Morgan walked around her summoning circle two times, looking back and forth between what she had created and the design portrayed in her demonology guidebook. She'd heard horror stories about what had happened to summoners who had messed up a single small symbol, or accidentally scratched away part of the circle, or used the wrong kind of candles… the whole demon-summoning thing was scary enough without having to worry about having gotten one of the details wrong. Still, even after she had checked and double-checked that everything was in order, Morgan still couldn't help but think of everything that could go wrong, everybody that had befallen any number of terrible fates (of which death was the most merciful) at the hands of the one that she was about to summon.
She knew that it was a horrible idea, really, summoning a demon for a request as trivial as her own, but she couldn't help herself. Once Morgan had gotten the idea, she just had to see if she could make it happen. And who knows, maybe it was crazy enough to work.
The girl took a deep breath before beginning to chant, her eyes locked on her book as she read the words out loud. "Astrum splendidum, te invoco. Invoco tuum potentiae. Dico nomen tuum: Alcor!"
A split second elapsed before the circle lit up and the demon Alcor appeared within, looking nigh identical to the images which her book had given, as if he had just jumped out of the pages. Morgan wasn't sure whether to be glad or scared that her summoning had worked after all.
"W͂̉̏̉͛͌Ḩ̟̮̜̗͈ͪ̔̓̉̚Oͩ͗̎ͪ̌̓ ̧̎͂̄ͦ̐ͫ̓D̼̳͑ͩ̃̐̉͘Ā̩̰͉̯̻̯͉ͦ̑̍̕R̷̘̆E̘͢S̛̞̆̉ ̜͚͎̦̣̥̦ͯ̅ͩͩ̓͑̎T̴̮̼͔̥̬̺̣Oͪ͑͗͊ͮ̎ͪ͝ ̛̩͖̲̱̩͍̪Sͬ̏ͦ́U̝͖ͩ̓ͪͯͩͮ͠M̪̫͖͉̰ͯ̑͐͂̚Ṃ͚ͮ̑͂͠O͛̾҉̤̪̞͉̫̰̹Ñ̷̮̗͉̮ͭ̉̈̍ͅ ̏ͫ̃A̡ͩͥ̒ͯL͚̮͖̓ͣC͕̘͍͎̤͗̿͋͆̀͂ͯ͞Ö̥̮̮̲̬͈́̅͠R̴̮̖͎̬̅͊̉͌ ̂̃͛́T̞̘̮̹͔ͬ̽͒͂ͦĤ͎͓ͧ̋̿͂̎͆E̪̲͔͊͂̃ ͇̜̭̾̓͊̈̂̿̂͢D̝̔̆̈ͮͮR̞͇̫̠̞̫Ẻ̢̪̻̰̮͓̩̇ͭAͣ͛M̠̽̈̇͆B̟̘͊́ͥȄ͗ͥ͛͗͗̏N̠̳̳̍͊̋̔ͅD̜̞͊ͨͭ̔͑̚Ê̤͓̪̞͕̥̐͛̈͐͜Ř̙͉̘̭͈ͬ̀̅̎̄ͅ?̸͕͖̹͎ͤ̾̈ͯ̅͊ͫ"
She closed her eyes for a second and took another deep breath before replying, trying (and mostly failing) to calm her nerves, to focus on something- anything- besides the fact that she was about to speak to a real live demon. Maybe she should just dismiss him now before she made some mistake that would cost her her life or worse…
No. She had come this far; she might as well follow through.
She looked him in the eyes, trying not to let her gaze wander or her voice waver. "I want your top hat."
He blinked. A moment passed. Morgan began to feel a little queasy.
"You want WHAT?"
"I…" The words started flowing before she even realized it. She was rambling, speaking before she bothered to think things through, just like she'd tried to prepare herself not to do. This was bad. This was so, so bad. "I just really like hats and I think it's so cool that yours floats above your head like that and I'd love to have a hat that does that and I was kind of sort of thinking about cosplaying you at a con one of these days- people keep telling me that I should be a Mizar cosplayer but I'd rather dress up as you instead- and I mean I know it'd probably have to be a female version of you but I think my hair's kind of the right shade of brown for it you know and it'd be a good excuse to get a business suit since I've always wanted to wear one of those and the hat would help me with getting that costume together I guess?"
Morgan backed up a few steps and sat down on the edge of her bed, watching the demon carefully.
"So… you want a floating top hat? I'm not giving you MY floating top hat. But you can have a similar one… for the right price."
"Right, right, yeah, not yours exactly, that makes sense, I'm sorry about that…"
Alcor shook his head gently. "Don't apologize. Just tell me what I would get out of the deal."
"Well… you like keepsakes and stuff, right? Things with a lot of memories attached to them? I mean, I'm pretty sure I read that, so…"
The girl rushed into her closet, retrieving a brightly-colored floppy hat with a flower on the side, which had been carefully placed within a transparent plastic bag to prevent it from undergoing any damage.
"And what is that, then?"
"This hat was my great-grandmother's. She was a big actress in Hollywood back in her day, and she wore this hat in one of the movies she was in- it was one of the earliest movies in color, so they really wanted to show off what they could do with it, that's why the hat's so colorful and stuff- and then my great-grandma gave it to my grandmother and I got it from her right before she died and so it's kind of a family heirloom thing would that work okay for you?"
"…okay. Yeah. Antique hat for floating hat. I can do that."
Morgan set the hat gently on the ground and approached the summoning circle. Right as she got within arm's length of its boundaries, she stopped moving.
"So, my end of the deal is, I give you this old hat from my great-grandmother-" she pointed to its current location on the floor in one of the few spots not overrun with clothes and papers- "which Mom is probably going to kill me for giving away but it's not like we don't have other hats from her and we're not using it anyway so I don't get what the big deal is anyway… That's what you'll get, right?"
Alcor nodded. "Sounds good."
"And then I get a floating top hat. And it'll look like just yours and act like yours and everything. And it won't, like, kill me in my sleep or anything like that. Just a normal…" She giggled softly as she realized the oxymoronic nature of what she was about to say. "A… normal… floating top hat."
"Right. Do we have a deal, then?"
Morgan took one more step forward and extended her hand. "We have a deal."
And then his hand touched hers and that was fire, that was her hand being engulfed in blue flames just like his was, and she knew it was coming but still it was just downright weird and it's not like the flames hurt or anything it just sort of tingled but that just made it even weirder and oh God she was making a deal with a demon this is everything they tell you not to do in school this was the worst idea ever why did she do this she was going to regret this oh God oh God oh God what had she done?
And then he was gone, the flames were gone, her great-grandmother's hat was gone… it was all over.
Morgan ran to the garbage can in her room, knelt down, and threw up into it.
It was done. She had gone through with it.
And there, where the hat that had been passed down through her family for generations had been sitting, there was now a small black top hat hovering about an inch off the ground.
The girl picked up the top hat, marveling at how it was weightless in her hand, and placed it atop her head.
She looked at herself in the mirror. Her face was pale, even paler than her normal pasty self. But she had the top hat, just as she'd pictured it, floating a small ways above her head.
Okay, so not many people could boast about having a hat that had been used as a prop used in the early days of Hollywood film-making. But how many people could truthfully say that they owned a floating hat?
Morgan adjusted the placement of her new top hat and smiled weakly. Maybe she had done pretty well with this whole deal-making business after all.