Beware of the Love Spell | Witchcraft Folk Horror Story

Beware of the Love Spell is a narrated scary story about a woman who asks two rumored witches for a love spell to win a married man, only to learn that wanting someone can become dangerous once the spell starts working. Set in a small New England town, this folk horror story blends witchcraft, obsession, an elegant old Victorian house, and the kind of back-door magic people whisper about but still seek out after dark.

What begins as a desperate visit to two stylish older sisters with a leather-bound spell book becomes something much harder to control when the man Claire wants starts showing up, leaving strange gifts, and watching her house. The spell doesn’t fail. That’s the problem.

This episode is for listeners who enjoy witchcraft horror, folk horror, scary stories about love spells, supernatural suspense, old house horror, cursed object stories, obsession horror, and eerie small-town scary stories.

Be careful what you ask to be brought to your door.

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Production Note: Feral by Night is a human-voiced original production by Papa Gee. Any supplemental voice modeling is authorized by Papa Gee. Stories may draw inspiration from folklore, superstition, haunted history, urban legends, strange news, and original fictional premises.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Feral by Night is a storytelling series of eerie tales, strange houses, hauntings, weird things that happen on lonely roads, and all the things that go bump in the night. I'm Papa G, and this is Feral by Night. So turn the lights down and settle in. Some stories are better heard after dark. It was just after nine on a Thursday night. Rain had started a little after sunset, and by the time Claire reached the old Victorian at the edge of town, her coat was damp at the shoulders, and her hair was sticking to her face. The house stood behind a black iron fence, with magnolia trees on both sides of the walk. It wasn't run down. That was one of the things people in town liked to exaggerate. The Bell sisters kept the place beautiful. The porch was swept, the windows shone. Warm light glowed behind lace curtains, and the brass knocker on the front door was polished bright enough to catch the street light. But nobody came to the front door for what Claire wanted. People came to the back. By daylight the town laughed about Maud and Sylvie Bell. They called them witches while standing in line at the grocery store. They said the sisters knew who was hexed, who was cheating, who was sick before the doctor said so, and who had crossed a graveyard with bad intentions. But when somebody needed healing or an uncrossing, or help with court, or a charm to bring a lover back, they showed up after dark with cash folded in their pockets. Claire had always acted like she was above that kind of thing. Then she fell in love with Warren Pike. Warren owned the hardware store downtown. He was kind, steady, and married. He had a wife named Elise, two grown daughters, and a wedding ring he turned around his finger when he was nervous. Claire knew all of that. She knew it every time she found a reason to stop by the store. She knew it when he carried bags to her car. She knew it when he smiled at her too long across the counter. She knew it when he remembered small things about her that most people forgot. For months she told herself Warren was unhappy. She told herself his marriage was over in every way that mattered. She told herself he only needed a push. That was why she stood at the Bell sister's back door with $500 in her purse. The door opened after the third knock. Maud Bell stood there in a dark dress, silver earrings and low heels, with her gray hair pinned neatly at the back of her head. Behind her, the kitchen was warm and spotless. Copper pots hung above the stove. Bundles of herbs dried near the window. A pot of coffee sat on the counter. Maud looked Claire over and asked what she needed. Claire said she wanted a man brought to her. Maud asked if the man was free. Claire lowered her eyes. That was answer enough. Sylvie Bell appeared in the hallway. She was taller than Maud with short white hair, red lipstick, and a silk scarf tied at her throat. She told Claire that wanting a married man was messy work. Claire said his marriage was already dead. Maud said dead things didn't always lie still. Claire almost turned around then. Almost. Instead, she took the envelope from her purse and held it out. Maud didn't smile, but she stepped aside. The sitting room looked like something from another time. There were velvet chairs, carved tables, heavy curtains, oil paintings, and a tall cabinet filled with old bottles. The room smelled like beeswax, roses, coffee, and old paper. Sylvie unlocked a drawer in a writing desk and took out a leather bound book. It was thick and dark, with worn corners and pages the color of weak tea. She placed it on the desk carefully, then opened it near the middle. Claire had brought what they'd asked for when she called, a