Flash Fiction:

Negronis at Lunchtime

Negronis at lunchtime? Unheard of!  Isn’t it supposed to be an aperitif before dinner, before an elegant feast of, say, risotto nero or truffled asparagus? It’s not what you drink before you hit up the Taco Stand on Venice Beach. So was she just being pretentious, or does she actually like negronis? OK, I admit my tastes run to a Margarita or a cold beer at lunchtime, Taco or no Taco. I wouldn’t be drinking a negroni right now. But why does her order irritate me so much? After all, it’s not like we’re having a bad day. We’ve been hanging out in Santa Monica, enjoying the people watching, and she’s getting some sun. After spending all winter in Alaska, no doubt she needs it. And I’m a good host. I showed her everything in my neighbourhood, and she said it was all really cool and how much she was enjoying and appreciating it. So why do my hackles go up when I see her sitting there, in her Jackie O sunglasses, sipping that blood-red, bitter, nasty drink? Maybe it’s not the negroni that’s bitter; it’s me. I have to admit to myself: I’m not enjoying any of this, none of it. not the hosting, not the sightseeing—nothing.

Maybe my expectations were just too high. I wanted to meet her for so long, but when it finally happened, it was just so meh. It’s not her fault, of course. It’s not mine either, not really. Just because we’re technically mother and daughter, it doesn’t really mean that there’s an automatic ‘click’, does it? At least I don’t think so. I suddenly realise that in my head all this time, there’s been a huge argument going on, one that we’re not actually having. But it’s all playing out in my head, over and over:

“Why did you give me up?”

“Because I was 15 and scared.”

“Why didn’t you come and get me?”

“’Cause I didn’t want a kid.”

“You’re an asshole!”

“I know I am.”

On and on, over and over in my head. But nobody’s actually saying a word. Smiling. Sipping. Sunshine.

She takes off her sunglasses. I see that she’s been crying. Her eyes are puffy and wet. How long has she been crying like that, silently, without moving? I sit frozen. I don’t know what to do or say. She smiles, keeping her eyes on the table, away from me. I realise she’s been brave to do this. To come here and face it all. I hadn’t thought of that before. I assumed she was coming here for her own gratification.

I pick up my drink and sip. I smile at her, and she looks at me.

‘These really are bitter,’ I say. I laugh, to show I really mean the drink, not me. She smiles broadly now.

‘They’re bitter, but they get you ready for the sweetness that comes next,’ she says. Something in me relaxes; I can feel it in my spin.

A seagull swoops down and steals a bunch of French fries from a guy’s hand. He looks terrified and drops them all. The bird stands there eating.

I start laughing, feeling bad about it – poor guy. Then I see her shoulders are shaking. She’s laughing too. We catch each other’s eye and burst out. Now we’re both crying. I slide my hand across the table and take hers, knocking over her drink. We watch the thin, blood-red liquid drip down the table and keep on laughing.

©GillianMcIver2024 No AI tools used.

Short Story:

Peace Lily

I think it’s terrible that hatred can be so shapeless. I don’t hate Jeff for anything in particular—he isn’t cruel, or violent, or unfaithful—but when I look at him standing at the stove, stirring his porridge each morning, I feel a persistent aversion. Not sharp, not dramatic—just steady, like a wind that never changes direction. He is sixteen years older than me. At one time that felt like solidity. Now it feels as though I have been tethered by accident to a life that no longer resembles mine.

Jeff is a man of the immediate. If the sink drips, he fixes it. If the oat mik prices rise, he switches to soy milk. He’s well-meaning, competent in small systems: thermostat settings, ferry reservations, recycling bins neatly separated. But he never speaks of the war in Ukraine. For me, it’s an open wound—my parents and their siblings left less than fifty years ago—and yet Jeff can glance at headlines of burning cities, towers split open, and then ask calmly if we still have peanut butter in the cupboard.

It isn’t exactly the war itself that obsesses me. I barely follow the news from the front or the endless statements of politicians. What I return to compulsively, several times a day, are the updates of Anastasia.

