Summoner Rising

by Melanie Mcfarlane

  “I just miss her.”

  “I know you do,” she says. “But it is time you learn more about your family. You will be seventeen soon. In our family, one receives their full abilities at seventeen. It is dangerous for you not to learn before then.”

  I stand up and look out my bedroom window. Constantine is now at the front walk trimming the roses, and the ladder is gone. I can’t imagine what he would have thought had I jumped off the roof in front of him. I might have given him a heart attack at his age.

  “You said my mother ran from her destiny,” I say. “I know she ran away from home but never understood why. What happened to her mother?”

  “It was Diavol,” Katya whispers.

  The name gives me shivers as it rolls off my great-aunt’s tongue.

  “Who is he? A demon?”

  Katya nods.

  “Alina was pregnant with you when she accidentally let out Diavol, a very powerful demon whom she could not control. She tried to send him back, but he attacked her. Bianca stepped in to protect her. But Diavol was too strong, and he took her life.”

  “How did my mother get away?”

  “No idea. Your mother was already gone by the time I got there, but the evidence remained; Alina’s painting was ripped apart, and Bianca lay bleeding on the ground. With her last breath, Bianca spoke one word: ‘Diavol.’”

  A cool breeze moves through my window. Just the mention of the name seemed to fill the bushes below with shadows. I slam my window shut and pull down the blinds. I’ve never seen the shadows gather like that.

  “My mother felt responsible for her mother’s death,” I say with a pang of my own guilt.

  I recall my memories of my mother. In my early youth, I remember finding her sitting in the kitchen, sadly staring out the window, smoking a cigarette with a half-empty bottle of vodka next to her. Then in the next moment, she would be spinning me around the kitchen, laughing and dancing the afternoon away.

  When I got older, her drinking got worse. Sometimes I would get calls from the strip club she worked at to come pick her up in the morning before I went to school. She’d be slurring her words, and I’d have to carry her to the car, then to her bed. When I’d get home from school, I’d find her back at the table with another bottle of vodka, quietly staring outside again and the cycle could repeat for days. Eventually, she started bringing men home after work and at first that was embarrassing, but it became a relief not to have to see her intoxicated.

  “I had a private investigator follow her as much as I could,” Katya explained. “But they were always one step behind. It was as if Alina could tell when someone was coming after her, and she would take you and disappear into the night. It would take me months to locate you both again.”

  I smile at my mother’s powers of evasion. I always thought she was simply flighty. She was an excellent runaway.

  “Her drinking got worse over the years—as well as her dignity,” Katya says sadly. “I wish I could have stepped in and saved you, but I had to stick to the oath.”

  “I didn’t need saving,” I say. “We had each other. Wait—what oath?”

  “The family oath,” Katya says. “We do not separate mothers from children—ever. No matter how dangerous the situation can be. Not even the Senate can, and they’re in charge of upholding the laws of summoning.”

  “It wasn’t dangerous,” I mumble.

  “I beg to differ,” she says. “Look how it played out in the end.”

  The familiar sense of anxiety comes back to me. Whenever I think of my mother, the last night we had together always floods my thoughts. Two men hidden in the shadows. Me hidden under my mother’s bed. But there wasn’t enough time for her to hide. So she attacked them.

  “Why didn’t the Senate come after her? Not to separate us, but to question her?”

  “Their power doesn’t extend outside of Romania.”

  “So no one polices summoners in the other parts of the world?”

  “There are other boards of authority—but no, we don’t pay much mind to them. They aren’t established like the Senate.”

  I don’t want to talk about this anymore, but I want to know more about Diavol. I shake my head, trying to clear it of my memories and continue. “Did they catch Diavol after he killed my grandmother?” The word feels weird on my tongue. My mother never spoke of my grandmother—not once.

