by Ivy Asher
I pull the phone away from my ear and stare at the lit up screen until it blinks black. I set the phone on the table and then stare at the velvet pouch, indecision warring with what I’ve been raised to do in the event that this ever happened. I take a deep fortifying breath and reach for the bag.
Fuck my life...here goes nothing.
2
Voices echo in my mind as I run through every lecture I’ve sat through my entire life about what to do if the bones were to ever choose me. First, immediately seal them to you or risk them falling into the wrong hands and damaging our line of magic to infinity and beyond. Second, bind a familiar to help protect and stabilize any and all abilities that will show up over time. Third...shit, what was the third thing?
I tick off the numbers on my hand over and over as I will my mind to deliver the information I know it has stored somewhere inside of its tangled recesses. Third...add a bone to the pouch that represents me and my reign.
Relief fills me as I remember that step, and then I cringe as understanding sinks in. Yikes, where am I supposed to find a bone to do that? Does it have to be a human bone, or can I hit up my local fried chicken joint, eat a drumstick and call it a day? My stomach rumbles hungrily at the thought, but I dismiss it and focus on the last major task I need to tackle.
Fourth, take over the shop and guide anyone the magic chooses. Sounds simple enough, but I have a sinking feeling it will be anything but. There’s more to it all: inheritances, abilities that will just show up like unwelcome relatives, dealing with the Order, but these first four tasks are the big ones.
I groan like a five-year-old on the verge of an epic whinefest. It takes all the maturity I’ve mustered in my thirty years of life to not stomp my foot and start making claims about how life isn’t fair. I grudgingly pull the velvet pouch toward me from the center of the table and take a deep empowering breath. I untie the black thread at the top of the bag that keeps it cinched shut. Amber, black currant, and balsam rise up to greet me as I pull it open, and it feels like a balmy blanket of power was just thrown over my shoulders.
Small bones and bone chips from larger sources sit ominously at the base of the pouch, each one with a symbol or set of symbols carved into them. I don’t know what any of it means yet, but I will the moment I spill my blood on them and seal their magic, their history, to me. I reach out and trace a bone chip that has a diamond shape carved into it. There’s a slash through the rhombus and what looks to be bolts of lightning at each of the points.
I run my finger over every marking, hypnotized by the hum of power I feel in them already without any kind of forged connection. Goosebumps sprinkle up my arms, and a shiver crawls through my body. Shaking my head to clear my ominous thoughts, I bring the pouch of bones with me to the kitchen. I root through my utensil drawer until I wrap my palm around a steak knife.
I don’t waste any time pressing the blade to my hand and slicing a cut right along the heart line of my palm. I may not love that the bones chose me, but I’ve done enough fucking around. Tad and Aunt Hillen are right, it’s time to get down to business. Blood flows from the wound and pools in my palm. I position it over the opening of the deep purple velvet bag and slowly tilt my hand, my fairy pool of hemoglobin spilling over. I hold my breath as my essence drips down to coat the top of the bones, stamping them with all that I am and claiming them as mine—however reluctant that claim may be.
I watch, surprise striking through me, as the red spatters of my blood slowly disappear as though the bones are soaking it all up and claiming me right back. A thunderous crack rends the air. I’m yanked from where I’m standing in the kitchen, leaning against the counter, dripping ichor all over a bag of bones, and slammed up against the ceiling by a powerful, unseen force.
It knocks the air out of me, and I gasp and struggle to fill my lungs as a soul-freezing cold crashes through my body. My skin pebbles and simultaneously burns from the frigid assault. Frostbite feels like it kisses my every cell, and my lungs are entirely too empty to support the scream that I feel in my soul from the pain.
Voices explode all around, thousands of whispers swirling and zooming past me, making me disoriented. I can’t seem to latch on to anything they’re saying through the arctic agony. Black spots sneak into my vision, and if I didn’t know better, I’d think I was about to die, suffocating on nothing, frozen from the inside out.
