The counselor was ecstatic that the lucid dreaming had worked and that I was no longer plagued by nightmares. It was amazing how easily she accepted that it worked and moved on, perhaps Alan was correct that people truly wanted to avoid any talk of magic or the paranormal.

“Well now that we have that taken care of, you mentioned last time that you had a friend, but you couldn’t really confide in them, do you want to explain why that is?” She asked, picking up her notepad and pencil to take notes.

“It’s kind of complicated, but he’s kind of out for himself in a lot of ways. He’s a typical party boy with parents willing to fund whatever he wants, he doesn’t stress over or worry about anything, I just don’t think he’d get it.” I explained.

We discussed my relationship at length with Daniel, from when we first met to the current friendship. I could tell that she was not a big fan of him.

“Well, he sounds like someone you can’t really depend on all the time and, honestly, he seems to sometimes be a negative force in your life. “ She wasn’t entirely wrong, I held my tongue against all the times he had been helpful to me, because it would just end with me justifying all of the teasing he flung at me at the same time. “Do you possibly have anyone else you can be open with? It’s great that you’re coming here, but it would really benefit you to have someone else close at hand.”

“Actually I met someone recently that I’ve already hit it off with a little bit, he’s offered for me to move in with them to save money.” It was mostly truthful.

Her smile widened. “Oh that’s great! Are you planning on taking them up on their offer?”

“I think I will, I have some things to take care of first, but I think it will be good for me. It’s been a while since I’ve lived with someone else, I’ve lived alone since I moved out of my parent’s house.” I admitted.

“Well I am so glad to hear about this development, I think that it may do a lot of good for you. Let’s plan a little farther out and maybe not meet again for a couple of weeks, that way you can get moving out of the way.”

I made my new appointment with the receptionist and left feeling like much less of a loser and all the more determined to learn magic. I was pretty sure that that particular lesson would not have been endorsed by the counselor. I was feeling good enough to stop into a coffee shop just off of campus, it had a hipster vibe that wasn’t typically my style and I was sure it would be out of my price-range, but the sensation of the coffee Alan had served me was haunting.

I was certainly right about my assessment of style from the look of the outside, the inside was decorated in retro greens and yellows, complete with old, paint-chipped bikes hanging on the walls. The male barista even had a handlebar mustache. I was engrossed in reading the slightly messy chalkboard menu when I was startled by a tap on my shoulder, it was Alan.

“Funny to meet you here,” he said, “are you sure you haven’t figured out magic?” I looked at him puzzled, it didn’t seem all that amazing that living in the same city, we would run into each other once in a while. “The coffee I served you last night was a recreation of the kind served here. Have you maybe been here before so you recognized it?”

“No, never really been a coffee person before. I just thought I’d stop in here on my way home because I remembered how good it tasted last night. I figured it would be a disappointment, but I had high hopes.”

He stared at me intently, as if trying to decide if I was withholding anything from him, then let out a “hmm” once it seemed that he was satisfied that I was not. “That seems way too on the nose to be just a coincidence and if I’ve learned anything from magic, it’s that nothing is a coincidence. Did you just come from practicing magic?”

“No, I was at a doctor’s appointment.” While I wasn’t ashamed of being in therapy, it felt weird to admit to anyone else. “I was just walking home when I remembered the flavor of it and decided I would stop at the shop I saw next.”

“So you were right outside the shop when you remembered it?” he drilled, he seemed determined to find out exactly what happened. “This is not the only coffee shop on this street, there’s one on either side only a couple doors down and one across the street.”

“I don’t remember there being any other shops, I was across the street from here when I thought about it, maybe I didn’t process that they were coffee shops.”

“You didn’t realize that the shops with giant coffee cups, coffee beans, and light-up signs saying ‘coffee’ were coffee shops?”

“I guess not.”

His lips pursed together and he began to open his mouth to continue the interrogation, but he gave up with a shake of his head. “It’s obvious it’s not a coincidence, but I don’t think you performed magic to do it, maybe magic just likes you a little. It’s a shame really, I could use someone with tracking or scrying abilities.” His interest in the situation waned as he figured I wasn’t as useful for him as he had hoped. “If you want what you had last night, order the ‘King of Coffees’ off the menu, it’s pricey though.”

He wasn’t kidding, the drink was a hefty $15, that was way out of my budget, but the call to taste the coffee again was too strong. Trying not to think about it too much, I ordered a cup and paid for it using the emergency credit card my parents provided me. I knew that it was morally wrong, but on the other hand, I was certain they thought I would end up being way more irresponsible for it. I had hardly ever used it before, only when I ended up a little short for rent or a medical bill. I wasn’t like Daniel who financed his whole life and several parties using his parents’ money.

Alan ordered the same thing and motioned for us to take a seat at one of the most hipster-styled tables I had ever seen. The top was a bike wheel turned on its side covered with glass and the chairs were extra-wide bicycle seats. It definitely was an example of form over function, it would take a very strange person to be comfortable sitting in their chairs.

“How do you afford to come here?” I asked, still feeling guilty. The heavenly liquid was worth the guilt. “Did your grandma leave you enough money?”