I don’t know why I’m drawn to her. She’s thirty-two, a graphic designer who stayed when others fled Kyiv. Every day she posts something: her coffee against taped-up windows, a selfie from a Metro station during an air raid, her cat tucked beneath the bed when the sirens go. Her feed drifts between ordinary and surreal— applying lipstick before heading to the bomb shelter, proudly displaying home-canned vegetables as though it were a dinner party.

At three a.m. here—ten in the morning there—I scroll through her feed. If she disappears for a few hours, I grow breathless, sick, until she finally posts: Still here. Made soup. Power came back. Relief washes over me. Then shame. I know it’s voyeuristic, feeding off the fear of another woman. But I can’t stop. Her life feels raw and alive, while mine drifts, faded in our dim Vancouver apartment. She is inside history. I’m outside, peering in.

Our place faces north, mountains framed in the window, but the light barely enters. Every plant I brought home withered. Only the peace lily remains, its edges pale, its stalks bent like it’s too tired to stand. I try: I water, dust the leaves, tilt the blinds toward the sun. Still it seems determined to give up.
“My peace lily is dying,” I say one evening.
“They don’t last forever,” Jeff answers without looking up from his crossword.

I’ve been waiting all day for Anastasia’s nightly post—the sunset, a sentence about whether sirens have already begun. But tonight there is nothing.
“There’s a woman in Kyiv I follow,” I tell Jeff suddenly. “She shows what’s happening there – what she eats, where she sleeps when the bombing starts.”
“That sounds depressing,” he says.
“It’s not depressing,” I insist. “It’s… vital.”
He glances up, then back to the puzzle. “Seven letters. ‘Excessive worry about distant events.’”

Distant. That’s the word that stops me. How can I explain that Anastasia and her apartment feel closer to me than the man who sits across from me?

Therapy doesn’t help much. My therapist likes words that don’t settle. Once she said I was “hinging.” It sounded metallic, insect-like. I imagine it means leaning too far in one direction—toward resentment, toward history, toward Anastasia’s endless feed. She asks me why I’m focusing so much on Anastasia.
“She’s living through something that matters,” I say.
“And you feel your own life doesn’t?”
“I feel like I’m living in a waiting room.”

Bianca, my closest friend, understands better. We walk through Stanley Park, or sit in coffee shops sharing our anxieties like confessions. Her family in the States lives without papers, always afraid of the knock on the door. She says it makes her stomach hurt at night. I tell her sometimes I think of sending money to Ukraine, though I don’t know how. “I send what I can to my cousin in Phoenix,” she says. “It feels like putting a Band-Aid on a severed limb.”

I tell her about Anastasia. How the other day she posted a wedding in a Metro station—wildflowers picked from a bombed-out garden, a grandmother’s lace dress. “It was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” I say.
“Life continuing despite everything,” Bianca replies.
“Life meaning something,” I answer.

Our apartment isn’t unhappy, only dull. Coffee in the morning. The laundry folded. Groceries carried back. Nothing wrong—except for the weight of boredom and dislike that accumulates like dust inside me. Sometimes I stare at the photographs of my parents in Edmonton, my grandmother in Lviv, wearing her headscarf and gold earrings. I feel I either need to scream or leave before I turn to stone.

I’ve started screenshotting Anastasia’s posts, filing them in a folder labelled “A.” Her lines echo in me—Small pleasures feel enormous now. Everything that seemed important before feels very small. Her words accuse me of how I live. Jeff only notices my phone habit. “Why not put the phone in another room during dinner?” he suggests, gentle, practical. I want to scream: Do you not see? Do you not understand history is happening right now, as we sit here calmly discussing salmon and bathroom tiles? But I don’t. I say instead: “I’ll try to be more present.”

After a session one morning, I sit by the seawall staring at the water. I remember Val’s offhand invitation—Come to the cabin in Sechelt anytime, if you want solitude. Back then it meant nothing. Now it feels like possibility.

But today there are no posts from Anastasia. Not even a brusque still here morning post. I can see that other well-wishers are posting under Anastasia’s  last post, asking how she is.

