Bitch Witch

by S. R. Karfelt

  She jiggled the handle, wanting to throw a temper tantrum from the frustration of being powerless. Paul would be angry if he caught her trying to get out. She pushed and pulled a few more times, her mind racing for a way to open it that didn’t involve dark matter.

  She gave it a final jiggle, and the old door opened as the ancient lock gave way. Sarah covered her mouth to stifle a giggle. Paul always said the locks in her house could be picked with a pen. Or apparently enough jiggling.

  SARAH STOOD AT the sink and drank two glasses of water, then unplugged Paul’s phone from the charger in the kitchen and took it with her. She found her purse sitting on the dresser in the entryway, dug out her credit card, and started rooting through the pockets of coats looking for a pair of earbuds. All she wanted to do was curl back up in bed, stream a movie on the Internet, listen to some music—hopefully Paul had something besides country—and fall asleep without tunnels of light and dark matter talking to her.

  A cabinet door opened in the kitchen and Sarah froze. It squeaked closed. The refrigerator door opened. Sarah’s bare feet slid over cold tile as she crept to the doorway and peered into the kitchen. The narrow frame of a skinny blonde woman silhouetted in the light of the fridge was unmistakable.

  Sarah pulled the neck of Paul’s sweatshirt over her nose to muffle her breathing. She watched Kathleen out of her peripheral vision, afraid the woman would sense a direct stare.

  Kathleen tore the wrapper off string cheese and stuffed two tubes into her mouth as she continued to loot the fridge, gathering items. Her arms already loaded, Kathleen balanced two sodas between her chin and the top of the stack and kicked the door shut with her foot. She emptied her treasure onto the counter, popped open a can of Dr Pepper and shoved a spoonful of peanut butter followed by jam into her mouth.

  Sarah couldn’t believe it. Kathleen didn’t look like the type of woman who grazed for food in the middle of the night. Sarah was that type of woman. “I thought you didn’t eat this late,” she said.

  Kathleen whipped around with the faintest squeak. “I didn’t know you were out of the hospital!”

  “Surprise.”

  “Well.” Kathleen flipped a switch under the cabinets and the lights beneath them illuminated the countertop along the wall. “I’m glad you’re better, but I hope you know Henry proposed to me for the fourth time.”

  “Then why aren’t you wearing the ring?”

  “It’s too big,” said Kathleen, unwrapping another string cheese and popping it into her mouth. She studied Sarah as she chewed. “You don’t look like you should be out of the hospital.”

  “Neither do you.” The cabinet lights illuminated Kathleen’s rail thin body in her sheer white nightgown. Sarah glanced at the food littering the countertop. “You have an eating disorder.”

  Kathleen glared at her. “Look who’s talking.”

  Sarah put her hands on her hips. “Does Henry know?”

  “Mind your own business.” Kathleen put the jar of peanut butter back into a cabinet, and gathered the rest in her arms. “What Henry knows or doesn’t know is no longer any of your concern.” Opening the fridge, Kathleen tossed the rest of her stash inside, empty soda can and all.

  “I didn’t sleep with him for what it’s worth,” said Sarah.

  “Liar.”

  “I’m telling you the truth.”

  “I don’t believe you. Why else would he have—have wanted you?”

  Sarah sucked down the angry urge to swear at the woman. “I wanted to, but it was only a couple days after we met that you showed up.”

  “A couple days is plenty of time for the kind of woman you are.”

  Don’t, don’t, don’t. You owe her and Henry this. Sarah took a deep breath. “Paul was always there too, and I had to work. The night you showed up you saw them both come out of Paul’s room!”

  Kathleen bit her lip as she studied Sarah’s expression. “Why are you trying to be nice?” she asked at last.

  “Six weeks in a coma can change a person.” Even her head looks skinny! She needs help.

  Kathleen crossed her arms. “You know if you’re planning to switch your gold digging to Paul, you can forget it. Henry will make sure you never see a penny of his money.”

  “Fuck their money! I don’t need money!”

  Kathleen laughed. “Oh, honey, you might want to work on that line.” She waved a hand at the cabinets and appliances. “It’s obvious you do. This place is practically falling apart.”

