Who: Liam and Jen Where: The high school When: Lunch, Wednesday, January 17 Status: Complete
Liam stared blankly into his locker, frowning to himself before reaching for his lunch bag. Something about the day felt wrong to him, but he just couldn’t put his finger on what it was. He kept thinking he might be forgetting something, but that didn’t seem to be it. It was like a shadow was looming over him, causing minor waves of dread that had him looking over his shoulder, as if a monster might be waiting just around the corner. There seemed to be no real reason for it, but Liam couldn’t escape it and it became worse in the quiet moments between classes. He normally looked forward to lunch, the primary social hour of the day, but the thought of sitting with all the guys didn’t appeal to him today. His steps were slow as he headed towards the lunch room and when he spotted Jen, he jumped at the chance for distraction. “Hey!” He called out, forcing a smile as he walked over to her locker. “How’s it going? Wanna grab lunch today?”
Jen settled her bag on her shoulder and nodded. She'd been thinking about her plans with Phee and weirdly enough she kinda looked forward to it, going shopping, trying on dresses, getting pumped for a dance - what the hell was even wrong with her? Of course she had no plans for lunch except to hang out with Liam or Phee or both but she hadn't seen Phee this morning. "Have you seen Phee?" she asked, but maybe alone time was good, they could catch up and maybe she'd tell him about the weird time she'd been having, it wasn't like they'd had a lot of time to talk.
“Not today. Why? Everything okay?” Liam rambled off, then realized how that might sound. He normally saw Ophelia, either between classes or at lunch, when she wasn’t hanging out with Greg exclusively. There was no reason to jump to conclusions like that, other than his own weird mood. “Sorry, feeling kinda paranoid today,” he offered, though he doubted she’d be all that surprised. A lot seemed to have happened lately, like the supernatural shit had kicked it up a notch, and he was kind of eager for it to dial it back down again.
Jen gave him a puzzled look, not so much at the question itself but the way he said it, like he was genuinely worried something might not be okay. "You're jumpy today," she agreed at his self assessment. "Anything going on I should know about?" Maybe she shouldn't tell him about the strange man she'd seen, if he was already paranoid, why make it worse? Or maybe it couldn't get any worse, maybe they were just always going to be looking over their shoulders, expecting creepy men or dark fog rolling in. She started walking, though she wasn't really sure where she wanted to eat yet. They'd figure something out.
Liam shook his head. “No, not really, just… been feeling weird,” he said with a little laugh. “I don’t know. It’s just a feeling of, like, impending doom. Which I know is super dramatic considering I’ve got no basis for it. Things have been really good lately, you know?” He still couldn’t believe he was taking Brynn to winter formal. It felt a little surreal, like he might wake up and find it had all been a really good dream. In reality, the girl never said yes. Maybe that was it. Maybe he was about to wake up from the dream. But then he knew he was being ridiculous. There was nothing to be worried about. “What’ve you been up to?”
A witch having a feeling of impending doom did not sound like nothing to Jen and she tightened her grip on her bag, frowning softly. "Things have not been good," she said quietly and maybe his anxiety had something to do with what had happened to her this weekend. "C'mon let's find somewhere we can talk." She grabbed his arm and quickened her pace. There weren't a whole lot of places that allowed for privacy in a busy high school but now that the play was over, they could sneak into the auditorium and that's where Jen was headed. There were some people in there already and she clenched her teeth to keep herself from outright groaning in frustration. Behind the stage - that'd do. Maybe these kids would start rumors about them but Jen knew they were above listening to that bullshit - she just hoped Brynn was too.
Liam frowned and opened his mouth to ask what had happened, but then she was pulling him along and he decided it would be better to wait. It didn’t occur to him how it might look; he’d never been the kind of guy that people bothered to start rumors about, but he’d never dated a cheerleader either. And Jen was just a friend. He felt like that had been well established. “You’re kinda freaking me out,” he said as she dragged him behind the stage. It was weird being up there, seeing it all from a different angle. It made him feel like everyone was looking at him, though there were only a handful of people in the auditorium. “Want to tell me what’s going on?” he asked when they finally took a seat.
