Page 88 of A Ghost’s Guide to Haunting a Witch

“It was a long time ago,” he added, like that clarified something. Like time somehow made it lighter.

It didn’t sound lighter though.

“When it ended . . .” He exhaled. “I just . . . left everything. Told myself I’d change it eventually. After I got married, I came back. Tried to redecorate. But things, um, happened.”

“Like what?”

Abruptly, Steven straightened, obviously remembering himself, and he shook his head. “No, don’t worry about it. I don’t want to frighten you. Besides, I’m not here to talk about the past. I just want to make sure that the leaking pipe doesn’t follow you into the future.”

Augustine went to talk, but Steven cut her off.

“You can get yourself to work, Augustine. Don’t worry about me.”

Something in the air shifted. Augustine felt it before she could name it — a strange, heavy kind of sadness that didn’t belong to her, but pressed against her all the same. It wasn’t sharp like her own grief. It was older. Settled. Worn smooth with time, but no less present.

Echoes, her mind suddenly told her. It’s echoes of what once was.

The word slipped into place so naturally it almost startled her and Augustine’s gaze lingered on Steven for just a second longer than it should have. Suddenly, she wondered if this was part of her growing power. This ability to see emotions clinging to certain people, to certain places. It wasn’t dramatic; not in a crystal-ball, lightning-strike kind of way, at least. No, it was more subtle than that. It was gentle but certain, the way she could feel something unfinished in this man, something lingering just beneath the surface, like a story that hadn’t quite found its ending.

Loss recognized loss. Unfinished things recognized unfinished things, and for a brief, absurd moment, Augustine wished she had her tarot cards on her. She could lay them out on the kitchen table, ask a few careful questions; see what rose to the surface. See what lingered. Maybe help him, in some small, strange way.

You’re being ridiculous, she suddenly thought, and Augustine blinked.

Right. Ridiculous. Because Steven was her landlord, wasn’t he? Her landlord, who was here to fix a leaking pipe. She shook her head slightly at herself. I mean, what would she even say to him?

Hi, thanks for coming. Do you want a tarot reading to go along with your spanner? Or maybe a quick crystal cleanse while you’re under the sink? I could exorcize your ghost for you over a quick cup of coffee?

Definitely not. And in any event, he’d made it clear he didn’t want to talk about any of this any more.

So, instead, she offered softly, “I’m sorry.” And meant it.

Chapter Thirty

The bell above the shop door rang too loudly as Augustine pushed it open, breathless, a little winded from taking the steps too fast.

“Hello?” she called out, already moving, already scanning the room.

Hope had arrived in her heart and soul long before she opened the door. Theo might be waiting. It was everywhere in fact, bright and fragile and almost giddy, fluttering in her chest like something with wings. It made everything sharper, the familiar scent of paper and dust, the soft creak of the floorboards, the way the morning light spilled through the front windows in long, golden strips.

“Theo?”

There was no reply and a chill ran over her.

The store was just as she’d left it, with her bookcase still askew in the middle of the room and the door it had been hiding now plain for all to see. The spell jars and books were still in piles on the floor. It was haphazard, but empty. There was no flicker of movement, no shift in the air that meant Theo was near. No presence waiting just out of sight. Just an awful and unpleasant stillness.

Her hope didn’t shatter. No, instead it utterly sank within her, like something heavy and dark.

“Oh,” she said under her breath while disappointment flooded her body.

Of course. Of course he wouldn’t just be here, waiting for her like nothing had changed, like he hadn’t just disappeared the day before. Was he still in that lonely place he described? Was the price of magic growing with every journey she made into the past?

Augustine let out a frustrated breath, hanging her coat by the door and then walking towards the till. Her gaze drifted across the shop.

Dust had settled over everything, dulling the colours of the displays she usually arranged with meticulous care, while the myriad of pumpkins still sat in the window, slowly decomposing into a very public metaphor for Augustine’s life choices.

Halloween they might be, subtle they were not.

Then there was the till. Augustine got stuck in, already knowing what she’d find, but checking anyway, imagining that the last few days might somehow have rearranged themselves into something more manageable, something more financially viable.