I stumbled to my feet using the couch as a support. My entire body felt like it was more stimulated. I realized I could feel the light breeze as it whispered across my skin. I could feel each step as my foot fell between the plushy threads of the carpet. I could taste the sunrays that spilled shadows across the floor. They tasted like lavender and mint. The shadows waved against the bumpy carpet like the crashing of waves in a mighty storm.

I was here and yet…

I reached my hand out, spreading my fingers. There was still evidence of the scribbled note on my hand and it creased as I opened and closed my fingers. Now that Klara had explained it, I could feel a link. Something far off, like a light at the end of a very long tunnel. There was something not quite right about my body and that was because it wasn’t truly mine.

This existence was not mine.

Thank fucking God.

“Ammon!” Klara said, she had her hand in the hallway closet, her eyes widely looking at me. “Come on! You’re probably still feeling the effects of the elixir. Try to snap out of it.”

“I feel weird.” I said as I took an unsteady step forwards.. “It’s like I’m in so many places all at the same time. Hey, what’s ‘Her’ah?”

Crash!

Bang!

I jumped as many hard objects flew cross the room and hit me. I shielded my head and then glanced around nervously. Metal objects of different shapes and sizes laid at my feet and a metal decoration had been pulled off the wall and towards me. But Klara found the studs and it was hanging in midair, as if being lifted by a ghost breeze. I giggled. Klara stomped towards me and grabbed my arm tightly in her hand.

“I should’ve waited to give that to you,” she said, but she was smiling a little bit, I saw it.

“What was that?”

“A spell,” Klara said with what I suspected to be annoyance lacing through her tone. “Try to be careful before you just say things. Write the spells you think of down first and I’ll tell you what they do.”

“Okay,” I said, clearly half-listening.

“I mean it,” she said as she pushed me into the closet just as I was beginning to be mesmerized by a painting. I swear the people were moving as if it were a true window to a different reality. She pushed me through the closet door forcefully.

Smack!

The arm of a leather jacket hit me in the side of the head and I waved the coats away as they attacked me ferociously. The back door of the closet had swung open revealing a spiraling staircase. Odin was standing at the top of the stairs, his mouth happily open and his bright pink tongue hanging out.

“Hey,” I said as I squeezed past him with suspicion. I took his chin in my hand and looked deeply into his hazel eyes. “Aren’t you supposed to be a lion?”

Odin licked my face and wagged his tail. It thumped against the wooden steps in a light rhythm.

“What have they done to you?” I said, then started giggling again. Klara encouraged me down a few more stairs and then closed the closet door, or rather, the door in the closet behind us and a lock clicked into place. Klara turned and nodded down the stairs.

“Okay,” she said, “Any time now.”

I didn’t move. I was too captivated by how the shadows played on the wall. “Right, don’t mind me. Please, keep staring blankly and giggling.”

“Odin is supposed to be a lion!” I said with a deep laugh as I turned to walk down the stairs. My hand traced a wavy line along the stones as I went. I sang a song that I must have heard somewhere about the mighty lion who lost his mane in a bet with a wee mouse.

Down, down, down we went. I was beginning to wonder if this path was endless when a stone floor revealed itself. The room was a cube, about the size of an average bedroom. There were desks lining the walls and with many different plants on their surfaces. Beakers connected with tubes and filled with shimmering liquid bubbled over yellow and blue flames. Different colored lightbulbs shone against the walls, creating rainbows that smiled at me.

This looked like the lair of a great Alchemist.

“You’re an Alchemist,” I said as Klara closed the door at the bottom of the stairs, locked it, and turned to me with a deep release of air from her lungs. She nodded and walked towards me. She pushed my hair off my cheek and nodded.

“Yes,” she said. “I am.”

“You’re very good.” I said, “This stuff is fun.”

“I bet it is,” Klara said with a sweet tone. Her eyes softened as she gazed at my face. “I prefer your hair longer.”

“Me too,” I said. Klara leaned forwards, hesitated, and let my hair fall from her hand. I got this intense feeling that she wanted to kiss me and show me deep affection but she was being distant. Unlike with Jennifer and Claudia, I wished she would treat me like we were more familiar. Odin rested his head on my knee and wagged his tail. Klara was back to work, mixing some liquids together and admiring them under bright lights.

“Right,” she said, handing me the light purple liquid. “This should sober you up a bit.” She grabbed a journal and shoved it onto my lap with a pen. “Write down everything you think you remember in here. Don’t cast any spell that you’re unsure of what it will do. The last thing I need is to be blown up here before we can get you out."
“How am I getting out?”

“That was part one of three elixirs you will need to drink,” Klara said and then tossed me a regretful glance. “Sorry, they don’t taste great but they will help you begin to unweave yourself from Jennifer’s influence. Once you can pass a basic memory test you will be distant enough from her for your consciousness to escape back into your body through the portal.” I sipped the liquid, it tasted much better, like grass and flower petals.

“Then I need to be able to physically get away,” I said. Klara nodded.

“It will be tricky, but…” she leaned against a desk. “One thing you need to know about yourself is you are very strong and powerful. You are a match for Jennifer in a diminished state and arguably better than her when you’re at your best. Before we leave I will help instruct you on the spells you can use to break your binds. After that you’ll need to get to the door Shelia and I are trying to infiltrate.” I drank the rest of the liquid and nodded.

“Okay,” I said, “Sounds like the odds are stacked against me.” I grinned, “But I always perform best when the odds are against me.”

“There’s the Ammon I remember,” Klara said.

- End Part Nine