  “It is not!” Sarah got a brief mental image of what mother would have done if she’d heard someone say that. She grimaced.

  “Please. The taxes alone have got to be killing you. You’re a clerk!”

  “My finances are none of your business,” Sarah growled. The taxes were killer, but she paid them out of the Archer fortune. It killed her to touch it, but she’d lose the house otherwise.

  “Actually, they are.”

  Sarah said nothing, waiting, trying to talk herself down and ignore the faintest glimmer of dark matter she sensed in the woods behind the house.

  “My hospital bills alone are over a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. And then there’s the lawsuit.”

  “You have got to be kidding me,” Sarah shouted. “You’re suing me?”

  “Sorry. When you serve a drink to someone you should make sure it’s not going to poison them.”

  “I drank the same damn drink, and I got a lot sicker than you did!”

  “That’s pretty much your problem now, isn’t it?” Kathleen said as sweetly as could be. She smiled the most saccharine smile Sarah had ever seen.

  “You bitch! You’re staying in my house. I will wipe that smirk off your face.” As the last word left Sarah’s lips, a scalding hot burning sensation blasted up the middle of her torso.

  Footsteps thundered down the staircase. “If you touch her I’ll kill you!” Henry roared.

  The kitchen lights all flicked on. Blinking against their brightness, Sarah reached for the counter, trying to stay upright and breathe at the same time. It felt like she’d been gutted with a sword.

  “Shit! You couldn’t leave well enough alone,” came Paul’s voice from the far side of the room.

  Sarah dropped to her knees and collapsed onto the ceramic tile.

  “WHAT WERE YOU thinking eating cheese and peanut butter so soon?” asked Paul.

  Sarah opened her eyes to the bright bedroom lamp again. She closed them and curled into a ball, protecting her middle. Paul sat beside her on the bed.

  “I told you to eat soup, not get up in the middle of the night and binge, you nincompoop.”

  Sarah tried to catch her breath to tell him it had been skinny bitch bingeing, not her, but she couldn’t get enough air. Outside dark matter whispered to her from beneath the skeletal branches of the October trees. “Ask me. I can make the pain go away.” She shook her head, blinking against the blinding light, searching for the strength not to do it.

  Paul awkwardly patted the top of her head. “You’ll feel better after it gets through your system.”

  Sarah glanced at him, and the light made tears overflow from her eyes.

  He leaned closer. “If it hurts that bad, I can take you to the emergency room. Actually, that’s probably not a bad idea. It’d keep you away from your lover boy for a few hours. I know this is a bad time, but I’m so mad at you right now I’m almost glad you have a stomachache!”

  Sarah ran a hand over her knees to the edge of the heavy red sweatshirt. “No hospital,” she whispered in a strained voice. “Promise.”

  “Fine,” Paul relented. “Maybe Tums will help.”

  “Swear it.”

  “I said maybe. I don’t know if they’ll help or not. I’m an EMT, not a gastroenterologist.”

  Sarah grabbed the bottom of the sweatshirt and tugged it up over her hips and belly. She rolled onto her back.

  “Oh, dear God!” Paul jumped off the edge of the bed to stand and covered his mouth with shaking hands. He lo
oked terrified.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “Don’t be afraid. I’ll be okay. I promise.”

  “Sarah, what the hell happened?” Paul bent over her. Up close he looked as white as the blinding light.

  “I told you,” she managed. Lack of oxygen was making the room sparkle around her. “She’s a witch, or she found something bad. Remember, you promised. No hospital.”

  She slipped from consciousness with the thought, Please, please, I don’t want to go back. Please, please, help me not cast again!

  By the time daylight shone in through the narrow window beside the bed, the wound in Sarah’s stomach no longer felt fatal. Paul lay asleep in the recliner. Sarah sat up tentatively, wincing. Cautiously she stretched one short leg toward the far end of the bed.

  Paul woke in an instant. “Don’t you dare.”

  “Dude, I have got to pee.”

