Days passed, my mom was eventually allowed back into the hospital and she made sure to shower me with love and support. She tried everything in her power to prove to me that no one blamed me and that everything would be okay and I let her think it was working. I didn’t have the guts to tell her that her only child had blood on his hands, a dark mark that would never wash away or be fully atoned for. I always wanted to do better for her, she had always done her best for me, but I had thrown all of those hopes and potential down the drain. My dad seemed a bit wary of me, he was never very good with strong emotional situations. That or he didn’t buy into the idea that it wasn’t my fault, and I wouldn’t try to convince him otherwise.

Daniel stopped coming in as much, or if he did he spent most of his time in the hospital trying to get a date. Once it was clear that I would probably live, he moved on to other things. I guess I was pretty lucky he cared as much as he did in the first place, he was not one to care much about anything other than himself. I was vaguely worried at first about how he would react to knowing the truth, but then I realized that it was unlikely that he would really care at all, or if he did, if it didn’t affect him in the long-run, it would roll off of him just like everything else.

Alan texted me a few times, wanting to know how I was feeling. I could tell he wanted to ask if it was magic-related, though I was sure that he already knew the answer. I would look at the messages, then close out of the texting app. I didn’t know what to say and I certainly didn’t think it was something we could discuss over texting. How do you admit to mass murder on the same platform you send “lol,” “jk,” and “lmao?”

After a week of unsuccessful cheering up and awkward therapy sessions, Alan showed up at my door, just before I was getting ready to hit the pain button for a nightmare-filled nap.

“Hey, thought I should come see you in person,” he said cautiously and took a seat next to my bed. I locked eyes with him, I tried to convey my feelings without any words. He nodded and sighed. “I was afraid that it was true. Honestly, I knew that it was, the story on the news seemed like something they would buy in to but didn’t really hold much water.” He nodded towards my writing tablet. “I know it’s going to suck to tell me what happened, but could you please? We might be able to figure out how to avoid it in the future.”

I typed, “Never doing magic again.”

He sighed deeply and put his head in his hands. He stayed like that, silent, for several moments before looking back up with tears in his eyes.

“I know how you feel, I wasn’t ever going to bring this up to another living soul, but you are not the only one with blood on their hands.” He let out a long breath of air and seemed to focus on his breathing to avoid any hitches while he recounted his story. “When I first started out with potions, I got lucky with my first one, I tried it on myself and was able to light the candle by touching it. I was thrilled, it seemed like I had figured it all out and that I was going to be some sort of magical prodigy who would show the world how magic should be wielded. I got cocky and my best friend since childhood, Jayme, wanted to lose some weight. I thought I could just whip something else and help him out.” Alan fell silent again, a couple tears squeezing out from his eyes. “He was dead before I could even call 911, he wasted away to nothing right in front of me. He went from a few pounds overweight to a hundred pounds underweight in a matter of seconds. The worst part is that I didn’t tell him or warn him of what I was doing, I was stupid, naïve, and thought I could slip it into his drink and enjoy knowing I did something good for him. They ruled it a previously-unknown, super-aggressive form of a wasting disease, I still don’t know how they managed to convince anyone that was remotely possible.” Tears were freely falling.

“I’m sorry,” I typed, “I didn’t know.”

“I will figure out a potion to bring him back, I knew him better than anyone else. He was there when my dad died, he always seemed to know what to do to help me out or make me feel just a bit better. Once I figured out how, I will resurrect him, then make us both drink one for immortality and I can put this whole awful mess behind me. Jayme deserves it, he shouldn’t have died in vain. That’s also why I think you need to continue.”

Alan had a point, though it felt weak, there was also the possibility that I would try again and end up hurting or killing even more people. I wasn’t thrilled about the probability of messing up again. I guess it couldn’t hurt anyone but me to recount the story to him and I deserved to suffer through the pain again.

Throughout my slow typing of the story, Alan was silent and nodded in appropriate places. When I got to the part where the sprite transported me, he curled his face into a frown and stopped me.