I’ve never posted any comment to Anastasia. But I have many conversations with Anastasia in my head. When I cook food, I imagine taking some some to Anastasia. When Anastasia posts Kiev’s beauty in the sunshine, I feel happy. Yes, I reply in my head, it’s a gorgeous city, Anastasia.

The day drags on. I teach my afternoon English class. Some of the students are refugees, though none are from Ukraine. I know they have been through terrible things, though they never mention it in class. When they speak of ‘home’ they reminisce and describe lovely things: mother baking bread, the beauty of the poppy fields, a cousin’s wedding, favourite and much-missed dishes. 

Anastasia still posts nothing. Not morning, not evening. Silence. By night my stomach twists. Jeff asks about dinner. I tell him I’m not hungry. I lie on the bed staring at the ceiling, dreading. When I sleep, I dream: my mother and grandmother baking rohalyky, warm light on their faces, but outside is chaos, the sound of sirens and fireworks. I wake trembling—Is Anastasia alive? Am I?

Morning brings deliverance. A photograph of her reading by candlelight, her cat curled tight beside her. Power out all day yesterday. But I found a book of poems in the rubble near the cathedral. Small miracles. My relief crashes over me so strong it frightens me. How can I care this much for someone I don’t know? But the answer comes immediately. I care because I don’t feel alive.

That night I begin planning. I picture the cabin. If I don’t go, I’ll collapse like the lily, bent and lifeless. Jeff will manage fine—his balance steady, unshaken—but I won’t.

I pack a small bag: two dresses, a sweater, underwear, my toothbrush, my phone charger. I put the bag by the door. I cook pasta, nod as Jeff describes a new tax claim. Later, when he goes to bed, I write a single line on a scrap of paper: I need time. I lean it against the vase with the wilting peace lily. In the morning I leave quietly. As the car winds along the sea toward Horseshoe Bay, I feel no victory, no panic—only the release of breath after being shut in too long. At the terminal I call Bianca.
“I’m going to Val’s place on the Sunshine Coast,” I say.

She asks, “Did you tell Jeff?”
“I left a note.”
She sighs softly. “Perhaps it’s time.”

I drive onto the ferry. I picture Anastasia waking in Kyiv, documenting small acts of endurance. I think of my grandmother by the Dnipro River, of Bianca’s cousins across the border, of the therapist with her professional phrases, of Jeff bent over crosswords. I picture the peace lily in the half-light—neither dead nor thriving, caught in that delicate hinge between states. I think, without bitterness, that perhaps it was myself that I have been trying to water all this time, myself that I have been trying to save from slow suffocation in comfortable rooms.

I leave the car and climb up to the sun deck. I see the other passengers assembling, children fiddling with snacks, retirees adjusting jackets against the breeze. The crisp air fills my lungs and I inhale it greedily.  I watch Vancouver fall into the distance and feel the forward motion of the ship.

©GillianMcIver 2025. Written with editing help of Perpexity AI model Chat GPT5

Short Story

The Tale of the Empress and the Stolen Suns

[this piece was a commission for the show The Encrypted Forest, a live sci-fi/fantasy storytelling multimedia show at the Bloomsbury Festival 2024. It is an interpretation fo the Empress card and loosely based on the story of the Pharaoh Hatshepsut)

The Empress Card:

UPRIGHT: Femininity, beauty, nature, nurturing, abundance

REVERSED: weakness, dependence on others, negligence

The Empress is a lovely, tranquil woman wearing a crown with twelve stars, representing her link to the mystical realm and natural cycles (seasons and planets). She wears a pomegranate-patterned gown, representing fertility. Her cushions show Venus, the planet of love, creativity, fertility, beauty, and grace.

The Empress’ surroundings of green woods and flowing stream represent her connection to Mother Earth and life. Her tranquillity and vigour are derived from nature, trees and water. Gold wheat sprouts in the foreground indicating a bountiful crop.

Once upon a time, in a fabulous land of spiralling rivers and mountains wreathed in gold, an Emperor – the Neghus of Merēti, the Land – lay dying. His beloved wife, the Empress Tanita wept. But she did not only cry for her love, but also for her country, which would be left without a ruler. Within 24 hours, her stepson Desta, barely two years old, would be proclaimed Nehgus.

