The Vanishing

by Kathy Tirrell

Hi there. My name is Janet. I’ve always been a sensitive sort of girl. In fact, a psychic once said I have a light blue aura surrounding me. I did a little research and found out that means I am keenly sensitive, which just confirms what I already knew.
 
Anyway, about a year ago, I fell in love with this married guy at work named Johnny. We spent a lot of time together, working on projects, and there was plenty of flirting, but no actual affair. However innocent the whole thing may have been for him, it was dead serious to me. I found myself constantly thinking about him and fantasizing about his big strong arms wrapped around me at night.

I had a friend at work named Molly who was totally into candle magic, witchcraft, and all things paranormal. So one day over lunch I brought up something I’d been pondering.

“So listen,” I began. “If someone wanted to make a certain someone fall in love with her, how might she do that?”

Molly nearly choked on her sandwich.
 
“Are you serious?”

“I’m dead serious.”

“You want to try to make someone fall in love with you?”

“I didn’t say I was talking about me, but either way, can it be done?”

Molly dabbed her mouth with a napkin and contemplated the question. “There are all sorts of spells. I know a candle magic spell you could try, but I can’t guarantee it will work. And I should warn you, it’s probably not a good idea for you to even try it.”

“Why not?”

“Well, it has to do with the idea of messing with free will. What if the guy doesn’t want to fall in love with you? If you’re trying to put a spell on him, he might try to fight it. Or…I don’t know, it might have very negative consequences.”

“I want to do it. Please? Could you write down the steps for me?”

Molly heaved a heavy sigh and said, “Sure. I’ll write down what you have to do and give it to you today before we go home.”

That night I set up 7 red candles in a row on my bedroom bureau. Red was supposed to be the color for passion; I figured that was close enough to love. The idea was to start out with the lighted candles spaced a couple of inches apart, then each night I was supposed to move them closer and closer until at the end of the week they were all touching. I also made up a little chant to say while I lit the candles. It went like this: “Johnny and Janet are too far apart; let them grow closer and closer in heart.”

And I’d fall asleep each night dreaming of Johnny.

On the last night of that week around midnight, wanting to ensure Johnny would fall madly in love with me, I took out a photo of him I’d clipped from our newsletter at work. It was a small picture I could easily fit in the palm of my hand.

Clasping the photo tightly between my hands, I rubbed it in a circular motion while chanting my little love mantra. I did this for a couple of minutes, really concentrating on Johnny and then, all of a sudden, I’m not kidding, the photo…

Vanished! I swear to God, it vanished into thin air. I searched all around the room, everywhere I could possibly look, but that photo was gone.

When I finally mustered enough of my sanity back, I grabbed my cell phone and punched in Molly’s number.

“Hu--lllo,” came her half-asleep voice.

Talking really fast and probably sounding hysterical, I explained to her what had just happened.

“Holy crap!” Molly sounded wide awake now.

“Yeah, really! So how do you explain this? What does it mean?”

Molly exhaled into the phone.

“It means… somebody or some thing does NOT want you getting involved with this guy.”

Needless to say I quickly got over my fascination with Johnny. But that picture of him has never reappeared again.

Kathy Tirrell loves ghost stories and lots of other kinds of stories. She also likes to blog, so if you’d like to read some of her thoughts on what goes on in this crazy world, visit her at It Bloggles the Mind.

Image credit: blog.timesunion.com