 I was riding high. I'd met the girl of my dreams. At the time, I was working in a bar. She was a student and came in with a group of her friends. She was dark-haired, with a pale complexion and green eyes. I wish I could say our eyes met across a crowded room and sparks flew. But the truth is, I spilled beer on her. She went to the restroom with her friends. Then they all left before I had a chance to apologize. The next time I saw her was through the window of a coffee shop. She was sitting on her own, working on her laptop. My skin started to tingle. I hadn't been able to stop thinking about her. Cupid had hit me dead center. I walked up and down the street past the window of the coffee shop half a dozen times before I got the courage to go in and speak to her. Or rather stand there with no idea what to say and looking like a total idiot. She'd noticed me, could not miss me, but was playing it cool. Finally I went for it. Hey, I also lifted my hand in a little wave. Cool to the max, that was me. She smiled, didn't tell me to get lost, but she smiled. I'd thought until that moment that going weak at the knees was one of those cliches that aren't real. But no, my knees went and I thought they were going to buckle on the spot. Then she asked, would you like a hot chocolate? Wow, we talked for hours about shows we'd binged recently, about influencers we agreed were losers, cool places we'd like to visit. We laughed a lot. It was fantastic. It got even better when she asked if I wanted to come back to her place to watch a movie and maybe order a pizza. We discussed the matter of national importance, of which pizza chain had the best sauce. As we walked to her place on a warm early summer evening, it was the best. She lived on campus and her room was pretty cramped. There were a lot of trinkets scattered about over every surface and she was clearly book crazy. From their covers a lot seemed to be about what I would call mysticism. New age hippie nonsense, my old man would have called it. We were perched on the end of her bed, there was really nowhere else to sit. I was nervous, my heart was beating ten to the dozen, love is the best drug there is. My nerves made me talkative and as soon as she'd finished ordering the pizzas online, I pointed at one of the books and said, so you're into this type of thing? She raised an eyebrow questioningly. New age, magic, I managed to say. The smile, her oh so wonderful smile returned and she took my hand in her own. It was like electric shocks were rippling through my fingers and up my arm. It's not new age. She said, my fascination in life is in ancient art. I speak to the dead. I think I said, okay, I know my mouth was hanging wide open. She went on. I do this by channeling. I welcome spirits to inhabit my body. It's the one way their knowledge and experiences can be shared with those of us on this mortal plane. Their voices are lost to us otherwise. She looked into my eyes, asked, does that bother you? Um, no, I replied. I honestly did not know. Being close like we were had turned my ability to think straight into mush. Thank you. She said, through the ages, those who have taken a different path such as I have have been misunderstood and often persecuted. If I'd admitted communing with the dead 400 years ago, I would have been accused of witchcraft and murdered harsh. I managed. My throat felt very dry. She stood up and I watched utterly entranced as she lit an incense stick in a small ornate holder. Smoke rose from it and a powerful smell soon reached me. She returned to my side. I was aware that our legs were touching now. At that moment, my eyes began to water. It was the incense. It was strong stuff and was actually making me a bit dizzy. I wondered if there was something slightly illegal in the mix. And then she kissed me and oh my God, was it amazing? I placed my hand on her waist, let her keep taking the lead. Suddenly she tensed. I wasn't sure why had I overstepped. Our lips were still pressed closely together until I noticed that her breath smelt funny. More than funny. It was rank absolutely foul. I pulled away slightly and was gripped by terror. The skin of her face was gray and slick with moisture. A sliver of her cheekbone was exposed through a ragged hole in her flesh. Her eye sockets were empty, fetid water dripped from her tangled hair, her clothes. She smiled at me. Her teeth were blackened, decayed, stumps. The excitement pulsing through me moments earlier had gone and been replaced by paralyzing fear. I sat there, staring into the empty spaces where her eyes had been. She moved towards me. Her tongue flickered out and licked my face. It was hard and freezing cold. She dug her dirt-encrusted fingernails into my shoulder and I cried out, No. We sat there and I said again, quietly this time, No. The life seemed to drain from her and she slumped back onto the bed unconscious. I rubbed my face. What the hell was happening? I'd only closed my eyes for a moment. But when I opened them, I was looking at the girl of my dreams again, the beautiful girl who I'd first seen in the bar and who I'd walked home with, who I'd been kissing. Her eyelids flickered and she looked up, seemed disorientated. I helped her sit up. Something very weird and horrible just happened. I told her, I'm sorry. She said, which confused me more. While I was wondering what to say, she took a deep breath and said, I've been communing with a witch who drowned in a trial to prove her guilt or innocence. She lived in Scotland in the 17th century. She was the same age as me when her life was brutally taken from her by a mob. I was utterly mystified. And I asked, she looked embarrassed. She never knew the embrace of a man before she died. I wanted to help her. So what did you do? The words were barely out of my mouth before I turned and ran outside. I'd asked a question I didn't want answering. It was the incense it must have been. I'd been hallucinating. The being I'd seen and felt, it couldn't have been real. Possession only happened in the movies, right? I told myself this and then I puked, love is the pits. I haven't seen the girl of my dreams since then. I think I'm going to try being single for a while.