"Okay," Jen said, taking a deep breath before delving into it. She was less upset than she had been when she told Phee or maybe it was just easier to say it all a second time around. "Last Saturday I was with my dad in the kitchen and he got a sharp pain in his arm, like he was having a heart attack. I seriously thought that's what was happening but then I saw this man outside the window, only... not really a man. He looked way too skinny, he had this hideous inhuman grin on his face. We hurried out of there and dad went out with a gun but he was gone. Turns out the pain in my dad's arm was the same as when he broke his arm - the first time he saw this guy." She spoke quickly and quietly because they weren't alone in there and she didn't want anyone to overhear her. More for her dad's sake than her own. "So this thing just shows up again all these years later. I've been really freaking out about it and Phee is gonna help me get the house protected."
“Shit,” Liam said quietly, his eyes wide. He’d heard of people seeing things around town, weird creepy things, but he’d never really seen one for himself. Except for that time he’d been with Jen in the house on Ludlow, but he considered that his own fault for going there in the first place. “So you think it was like, phantom pains or something? I mean, from seeing the guy. He didn’t try to come in, did he? You should definitely get some wards up on your house. I’d offer myself, but I don’t really know how yet.” He didn’t think Phee did either, but maybe she was going to get her dad to help. Surely Mr. McCarthy knew how to set up decent wards. “Are you okay? What’s your dad think of all this? Does he even know what’s out there?” He knew Jen knew about witches and everything else, but that didn’t mean her father did.
"Well he obviously knows something is out there," Jen said with a shrug. "But he still gets weird about it when I talk about what I know. Not you guys, I haven't told him anything in detail and I won't," she felt like she really needed to stress that, just so Liam wouldn't worry, but she still felt like it went without saying. Maybe it didn't though, people could be so inconsiderate and dumb. "But I've told him about magic and hex bags and he just..." She rolled her eyes and shook her head. That pretty much summed up his reaction anyway. "I guess the pain was... I don't think it was psychosomatic or anything, he got it before we even saw that thing. I think that demon creature thing - whatever the hell it was - caused it. Projected it?" She slumped a little as she thought about it because how the hell was she supposed to fight off something like that? It all seemed so insurmountable, too many types of evil things and no real knowledge of them.
“I’m sure it’s fine if he knows witches exist. Maybe just not who they are,” Liam said with a little laugh. “He might freak out and not let you hang out with us. Or it might put him in some weird limbo as a cop. I don’t even know.” He didn’t think there were any witches on the police force, but now he wondered why not? Surely they could use one. It seemed mildly unfair that they deal with all the supernatural bullshit without a little magic on their side. “I don’t think a hex bag could do shit to something like that. Maybe keep it away, but wards on your house would be better. But that still might’ve not prevented the pain from happening. I dunno. Maybe it’s a good thing? Like your dad has an alarm system built in if that thing ever returns.” He wondered how close it would’ve gotten, or if it would’ve tried to come in the house. Liam had always thought of his house as a safe place, where nothing could get him, and he didn’t know what he’d do if he found that wasn’t the case.
"Yeah, Phee's gonna ask her dad or Zania for help with warding my house," Jen replied. "And if that's too much I thought maybe we could have at least one room, you know? Like a panic room." Though she'd prefer both bedrooms to be warded, just in case something came creeping inside in the middle of the night. "Like I wasn't worried enough about my dad being a cop, you know? Now I find out there's some skinny creepazoid stalking him too." She shook herself, as if that would help her to stop thinking about all that. "Enough about that though, how are you? How are things with Brynn?"
“Either one of them should be able to handle your whole house. Don’t let ‘em BS you into thinking just a room will do.” Liam thought a panic room was a good idea, but they were going to get wards done, might as well do it right. “If they give you shit about it, I can always ask my mom. But I’m sure Phee’s got you covered.” And if not, then he’d be adding ‘warding’ to the list of things he wanted to learn next. It kind of worried him now to think that he couldn’t ward any of his friends houses. In fact, probably none of the teens were covered, unless their parents just happened to be witches, and that sucked big time. “Me?” he blinked, still thinking about the thing stalking her father. It took him a second to try and turn the conversation around. “Um, things are good. Really good. We’re going to the dance, I got her a corsage, I haven’t screwed it up yet, so there’s that.”