  “Diavol disappeared,” my great-aunt explains. “He is a terrible dark demon; one of the worst of all the supernatural. They do not pay much attention to the things of humankind. They usually stay low and feed off the power of others, stirring up lower demons and such to cause chaos in the world.”

  I think of the painting in Katya’s studio. When I stared at the painting, the fire in the tree became alive. It tried to reach out to me. Was it real?

  “Is that him in your painting?” I shudder.

  “No, that is an Ifrit,” she explains, “a simple fire demon. Diavol is still out there, somewhere.”

  “So I have to summon things like him?” A shiver runs down my spine. I can’t fathom letting through evil demons, let alone being responsible for them.

  “You have the ability to bring demons into this world,” she says. “They are drawn to you because you are a gateway, but you also have an obligation to police them. That is if they get out of hand, you know, break the rules, that sort of thing.”

  “So we are like the demon police?” I ask. This is much weirder than I thought it could be.

  “No,” she says. “We are just responsible for the demons we let through. If one gets out of hand, then we have to deal with it. In our family, we send them back through our paintings.”

  “Why would we let any through in the first place?” I ask, thinking about the tiny creature at the arcade with dread. “Aren’t demons just naturally bad?”

  “We are responsible for keeping the balance,” she says. “Without darkness, there cannot be light. Without evil, there cannot be good. This is our role.”

  “Why send them back then?” I ask. I can’t believe I’m actually entertaining this idea. “Why not kill them?”

  “Daciana!” Katya exclaims. “We are not killers—we are summoners. Do not forget that. To hunt demons is a punishable crime. It will do more harm than you could understand.”

  “What happens if we lose one?” I ask.

  “Then we must do everything to find it,” she says. “We are responsible for everything it does. The Summoner Guild back in Romania makes us accountable for all of our actions. If a demon we let through kills, and we do not attempt to retrieve it, then we can be held responsible for its crimes.”

  Now I’m worried about that tiny creature. Could something so small cause much trouble? “What if I refuse?”

  “You may have already started seeing them reach out to you. They are like tiny streaks at first. Once you turn seventeen, you will see them in their true forms everywhere you go. You can ignore them, but they will just pester you until you listen.”

  I cross my arms. So I have no choice but to let them through. The rest of my life has already been predetermined. The severity of it all falls heavy on my shoulders.

  “Would you like to come back to the studio now?”

  I desperately want to say no, but my curiosity is too strong. “Yes.”

  I leave the safety of my bedroom and follow Katya to the studio. Inside, everything looks normal, as it always has before. Paintings hang on the walls and easels throughout the studio. Most are covered. But the few that aren’t, I’m able to look at, though careful not to linger too long for fear of releasing something terrible. The scenes seem so peaceful and innocent, but now I know each one is a portal to a horrendous place filled with evil and darkness.

  “How does the summoning work?” I ask.

  “You bring them through paintings,” she explains. “Then, if need be, you paint them back into a painting to send them back.”

  “Is th
ere one you can show me?” I ask. “Maybe one that’s nice.”

  “None are inherently nice,” she says. “Do not forget that, Daciana. All demons have the underlying sense to be evil. Some are just more so than others.”

  “And if they do something terrible, then it’s on our conscience?” I ask, thinking of the imp that had disappeared into town.

  “Sadly, yes,” Katya agrees. “You will learn to live with that as well. Guilt subsides over time. It will make you a sharper summoner, to the point where you can almost predict their actions. The best of us can even manipulate them to use their powers.”

  “Use their powers?” I repeat. “How do you mean?”

  “Take the Ifrit.” She points back to the painting of the tree. “There are many Ifrits in the world, some more powerful than others. I have known this one a long time and therefore have let him out and locked him away on a number of occasions. Over time I came to understand him and his need to … burn.” My great-aunt lifts her hands in a trance and fire appears in her palms. I gasp at the sight. As quickly as it appeared, she waves her hands, and the fire is gone. “We have an understanding now.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “I summoned his power,” she says.

