I did a little happy dance and stomp and shimmy and then stilled completely, hoping I hadn’t just scared my Terra so badly that she wouldn’t come out for a week. I looked around and then back at Sammi.

You have gained a Familiar. Please choose the Familiar tab in your character sheet to access stats and progression.

“Where is she?” I didn’t care about her stats right then. I just wanted her.

“Technically, you are going to have to summon her.” Sammi handed me a small, square, leatherbound book that was not my cat. “Your cat is already attached to the spell, but you’ll have to cast the spell to bring her to you physically.”

“Where is she now?” I fretted. The book wasn’t even soft.

“Safe and waiting,” they hedged. “It’s a good thing! Your cat is now a magical being, made up of magic. It means that if something bad happens to her here, all you need to do is recast the spell and she’ll return to you.”

“That sounds better than I thought,” I worried, wondering what the catch was. Very little in my life was better than I expected it to be. Would Terra still be Terra as a magical being? I was still the same neurotic me, so maybe she’d still be her.

“There are four spells in there,” they went on, ignoring the neuroticisms flitting across my face, “but you’ll have the ability to create your own spells once you level up a bit. Now you can mix potions in that kitchen downstairs and keep this as a recipe book as well.”

“What if someone takes…?” I asked, my mind jumping blindly to the worst thing it could imagine in the millisecond I’d had the silly thing in my hand.

“Neither your book nor your Familiar can be taken from you.” Sammi smiled at me. “They are soul-bound, and for the most part the book isn’t even noticeable to others.”

I stared at it. Had they known I wasn’t talking about the book?

“And you can’t lose the book,” they went on. “It’ll just be back in your pocket if you go farther than a few paces away from it. There’s even a ribbon to hold your place. You like books. I guess you’ll just have to write this one yourself.”

“I always wanted to try that,” I whispered.

“Anyone can do magic, if they try hard enough and are taught how, but a Mage can design magic, teach it, sell it, mold it, and well, I suppose you’ll have to define what Mage-ish is since you made it up,” Sammi explained. Finally, some answers that made me less nervous instead of more so.

“Now, if that’s all for tonight.” Sammi started to give a wave of a wand.

“Wait,” I grasped out desperately at the frilly edge of their tutu, not ready for my answer machine to disappear.

“What?” they asked.

“When will I see you again? How do I find you if I need you?” I felt pathetic, and weak just for asking. I think I just didn’t want to be alone in the dark again.

Sammi shook his head and slowly disappeared. I was alone… in the dark… again. It wasn’t so bad. Some of the best times of my first experience of being sixteen were in the dark. When no one understood you, the dark and solitude was a blessing.

I closed my eyes and let the dark seclusion soothe me. I could hear the tavern below, but it didn’t define me. It was starting to get that hum that a room full of people created. As my eyes adjusted, the room wasn’t purely pitch black. There was a little glow through the cracks of my floor. There was always going to be a glow, no matter how dark it got. I’d gotten good at finding the glowing edge of doom back in my teen years the first time. I’d forgotten once my family filled that void in my heart. Maybe not forgotten, but rather… let it go.

My cat was in the book in my hand. Tomorrow I’d need to start up on getting strong enough to bring my family here, but tonight, I could have Terra. All I’d need to do was sneak down the stairs and snag a candle from the kitchen. There had been boxes of the things in the pantry. I crept down as quietly as I could, not wanting to be a part of the party going on in the main room. I grabbed supplies, including something I thought might work like a litter box and a small bowl of the broth I’d simmered all day. It wasn’t kibble but it would have to do for the night.

If it was a matter of survival, I could mask the part of me that made others so uncomfortable. I rehearsed scripts of what I’d do under the most likely situations. As long as the situation wasn’t completely and utterly insane, like being summoned to an RPG world to fight my old boyfriend! Now I needed new scripts. I needed to practice in my head what I’d say and do tomorrow morning. I soothed myself with scripts while I gathered materials and returned to my room.

Sitting on my bed again, I opened the book with a slight tremble of my fingers. The four spells were Summon Witch’s Familiar, Basic Heal, Basic Buff, and Spark. I carefully read each word of every spell. The whole entry consisted of:

Summon Witch’s Familiar – 20 mana

Notes:

Basic Heal – 10 mana

Notes:

Basic Buff – 10 mana

Notes:

Spark – 10 mana

Notes:

Yep. That was it. Each page had the title of the spell at the top, the mana cost next to it and the rest of the page was reserved for notes. Notes that I could not write down because I had yet to find a pencil. Unless I could grab that scratching quill that so annoyed me. On top of the lack of instructions was the mana cost. Guess how much mana I had. As a level one Mage-ish, Sammi had said that my mana was calculated by adding my intelligence and my will and then multiplying it by my level. With all those bumps, I had exactly 19 mana.

