For the next fifteen minutes, Becca apologized without taking a breath, first for being the catalyst of my car's demise, and then for being unable to give me a ride back home because she took the bus to work. I assured her I would figure something out, but I had two more important things on my mind.
Becca helped with the first, getting the chest back into my storage locker, and it was easier to maneuver with two, but once we'd settled it into its corner I had to endure another minute of apology before I could convince her to wait for me back in the office so I could retrieve the mortar in private.
When I returned, Becca sat on the counter, hunched over with her elbows on her knees. She whispered "sorry" into the air for the millionth time, and sighed again. I ignored her so I could address the next priority, which was to check in on Katherine, since I'd be returning late. She answered on the first ring.
"Hey stranger, fancy hearing from you,"
"You're awake?"
"I've been up since nine-thirty," she said, impressed with herself.
"What?"
"That's what I thought at first, but I'm not going to complain about getting some of my time back. It also means I've been here alone for over an hour." She accused.
"Hey, I'm being responsible and calling you so I deserve a couple points. Are you okay?"
"Okay is relative. I'm not a mess but I'm not awesome without you here." She took a deep breath and amended, "I'm a long way from having a mental breakdown if that's what you wanted to know."
"That's good because I'm going to be a bit longer," I said, looking back at Becca who was now lying on the counter and staring at the ceiling.
"You need to explain that." She said flatly, so I did.
I gave her a sanitized version, taking my audience into account. I had to wait for Katherine to stop laughing when I tried to gloss over the incident with Penny. When I reached the part about my car, Becca started humming what sounded like a dirge, so I knew she'd been listening.
"I need to call an Uber or something, and I won't be bringing the trunk home today. I'll be back as soon as I can."
"Okay. Not cool, but okay. I'm sorry for your car, but it was a piece of crap," she observed, then quickly added, "honey."
"It was the only piece of crap I had."
"It's insured, isn't it?"
"Considering the shape it was in they'll just send me a letter and tell me to keep the stamp."
"Good point." She conceded, "but you're a smart guy, you'll think of something."
I promised I'd be back within the hour and hung up while she made deliberately obnoxious kissy noises on the other end of the line, then I turned my attention back to Becca.
It was strange that I didn't start seeing sparks until several minutes after she came in contact with my skin. Now she appeared to be mildly buzzed, though If not for her relaxed attitude toward me I might not have been able to tell.
"Are you sure you're feeling okay?" I asked her, concerned.
"Fine." She said, "Mornings are always slow. When Brenda gets here, I can go." She turned her head toward me. "That rhymes." She announced.
"It does," I agreed, "but I'm not sure I should leave you on your own."
"You don't—it's okay. I'm not—I know I'm being silly, I'm not stupid. I think I'm in shock. I just feel mellow but I guess that's kind of good because I usually can't even look at someone without..." she trailed off and looked away. "You were really nice to me even though I killed your car."
"You didn't kill my car, Becca, it's my fault for not taking better care of it."
"See?" She sat up on the counter, "That's what I mean. You should be really mad. I'd be mad. But you want to take care of me instead and that's weird. It's a good weird. You're a good guy. I don't know many guys, but I know even fewer good ones."
I didn't get the impression that she was coming on to me, which is what I'd expected after touching her. Something had happened, but I seemed to calm her more than anything and that was entirely new. How was I supposed to get a handle on this thing inside me when I couldn't tell what it would do from one person to the next?
I checked my phone and my ride was just a few blocks away. I started to tell Becca goodbye when a sudden dread interrupted. How would I affect the driver?
I left the silver Hyundai with my arms full of groceries, flinching as it sped off. The street parking on my block was marked and every twenty spaces or so the city had designated handicapped spots. Two of these were almost directly outside my building, which had been a major selling point for me, but one of them was now empty. After a moment of silence for the deceased, I yielded to pedestrian life, hugged my two grocery bags to my chest, and went inside.
Katherine grabbed one of the sacks, freeing me to sling her sports bag off my shoulder before joining her in the kitchen. She greeted me with a long kiss and a hug, then took over organizing food into spaces set aside for breakfast, canned fruits and vegetables, dry goods, and a cupboard just for herbs. The refrigerator was in better shape too, and everything fit neatly with room to spare.
She chuckled and held up the grocery receipt. "Want to keep this?"
"It's not like I'm returning any of this stuff." I watched her carefully, waiting for her to swoon after the kiss, but she seemed fine. If she no longer needed to sleep it off, a few of my worries could be put to rest.
"Are you sure?" she emphasized the last word and held up the slip of paper so I could see. There was a phone number written boldly at the bottom with a little heart drawn under it. She laughed when she caught my expression, then tore it up.
"A few of those herbs were fresh and the label said to keep them chilled, so they're in the crisper." She went on, still grinning, but she didn't have my full attention and knew it. "Hey, this is important." She insisted, "If you put the quinoa in the freezer we're going to have words."