"Yet," Jen echoed with a quirk of her brow. "Are you planning to? No, so don't." Liam was definitely the sort of a guys that made her wonder if she was gay - or just not at all interested in people at all. She wanted to like him, he was cute and fun to be around and yet she only saw him as a friend. She just hoped Brynn wouldn't screw it up and she was very firmly on Liam's side if things were gonna go badly. "I've decided to come to the dance, I heard there's a party after and I just... I think we could all use a little break. Even if I think it's dumb as hell to get drunk and be like those dumb teenagers in the movies but fuck, we can't act smart and scared all the time, right?"
“I never plan to screw it up,” Liam muttered. “It still manages to happen.” He wasn’t sure if he was bad with girls, they didn’t like him, or he just was horrible at reading situations. Like with Jen. She’d probably sent all the right signals and he’d just missed them. Now he worried that he was doing that with Brynn, which is why he still hadn’t kissed her. Because he couldn’t take that back. But he thought, was almost positive, they were dating, so he was going to do it eventually. Hopefully after the dance. “Awesome,” he grinned. “I’m glad you decided to come! You can hang out with me when Brynn’s off with her friends.” Or her cousin. Mostly her cousin.
Jen was prepared to spend a good chunk of that evening alone, her friends had dates and they'd want to date. She hoped for Liam's sake that Brynn wasn't going to run off and spend too much time with other people, she had agreed to go there with him after all. But Jen would be there if he ended up alone, that's what friends were for. She also had a feeling that she might do the same for Phee since Greg had so many friends and never seemed able to sit still for long. "Don't be fatalistic," she told him with a small smile. "I'm sure you won't mess it up, just be yourself and don't be an asshole."
Liam was pretty sure that being himself had been part of the problem, but he decided not to say so. It sounded a little too pitiful for his liking and he wasn’t looking for pity. “Don’t be an asshole. Sounds pretty easy,” he said with a roll of his eyes. “So you’re going to the party too? We haven’t decided on that yet, but it should be fun.” What he kind of wanted was to be alone with Brynn, but he knew that wasn’t likely to happen anywhere they went. He supposed that they’d play it by ear and see what they felt like. “It feels kind of weird for things to be normal. Good, but weird.”
"Things don't feel normal," Jen sighed. "But I'm so ready to pretend they are, even if it's just for one night. I just want... I don't know, I think I want to have a night like the Halloween party again. I know it won't be like that, but it was fun and I was just getting to know you and Phee and things weren't so crazy yet." She supposed a big part of it was also that she missed her idiot brother. "I wish we could all go out of town and rent a beach house somewhere nice, no parents, no monsters."
“My mom would probably give that a hard no,” Liam said with a little smile. “But I know what you mean. Halloween was good.” He’d been crushing on Jen at the time, but he remembered having fun at the party. Things had been normal. “Today is weird. And a really bad example. But yesterday was good,” Liam said. “And maybe tomorrow will be better for both of us. At some point there won’t be any more fog monsters or exorcisms or weird feelings of doom. It’ll just be Wednesday again and I’ll be whining about how boring things are and you can punch me in the arm for it.”
"Yeah my dad would never let me go anywhere like that, no way," Jen said with a little titter but then she turned solemn again, giving Liam a concerned look. "You still got that doom feeling going on?" she asked cautiously and that in itself was worrying. Maybe he was just having a bad day, or maybe it was a witch thing and that could spell trouble for the whole town. Granted, witches weren't psychics but the last time weird shit had been going on with the witches it turned out to be a huge haunting thing that required a whole coven to solve it.
“We’d have to come up with some kind of a story. Or maybe they’d be game if it wasn’t in Point Pleasant. That in itself has to make it safe,” Liam snickered, then sighed. “Yeah, it’s still there. It’s been there all day. I can get distracted for a bit, but as soon as I lose focus on whatever’s distracting me it comes back. I’m gonna ask my mom about it after school, make sure there’s not something going on that I don’t know about.” She’d allowed him to attend the exorcism as a sort of learning opportunity and because the witches in town had never come together like that before, but there was plenty Liam knew she kept from him. It was possible that she knew of something that he was clueless about.
"Well, throw a girl a warning if something bad is coming, yeah?" Jen said, though she suspected that Phee might be feeling something too if there was something weird going on with the witches and if that was the case, she'd probably hear about it sooner than later. God, she hoped not. They were all full up on weird shit happening and there was only so much panicking she could do in one week. "Ugh, I should probably eat something before we run out of time, I just haven't felt very hungry." She pulled her bag closer to rummage through and find the sandwich she'd packed, but really she just wanted to skip out and go to Moxie's for a big juicy burger so she supposed she just wasn't hungry for 'boring' food.
