I have to say I’m surprising myself by writing a testimonial for a love spell. I’m not the sort of person who normally believes in this kind of thing. I’m not religious at all — I don’t believe in any god or higher power. I don’t believe in psychics neither. I’ve never been to a tarot card reading or done a ouija board or a seance. I don’t read horoscopes. Hell, I don’t even like magic shows. My friends call me doubting Thomas because I’m so skeptical of everything. They obviously don’t see the irony in using a religious reference. Or maybe they do and that’s part of the joke.
How come I came to use a love spell then? Funnily enough, in a way, it was to prove that it wouldn’t work. More fool me right? Spoiler alert: it did work. But I should back it up and explain why I even needed a spell in the first place.
I met my Maisie in the last week of college. She was popular — out of my league. She dated half the class before she got round to me. I don’t even know why she went with me. I sure as hell didn’t ask her out. I never asked anyone out. I’m not that kind of person. I don’t have the confidence. Girlfriends are something other guys have. But somehow Maisie and I ended up going together. It just kind of happened. We liked the same music and we went to see a band together. Together in that we planned to meet there, it wasn’t just coincidence.
For me it was never a date. I knew she was going, she knew I was going, so I said I’d see her there. Hell, now I say it, it does almost sound like I asked her out. Whatever. We agreed to meet there, we did, and that’s how it started for us. We enjoyed the music together, got drunk on the atmosphere, then went on somewhere else and got drunk on liquor. That took away my inhibitions, I kissed her, she reciprocated, and next thing I knew she was telling everyone at college that we were an item.
That was two years ago. We stayed together all that time, to everyone’s amazement. Mine as much as anyone else’s. We were good together. She was my first girlfriend so I didn’t have any experience to compare her with. All I knew was I was real happy when I was with her. When I wasn’t with her, I looked forward to seeing her. One day she asked me if I loved her and it was the first time I’d considered the question. I said yes, and after a lot of reflection I realized I meant it. I really did love her.
Just as I fell into this relationship without planning it, so the whole thing ended without planning. I guess that’s how most relationships end. I don’t suppose many people go around planning how to end a relationship. Or do they?
Maisie did.
She had to have done. Because one morning we met up for coffee and apropos of nothing she said, “I think it’s best we don’t see each other anymore.”
Her words didn’t make any sense. I mean, she was speaking English, and all the words were normal ones that connected together in a grammatically correct way. But they didn’t make any sense. Why would it be best if we didn’t see each other anymore?
“Why do you think it would be best if we didn’t see each other anymore?” I asked her.
She put her hand on mine and gave it a squeeze. I remember it clearly. I didn’t know it was possible to imbue such an anodine gesture with so much meaning and so much emotion. She told me more with that squeeze than with the words she spoke. The squeeze said she was sorry, that she hadn’t wanted to hurt me but she knew she had, that she wished there was another way, that she felt bad about this, that she knew I would be devastated, that it would take me a long time to get my head around the whole idea.
What she actually said was, “Oh, Thomas. You’re a lovely man. One day you’ll make someone very happy. And I will be very jealous.”
And with that she got up and walked away.
What the hell was that supposed to mean? I wanted to make her happy! What did she mean she would be jealous? Why be jealous of a hypothetical future girlfriend? Maisie was my girlfriend. She already had me! It made no sense.
She looked back over her shoulder just once, with a sad smile (I never knew a smile could be so sad), and then she was gone.
I tried to tackle the situation the same way I tackle all situations: analytically. I analyzed her words. But they made no sense. The more I tried to figure out what she had been trying to say the more confused I was. I concluded they must have been a white lie. They were sugar-coated to ease the message. She wouldn’t be jealous of a future girlfriend, she was saying that to make me feel better. Which meant she didn’t love me at all.
That revelation hit me like a ton of bricks. It’s when I really understood for the first time that Maisie wasn’t coming back.
I sank into a deep depression then. Maisie had completely changed my life. It will probably come as no surprise to learn that before her, I was something of a recluse. I had friends, and I went to see bands play, but I wasn’t a social man. I was the one standing at the back nursing my bottle of beer and hoping nobody tried to talk to me. I was there for the music, not the people.
Aside from music, I never went out. What I am trying to say is that before Maisie I had no life. So she was my life. After she was gone, it wasn’t just her that was gone…everything was gone. Because she was everything to me. Most of my friends were her friends. Everything we did, we did together. Any time we weren’t together it was like my life was on hold, like someone had pressed the pause button on me. I came back to life when she was there again.
I realize now, as I write this, that this was not a healthy state of affairs. I wasn’t a complete person, I was an accessory to someone else’s life. But I was happy to be that. It was enough for me.
Apparently it was not enough for Maisie. And now she had gone, left me paused on the shelf indefinitely.
My brother, who is about the only person I was close to, could see I was distraught. He tried to get me out doing things, to start building a life for myself again. But what was the point? Without her, what was the point of anything? I could not envisage being happy ever again, so why even try?
There was only one thing that could give me hope: the thought that I could win Maisie back. The obvious flaw in this thinking was that I had never even won her affection in the first place. Not deliberately. I had not wooed her or serenaded her or done whatever other people do to attract a partner. However we had ended up together, it was not a repeatable process, so I couldn’t hope to repeat it to win her back.
When I put this to my brother, he seemed to find it funny. I did not see the amusing side. I said what’s so funny about losing the love of your life? He said I’d meet someone else. I didn’t want to meet anyone else.
Eventually I think he decided he had to help me because I was such a miserable bastard to be around. I was open to suggestions. My brother said I should send Maisie a single red rose every day for a week, each one accompanied by a line from a poem. On the last day I should send a dozen roses with the complete poem. This, he assured me, was a sure-fire way to win the heart of any girl.