But that wasn’t my biggest problem at that moment. Maybe it was self-evident to anyone but me, but I had no more clue how to cast the spells than I had before the book. Not wanting to screw up Terra’s spell, I started with the buff. I tried placing my palm on the page and saying the spell name. I put my own finger to my forehead and did the same. Nothing. I tried praying. Nope. I guess I wasn’t a cleric.

I stared at my palms laying open in my lap. I was doing it again. I was thinking far too hard about it. It must be an easy concept that was obvious to anyone else; so obvious that they hadn’t bothered to include instructions. My palms stared back at me, not literally but you know what I mean. I could feel my mana tingling across the surface, but I had no idea what to do with it. I remembered the feeling I’d had when I was messing with it before. How had I done it? This morning seemed like a week ago.

I rubbed gently, not wanting to overcharge my mana too much like I’d done before. This time, my mana didn’t just sparkle around crazily. Now that I had a magic-using class, maybe it would behave. The friction-based charge seemed to quiver with anticipation as I slowly pulled my hands apart. I thought of my Basic Buff spell and gave the mana a little nudge. Mana swirled and… responded. It was like chemistry had come to life. I’d hated labs with their manuals of instructions that made almost no sense. But finding out how to MacGyver body chemistry was a blast!

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+1 Strength (temporary)

+1 Dexterity (temporary)

Basic Buff +1

Exp +10 (10/300)

It worked! I’d just done real-life magic! My insides jiggled happily. My mana was down by 10, but my health points went up some. I watched my mana for a bit. It didn’t go back up naturally, at least not quickly enough. I rubbed my hands, gently at first and then more vigorously. My mana ticked back up. Since rubbing my hands together got to be a bit boring, I experimented with it.

Skill Learned: Meditation

Exp +20 (30/300)

It was much more like the childish, shocking game than stick-your-nose-in-a-book-and-be-quiet kind of meditating. It made more sense from a chemical perspective. It was like I could mold friction with my intentions. It was closer to being able to put an imaginary fidget spinner in my fingers and have something productive coming out of it. I wasn’t much of a fidgeter myself, but my best friend was going to be really really charged all the time.

Meditation +1

Exp +10 (40/300)

As my meditation went up, the speed that I got mana back went up too. When I got to full mana, I tried the buff again, but it didn’t do anything. For the Basic Buff spell, I rubbed my palms together and then released the friction like I was flicking water from my hands. The movement felt right. When I unfocused my eyes, I could almost see the particles forming together to try to do something. When the particles just laid themselves over what was already done, the spell sort of fizzled and the mana returned to my pool.

I could feel the spell still active on me without looking at my character sheet. It was like I was wearing a shawl over my shoulders. My mind, having something aside from my insanity to focus upon, delved into this magic. I spent too much time getting the hang of it, but it got results.

Meditation +3

Exp +30 (70/300)

Basic Buff +2

Exp +20 (90/300)

I tried Spark, and nearly set my bed on fire. The mana didn’t want to form in the same way that the Basic Buff had done. Every time I brought my hands together, the mana was soft and pliant, but Spark wasn’t a soft spell. It was spicy. I learned that spells had flavors. Spark liked to jump. Instead of the swirl of my palms, it felt more natural with a rubbing of the fingers of either hand. It was like that movement you could make right before you snapped your fingers only when you snapped your fingers at the end, they… well… Sparked.

Spark +1

Exp +10 (100/300)

Turned out you could heal an inanimate object. Learning the movement of Spark, overcharged my mana just enough that I had mana left over, so when I reached out to pat the smoldering blanket, I used that mana almost automatically. It was the soft feel of the buff, only instead of sitting on top of the object, it sunk down into it with an almost hum. Marshmallowy?

Basic Heal +1

Exp +10 (110/300)

Of course, I tried it on myself next. With nothing to heal, it didn’t do anything. It wasn’t like I could overcharge my health the way I’d overcharged my mana. Spark was barely a… spark. How much could it hurt?

Health -4 (Health 9/13)

At least my health was higher than 10 now that it was being calculated above my minimum. It didn’t do much damage, but then Basic Heal didn’t mend as much as Spark took away.

Health +3 (Health 12/13)

I also didn’t get a skill up or experience each time I cast a spell. There was always a skill up and experience on the first cast of a spell. There was always experience with a skill up. I cast the heal again on myself to get back that last point of health and then turned to rubbing my mana back up to full. I’d have fiddled with the spells all night to learn the rules, but it had been a very long day. I was finally confident enough to cast the spell I couldn’t afford to mess up. With my top mana at 19, I had to overcharge it to have enough. I took a deep breath and gulped. The instant it ticked up to 20, I cast the spell.

Summon Witch’s Familiar +1

Experience +10 (120/300)

The mana coalesced slowly as I held my breath. Unlike my previous spells, the results weren’t even close to instantaneous. I had enough time to meditate by rubbing my fingers against my palms, and then my legs. I wanted enough mana to heal or buff her if she needed it. My mana was almost restored to half by the time the energy did more than throb into a shape.