“If something’s really coming, I’ll let you know,” Liam told her. “Maybe something is and this is our warning. But if that’s the case, it’s way too vague. Not much of a warning.” He hoped it was just one of those weird things that happened sometimes, but it worried him that it might be something more than that. If that was the case, how could they even prepare? When Jen took out her food, it reminded Liam that they were there to eat, something he was usually into but had kind of forgotten about today. It was that stupid forboding feeling. “Tell me something good that’s going on? What else have you been up to?” he asked as he dug into his lunch bag and pulled out his sandwich.
"Wow," Jen said quietly before taking a bite of her cold pasta, chewing as she thought about it. "It's dawning on me that my life is really boring. I watched a funny movie with Phee on Sunday and since then I've not done anything but take care of my pets, make sure all the windows and doors are locked and worrying about dad. Liam. We need to fix that." She took another bite, frowning as she chewed because damn. Her life had never exactly been super exciting or anything, but since the fog it had been depressing. Sure, it was the dead of winter and she couldn't bike out to some weird location even if she wanted to but right now she found she didn't even want to. Knowing all that scary supernatural shit was really real just took the fun out of it.
“What kind of excitement do you want?” Liam asked. “It’s a mixed bag around here. One of those ‘be careful what you wish for’ things. We’ve got a party this weekend, so that’s something. You can always get drunk and, I dunno, create some drama in your life.” He rolled his eyes, knowing that probably wasn’t what Jen wanted. He wished he had something to give her that was fun and spooky without being dangerous, but neither of them wanted a real scare at the moment. “I did a cool spell this last weekend. Made a couple of magical walkie-talkies.” His phone worked just fine, but that was besides the point. He’d successfully performed a new spell in front of the girl he liked and that felt huge.
Jen couldn't help but grin at his suggestions. She might have laughed outright if she didn't feel down but it was better than nothing. She was imagining herself getting drunk and getting in a cat fight with Victoria Chapman when he told her about the walkie talkies and that was way cooler. "Magical walkie-talkies," she echoed excitedly. "That sounds awesome. And like it could be useful if something happens again." Like the fog. God she'd wished she had a magical link with her father when that happened. "Is it a permanent thing? Or do you have to renew the spell all the time."
“I’m pretty sure it’s permanent, unless removed, but it’s my first time to try it, so I guess I’ll have to wait and see if it fades,” Liam explained as he munched on his sandwich, pausing to take a drink. “Usually it’s done with mirrors, which would be like creating your own little Facetime machine. It should totally work if phone lines are down, since it’s not technology, but you’d have to have the object with you. Hand mirrors might work. Now I’m picturing you talking to someone through a make-up compact,” he smiled.
"You know you can get tiny mirrors that aren't for make-up," Jen told him with a little smile. "I'd totally start carrying one of those around if I had an enchanted one." An enchanted mirror sounded like something out of a fairy tale but in a nice way. She'd certainly prefer talking to a friend over talking to some demonic mirror asshole trying to get her to war against other girls over something as frivolous as beauty. Yeah, she had a chip on her shoulder with a lot of these old stories. "Could be any reflective surface though, right? Like a ring? Necklace?"
“If you want a visual, I think, yeah, there has to be a reflective surface. But it’s not specific to mirrors. I actually used it on masks, just for the hearing part,” Liam said. He’d been super private about the masks for the longest time, but it felt safe to talk about them now. They’d had them long enough that he wasn’t worried about them being dangerous and he didn’t actually have his on him, so he didn’t have to show her. He’d been super possessive about the mask from the start and that hadn’t changed. “Whatever you pick, you need two of them. It’s better if they’re similar. Like a set.”
"Not very inconspicuous though," Jen speculated between bites of her food. "I think I'd want a watch or a bracelet. You can sneak-talk like a spy." She arched a brow, realizing they'd been pretty vague about all this so far. "Who's got the other walkie-talkie? Or are you actually using those masks?" She thought she would have heard about it if it was Phee but it could be one of Liam's other friends so she hazarded a guess. "Is it Brynn?"
