Page 49 of A Ghost’s Guide to Haunting a Witch

Augustine dropped her hands from her face. “Oh, don’t be ridiculous.”

Roy leaned back into his armchair again. “Why do I get the feeling,” he began calmly, “that you wouldn’t have said no if that had been an option?”

Augustine gaped at him. “Roy! I did not seduce a man while temporarily inhabiting his girlfriend’s body!”

“Well.” Roy lifted an eyebrow. “That’s a sentence I never expected to hear. So, let me see if I have this straight. The man you were having kittens about not two days ago came back to your shop, just like you expected. Being you, of course you caved and read the tarot for him. Then — and this is the part I’m still sketchy about — you psychically time-travelled into his girlfriend?”

“Yes.” Augustine looked up cautiously. “Umm, there’s one more thing.”

Roy paused, the amused curiosity slipping slightly from his expression as he regarded her more carefully. “One more thing? Honey, isn’t psychic time-travel enough?”

“You’d think, right?” Augustine sat up a little straighter, twisting her hands together in her lap. “But this guy. He’s, um, dead.”

Chapter Eighteen

“I’m sorry?” Roy blinked. “What did you just say?”

“The man,” she clarified weakly. “Theo. He’s dead.”

“Dead?” Roy’s brow furrowed. “Dead how? Dead funny? Dead set against immigration reforms? Dead into anime?”

“No. He’s dead dead,” Augustine said. “As in deceased. As in not currently participating in the mortal coil. As in pushing up the daisies. He’s a ghost. I tried to touch him, and my hand went right through him. He’s there . . . but not really. He’s dead, Roy.”

For perhaps the first time since she had known him, Roy looked genuinely flabbergasted, and he removed his glasses slowly, his emerald green eyes flashing with concern. “So, he’s a literal ghost?”

“Yes.”

“The man who came into your shop?”

“Yes.” Augustine nodded blankly. “Theo. His name is Theo. I can see him, Roy. I can hear him. He sits on my furniture. He quotes murder statistics at inappropriate moments. I can’t touch him, but he’s there.”

Roy looked at her for a long moment, before sliding his glasses back on. “So, you do have the sight then. You said your grandmother did. Now you do, too.”

“Maybe,” Augustine agreed. “I thought it would be different, though. I thought it would be . . . I don’t know . . . easier somehow.”

“Easier.” Inexplicably, Roy’s expression softened. “What part of death do you think is easy, Augustine?”

She frowned. “What do you mean?”

Roy shrugged. “Well, just think about the souls who are left behind, the ones who don’t move on — why don’t they? What’s keeping them here? Death is an ending, yes. But that doesn’t mean business is always finished. It’s never easy, Augustine.”

Augustine nodded. “I know, but I guess I hoped it would be. For me. With this. My grandmother would call it a gift, but I don’t know—”

“She was right. It is a gift,” Roy replied firmly. “For these souls, it’s not just a gift, it’s hope. You represent hope to them. You could be a way for them to finish whatever it is that’s holding them here. You could be the final step on their way to moving on.”

Augustine blinked. “Like a conduit,” she whispered, and Roy nodded slowly.

“Yes. I guess that’s the word.”

“I told Theo I was a conduit, and he said . . .” Augustine swallowed. “He said I was a person, too.”

“You are a person,” Roy agreed. “But a person with a special gift.”

“You’re taking this all very calmly, you know,” Augustine remarked. “It sounds insane. It is insane. But you’re sitting here like I’ve just told you we’ve run out of milk.”

Roy shrugged. “I live with a woman who was raised a witch and maintains the aesthetic commitment of one. At a certain point, you stop ruling things out. So, if you say you’re seeing dead people, I believe it.”

“That might be the most supportive thing you’ve ever said to me.”