text: I didn't mean to. I swear on my life. I swear on my pet rabbit's grave. I swear on my favorite pencil. I know that doesn't sound like a big deal, but I really, really loved my rabbit -- and that pencil -- so when I say I didn't mean to summon a demon into my kitchen, know that I mean it 100%. I am not the best cook in the world, but it being your birthday and all, I thought I would make something special. We've only known each other a few weeks, but I thought that a homemade dinner would be sweet, so I decided to consult my grandma's cookbook. Grandma was always a great cook, though, thinking about it now, I never remember her actually looking at this cookbook. My mom found it in the attic of grandma's house after she died. Mom knew I wasn't the strongest cook and hoped to help me "actually learn something useful." So there I was in the kitchen, following instructions exactly and not "making a mess of things" like Mom says, when I made a mess of things. A great, thick cloud of swirling red and black smoke burst from the pot until it swallowed the room. My eyes and nose stung. My lungs felt heavy and tight. "What the hell?" I heard, and then the sound of a single snap. The pot sucked the smoke back into the pot and revealed a demon in the middle of the kitchen. His skin looked like cooled lava. Two horns slicked toward the back of his head. He turned his burning-ember eyes to me. "Who are you?" "I'm-I'm-I'm --" "Well, I'm-I'm-Im, what do you want? I was in the middle of something," he spat. "I didn't mean, I didn't... I'm so sorry." He snarled, "Are you saying you didn't mean to summon me?" I nodded. He growled. A great wave of heat emanated from his body and pricked at my skin. The demon snapped his fingers. He blinked, confused. He snapped his fingers again. Then again. Then once more. "Oh ho ho, is this a trick? Lucifer, is that you?" The demon grabbed my face with his talon-tipped fingers and inspected it. "Francis," I mumbled, my cheeks squeezed in his pincer grip. "What?" "My name is Francis." His eyes narrowed. "Well, *Francis,"* he said, spitting out my name like a wad of congealed phlegm, "why don't you stop playing games and let me go home?" I felt myself shrink. I was the silly girl who couldn't do anything right. I was the one who messed everything up. I was the "mistake." Years of fury coiled around my heart and lashed out. I shoved the demon back. "I don't even want you here. You're meant to be pasta bolognese!" "Pasta...? Are you kidding me?" the demon said. "You were going to make pasta bolognese with tomatillos?" Years of fury recoiled and then extinguished into a sad ash pile of embarrassment. "I thought they were just special tomatoes..." "Oh Francis," the demon said. "Oh Francis, no." He rubbed his temples with his fingers. The tension dissipated from his shoulders as the kitchen's temperature dropped several degrees. "You're not a real witch, are you?" He looked me up and down. "Hmm. Of course you aren't." He snapped his fingers, and instead of a lava-skinned demon, he transformed into a normal-skin-skinned human. "Follow me." "What? No, it's my girlfriend's birthday, and I'm... well, we're not 'official,' but she seems really great and I --" "Look," the demon cut me off. "I want to go home, and for some reason, I can't. And you seem to have some untapped talent in witchcraft --" I perked up. "I have a talent?" "In *witchcraft.*" the demon repeated. "*Witchcraft* being the more interesting word in that sentence." "Right. Sorry." The demon walked up to me and looked me dead in the eye. "Francis, you're my best shot at going home. I need your help." I glanced at the opened box of pasta, the sliced onions, and the half-chopped pile of tomatillos, and then turned back to the demon. "Ok." "Good," the demon said, straightening and heading for the door, "because if you said 'no' I would have turned your hands into spiders." I tucked my hands into my pockets before realizing if I was going to go on some quest with a demon on your birthday that I should at least write you a note to explain why I couldn't show up. I've ordered you a pizza with roasted red peppers, mushrooms, and definitely no olives (since you said they remind you of "sliced eyeballs") that should show up to your doorstep any minute. I hope that makes up for this last minute cancellation. I would greatly like to celebrate your birthday when I return if you're open to that. Anyway, I better run. I'm going to become a witch.