“Well…. Yeah,” Liam said with a little smile. “But the masks were already enchanted. I was just adding on the hearing part. They’re not practical, but they’re really cool. And they’re how we met.” Technically, he’d known of Brynn before the mask, but he’d never really spoken to her. He’d kind of figured her for the typical cheerleader, so high above him that she wouldn’t give him the time of day. She was hot, popular, and Victoria Chapman’s cousin. Liam knew better than to mess with her.
"I don't think you ever told me about that," Jen said. "How you met. Sounds like there's a story there." Enchanted masks? Was this something Zania Castell had had a hand in? Jen didn't really know Brynn at all either, maybe she'd chat with her at the party next weekend, make an effort since she was sort of seeing Jen's friend, no matter what they were calling it.
“Kinda,” Liam said, his expression a cross between embarrassed and unsure. “I bought this mask at the antique shop in town. It was just cool looking. Well, one night I happened to put it on and I was suddenly looking into someone else’s room. Like through the eyes of someone else. It ended up being Brynn. She had, like, the other mask in the set.” Which was kind of interesting, considering one was a wolf and one was a deer, but he could see the similarities in their colors and make.
"Your life is full of masks, Liam," Jen murmured with a little smile. "That's insane though. Any clue who might have enchanted them? Do you think it only worked because of what you are?" Maybe there were a whole lot of magic artifacts in the world, enchanted by witches who were long since dead but the magic didn't activate in the hands of normal people. It was both reassuring and a little sad, especially for someone like Jen who really wanted to be a part of that world.
“Naw, I’m pretty much an open book. There’s just one section that’s all redacted,” Liam grinned. He’d always felt like he was who he said he was and he didn’t try to be anything else. Most people thought he was a dork as a result, but at least he didn’t have to pretend. “Brynn’s not a witch, so I don’t think it matters that I am. We took them to the spice shop and Zania couldn’t sense anything evil about them. And I did a cleansing spell, just to be sure. They’re kind of weird because, when we’re both wearing them, it’s really hard to do anything because we’re seeing from the other person’s eyes. But they’re also really cool.” He’d been taken with the mask from the moment he saw it, even before he’d put it to his face. He’d never let anyone else try it once he bought it, so he had no idea if it would work for anyone else. It should, but he kind of liked the idea that it wouldn’t.
"That was smart," Jen said. "Making sure they're safe. Can you only see through them when you're both wearing them? Or is it like, you can see through it no matter what." She was a little jealous but at the same time she was sure that if she wanted to try something like that one of the witches in her life would be willing and able to enchant something. She'd have to talk to Phee about it too, it could be fun to have something like this between them, not to mention a good back up in case of bad things happening.
“Only when we’re both wearing them,” Liam said. “If one of us takes the mask off, they turn into normal masks. I’m not sure why anyone would enchant them that way, but I’m kinda glad that’s how they worked. I don’t know I’d have talked to Brynn if it wasn’t for the masks.” At first it was all they’d had to talk about, the reason why they were talking at all, but over time it had become more than that. Now they only wore the masks because it was fun, not because they needed to. Phones worked just as well, or even better. “We should find something for us: you, me and Phee. I can charm them so we have a little back up alarm system.”
Jen smiled at that because hell yes, that sounded amazing. "Can a witch ever be properly grounded?" she asked though it was more of a hypothetical question than a proper one. Witches and their little tricks, backup plans, enchanted items. She supposed they could be granted by a powerful witch and most of them had parents of that ilk but it was fascinating to think about. "I'd love to have something like that."
“Sadly, yes,” Liam laughed. “My mom usually does that by taking away my xbox though, not by cutting off all communication with the outside world. I’m not sure I’ve reached that level of grounding yet.” And he hoped he never would. He was pretty sure his mom could lock him down if she truly wanted to, but he didn’t want to push her. She could have a nasty temper when she got all fired up. “I’ll look for something good then. Something we can all carry in our pockets or backpacks. If you find something you like, let me know.”
"I want like an old fashioned pocket watch," Jen said dreamily. "They are so pretty." And there was already something so magical about them, even if there was no real magic at play. "I'll find something, maybe we should check out that antique store sometime, see if they have anything really cool we can use." Of course they could use something mundane like make-up mirrors and watches but where was the fun in that?
