An Unfamiliar Face

“It must work.”

Ethel rearranged the unlit firelogs for the seventh time.

“It simply must.”

The eighth time. And the ninth.

“By the gods, let it work!”

While the sun peeked through the forest grove in pollen-hazed shafts, Ethel began the most important spell she had ever attempted; possibly the most important spell she would ever attempt. Her materials spread on the moldering trunk of a fallen tree, she tallied everything to be certain, absolutely certain, that nothing had been missed.

There were the specific plants of specific purpose; licorice root that can spur a life, blackberries that can sustain it, and berries of nightshade and yew that can easily end one. Beside them sat a linen pouch filled with her own milk-teeth, every last one. There were vials of water from a dozen wells and one, some more brackish than others. A silver pestle with an oaken handle came next. Wood for the fire (a single log each of hawthorn, ash, and spruce) was rearranged for the tenth time. Lastly laid a heavy pot, cast of iron and never before used, in which to combine it all.

The sun reached its height, sending beams down in vertical bars. Ethel sparked the fire and positioned the pot, constantly referring to the book beside her for proper placement and order. With the pestle, she crushed the teeth one by one, starting with the incisors. She poured the vials of water in a set order, precise and prescribed, occasionally placing a palmful of berries into the mix. She repeated the process until the reagents were depleted. At the crushing of the final tooth, she chanted ancient words of unknown meaning. Having rehearsed them by rote for years, she had no difficulty in the reciting; seven times forward and seven times back, just as the book prescribed. She punctuated the final syllable with a clang on the pot from the silver handle of the pestle.

The sound dissipated quickly in the forest, absorbed by the trees and the unseen things that dwelt among them. Ethel cleared her throat.

“Hello?” she said aloud, tensely timid. “Did it work? Hello? Can anyone hear me?”

There seemed, at first, to be no response, but it quickly became clear that a voice indeed spoke in answer. Tiny, woody, and rustling, like a box of penny matches gently jostled, the voice rose in volume and narrowed in clarity until it became just discernible.

“Hillo?” it said. “Hillo! Hillo-hillo-hillo!”

Ethel choked a cough of tentative optimism. “It worked? It…actually worked?” Remembering herself, she bowed her head, adopting a reverential tone. “You can hear me then, spirit?”

“Hillo!” came the voice. “Yes-yes! I can hear your words! You can hear mine?”

She clapped her hands over her mouth, speaking through her fingers in elated peeps. “Yes, spirit! Yes, I can! Oh, I am so very pleased! Will you tell me your name?”

“Blood!”

“Blood? Your name is…Blood?”

“Give me blood. Names are unimportant.”

“Oh!” said Ethel, suddenly embarrassed. “Of course, of course. How silly of me. You’ll be wanting an offering. I have heard of this sort of thing. The summoning process is seldom gentle and I’d rather not begin our pact on the wrong foot.” She produced a penknife that she opened and pressed into her palm, gritting her teeth in anticipation. “In the pot, then? Or would you prefer it on the ground?”

“Within your veins is fine-fine. I need no assistance, only permission. May I have blood?”

Ethel’s heart skipped a few beats and resumed with a knock, the blood in question running cold. She looked to the sun. Highest noon. Surely that fact alone would have dissuaded the attendance of more…brusque spirits. Surely. But it never hurt to be cautious. “How much blood, exactly, do you need?”

“Not but a dribble. Not but a drop. You’ll scarcely notice the loss. I have it then? Your permission?”

Ethel licked suddenly dry lips. “Y-yes. But only a drop, now. You understand? Only a drop as I would understand a drop to be.”

Ethel received no reply other than a sudden, sharp pain to her left wrist. She looked down to see a mosquito piercing her just below her thumb, its grotesque head driving deeply into the flesh. She raised her other hand to swat the pest when the tiny voice rose again, this time sounding highly irritated.

“Permission! You gave permission! You did! You did!”

Ethel gaped at the insect. “I gave permission to the spirit I summoned, not to you!”