“A magical creature grabbed you? You were in its realm? That’s not good, continue.” Like he really needed to tell me that.

When I was about to type the name it told me, he slapped my hand and told me not to dare tell him. “If I know it, it can find me easier and I’ll have even less defense against it.”

I finished up with the story of the summoning and the fire, including everything the creature had said. A five minute, maximum, story had taken nearly forty-five minutes to recount. He sat staring at me, as if trying to gather his thoughts and weighing his next words.

“I don’t know how exactly to say this, so I just will. Most summoners don’t survive their first interaction. You’re incredibly lucky that you survived as well as you have.” I gave him a seething glare. “I know you don’t believe me, but there are absolute horror stories about summoners. The easiest things to contact are creatures that are desperate, hungry, or driven to be insatiably sadistic. I’m guessing your sprite is one of the later.”

We sat in silence, both not knowing how to proceed. My pain was growing, but I didn’t want to press the button yet, it made me sleepy and I wanted to know what he knew about summoning so I could avoid everything about it all together.

“I don’t know exactly how to help you right now,” he finally said, “I’ve never met anyone who was a summoner, they’re kind of the joke of the human magical world because they usually die on the first summon. I might be able to track down some books about it, a few have survived long enough to write some things down. I’ll be honest though, because I have a feeling you’d appreciate it in the long run, summoners, even the best, tend to live noticeably shorter lives. I’m honestly a little terrified for you. Though it does say a lot about you that you made it past the first one.”

“Thanks?” I answered.

He cracked a half-smile. “Yeah, I know, that means little to nothing to you right now, but you could wield some real power if you end up deciding to go on, plus I would be at hand to help you.” He coughed, as if uncomfortable. “So this kind of sounds like a bad start to a rom-com, but you have nowhere else to go, so I’d like to have you move in with me as soon as you get out of here. I think I owe you at least that and since you are a summoner, my potions shouldn’t interfere with your magic.”

I weighed the options in my head. My apartment and everything else in it was gone, I would never be able to go back there even if there was something to go back to. I also didn’t want to move back in with my parents, especially with my newly discovered ability to summon things that like to kill everyone around me. I didn’t need Thusilia coming back to try to finish the job with them around. Daniel was certainly out of the question, I would actively want to kill him within a week at most. What other choice did I have that made sense? I would need to stay close to the hospital for physical therapy and check-ups anyway.

I agreed and he seemed relieved. I don’t think he anticipated me being very happy with him. I could see where he would think it would be possible for me to blame him, but he had no idea what magic would mean for me and he didn’t force the words from my mouth. He had only intended for me to reach my potential, he didn’t know it would lead to a dark end. Plus, after hearing about his own experience, I felt that company might do him some good. Somehow, through this awful experience recounting our traumatic experiences to each other, I was growing fonder of him.

As the weeks progressed, I steadily grew stronger, though my mood was wildly fluctuating. It was getting harder and harder to climb out of the pits of my guilt and the therapist telling me over and over that it wasn’t my fault was not helping. She just couldn’t know enough to realize what the real problem was. No matter how many times she made me read the fire marshal report clearing me of any wrong-doing, I wasn’t going to believe it.

I could not even begin to express my relief when the day came to remove the tube from my throat. It was the single most uncomfortable physical experience of my life, but having the sudden feeling of being able to breathe freely and swallow was wonderful, even if swallowing still hurt like hell. That night I ordered the tastiest option of liquid food they had to offer and thoroughly enjoyed the experience of once again eating.

I was also delighted that after some hot broth and mental preparation, my voice was definitely scratchier, but I could still speak. The doctor seemed amazed that I could, at least so well. She had no explanation other than dumb luck. I had a sinking feeling that it was very far from luck, that the sprite wanted me to be able to slip up and summon her again, even if I never did slip up, she would have left me with a permanently damaged voice to always remind me.