“The one in town? Brynn and I got stuck there during the fog. They have a little bit of everything. I’m sure there’s a pocket watch somewhere,” Liam said. It had been a weird place to get stuck and he was glad that they’d moved over to Joyland. He was even more glad that they’d managed it without getting attacked by the monsters that had later shown up. Every time he thought back on that day he thought about how lucky they’d been.
"I'm super torn between thinking owning an antique pocket watch would be cool and thinking it might be stupid," Jen admitted. "Like it possibly belonged to some dead guy I don't know and that could be trouble." She'd thought things like that before she got up close and personal with the supernatural but it just felt more poignant now, that wariness of taking chances. "Maybe I'll just go for a cute little compact mirror and be vain while I'm at it."
“I’m sure we can find you a cute little compact mirror with a spider on it or something,” Liam smiled. “There’s options and we don’t have to decide now. We can look around a bit. And remind me to tell Phee.” She’d definitely want in on it and would probably like to learn the spell herself. Liam almost said so, but decided against it, since he knew Jen couldn’t be a part of that, which sucked. If there was a way to make someone a witch, he knew Jen would be on board. So would Brynn.
"If we can't, I'll paint a dorky little spider on it and make it better," Jen agreed with a smile. "That's a good idea, actually. Thanks, Liam." She gathered the wrapper from her food and bundled it all together in her lunch box. "Do you feel any better?" she asked cautiously, hoping whatever dread he'd been feeling had gone away, just residue of anxiety from all the bullshit that had been going on. She doubted it. She had no gifts of her own when it came to the supernatural but even humans could sometimes feel things, pick up on something they couldn't explain and Jen was scared too.
“Anytime,” Liam smiled, then started to nod in response to her question before he found himself giving a little shake of his head. “I want to say yes, but… it’s still there. Like I can be happy in the moment, but as soon as I stop and breathe I remember. I dunno. I hope it’s just some weird fluke. It’s not like I have any psychic powers.” He’d never been able to accurately predict anything in his life, so he didn’t see why that would suddenly start now. Even if he had, how lame was it to know something was coming, but not what?
"Maybe it's nothing but-" Jen said and wondered if she should be projecting her own fears onto him. "Be extra careful just in case it's a warning. Check the street twice before crossing, don't work on electric wires or go swimming in the sea." The last two weren't going to happen anyway so she was being hyperbolic but the point still stood. He needed to be careful, just in case he was really having some premonition kind of bad feeling. "Psychics don't have a monopoly on bad vibes and I don't want anything bad to happen to you." Her feelings were still raw from Saturday night so she was probably taking it all too seriously but she figured it was better to be scared and safe right now than it was to be flippant and reckless.
“Promise to stay away from black cats and mirrors, too,” Liam said with a little smile. He didn’t really think either were bad luck, but he didn’t want to risk it at this point. Whatever he was feeling, even if it was just a fluke, he felt like he needed to listen to it, at least while it lasted. He just hoped it wouldn’t last long. “I just hope it all passes. We’ve got a fun weekend planned and I don’t want anything to spoil it.” Maybe he could even introduce Brynn to Jen and Phee. He knew they were different, drastically different, but he felt like she might like them. He’d never dated a girl long enough to care if she got along with his friends, but in this case he thought he might give it a chance.
"Black cats are not bad luck," Jen protested with an arched brow. "The only bad luck about them is how shitty people treat them." She wouldn't take part in that. Granted she wasn't very interested in having a cat but if she did, she'd adopt a black one and keep it safe inside. She didn't think Liam was being very serious though, not about cats and mirrors - especially after they just talked about getting compact mirrors to cast magic on. "I think a lot of superstitions are grounded in basic common sense," she speculated. "Like don't walk under stairs? They can fall on you so that makes sense."
“Yeah, and people used to stay away from black cats because they thought they were a witch’s familiar,” Liam pointed out. “I’ve got no issue with cats. Or witches. Obviously. I’m not really sure about some of them, like why a rabbit’s foot is good luck, or why breaking a mirror is bad luck. I’d like to know the roots of those.” It was too bad that wasn’t the kind of thing they learned in history. It would be so much more interesting than the stock market crash and the great depression, but he understood the value in knowing the past. He just wondered how much of it got skipped over or skewed. He knew some of the details had to be missing from their own town’s history and it made him wonder about everything else.
