Fairy Summoning 101

For Suichi

Cecil was not happy. Granted, teenagers are not known for being at peace with the world, but Cecil had his own particular reasons for being unhappy. His last close friend, Baxter, had just moved away. For a while he and the other nerds at school had had a sort of enclave, and found strength in numbers. Now he was alone, and exposed to the brunt of the anti-nerd sentiment in the school.

Case in point: Cliff.

Cecil's path home was blocked by a wall of muscle that was mostly devoid of hair.

"Well, well, well! If it isn't nerdy little Cecil!"

Cecil carefully took off his glasses and put them into his shirt pocket. "Come on. Do we have to do this? I mean, do you like reenacting an overdone 80s cliché week after week? Surely you can come up with something more original to do, even within the realm of-" Cliff's fist went into Cecil's gut, and knocked the air out of him.

"Stop sayin' stuff! Give me your lunch money!"

"It's after school!" Cecil wheezed. "I spent it on lunch! That's what people do with lunch money!"

"So no money? You know what that means!"

There really was no point in trying to reason with the bully. Cecil entertained the notion that his skull was unusually thick, an evolutionary adaptation that would prevent things like logic and ethics from deterring him from his chosen course of action.

When Cecil got home he waddled upstairs to his room and carefully undid the effects of Cliff's patented Super Atomic Wedgie. It doesn't feel like a cliché when it's happening to you, much less to the more sensitive parts of your anatomy.

Once that was done, he gingerly sat down by his computer and checked his e-mail. There had been a comment on his blog, but it turned out to be spam and he promptly deleted it. His Dragon Oracle RPG books were sitting on the computer desk. "So much for these," he muttered. With Baxter gone, it would be impossible to find people to play with. As much as they had loved the game, hardly anyone else even knew about it, so even if he could find people who did RPGs, chances were they wouldn't be down for playing it.

He pulled his character sheet out of the Player's Guide. Maxim Ambershroud was a level 12 draconic warlock. Cecil had been playing Maxim from the very beginning, when Baxter had asked him if he'd like to play in middle school. Now there was no Game Master, no world for Maxim to inhabit. That was about how Cecil felt. He'd been just about ready for Maxim to get his Greater Familiar, but of course they'd had to stop playing. He'd been so looking forward to seeing what his character could do with a pet wyvern or something.

Cecil picked up his lucky 20-sided die, the speckled blue one, and held it up so the light shone through it. If he was all that was left of the group, he could do whatever he wanted. Baxter had started off playing by himself, after all.

He set the die down, and flipped through the Adventurer's Guide until he found the Summon Greater Familiar spell's description. Maxim had already amassed all of the necessary components, but of course the game had stopped when Baxter moved away.

Cecil imagined himself as Maxim, in his magical laboratory in the city of Asalon, surrounded by his accumulated tomes and a great many jars of spell components. His staff, a Staff of the Magus +3, leaned against the wall. He would want its power to ensure that this went smoothly.

"Verily," said Cecil/Maxim as he spread his arms, "today I shall summon a familiar, a grand familiar who shall serve me well." He stared at the floor for a moment, then added, "Huzzah!"

*

Meanwhile, in another world, Melanie was also having a bad day, for reasons that were similar to Cecil's but altogether more urgent. She was a pixie, and exactly the kind of pixie that helps give the fey such a bad reputation among humans. But, honestly, if the royal family hadn't wanted those delicious cakes to be eaten, they shouldn't have left them out where just anyone with exceptional stealth skills, intermediate fire magic, and the ability to fly could take them.

The palace guards were immune to her excuses, however, and flew after her. A couple of times a spear poked at her foot, but she stayed ahead of them despite glancing back to stick her tongue out at them every now and then.

She'd been fleeing as fast as her little gossamer wings would carry her, when she ran into a spider web. If it had been the web of a normal spider, she would have ploughed right through and kept on going, a little stickier but otherwise unimpeded. Instead, she found the web snapping back and forth, holding her in place.

