text: This was originally from a writing prompt, but the original prompt seems to not exist anymore, unfortunately. Some swearing and adult themes (mods, let me know if I need to censor it.) Luke sighed in frustration as he set aside the full bucket on his carpet. The rain had finally let up, but he'd been distracted cleaning out the basement most of the day and hadn't noticed the leak in the ceiling until it had soaked through the carpet and part of the bed. He'd just put silk sheets on it, too. Surveying the damage, he started to realize that there was no salvaging the carpet. He'd have to rip it up and probably get it replaced. He did some mental calculations and thought that the emergency fund might not cover it. He'd been preparing to go to a concert with Andrea later that month and maybe they could scrap it...but he didn't want to take that away from her. Maybe he would just eat out less for a little while. Luke spent the next hour moving furniture and starting to tear up the carpet. Part of him wished Andrea was here so she could help him, but he'd rather get this done without bothering her. She was at her mother's for the weekend, and he didn't want to stress her out any more than her family already would. He had been planning for the house to be in perfect shape when she got back, but apparently that wasn't happening anymore. And he wasn't totally unamused by the irony of spending the whole day cleaning the house while ignoring the catastrophe in the bedroom. As he pulled the carpet further back, it occurred to him that he'd never seen the floor underneath, which turned out to be wood floorboards. Maybe they should have the wood refinished and get a rug instead? Most of the rest of the house had rugs anyway, so Andrea would probably prefer it. It didn't seem to be water damaged, at least. Under where the head of the bed had been, a square patch of the floorboards had been replaced with a different plank of wood. He crawled over to it out of curiosity and picked at it a little, and to his surprise it wasn't very well secured. He tried to move it a little more and found that it was completely removable. *What lazy carpenter put this together?* There was a cavity under where the wood had been with supplies in it. Luke stared at the small space for a moment before he realized what he was looking at. This was essentially a secret treasure, probably left behind by the previous owner. Well, it was probably actually junk, but still, he couldn't help but feel a little excited. There was a childish wonder in a discovery like this and for the first time in hours, he wasn't thinking about cleaning or home repair. *So what have we got?* The space was about one square foot and all he could see on top was a small wooden box and some red candles. He examined the candles first and decided that they were, in fact, junk. The box was locked, but the clasp was pretty cheap and he had his tools here anyway, so it only took a minute to unscrew the clasp. He was starting to feel like Indiana Jones uncovering the secrets of the world, not letting the practical knowledge that this was probably more candles squash his dreams yet. Inside the box, there were not, in fact, more candles. At first he wasn't even sure what he was looking at. There were very tiny jars of dried herbs, a jar of ink, and some incense. What stood out most, though, was a small glass vial. It was diamond-shaped with gold lining on the edges. He picked it up and held it to the light to see that there was some brownish red liquid inside. *What the fuck?* He lost track of time staring at it, trying to come up with a non-morbid explanation for what he was looking at, but he couldn't come up with one. The best he could manage was that this belonged to some old fortune teller and it was a fake prop. But why hide it under the floor? Whether he was looking at real blood or not, whoever put this here probably thought it was real. At least there wasn't very much of it, though, so there was that. He put the vial back in the box and set the box beside him. What was left in the space in the floor was a brown book laying on some white cloth. He put the book aside for a moment to look at the cloth and unraveling it found that it was a cloak. It had a gold clasp and was slightly moth-eaten, and outside of the color it very much looked like it would have belonged to a fortune teller. Or a witch. Or a very high quality Halloween store. There was nothing else beneath the cloak in the storage space so he dropped it back in and returned his attention to the book. The book looked unremarkable on the outside. It was very old and faded with a broken spine and yellowed pages. He opened up the first page and found faded handwritten ink. The writing was elaborate and looked like Gothic German lettering, and yet he could read a few words here and there. *What language is this?