"Sorry," I said, "It's that stupid receipt. And Gloria and those guys at the supermarket. I hope they're okay."
"Not worried about Penny?" Katherine was teasing, but I took it in stride.
"She didn't touch me, thank heavens."
"What about the girl at the storage unit?"
"I barely affected her. I think it actually might have helped. She was so skittish, but after my car blew up she calmed down."
Katherine cocked her head to one side, "I guess that makes sense."
"How?"
"That thing you're doing, I can't tell you about men, but for me... it's not just the end game." She paused, taking her time to find the right words. "It's like slipping into a hot tub. No, that's not right either." She corrected herself with a head shake that dislodged a strand of pale gold and she pushed it back over her ear, "I've always loved being around you, but it's more than that. It's your favorite gunky sweater and fleece-lined slippers, and a cup of hot chocolate, and a roaring fireplace in the middle of winter, all mushed together and circled with a fat red marker with little hearts drawn all around it."
"That's weirdly specific, Kath." I said hesitantly, and she looked up.
"It's not specific at all, so I need to use weird metaphors." She put her arms around my neck. "Do you ever wake up and you know you've had plenty of sleep but you just want to stay in bed for hours anyway because you're so comfortable?"
"I suppose."
"It's kind of like that, but it's inside and it's all you." She nuzzled her head against my neck, then tipped it back again to catch my eye. "Plus the sexing up."
It was a testament to how twisted my thinking could get that I began by considering every possible trouble or danger that might cause. In my apartment with someone I was close to, it sounded nice, even romantic, but what if I ran into a married couple? What if I touched an underage girl by accident? Things could go south quickly.
Then there was the conditioning Miss Gold had mentioned. Yielding to that influence gave pleasure that would persuade them to seek more, or that's how I imagined it. There was so much I didn't understand, and my only source of information was out of town for another week.
No, that wasn't entirely true. I had another source, and Miss Gold implied it contained more than herbology if I knew how to look. The Glim lay open on my coffee table, beckoning.
"Want to help me make some of Miss Gold's tea?" I asked and Katherine shrugged noncommittally. "Are you okay?" I added the question as an afterthought.
"Fine, why?"
"Not sleepy?"
"Oh, that," she chuckled, "not even a little."
I considered what else that change could mean as Katherine began clearing a space on the counter. She was still wearing my shirt. When she reached toward the shelves where she'd stashed the dried herbs, it rode upward revealing a sliver of pink lace and the soft curve of her posterior.
"Why don't you get dressed first?" I added quickly with a nod toward her sports bag.
"But I'm so cozy," she whined, though she didn't stop to argue. Instead, she walked over, unzipped her bag, and began selecting items from it. I didn't realize her intention until she'd undone several of the buttons on her shirt.
I cleared my throat. "Could you do that somewhere else, please?"
With a longsuffering look and a dramatic sigh, she picked up her bag and ducked into the bathroom. She didn't shut the door but I wasn't standing where I could easily see, and the temptation to spy on her couldn't get a solid foothold.
She returned in a pair of black yoga pants with a floral pattern in the waistband, and a short, loose shirt that would have covered her midriff if her chest was smaller. I'd always recognized Katherine's 'hotness' in a general sense, but habitually suppressing sexual thoughts kept me from articulating it, even in my head, so it never before occurred to me that she was so well endowed. Just then I couldn't think of anything else. It wasn't that her bust was abnormally huge, but her stature made it seem larger and the cut of her shirt made it impossible to ignore.
"I'm almost certain I packed a couple of bras for you," I said, returning my eyes to the cabinets.
"This is more comfortable. Be grateful." She chided without a trace of mockery. I was immediately less certain of how much I'd accomplished by bringing Katherine her own wardrobe.
I couldn't have finished the tea without her help. I had to focus on translating the book's elusive instructions, calling them out while Katherine prepared the ingredients.
"Put the white thyme back," I said after a minute of silence, "it says we can replace it with ground turmeric if we add," I ran my finger down the page, "schisandra berries?"
"Got em," she said, "but why no thyme?"
"It does something to estrogen levels in women."
"Oh, and we wouldn't want me getting hormonal, would we?"
"That's what it says!" I jabbed my finger at the page and the letters moved as if getting out of my way. It took me another several minutes to find where I'd left off.
Katherine laughed, "Calm down, I'm teasing. No thyme then. What's next?"
"You have to grind those last two ingredients together—no, the last three. It has to be in that mortar."
She dumped them together and started mashing them with the pestle. "This is why you really wanted my help, isn't it? I'm just cheap labor to you now." She made a show of difficulty.
"You be quiet, this is harder."
She hunched a shoulder and did her best Igor impression, "Yes, master."
I'd grown accustomed to holding the hagstone to my eye and when I looked up, the mortar sparkled through it. Each time Katherine bore down with the pestle, white light shone from inside.