"Wrong!" she cried, and summoned fireballs as big as her own head to pelt the web. They did nothing but throw up smoke, which made the Infernal Crawler that much more intimidating as he lowered himself into view, laughing.

Infernal Crawlers are natural predators of pixies and other small fey, and while they aren't a catastrophic threat to larger creatures, no one goes near them on purpose. A Infernal Crawler measures some 18 to 24 inches, colored blood red, and covered in wicked spines (which do serve a useful evolutionary function, but are sometimes inconvenient).

One of the guards dropped his spear.

"What do we do, captain?" asked one.

"The king wanted her brought back alive," another said weakly.

"I suggest you run," said the spider, "as fast as you can!" He cackled as he watched them disappear into the forest.

"You guys suck!" called Melanie.

"No," the spider purred, "I suck."

"Eew."

"Not like that." The spider so seemed to want to be able to roll its eyes just then.

"So you're just going to eat me then?"

"Of course."

"But you can't do that! I'm too cute to eat!"

The spider made a sound of disgust. "Would it surprise you to learn that a spider has different standards of cuteness than you do?"

"If you don't think I'm cute, there's obviously something wrong with you."

"Now, dear Xakkrat'la, she was cute," said the spider fondly. "The way her spinneret curved just right…" He sighed, and his eight legs slumped a little. "But, that was a long time ago. She mated with the other guy."

"And ate him, right?"

"I know! And I've regretted it ever since!"

*

There are a number of reasons why the people who play tabletop role-playing games (like Cecil's beloved Dragon Oracle) tend to look down on the people who play live-action role-playing games. While this kind of criticism isn't exactly fair, it's largely based on YouTube videos of LARPers in handmade costumes playing their games and generally looking really spectacularly dorky.

Although Cecil had taken as much pleasure as the rest of his friends in mocking the people with wizard robes and boffer weapons, in his depressed state he wasn't especially concerned with how dorky he looked. He wanted to be Maxim Ambershroud, at least for a little while. For a pointy wizard hat, he wound up using something his mother bought at a craft fair, whose only flaws were having a googly-eyed plush dragon sewn to it, and being knitted from baby-blue yarn. For a cloak, he tied a blanket around his neck. For a staff, he used his dad's lucky golf club.

The summoning ritual was a bit harder. Not wanting to mess up the carpet, he flailed around the room a bit before finally tearing down an old Space Trek poster, and drew the circle from the Adventurer's Handbook as best he could. But for the rest, he had to improvise. He spent an hour or so researching summoning rituals on the internet, and picked out the bits that he thought seemed neat and Maxim-like. He wound up with a list of material components, which in turn wound up with a series of substitutions that were about as inspiring as his attempt at Maxim's outfit. He added a dead frog that reeked of formaldehyde, some potpourri-scented candles, a sprinkling of cinnamon, and so on to the magic circle, and then began to recite an incantation in Gaelic with a few lines of Latin thrown in for good measure.

The incantation went on for about six pages of inkjet printouts. He had to stop and take a drink of water halfway through, but after that he persisted, and concluded the final mysterious syllables with a dramatic shout.

One of the candles sort of sputtered at him. Cecil let out a heavy sigh, and took off the stupid-looking hat.

"Of course it wouldn't work," he muttered. "I know that."

*

It was getting late, and while Melanie was not enthusiastic about being eaten, she was starting to think she would prefer it to listening to the spider talk much longer. Xakkrat'la, a female infernal crawler, had turned out to be kind of a sore subject with him, and led to a lot of moping and self-recrimination, all while Melanie was stuck fast in the web.

"And she didn't even thank me for the will-o-wisp I brought her! Do you have any idea how hard it is to catch those things?"

Melanie groaned. "Why would you do that?"

"For love!" the spider said defensively.

"For stupid," she growled. "Grow a spine already!"

The spider clicked its mandibles. She didn't know what that particular tic meant and didn't really care, but it was starting to annoy her. "What does that even mean?! How would having a bunch of crunchy bones in my back help at all?"