newspaper photo of Warren from a hardware store ad, a button from one of his work shirts taken from a box of store rags near the back counter, a strand of her own hair, his full name written three times on a piece of plain white paper. Maud lit a pink candle and set a small glass dish beside it. Sylvie poured honey into the dish until it filled the bottom. Maud told Claire that sweetening work was one thing. Binding was another. Sweetening could warm a person. Binding could catch what was already loose inside them and pull it hard. Claire said she understood. She didn't understand. She only wanted Warren. Maud folded the paper toward Claire three times. Sylvie pressed Claire's hair against Warren's button, then sealed it there with a drop of pink wax from the candle. While the wax was still soft, Maud pushed a blackheaded dressmaker's pin straight through the center of it. The charm went into the honey dish and sank. Before Claire left, Sylvie told her not to contact Warren for seven days. No calls, no visits, no excuses to stop at the store. If he came to her, she could answer. Until then, she was to leave the work alone. Claire agreed. For six days nothing happened. On the seventh day, Warren called her at work. He said he'd been thinking about her. He said he'd driven past her house the night before and almost stopped. He said he felt strange, like something had gotten hold of him. Claire sat at her desk with the phone pressed to her ear and felt relief so strong it made her lightheaded. That evening, Warren came to her house. She opened the door before he even knocked twice. Of course she opened it. That was what she had paid for. That was what she wanted. Warren stood on her porch with rain in his hair and flowers in one hand. He looked nervous, guilty, and desperate. Claire let him in. At first it felt like winning. Warren called her every morning. He called her at lunch. He called her from the hardware store after closing. He told her he couldn't focus. He said he'd started forgetting what he was doing unless he was thinking about her. Claire liked that at first. Then he started showing up without warning. He came to her office and waited outside by her car. He sat in the parking lot of the grocery store while she shopped. He left little gifts on her porch, a box of tea, a jar of peaches, a pair of gloves she had looked at once in his store. Then the gifts changed. He left the key to Pike hardware under her flower pot. He left his wedding ring wrapped in a paper napkin. He left a frame picture of his wife with the glass cracked across her face. That night, Claire told him he had to stop. Warren cried at her kitchen table. He said he couldn't sleep when he wasn't near her. He said his house felt wrong now. He said Elise's voice sounded far away, like it was coming through a wall. Claire felt the first real chill of fear then. She asked him to leave. He did, but he stood in the driveway for almost an hour before finally getting into his truck. The next morning, Claire found muddy footprints under every window. That evening, Warren called thirty two times. By midnight he was in her yard. Claire saw him from her bedroom window. He stood beneath the glass looking up at her with one hand pressed flat against the siding. His face was pale in the porchlight. When she pulled the curtain closed, he tapped on the window once, then twice, and then a third time. Claire went back to the Bell Sisters the next evening. She didn't park down the road this time. She pulled straight up beside the fence and ran to the back door. Sylvie opened it before Claire knocked. Inside, Maud already had the leatherbound book on the writing desk. Claire begged them to undo it. Maud turned the pages slowly. Sylvie took the honey dish from a locked cabinet. The honey had gone dark and thick. The pink wax had softened into pale smears on the glass. The blackheaded pin had worked halfway out of the button, as if something inside the dish had been worrying at it. Claire said she'd made a mistake. Maud said mistakes were easy to make and hard to call back. Sylvie told her the work had already found a place to live. They could cool Warren's feet, they could confuse his path. They could try to turn him away for a time, but they couldn't make him untouched again. Claire asked what she was supposed to do. Maud closed the book and told her to keep every door locked, wash the thresholds before sunrise, and never take back a gift he had given her. Claire thought of the wedding ring in her kitchen drawer. By the time she got home, the drawer was open. The ring was gone. In its place sat Warren's work shirt button sticky with dark honey. The blackheaded pin had been pushed through it so hard the point was buried in the wood beneath. Claire backed away from the counter. Something tapped at the kitchen window. Once, twice, then again. Outside Warren stood close to the glass, soaked from the rain, his eyes wide and fixed on her. He raised his left hand. Below the place where his wedding ring used to be, a blackheaded dressmaker's pin stuck through the skin. A bead