Miss Spelled (7 page)

My mascara is running into my eyes, stinging like crazy while my stomach muscles convulse with laughter.
Crazy
.

‘Thanks, Mel. I’d be lost without you. It’s probably worth a try, isn’t it? Seeing as there’s no hope coming in any other form.’ Absolutely no hope at all. ‘What do we need to do?’

‘Just download the spell from the internet, after you pay for it,’ she says quietly.

‘Okay. How much does it cost?’

Mel mumbles something.

‘Sorry, I know my hearing is alcohol-impaired tonight, but how much was it?’ I ask again.

‘$700 if you go for the grand deluxe spell.’

‘$700! Does Majique have a budget version?’

Mel looks at me, unimpressed.

Forty minutes later, Mel parks the car in the driveway of my cottage in the leafy suburb of Briar Hill. The street, mostly populated by young families in renovated weatherboard or orange clinker-brick houses, is quiet this time of night. It’s quiet at any time of night, and that is part of the reason why this little cottage is so perfect.

The two-tone pale and dark blue picket fence, so proudly painted by Dad on a Sunday in late summer, frames a lush green lawn with a curved, paved brick pathway that connects the front gate to the porch. Lillipillies and dwarf magnolias provide a natural screen for the front bedroom and lounge room, which face onto the street, while lavender and jasmine brighten up the garden beds.

Mel opens the front door, switches on the lights and powers up her laptop.

‘It’s a really good site, Lou. Just wait til you see it.’

‘Let’s do this quickly,’ I say. ‘You find the internet site and I’ll make us a cup of chamomile tea. Hunter could have come to already. We may not have much time.’

Quick as a snap, Mel has the page containing the spell loaded and ready to go. Majique, the internet witch, has an incredible website. It’s a bit like those infomercials that are so convincing that, after five minutes of brainwashing, people ring up and order the Snuggie, even though they live in the tropics and will never use it. Already, I am convinced this will work.

‘When all hope is lost, Majique’s spells will bring miracles and positivity into your life,’ says Mel as she reads aloud.

‘The Memory Deletion Spell uses powerful white magic to persuade the mind to erase the memory of a person or event,’ I add. ‘The spell uses positive energy to convince the person that the event is of such a low priority that it becomes a regressive memory too difficult for the conscious mind to recall. Only via deep specific hypnosis or meditative practices could it be brought forward again.’

My gaze falls to Mel. ‘So Hunter won’t remember me because I will be deemed irrelevant in his conscious mind? Even when he sees me at the cocktail party?‘

‘Hmm…apparently. He’d have to be intentionally hypnotised to remember you.’

‘Does it sound too good to be true?’ I ask, already knowing the answer.

‘Yes. Just like every man I’ve ever dated. But what else are you going to do?’

Temporarily snuggling further into the couch and throwing my head backwards, the alternative runs through my mind. The lousy alternative where Hunter ruins everything. My eyes feel like they are full of sand, my head throbs and the vertebrae in my neck have been replaced by a steel rod.

‘Do you want to give this a go? I understand if you don’t want to, it’s a bit weird,’ Mel says.

‘It’s a lot of money, too.’

‘It is,’ Mel agrees as she joins me in flail position on the couch.

We both exhale, turn and look at each other. Whatever trouble one has gotten into, it’s been with the other by her side. Whenever someone picked on one of us at school, they dealt with both of us. We’ve seen each other through doomed romances, failed romances, second-time-around romances and more hangovers than either of us can count. But this is truly crazy. Casting a spell? Or maybe not even casting a spell, perhaps this is just handing $700 over to some witchy scammer who is going to cackle all the way to the Caymans?

But what if this does work? What if in some
Harry Potter, Practical Magic
kind of way, this spell deletes me from Hunter’s memory? Imagine if it is real and I don’t try it? I’ll spend the rest of my lonely, single, miserable life wondering…
what if
?

‘Stuff it,’ I say, nodding.

‘So that’s a yes?’

‘Why the hell not? I’ve got nothing to lose, except $700. What do we need?’

‘According to this list we need Hunter’s hair, which you hacked from his rather large cranium earlier this evening, and a photo of him. Do you have a photo?’