“I wish,” he answered, “it would make the truth less demeaning.” He sighed deeply and pulled out his wallet. He rummaged through a pile of expired loyalty cards and various receipts before pulling out a business card and plopping it in front of me. It was purple with gold script writing that identified Alan as a “perfume and scent specialist” along with his phone number, email, and a website. “Lots of magicians have side hustles to keep themselves afloat, usually they have something to do with their magic so that they can practice at the same time. Potions works well with things like perfumes, because I can instill a bit of magic into it to find the perfect balance of scents for each individual.”

“That makes money?” It sounded like something my mom would announce as a hobby and forget about in a few days.

“You’d be surprised how much rich people are willing to pay for a scent that I can guarantee is completely unique to them. The average bottle of personalized perfume I sell is around $100, but some of my more well-to-do clients fork over $500 or more for matching lotions, candles, and the like. I have some cheaper stuff designed to be kind of magically addictive that I sell on my website, they cost about $50 a bottle and I usually sell at least 4 a day.”

“That’s absolutely insane.”

“I guess, it’s also kind of embarrassing. Here I am working hard to find a potion for immortality and yet I waste time on essential oils and bottling. It’s what we have to do though, I’m sure you’ll find something like it eventually, it beats the time-sink that is a traditional job.”

“I could just help you when I move in and free up some of your time. I don’t know if I’ll be any good at potions, but I can at least bottle.”

“That’s really tempting, but you should find something that matches what your magic is, it’s not fair to have you waste time on mine.” His tone let on that he was going against what he really wanted to happen. I could sense his desperation to work solely on his goal of immortality.

We parted ways after finishing our coffees and I made my way home. I wanted to get to studying and experimenting as soon as I could, talking about potion making had sparked an idea; I hadn’t tried potions yet. While I didn’t know exactly where to start with it, I had an idea to try to construct a potion that would imbue me with fire abilities.

My cupboards and fridge were pretty bare, so I used the credit card one more time at the corner grocery store to purchase anything I could find that I would associate with fire. I bought cinnamon, cinnamon candies, ingredients for s’mores, hot sauce, hot dogs, and charcoal. The ingredient list was not promising for a delicious experience.

I broke out a metal baking pan and laid the charcoal in a single layer across the bottom, then I took the rack from my over and created a makeshift grill. On it I cooked the hotdog and s’mores, forgetting how smoky the process would be and almost setting off the building smoke alarms. I opened every window in my apartment and put out the coals in the sink as soon as the hot dogs and marshmallows were nice and charred.

In a blender, I put the hot dogs and marshmallows, followed by the cinnamon and cinnamon candies. Unfortunately, I was uncertain if another unrelated ingredient like water would work for the base, but I didn’t want to take the chance, I mean water is kind of the opposite of fire. I sucked it up and poured the whole bottle of hot sauce in the blender to hopefully get a drinkable texture. I really didn’t want to entertain the idea of having to chew that particular combination of food, I figured I could pinch my nose and practically pour it down my throat.

The mixture whirled around and luckily there was enough liquid to become the texture of a smoothie. The color was an odd fleshy pink color with slightly disturbing specks of black and bright red. I mistakenly thought that maybe it wouldn’t be too bad, weird colors didn’t always mean a bad taste, but then I opened the top of the blender and was hit with one of the worst smells I had ever encountered. My gag reflex instantly engaged and I was put in the awkward position of being doubled over, retching while trying to hold the mixture as far away from me as possible while also not dropping it. I didn’t know how I was going to do it, but I was going to drink it, I had to know if potions worked for me and I couldn’t just waste using the credit card.

With much hesitation, I pinched my nose, threw back my head and let the horrific smoothie flow down my throat. I tried my best to avoid actually touching my tongue with it, but it was unavoidable and I almost lost it. As I regretfully urged the last drops from the bottom of the blender, the fire of the hot sauce began to take effect, my tongue and throat felt like they were swelling and my eyes watered. For several agonizing minutes I laid in the fetal position on the kitchen floor as I sweat, cursed, and my nose ran freely; at least the horrible taste was the least of my worries. The loud and painful rumbling of my stomach let me know that I certainly was going to absolutely hate this experiment for days to come.

Once I was able to weakly pull myself back to my feet, I tried to rationally assess what I was feeling to ascertain if any of it was magical. I wrote every symptom down in my journal next to the recipe: sweating, stomach pain and rumbling, sweating, flushed face, swelling and burning sensation in mouth and throat, general weakness, runny nose, watering eyes. None of my list seemed out of the ordinary for someone who just chugged an entire bottle of hot sauce plus the world’s weirdest smoothie ingredients.

Next, I shuffled over to the candle I had been practicing on and wiped the tears from my eyes so that I could focus better. I placed myself a couple feet from it, held out my hand, and focused on the mental image of fire springing from my hands and igniting the wick. When that failed and I felt like a fool for standing there so long, I grabbed the wick directly and tried again. It did not seem to be working and it became painfully obvious that I was on a time limit before the potion exited my system one way or another. I tried one more time by blowing on the wick using what felt like already fiery breath, but before I could get more than a couple attempts of that I rushed to the bathroom and had the worst experience while vomiting, even worse than the time I let Daniel talk me into doing a drinking contest with him. It burned going down in ways that I didn’t want to relive, but coming up was much, much worse.