If she could've moved her hand, her palm would've been pressed against her forehead. "You know what? Just shut the hell up and eat me already!"

"But-"

"Come on! I'm sick of your whining! Just promise me you'll be less pathetic on a full stomach!"

The spider turned away from her and clicked his mandibles again. "I've lost my appetite."

Melanie let out a scream of frustration, which startled the spider. "You caught me in the afternoon! It's getting dark! This is just… rude!"

He turned back, twitching his head up and down for a moment. "Fine! I will eat you! I'll gobble you right up!"

As his mandibles loomed closer, Melanie had a change of heart. The sight of two pincers bigger than your head looming towards you and dripping deadly paralytic poison can do that to a person. Melanie took a deep breath and let out a full-on scream of terror. The spider cackled menacingly, and although this all meant that she was most likely going to die, at least the atmosphere was going to be right.

That fate chose to intervene here is an example of the double-edged sword that is the life of those who inhabit worlds made of narrative and human thought rather than atoms and energy. Melanie found herself engulfed in a greenish-purple glow. She knew that this was some kind of magic (normal light can't really be green and purple at the same time, for one thing), but that did not in itself mean that something good would follow.

"What're you doing?!" she shrieked.

"I'm not doing anything!" cried the spider. "Come back here!"

*

For a long time after, Cecil would wonder if the universe had a sense of comedic timing, or if it was just messing with him, because a moment later there was a blast of light, sound, and smoke that threw him into the opposite wall.

His brain didn't quite want to work. His vision was full of purplish-green pinpricks. His head tried to float away, while his body was dead weight. He tried to move, but it wasn't really working. He tried to think, but that didn't seem to work either, so he decided the sensible thing would be to just stay put for a while.

The next thing he knew, something very small was poking at his cheek.

"Wake up!" said a voice. "I'm hungry."

"Wha?"

"No, food." said the voice, becoming condescending, "Foooood. You know what food is, right?"

Cecil risked opening his eyes. Right in front of him, too close to properly focus on, was a tiny female figure. Bright green eyes blinked at him. Gossamer wings slowly flapped, fanning his face. Cecil jumped. Two things happened at once. First, he rammed the back of his head into the bookshelf. Second, the newcomer, being so tiny, was hurled across the room.

Cecil struggled to pick himself up, and rubbed the back of his head. When he looked around the room, everything seemed normal. Well, except for the ridiculous magic circle and the haze of purple smoke. But… had he been imagining the voice? Nothing else seemed out of place.

"Yeah, of course magic isn't real. That's dumb. I just managed to mix the wrong chemicals. In a big way." He walked over to the bed, and sat down. What chemicals had he used?

There was a yelp that startled Cecil enough to make him fall over sideways. He heard an insect flying/clacking noise, and something pressed against his forehead, while its wings blew air against his face.

"I don't know who you are," said the female voice, "but you're not very smart."

Cecil backed away, pressing his palms against the bed and pushing with his feet. "Who are you?!" he squeaked. "What are you?"

"See?"

He was looking at something about six inches tall. She looked like a young woman, with vivid red hair in a ponytail and bright green eyes. She was wearing some kind of simple dress made out of leaves. And she had buzzing gossamer wings.

"You're… a fairy?" Cecil looked at the circle. Had it worked? Had he actually summoned a familiar? That would mean that magic was real. And fairies, and who knew what else. And if so, the ritual described in the Dragon Oracle book worked, and he'd somehow pulled it off. His mind started to spin off into a million different directions.

When he looked back, the fairy was gone. He frantically looked around the room, but there was no sign of her. There was also the possibility that he was going insane and imagining the whole thing. Which meant it was only a matter of time before he'd be going on a one-way trip to the steam tunnels. (Were there any steam tunnels around here? What is a steam tunnel anyway?) And collecting urine in jars.

He picked himself up and tried to think. Whatever had happened, he still had to clean up before his parents found out. They tended to be rather easy-going, but there were limits, and the mess he'd just made was well past them.

