'Manifest your wish in one month with visualization' - '15 spells to find success and love' - 'Burn these 5 herbs to increase your magic power -- you'll never believe #4!'
Isabelle scrolled down the list of articles, each one more dubious than the last. It was a silly idea, really-- that somehow her problems could be solved magically, with no real work on her part. Still, a small part of her held onto that hope. Maybe it was the part of her that was tired of being jobless, 30, and single.
She rolled over on her mattress, picked a mug of tea off the floor, and took a sip. Puckering her face, she spit it out immediately-- it must have been more than a week old, and carried the acrid taste of alcohol. The dangers of never cleaning up; her mug of fresh tea was confused among the mess of old cups and dishes on the floor.
Sighing, Isabelle got up to make herself a fresh cup. She stumbled through the mess in her dimly lit studio to the counter where her electric kettle sat. As the electricity buzzed and the water began to percolate, she went back to her research on her phone.
One of the google results caught her eye-- 'Haute Magie, Levi - Faerie Summoning Translation' She clicked it out of curiosity, and found herself on a simple webpage without any styling or advertisements. It seemed like a translation directly from a book. Paragraphs in French were alternated with English, annotated with a few translators notes.
"...herb elelisphakos -- closest modern plant is sage. Cultivars may vary from time of writing..."
It was dry, dense, and didn't have any cute quizzes or advertisements for astrology apps attached to it. Still, the instructions were there. Isabelle felt curiosity pulling at her.
The ingredients called for were fairly simple. Other than the sage, she simply needed dry twigs, a candle, and ink. Abandoning her tea kettle, Isabelle began rummaging through her cabinets. There was some sage in the back, a dusty old spice jar that she must have gotten when she had made a new years resolution to cook for herself. She grabbed a candle from the edge of her bathtub-- hopefully the lavender hibiscus scent didn't interfere with the ritual-- and she broke some twigs off of a neglected ficus that she had left to die in the corner of her room.
She hunched down on the floor, and began to pen the diagram in the article onto graph paper. It was difficult-- there were symbols used that she had never seen before, and even though none of her forays into pop-magic had ever yielded concrete results, she double checked her work to make sure every mark was correct. Eventually, she had copied down the diagram specified. She lit her candle, and dropped some of her sage into the flame to burn. Then she held her twigs in the candle's flame until they caught.
Isabelle waved the burning twigs through the air, holding her phone in her other hand, and incanted the words that the article specified. Originally in French, and some Latin, the author of the article had helpfully written out phonetic spellings. Still, she stumbled through it, shutting her eyes in concentration. When she spoke the last word, she hesitated to open her eyes, hoping to delay the disappointment of reality.
She was jolted to attention by her smoke detector.
"Fuck-- I'm such an idiot!"
She leapt up to wave a magazine and disperse the smoke. The alarm went quiet, but the room still seemed thick and smokey-- although it smelled more like a field of flowers than a campfire. Isabelle saw to her disbelief that fog was billowing in sheets out of her candle, creating a cloud on the floor of her apartment.
A high pitched, ethereal voice emanated from the cloud: "Ce n'est pas une facon de parler de toi!"
Isabelle couldn't believe her eyes. A nude figure straightened up off of her floor, rising from where she had performed her ritual. It looked like a woman-- slender, with skin tinged blue. She straightened up to stand like a dancer, stretching her newly corporeal muscles gently over her lithe frame. She looked at Isabelle intensely, smiling gently, with twinkling opal eyes.
Isabelle stood dumbly, mouth agape. The woman was so beautiful but otherworldly. Her limbs and digits were uncannily long, her eyes large and widely set. Her pearlescent hair seemed to float like spiderwebs instead of falling to rest.
"Je m'appelle Eleanora, mais tu peux m'appeler Ella. Que puis-je faire pour toi?"
"Eh-- excuse me?" Isabelle stammered
"Oh, you speak English? But you summoned me in French, did you not? Am I at the right place?" The woman looked around worriedly. Her self-conscious expression seemed extremely out of place on her elegant features.
"Yes! wait-- I did summon you! I just-- it was a spell I found in French, and..." Isabelle trailed off. The absurdity of the situation was sinking in, as was the woman's nudity. Her small breasts were speckled with colorful freckles. Further down, gossamer hairs shimmered between her legs. There was a gap between her curving thighs, and--- Isabelle tried to just keep her eyes looking up at the woman's face. Her heart fluttered.
"Oh! That's wonderful, I was worried I made a mistake again. I'm Eleanora, faerie of the minor circle, at your service! You can call me Ella. I'm here to grant your wishes!" Ella curtseyed as best anyone could while nude.
"Really?? You'll grant my wishes" Isabelle worried she might be dreaming, but she couldn't deny her senses. This was beyond anything she had hoped for.
"Yes, whatever you want, I'll do everything in my power to make it happen!"
"Wait, um, do I get a number of wishes? Or just one?"
"Well, I'm not all-powerful... Why don't you begin with your desires, and I'll see what I can do?"
"Okay, okay, right, definitely..." Isabelle's mind was suddenly going blank now that she had this chance. Her eyes kept lingering over Ella's body. She began to babble.
"Well, I'd like to not be single anymore--" Of course that was the first place her mind went. She could think a little bigger.
"--And I'd like to be successful in life. With a job that I'm good at, where people respect me. I want to be confident. I want to be in control of my life, and I want to be beautiful, and, um, I think that's it. Um, I want to be rich too. Please." She blushed furiously.
_God, this faerie is going to this I'm a moron..._
"Very well! I swear on my name, Eleanora, that I will make your wish come true!" Ella gestured enthusiastically, a hand on her hip and the other outstretched dramatically at Isabelle.
Nothing happened.
"Um, I don't feel any different..."
"Of course not. I can't just snap my fingers and grant wishes! I'm not a faerie of the major circle, or a genie, or a demigod... but that doesn't mean I can't make your wishes come true!"
"Sorry, I don't want to be rude... but how are you going to do it then?"
"I'll help you with my own two hands, of course! I'm knowledgeable, and hardworking, and I'll do anything it takes to get the job done. Now, to review your wish: you want to be loved, successful, respected, confident, in control of your life, beautiful, and rich."
"Yes..." Isabelle shifted uncomfortably, embarrassed to hear her aspirations repeated so frankly.
"Let's begin with the easy ones. Getting rich will be trivial-- you'd be surprised how little magical warding most vaults have. Making you beautiful is hardly a task at all-- you're already gorgeous. But do you mean you want to feel beautiful? Or perhaps, to be the epitome of beauty, above all others?"