Soon after I had the tube removed, I was finally able to sit up straight and see with a mirror just how bad the scars were across my chest. I seemed to be healing well, though it wasn’t pretty by any stretch of the imagination. My skin was drawn tight, red, and inflamed, it looked like the structure of my chest was intact, but incredibly swollen with patches of discharge and scabbing. I was never one to be shirtless in public, but I certainly going to even further avoid the situation, there were quite a few areas that were scaring to nodules. While it was going to be easy to hide, it would be a very obvious reminder to myself of what happened. I had a feeling that was very much the intent.

Two months after the fire, I was finally ready to be discharged from the hospital. It still hurt to eat and breath, but my scars were coming along nicely and as long as I made sure to regularly take the prescriptions they were sending home with me, I would only need to come back for checkups and bandage changes if the few remaining open areas on my chest needed it.

I didn’t know how to feel when the doctor came in just before I was discharged to tell me the good news that the building landlord had taken full responsibility for failing to properly upkeep the pipes and would pay for all of my medical bills. I hadn’t really thought of the financial aspect of the whole event, I didn’t really have insurance and I was sure that I had racked up a ridiculous bill. On the one hand, I was grateful not to have that hanging over my head for the rest of my life and that the others affected would have theirs paid for too, but on the other, they were paying for my mistakes. There wasn’t much I could do other than smile and act grateful, no one would have believed me anyway.

Alan was waiting at the entrance to the hospital as they wheeled me out. He had Bubbles with him, a “therapy” dog sign attached to his harness. Bubbles seemed to explode with happiness when he caught sight of me and began to high-pitch yelp while pulling against his leash to jump into my lap.

The nurse pushing my wheelchair stopped short of meeting up with them, and let out a sharp “OUT!” Alan pulled Bubbles through the doors and tied him to a light pole just outside the doors, then came back in looking sheepish.

“That’s a therapy dog? He needs much better training,” she scolded.

“He’s kind of in training right now, sorry, normally he is much better behaved,” Alan explained, eyes wandering over everyone in the waiting room judgmentally staring at him. “He hasn’t seen our buddy, David, here since his accident, he probably missed him.”

The nurse seemed to soften a little and nodded. “Of course, poor little guy must have really noticed he was gone. Sorry to have gotten angry, we just have a lot of fragile patients and I didn’t want an untrained animal causing any damage.”

“Not at all, if I would have known how he would have reacted, I wouldn’t have brought him in.” Bubbles was straining on his fixed leash to get to me, his face plastered against the glass with drool dripping from his lips. I supposed that I should feel honored that he missed me so much. I was more surprised that he was actually bright enough to remember me.

“Could you please put him up in your car before I wheel him any further? We don’t want to risk any scabs or wounds getting opened any more than we need to,” she said, much less edge to her voice than before.

The nurse waited with me as Alan dragged Bubbles away from the door, the retriever unwilling to break eye contact with me until Alan sternly said “Bad, no cookie.” He slunk into the car and looked pitifully out of the window.

Once loaded into the car, Bubbles attacked my face with frantic licks. Alan told him to settle down or there would be no cookies again, but all the way to Alan’s house, Bubbles had his head shoved through the side of the car and my seat to rest his head against me.

“I guess he really did miss you,” Alan commented, “he is pretty sensitive to magic and the residue of it, maybe he’s picking up on it. Guess this takes care of your dog dilemma.”

I grunted. I still didn’t know how to feel about this whole situation other than incredibly guilty.

“Sorry if I seemed insensitive there,” he said after a long moment of silence. “I am not the best person to talk to about these kinds of things sometimes, I cope in a twisted way. If you don’t mind, I do have someone who might be able to help. I can get in contact with her when we get to my place.”

“Sure, I guess. Will she get what happened? What actually happened?” I asked.

“Yes, she very much understands magic and what it can do.”

“Good, I’m tired of people telling me that it was just an accident, it just makes me feel worse.”

He nodded understandingly and said no more until we pulled into his driveway. He told me to wait in the car while he took care of Bubbles. With a lot of effort and whining from the dog, Alan pulled him out from the backseat by his leash and walked him around to the side of the house, opened the fence to the backyard and forced Bubbles inside. Bubbles began to whine loudly and tried to force the chain-link fencing up at the bottom to get back out.