My vision clicks off, and the images of my kitchen are replaced by faces. They flash by so quickly it’s hard to focus on any individual one, but after a few seconds, I start to notice similarities. High cheekbones, similar jawlines, uniquely colored eyes. They’re my family. The Osteomancers that came before me.
When finally my Grammy Ruby’s face flashes by, disappearing all too quickly, the images suddenly morph. Bones being shaken and splayed for reading after reading flicker in front of me. Everything else is dark except for the bones, their markings, and the talismans that help guide the readings. I feel as though knowledge and power are coaxed out of me with each flash of a reading. Suddenly I know what they mean. I know the right way to interpret each cast of the pouch’s contents. Abilities braid themselves into my soul, but the raw power of it all is so overwhelming that I can’t see clearly what the infusion of ability will allow me to do.
Gravity kicks in out of nowhere, and the next thing I know, I’m falling to the floor from the ceiling, a painful splat overtaking all of my senses. I lie there, stunned and silent until a desperate gasp rips through the quiet. I finally manage to pull a frigid breath into my chest, only to release a pain-filled groan as I exhale. My cheek is plastered to the laminate floor, and all I can think is that I need to sweep under my cupboards...oh, and what the fuck just happened to me?
I could be paranoid, but I’m pretty sure that my ancestors just bitch-slapped me for my ungrateful response to being selected.
Message received, ancestors, message fucking received.
I give myself another minute and then unpeel my pancaked body from the kitchen floor. I feel like I’ve aged a hundred years. And like a semi just hit me. Pretty sure that semi was hauling pepper spray that just so happened to leak all over every inch of me, because ouch. The stinging sensation thankfully starts to recede, and I pull myself up. Shakily, I lean against the counter for support as I try to regulate my breathing and convince my legs that they don’t have to act like we’re Bambi on ice.
I stare down at the bag of bones. The bone that has the slashed diamond with bolts of lightning at each corner is still sitting on the top of the pile, and words like obligation, honor, and gratitude float to the surface of my mind like I’m a Magic 8 Ball supplying the answer to a question that was just asked.
I cinch the pouch of bones shut and throw my head back to the heavens. “I get it, okay!”
I look down to the ground beneath my feet and repeat myself, because fuck knows some of them are surely down there too. When my legs feel less like jello, I stomp toward the front door, my reflection in the mirror hung above my entryway table catching me off guard. I pause mid-step, my mane of dark-chocolate and cinnamon-kissed curls definitely having seen better days. Oddly, my tawny-beige complexion has a glow to it that wasn’t there before, the golden undertones of my skin alight, vibrant, and making me look entirely too radiant for how crappy I feel. Toffee-colored eyes stare back at me, and they’re filled with shock, wonder, and doubt.
I stare at myself for a moment, trying to see a woman that is ever going to live up to the legacy that just dropped like an anvil on her head, but no matter how hard I search, I can’t find her.
The mirror doesn’t take on any magical properties, declaring me the fairest of them all or answering any of the questions swimming in my gaze, so I turn away, shakily grabbing my purse and keys from where I previously deposited them. I take one last look at the velvet pouch that now owns me and then open my door and step out.
I better find a familiar before these impatient bones, and all the ancestors attached to them, zap me again
.
“Fucking rude, if you ask me,” I grumble under my breath as I shut my door and lock it. Then I warily look around, hoping none of them actually heard that. The last thing I need is to get brained by something as I trudge down the stairs in search of a familiar like a good little Osteomancer is supposed to do.
I rub at my eyes with my palms and groan pitifully. I’m seriously going to suck at this so bad. Maybe the bones chose me purely for amusement. Maybe the ones who have gone before me were in need of a little pick-me-up, and it’s all about to happen at my expense.
A moth dive-bombs me, and I swat at it and squeal, ducking and tripping down the last couple of steps. Bastard bugs. Oh god, please don’t let my familiar be a moth—or worse, a ferret. I have a hard enough time finding decent guys without a pet that smells like piss following me around all the time.