  At that moment, I know it’s true. It’s all true. The family I never knew, our abilities, and the responsibility I have awaiting me on my seventeenth birthday. I can feel my newfound power, somewhere deep inside. I see it in the shadows that follow me, and I witnessed it through the imp I let out.

  My breath catches in my throat, and the room starts to feel too small. “It’s all a bit much,” I choke out.

  “I understand,” Katya explains. “There is still time. We’re finished talking about this today. We will introduce a little bit each day to prepare you for your birthday.”

  I nod and return to my room, staring out the window. I am exhausted from running around, from talking about my mother, and from the information overload. It’s a lot to take in. Is that why Mom ran away? Was it too much to bear to have this responsibility? Will I be able to handle it?

  Something moves in the street below. Tryan is walking away with his own shadow chasing after him.

  At school the next day, I’m determined to ignore everyone I’ve befriended. I’d rather be a nobody than be marked as the weird girl. Making my way through the hallways unnoticed, I almost manage isolation until Brennan sees me.

  “Hey, Dacie!” he calls out after lunch. “I’ve been looking for you all day. Did your aunt tell you I stopped by your place?”

  “She did,” I say, throwing my books in my locker and grabbing my art supplies. I turn and move past Brennan. Tryan is up ahead, waiting out front of Art while Chantal talks to him.

  “Wait up.” Brennan catches up and walks too close again. “So, the school dance is tonight.”

  I keep walking, trying to get within earshot of Tryan and Chantal. Brennan continues. “I was wondering if you wanted to go with me.”

  “What?” I stop on the other side of the door to Art.

  “I said, ‘will you go to the dance tonight with me’?” Brennan blushes.

  Chantal laughs overly loud at Tryan, and then looks over at Brennan and me. I stare at Tryan, and he looks back at me all nonchalant. I can feel my heart flop into my stomach.

  “Yeah, I guess,” I say to Brennan. “Only if we all go as a group. I don’t do dates.”

  “For sure,” Brennan says. “Awesome! I’ll pick you up at seven.” He walks past Tryan and Chantal, beaming. Chantal glares at me and turns toward Tryan. “So, uh, do you have a date to the dance tonight?” She looks over at me and smirks.

  “No.” Tryan frowns, then turns around, disappearing into Art.

  Chantal shrugs and chases after Brennan. Girls are stupid.

  I slip into class just as the bell rings and slide into my chair. I avoid eye contact with Tryan, but it feels like his eyes burn into the back of me all through class. Halfway through class, he passes by my desk, slipping a piece of paper onto it. I watch as he hands in his project and leaves early.

  I unfold the paper and find a sketch of me again. This time I’m staring out my bedroom window at a boy in the woods; the boy looks surprisingly like Tryan. Is he trying to tell me something? Between the trees behind him, something dark flits by, but I ignore it. I don’t get it—why does Tryan care? One second he doesn’t want me to kiss him, and in the next, he drawing pictures of me.

  I go back to working on my drawing. Katya’s discussion about the Ifrit was on my mind all night. I start drawing a campfire, working hard on making the wood detailed enough before I start working on the flames. I think back to the flames that Katya’s painting had. Hers were hues of yellows, oranges, and reds, but I’m just sketching with a pencil. I focus on the shapes, making some darker than others and erasing sections to show where the fire would burn brighter. I’m so focused on the drawing that I don’t hear the bell ring.

  I look up as people start gathering their things. An entire hour has gone by? How did that happen? A girl one row over waves her hands at me. “Whoa—your paper is smoking!” I look down, see black smoke rising from my sketch, and jump out of my chair. The girl screams. I grab my water bottle and dump it on the sketch. The smoke disappears, and the detailed lines and shading all begin to mesh into a mess of pulp and smudges.

  “Dacie!” My art teacher appears at my desk. “You can’t start fires in class!”

  “But I didn’t!”

