When I was younger, I always wondered what the voice of God sounded like. Despite my pleading, He never seemed to see fit to speak to me audibly like He did the rest of my family. My dad told me once that I would never be able to hear God’s voice as long as I was scared of silence. The Holy Spirit, you see, was a still small voice, an intangible whisper somewhere in your heart, or your head, or the spaces in between the constant thrum of human life. It always felt like an unfair accusation; after all, most of my time at home was spent in my room wearing my headphones. It was the noise I hated, most days; my parents constantly bickering, the front door slamming as my dad left for work, the bells chiming hymns at the stroke of every hour reminding me just how little distance stood between me and my next round of ritual condescension.

I’d long since given up on ever hearing the voice of God, but my father had finally been right about one thing: this silence had me mortified.

The warm touch of Mara’s fingers on my chin felt right in a way that tied my stomach into knots. Patiently, she waited for me to give her an answer to the question that must’ve been on her mind this entire time. How could it not have been? Approached and abandoned by six other summoners, she’d had her hopes to go home dashed over and over again. I desperately, desperately wanted to break that cycle. The amount of suffering I’d been through had to pale in comparison to a 20 year stint in Hell without any way to contact her loved ones.

“Well, summoner?” Mara’s eyes pleaded, any hint at bravado fully drained from her voice. Her hand delicately slid along my face to cup my cheek, sending a shiver racing down my spine. I placed my hand on hers. What would be waiting for me on the other side of this? How could I face my old life again, or explain any of this to Marcus or Connie?

I was back at square one, and it hurt.

No. No, that wasn’t true and I knew it. Mara had given me something I would never have asked for, that I didn’t know I could ask for. My demoness had figured out my biggest secret, and she hadn’t thought I was weird or broken. Even if she couldn’t change my body, even if the only magic in this circle was what came out of the capsules I put in it, summoning Mara had made me feel more like myself than I had ever thought possible. There was no chance I was going to abandon her now.

“Of course I want you.” What I wouldn’t have given for my voice not to have cracked when I said those words. I barely managed to catch my new familiar as she flung herself into my arms, the platform railing my saving grace in not toppling over the side. Her face was pressed so hard into mine that it was hard to tell just when the laughter turned into tears, but my shoulder was soaked by the time she pulled back enough for me to see her again.

“I know- I know I can’t give you what you want…” Mara barely managed to get her words out through her ragged breathing and stuffy nose. “...But I will find a way to help you, you stupid, beautiful nerd.” Her tail was around me now, squeezing harder than I knew it could. “There’s meds and support groups and god knows what else! And if anybody gives you shit, they can deal with me. I may not have magic, but I can promise you I know how to be a bitch.”

I laughed, despite myself. Without thinking, I ran my hand lightly through her hair, stopping to scratch the fuzz behind her ear. I felt her tail shudder behind me, and she gingerly pressed her forehead into mine. Touch. Somehow, Mara made it feel easier than it had at any point in my life. I pulled her into myself one more time, trying with all I had to revel in the moment long enough to keep the reality of what was waiting for me at bay. “So,” I softly pet Mara’s head, coaxing the demoness to relax into me. “How do we do this?”

Mara squeezed me one last time before finally letting me go. She brushed herself off and shakily pulled herself up, taking a moment to wipe her face off before continuing. “Embarrassing shit.” My familiar giggled to herself and snapped her fingers, the envelope with her terms appearing in a burst of hot pink flame. “A contract has to be signed, and it’s gotta be in blood.” With trembling hands, she opened the envelope and pulled a piece of worn, yellow parchment from its insides. I watched her eyes trail to the floor as she motioned for me to take it. “I’m uh, sorry that it has to be mine.”

I handled the contract with care, tenderly flipping over the ancient paper. Were all contracts supposed to be written on this kind of material? It was water-stained and worn, almost as if it could fall apart at any second. Part of my brain wondered just how long Mara had been holding on to this particular contract. Another part tried not to think about the fact that those water stains were likely from Mara’s tears.

“It’s just two things.” My familiar fidgeted nervously in place.

I turned the page in my hand, running my fingers across the downright ancient looking ink. The handwriting was rough. Had she written this when she was still a child? The thought of a 13 year old scrawling a desperate plea to go home to her family burrowed into my chest cavity. It was just two things.

“Whoever signs this contract MUST fulfill the following requirements! Number one, you have to take me home with you. I don’t wanna be here ANY MORE. Take me home and take me to see my family. Number two, you GOTTA help me find the one who did this. She doesn’t get to walk around in MY body forever! You are solemnly sworn to help me get her ass back!”