There was no time to waste. Tanita left the Nehgus’s body to the embalmers and flew immediately to the Grand Assembly Palace. Arrayed in iridescent armour with her long green hair cascading down her back like a vertiginous serpent, she stood before the court and declared, “I may be only twenty four years old,” she began, “but I am the only one fully qualified to act in the name of the Nehgus.” She saw their shock but pressed on.  “I have my mother’s wisdom, my brother’s courage, and my husband’s love.” Nobody could dispute this. It was well known. But still. Tanita continued, looking directly into the camera that projected her holoform seven stories high, “I have the support of the army and all the gods and we will not let anyone harm my stepson Desta or the Land. And I know that I can be Regent and none will oppose me”.

The assembly nodded as one. Nobody had a problem with her being Regent. “But,” she pressed on with urgency in her voice, “Regents are seen as weak, and a weak leader leaves an empire ripe for plunder. We need an active monarch. I will be the Nehgus until he is ready to rule on his own.”

The court factions were astounded by her boldness and confidence. One group tried to oppose her, but they could not match her eloquence as she argued her case. Another tried to slander her, but could not shake her integrity. Several of the most powerful lordships tried to threaten her, but they could not overcome her determination. They soon realized they could only yield to her. The next day Nehgus Tanita was proclaimed, and the crown of the Twelve Stars and the Robe of Anar, with its glittering pomegranates, symbol of the Land, were hers.

Yet she knew little about the Land, the vast tract of territory below. She was born in the rich Palace that hovered above, and which she had always known to be a mirror of the Land.  Yet the palace was all she knew: only comforts and beauties. Every day, delicious foods arrived at her table; she had only to think of a sound, and her favourite music rang out in any chamber she occupied. A single incline of her head brought her whatever she desired. It had always been thus. But of the Empire beyond the confines of this aethereal life, she knew not.

Her gardens were fed by giggling streams of silver water – but from what sources did they spring? Her garments were sewn from wisps of the finest silk, but where did it come from? The triple suns rose and set daily, but who else outside the aerial palace witnessed them? Tanita had never asked and never thought to find out.

Still, she had sharp eyes and a strong desire to learn. On her first day as Nehgus, she shocked her court advisers by arriving early to the administrative quarters, barely allowing her vimana craft to land before she jumped out. Approaching the Anakart Data Centre with much inner trepidation but outward swagger, she dug into the data.  As images and numbers whirled around the myriad atmos-screens until she could thoroughly grasp them,  she plucked them from the air and created complex maps and charts that – as weeks turned into months of endless study, number crunching and perusal of binary, trinary and infinity codes –  showed her how the Land was run.

But still, all of this was information, it was not experience. And she craved experience. Her advisors tried to dissuade her, but in the face of her determination they relented and arranged for Tanita to make a progress around the Empire. They produced a splendid large and impressive vimana craft to take her and her closest courtiers out of the aerial Palace Zone and onto the Land itself. She kissed Desta goodbye and jumped eagerly into the carriage, impatient to be gone, visibly impatient at the speeches and fiery display that her court gave her as a sendoff.

This first journey around her land unveiled its tapestry, woven with threads of prosperity and poverty. She saw bright orange fields overflowing with bounty but also hungry children’s hollow faces. Then, beneath the veil of statistics her atmoscreens provided hourly, she glimpsed with her own eyes a silent tragedy. Beneath the sleek hull of her speeding vimana, she saw a patch of the country’s normally pristine wilderness bleeding. The earth was torn up, lifeless, burnt and stripped bare by unseen hands.

She returned in sadness, and some fury and immediately decreed the wilds sacrosanct, a permanent haven for flora and fauna. The advisors, content with a Land seemingly in order, agreed but urged her caution. Soon she was caught up in the  daily routines of statecraft, and in her free time she played with Desta or went cockatrice-hunting in the glittering Meicniúil Forest.