Cecil opened a window to let the purple smoke out, and headed downstairs.

His mother had set out a tray of brownies to cool. When his mother baked, all was right with the world. It was when his father started baking that there was cause for concern, even if he did make really good chocolate chip cookies. The problem was that about half of the brownies were gone, and the fairy, her face smeared with chocolate, was working on the other half. Never mind that she'd already consumed at least four times her own body weight. The budding physicist in Cecil bristled at this violation of the laws of thermodynamics. But, if she was a fairy, her body could be magical or something.

"Um, excuse me?" he managed.

She paused, and looked up at him. "You're excused. You can go away now." Back to eating.

"Stop eating the brownies! Those are supposed to be for everyone!"

She gave him a quizzical look. "Brownies? Why would I eat brownies? That'd be cannibalism. Sort of. You're kinda' messed up, huh?"

He pointed at what little remained of the chocolatey goodness. "These! They're called brownies!"

"Why would you call tasty mud squares brownies?"

"Because that's what they're called!"

"You really are dumb," she said, like a child talking down to another child. "Lots of things are brown, but these are tasty and sweet even though they look like square mud."

"Just, stop eating them!"

Another one disappeared into her mouth. "No way! They're tasty!"

"They're supposed to be for everyone!" he repeated.

"Well, I'm part of everyone. That means they're for me."

"Who are you anyway?!"

"I'm Melanie." She said her name slowly.

At least she had a name. "Okay. I'm Cecil."

"Okay." Another brownie disappeared.

Just then, he heard a car pulling up outside. That'd be his mom, home with groceries.

"Melanie," he said carefully. "My mom is home. I need you to hide somewhere."

"What for?"

Reasoning with her clearly wasn't the way to go, so he grabbed her, taking care not to damage her wings or touch her anywhere unseemly, and dashed upstairs. She let out a storm of protests, and squirmed in his hand, but she didn't get free until he was in his room and a sudden static jolt-or maybe a miniature lightning bolt-struck his hand.

"Melanie, I don't know about where you came from, but around here there isn't any such thing as fairies-!"

"Yes there is! Right here in front of you!"

"And you need to keep out of sight to stay safe!"

She zipped up to the window and looked outside. The suburban landscape gave her pause, as it was unimaginably different from anything she'd seen before. Cecil seized the opportunity to grab her again. He held on tight and covered her mouth with his index finger. He could hear jingling keys-his mom's key ring was rather prolific-and then the door opening.

Cecil opened his desk drawer, looking for something he could use. He shoved an eraser into Melanie's mouth, then wrapped her in scotch tape over and over until her limbs were pinned in place. She stared the most hateful daggers she could manage at him.

"Cecil!" called his mom. "Can you help me with the groceries?"

He nervously sucked in air through his teeth, then stuck Melanie in the drawer and closed it. "Coming, mom!"

*

Cliff didn't really have any friends. He longed to at least have some underlings to hang out with, but the closest he got was to occasionally be an underling for the quarterback of the high school football team.

He was doing what he usually did when he ran out of wussy kids to pick on, which was to torment animals instead. He'd thrown rocks at squirrels, stepped on plenty of ants, and almost kicked a pigeon when he saw a massive spider fall from the sky. When he'd been a younger, less experienced bully, he'd gotten a lot of use out of spiders, so he'd always had a certain fondness for them. But this spider was the size of a cat, and looked generally really evil. It was like a spider from a heavy metal album cover.

When Cliff got close, he heard a voice.

"Well, well, well. A human, and quite a specimen."

Cliff spun around. "Who said that?"

The spider laughed. "Come closer and find out, if you dare!"

"I ain't afraid of nothing!" he shouted, not very convincingly. "And spiders can't talk!"

The spider sort of tilted its head. He was really wishing he could roll its eyes just then, though rolling eight eyes might get kind of complicated. "Oh, really? And you're some sort of expert on spiders then?"

