Emily The Familiar

Yellow greenish eyes glowed from low in the thick bush beside the trail. A woman hiking was lost. She was near exhaustion. Cold, tired, and hungry, she continued to put one foot in front of the other. The eyes vanished into the bush. The moon was full and high in the sky giving enough light for the woman to see her steps without stumbling.

At a junction in the trail, the eyes reappeared, and intuition caused the woman to follow in their direction. After another mile of silent walking, wishing with all her might that she could cry, but knowing it would be a waste of precious energy, she focused on moving forward, saving her tears for when she was safe at home.

The end appeared. With a burst of relief, she trotted out of the dense forest and collapsed across her front door threshold.

Letting tears flow free, she dragged her body inside, turned the wall heater up to high, and laid down in front of it. Looking up through watery vision, she saw the same eyes that had guided her home. From outside her window, they looked in. The moon illuminated a silhouette of a large head, long snout, and ears that pointed straight up to heaven. The woman and the wolf locked eyes. The soul of the wolf, spoke to the soul of the woman.

I’m here.

I’m protection.

I’m guide.

I’m company.

I’m insight.

I’m wisdom.

I’m here.

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Misty had recently moved to this secluded home on the edge of the forest. Six months ago she was fired from a high stress job, for reasons she did not agree with at the time. Her severance was generous, and she spent the better part of six months on the couch cuddling the TV remote and eating Chinese takeout. After waking up one morning, with duck sauce in her hair, and a spilled wine glass on the coffee table, she got up and went outside for a walk. She walked and walked aimlessly wandering the streets until she drifted out of the city into nature.

Misty, drawn by her ancestors and a force she was still unfamiliar with, ventured into the enchanted. On the fringes of reality, the woods she began to frequent took notice of her presence and began to respond.

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 The trees whispered to the wolf. The wolf watched with yellow green glowing eyes. She saw Misty amble about through the forest. Over fallen trees, scrambling past rocks, the wolf could feel the searching of Misty’s soul. Sending out an energic signal, lightly as not to frighten the woman, the wolf started a mystical connection by sharing her name and her intentions.

Emily. I will be your familiar.           

Days went by and a routine developed. Misty began to rise earlier and earlier. Taking longer and longer walks in the woods. She stopped to admire wildflowers, dip her feet in streams, and lay her head back against soft green earth. Dirt caked beneath her fingernails, brought a smile to her face. For the first time in years, Misty felt peace. It was a fleeting peace that evaporated as soon as her feet touched pavement, but it was there begging to be experienced.

Emily, presence undetected, stood guard. Nudging Misty along by the established energetic connection, she led her to trails full of beauty. Sprawling meadows, clear water creeks, and wise solid trees filled her days and quieted her mind. Satisfied that Misty would continue to seek solace in nature and sensing that she was ready to leave her city dwelling behind in favor of forest habitation, Emily took her guiding energy and focused it on finding the woman a place to live.

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She let her long legs and muscular frame run free. The wind rippling through her fur, chilling her skin, she ran. Paws silently bouncing off the ground as the miles flew by. Unbound by trails, Emily traversed steep ravines and swam across lakes. Driven by her nose and instinct she hunted for just the right place to bring Misty.

Within a week, she had found it. A small cabin at the edge of the forest. Trails that could be walked forever started from the backyard. The front of the house opened up to a grove of apple trees complete with a pond in the center. The structure itself was well built and sturdy. Tiny with only one room big enough for a bed, couch, table for two, kitchen, and bathroom. Emily knew it was the perfect spot for Misty.

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She slept in the doorframe for three nights, waiting for the moon to become full. On the fourth night, as the sunset and the moon rose in all her full glory, Emily began the binding ritual. Once completed, the house would call out to Misty with a powerful force drawing her in. She would be bound by love as the home would serve her as a place of healing and refuge.

Squatting at each of the four corners of the home, Emily left her scent. She paced slowly around in a clockwise direction, turning her attention inward, calling in her desire for the future habitant to find joy and comfort within the walls. She fell into a deep meditation as she circled the home continuously for almost an hour. At the peak of the moon’s light shining directly upon the house, Emily stopped in her tracks. She sat back on her haunches, lifted her face to the heavens, and sent out a howl conjured up from deep in her bowels. Her cry went out to the universe with her intentions riding upon the sound. The night carried the ritual through time and space, finding Misty and bringing her step by step to her new abode.

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Misty barely packed a thing from her old apartment. She was ready to start fresh. It was barely two weeks ago that she stepped into a real estate office, driven by a listing posted in the window. The agent drove her to the isolated cabin and told her it was a buy as is situation.

Misty loved it the moment she saw it. She had no explanation for why she felt so comfortable buying such a place without an inspection or much paperwork for that matter. All she knew was she was in love and this was home.

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Starting fresh proved more difficult than Misty imagined. Her lifestyle up until this point, had been city based. Walking a few blocks to get groceries, ordering from any number of restaurants, people filling all the spaces. That was her reality.

One her first night at the cabin, unaware that a wolf stood guard against physical and spiritual enemies, Misty opened a can of chicken noodle soup, lit a candle, poured a glass of wine and sat down at the small dinning table and ate. Alone in silence she realized how lonely she had been in the city. Surrounded by humanity, isolated by modern life, Misty wept gently for all the years she wasted. As she shed tears, she shed her old mindset. The lonely feeling was unwelcome here. Misty embraced being in the company of herself.  

As the days turned to weeks, Misty became more and more intimate with her own company. She journaled daily, chronicling her struggle to learn to tend the apple trees, keep backyards chickens for eggs, and feed herself without the help of Doordash. One clock hung above the stove, and she relished in the freedom of scheduling by day light hours and weather, not Google calendars. She walked the trails with a need to soak up the peace and power they offered. Open minded, full of new wonder, she slowly settled in.

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Emily never went far from the home. Her presence was always near, her guard always up. Undetected she lurked in the shadows, and with silent promptings pushed Misty towards her soul’s purpose. Fending off any and all invaders that sought to distract and steel energy from Misty, Emily grew into her role as the familiar of this newly born witch.

Patiently she waited for the right time to revel herself to Misty. That time came on a full moon, with the woman ambitiously hiking a trail further then she had ever been. Realizing she was lost, and losing day light, Misty paused and called out to the forest, to the universe, to the God and Goddess, for help and the miracle needed to find her way home.

Yellow green glowing eyes answered her prayers.

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Sufficiently warmed from the wall heater, and having just heard a wolf outside her front window speak to her soul, Misty went into the kitchen and started water for hot cocoa. She also pulled out a leftover beef bone stew. She warmed that up as well.

Having successfully unmodernized her life, Misty was unfazed by the creature. She had emersed herself in nature, self-sufficiency, and freedom from limiting beliefs. Her sheltered previous life did not know the term witch, but Misty felt her spirit awaken to new levels of oneness with the earth. She knew the eyes that looked in her window, where the same eyes that had guided her home.

Friendship had arrived.

Mug in hand, house warm, soup poured into a bowl and placed on the floor in front of the heater, she opened the front door and spoke to the wolf.

“Welcome.” Spreading her arms out and stepping aside, Misty ushered her familiar into her home.

Emily went to the soup, ate hungrily and then curled up before the warmth. Misty sat on the couch, wrapped a blanket about herself, and sipped her hot cocoa.

The night moved on.

Misty dreamt of running wild, chasing rabbits, howling at the moon, rutting in the spring dawn. Emily dreamt of eating fresh apples, collecting eggs, baking bread, sewing her own clothes.

In the morning, the two awoke snuggled in bed together. Both their bodies and souls entwined.  

The End