"I'm never going to get used to this," I said absently. She asked what I meant, then had to see for herself, so we traded places and I ended up grinding most of the herbs myself, and after the final product was mixed with other coarsely crumbled weeds, all carefully measured out, I no longer needed instructions. We stood back evaluating the result.
Katherine wrinkled her nose at it. "It wouldn't look any different if I swept the foyer at the dorm into a pile. Is it ready?"
"I guess so."
"What will happen if we messed it up?"
"I don't know. Maybe we turn into frogs."
She looked at me and nodded with a sigh, then back at the pile. "Fine, but if you change first don't expect me to kiss you back to normal."
We sat at the table not long after, sipping from my two mugs after properly straining out the dregs. It was the first time either of us experienced it as a beverage and it was surprisingly pleasant. It had a tangy flavor and Katherine suggested the feeling was reminiscent of sinuses clearing, except it happened somewhere in your mind. Neither of us exhibited any amphibious qualities afterward, so I declared it a success.
"That wasn't so bad," I said while washing out the mugs.
"What else is in here?" Katherine asked still sitting at the table. She opened the Glim and paged casually through it.
"Lots of things. I found a bunch of recipes, but they're all like this one. It takes a while to sort everything out."
"You should keep a journal. Just write this stuff down in plain English so you don't have to go through that every time."
I looked over my shoulder. "I considered it. Might be a mistake, though. That thing was made to hold secrets, and I don't know if it's a good idea to let them out."
"It's just tea, Thomas. You can get most of those ingredients from the supermarket, and it doesn't work if you don't have the right tools, right?" She indicated the counter where we'd left the mortar.
"Yeah, but this stuff is ancient. We know there are," I hesitated to use the word, "fairies out there, and who knows what this might mean to them. Besides, I don't think it's my secret to give away. We should at least talk with Miss Gold first."
Katherine shrugged. "It's your call," she said and she finished off her drink.
Just then I heard a faint trilling from the back of the apartment. "What's that?" I said, turning my head so I could hear it better."
"What's what?"
"Sounds like a bird."
Katherine listened for a second, then jumped up, "My phone!" She sprinted to the bedroom and disappeared, then returned a minute later already deep in conversation, holding up one finger to shush me.
"Yes, Rachel I said I'm okay." She emphasized the name for my sake. "Glory? Thomas said he ran into her this morning. She what?" Katherine shrugged at me and sat at the table. "I'm not that bad. No. She... you're kidding!" She wrapped her hand around her mouth to conceal her laughter and only recovered with visible effort. "No, nothing like that. How should I know?"
I scrunched my eyebrows in a silent question to Katherine but she just shook her head at me.
"Yes, I am," she went on. "He probably didn't want anyone to freak out. Yes, someone like you." she gave me an exaggerated eye-roll. "Yes. No, he's not. No. No, don't you dare! Rachel? Rachel!"
Katherine tossed her phone on the table and slumped in her chair, exasperation written across her face.
"What?" I asked, completely puzzled.
"I should have just let it ring."
"It's different."
"I got bored and changed all my ringtones while you were gone."
"So what did she have to say?" I asked. Katherine took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
"Okay, so she talked to Kennedy, who told her Gloria was sick." She tried to suppress a smirk. "She... uhm..." she cleared her throat, "apparently, Glory had several orgasms right out of the blue and spent an hour this morning locked in her room, masturbating."
I put my head in my hands and groaned while Katherine tried to keep a giggle fit from manifesting. "It's not funny." I said, "I don't even know what I did. She just touched me."
"No you're right it's serious, and not just because you need to get your studliness under control." I gave her a look and she bit her lip. "Anyway, it doesn't stop with Glory. Ken told Rachel that I was sick too and staying with some relatives in town. Rachel knows I don't have any relatives nearby, so she knows you lied to Gloria, and now she has her panties in a bunch."
"So we're back to not trusting me." I moped.
"You brought me to Rachel's room while I was higher than a kite, then I disappear for a day, and now Glory is out of it after talking to you. I was suspicious too until I saw all this for myself."
"What did she say?"
"She asked if I was with you and I said yes, then she started the whole, 'Are you okay? Can you talk? Is he in the room with you?'" Rachel's slight accent manifested when she got mad and Katherine had done a fair imitation.
"That's not good."
"No, it's not, because if she suspects you're holding me against my will she's going to go to the police, and they'll have to respond to the call."
"And when they do, I'm going to affect them too." I added.
Katherine gasped, "Oh no, I didn't think about that. If you go to jail... Thomas if they lock you in a cell with a bunch of knuckledraggers..."
"Better and better," I said sitting back.
"And," she went on, "if this Miss Gold is right, I'll end up in a hospital where they won't know what's wrong or how to fix it, and I'll..."
Just like my mom. "That's not happening," I announced, as much to reassure myself as for Katherine.
"No," she agreed, "it's not, it can't, but we have to come up with something fast. Rachel's on her way over here right now."