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1. Buy two cartons of salt: one for the actual summoning, the other for practice. Don’t worry about iodized versus sea salt, fleur de sel or pink Himalayan—as long as it’s not low-sodium, any brand will do.

2. Candles, too—your mom has some around the house, but she will notice if you take them all. Even if she doesn’t, you doubt the scent of Ocean Rain and Vanilla Sugar will impress any demons you want to bind. Votive candles are best, though tealights will do in a pinch, a pack of twenty for one ninety-nine you can pick up at the dollar store and slip into your backpack before school.  

3. When the paper airplane hits the back of your head in math class, do not flinch. Focus on your textbook, the simplicity of a world laid out in neat lines and numbers.

4. During lunch, head to the library, head ducked to avoid eye contact. Stomach grumbling, read Faust.  

5. When the last bell rings, linger as you push your bike past the football field. Watch the boys gathered there, arrayed like soldiers against green grass: two rows of Spartans, armored in gleaming helmets and wide shoulder pads. 

6. Quietly mouth the numbers on their jerseys, each an emblem of belonging. Wonder what it must be like to jostle and sling arms around each other so easily, no hint of self-consciousness in the smiles they throw so easily to each other. Wonder what it must be like to be a part of that glimmering world, with all that brightness turned on you. 

7. Consider the nature of evil. In books and movies, it is always so simple: here are the orcs and the creatures of the dark, who must be destroyed. But for every paper airplane or wad of gum stuck in your hair, there is someone else, a hand reaching out to help you from the ground. Peter Wu, who led you to the nurse’s office after a basketball hit you in the face. Terrence Baker, who told his teammates off when they stole your backpack, and helped collect your scattered school supplies afterwards. The dip of his neck as he bent down, his wide shoulders almost brushing against yours.

8. Wonder maybe. In stories and fairy tales, it is always darkest before the dawn, the hero at the precipice of despair before the troops come marching in. Luke cannot defeat the Empire until he has given something up first—an uncle, a home, an arm. If you can just be patient, wait it out until graduation, then perhaps, like Cinderella, some gold-haired prince might finally look your way—

9. (In sixth grade, when Michael Waites tackles you into the ground during flag football, tell the school nurse that it was an accident. Snitches get stitches and you know, with the weariness of long experience, that it will only be worse if you tell.)

10. Remember. Remember the articles they write, the soundbites you hear when your parents click through channels in the evenings, so many news anchors shaking their heads over imaginary agendas. The Concerned Mothers of America with their signs in the parking lot, protesting your high school production of Rent.

11. Remember they put that boy in the hospital, two towns away. Held him down for the crime of nail polish and long hair, smashed his head against the bathroom floor until the tile was slick with blood. The coach in his office next door, never once looking up from his phone. 

12. Ride your bike to the mall. In the Barnes and Noble, make your way to the health and spirituality section, where they sell tarot cards and guides for homeopathic healing. Buy a beginner’s kit on crystals. Mouth their names as you palm the stones in your hand, a litany against harm: rose quartz, tiger’s eye, citrine, amethyst, carnelian.

13. When your mother asks you to say grace at dinner, take her hand. Silently apologize, to both her and Jesus, for what you are about to do.

14. Later, when the only sounds in the house are the hum of the refrigerator and the soft creaking of the pipes, go down to the basement, stepping carefully to avoid the squeaky stair. Light the candles, ward the summoning circle with salt, and, with an iron nail in your pocket and crystals looped around your neck, cut one long line down the meat of your palm. It will take more force than you think, and it will hurt more than you expect, but the blood will come, in time.

15. Holding your hand over the heart of the summoning circle, let the blood drip down onto the runes.

16. Do not look away, not as the runes begin to glow and hiss, sparks scattering and hitting skin like hot oil. Do not flinch as the ground begins to shudder, the smell of sulfur and burning hair wafting through the room. Do not look away, even when the runes flare, a sound like thunder breaking as the air fills with smoke and blinding light. 

17. As your vision returns and the smoke clears, a dark outline grows clearer in the center of the circle. Hold out your hand, cut still sluggishly bleeding. Yes, you do this of your own will; yes, you do this knowing all that this means, all that you give and receive in return. 

18. When the demon licks the blood off your palm, do not shudder; and when it leans in closer, long tongue and sharp teeth prodding at your lips, let it in. A pledge, a sacrament, a promise of till death do us part. As the flames crackle and envelop both of you, let the change sink into your bones, a baptism of fire and new desire. 

19. When the old skin sloughs off, the blackened husk of a boy you once were, rise, and fill your mouth with blood.

© 2026 Cynthia Zhang