‘Yep, it’s in my gap year album on the bottom of the bookshelf.’

‘We also need a wind-up clock, a toenail clipping from you, three drops of your blood and…eww.’ She screws her face up.

‘What?’

‘Three plucked pubic hairs from you.’

‘Plucked?’

‘Yes, it says they must be plucked and not cut. I’ll get the photo of Hunter, you can do the rest.’

We set about gathering what we need and I withdraw my credit card from my purse and sit in front of the computer.

‘$700 will send me over my limit,’ I say.

‘Losing Aiden will send you out of your mind,’ Mel answers.

Suddenly, my phone rings. The number isn’t familiar, so it’s not Aiden. There’s only one other person it could be, ringing me at this time of night. Hunter. Quickly, I answer it.

‘You little bitch!’ the familiar voice yells down the line. ‘You won’t be smiling so much by the time I’m finished with you.’

Yep, Hunter. I put it on loudspeaker so that Mel can hear everything.

The adrenaline courses around my body again. ‘How did you get this number?’

There was a short pause on the other end. I can hear Hunter smile. ‘Cressida gave it to me. She was very obliging after I told her about your little visit tonight.’

There’s a tingling sensation deep inside my chest and my gut is churning. It’s started already. Hunter didn’t waste any time. This is really happening.

‘You’ve already told Cressida?’

‘Yes, I did,’ he says smugly. ‘And she was very interested in your past— in our past together. She can’t wait to give Aiden a history lesson.’

My eyes fill with tears, because Cressida will waste no time in telling Aiden. She’s probably already rung him.

‘Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be a fly on that wall?’ he says.

My mouth opens but no sound comes out. All feeling has left my body.

‘Imagine that,’ Hunter continues, ‘to be able to watch little Aiden St. James’ heart breaking. I wonder what kind of noise it would make?’

From my toes the tingle of rage begins. It moves up my calves to my legs, bringing me back to life.

‘I wonder, in the seconds after he absorbs the news, what he’ll be feeling? Will it be shock, disbelief?’

The rage spreads to my hips and stomach where it curls and knots itself into tight little balls that whizz around my insides like a pinball machine.

‘Or maybe sadness and loss?’

The rage evolves into heat that surges through my chest, setting my tingling heart on fire.

‘Or, most likely, just plain old betrayal, disgust even, that I have been inside your body,’ Hunter says and lets out a low grunt of pleasure. ‘Hmm, yes, I think that will be it. The very thought of you will repulse him, when he thinks of me pleasuring you, and of you crawling all over me with the curvy little body he knows so well.’

The heat and rage travels out along my arms and hands until my hands are overtaken with violent trembling.

‘I may even have to paint a mental picture for him. Who knows, this could be a bonding experience for us, comparing notes on you.’

My face flushes hot as the rage finally reaches my head. The pressure is building and I am overwhelmed with the need to yell and scream at the top of my voice. The desire to call Hunter every name under the sun, loud enough that the entire Universe can hear, is almost too much. But part of me knows my display of anger will only increase his pleasure. Instead, I use inordinate amounts of energy to control myself as I search the walls and lounge room floor for the answer. Within seconds my eyes fall on the laptop on the coffee table. Majique. The spell!

‘I could tell him about the time we…’

Mel’s face drops as she mouths her favourite name for him, ‘Rat bastard’.

Suddenly, Hunter’s continued taunts don’t faze me. My only thought is to cast that spell.

‘Or there’s the weekend in Ibiza, remember, you wore that…’

Feeling no pain as I stab my finger with a needle and squeeze three drops of blood into the contents of the bowl, I stand up to my full five foot two, surging with the strength of a gladiator.

‘So, sadly Lou, it appears that your fairytale has come to an end. You’ll have to hand back that sparkly diamond ring he gave you and cancel your plans for a huge wedding and happy-ever-after, because it’s over for you. You’re history.’

In a voice that echoes of restrained anger, I take Hunter’s lock of hair in my hand and say in a low, controlled voice, ‘Don’t bargain on it, Hunter. I’m not finished with you yet. You are not going to win.’

I hand the phone to Mel, who disconnects his call, and focus all my attention on paying for this spell.

