The bar was only a short walk away. Jane would be waiting, and Evelyn needed noise, wine, and normal conversation to push the memory of those impossible blue eyes out of her head.
She pushed through the heavy wooden door. The warm, yeasty air and low acoustic music wrapped around her. She spotted Jane at their usual corner booth and headed straight over, ordering a glass of red wine on the way.
Jane looked up as she approached. "You look like you barely escaped with your life. Did the petals fight back?"
Before Evelyn could answer, Alex the bartender slid her drink across the bar with a familiar grin. He had been serving them for months and always remembered their orders.
"Rough night, Ev?" Alex asked, leaning on the counter.
Evelyn gave a tired laugh and wrapped both hands around the cold glass. The ice cubes inside turned to slush in seconds. Alex frowned at the glass.
"Something's wrong with the ice cubes tonight," he muttered. "They're melting right away."
Jane leaned over and noticed it too, looking confused. Evelyn took a quick sip and shrugged. "No, it's cold." The liquid tasted lukewarm, like coffee that had been sitting out too long. She gulped it down anyway.
"Worse," Evelyn said as she slid into the booth. "I went looking for Moonshadow to impress Huxley and somehow found an injured… dog. Or coyote. Something huge and dark. It was bleeding pretty badly. I wonder how it got injured. Must have been a bigger animal." She shuddered at the thought of whatever could take down the creature she had just seen.
Jane's eyebrows shot up. "In the woods. At dusk. Evelyn."
"I know. But it howled and made these awful pained sounds… I just couldn't leave it there." She took another sip of the lukewarm wine, which still felt wrong in her mouth. "Its eyes were blue. Really, unnaturally blue." Her voice came out almost mesmerized.
Jane leaned in. "Blue eyes on a giant dark dog thing? I would suggest you never go into those woods again, no matter how much you want to get laid by your professor."
Evelyn laughed, but it came out shaky. "But—"
She was mid-sentence when the first itch started along the inside of her wrists and up her forearms, right where her veins ran closest to the surface. She scratched at first, then harder. Small red patches bloomed in branching patterns along those lines. Thin blisters rose in their wake.
At the same time the ache between her shoulder blades flared hotter. Something was forming there too, a mark she couldn't see, burning itself into her skin. The plant's reaction made everything worse; the blisters itched fiercely while the new mark throbbed with steady heat.
Evelyn shifted in her seat and scratched her arms again. "Anyway, its eyes were this crazy blue—"
The itching grew worse. She sneezed once, then twice, her eyes watering. Her cheeks flushed hot. The reaction spread in warm, prickling waves.
Jane frowned. "You okay? You're turning red."
"I'm fine," Evelyn muttered, but another sneeze escaped her. The blisters itched so badly she wanted to claw at them, and the heat on her back made her want to rip off her shirt. "Actually… I think I need to head home. Must be allergic to something in the forest." Her nose was red at around this time.
She stood up too quickly, nearly knocking over her glass. Jane started to say something, but Evelyn was already moving toward the door, muttering apologies over her shoulder.
"Text me when you get home!" she called out as Evelyn rushed towards the door, eager to escape the bar and the prying eyes that seemed to watch her every move.
As she pushed through the heavy door into the night air, every streetlight outside flickered once before settling again. Alex, still behind the bar, stared at the door for a second, then shrugged and went back to work.
Evelyn hurried down the street toward her two-storey house, scratching at her arms and rolling her shoulders against the deepening ache. The warmth in her chest hadn't faded. If anything, it had grown stronger. "I need to go to the hospital." she hissed but the thought of hospital made her shudder and she shook her head. "It is nothing I am sure." she said to herself.
Evelyn returned home with a mix of relief and discomfort. The sneezing fits that had plagued her in the bar continued unabated, her body rebelling against some unseen invader. The itching sensation had escalated to the point where it almost burned, her skin crawling with an intensity that defied explanation. Her nose was congested, and the continuous sneezing had made her throat feel like it was burning.
She entered her two-story home, a quaint abode with a beautiful backyard that held fond childhood memories. Yet tonight, the warmth of familiarity seemed to elude her. The streetlights that usually bathed her surroundings in a soft glow were inexplicably out, casting a shroud of darkness that felt eerier than usual. Her parent's happy photo hanging from the wall in the stairwell was illuminating the gloomy place. They had died when she was three, she had no memories of them but still she knew she loved them. Now she lived with her grandmother but the absence of her grandmother, accentuating the emptiness. Her grandmother, her usual companion, was at the hospital undergoing routine check-ups. Evelyn tossed her belongings aside with frustration, the unease building since her encounter in the forest now gnawing at her like an itch she couldn't scratch.