She was coming. It was working. I hadn’t just gone crazy. I was going to be okay. I made out her shape, just a tiny thing really. If my transition had made me sixteen, had it returned Terra to kittenhood? Terra had been a rescue cat. I’d gone to the shelter looking for a big black kitten that would turn into a mini panther. Terra had been on the brink of death and there was just something in how she’d melted into my arms and started to knit. I had taken her home that day. I had nursed her back to health, one morsel of tuna at a time.

“Terra?” I called out softly in the tone I used only for her. Her forming head turned toward me with an almost silent meow.

She shook her head a bit but then came to me. Her front paw hit my leg and became real. Very real. I reached out my hand and she butted her head into it with a purr. I wanted to sweep her up into the biggest hug ever, but I was smart enough to remember that she was a CAT. Instead, I leaned back in bed. As was our custom, she curled into my lap. I sat there petting her for too long, my mana increasing rapidly as I did so.

“Terra the totally awesome,” I cooed to her idiotically. She happily lay in my lap long enough to recharge my mana to full. It was like she was soaked in it. Petting her brought my mana back twice as fast as I’d done on my own, but I didn’t see any skill ups from it. Something settled deep inside me. Her little face of grey and white fur made her eyes look like they were rimmed in Egyptian kohl that had faded. Her eyes were closed in that purr that let you know that everything was good in the world. If this was possible, then anything was.

She looked around the little room and gave it a sniff. The broth might have given off a scent because she hopped down off the bed long enough to take a few laps of it. She found her litter box as I watched quietly, not wanting to startle her.

My nervous energy crackled with mana that was threatening to overcharge, so I cast Basic Buff on her. She sat up straighter and then gave a happy little twitch of her tail. I looked over her character sheet. The buff had given her the same extra stats that it had given me. Her fur looked softer here than it had at home. Her illness had left her less coordinated than other cats I’d known. But here, her movements were less strained. It was like she’d never been sick at all.

I nervously rubbed my hands along my thighs where her warmth still soothed me. I had extra mana, so I cast the buff at the litter box. It might have been my imagination, but the box appeared just a tiny bit stronger? I cast it again with a slightly different intent. Something like halfway between the buff and the heal.

Spell Created: Mend – mana 5

Exp +30 (150/300)

Interesting. It had been so easy to coax the mana into a new form. Sammi had said that I would be able to make my own spells, but they’d inferred it was supposed to be harder? I checked my book. I did have a new spell. It created its own page, complete with the blank notes section. I doublechecked my character sheet and I was still level one, though I was halfway to my next level. Maybe I was better at this magic stuff than Sammi figured I’d be.

I cast Mend on myself. It mended a tear in my dress, but it didn’t mend me. That made sense. I had the Basic Heal for that. I flipped through the pages of my spells and noticed that the notes areas weren’t blank anymore. Basic Heal noted that it healed three Health. Basic Buff now noted that it increased Strength and Dexterity by one. Mend had a note that it only worked on inanimate objects. And Summon Witch’s Familiar included the time it had taken to complete the spell. They were all good notes and exactly what I would have written down. I guess I didn’t need that pencil after all.

Terra tentatively pawed at the loose dirt and straw I’d used to fill her litter box.

“It’s better than my bathroom at this point,” I told her with a shrug.

She gave a dainty hop into the box and did her business. I gave a sigh and then scrunched up my nose. When she hopped out, I tried mending the cat litter, but it didn’t work. Terra hopped back up on the bed and into my lap to settle down. As I stroked her soft, silky fur, my mana recharged too fast. Needing something to do with it, I cast Mend a few more times on the litter box, trying to adjust the effects of the spell. It took more than a dozen casts, but when Mend upgraded to level five, I got another new spell.

Mend +5

Exp +50 (200/300)

Spell Created: Basic Clean – mana 10

Exp +30 (230/300)

I couldn’t wait to try it on the dishes the next day. It took more effort to clean the cat box with the spell than it did to get up and do it myself, but with Terra curled on my lap, I hadn’t wanted to move. Now that the air of my little room was more like fresh hay than full litter box, it was cozy.

When Terra got tired of being petted, she pulled away from my hand. By then, I’d mended and cleaned everything in the room at least twice.

Mend +3

Exp +30 (260/300)

Basic Clean +4

Exp +40 (300/300) – Level UP!

That was what I’d been waiting for. The coziness and warmth of the room had threatened to overwhelm my resolve to see that notification before sleep, but I’d prevailed. I felt accomplished. I felt like I could do this. I needed one level every day in order to make sure I was at least Beau’s level by the time he found me. Was it a testament to my muddled mind that I didn’t even think that he would also be leveling up on his way to see me? It didn’t occur to me then or I might not have succumbed to slumber so easily.

Together, Terra and I snuggled into my little bed, and I let the day fall away. I dreamed of chasing quills with a butterfly net and being chased by Bards with swinging charisma.