“It was I to whom you spoke.” The voice was now nasally and muffled as one might sound speaking around a well pinched nose. “I to whom you gave permission. Do you recant? Or may I resume?”

The creature’s tone was indignant enough to pull a sheepish grimace over Ethel’s face. A grimace, followed by a frown. The mosquito’s needle-sharp proboscis was well entrenched in her skin. If she was destined to contract some ungodly disease from the thing, the die had already been cast. “Fine. You may resume. Just…be quick about it.”

The mosquito grunted acknowledgment and repositioned itself over the promised vein.

Ethel watched in disturbed fascination as the mosquito swelled, its abdomen growing taut with a ruby helping of her blood. Only a drop, as had been discussed, but even that small amount tripled the size of the tiny creature. When finished, the insect disengaged its needle and sat on Ethel’s wrist, wobbling gently in some sort of post-feeding inebriation.

“My thanks to you.” The mosquito thrummed its wings in what looked to be a gesture of assessment. “Your blood. It is good! Very much so! The best I’ve ever had! Syrupy tart with a fine mouthfeel and an earthy aftertaste! So much better than the squirrels!”

“I’m glad you approve,” Ethel huffed. “Now be off. I’m here to consult and bond with the spirit that I’ve conjured. I haven’t the time to waste with you.”

The mosquito rotated its head; left, right, and left again. “None here but myself, Goodblood. No soul here but mine.”

“But you’re not a forest spirit!”

“No?” The mosquito peered down into a sheen of excess blood that had spilled, apparently checking over its reflection.

“This can’t be right,” said Ethel, flummoxed and flipping through her book. “I did everything properly! Everything! It was all in perfect order! You’re not supposed to be here! You’re not supposed to be…that!” She skimmed every index in search of answers. Antidotes, fever charms, shoepebble hexes; nothing proved helpful. “There was always a chance to lock souls with a living creature. I knew that from the start. It makes for a lesser familiar but a familiar nonetheless. ‘Hope for a spirit but settle for a sparrow,’ as Gran always said. But surely it couldn’t be this! Surely it couldn’t be…you!”

“Would you mind slowing your page-turns?” asked the mosquito, stretching. “The movement is jarring.”

Ethel slammed the book down, pinching the bridge of her nose with her unoccupied hand. “I can’t believe this! A once-in-a-lifetime spell, requiring years of practice and my own set of milk-teeth. A flawless incantation, irreplaceable reagents! For what?!”

The mosquito clambered higher up Ethel’s arm where the hair was thicker. There it began to fashion itself a hammock of sorts with a crosshatch of arm hairs. “Ah,” it sighed, seating itself. “Isn’t this lovely?”

“I’ll be the laughingstock of the coven,” said Ethel, eyes distant and face pale. “I’ll never be able to live this down. Never! Even Penelope Pembroke with her fat, old pigeon will look on me with nothing but scorn and pity! It would have been better to have failed completely than to return with such a disgusting familiar!”

If the mosquito took offense, it did not let it show. It contentedly rocked itself in its makeshift hammock, saying nothing.

“Yes,” Ethel whispered, blinking darkly. “Yes, that would have been better. And it still can be. I could swat you. Right here and right now. I could tell them that the spell did fail. It would hardly be the first time it’s happened, and then I’d be met with sympathy and encouragement instead of mockery and jeers. A single swat could solve this.” She flexed and extended the fingers of her free hand as she contemplated doing just that.

The mosquito made no move to escape. “I am too bloodheavy to resist, if that should be your choice. It would be a swift enough end, provided your delivery is a firm one. A better end than most, I should think. But before you decide, perhaps consider what I may offer?”

“What could you possibly offer me?” she spat, turning her full, irate attention on the insect. “A familiar is meant to be a lifelong companion, sharing hidden knowledge and bolstering the magic of the one who summoned it. What benefit do you claim to have?”

