Page 2 of The Spell Caster

Her pouty lips turned downward as she examined me, and her hands came to her waist. “You still haven’t done your summoning?”

“I… wasn’t quite ready—” A sea breeze carried the sound of rustling leaves from the trees along the walkway.

Mother’s frown deepened, emphasizing the line between her brows. She had sculpted her face with criticism. “You’re twenty years old, and you graduated months ago. It’s time to summon your familiar and join the coven of spell casters,” she said. “I don’t know what you think you’re trying to pull by stalling, but you’re embarrassing yourself.”

Embarrassing her. That was the real thing she cared about.

She gave a sharp sigh when I didn’t reply. “Fate help me, Layla. You need to stop acting like a child and take this seriously. Your future is at stake. Witches are starting to talk.”

She had something to prove, and she was trying to do it through me. I didn’t dare say it out loud, though.

With a frustrated sound, she turned to go. I trailed behind her as she strode along the walkways lined with cozy homes and gardens where solar path lights were beginning to blink on in the twilight. Since I hadn’t joined the coven yet, I still lived with my parents in the heart of the Northern Sea Circle, our tiny seaside witch community hidden from the rest of humanity.

This place was all I’d ever known.

In moments I was trapped again in the house I grew up in. Our cottage was a typical witch dwelling—a blend of old and modern, handmade wooden fixtures next to technology borrowed from the outside world.

“Hi, Dad,” I greeted my father, who responded by flicking his eyes to me for a moment. He was reclining in his usual chair in the living room. I looked him over, worried. The war had taken his peace from him years ago.

“Your father’s not feeling well tonight, so it’s just us for dinner,” Mother called from the kitchen as she retrieved the food. “How was your day, sweetheart?” she asked as if our previous argument had been resolved, placing a baked dish that looked like a potato casserole on the dining room table.

“Mother—” I began. On top of everything, Dad was getting worse, and she was in some sort of denial.

“What were you doing all day?” There it was—the criticism had crept back into her voice.

What was I doing all day? The same thing I had been doing for months, in secret, over and over. I woke up before dawn to sneak out and work the summoning spell that should have opened a portal to Hell and bonded me to a demon familiar, as it had every spell caster for millennia. I was exhausted, physically and emotionally, from tracing the enormously complex magic circle again and again, six hours of my life gone each time.

I said nothing, blinking back tears. The worst part? I didn’t know whether my mother would write me off as a failure or whether it would please her that I couldn’t live up to the high expectations that had been with me from birth. She needed me to become a spell caster to prove her worthiness, but she also needed to be better than me. I didn’t know which would win and what it would make out of me.

“Layla, what in fate’s name is wrong with you lately?” Mother sighed.

I could never be what she wanted. I had tried and tried.

“Just go,” she said from the sink, not turning around.

I went as quietly as I could, trying not to make any noise as I closed the door.

***

I thought I would break down, finally allowing the tears I had been holding back, but none came. I lay quietly on my childhood bed, watching the wavering shadows on the ceiling as branches swayed in the night outside.

I had prepared my whole life to become a spell caster and fight in the war against the angels.

I was a blessing. My father was—or had been—a powerful spell caster, but my mother was an ordinary witch—able to feel magic but not use it. They’d gone against society to be together. Fate had gifted me with this inheritance, and I’d grown up steeped in the sense of duty that came with it.

All witches could detect magic; it came naturally to us. A smaller number of witches, the circlewrights, could channel magic through traced circle spells. It was a slow and laborious process that didn’t lend itself to battle.

But the ability to wield magic in high enough quantities to summon a familiar and become a caster was rare—I was one of only ten in the Northern Sea Circle. Together, a spell caster and their demon familiar could ignite magic strong enough to take down an angel—immediately and fatally.

It was the only weapon we had. My ability was vital.

The day after I graduated from school, I went into the summoning room at dawn, full of bright excitement for my rite of passage. With the completion of the circle spell, I would become a spell caster and finally, finally, have my own life.

I had stepped back from the huge, room-spanning circlework in satisfaction. I knew I had drawn every line and symbol perfectly. I felt it humming with resonance, ready to catch. I breathed magic into myself, swirling high and bright, and released it into the circle. The electric white blaze of it dazzled, my vision returning in flashing spots in the cool stone summoning room, my body languid with the relief of releasing so much power.

But no familiar appeared.

When I emerged, shaken, it was much later than it was supposed to be, and the crowd of witches waiting to congratulate me had dispersed. I told my mother I’d gotten stage fright and couldn’t go through with it. I dodged concerned calls from my teachers and didn’t show up for graduation parties. I tried again and again, pulling in stronger amounts of magic until there was so much it could hurt me.

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