"Black cats being familiars could be true," Jen said. "And the rabbit's foot could be a speed thing. That's pretty much all they have going for them, digging and running. Now I'm curious." She dug out her phone to look it up, because what was the point of having access to the whole internet in her pocket if she didn't use it? "It's a celtic thing, or possibly something African. Okay, the internet doesn't really know either. Oh ouch, this one's good. Depend on the rabbit's foot if you will, but remember it didn't work for the rabbit." She made a face, then laughed. "Yeah, let's not use rabbit feet for luck."
“Ouch, yeah, I think we can do better than that,” Liam smiled as he finished off his lunch. “I do wonder about familiars and how some witches have one. When the coven got together, for the exorcism, one of the families had one there with them. But he was human looking. So I don’t really know how it works.” He’d always thought familiars were animals, but maybe that wasn’t necessarily true. Or maybe they could shift forms, which would be totally awesome. There was still so much that he didn’t know. “If you had a familiar, what would it be? A spider?”
"Whoa, back up a little," Jen said, eyes a little wide. She would have killed to be a fly on the wall at that gathering and now he was giving her more interesting details. "I always pictured familiars like animals except like vampire familiars. Huh. What was he like?" Her thirst for information on all things supernatural had never been a secret so she didn't feel particularly bad for asking too many questions now that she finally knew actual witches. Their lives were so rich and interesting, fraught with terrors too obviously, but apparently so was hers despite her being just human.
“Now I'm curious what you think about vampire familiars. Why would they even have one? But yeah, he was huge! Like a god or something. I mean, there’s guys that ’re taller than me, and then there was him. And he could probably bench press me. He just towered over everyone else in the room,” Liam said, as excited by the subject as she was. He’d always been into the supernatural, more than just the witchy stuff, but he’d never had that many people he could talk to about it. Phee had been there for it, but she’d been there for her brother, and it didn’t seem right to gush over the experience with her when someone she cared about was suffering.
Jen had been so caught up in thinking about vampire familiars - or helpers - that she'd been picturing some meek little man following his witch's every order. The way Liam described him was kind of fascinating and way cooler. A giant god like familiar... She definitely wanted to see that. "A vampire can have humans who take care of daytime stuff and legal crap, they probably have a different name for it," she said. "Like you feed them a little blood to make them hooked on you and bond them to you in a way. Probably not based on reality but with everything that's actually out there who knows."
“That sounds like a good foundation for a vampire romance novel,” Liam snickered. “Vampires are one of those things that I don’t really think exist, but who the hell knows? I’ve always thought they’d be more like monsters than something from Fright Night, but if they’ve got someone running around for them during the day we’re probably all fucked.” He could easily see one coming into a small town like theirs and just demolishing it. The only thing he had going for him would be the ability to set it on fire, provided it didn’t brainwash him the second he looked it’s direction.
"There are so many vampire romance novels," Jen said and cocked a brow at him knowingly. "Most titular being Twilight. But they didn't have familiars since they could go out in the daytime. I think vampires are just like... Write whatever you want because there are so many types of them in myths. Dracula had that fly-eating guy Reynold? Rain... R- something. I need to read that one again."
“Never read Twilight, or saw the movies, but I think the R guy you’re thinking of is Renfield,” Liam said. He hadn’t read Dracula either, but Renfield appeared in most Dracula related movies. He’d always been better at watching movies than reading books, unless they were comic books. “But yeah, vampires kind of seem like a free-for-all thing. Choose your own myth. It’s kind of fun to see what direction people take them, even when it’s ridiculous.” So long as they stayed on the page or the screen, vampires were fun. Liam just couldn’t handle them becoming a part of reality.
"Renfield!" Jen exclaimed and she was glad he'd remembered or she would have felt the urge to look it up. The 'tip of the tongue' feeling was so endlessly frustrating. "Then you have that roleplaying system and I don't know a lot about it but they had multiple types of vampires, like arty-farty aristocrats in one corner and angry anarchists in the other. I read some of it for the stories and they were pretty cool, the whole vampires versus werewolves thing is way older than Twilight. They had these werewolves that drive themselves insane and I still remember their name because it was just that cool; Black Spiral Dancers." Her eyes widened and it wasn't hard to tell that despite how scary it all could be, that darkness was appealing to her as a horror fan.