I placed the order with the florist and waited. I could see the logic in the thinking. I’d never made any grand gestures like this before. Maisie obviously did not understand how much she meant to me. The roses would rectify the situation.
On the day of the second rose, she called me. My heart was in my mouth when I answered. I hadn’t imagined it would work so quickly!
“Are you sending these roses?” she asked.
“Of course. Who else would be—” I cut myself short. Crap. The implication behind her question hit me. It literally winded me to the point I was unable to speak.
“Can you stop them? I don’t want the others. I know the poem,” she said. “I understand the meaning. You don’t need to send the rest.”
“I…they’re paid for. I can’t stop them,” I managed to say. “Sorry.”
She sighed heavily.
“Why…why are they a problem?”
I didn’t want to hear the answer, but she said it anyway. “Well it’s like you said. Who else would be sending them?”
“You’ve…met someone.”
“He’s the jealous kind.”
“Hardly my problem!” I shouted, and I punched the button to hang up. I felt a rage mixed with despair. Maisie was with another man. I literally saw red. My phone fell out of my hand and when I tried to pick it up I couldn’t understand why it was wet and slippery. Then I realized there were tears streaming down my face. Thank goodness I was at home and nobody could see the state I was in.
I found an old bottle of bourbon and drank it all. In my dazed state I tried to call Maisie, but she didn’t answer. I called randomly any number in the contact list until someone answered. I don’t think I was able to speak, I only wailed and hollered like a baby, but it was enough for them to understand that I probably should not be on my own.
Before I knew it a couple of friends were at my front door, trying to get me sobered up. I think I threw up a couple of times. I know I woke up hours later, on the floor, a cover over me and a bucket beside my head, which was pounding. The smell of fresh coffee made me empty my gut once more.
That was the lowest point. My friends took my plight more seriously after that. They had seen first hand what Maisie had done to me. But still I needed her back. I loved her.
When one of my friends suggested I try a love spell, I think I might actually have laughed. It would have been the first time for a long time.
“They work for some people,” she said. “My sister used one. It’s how she got together with Greg.”
I must have pulled a face. I’d met Greg once and didn’t like him.
“What have you got to lose?” she said.
“My sanity.”
“How so?”
“Because I don’t believe in that crap. If I start trying to believe it, who knows where it will end? I could end up in a cult or something.”
“You’re being a bit dramatic.”
“Am I?”
Maybe I was. She kept pushing the idea, wearing me down gradually. Her argument wasn’t exactly compelling, but I could see the logic: 1) I didn’t have Maisie. 2) I wanted Maisie back. 3) I had no other ideas, and 4) right now Maisie was dating someone else. Therefore: 5) Trying a spell wouldn’t make things any worse (could they even get worse?)
In the end I agreed. Not because I thought my friend was right, but to prove her wrong. In a perverse way I wanted to prove to her that love spells and magic were bunkum.
My friend’s sister had used one of your spells, Joshua. So that’s why we came to you. My friend helped me fill out the form. I was happy to let her. I didn’t want her to say it was my fault when the spell didn’t work, that I’d done something wrong.
There wasn’t much scope for going wrong anyway, the form was so quick and simple. Too simple. I said to my friend, “How can he cast a spell with so little information?”
She said, “He needs to know who you are and who you love — what more is there to know?”
I guess she had a point.
You’ll remember that you agreed to help me (or maybe you won’t remember — you must get a lot of people asking for your help so you probably don’t remember them all). You said you had cast a small exploratory spell before accepting my case, to test if love between me and Maisie was ‘in harmony with the universe’. You’ll forgive me, I hope, for thinking that sounded like a load of crap.
You know by now how I was feeling about this whole love spell thing. So you will understand how shocked I was when Maisie called by a few days later. She said she couldn’t stop thinking about me. I said does this mean you were wrong to leave, that we’re ‘us’ again? She said no, not yet at least. But she did say she was no longer with the other man, that he had been a mistake. It wasn’t really clear why she had come round at all, but I was glad she had.
When my friend found out she said, “See? It’s the spell!” I pointed out that you hadn’t cast the spell yet, but she said the exploratory spell must have had an effect for Maisie to turn up like that. I sent you a message Joshua, and you told me that this sometimes happens, that the exploratory spell itself can sometimes be enough to make things start to change.
I was still skeptical. It could have been coincidence, even if the date of your casting lined up with when Maisie had said she’d started thinking about me, about us.
I needed more proof. You delivered. You cast the full spell, and within a few weeks Maisie and I were an item again. There was no doubting it was you, because again the dates lined up.
Since Maisie came back I’ve asked her a thousand questions about what happened during that dark time that we were apart. Everything lines up. She had sleepless nights where she was afraid she had lost me forever. She said I became like an obsession to her. It all tied in with when you cast the exploratory spell, then the full one.
Which is why I am sitting here, typing out this story. To eat humble pie and say that my friend was right. That you were right, Joshua. By some mechanism that I don’t understand but that I am forced by facts to accept, you managed to bring me back my girlfriend.
Maisie and I are back together, and it’s better than ever. I’m not going to give you credit for that bit though. The reason we are better is because we both know what we have now. We lost each other and that made us appreciate what we had. Now we have each other again and we see the value of our relationship, we are thankful every day that we are together. That’s what makes us stronger.
I thank you, Joshua. I won’t lie, a little part of me wants still to believe that it was coincidence that fixed this. The implications of your spell working are a challenge to my world view. Be that as it may, I have to give credit where it’s due, and you are due credit.