Cliff was not a fan of this kind of question, which is to say a question that made him look dumb. He followed his usual methodology for answering such questions, which led him to try to kick the spider. It scuttled out of the way of his foot and laughed at him.

"Hey! Shut up and come back here!"

"I don't think you understand the situation you're in," mused the spider. "There are humans who could hold their own against an infernal crawler like myself, but you, my friend, are not such a human."

Cliff picked up a stick and snapped off an inconvenient twig, the better to whack the spider with. If he tried to talk to it, it would just keep on saying things, so he was better off just playing whack-a-spider.

"Oh, no!" cried the spider in mock terror, "A stick! What will I ever do! Oh, wait! I know!" The spider jumped two feet in the air, grabbed onto his knee, and started to crawl around his body. Cliff let out a shriek and flailed around, trying to get the sarcastic arachnid off of him any way he could. Then something stuck into the back of his neck, and he became silent and still.

"There, now," said the spider. "Isn't that better?"

If Cliff could've spoken at that moment, he would have made it clear in no uncertain terms that being paralyzed and mute was not, in fact, an improvement. The spider jabbed at something, and Cliff's right leg jerked forward. Then the left, then the right again. Before long, he was walking.

"This world has so little magic, but there's a delicious pixie somewhere close, and you're going to help me catch her!"

*

When Cecil got back to his room he was surprised to find Melanie where he'd left her, though not for lack of trying to escape. The inside of his drawer was a mess from her squirming around. He carefully picked her up and set her down on top of the desk. She glared death and fire at him as he plopped into his chair.

He knew he should untape and ungag her, but she seemed unlikely to listen to him, so he decided to lay down the law first.

"Okay, I'm going to free you in a minute, but first I need to explain a couple of things to you."

"Mrrn," she growled.

"You're a sprite-"

She made what sounded like an attempt at a correction.

"I don't know where you're from, but in this world there's no magic, no fairies, nothing like that, at least not that people know about. That means that if people find out that I have a six-inch-tall woman in my room they'll want to capture you and cut you apart to find out how you work."

Melanie looked incredulous.

"I'm serious! Anyway, that's why I need you to be inconspicuous. It's the only way to keep you safe."

She rolled her eyes and squirmed.

Cecil sighed, and carefully took the eraser out of her mouth. She frantically spat out as much of the eraser taste as she could manage, and then started yelling. "You're a big suck-head! I hate you! I want more food! Aaaah!"

He ignored her protests and started to take the tape off of her. There wasn't too much sticky residue on her. Once she was free, she flitted into the air and hovered in the middle of the room.

"Never do that again!"

Cecil rubbed his head. Somehow, he suspected he would in fact be doing it again, and he wasn't sure whether or not he liked the idea.

That Cecil was shocked by what happened next shows that magic takes a little getting used to. Melanie glowed and suddenly went from 1:12 scale to 1:1 scale. A wingless, full-size redhead stood over him with an expression that was glare and pout in equal measure.

He was still taking in this sight-including but not limited to her ample… bosoms? Was that the word?-when she slapped him right out of his chair.

Cecil, his cheek smarting like crazy, struggled to get to his feet. When he stood up he was taller than her, if not by a great margin.

"Oh! Hello there!"

Melanie turned to glare at Cecil's mother, but her rage vanished at the sight of a tray with two glasses of milk and a pile of lemon bars.

Cecil's mom carefully set the tray down on his desk and faced them with a typically serene smile. "I'm Martha, Cecil's mother. You must be his girlfriend then?"

Cecil held up his hands. "It's not like that…"

"I'm Melanie," Melanie said around a couple of lemon bars. "He summoned me."

His mother chuckled. "You're such a whiz with that computer, Cecil! I'll leave you two to get better acquainted."

When his mother was gone and the door was closed, Cecil risked a glance back at Melanie. Half of the lemon bars were already gone. A thought struck him. "Melanie, we don't have sweets like this every day."

She gave him an incredulous look. "Why not? Do you people just not like things that taste good?"