Yet a restlessness stirred within Tanita, a yearning to fly again over sharp-pointed mountains under the soft purple moon, and hear the murmurs of the wilderness.

The call of the southern temple festival beckoned. Finally, she would leave the Palace again and walk upon her own Land. Tanita’s heart brimmed with anticipation as her barque glided down the astral river onto the shore. But soon joy turned to ashes. Where life once flourished, a wasteland gaped, a skeletal mockery. Grief choked her words.

Her advisors, summoned, revealed the horrifying truth. No blight, no monstrous beasts, but the insatiable hunger of fire destroyed the Land. Tanita, who knew flames only as dancing shadows in feasts, recoiled at the image of their destructive power.

“Why?” she cried, her voice raspy with despair. “Why would they destroy their own Land?”

A shamefaced advisor answered, “The people need fuel.”

Tanita was stunned. “But we have the suns!” she exclaimed. “It is one of the core tenets of the Empire that everybody has access to the energy of our suns!” Her advisors were quiet.

Faced with the stark contrast between the capital’s flourishing prosperity and the desolate wasteland she witnessed now, Tanita went through the necessary ceremonies at the lavish temple complex, trying to put the memory of the ravaged countryside out of her mind. The priests made sacrifices to the gods; fakirs performed feats beyond comprehension; orchestras played ancient songs on glittering instruments.  Great feasts were laid before her. But these barely registered.

It was Farren, a young priest she befriended, who first cracked the veneer of serenity. He whispered of a power struggle within the temple, a battle for control over the triple suns, the source of all life.  Avarice and ambition had twisted the sacred bonds of priests and people. The power plants, the vast silver pyramids that converted the sunbeams into energy, became pawns. The temple priests had overstepped their guardianship and demanded cruel payment for using the power plants. In desperation, the poor tore up land, cut down trees, devoured everything  and destroyed their very habitat.

Tanita, accustomed to the clear-cut machinations of the capital’s court, was bewildered. To her, the suns were a deity, not a commodity to be bartered.

Her eyes were opened to the hidden currents of power. This was not a mere political squabble; it was a threat to the heart of the Empire and the delicate balance between nature and humanity.

She realised that the destruction took years of corruption and exploitation. Of poverty and injustice and ruin. Years that she and her dear husband spent in the virtual heaven of the Palace – where perfection reigned and not a blemish could be seen on the tiniest leaf. Tanita had always believed that life in the Land was the same as life in the Palace, though the Palace hovered many leagues above the Land. Why should it be different? Why worse? Did the Nehgus not provide their people everything?

This revelation was a bitter sting. Her advisors, though remorseful, admitted their knowledge of the simmering discord and the temple’s claim on the solar power. “They can limit,” her oldest advisor confessed, “advise… but they cannot demand payment for its use. But who can stop them?”

Tanita’s eyes blazed. “Payment for the suns? It’s like charging for breath, monetizing the sky! Or selling the water of the rivers! It’s madness! It’s unthinkable!” she exclaimed, her eyes blazing. “How could they even conceive of such a thing? It’s like claiming the right to the very breath we breathe! It’s like  – like owning people!”

Her friends, remembering their school lessons, shuddered at the chilling tales of other lands where human ownership was a grim reality. The mere idea of bartering for the solar bounty, for the lifeblood of their Land, seemed anathema to their very souls.

“But Tanita,” her brother Yasser interjected, a tinge of bitterness in his voice, “they’ve grown fat on power for centuries. A mere flick of their silver tongues, and they likely believed you wouldn’t see, or if you did, you wouldn’t dare challenge them.”

“Let them underestimate me,” she declared, her voice ringing with steely resolve. “I will not let greed and corruption fester under my reign. They will answer for their crimes.”

The next day, she summoned the council once more. Her eyes, sharp as sunbeams, met theirs. “I demand the presence of the High Priest from the southern temple,” she boomed, her voice leaving no room for dissent.

The news sent ripples of shock through the court. Never before had the Empress summoned a priest with such directness. But Tanita held firm. This was not a matter of diplomacy, but of justice.