Alan helped me stand up from a car, which was quite a feat since the skin around my armpits didn’t want to stretch much anymore, so using my arms to lift or pull was still very difficult. He managed to plant himself and I used his bent arm to slowly leverage myself up, I looked and felt like an old man. Once inside, it looked like Alan had cleaned up for my arrival. What was once an entrance way cluttered with boxes and books, was now mostly cleared out and the floors looked recently mopped. He seemed to notice my surprise.

“I didn’t think it was cool to bring you here only to have you have to navigate my clutter. Honestly, I should have done it a long time ago. When you feel up to it, I’ll show you what I’ve done with the basement. I’m trying to set up a kind of magical laboratory and studio where we can both work.”

I was surprised that he expected me to stay that long. I didn’t really have anything against the idea, I just hadn’t thought about it. My entire future seemed to have been obscured and turned upside down. I was so trapped into the recent past and present that I was finding it hard to think much past the next day.

Alan showed me to the guest room, which judging by the square imprints in the carpet, had until recently been filled with books and boxes as well. He helped me unpack my small pile of possessions from the hospital bag, mostly containing random items the nurses shoved into my hands to take home since they wouldn’t be able to reuse them. All that I had to my name was a water cup and pitcher, random trial size toiletries, the magical journal that just so happened to survive the roaring fire, and a check from the old landlord meant to cover everything lost in the fire. The check was not insignificant, I was guessing partially out of the hope that I wouldn’t sue. After helping me unpack my handful of possessions, it seemed to fully hit Alan just how much I didn’t have.

“When you feel a bit better, we should cash your check and start getting you some things. We should probably start with a laptop, it’ll do you some good to have at least that.”

“That might be nice,” I admitted, “still feels wrong to have this check though.” I carefully lowered myself to the bed and put my feet up, the short trip had taken nearly everything out of me.

“I’ll contact my ‘therapist,’ don’t worry.” He said and brought me a blanket from the closet to cover up with. It was an old-school canary yellow, granny square blanket, I was pretty sure his grandma had made it. “First you should probably rest, you’re going to be exhausted for a while. Is there anything you’d like to eat?”

“Soup, any kind,” I said without hesitation, “it’s hard to eat enough when the best I can stand to swallow is liquid right now.”

“I thought you might say that, be right back.”

While he was gone, I pulled my pain medication from my bag, but didn’t take it. I wanted to be conscious enough to enjoy the food. I didn’t care all that much before about eating or the flavor of what I put in my stomach, but after having a feeding tube for a while, I had a whole renewed appreciation.

Alan returned with a big bowl of smooth potato soup, complete with a big dollop of sour cream and a pile of shredded cheddar cheese in the middle.

“I planned ahead, I made a few different types. Potion work seems to make you good with food in general.” He explained.

“Makes sense,” I said, trying not to drool all over myself at the smell of caramelized onions, cheese, and cream, “you didn’t have to go through all the trouble though, I would have gladly accepted can.”

“Nah, it gives me an excuse. I get lazy when it’s just me and eat like utter crap all the time. You don’t want to know just how many empty boxes of mac and cheese I threw out cleaning this place up, it was sad.” We definitely weren’t all that different.

He left me to eat and I devoured the entire bowl quickly, ignoring any pain my throat tried to give me. He really was a great cook, I was in for a great time if he kept making food for me. I would never tell my mother this, but he certainly put her skills to shame. For the first time since waking up in the hospital, my stomach felt full, warm, and content. I popped one of my pain pills and settled in to sleep. I very much hoped that the pills would keep the dreams away like the pain pump had, I was not even kind of ready to deal with them again.

A couple of hours of dreamless sleep later, I woke up to hushed voices talking outside my door. I gathered from their conversation that they had just looked in on me and decided to leave me asleep. I recognized one of the voices as Alan, but I couldn’t place the female voice, it seemed much too high to be an adult. I didn’t know why he would bring a child to come visit me, but I was curious enough to unsteadily get myself up and make my way to the living room.