* The pages were extremely brittle and he had to turn them slowly one at a time. Each page was a block of unreadable text occasionally interrupted by a drawing of peculiar patterns. The shapes were almost hypnotizing in their symmetry. Some were made of sharp lines while others were delicate swirls, and some were simple while others were elaborate. The more he flipped through the book, the more convinced he became that there was an enormous amount of history in its pages. On one page he turned to, a page with little writing but a fairly detailed symbol, a piece of paper fell out. He picked it up and saw that it was...a torn piece of lined notebook paper? Yes, that's definitely what it was. A modern piece of scrap hidden inside this relic. Andrea liked to bookmark with torn scrap, so maybe that's what it was for? The implications of this realization hit him suddenly and he found himself staring at the piece of garbage. Andrea wasn't the only one who bookmarked that way, though, and why in the world would she be hiding something like this under their bedroom floor? He took out his phone and took a picture of the book to send to Andrea. He typed a message asking her what any of this was but halfway through decided to delete it. Whatever it was, if she wanted him to see it, she would have told him. But it might not be hers anyway. Andrea liked things like meditation and incense, but she wasn't especially into mysticism, not to the point where she would have a demon cloak and an antique book under her floorboards. Or a bottle of blood. He looked again at the jars of herbs and the incense. The incense was tied together in a bow in the same way that Andrea stored her own incense. He sniffed at it but whatever it was was too faded. He picked up the herb jars and this time the doubt was almost completely crushed. There were labels on the herb jars in masking tape, written clearly and undoubtedly in Andrea's handwriting. Her distinctive "y" on "thyme" was too unique and he was absolutely certain now that these were hers. He found himself overwhelmed by all of it. There were supposed to be bottle caps and Christmas decorations in this secret compartment in the floor, not something actually exciting. His life was boring, and honestly, he liked it that way. He'd had excitement in his youth and left that behind a long time ago. But this, trying to face the idea that his wife was a witch? What in the world did that mean? No, because this wasn't left by his wife, this was someone else who happened to have Andrea's handwriting and mannerisms. He tried to remember what Andrea had taught him about meditation. *Focus on your breathing. In through the nose. Out through the mouth. Slowly in. Slowly out.* Whenever a thought hit him about Andrea and spirits, he gently let it go. *Slowly in. Slowly out. Don't think. Don't worry. Just let it go.* The rising alarm slowly faded and after a few minutes he could think more clearly. So maybe it was Andrea's, so what? This stuff really wasn't too strange, was it? Okay, yes, it was weird, but it wasn't bad. The only thing that worried him was that it was in the floor, but otherwise, there really wasn't anything too offensive in this whole discovery. Except the blood. But maybe that had an explanation, too. He returned his attention to the book. There must be answers in there. He couldn't even begin to figure out how to decipher it, but there was probably someone on the internet who could. He searched for forums about antique books and eventually found one dedicated to medieval text. The pictures on the forum seemed closest to what he was looking at. So it was middle English, then. He sent a picture of the bookmarked page of the book to the forum with the caption, "Found this under my floorboards. Can anyone translate or tell me anything else about it?" He put his phone down and looked around him. It suddenly occurred to him that he still hadn't toweled up the rainwater that had soaked through the carpet. He put the occult paraphernalia on the bed and went to work cleaning the floor. After he was done, he checked his forum post and found that he'd gotten a few responses. > LookinForJim: Holy shit that's so cool. Looks like its from 13th century england maybe? > hereforthelolli: fake > bitcherofrivia79: This is probably a replica. Do you have a picture of the cover or front page? Inside cover? He sent the requested pictures to the last user and waited a while longer. > bitcherofrivia79: It looks pretty real. I think the first page talks about supernatural mystics and shit. Sorry I can't really read the text on this one lol. Luke hadn't even considered that it might be a replica. It would certainly be a comfort, but that didn't really solve the mystery of it being hidden. He sent another response. > Lando_1109: Thanks. There was also incense, candles, herbs, ink, and a cloak under the floor. So mystics makes sense. > Fire_Whiskeyyy: uuuummmmm what? > hereforthelolli: fake > bitcherofrivia79: Probably should have mentioned that at the beginning... Luke sighed and put the phone down. He was starting to feel like a lunatic. *What the hell are you doing? Just put everything back and leave it alone. If Andrea wanted you to know about it, you'd know about it. Leave it be.