That question was a trap of sorts, and he sidestepped it. "The important thing is, if you do what I say, you can have a lot more sweet stuff than if you don't."

She stared at him, then redoubled her efforts to empty the tray of lemon bars. He contemplated trying to get at least one-his mom's lemon bars were even tastier than her brownies-but he feared he'd lose a hand in the attempt.

*

The more the spider made Cliff walk, the better he got at it. By the time they'd gone two blocks, people seeing him (from the front at least) wouldn't have suspected he was being controlled like a puppet by an evil spider from another dimension.

The spider was sitting on the back of his neck and shoulders. It had been muttering to itself for a while, something about a girl spider, but it suddenly deigned to address him. "I'm sure you have many different questions to ask me. I'm going to open up your speech centers to let you talk, but don't think you can call for help."

Cliff cleared his throat. "What the hell are you?"

The spider laughed. "Funny you should ask me that! In the common tongue my kind are called infernal crawlers, and we are in fact descended from the great and terrible Armageddon Spiders of hell. But really, what you need to know is that I am an evil magical spider, and I could kill you in an instant if I so chose."

"What do you want?"

The spider sighed. "Such predictable questions. But, as you're a primitive human from a low-magic world, I'll humor you. Being an evil magical spider, I must feed on magical energy from living things. That's why you'd be barely a snack for me. But there is a pixie, a type of fairy you could hold in the palm of your hand, that contains twenty or thirty times more magic than you. I'm going to find her and eat her, and then use that magical power to return to my natural habitat."

Cliff tried to convert this crap into something he could understand, but it was difficult. The best he could come up with was that the spider bullied fairies because fairies were better victims than real people. "Dude, I'll help you with that."

The spider considered this. "Hmm... You think I'd need your help?"

Cliff furrowed his brows, and started to get a headache. "…I know how stuff works here," he offered.

He felt one of the spider's legs idly tap against his shoulder. "I suppose so. Let's start here. What can you tell me about this building?"

A grin slowly spread across Cliff's face. He couldn't believe his luck. "Oh, I know this place. This is Cecil's house."

"Go on."

"He's a wussy little nerd."

"A mage?" the spider asked thoughtfully.

"A what? He's a kid with glasses that I beat up all the time."

"Ah," said the spider. "Not a mage then. At least not the kind we need to worry about. How would you go about getting inside?"

Cliff frowned. That wasn't how he did things. "Uh…"

The spider scoffed, and jabbed into his neck again. His body jerked forward, and his hand knocked on the door. He would've shuffled uncomfortably if he could've, but his body stood perfectly still as the door opened.

Cecil's mom answered the door. "Oh, hello. What can I do for you today?"

Cliff was surprised and disgusted to find his mouth started working on its own. Having the spider move his legs around like a puppet had been annoying and kind of scary, but this was just gross. "Hello there. Is my dear friend Cecil home? I've come to play."

"Are you sure? He seems to be busy with his new girlfriend. Have you seen her? She's a very pretty redhead with lovely green eyes."

"Yes… Yes I have seen her, as a matter of fact." It sounded like the spider wanted to do an evil villain laugh, but was stopping himself. "They're expecting me."

*

Cecil watched Melanie as she reverted to her usual size and flopped onto his pillow. There wasn't a single lemon bar or even a drop of milk left.

"I hope you're satisfied," he muttered.

"Yup!" she said cheerfully. "Did that lady make those? You should have her make more."

Cecil sighed. "Maybe now you could tell me where you're from?"

"Ambershroud. It's a fairy kingdom."

He was considering the significance of the name when he heard his mother's voice calling from downstairs.

"Cecil! Your friend is here to play!"

Cecil jumped out of his seat. "Hide!" he hissed.

Melanie ignored him.

The door opened while Cecil was still reaching for her. It was, of all people, Cliff.

"Not you again!" cried Melanie.

Cecil looked at the bully and then at the pixie. "You know him?"

"Our acquaintance was brief," said an unfamiliar voice, "and we parted so suddenly I just had to find you again!"