  He rose and leaned over the bed, perfunctorily lifting her sweatshirt to look. Sarah gazed down, expecting to see she’d been gutted. Paul lifted the gauze pad an inch to peek and dropped it with a sigh.

  “Ah, Sarah. You used dark matter, didn’t you?”

  “I did not!” Sarah lifted the gauze to look, her stomach dropping in anticipation. A wide red wound stretched up her belly a good eight inches. She dropped back onto the pillow and closed her eyes, feeling woozy. “Maybe I should go to the hospital.”

  Paul laughed.

  Sarah flipped him the bird without opening her eyes.

  “Tell me the truth. You owe me that much. Did you cast to heal that?”

  Sarah opened her eyes. “No!”

  “How did it heal? I nearly called 911 last night.”

  “You promised!”

  “I thought by now you’d be delirious with infection, but it’s closed. The tissue looks healthy.”

  “You’re serious? It’s disgusting.”

  Paul ran his hand over his messy hair. “No, but it sure was. So how did it heal so fast if you didn’t use dark matter? How did you sleep through me bandaging it?”

  “Well, I’m not sure, but I think I passed out. I really do need to get up.”

  Paul bent over the bed and helped set her onto her feet. “Would dark matter heal you even if you didn’t ask it to?”

  “Like a freebie?” Sarah took tentative steps to the bathroom and snorted. “That happens.”

  Paul followed.

  “Get out.” Sarah went into the little toilet cubicle. “We’re not that kind of friends.”

  Muttering under his breath, Paul turned away and flicked the light switch. Sarah slapped it back off. He leaned against the sink, his back to her. “I think whatever happened to your stomach and arms is dark matter.”

  “Well, duh.”

  “Maybe that’s even why light bothers you.”

  Sarah didn’t respond as she hobbled out of the toilet closet and made her way to the sink. She’d been intimate with dark matter for a long time and light had never bothered her before. But he was right; the wound wasn’t bothering her much. It felt tight, but not painful.

  “I don’t think any of your problems have anything to do with Henry or Kathleen.”

  “It only happens when they’re around,” she said, washing her hands.

  “It happens when you’re agitated and arguing with them.” Paul picked up his toothbrush and smeared his grape toothpaste onto it.

  “I’d know if I was using dark matter. I’m done with it.”

  Paul didn’t say anything as they brushed their teeth. Sarah discretely changed into her bloodstained jeans while Paul shaved at the sink.

  “You might be done with dark matter, but that doesn’t mean it’s done with you,” he said at last.

  Sarah grabbed her bra and one of Paul’s t-shirts and marched back to the sink. “I realize that, but it’s a choice. I discovered that in the hospital. Not just a choice not to use it every day, but a choice to send it out of my life.”

  Paul arched a brow. “Are you trying to tell me you no longer have access to it?”

  “It’s not even in the basement anymore.”

  “Really? Huh.” He rinsed shaving cream off his face.

  Sarah turned her back on him and yanked the big sweatshirt off. “It’s not like I can’t access it. I can sense it outside and it’s hopeful I’ll call, but I’m stronger with it so far off. I managed not to cast on Kathleen last night and she was being a royal bitch.” She grabbed her bra and hooked it on backwards around her waist, careful to avoid her newest wound.

  Paul grabbed a towel and dried his face. “But it’s still inside of you,” he said.

  “What is? Dark matter? No it’s not. Not any more than it’s inside you or anyone else.”

  “Why’d you go after Kathleen last night? Or was it Henry you were after?”

  Sarah scowled at him in the mirror. “Would you drop the Henry thing? I was just getting a glass of water!”

  Paul tossed the towel aside and looked at their reflections. His jaw dropped. “Put your top on!”

  She twisted her bra around and pulled it into position. “Geez. Don’t look.”

  “I thought we weren’t that kind of friends! Though you sure don’t mind when you want me to remove your catheter or give you stitches! But I draw the line at topless! I’m not your gay best friend, Sarah! Try to keep in mind that I’m a thirty-year-old man who hasn’t had a date since before I went to war.”

  Sarah grabbed her shirt off the sink. “Sorry! I’m having some trouble here.”