The council, however, seemed hesitant. “My lady,” a councillor ventured, “you cannot simply command the priesthood. They have their own ways, their own protocols.”

But Tanita would not be swayed. “Then we shall negotiate,” she declared. “But negotiate we will.”

With unwavering resolve, she set her plan in motion. A nationwide survey of power plants was ordered. Weeks turned into months, and a disturbing pattern emerged. Many plants in the priest-dominated regions lacked reports, hinting at a sinister truth.

Tanita, along with the young priest Farren disguised as a humble servant, delved deeper. He, privy to the temple’s inner workings, revealed the names of those lining their pockets from the bounty of the triple suns. Armed with this knowledge, Tanita devised a counteroffensive.

Instead of brute force, she opted for cunning.

Across the whole of the Land, the people saw their Nehgus, speaking directly to them in holoform for the first time. They saw her long silken green hair and copper skin, her pale blue eyes and tender smile. She was lovely, but commanding, gentle yet implacable.

Through her immense holoform, hovering and shimmering in the air above the villages and towns, she announced a grand program of power plant expansion, focusing on the very regions where corruption festered. But these weren’t to be controlled by the priesthood. No, she explained, these would be the people’s, managed by elected committees.

The populace, initially shocked, erupted in joyous cries. With her clever manoeuvre, Tanita had exposed the corruption while empowering the very people they exploited.

The High Priest, an ailing man burdened by the sins of his subordinates, finally sought an audience with the Nehgus. In a private chamber, he confessed his failings, the whispers of rebellion within the temple, and his own fear of confronting the entrenched corruption.

Tanita, recognizing a potential ally, proposed a bold solution. All power plants across the nation would be declared the people’s property. No one, neither priest nor Emperor, could control or charge for the suns’ gift.

The decision sent shockwaves through the Land. It was radical, yet strangely familiar. After all, hadn’t their society always thrived on cooperation and self-sufficiency? The change, though immense, felt oddly fitting.

The leaders of the temple insurrection, whom Tanita anticipated facing with police or military, fled the Land. They knew they couldn’t launch a revolution against a popular policy. The co-conspirators disowned their leaders and accepted their new ways.

Two busy years later, Tanita again travelled upriver to the Temple. As she surveyed the land from the banks of the astral river, she saw how the devastation had begun to heal, lush foliage pushing back against the scars. She saw beautifully decorated power plants, glinting in the rays of the triple suns, each a testament to the community’s spirit.

And in the eyes of the young Desta, who stood proudly by her side, the future Emperor of Merēti, she saw a reflection of her own unwavering resolve, a promise that the solar light, the source of life itself,  would forever belong to all.

©Gillian McIver 2024

Writing Exercise:

I am researching the book The Sun of Knowledge in order to create an authentic scene where the main character summons a demon. I imagined myself doing the ritual,  and I wrote this. The eventual version in my novel is quite similar but more attuned to the characters and the specific story. 

The Crimson Invocation

The copper plate grew warm beneath my trembling fingers as I traced the final Arabic numeral into the magic square. Three days of fasting had left me hollow, my body a vessel purified for what was to come. The saffron ink—mixed with my own blood at the stroke of midnight—gleamed wetly in the candlelight, each character of  King Ahmar’s true name burning like embers around the square’s perimeter.

I had spent months preparing for this moment. The ancient manuscript, the Sun of Knowledge,  had cost me everything, and I knew I was putting myself in great danger by using it. I struggled to decipher the archaic Arabic script. But within those crumbling pages lay the secret I’d sought for years: the true summoning rite for Al-Ahmar, the Red King, the demon who could grant what no earthly power could provide.

The ritual chamber I’d prepared was perfect—isolated and purified, arranged with precision. White silk draped the walls. I scrubbed the floor with salt water and blessed oils until it gleamed. I dressed myself in white robes, loose and clean, though they could not hide the tremor in my hands or the wild beating of my heart.

Mars hung blood-red in the night sky above, perfectly positioned in the mansion of Al-Dabaran as the manuscript demanded. The planetary hour of Mars had begun precisely at 2:17 AM—I had calculated it three times to be certain. Everything had to be perfect. Al-Ahmar was not some lesser spirit to be trifled with; he was a king among demons, and kings demanded respect.