Feeling battered, sore, and even weaker, I dragged myself to the couch and flopped onto my stomach. The only escape from the pain of stomach acid eating into my raw throat was to pass out for a while and hope that everything had settled down by the time I woke up. It briefly crossed my mind that the feeling would follow me to the dream plane, but I continued on with the plan out of hope.

I drifted off and came to, but while I felt lucid, my body stayed firmly on the couch. My back felt weighed down, as if something or someone was sitting on it, like a small child or large sack of flour. While the weight shouldn’t have been enough to prevent me from sitting up, I could raise my arms and legs, but not my torso. No amount of willing it to move or change into something lighter seemed to have any effect either.

“Hey stop that, that feels funny!” screeched a high-pitched child’s voice. “Humans never think of anyone but themselves, they are too stupid about magic to know how magic feels. It’s just bad manners to use magic on someone else.” The weight from my back shifted and a small girl looking no older than five appeared in front of me. She had long blonde hair with bright-red dyed tips pulled up into two pigtails high on her head and her eyes were a deep reddish-brown, almost unsettlingly red. Her face was stern and she tapped her foot impatiently at me. “Well? You should probably apologize.”

“Oh, um, sorry. I didn’t know that you were a person or I wouldn’t have tried.”

She let out a disgusted sound. “I am not a person and never say that about me again. I am a sprite, I’ve just taken this disgusting form so that you’d be more comfortable with talking to me. It seems like you humans are the most comfortable around very young children, some antiquated idea of parental instinct or something.” Her voice was sweet and adorable, but there was a stark disconnect from the tone behind the words that made me feel a little creeped out. “Oh who cares if I explain or not, it’s not like you’ll fully understand. I am here because you’re on completely the wrong path for your potential, though I suppose potions must kind of work for you since I found you through it. Hot dogs and s’mores, really?”

I sat up and shrugged, relieved to have some sort of control back. I was very confused to see that my body was nowhere to be seen, yet I was on the couch I had fallen asleep on. My confusion much have shown on my face, because her face cracked into a mischievous smile.

“Oh this isn’t the silly human play realm you’re used to. I’ve been nice and made this place look like something you’re comfortable with, but this is very much somewhere I’ve in control of. I can see that you’re not very happy with that idea.” She was definitely right about that. “But when you mix yourself up with magic you have to accept that there are always bigger fish waiting to take over control from you. That’s why I’m here, I want to make a deal.”

The room around me did feel “wrong.” While it did look exactly like my apartment, the lighting was wrong and the air had a different opacity to it, it was like I could see individual beams of light if I focused hard enough on one area. Perhaps due to the more viscous quality of the world around me, the air felt heavier, like the uncomfortable feeling on a very humid day, only I was fairly certain that moisture wasn’t an issue.

“I will tell you what your magical talent is and how to use it, but in return you promise to agree to my one, simple, teeny-tiny request.”

“What’s the request?” I asked, a little terrified at this point at what it would be.

“I can’t tell you exactly, that would give away what your talent it, but in general, you’re promising that we will meet again.”

“What if I don’t agree?”

Her mischievous smile widened. “I would like to remind you that I am one of those bigger fish and you are in my realm.” The world around us seemed to form thin cracks, oppressive heat seeped from between then and a loud crackling like from a bonfire filled the air. Her point was very clear.

“Okay, fine, I want to desperately know anyway,” I conceded.

“I knew you’d see it my way.” She said with a creepy giggle. “Your magical talent is summoning, you can do magic in your human realm by calling to magical creatures across realms to do the work for you. All you have to do is know how to summon us. It’s easiest to do it by name if you can figure out who exactly you want, but it’s not necessary. It’s not all that different from spoken magic only you’re pleading that you want someone else to do your magical work for you. It’s fitting for a lazy human. I don’t think you need much more information that, I’m pretty sure you’re very familiar with weaseling other people into doing your dirty work for you.” I was doing my best to ignore the digs at my personal life, for all I knew that was a common thing in her culture. I wasn’t sure yet of non-humans had culture, but it seemed reasonable. “All you need to do for me now is to make sure I am the first thing you summon, my name is Thusilia.”

“I think I already know the answer, but what if you’re not the first to be summoned?”

Her voiced dropped and became low and growly, “Then I will be the last thing you summon.”

“Got it, do it and I don’t die.” At least she was straightforward.

“Hm, yes, I suppose I can work with that.” She mused. “It’s been a while since a human was smart enough to clarify that with me. You may have potential yet.”

Before I could express any of the terror that statement brought to my heart, the world around me roared with fire and I felt myself being smothered by intense smoke before being jolted away back in my own apartment. I coughed deeply and cleared my lungs of thick, black smoke. After gathering myself and my thoughts, I wondered if that experience is what people meant by making deals with the devil. There wasn’t much choice on how to proceed, Thusilia had made it very clear what my only choice was.