“Never been into that type of gaming, but it sounds really cool in theory,” Liam said. “It wouldn’t surprise me that there’s cliques and weird social systems and all that. Just a whole different subculture. I never understood why there was a whole vampires versus werewolves thing, like, I don’t see what one has to do with the other. Unless it’s something like Underworld, where the vampires were enslaving the werewolves. Then I totally get it.” Like Jen, he loved this kind of thing when it was in the movies, video games, or comic books. It was when it came off the page and into real life that he started to freak out. He’d found that he only liked being scared when the threat wasn’t real, which he supposed was healthy. There’d be something wrong with him if he enjoyed being freaked out in real life.
"I remember in these books it was like werewolves were a force of nature," Jen said, thinking back. She didn't feel entirely qualified to talk about it since she hadn't read much and she'd never actually played the damn thing, but this much she remembered. "And vampires were unnatural, like they could smell this darkness in them. There was this whole organization around the dark things and while vampires weren't exactly part of it, they were touched by it. So werewolves could smell it on them and wanted to destroy them. The Black Spiral Dancers were twisted werewolves who were actually part of that darkness, went into it willingly? It was pretty cool, actually."
“It sounds cool,” Liam grinned. “Like it would make a really badass video game. Or I’d totally read about it.” He just wasn’t into the real life roleplay stuff. That felt a little too real to him, like he was wishing a werewolf into his life when that was the last thing he wanted. Things were creepy enough lately. When the bell rang, it caught Liam off guard and he realized he’d totally lost track of time. At least he’d managed to finish his lunch. “Damn. Not ready to go back to class,” he sighed as he began to pack everything up. “Do you have that book on the werewolves and vampires? I might want to borrow it sometime.”
"Yeah, but it's in Portland," Jen said with a little frown as she hurriedly gathered her things. She was not ready to go either, much preferring sitting there and shooting the shit about imaginary horrors to forget about the real ones. "I can ask mom to send it to me or it might exist online. I'll look it up, okay?" It already sounded like a stampede out in the hallways and Jen had never understood why so many teens had to be so loud. She honestly couldn't wait to go to college where she imagined - hoped - it was a little less crazy.
“No biggie. I was thinking you might have it sitting around at home. But if you find it online, let me know,” Liam said. He didn’t want to inconvenience her mom over something like this. Now, if it had been some kind of a real life werewolf guide, then he’d have been a bit more antsy to get his hands on it, but it sounded like the kind of fantasy that was just for fun. “We’ve really got to do this more often. Not, like, hide away and talk about scary shit, but catch up.”
"Talking about the scary shit actually helps a little," Jen said. "But I'd definitely prefer if the only scary shit we had to talk about was fictional and I really hope vampires and werewolves are fictional." Monsters were real, demons were real, witches were real - most of them nice it seemed but who really knew what was out there - and ghosts were real. She'd had her fill of scary shit being real and was more than ready to find out something nice was real instead - unicorns, fairy dragons, wolpertingers - anything cute and harmless, really. "Guess we should get going," she sighed. "We'll definitely hang out again."
Liam didn’t know about vampires, but it wouldn’t have surprised him if werewolves were real. It was all supposed to be rooted in a curse and he knew for damn sure that those existed. But he didn’t think it was a good time to mention it, since they were trying not to focus on the real scary shit that was out there. “Soon,” Liam promised. “And I’ll look for you at the dance. I want you to meet Brynn.” Hopefully Jen would like her; he couldn’t imagine why she wouldn’t. He was a bit more concerned with Brynn thinking his friends were weird, but then she liked him, so there was hope.
The way he said that made it sound like things were getting serious between him and Brynn and Jen gave him a curious look as she nodded. "I should be easy to find," she promised and got to her feet. It was so tempting to skip class but she needed to get through this damn semester and graduate with decent grades if she wanted to keep her future plans intact. It was a weird thing to think about, future plans that could so easily be swept away by something horrible, but a girl had to have goals. "C'mon, let's get out of here."
Even though it hadn’t been a lighthearted conversation the whole time, Liam had felt better while eating lunch with Jen. But as they headed back to class, he could feel the dread settling back in, the feeling that something was waiting for him just down the hall or around the corner. As much as he told himself it was nothing, it felt like a mistake not to trust it. But then maybe it was just one bad day. In that case, he was ready for it to be over and for things to be back to normal.