsy, but I didn't want to fall, so I didn't. After a few steps up, I turned around and pulled him up with me. We sat at the highest point we could reach, looking out over all of the trees.

"I think... I have an idea to help Seth. I'm going to try to figure out where these witches are."

"How?"

"I don't know how to explain that. I'm not even sure it will work..." I crossed my legs and closed my eyes, tried to clear my drunken mind.

I opened one eye when I felt Mark's palms press into mine; he was mirroring me. "Maybe some extra juice will help," he shrugged.

I scooted closer until our knees were touching and relaxed again, slowly but surely. I funneled every bit of me into a silent place where my magic awaited, then focused that on what I wanted.

"Uh, Liz?"

"Sshhhh..." I wasn't done focusing.

"Liz, open your eyes."

We were among the clouds. The Earth seemed desolate beneath us, the stars just barely out of reach. I took it in breathing heavily, telling myself that no matter what had happened previously in my life, it was worth it if this was the reward for surviving. This was more incredible than any of my wildest dreams.

"Look at those," I said, pointing my head down. There were clusters of light back on the ground, some green and some red. There were also little straggler lights scattered around, but there was a distinct geographical separation between the greens and the reds in this area.

"What is that? Why's it so dark down there?"

"They're witches." I pulled a hand loose and pointed. "Those are the good ones, and over there are the bad ones." I'd been aiming for something a bit more definitive, but this was still cool. Hopefully it'd be helpful as well.

"How do you know?" he asked incredulously.

"Because somewhere deep inside of here," I poked my own head, "I'm creating this."

"Master of your own domain..."

"Look! There." There was a little red light just yards from my own home. "They're scoping my house."

"What do we do?!" He sounded way more freaked out than I felt.

"I'm sure they've been around at least a couple of other times... I think they're shooting for a more long term play than like, busting into my house guns blazing. So, we do nothing."

"Nothing?"

"I have no idea how to fight with magic!" I had only had my ass handed to me on a small number of occasions, and I had learned this: I did NOT fucking like it.

"Well, you better figure it out. Soon."

"Will do," I smiled. I yanked him closer to me so that I had a better grip. "Now, let's go explore!"

"Let's not," he laughed nervously. "Seriously, Liz. I'm already terrified just from being UP HERE!" The last two words came out as a scream, because we were already off like a rocket, Peter Panning it up in this motherfucker. I was laughing and enjoying myself beyond a measure of words; he was clinging to me, screaming, shaking and terrified.

"Chill out, Mark!" I giggled. "I've got you. No fucking way would I let you fall."

His fingers were digging into my shoulders so hard that I was sure there would be bruises. "I'm afraid of heights!"

"An irrational fear, considering the circumstances." I dipped lower to the ground and slowed way down. "Want me to drop you off and come back for you later?"

"Definitely not," he rasped.

"Well if you're going to stay, try enjoying yourself!" I spiraled straight upwards until we were once again immersed in the clouds. "You are flying, after all."

He loosened his grip on me and unwound his legs from around one of mine. I swung over him so that he was basically piggy-backing me instead of some weird face to face encounter. I leaned over his shoulder and saw that he had finally opened his eyes, then he spread his arms wide and smiled.

"Does this make me your Falkor?" he asked with a chuckle.

"I was thinking I was more Jack Dawson and you were my Titanic, but I'll gladly be the Bastian to your Falkor."

"Yeah... don't go hands free and scream you're the king of the world. If you drop me and I die, I'm totally going to come back and haunt you."

I started laughing. "Whatever, you'll come back and make me blow weed smoke in your ghost face constantly."

"Wow," he suddenly gasped. "Look."

The sun was rising on the horizon as we soared towards it. I preferred the blackness of the night, but this was quite a sight to behold. "It's beautiful," I whispered.

I woke up late the next morning on Mark's couch, Salem curled up on my chest. Mark came into the living room and took a long look at me. "Morning, sleeping beauty."

I kind of grunted in return and he handed me a bottle of ibuprofen and a freshly opened beer. "Really?" I eyed the bottle of Budweiser.

He shrugged. "Hair of the dog that bit us."

I drank about half and handed it back. "No more," I said. My head was pounding, throat hurt, stomach was just wrecked. The taste of alcohol made me want to puke a little.

He lit a blunt and handed it to me. "So, what's the plan? We going to go visit the Glendas?" He'd nicknamed the green dots after the good witch in the Wizard of Oz. The red ones, of course, were now Wickeds.

I sighed. "I think before I do that, I need to go talk to Seth."

"Can you drive?"

I stood up smiling. "Why drive when you can fly?"