* He checked the forum post again and this time had received a longer response. > eofra998: I took some liberties to make it a little more readable, but here's my best guess: > > Would you desire the passion of another > Blend the greens of calamint, thyme, horseradish, comfrey, rue > With rue at half the lot of the others > All dried and prepared untouched for eleven days > Burn the scents of thyme while the sun is risen > And when the moon has risen > Depict the patterning upon the ground > And alight the candles at its ends > Drink the blend of greens > Set the collected blood of the mark in a vessel > And set the vessel at the heart of the patterning > The candles come to end > And while the vessel is sealed, the trance is held > > So to put that into human words, "If you want to make a girl wet for you, do all this super creepy stuff." So...a love spell? That's what this was, right? He looked again at the jarred herbs and sure enough, they matched those listed in the book. That's what this was all about, it had to be. Why would Andrea want to put anyone under a spell? Who would she even need to do that to? Did she do this on someone else's behalf? Was this something from her past that she was ashamed of? There's no way this was actually real, right? Was it even possible to successfully put someone under a love spell? Meditation. He sat back against the wall, closed his eyes, and breathed in. And out. And in. And out. The thoughts were harder to push away this time, but he forced them out. Slowly. In. And out. Breathe. He opened his eyes again and tried to think calmly. He and Andrea had been married for twelve years and dated for a year before that. They moved into this house together when they got married and in all that time had never replaced the carpet. So she must have put this under there twelve years ago. He couldn't avoid the obvious conclusion any longer. There was only one person Luke could think of during that time that Andrea would have wanted to put a love spell on. He tried to meditate again, but no amount of measured breathing could push away the panic. Everything was sorted back as best as Luke was able to get it. He had pictures of everything in the storage compartment, including every page of the book. It probably wouldn't have to be perfectly replaced after twelve years, but he didn't want it to seem like anything had been touched. Even the clasp on the box looked pretty good. Well, almost everything. He knew someone as kind as Andrea wasn't going to engage in demonic rituals, but there was a small voice in his head that wouldn't quiet until he found out for sure. And he couldn't let her know that he thought there was a chance she would do this. He felt guilty for even keeping this from her. But he couldn't bring himself to just ask her outright either. There wasn't much more to do. The house was clean, the carpet was removed, and roof repair was scheduled for two weeks out. Andrea would be home soon and all he could do was wait. He spent the remaining hours following up on leads given to him by the forum posters. It was almost impossible to parse through what was legitimate and what wasn't. Some sources seemed reliable and provided some not completely unreasonable evidence of witchcraft. Others were ad-hoc ramblings that were almost unreadable let alone realistic. There were some other books in the world like his, nearly all in museums, none with more than a page or two online. He was looking up directions to the closest such museum when the front door opened. "Luke!" Andrea called. "I'm back!" Luke went to the front door to see his wife coming in with a rolling suitcase behind her. In that moment, the doubt vanished. She was a small woman with rich, energetic brown eyes and short brown hair that at this moment was falling into her face. She was wearing tightly formed skinny jeans and an oversized sweater, simultaneously hiding and showing off her slight figure. She pushed the hair out of her face and smiled at him, and he was as entranced by her smile now as the day they got married. "The house looks great!" Andrea said. Luke went over to his wife and pulled her into a deep kiss. "Thanks," he said, feeling the smallest amount of flush in his cheeks. "How was your trip?" "Better than usual. Mom didn't bring up children this time, so that was good. How was life without me? Lonely?" she teased. "Always," he answered, grinning. "Um, actually, there was an issue in the bedroom." She walked behind him through the house, her suitcase rolling loudly along with her. "What happened?" "There was a leak in the roof. I called a roofer, but in the meantime we'll have to use a bucket if it rains again." They reached the bedroom and he opened the door. "Oh god," she muttered in shock. He watched her closely as her eyes scanned the room. She seemed worried about it all, but he couldn't really blame her. He was pretty disheartened when he saw it, too. "The carpet was ruined. But the hardwood is fine and I was thinking we could get a rug instead, so maybe it's a good thing." "Uh huh," she said distractedly, walking into the room and over to the bed. Luke had repositioned the bed so that one leg was on top of the plank hiding the spell ingredients. Andrea was standing just near the plank, glancing back and forth between the bed and the floor where she stood. Was he reading into this? Or was she really trying to inconspicuously check the storage compartment? "That might work," she said. "Do we have anything to put over the floor in the meantime?" "I don't think we need to, if we're going to have to move everything again anyway." "Right." Andrea laid down on the bed and stared at the ceiling for a moment. "I'm pretty tired," she said. "I'm going to take a quick nap, then we can have dinner." "Sure," Luke said. "We can look at rugs tomorrow." He left the room, closing the door behind him. Andrea was skimming through social media on her phone when Luke joined her in bed. "Anything interesting on there?" Luke asked. Andrea shrugged. "Bianca is getting married again, apparently. Do you remember Bianca? From when we lived in Sheffield?" The name was familiar, but he was having trouble putting the pieces together. He shook his head. "Oh you know, she was married to Cory back