The mosquito angled its head to look skyward. “I know nothing of bolstering magic and the knowledge that I have is hardly of the hidden sort. But it occurs to me that magic is not the only avenue to triumph. I can offer you a lifetime’s worth of wisdom.”

“A lifetime’s worth,” Ethel repeated, snorting at the thought that became more amusing with every passing second. “A lifetime? Now that is rich. A lifetime to you is nothing to me! How long does a mosquito even live? A month? Two? How could such a short life contain any wisdom?”

The mosquito jostled its wings in a fair mimic of a shrug. “A fleeting life is one less prone to waste on frivolous notions. My thoughts, while few, are considered. My wisdom, while brief, is wise.”

“Oh?” said Ethel, making no effort to hide her disdain. “Why don’t you give me some of those thoughts then? Give me some of your wisdom.”

“I can, for example, tell you how to obtain everything you desire. Absolutely everything.”

Ethel tilted her head, still skeptical and still disappointed but now also curious. “Really? Everything I desire? You, of all creatures, hold onto that particular secret?”

The mosquito nodded. “The trick lies in desiring less. Whittle your wants until they underlap that which you already have. Behold! All that you want is yours! Better than magic! Better than secrets! All that you wish can be yours if you but wish for less. There, you will find happiness. There, you will find contentment.”

Ethel chuckled in spite of herself. The chuckle evolved into a titter which bled into a full-throated laugh that frightened away nearby birds. “Yes. Oh yes. I’m definitely going to swat you. But you’ve proven amusing enough that I think I’ll spare you for a few minutes.”

The mosquito folded its front legs under itself in a gesture of nonchalance. “If that is your choice, Goodblood, then that is your choice. But decide quickly; soon that choice will be taken from you.”

Ethel squinted. “What do you mean?”

“You are correct about my lifespan. One month for most; two months for the lucky. My age? Three.” Ethel noticed the mosquito slumping into its hammock with a weight not fully accounted for by the burgeoning bloodmeal within it. “And there is very little more remaining.”

“Wait,” Ethel blinked. “You’re dying?”

The mosquito nodded; slowly, and with a visible tremor. “Well into the process.” With a spindly foreleg, it pointed to a nearby tree. “I had chosen a lovely branch from which to view my final sunset. Chapped bark, there, protecting from the wind and those who devour. It would have been a lovely place for my ebbing moments, with a glorious view of the day’s dwindle-splendor.” The foreleg came to rest; it was apparent that the motion was not strictly voluntary. “But now my senses dim, and I think that I shall not see even that.”

“Oh,” offered Ethel, unsure of what else to say. “I’m…sorry.”

“I am not,” said the mosquito. “Sunsets are glorious, and I would very much have liked to see one more. But glorious, too, is noontime. I am satisfied with my lot. I have more than I ever dared hope. I hadn’t intended to venture the comfort of a last meal, but then you quite literally came calling, delivering the finest blood I’ve ever tasted. And your arm is warm and inviting; a better perch by every measure.” The mosquito lost what little balance it had remaining, sliding from its hammock and making no effort to get back up.

“In the end,” the insect continued, its voice growing thready and cracked. “My wisdom is wise. My desires are outstripped by my advantages. Wants are exceeded by wonders. I count myself lucky.” The insect buzzed its wings once before settling into stillness. “My limbs weaken, Goodblood. My heart slows. I shall burden you no longer.”

The mosquito never spoke again. Ethel watched it closely, looking for movement. There was none. She blew gently on it, rustling its wings but eliciting no reaction. She went so far as to gently shake her arm. Nothing.

Her eyes, unbidden, blurred with tears. For the failed spell, of course. Certainly that. Certainly nothing to do with the mosquito. Tears would be wasted on such an ugly, parasitic thing. She hadn’t even known the creature for long; just a single conversation, really. There was no tragedy there. She reached a finger out to gently stroke the flimsy body. No tragedy at all.

The blurring deepened, obliging many blinks.