Something crawled into view on Cliff's shoulder. Cecil let out a shriek. "A… an infernal crawler?!"

The spider flexed some of its legs in a way that other infernal crawlers would have recognized as quizzical. "Curious."

Melanie jumped into the air, looking almost as pissed off as when Cecil had bound her. She uttered some barely audible syllables, and a swarm of miniature fireballs struck the spider, knocking it off of its perch.

The spider was scuttling around the floor. "That hurt, you know!"

"Good!" called Melanie. "I've got some more for you!"

"Oh, really?" The spider let out a blast of webbing. She tried to flit out of the way, but the spider had somehow anticipated where she was going, and the sticky mess hit her full on. She flew backwards and was stuck fast to the wall.

Cecil looked at her, and then at the spider. "What do you want?"

The spider jumped onto the bed. "If you know what I am, I assume you know about my diet."

"Mmmph!" said Melanie. The goo had covered her mouth too.

According to the Monstrous Tome, infernal crawlers ate pixies and other small, highly magical creatures. But Melanie was his. She was proof that there was more to the world than he'd been led to believe. "You can't have her."

"Oh, really? And how do you plan to stop me?"

Cliff rubbed his head. He was moving sluggishly. "Let him have the pixie, and no one has to get hurt."

"She's alive," said Cecil. "She feels pain and everything, just like us."

"So do I," said the spider. "And I don't see you leaping to my defense."

"Mmmph!" insisted Melanie.

"She… She doesn't prey on other sentient creatures." Unlike Maxim, he had no actual magic of his own. There had to be something he could use. A weapon.

"Mrr!" added Melanie.

His dad's lucky golf club was still leaning against his computer desk.

Cliff clapped his fist into an open palm. "Stay back or you're gonna get hurt."

"That's right," said the spider. "My venom could kill you in an instant. Be very, very afraid."

"I haven't played Dragon Oracle all these years without learning a thing or two about courage," said Cecil.

In his own head, Cecil thought of himself as the hero, a brave young man who used his great intelligence to solve problems and thwart evil. Reality rarely if ever worked that way. It presented him with neither opportunities to be heroic-he had nothing worth protecting-nor foes he could actually deal with. Later on he would reflect that although accidentally summoning Melanie was the inciting incident, this moment, this terrifying, lightning-fast, amazing moment was the real turning point in his life.

Cecil grabbed the golf club and in one smooth motion struck the spider and sent it flying through the open window.

Cliff had been rushing to stop him, and Cecil's follow-through struck the bully's head, knocking him to the floor. Cecil barely noticed as he was rushing to the window to see what had become of the spider.

His father's car was pulling up in the driveway, and before Cecil could get to the window he heard a sort of popping sound, followed by a kind of splattering sound. He turned away from the window.

Cliff was picking himself up and holding his head. He growled, "This ain't over!" and ran out the door and down the stairs. Cecil heard his father say "Well, hello there!" and then footsteps racing off into the distance.

Cecil dropped the golf club, closed and locked his door, and went to Melanie. He pulled the goo off of her mouth. "I was pretty awesome, huh?"

Melanie rolled her eyes. "You can be awesome if you get me out of this stuff."

He considered leaving her there for the moment, but instead he pulled her free of the wall, and carefully carried her to the bathroom.

His mom stopped him in the hallway. "Your friend seemed kind of upset."

"Oh, um…" Cecil stood straighter and cleared his throat. "He got a call from home. I think something happened to his pet."

"And your lady friend?"

"She had to go home."

"Oh, I was hoping she could stay for dinner."

Melanie stirred in his hand.

"You'll probably see her again before too long," said Cecil. "Anyway, bathroom."

Cecil slipped into the bathroom and shut the door. The hot water (but not too hot) helped get the web stuff off of her, but it was still a slow and annoying process. When Melanie took off her clothes to wash them, he turned bright red and looked the other way.

She laughed at him. "Thanks. I was in trouble there."

He cleared his throat. "You're welco-"

"Now what's this about dinner?"