Invocation
12 Days of Fiction 2019, Day 9
Once again. The last time, Anthea had fallen asleep on her grimoire. One of her grimoires, because she had several, as should be. But this time it had to work. She had studied, she had made all the incantations, she had used the right ingredients for the right potions. And still she had failed every time.
Anthea checked everything again.
What was different this time, she didn’t know. But she noticed something for the first time.
“Oh no. What did you do, Mum?”
That rune. What if… what if she had written it, not wrong, oh no, Mum never, but just like that so Anthea could get confused? Well, in that case it had to be the next rune in the table, and it changed everything. That was the way with spells.
A glimmer of hope, then. Anthea saw the old pages with new eyes. She even hummed for herself when getting ready. The incantation changed, the potion bubbled earlier. And she had to be naked, like in the old good times. Ha, how had Mum laughed when she had joked, telling Anthea nakedness was for effect only, and she had found out it wasn’t.
The summoning worked.
The entity glimmered in a red light. Its eyes, all four of them, glimmered malignantly as she made her request. Anthea could have sworn it even smiled, had it been capable to.
“That… comesss with a price.”
“Oh no, mister. I know the rules. It’s not my first gig. You’re summoned and bound, and my request is reasonable. In fact, it’s called a request out of kindness. You cannot refuse or ask for compensation.”
It hissed and spewed bile, and fought against invisible chains. Anthea didn’t flinch.
“So,” she said, “that recipe, please? The cake won’t bake itself.”
Mum had never liked conventional cook books.
This is my entry for Day 9 of my 12 Days of Fiction 2019. A short one, but I had my fun with it.
