Page 3 of Festive with a Grumpy Fae

To Summon the Fae.

Blinking, I read the heading again.Heh.Why would anyone in their right mind want to summon the fae?You only need ten minutes of studying mythology to know why that’s a bad idea.Still, I keep reading.

Do not use for summoning armies!

Okay, that’s got my attention.

This spell will call forth a single fae attuned to the caster’s energy.Ideal for personal favours and companionship.

I pull a face, a little less interested.Also, if “personal favours and companionship” is a euphemism, that’s totally gross.

In the dark of the new moon, take one beloved object, an iron blade, and an offering of wealth into the woods.

Facing the north, kneel, lay the object upon the naked earth, and smear three drops of blood upon the blade.

Ex-fucking-scuse me?This spell needs a blood sacrifice?Sure, it’s only three drops, but blood is blood.So much for this being a benign spell book.

You must use your own blood.This ensures the fae summoned will be attuned to you.

Creepy.

Stab the blade into the earth beside your object, scatter the offering of wealth over them both, and beseech, “I call upon the darkest night to bring me one who can fill my need.”

My jaw drops.What the fuck?This has to be a joke—“bring me one who can fill my need”?In a spell to summon a “companion” who’s “attuned” to the summoner?It could easily be the prompt for an erotic fic like the ones I read online when I’m in the mood for imagination porn.

I flip the page to see what happens next, but there’s only a spell for keeping caterpillars away from veggie gardens.Frowning, I turn back, then check if the pages are stuck together, but it seems that’s the whole spell.Definitely somebody’s idea of a joke.If summoning the fae was that easy, we’d be overrun by them.

You know, if they actually existed.

Sighing, I put the little book on the coffee table beside my abandoned wine and am reaching for the next one when a familiar Christmas carol draws my attention to the TV.It takes a moment for me to make sense of what I’m seeing, and then deep dread settles into my belly.

Oh no.Not the Myer Christmas commercial.

It’s cheesy.Ridiculous.Clearly a bid by a greedy retail entity to entice people to spend their cash on overpriced goods in a misplaced attempt to show their loved ones that they care.

And yet, somehow, every year Myer manages to make me yearn for the kind of loved one I could spoil with said overpriced goods.Look at those actors, convincing me they’re a happy couple cuddling on Christmas morning.Damn their souls.

Finally,thankfully, it comes to an end, and I blow out a breath of relief.

Only to be blindsided by the Qantas holiday ad.

“Noooooo,” I howl.“Come on!Two in a row?”On the screen, an assortment of people traverse the world to get home to loved ones who embrace them with happy shrieks and tears, and then they all spend Christmas Day together.

Tears begin to track down my cheeks.

It’s not fair.

How come they all get to spend Christmas with people who love them, and I’m going to be alone?

Sniffling, I grab the remote and turn the TV off, but somehow, the silence that follows is worse than the nostalgia-evoking music, because it reminds me yet again that I’m alone.

There’s nobody else here.Just me.On my own.

Is it too much to ask that I have someone to spend Christmas with, at least?

I toss the remote onto the coffee table, and it skids a little, bumping against the leatherbound spell book.Staring at it, I feel years of loneliness surge up to tangle with ad-induced misery and two hefty glasses of wine, forming the nexus where stupid ideas are born.

Fuck it.Maybe a little bit of stupid is what I need.