Alan sat in an armchair across from a very tiny woman, her dark hair streaked with gray, but she stood no more than four feet tall. Her stature was more like an elementary-aged girl than someone of her apparent age. She was dressed as what I could only describe as a hippie, complete with tie dye and a fabric daisy headband.

“Ah, you’re up.” Alan rose to help me sit on the couch next to the woman. “This is Madame Juniper, she has been a close confidant and personal therapist for me for years now.”

She looked me over, pursing her lips together into a worried line. “A sprite?” I nodded, surprised that she guessed correctly. “Let me guess,” she said in a tone very much mocking the childlike voice of the sprite, “just promise me you’ll do what I want and I’ll tell you how to use your magic?”

“Pretty much exactly.” I confirmed.

She rolled her eyes and leaned in closer to me. “In good news, sprites are incredibly predictable, but nasty. This one being fire makes it a little more nasty and prone to violence, but really, they’re pretty much lowly magical creatures, think of them as rats who know a few parlor tricks.”

“It’s a little terrifying that what happened was done by, in your words, a rat of the magical world.” I coughed a little, my throat already drying out. Alan pushed a bottle of water towards me, I thankfully took a gulp.

“I won’t try to hide it from you, a creature like that can be pretty potent in a very low magic plane like this one, but of the options… you should still feel slightly grateful.” She dug through a small bag attached to her waist and pulled out a small pad of paper and a pencil. “I’m just going to take a few notes, so that we can better help you deal with it. Alan has told me in brief what happened, but I specifically want to hear from your mouth exactly what it said to you when it took you to its realm and then how you set up your summoning spell.”

I recounted the events slowly, trying to remember everything I could, down to the smells and sensations. My body broke out in chills and goosebumps, I could almost smell smoke by the time I was done. I was doing my best not to shake, but I was trembling noticeably. She put a tiny, comforting hand on my knee.

“That’s enough and don’t worry, this sprite wouldn’t dare to show itself to someone protected by me. I could destroy it six ways from Sunday on a whim.” She said, with a pat to my knee for emphasis.

“Madame Juniper is a fae, one of the few mostly sane ones I’ve met. Compared to a fae, a sprite is insignificant,” Alan explained.

“A tiny speck to me, they really are little better than insects,” she said smugly.

I looked her over again. Other than her tiny statue, I think I could have passed her on the street and have not guessed that she was anything but human. However, on closer inspection, her face had something different about it, more refined, her skin just a bit too dewy.

“I pass really well don’t I? In my realm I don’t look much like this, but hey, I have to look the part if I want to fit in here as your friendly, kooky fortune teller.”

“You’re a fortune teller?” I asked. I really shouldn’t have been surprised from the outfit.

She let out a high-pitched laugh and gently squeezed my leg. “As if it wasn’t obvious, yes of course. I’m the best out there, though I do tend to lose clients after the second visit or so, for some reason humans don’t like it when you’re right about their future.”

“It’s that whole, humans want to ignore magic thing, right?”

“You are a sharp one,” she cooed, “that’s right. Everyone secretly knows most of the fortune tellers out there are just flipping over tarot cards and guessing, as soon as it becomes real, they run for the hills. I suppose it make sense with how often I predict things they have no power to change, it must be tough to be so magically ignorant.”

I felt compelled for a moment to ask her to do a reading for me, but then I realized how large of a chance there was that it would come out absolutely awful. I didn’t want to know when Thusilia was planning on returning, at least not yet. I wanted some time to pretend that I wouldn’t have to see them again.

“I think the therapy part would probably be nice for him right now.” Alan urged.

“Oh yes, about your guilt and sorrow,” she began, “I know you’re going to roll your eyes, at least metaphorically at this, but there was absolutely nothing you could have done differently. You’ve probably ran what you said in your summoning in your head, picked it apart, and lamented at what you should have said, right?”