But was there, perhaps, some flavor of tragedy in how tragic it wasn’t? Was there a different sort of melancholy to the end of a life fully aware that it was unworthy of mourning? The mosquito’s attitude, fatalistic and accepting of disappointment, suddenly seemed so grimly adaptive to the circumstance of its existence.

“Are you alive, little thing?”

So little. So frail.

“Can you hear me?”

There might have been the faintest of movements in the creature’s head, but it might have been a trick of the light. Ethel was hardly an expert in the assessment of an insect’s signs of life. It could have been sleeping, paralyzed, comatose, or dead, and she would have had little way of telling the difference.

“Can you still see?”

So little. And it wanted so little. As far as dying wishes went, the mosquito certainly didn’t ask for much.

Ethel positioned herself as comfortably as the uneven forest floor would permit. She gently nudged the mosquito’s tiny body into an outfacing position on her arm. If it could still see, then it had a grand view of the goings-on of the glade.

Sitting perfectly still with the insect on her arm, Ethel took in her surroundings in what amounted to a bizarre wake. A pair of squirrels chased each other from one end of the glade to the other, whether in combat or courtship was not immediately apparent. A red stag ambled through an adjacent clearing, grazing in stately silence. It spooked and fled when it caught Ethel’s scent, but provided a magnificent sight until that time.

The squirrels returned to the glade, and one finally caught the other. Definitely courtship. Ethel held her free hand to temporarily block the mosquito’s view and averted her own eyes to afford the creatures some degree of privacy. Through it all thrummed the wild song of the forest, a serene combination of breeze, birdsong, and stone-tumbled water.

She sat with the mosquito’s motionless body for what seemed like hours, and then for what actually became hours. It didn’t move in that entire time; it was almost surely dead. But there was the slightest possibility that it wasn’t, and it was under that assumption that Ethel remained.

 It was a lovely sunset, likely the best that even Ethel had ever seen, with purples and oranges splashed over close-gathered clouds. Ethel made sure to angle her arm just right to give the mosquito the best view possible. In time, the sun dipped below the horizon, taking the colors with it.

Ethel exited the clearing, leaving behind everything but the book. The pestle and the pot, of course, might have been worth keeping, but she reasoned that they held more painful memories than their uses would have been worth. She left the pestle in the pot and the pot on the dead coals.

She left something else behind as well; a tiny grave, dug with a single finger and marked with a pretty pebble. She had even said a few words; only a few, but only a few were necessary. The shadows deepened into night as she made her way home under a dim and somber moon.

A subtle flash drew Ethel’s gaze skyward to that moon. Not so dim, now, and not as somber as all that. She blinked at the smiling crescent, wondering at its meaning when a sound from the forest behind her drew her attention.

A sphere of flickering light darted toward her, looping through the air and circling her twice before landing on her wrist. A concentrated squint into the orb revealed tiny details; spindly limbs, delicate wings, and a sharp proboscis. The light settled on her arm where it formed a familiar crosshatch among the hairs. A voice arose from the orb, woody and rustling, and now familiar.

“Hillo!” it said. “Hillo-hillo! It would seem that I continue! Lighter now, and brighter too! Just as I desire! Just as I wish!”

Fresh tears sparkled Ethel’s eyes, of a different sort than before. “You are well, then?”

“Very well indeed!”

“Good.” She wiped her face with a tremulous smile. “If you’ve no objections, then, I think I’ll introduce you to my coven.”

“You wish this?” said the orb. “I am not disgusting to you anymore?”

“Oh,” said Ethel, “I’d not go that far. But I’ve learned from a very wise source to whittle my wants. Now that I’ve underlapped my expectations, I find that I do indeed have all that I wish.”

The orb buzzed spectral wings in obvious elation. “My wisdom! Wise!” It pointed a spindly limb in the direction Ethel had been traveling. “To the coven then, Goodblood! To the coven! Whatever that is!” Ethel made her way home, glancing now and again at the tiny familiar spirit contentedly rocking itself in its hammock made of hair.