The brazier beside me crackled as I added the final ingredients to the incense—frankincense tears the size of pearls, red sandalwood shavings that released their woody perfume, and a pinch of dragon’s blood resin that hissed and sparked as it met the coals. The smoke rose in thick, crimson-tinged spirals, filling the chamber with an intoxicating aroma that made my head swim.

I lifted the copper plate, feeling its weight—not just physical, but metaphysical. The magic square pulsed with potential energy, the Divine Names I’d inscribed around its border serving as both protection and authority. Ar-Rahman, Ar-Rahim, Al-Malik, Al-Quddus—the ninety-nine names of God that would shield me from Al-Ahmar’s wrath while compelling his obedience.

“Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim,” I began, my voice barely above a whisper. “In the Name of God, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate.”

The words felt heavy on my tongue, weighted with centuries of power and tradition. I had practiced this invocation countless times, but now, in this moment, each syllable carried the force of absolute intention.

“I invoke you, O Al-Ahmar, son of the infernal fire, King of the Red Throne, Master of Desires Forbidden!” My voice grew stronger, more commanding. “By the power of the Greatest Name, and by the Names written in this square of binding, and by the Place you are given among the hosts of the unseen realm!”

The temperature in the room began to drop. My breath misted in the suddenly frigid air, and the candle flames flickered despite the absence of any wind. The copper plate in my hands grew ice-cold, so cold it burned my palms, but I dared not release it.

“By the authority of La hawla wa la quwwata illa billah—there is no power except in God—I command your presence! By the seal of Solomon and the binding of the djinn, by the verses of dominion and the words of power, appear before me, O Red King!”

The incense smoke began to swirl in impossible patterns, forming shapes that hurt to look at directly. Shadows gathered in the corners of the room, deeper and darker than any natural darkness should be. And then I heard it—a sound like distant thunder, or perhaps the beating of massive wings.

“Ahmar, ya malik al-nar, ya sayyid al-raghbat al-muharrama!” I continued in Arabic, the ancient words flowing from my lips with increasing urgency. “Red King, Master of Fire, Lord of Forbidden Desires! I have prepared the way according to the old covenant. I have purified myself and sanctified this space. I offer you the smoke of sacred woods and the blood of my own veins mixed with saffron gold!”

The shadows in the corner began to coalesce, taking on a vaguely humanoid shape. But this was no man—it was something far older, far more terrible. Red eyes like burning coals materialized first, followed by the suggestion of a massive form wreathed in crimson flame. The very air around the manifestation shimmered with heat, creating a stark contrast to the bone-deep cold that had settled over the rest of the chamber.

“Who dares summon Al-Ahmar from his throne of brass and flame?” The voice came from everywhere and nowhere, reverberating through my bones rather than my ears. It spoke in Arabic so ancient and pure that I understood it more through intuition than knowledge. “Who calls upon the Red King with words of binding and squares of power?“

I forced myself to stand straighter, to project confidence I did not feel. My skin suddenly felt too tight beneath my robes. “I am she who has prepared the way according to the ancient covenant. I have fasted and purified myself. I have inscribed your true name in the square of Mars with saffron and blood. I have burned the sacred incenses and spoken the words of power. By these acts, I claim the right of audience, O King of the Red Throne.”

The demon’s laughter was like the sound of a forge bellows mixed with the screams of the damned. “Bold words from one who trembles like a leaf in winter wind. A daughter of Eve, practicing the arts forbidden to her kind. But you have followed the old ways, mortal. You have shown proper respect. For this, I will not flay the flesh from your bones… yet.“

The manifestation grew more solid, more defined. Al-Ahmar appeared as a giant of a man, easily eight feet tall, with skin like polished copper and hair that moved like living flame. He wore robes that seemed to be cut from the night sky itself, studded with stars that pulsed with their own inner light. In his right hand, he carried a sceptre topped with a ruby the size and shape of a human heart.