“No goldfish!” I shout out like I’m beating my ancestors to the potential comedic punch.
A man gives a scared yelp, which makes me scream because I didn’t see him rounding the corner. I watch as the shrimp scampi I was looking forward to goes flying out of the bag clutched in the startled delivery driver’s hand. Its trajectory arcs up for a moment before it plummets to the ground, breaking open to spill its delicious contents all over the sidewalk. A piece of shrimp lands on the toe of my boot, and I look down and stare at the mess while the delivery guy groans and starts to rant at me.
I sigh, open my food delivery app, and tip him twenty bucks before walking away without a word. Yep, that about sums up my life. Now off to find a familiar that I hope like hell isn’t a shrimp or any other kind of crustacean.
“Where are you?” Tad asks me, judgment oozing from his tone as he answers my call.
“Where do you think I am? I’m at a shelter, working on step number two. The problem is that I can’t remember what I’m supposed to do after I find it,” I confess to my cousin as I walk slowly down the line of plexiglass-enclosed cages that are filled with various cats.
“Where’s your guide book?”
“At home. Can you please just get yours and tell me what the hell I’m supposed to be doing?” I plead, hoping my desperation will motivate him to be fast about it.
“Why is it at home?” Tad asks instead as I give an orange tabby that’s giving me the stink eye a wide berth.
“Well, after being magically tazed when I sealed the bones to me, I was kinda in a hurry and forgot it. Can you please just remind me what it says about familiars?” I beg, and I can practically feel the head shake Tad is doing on the other end of the line.
The distinct sound of him clomping up the stairs to his room has me releasing a relieved exhale. I knew I would be bad at this, but my level of suckage is surprising even me. I need to up my ginkgo biloba because I’m struggling to recall any of the things that have been hammered into me since practically birth. I forgot that I even owned a book that details what to do if this ever happens, that’s how bad I am at this.
I wait patiently as I hear Tad rustling around on the other end of the phone, and lean in closer to an adorable calico kitten that’s lapping up water from a stainless steel bowl. I smile and swallow down the awww that I’m just about to voice when the kitten looks up at me and immediately arcs its back and hisses. Every hair on the kitten fluffs out to stand on end, like each individual follicle is offended by my presence, and I quickly back away from the angry little furball.
Sheesh.
“Okay, I’m paraphrasing here,” Tad starts. “But it pretty much just says that you need one, it can be any living thing, and you’ll get all tingly when you find a good fit for you,” Tad tells me, and I can hear the flipping of pages as he scans his guide book for any more useful information. “Yep, that’s it aside from the incantation to bind a familiar.”
Words and their cadence pop into my mind unbidden, and I immediately recognize the very incantation he just mentioned. Weird. Maybe my brain is just rusty and not useless like I thought. Tad starts to read the first line of the binding.
“I know it, don’t keep going!” I shout, hurrying to cut him off before he completes the incantation and accidentally makes Small, Poofy, and Ragey my next familiar. He stops and I press a palm to my chest. That was close. I back further away from the still angry little kitten.
“Thank you, Tad. I’ll let you know if I find one.”
“Better hurry, it’s almost seven, and I’m sure pet stores and shelters will all be closing soon.”
Panic flares through me, and I hang up the phone before he can say anything else, and hurry on with the task at hand. I scan the rest of the cat cages hopefully and continue to make my way through the feline portion of the first shelter that popped up on google. Like some weird Peeping Tom, I peer into every cage, my eyes intense and my body expectant. I stare and I wait for the tingles that are supposed to come, but after my second round of creeping out the cats, nothing happens. I sigh tiredly and accept that finding my familiar at the first place I stopped was probably wishful thinking.
I leave the cat enclosure, defeat echoing in the tap of my steps against the polished concrete floor. I rummage through my purse for my keys and pull up on my phone a list of other shelters or pet stores I can try to get to before they close. A cacophony of frantic barking pulls my attention away from the maps app I just opened. I look up and see rows of kennels with a myriad of different-sized dogs in each chain-link pen.