of pink wax clung to it, glossy in the porch light. Then every locked door in Claire's house began to shake. The sound wasn't loud at first. It started in the kitchen, with the basement door giving one hard knock in its frame. Then the hall closet. Then the front door, then the bedroom door down the hallway. Even though it stood open, every latch in the house trembled like someone was testing them from the other side. Claire backed away from the window. Warren kept his hand against the glass. The blackheaded pin stood out below his ring finger, dark and straight, with that little bead of pink wax clinging to the skin. He didn't look angry. That was worse. He looked patient, he looked certain. The kitchen window rattled once, then again. Claire grabbed her purse from the chair and ran. She didn't stop for her coat, she didn't stop for her phone charger. She didn't even look back when the back door handle twisted hard behind her. She crossed the kitchen, ran down the hallway, and reached the front door just as the lock snapped shut on its own. For one second the door wouldn't move. Then it gave way. Claire stumbled onto the porch and out into the rain. The street was empty. Every house around her sat dark and quiet, with curtains drawn and porch lights glowing weakly in the storm. She ran barefoot across her yard, over wet grass and gravel, toward the neighbor's house. Behind her, Warren called her name. He didn't shout it. He said it softly, like he was standing right beside her. Claire didn't turn around. She reached the neighbor's porch and beat on the door until a light came on upstairs. By the time the old man next door opened it, Warren was gone. The police came twenty minutes later. They searched the yard, they checked the windows. They found mud beneath the kitchen sill and prints in the grass, but no Warren. They asked Claire if he had threatened her. They asked if he'd been drinking. They asked if she had any reason to believe he would hurt himself or someone else. Claire told them he'd been outside her window, with something stuck through his hand. One officer looked at the other. Nobody said what they were thinking. By morning, Warren Pike was still missing. His truck was found behind the hardware store. The driver's door was open. Rain had soaked the seat. In the back room, one of his work shirts was hanging from a hook, missing a button. Claire never slept in that house again. She stayed with her sister for a week, then put the house on the market through an attorney. She didn't go back for most of her things. A moving company packed what they could during daylight while Claire waited in the car with the engine running. The movers said the house felt wrong. One of them said the kitchen drawer kept sliding open after he pushed it shut. Another said he heard tapping from the inside of the pantry door, even though the pantry was empty. They laughed about it in the driveway afterward, because men with dollies and work gloves don't like admitting when a house scares them. But they packed fast. Within a month, Claire had moved three counties away. People in town had their own versions of what happened. Some said Warren ran off because he couldn't face his wife. Some said Claire had made up the whole thing after getting caught in an affair. Others said Elise Pike knew more than she ever told anyone. The hardware store stayed closed. For a while, the front windows were covered in brown paper, then the paper peeled at the corners, and people walking past could see the old counter inside. The key machine, the pegboards of tools, and a single tan work jacket hanging from a hook behind the register. Nobody could explain why the jacket was always damp. Claire's house sold in the spring to a young couple from out of state. They painted the kitchen, replaced the back door, and pulled up the old shrubs beneath the windows. By summer, the place looked fresh enough that people stopped slowing down when they passed. The couple had a housewarming party in August. They served wine on the porch and told everyone how charming the town was. They said the house had good bones. They said the kitchen was their favorite room. Nobody mentioned Claire, nobody mentioned Warren. Near the end of the night, while the guests were outside and music played softly through a speaker on the counter, the new wife went into the kitchen for a serving spoon. The room was empty, and the drawer beside the sink stood open. Inside was a gold wedding ring wrapped in a damp paper napkin. Beside it sat a work shirt button, sticky with dark honey, and pushed straight through its center was a black headed dressmaker's pin. Feral by Night is the sister podcast to the Feral Folklorist. You can find information on both podcasts on Feral Folklorist.com. And if you'd like to see the animated video versions of these stories, consider becoming a patron of my Patreon at patreon.com slash Papa G. And if you're ever in the market for metaphysical supplies, our store Aromage's Botanica has been weaving magic for over twenty-five years. That's over at Aromages.com.