“I was napping,” a voice snaps from the vicinity of my shin. Startled, I jump back. “How did you get here?” Stretching his mouth in a wide yawn before answering, my familiar says, “I haven’t read the familiar handbook, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that where you go, I go.” An urge to kick him deeper into the forest strikes me, but I choke it back. “I want to be alone,” I growl down at him. “Yeah, well, join the club. You think this is a picnic for me? I’m basically nocturnal. I hate being out during the day. I want nothing more than to find a hole in the ground to cool off in until the sun sets. Then I want to go searching for a dead mouse or opossum for dinner. Maybe, if I’m lucky, I’ll come across a dead wallaby. That would really make my night.” “Gross, you eat dead animals you find lying around?” I ask, sickened at the thought. The beast looks up at me. “Do you know how hard it is for someone my size to take down a wallaby? Why should I do all that work if nature or some other carnivore wants to do it for me?” “So, what you’re saying is that you’re so lazy, you would rather eat a decaying carcass than hunt for food yourself.” I have a picture of a maggot filled carcass lying on the ground and the Tasmanian devil pulling up to it in a chair with a knife and fork in its paws and a napkin tied around its neck. Disturbing. “Listen to you, Miss High and Mighty. Didn’t you just let loose a crap load of evil into this realm? Are you really in a position to criticize others?” The stupid thing has a point. I still want to kick him into the forest, though. Sensing that, he takes a couple of steps back. I glare down at him and he makes a strange sound in his throat that I think is a laugh. Changing the subject, he asks, “What are we doing out here anyway?” I shrug. “I just wanted to get away from everyone for a little bit.” I leave out the part of being scared the darkness I absorbed may cause me to do things I don’t want to do. Like take a torch to all these trees just to watch them burn. Yeah, things like that. “Scared you aren’t strong enough to control yourself, huh?” I glare down at him. “Do you have a death wish?” He snorts. “I still don’t have a manual, but I’m pretty sure Witches can’t kill their familiars.” I raise a brow. “What about familiars killing Witches?” His little shoulders move up and down. “Not sure. Should we give it a try?” “Go away.” “Fine.” Turning on his four paws, he ambles away into some brush and burrows inside it. He’s asleep almost instantly. I’ve always wondered how bullies could do and say things just to hurt others. But right now, I’m pretty sure I could knock an ice cream cone out of a preschoolers hand and laugh when it hits the ground. I feel like I could take a skinny kid’s milk money and spend it on booze and cigarettes. I feel like my conscience is packing up for a long sabbatical in the Himalayas and will be unreachable for the next hundred years or so. So, how do I stop myself from doing the awful things the darkness inside me wants me to do? A teeny, tiny thought is breaking through the darkness. It’s like a pin prick in my mind. Something about my familiar. Something about other people’s magic not affecting him. The pin prick gets bigger until there’s enough room for the thought to bloom. If he’s not affected, he’s not having these awful, evil thoughts. Right? “Hey, you,”