I shrugged and sighed.

“No matter what you said, how careful you were about your tone, or where you said it, it was going to find a way to twist it into an avenue for their destruction. Just like a rat chews on the walls, a sprite destroys what it can when it can. Your words were effectively meaningless.”

“I could have just accepted my fate and let it kill me instead.” I offered in response.

She shook her head. “No, it would have found an avenue, you’re more of a conduit than a gatekeeper. It probably would have snatched you from a dream and made you utter the right words in your sleep to summon it.”

It felt wrong to feel better about the whole situation knowing that I couldn’t have stopped it from happening entirely, but I did. Though it was very worrying that it could do something like that, I definitely didn’t like the idea that it could force me to summon it again.

“We’ve already started on some magical defenses for you.” Alan said, as if reading my mind. “I’ve made and poured out a couple of protection potions around the yard, it should have hard time performing magic anywhere in this house. So even if you summon it, it should find itself unable to do much other than be frustrated.”

“I’ve also enchanted this tarot card for you.” She produced a card from her bag, the image was a regal looking woman sitting on a throne made of wooden wands tipped with different colors of crystals. “It’s the queen of wands and represents me. If you ever encounter anything hostile, in this realm or any other, simply focus on the card and I will assist you the best I can.”

“Why are you doing this for me?” I asked, it really seemed a lot for someone she just met. Even for Alan, he didn’t really know me all that well, before moving in with him, I would have only considered him an acquaintance at best.

“Alan has taken a liking to you and I feel like his second mother.” She reached out and pinched his cheek lightly.

,“Juniper, don’t make it seem like that.” he pleaded with a slight flush to his face.

“Seem like what?” she teased, “You humans are so cute. You know I stay in this realm for you, Alan.”

“No you don’t, you stay for the glee you get from making humans uncomfortable, you’re not totally unlike your kind. There are legitimate reasons why your kind is viewed as mischievous, malicious pranksters here.”

“Guilty,” she said with a giggle. “Once a fae, always a fae. Oh! I almost forgot, I brought you something else special, David.” She pulled out a small, sharp purple gemstone from her bad and thrust it into my hand. “This is a piece of amethyst, throw it at the sprite if you see it again, it can’t stand being around it. Not all crystal worship is hogwash, surprisingly.”

I turned the shard over in my hand, I couldn’t feel anything different about it from any other crystal I had ever held. I slid it into my jeans pocket for safe keeping. On the surface it was really easy to mistake her for a harmless, but eccentric fortune teller on the lookout for a sucker to make some easy cash.

She looked at her watch and gasped, jumping up. “My 3pm is going to be waiting on me. She isn’t going to like what I have to tell her, but no sense delaying the bad news.”

Before anyone else could speak, she gave me a peck on the forehead and enveloped Alan in a big hug, then seemed to blink out of existence with a small “pop.”

“You know, in case you still doubted what she was,” Alan said, amused at my shocked expression. “She loves to do that around people she’s just met.”

“She seems fun.”

“A real walking party, she was fairly matronly today, but trust me she’s a firecracker normally. I’m sure you’ll get to know her well enough to see what she’s really like, buckle up.” Alan rose from his chair and helped me up. “Let’s get you back to bed, the doctor was adamant that you spend most of your day in bed still for the first few days. I have something that might help though.”

He helped me back down the hall and onto the bed, then left and returned a few moments later with a large jar of milky gel.

“This is something I whipped up to help with your chest. I know the scaring probably isn’t what you want, this will hopefully help a bit. Apply a thin layer of it each morning and before you sleep at night, it should help your skin grow faster and healthier. Expect it to tickle a little for the first few minutes, but then it should go away.”

I thanked him and opened the jar to smell it. I didn’t know what I expected, but it was not what I smelled. The aroma was something between dirty socks and papaya. Not wanting to seem ungrateful I nodded at the smell and repressed a gag. He handed me a remote control to a small TV in the room and told me to just text him if I needed anything