then." He remembered now. He hadn't thought about Cory in years, honestly. They were friends when he and Andrea first met, but drifted after Luke moved away. They'd moved here for Andrea's work, and with that Luke had lost contact with a lot of people. He'd made new friends since then, of course, but it was a bit of a strange throwback to the old days. "I had no idea they even split up. You're still friends with her?" Andrea shrugged. "On Facebook. Haven't spoken in years." So much of that time seemed like a different life. Cory was actually there when he and Andrea met. She was a friend of a friend brought along for trivia one night, and he didn't even give her a passing glance at first. And though he may not have noticed her, she noticed him. She came along to every night out she was able to, always trying to sit near him, laughing at all of his jokes. Luke wasn't usually one to pick up on signals, but even he was getting the message. Even then, it still took a few months before he agreed to a date and they clicked. Getting to know her one on one on a simple coffee date seemed to spark a romance that hadn't faded in thirteen years. It had really been a case of opposites attract. They were wildly different people. Luke was intense and a bit of a daredevil, always traveling and trying to meet new people. He was always moving from one interest to another, always finding something new to keep life interesting. Andrea was more reserved and focused. Where Luke was flighty, Andrea was dedicated. She'd taught him to slow down and enjoy life for its quieter pleasures. She changed him, and it really did feel for the better. Honestly, he was never even sure what she saw in someone like him, someone who was so almost violently against the life she lived. "Hey, can I ask you kind of a weird question?" "Sure," she said, still scrolling through her phone. "When we first met, what did you see in me?" She paused, then set aside her phone and looked at him. "What's bringing this up?" He shrugged. "Just thinking about the old days." She smirked. "Well," she said, "my life was pretty bland and you were so interesting. Everyone liked you. You had so many great stories of all the places you'd been, and I couldn't get enough of them. You were a great storyteller, and funny. Well, you are funny." He was flushing again. "And cute, too. The second I saw you, I had to have you." She tilted her head and scrunched up her mouth in thought. "And what about you?" she asked playfully. "What'd you see in me?" He looked over his wife and tried to piece together the specific reasons he loved her. "Hmm. I like your smile. I like the way a room seems empty if you're not in it. I like how passionate you can be, and how beautiful you are. Also, you have good taste in men." She laughed and kissed him. He pulled her deeper into the kiss and held the small of her back, feeling her muscles move through the fabric of her sleeping shirt. Her hands traced down his neck and back, sending goosebumps along his spine. Distantly, he thought of the idea that this feeling was the result of witchcraft, and it seemed so impossible and far away. Whether this was a spell or not, and he was certain it wasn't, it definitely felt real. Gently, he pushed her back into the pillows, moving his lips to her neck, feeling her heavy breathing against his ear. The sounds of her pleasure drove him deeper into the moment, and he lost himself to the passion. - He woke up in the middle of the night, his arms wrapped around Andrea's waist. The night was silent save for the gentle breathing of his sleeping wife, rising and falling under his arms. All of this was too familiar to him, and yet the nagging doubt that it might all be a lie gave it a strange, unreal quality. He gently drew himself away from her and slipped out of bed, pulling on his discarded boxers. This uncertainty would break him apart. He would find out, for sure, if there was even such a thing as a real love spell. And when he found out that his wife hadn't put him under one, he would beg for her forgiveness for doubting her, and she might be disappointed, but she would forgive. And he could be free of this distrust in his own mind. He returned to the original post on the middle English forum, finding the translation. A line in the text stood out to him. "While the vessel is sealed, the trance is held." So surely that meant if there was a spell, he could break it just by opening up the bottle, right? That's all it took? His toolbox still sat in the corner of the room. He opened it up, the clanging of the metal breaking the silence. Slowly, trying to not make a sound, he removed the top layer of the toolbox, then set aside a few of the larger tools. Underneath them all was the small vial of definitely fake blood he'd found under the floor. He pulled out the small, mysterious, inconspicuous glass bottle and turned it over in his hands. If all of this wasn't his imagination, when could she have even gotten his blood? He tried to remember a time it might have happened, but it was all so long ago. *You're an idiot,* he told himself. *Why are you freaking out about any of this?