The Reluctant Elemental
In the mid to late 1980s I had discovered and frequented Spellbound, a metaphysics store in Belleville (New Jersey).
The store's colourful proprietor Vinnie, had just begun created and taught a multi-week course various aspects of metaphysics.
I could probably do a whole page just on Spellbound, and may include a few other stories here (certainly this one).
(Sadly, Vinnie chose to sell the store, and its new owners augured it right into the ground within a few short months.)
Vinnie related how, when he did magick at his apartment, he did it so often that soon the various Elementals that had begun to show up began staying. even after the performed rituals.
One entity was a greenish blob he realized was an Earth Elemental.
It tended to hang out in the corners of the room.
I cannot recall what the Water Elemental was, but he did have an Air Elemental which seemed to resemble a cloud of cigarette smoke that stayed and drifted about at ceiling level.
He literally named it Smoke.
The Fire Elemental that began to live there Vinnie said with amusement could best be described as resembling the character Mr. Heat Miser.
Running about, just visible out of the corner of his eye, the Fire Elemental was as graceful as a cat, with glowing red eyes.
It also had a habit of knocking over lit candles.
When Vinnie found another place, he did a thorough Cleansing of his apartment, sending away the Elementals, to make way for the new tenant.
A few weeks later Vinnie got a call at the store from his former landlady.
"Vinnie, you leave cat?"
"Cat, what cat?"
"You leave cat in apartment?"
"What?
No, my cat Akasha lives here at the store.
I never had a cat at the apartment."
"You leave cat," his former landlady insisted (in whatever accent it was Vinnie was comically mimicking when he related the story).
"New tenant can't find cat, can't catch.
It keep knocking over candles!"
With the new tenant only able to see his unwanted subletter as it would scurry about, visible only out of the corner of his eye, Vinnie realized the Cleansing hadn't been quite so complete, and he returned and got the Fire Elemental to depart.