  I look up from the mess on my desk to try to extend a visual plea, but I only see her eyes heavy with disappointment as they stare down at me from under scrunched up eyebrows. She isn’t about to understand and truthfully, I don’t know how to explain it.

  “Go to the principal’s office right now!”

  I scoop up my mess, as if hiding the evidence will make it go away. I dump it in the trash as I trudge out of class. As I head to the principal’s office, I ignore everything around me: flirting cheerleaders, jovial jocks; it all seems so trivial. I didn’t care about any of it before coming to Greystone High, but now that it’s not my choice to be carefree like the rest of them, it’s harder to block them out, happiness and all.

  But really, how could I have been so stupid? I don’t even know how I did it. I wasn’t thinking about summoning a demon—I was just drawing fire. I need to get a hold on this ability before something bad happens.

  Inside the office, the secretary motions for me to sit, and it’s not long before the principal comes out to get me. I’m sure my teacher called up the second I left.

  “Miss Cantar?” Principal Smyth motions me into her office. I grab the same seat I did when Katya brought me here for registration.

  “So how are you settling in?”

  Seriously. Is she going to skirt the issue? I prefer to get to the point. “I didn’t start that fire.” Well, it’s almost true.

  Principal Smyth raises an eyebrow. “How did it start then?”

  “I don’t know.” I say, playing with a string on the bottom of my shirt.

  She gets up from her desk and comes around to my side, sitting on the edge much closer to me than I’d like. “I understand things are hard with what you’ve gone through.”

  “It’s not that.” I look up at her and narrow my eyes. “Seriously. This wasn’t me. Check my bag. Check my pockets. Check my locker.” I stand up and dump my bag on her desk. It’s a little brazen, but I’m determined to get out of here. “It must have been something combusting, what with all that paint thinner and dirty rags that the teacher leaves around the classroom.”

  Principal Smyth returns to her side of the desk and gestures for me to clean up my things. Her face looks unimpressed, and my cheeks heat up a little as I grab my personal things.

  “I need to contact your aunt to come get you.”

  “Why?”

  “I think it would be best if you went home for the rest of the day. You seem a little agitated; I think some
quiet time is a good idea.”

  I slouch back in my chair. This sucks. Katya is going to be livid when she hears I was screwing around with demons. Smyth attempts to reach my great-aunt, but there’s no answer.

  “She doesn’t believe in cell phones.” I smirk. At least Katya’s off-the-grid lifestyle will serve me well for once.

  “You can wait in the counseling room while I try to reach her.”

  I’m ushered to the other side of the office, passing by the secretary again. She doesn’t bother to look up. I’m sure she has bigger problems than me.

  Inside the counseling room, I run my finger along the brochures. One side of the office is filled with college applications, and the other side has pamphlets on suicide, teen pregnancy, and addiction. Wow. What a combination.

  I grab one of the college applications. When I lived with Mom, this seemed like my only escape to a normal life. Go to college and live on campus, fleeing Mom and her destructive lifestyle. Now will this ever be a choice? Does a summoner get to choose a career?

  “Looking at your future?”

  I jump at the unfamiliar voice and spin around. A woman is standing there, leaning against the door to the counselor’s office. She’s dressed conservatively in a pencil skirt, and white blouse, and her long tight curls bounce from her head and frame her smooth dark brown skin. Suddenly, I feel underdressed.

  “Not really,” I say as I toss the brochure back on the rack and slump into a chair.

  “You’re new here, aren’t you?” she says, and I nod. “One sec.” She disappears into her office and then reappears with a file. “You’re Daciana, right?”

  “Dacie,” I say.

  “How do you like the town so far?”

  I shrug and try not to make eye contact. “It’s okay, I guess.”

  “I was going to find you yesterday,” she says. “But I thought it was better to give you some space.”

  “Why did you want to see me?”

  “I like to meet all the new students.” She smiles. “I’m Miss Nelson, the guidance counselor.”