* He looked at Andrea, still sleeping peacefully on the bed. Moonlight shone through her hair, providing a halo effect around her face. Why did he have to even learn about any of this? His life was fine. He was happy. He returned his attention to the vial. He took a breath. And opened it. The whole world stopped. The rose colored glasses he'd been looking through were shattered, and life seemed gray and unfamiliar. He looked to Andrea on the bed and saw a stranger. Her eyes were too far apart, her nose too short. She was sleeping with her mouth open, and her hair was a tangled mess, but none of it was charming, none of it was cute. She was lying on sheets he'd bought for his wife, but this wasn't his wife. This was some woman in his home, a woman he never invited in. Luke pressed his forehead into his hands and tried to meditate again, but couldn't even seem to gain control of his breathing. Andrea was the one who'd taught him how to meditate, so wasn't doing so letting her into his head? He tried to remember what he loved about his wife, but he couldn't even recollect those truths that seemed so real to him before. He needed to get out. Now. He jumped up and grabbed clothes from the closet. Could he ever come back? He emptied Andrea's suitcase as quietly as he could, shoving his own belongings in. He went from room to room in the house, grabbing things he would need in order to be away for a long while, and the more he walked through the house, the more he realized it wasn't his. Andrea had picked out this house. It was her dream home. Did he ever even offer an opinion on where they would live? Did he have one? He'd lived in the city before he met her, and that's what he'd liked. That was how he had seen his future. But he left that for her. After quickly combing through the rest of the house, he returned to the bedroom to retrieve the suitcase. He stood at the open door with his arms full of various documents and items, and he realized he was shaking. He just had to go in one more time to get the suitcase and get out. He forced himself in and dropped everything into the case. Her own belongings were strewn around the room and he tried not to look at them. There were blouses he'd bought her, lip glosses he'd tasted. He zipped up the suitcase and stopped for a moment to make sure he had everything. He had money, keys, documents, any trinkets he could find in plain view that belonged to him, some clothing. He had the vial... He should take the rest of the spell items. She would just find a way to cast the spell again if he left it. Maybe she'd find a way to cast the spell again anyway. He went over to the storage compartment and saw that the bed had been moved so that the compartment was uncovered but was now under the bed. He crawled under the bed and removed the plank and to his relief saw that while she'd apparently checked the supplies, she hadn't removed them. He collected everything, not knowing what was important and what was replaceable. In his hurry, he bumped his head on the bed frame as he crawled back out, and he heard Andrea shift on the bed. He slowly backed away and saw that her eyes were still closed. "You awake?" she murmured. "Y...yeah," he got out through a cracked voice. "Come back to bed," she said quietly. A shiver ran up his spine. "Soon." She mumbled and quieted again. He dropped the antiques into the suitcase, zipped it up, and carried it outside. It was a warm night. The three-quarter moon was visible behind the power lines over the neighbor's house. The Ruizes lived there. He wondered what their life was like, if they were happy and in love. What their future was. Luke went to his car and dropped the suitcase in the passenger's seat, then climbed into the driver's seat. The front door of his house banged open and Andrea came running out wearing only a long T-shirt. He locked the door and then looked for his keys before realizing that in his hurry he'd put them in the suitcase with everything else. He was searching through the suitcase when he heard knocking on the window. When he looked up, Andrea was looking at him in panic. "Luke! Luke!" she cried, muffled through the window. "Where are you going? Come back in the house." She pulled uselessly on the door handle. He found the keys and fumbled to get them into the ignition. "I love you. We've been married for twelve years; you love me, too. Please, don't go. Please!" He looked at Andrea's pleading face. She was distraught and beginning to cry. Her hands were pressed against the window and he could see a a sparkle on her hand where the moonlight hit her wedding ring. "I love you," she mouthed. He hit the window and she jumped back. He got the keys in the ignition, started the car, and sped out of the driveway. In the rear view mirror he saw her half naked and crying in the street, but when he turned the corner, she was gone. After driving for what felt to him to be an indefinite amount of time, he finally stopped the car and took a moment to let all of it sink in. His phone had been buzzing nonstop and he'd been drowning it out with top forty hits on the radio. He turned off the radio and his phone, but not before seeing forty-seven missed messages from Andrea and a few from her family. The world was silent but for his racing heart. His entire adult life had been determined by what Andrea wanted, and he'd never even thought about his own needs. She hadn't, either. He tried to think of people he could go to, but it occurred to him that all of the friends he'd made were through Andrea. Who was he without her? Right now, he was a confused, terrified man uncomfortable in his own skin, lost on the side of the road, heading nowhere. He put the car back in drive and set off down the empty street, trying to think of a new destination.