The Familiar Has to Be Unfamiliar

Absurd Geometry Field Notes No. 114

I had been walking through the neighborhood for hours with a basket of muffins, a damp flyer, and a level of commitment that, in hindsight, may have crossed into poor decision-making.

By the time I reached his house, the rain had gotten worse. My hair was stuck to my face. My cloak was soaked through. The almond flour muffins had absorbed so much moisture they were beginning to resemble emotional sponges.

I knocked.

When he opened the door, he looked at me standing there in the rain with my basket of witch muffins and immediately said I was going to catch pneumonia.

“I don’t think pneumonia works that way,” I said.

“That’s what everyone says right before they catch pneumonia,” he said.

Then he looked down at the basket.

“And not only are you going to catch pneumonia,” he said, “but those muffins are going to catch pneumonia too.”

“They’re almond flour blueberry muffins.”

“Not anymore.”

I looked down.

The bottom row had absorbed so much rainwater some had begun to swell against the paper liners.

“They’re moist,” I said.

“They’re pneumonia sponge muffins.”

“How many pneumonia sponge muffins have you sold?”

“Only a dozen,” I said. “And I’m about to sell another dozen in this house.”

He stared at me.

He sighed.

“Venmo or Zelle?” I asked.

He pulled out his phone.

“Fine,” he said. “I’ll take a dozen.”

I lifted the basket.

“Give me the batch from the bottom,” he said. “Some of those still look spiritually uncompromised.”

That was when he told me to come inside.

He handed me his raincoat.

“Put this on,” he said.

So I took off my wet clothes and wore only the raincoat while my clothes dried.

I had just come from the witches’ reunion, and told him we had failed to close the circle properly.

We had been unable to locate a stray black cat.

A lot of people assume any cat will do, but that is not true. The familiar has to be unfamiliar. That is what most civilians don’t understand about pentagram work.

If you bring your own cat, he will step into the circle just because he wants you to like him more and keep enabling his catnip problem.

That invalidates the ritual.

What you need is a stray black cat. A gangster cat. A cat who has eaten behind restaurants shut down by the city, slept on top of cars and under them, and fought at least one koala on parole for territorial reasons.

That kind of cat does not get scared and break the circle just because a shadow appears.

“I missed your goofy-looking face,” he said.

“It’s not goofy,” I said. “I just have really high cheekbones, and they keep getting higher and higher. One day they’ll rise all the way to my forehead and become horns.”

“It sounds like you wouldn’t mind at all,” he said. “You’re probably already shopping for hats slightly bigger to accommodate them.”

“Did you put cinnamon in the blueberry muffins?” he asked. “You know I’m allergic to anything good.”

“I did,” I said. “But just a little. So you should only die a little if you eat them.”

“I wish you were joking,” he said. “But knowing you, you probably calculated the dosage.”

“That’s my Cin,” he said. “Always obsessed with just dying a little.”

“Dying a little never killed nobody,” I said.

“I bet if I woke up dead, you would probably love me again.”

“Maybe,” I said. “I guess you’d have to die first to find out.”

“Okay,” he said. “This is going too far. I like funny Cin better than macabre Cin.”

How do I stop seeing you in my dreams. Can you remove the spell?

“It wasn’t a spell,” I told him. “It was one single eyelash and one of the buttons from my blouse. The button must have popped off inside your house. They were both carrying residual charge, a tiny part of my soul.”

He stared at me.

Then he looked horrified.

“Once you find the button and the single eyelash” I said, “you should be able to exorcise me from your head and your home.”

“I heard you’re done with everything,” he said. “Getting rid of everything. Selling everything. Closing everything.”

“Where are you going?”

“Here,” I said.

And I pointed.

He looked at it for a moment.

“That’s out of this world,” he said.

“Exactly.”