Crap, I must have gone out the wrong door.
I turn to retrace my steps through the cattery and back to the door that lets me leave, but the handle on the door I just came out of doesn’t budge. After trying it a few more times, I curse my luck. It’s locked. I scan my surroundings, looking for another exit, and wince at the high-pitched desperate barks of the animals all around me.
Pulling my shirt up over my nose in hopes it will block out the smell of wet dog and anxiety that’s permeating this place, I start to make my way down the line of kennels in search of a way out of here.
Dogs yap and yowl at me as I pass, and I pick up my pace, the smell and noise becoming more and more overwhelming. A set of double doors that look like they lead to salvation come into view just as I pass a particularly loud kennel. Tingles erupt all throughout my body. I feel like I just stuck my finger in a light socket. I’d bet if I saw my reflection right now, my curls would be standing on end from the electric charge humming through me.
Dammit.
I squeeze my eyes closed, rub at my tingling arms, and throw my head back. “A dog?” I demand. I mean, of course it’s a dog. They’re needy and stinky and super demanding of things like time and affection. I needed something more independent and loner-ish. Something that wouldn’t judge me for not knowing how to take care of it. I was willing to settle for a cat, but really I need a hedgehog or a snake, definitely not some pesky pooch. My apartment doesn’t even allow dogs.
I remind myself that it could be a ferret and try to rein in my irritation. The tingling sensation working through my body gets stronger, and I shake my head in denial and exasperation as I open my eyes. Tad said that the tingles would happen if I’m compatible with a familiar, not that I had to take one just because I went all static cling over an animal. I take a deep breath at that thought and try to get a better look at what I’m dealing with. I peek hesitantly into the kennel I’m standing in front of, which is when a fucking dire wolf straight out of the pages of an epic fantasy novel chooses to attack from the dark corner of its kennel. The door to its cage rattles ominously as it snarls at me and looks me dead in the eye with a clear message of I will rip you to shreds and devour you piece by motherfucking piece, bitch.
It charges the cage again, and I stumble back in fear and slam into another kennel behind me. No fucking way am I taking that monster home. The bones can’t be serious.
“Ha ha, ancestors, you’ve had your fun!” I shout, completely unnerved.
The declaration comes echoing back to me, mockingly, as it bounces off the cement walls of the large ro
om and dances all around me like some playground taunt. I scan my surroundings to make sure no one else is in here witnessing my crazy as it unfurls like a flag in the wind. And that’s when I hear a snort coming from the kennel I’m currently pressed up against in my efforts to get as far away as I can from the demon dog across from me. Snarls ricochet off my back as I turn to see what’s responsible for the disgruntled pig noises.
My eyes widen with surprise when I find a pair of moon-dust gray eyes looking up at me. It’s a dog, but not a breed I’ve ever seen before. He looks like some kind of pug, bulldog, collie mix with his long hair, perky battish ears, and squished face. His soot-gray coat sticks out all over the place and looks how I just felt, all charged and staticky. He lies there, his moonlight-toned eyes staring at me like he can’t be bothered to bark or get excited.
The prickling I was feeling before gets even more intense, once again lapping through my body and making me feel charged and fuzzy. I’m both relieved and anxious at the same time. Yay for the Game of Thrones beast not being the one to set off my spidey senses, but it’s still a dog that’s giving me the familiar feels.
A clang sounds around me, and I jump, startled by the loud noise. I spin around, hoping that wasn’t just the sound of the rabid fucker’s lock breaking on its door behind me.
“What are you doing back here?” a shrill voice demands, and a reedy woman stomps her way over to me.
I throw my hands up like I’m under arrest and take a step back. “I was in the cat area and went through a door that led me here. I tried to get back, but I was locked in here,” I explain defensively.
She shakes her head. “Sorry about that. I thought we got that door fixed. If you’re looking for a dog, these are not the ones you want. They’re all unadoptable. Follow me, I’ll show you where the available dogs are.” She moves to walk away, and I hesitate to follow her.