I’ve always been a private person, preferring solitude to noisy gatherings. After getting married, I felt I’d found all the warmth, understanding, and support I might have lacked before. My husband and I built a cosy little world for two. My friendships were few but strong—two close friends, though we lived in different cities, staying in touch with occasional calls and messages. It was the kind of connection that didn’t need constant attention but was always genuine. And that was enough for me.
But then there was Lucy.
I can’t even recall how she slipped into my life. We met by chance, chatted, swapped numbers. At first, it was all harmless—holiday greetings, unexpected favours, little acts of kindness. Lucy wove herself into my routine so subtly that untangling her seemed impossible. It all felt so sweet. Until I realised: we weren’t cut from the same cloth. She moved in a different world, and around my friends and colleagues, her overfamiliarity often left me cringing. Her “jokes” would land like a lead balloon, leaving an awkward silence I’d scramble to fill with forced laughter or chatter. I’d always excuse her the same way: “Lucy means well. Don’t judge a book by its cover.”
She had an uncanny knack for turning up uninvited whenever I had guests. Always with a bottle of champagne, even if the company wasn’t the type to appreciate it. And without fail—a toast. Long, effusive, painting me as some sort of saint: “…though Charlotte and I aren’t sisters by blood, we’re two peas in a pod…” Mortifying.
My husband couldn’t stand her. He thought I was too soft, letting her walk all over me. He’d counter her grand speeches with equally exaggerated compliments before retreating, leaving me trapped in her absurd little performance. We argued about Lucy often. I accused him of snobbery; he called me blind.
But here’s the thing. Lucy had been around for twelve years. And for all that time, nothing truly disastrous happened. Until it did.
For one birthday, she gifted me a set of lacy nylon lingerie. After a single day wearing it, my skin broke out in a rash. The diagnosis? An allergy to synthetics. Cotton only from then on. At the time, I never connected it to Lucy.
A few months later, my slightly wavy hair turned frizzy, almost Afro-textured, tangling into impossible knots and falling out in clumps. I suffered until I finally threw out the hairbrush—another gift from Lucy. Slowly, my hair recovered.
Then money went missing—a significant amount—from the wallet she’d given me for Mother’s Day. My husband muttered for the first time, “Who else would pick such a hideous wallet?”
My daughter, Emily, started feeling ill after every visit from Lucy. Nausea, fever, vomiting. My husband joked darkly, “Lucy makes Em sick.” I laughed it off. I shouldn’t have.
Our cat, Whiskers, had lived with us for seven years—docile, neutered, unflappable. Once, while we were away for two days, Lucy offered to look after him and took him to her place. When he came back, he attacked me out of nowhere, clawing my shoulder bloody. After that, he turned aggressive. And every time he acted strange, someone would say, “…ever since he stayed with Lucy…”
I still didn’t piece it together. Until the final straw.
Seeing Lucy out one day, I absently picked up the remote and switched the telly to the hidden camera feed in the hallway—a secret only our family knew about.
On the screen, I watched Lucy crouch by our door… scrubbing the doormat. Then she stood on tiptoe, pulled something from her bag, and tucked it above the doorframe before leaving.
Numb, I reached up and brushed my fingers along the frame—and pricked myself. Three rusted needles jutted out. Under the mat were strange patterns of scattered seeds. I’d never have noticed—the cleaner regularly mopped there.
I wrapped the needles and seeds in paper and waited for my husband.
When he heard me out, he called me a fool for the first time in fifteen years of marriage. No argument there. He gathered every gift Lucy had ever given us—cards, brooches, everything—and drove them out to the countryside. Tossed them into a bog. “So no one else finds them.”
I called Lucy and said only one thing:
“You know what you did. Make sure our paths never cross again. For your own sake.”
After that—the vicar came to bless the house. And that was that. She vanished.
The strangeness left with her: Emily stopped getting sick, Whiskers calmed down. Only the synthetic lingerie allergy stayed. Like a warning: “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.”
I never believed in curses. But now… now I’m not so sure.
