Familiar Flame

All witches and wizards in our community were able to summon a familiar of their choosing when they reached the age of fifteen, but that was not the case for my family. My maternal grandmother married a man born with no magical abilities, and it was said that her decision to do so was the cause of our misfortune.

The majority of witches and wizards married only those bearing similar abilities because they believed that the mixing of the magical and non-magical genetics would create unpredictable mutations that could last for generations. A few even believed that it could bring about unspeakable chaos. In my family’s case, we were all stuck with weaker familiars that could barely help us with our work. While my father had a jaguar, my mother had a mouse and my elder sister was stuck with a gecko. I had yet to summon mine since my fifteenth birthday was months away. I dreaded what it could be.

As the date drew nearer, the other children in my school of magic started to tease me, saying I’d probably be left with a cockroach or a worm. Some of them had already summoned their familiars; among them were wolves, crocodiles, and eagles. I asked my parents to pull me out of that place—I pleaded with them to homeschool me—but they refused me every time. I hated it. I wished I could summon a creature so frightening it could reduce the entire town to ashes. I often found myself imagining how I’d destroy them all in a single night.

The bullying only worsened with time, and I began to hate my parents just as much as I did the children at my school. They never listened to me; the only words they could ever muster were either “you’re going to have to get used to it” or “that’s just life, deal with it.” I wasn’t going to deal with it, and I wasn’t going to deal with them either. I decided that once I summoned my familiar, I would run away and leave town. I wanted nothing to do with anyone anymore.

When my birthday finally dawned, my family was excited while I seethed, not knowing what awaited me. That evening, we gathered in our family’s summoning grounds within the woods and performed the ritual. Once everyone’s chanting ceased, I recited my final line and held my breath. Nothing. Only the rustling of the trees surrounded us. However, before I knew it, the ground before me cracked open, driving deep fissures into the earth that branched out to swallow my family and the trees around me. I tried to catch my sister, but she, too, disappeared into the abyss; and from that chasm then emerged a two-headed dragon.

The creature roared into the air whilst standing before me, the sheer wind pressure of its breath alone uprooting and tearing down every tree in sight, leaving behind a ring of destruction. The dragon then looked at me and spoke telepathically: “Master Anna, we have seen your desires—we have felt your ire. Leave the townspeople to us.”

With those words, my familiar took to the skies. As I rushed out of the forest, I witnessed it laying waste to the entire town in the distance, setting everything ablaze. The dying shrieks of thousands rang in the cold air of the night; I didn’t truly desire such destruction, but there was nothing I could do to stop it. My familiar was too far to hear my call. Only ashes remained of the town by the time the sun rose the next morning.