  Paul took the t-shirt from her, bunched it up and thrust it over Sarah’s head. He shoved one of her arms through the appropriate hole and then the other, and gently pulled the shirt down over the healing wound. Sarah glared at him, feeling like a kindergartener. He’d put it on backward.

  “You’re welcome,” Paul said between clenched teeth.

  “Thank you, but I was not going after Henry last night. I’m not stupid.”

  “That remains to be seen.” Paul turned and marched across the room. “I’ll make breakfast.” He left, slamming the door.

  IT TOOK SARAH almost twenty minutes to tug a pair of dirty socks on. By the time she finished, the wound on her stomach felt like it might pop back open. She might have lain down to recover from the exertion of getting dressed, except Paul was frying bacon in the kitchen. It smelled like she needed to eat it all.

  “That smells wonderful,” she said as she entered the kitchen.

  Paul didn’t reply, his brows drawn low over his eyes in a thundercloud of a frown. A tray with a stack of pancakes and glasses of juice sat on the counter. Sarah assumed it was for Henry and Kathleen.

  “Do you need any help?” she asked, pouring a glass of water from the tap.

  Paul didn’t reply.

  Sarah downed the entire glass, poured another, and went over to the stove. There was little she wouldn’t do for Paul, but putting up with the silent treatment wasn’t in her makeup. “Did you put butter on them while they’re hot?”

  The sight of the meager remains of a butter stick was the only answer she received. Sarah reached over the bowls and pancakes to shut the bright kitchen counter lights off. Paul paused in his task of turning bacon with tongs to flip the switch back on. He looked at Sarah and flipped on a second switch, illuminating the kitchen in scorching light.

  Oh, good. Passive aggressive anger. Everyone’s favorite.

  Sarah took a clean plate from the counter and tossed a pancake onto it. She reached for the bacon cooling on paper towels and Paul moved it away from her reach.

  “I can eat bacon!”

  Paul ignored her.

  “Fine.” Sarah rolled the pancake up with her fingers and ate it as she continued to stand next to him. “This is good!” she said, and meant it. “You’re the best cook.”

  Paul dropped more bacon into the pan, carefully using the handle to dip and turn the pan so the splatters didn’t hit either of them.

  Sarah watched it splatter over the front of the oven door and thought
about criticizing just to make him talk. Instead she tossed her half eaten pancake back onto the plate and said, “I don’t understand what your problem is!”

  Paul turned his head to glare at her. “Think hard, and don’t freaking lie to me!”

  “I don’t effing lie to you!” Sarah shouted at him.

  Paul, still jiggling the handle of the pan, twisted his body to better shout back at her. He carelessly moved the pan with him, nearly sloshing the grease out and onto Sarah. He yanked it back and shouldered her out of the way as it splashed down in a scalding wave, headed right for him.

  Hot sizzling grease rained down toward Paul’s bare stomach and legs.

  Everything slowed.

  Sarah saw it happening as though she had all the time in the world. The hollow place in her middle where she cast from, where dark matter liked to nest, filled—but not with dark matter. It filled with light.

  Not Paul. Please.

  The light responded to her plea with colors. They moved from Sarah’s middle to her consciousness and she understood them.

  Time seemed to have been suspended as Sarah rushed to Paul, wrapping her arms around his middle. She grasped his hips and pulled him backward, away from the splash of hot grease. To be safe she moved him across the kitchen into the far corner, well away from the spill.

  She looked toward the stove where the wave of bacon and hot oil hung suspended in the air, like bacon-filled bubbles. Adrenaline flowing through her, Sarah tugged the pan out of Paul’s hand, raced across the space and caught the mess inside the pan. She shut the stovetop off, set the pan on it, and turned to look at Paul. He still stood in the same position, his hand clutching a non-existent pan.

  Sarah waited, but he never moved.

  “Paul?” she said, “are you okay?” She couldn’t hear her own voice. “What the hell?” That didn’t come either. “What the fuck!” she said loudly, frightened. She could feel the colors continuing to move gently in her core. “Is he okay?” she asked the light.