“Speak your desire, mortal. But know that Al-Ahmar grants no wish without price. The greater the desire, the steeper the cost. What is it you seek that you would risk your very soul to obtain?“

This was the moment I had prepared for, dreamed of, feared. The memory of what I had lost still burned in my mind.

“I seek transformation, O Red King,” I said, my voice steady despite the terror coursing through my veins. “I seek to become what I was meant to be—wealthy beyond measure, powerful beyond challenge, beloved by the ones who spurned me. I seek to reshape reality itself to match my will.”

Al-Ahmar’s burning eyes fixed upon me with an intensity that made me feel as though he could see straight through to my soul. “Transformation, you say? To reshape reality itself? Such desires come with prices that would make lesser demons weep. Are you prepared to pay what such power demands?“

“Name your price,” I whispered.

The demon smiled, revealing teeth like polished obsidian. “First, you will serve as my agent in this realm for seven years. You will carry out tasks I assign, without question or hesitation. Second, you will sacrifice to me that which you hold most dear—not gold or silver, but something of true value to your heart. Third, you will bear my mark upon your flesh, that all who look upon you will know you belong to Al-Ahmar.“

I hesitated. Seven years of servitude to a demon was no small thing. And the sacrifice he demanded—what did I truly hold dear? My library? My mother’s memory? My very humanity?

“Choose quickly, mortal. My patience wears thin, and the planetary hour grows short. Accept my terms, and I will grant you wealth that would make queens envious, power that would make emperors bow, and the love of any you desire. Refuse, and return to your small, meaningless existence.“

The weight of the decision pressed down upon me like a physical force. But when Edmund’s cruel words echoed in my memory, when I remembered the way society had dismissed me as an unmarriageable spinster with unnatural interests, the choice became clear.

“I accept your terms, Al-Ahmar, King of the Red Throne.”

The demon’s smile widened. “Then let the pact be sealed.“

He raised his scepter, and the ruby at its tip blazed with inner fire. A beam of crimson light shot forth, striking me in the chest with the force of a lightning bolt. Pain beyond description coursed through my body as the mark of Al-Ahmar burned itself into my flesh, just above my heart. The smell of searing skin filled the air, and I screamed until my throat was raw.

But even as the agony consumed me, I felt the change beginning. Power flowed into me like molten gold, reshaping me from the inside out. My vision sharpened until I could see individual dust motes dancing in the candlelight. My hearing became so acute I could detect the heartbeat of a mouse in the walls. And beneath it all, I felt the intoxicating rush of supernatural strength and influence settling into my bones.

“It is done,” Al-Ahmar declared. “You are mine now, daughter of Eve. Use your gifts well, for in seven years, I will come to collect what is owed. And remember—the mark you bear cannot be hidden from those who know how to look. You belong to the Red King now, and all the world will know it.“

The demon began to fade, his form dissolving back into shadow and smoke. “I will summon you when I have need of your services. Until then, enjoy your new existence. But never forget the price you have paid, or the debt that remains.“

With a final burst of crimson flame, Al-Ahmar vanished, leaving me alone in the ritual chamber. The copper plate fell from my numb fingers, clattering to the floor. The incense had burned out, and the candles flickered in the sudden stillness.

I looked down at my chest, where the demon’s mark still glowed faintly beneath my robes. It was beautiful in its terrible way—an intricate sigil that seemed to shift and move when I wasn’t looking directly at it. The mark of my damnation, and my elevation.

Already, I could feel the changes taking hold. My mind raced with possibilities, schemes, and plans that would have been impossible before. I knew, with absolute certainty, that when the sun rose, my transformation would be complete. All would be mine. Wealth would flow to me like water. Power would bend to my will.

But as I climbed the stairs from the ritual chamber, I couldn’t shake the memory of Al-Ahmar’s burning eyes, or the weight of the debt I now carried. Seven years seemed like a lifetime, but I knew that time had a way of passing more quickly than expected.

For now, though, I had what I had always wanted. The world would be mine to command, and the price was worth paying.

The mark on my chest pulsed once, as if in agreement. I was ready to tread my own path, and to serve the Red King.

9/22/25

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