Page 27 of A Ghost’s Guide to Haunting a Witch

Abruptly, she closed the distance between their hands, and for one suspended, trembling heartbeat, she expected resistance. Skin. Heat. The solid press of another living body.

But there was nothing.

No resistance. No contact. Instead, her hand simply passed through his as it would through smoke or memory. As it would through air.

Augustine gasped and stumbled back, clutching her hand to her chest as if she’d burned it. Her heart hammered violently against her ribs, and he lowered his own hand slowly.

“I told you,” he said, but there was no satisfaction in his voice. No pleasure in his victory.

“You’re a ghost,” she whispered.

He nodded once. “Yes,” he said quietly, his remarkably steady eyes holding hers; eyes that she now knew were tinted blue not just by colour but also by sadness. “I’m a ghost. And you . . . well, you’re the only one who’s haunted by me.”

Chapter Ten

“So,” Augustine began cautiously. “This is new for me.”

She’d taken five minutes in the stock room to make tea and reconsider every life decision that had led her to sharing conversational space with a dead man, spending at least three of those minutes resisting the urge to put vodka in the mug.

She’d offered him tea, too, polite even in moments of existential crisis, but he’d shaken his head regretfully.

“I can’t.”

“It’s caffeine free,” she promised, but he’d shaken his head again.

“Yeah, but I’m stomach free currently.”

“Right.” She’d blinked. “Of course you are.”

She made a mental note not to offer him biscuits.

When she returned to the shop floor, he was still there. Waiting for her.

She held the tea close to her chest and maintained what she felt was a healthy distance from this . . . what? Apparition? Spectral entity? Unalive individual? (What was the politically correct term for a dead man who hadn’t yet committed to the afterlife?)

“So,” she finally began. “You said it’s been a week? Since you, umm, died?”

“Yes.”

“But you had my card the whole time? Why didn’t you come to me straight away?”

He looked down. “It took me a while to understand what had happened. At first I didn't even know I was dead. I went home. I went to my local Tesco. God help me, I even went to work.” He gave a bitter laugh. “But everything was different. People didn’t see me. No . . . they walked through me. By the time I figured out what happened, days had passed. It was only then that I found your card, and the key.”

Augustine nodded.

He cleared his throat, nodding to the window. “You have a lot of pumpkins. How many exactly were you planning on carving?”

She flushed. “Just one or two.”

“There’s at least twenty there.”

“More like thirty.” She flushed. “I’m an idiot. I over-ordered. I mean, I thought it was expensive when three pumpkins worked out at over fifty pounds, but I thought, hey, it’s Halloween—”

“Augustine.” He gazed at her steadily. “You’re not an idiot.”

Her stomach flipped as her eyes caught his. She had to stop doing this. Looking into this man’s eyes did funny things to her.

She tore her gaze from his. “So, do you have a name? I mean, did you have a name?”