Mara wrung her tail, obviously embarrassed. “It’s… been a minute since I wrote that.” The demoness ran her claws through her hair, letting out a long sigh. “The one other time I got a summoner to look at my contract, the writing was enough to make them bail. They only give you one, so I’m kinda stuck with that one.”

“So we both just sign it in blood, and then what? You’re my demon?” It wasn’t much to ask, though I really didn’t know what chance I’d stand against a demon with actual magic. Mara and I were nothing close to what one might picture in a summoner and a demon familiar. Neither one of us had any magic to speak of; odds are good we wouldn’t cast a particularly imposing shadow. If Connie didn’t absolutely hate me after all this, I could maybe ask her for advice, but even then we’d still be majorly outgunned on our lonesome.

“I’m your demon,” she nodded enthusiastically. “Now and forever.” Mara traced a circle in the air, causing each of my poorly scrawled runes to flash in quick succession. “Once you sign, the magic in the circle will dissipate. If we did it right, I should, you know- still be here.”

So that was it, then. A sign of a form, and it would all be over. The magic I had saved up over the course of the last year would float back into the ether, and Mara and I would be left to stare down a very angry Constance on the other side. Bittersweet didn’t even begin to cover how it felt to watch my plan go up in smoke. In a way, it was kind of amazing that I had gotten a circle to work at all. Maybe that was enough of an achievement? I had done something nobody like me had ever managed to pull off, at least to my knowledge. I used a bag full of toys to summon an extra-planar entity, and more than that, I made friends with her! That was amazing. I should’ve felt amazing!

I should’ve felt amazing.

I sat there in the technicolor glow of the crane machine, letting the lights pass over me one last time. I was usually so good at winning games that people thought were rigged. I let my hand come to rest on the case of the machine, the hum of ambient magic sending waves of sensation through my arm and into my body. I could feel magic. If I had been born someone else, been born somewhere else, maybe I could have done something with all this energy. Instead, I had only been good for throwing it in a garbage bag and moving it where it needed to go.

“Holly? You okay?” Mara knelt down next to me and placed a hand on my shoulder. There was no way I wasn’t worrying her.

“I am. I will be. I just…” Was I in denial? Why did I keep trying to put the pieces together in a way that made it all work? I got the magic I had collected into the circle, but I couldn’t do anything with it. Mara could use the magic I brought, but couldn’t generate any of her own. My fingers tapped relentlessly on the metal casing of the game. “Mara, can’t you- you’re able to use magic while we’re in the circle, right?”

“Yeah, kinda? Basic bitch shit. The stuff I actually know how to do is all stuff I learned to try to make pacts happen.” My demoness crossed her arms and chewed on her bottom lip. “Anything else is shooting in the dark, but I’m your demon. I can take the shot, if that’s really what you want.” It couldn’t be that simple, could it? I’d taken bigger risks just getting here and getting the circle set up. If there was a chance, a real chance at the life I wanted, there was no way I could possibly turn it down. I took Mara’s hands in my own and looked at her with pleading eyes.

“Could we try? Before we sign it, before the magic’s gone, could we please try?” If I didn’t try to make this happen now I would never forgive myself. I could go my whole life and never get another shot; how could I live knowing I missed my chance? “Please try to fix me, Mara.”

“Baby, you’re not broken.” I felt Mara’s tail snake around the small of my back once again and pull my body close to hers. I was going to have to get used to that. “And this could all go tits up- but I know what it’s like to have hands that don’t reach. I’m not gonna put you through that; not when I could lift you.”

Just like that, hope exploded inside of me again. I remembered this feeling; it was the same one that had driven me to come up with this half-assed scheme in the first place. I was at the finish line. I latched onto Mara and squealed, accidentally knocking her backwards into the hoard of assorted plush toys we’d both accumulated over the course of our game. Sorry, Garbanzo. “Thank you! Thank you, thank you so much!”

“Yeah, yeah…” Mara giggled and held me close. “Don’t go soft on me now, little miss summoner. You’ve got a job to do once you get that body of yours.”

“I’m taking you home! I promise I’ll get you home.” I pressed my face into my familiar’s. Mara was my demon. I was a summoner. I was as determined to help her as I had ever been to do anything in my entire life. My demon. My demon. She had suffered enough, and so had I. “I’m taking you home with me. We’re going home.” The way Mara looked at me made me wonder how any summoner had ever turned her down. She could twist my soul around her pinky finger any given day, and yet she looked downright gentle smothered in a pile of plush toys.

“We’re going home.” Mara had a voice like molten sugar. When she spoke, I felt myself melting, consumed by a slow cascade of warm, brutal emotion. I was never going to let anybody hurt her ever again. “I trust you, Holly.”