‘Nothing’s happened,’ I say after what feels like a lifetime.

‘It takes time to generate the password to unlock the spell and directions. Give it a second,’ Mel says.

Two minutes later still nothing’s happened. By now I am pacing like an expectant father, unable to sit down or remain still. Hunter has pushed me over my limit.

‘Shit! We’ve been scammed. I’ve just handed $700 over to some scammer.’ How could I have been so incredibly, monumentally stupid? Gullible is my new middle name. ‘We’ll have to think of something else. But what?’

‘Wait, there’s an email. Look! It’s from Majique. It’s here, Lou! It’s here!’

Holy shit! I am almost launched into the ceiling with excitement. Something has worked. This is a good sign. It may be just a $700 password, but…

‘Oh, thank God! Let’s see what we have to do next,’ Mel says.

‘I need to go outside and read this spell while I set fire to the items in the bowl,’ I say, continuing to read aloud.

‘Wait, there’s a warning here, Lou. This spell is best performed on a waning moon because waning moons give special power to spells of banishment or removal. What kind of moon is it now?’

The night sky is pitch black when we look out the window, ‘I don’t know. I can’t see any kind of moon. Does it really matter? I mean, I can’t wait for the perfect moon phase, it’s got to be done right now,’ I say.

‘You’re right.’

‘Anyway, if a waning moon is good for removal spells, then no moon must be better, because there’s…no moon. It’s gone completely, removed from the sky. Right?’ I say, confused at the point I was trying to make.

Mel looks the way I feel. ‘Yeah, right. You go outside and I’ll wait here.’

‘You’re not coming with me?’

‘It says that only one person should perform the ritual, so as not to confuse the energies. This spell uses the most powerful forces of the supernatural world.’ Mel continues to read the instructions. ‘It was used by kings and sorcerers in the ancient world and calls forth great magical powers. Vivid dreams and astral travelling are signs that the spell has worked.’

The ingredients are ready to go, so I move out into the backyard and set myself and the witches’ brew up on my temporary altar, AKA my outdoor picnic setting. My heart has slowed a little but the fire of anger is still luminous.

Satisfied everything is ready to go, I wind the clock back to ten minutes before midnight, hold it against my chest and begin to recite the spell.

I then wind the clock back to six and continue the spell.

I wind the clock back to twelve again and finish the spell.

I strike a match, its iridescent glow temporarily blinding me, and set fire to the contents of the metal bowl. As if on cue, the wind slows and a small crack of thunder rumbles in the distance. The items burn in a brilliant light that illuminates the entire patio. After a few seconds, there is nothing left other than ashes, a little smoke and the awful smell of burning hair.

Suddenly, a cloud hovers above me, looking like a huge black cloak descending from the heavens. After the brightness of the flame, the backyard seems even darker than before and tingles run throughout my entire body.

As instructed, I turn my palms upwards to the universe and say, ‘Please, please, please let this work. Please make Hunter forget me. Please make everything turn out the way it’s meant to for Aiden and I.’

Sleep comes after my adrenaline stores run out completely and my dreams are indeed vivid, just as Majique’s website suggested. I’m back in the pub in London the day Hunter and I met, standing with a group of newly-made friends when he entered the room as though it was obligated to him. He is wrapped in a cloud of charisma, charm and raw sex appeal that renders women helpless in his wake.

For the first time, I feel the sensation of instant attraction. There is no doubt that, like the rest of the female population in the pub, I’m throwing pheromones in his direction in the hope of being able to be close enough to smell him, or even better, to touch him. Never one to sleep with a man on the first night, my loins are speaking loudly. In fact, they are screaming that they just have to have him.

But unlike our first meeting, Hunter doesn’t make his way over to talk to me, or buy me a drink, or ask me to dance, or stand so close that our bodies touch. Nor does he touch my hair and send shivers all over my body. He doesn’t place his hands on the small of my back and press his athletic body against mine for an agonising 40 minutes before we leave the bar and hurry back to his flat. Instead, he chooses another blonde to sit next to, dance with, to touch and eventually leave with. It is so odd, and my ego is a bit dented that I have become invisible, even if it is only a dream.