Page 108 of A Ghost’s Guide to Haunting a Witch

“He was, wasn’t he?” Roy was horrified. “Ugh, you’re actually going to give birth to the Antichrist. I knew it, I said it, I called it—”

“Roy!” Augustine snapped. “No.”

He stopped. “No?”

“No,” she repeated, flatly. “He wasn’t a ghost. And he wasn’t an illusion. And he wasn’t the devil in disguise.”

Roy blinked. “Then what the hell was he?”

Augustine hesitated, and for the first time since she’d come back, something a little like uncertainty flickered across her face. “I don’t know . . . I’m still trying to figure that out.”

Roy was properly thrown now, but Augustine’s gaze drifted slightly, unfocused, her thoughts catching on another thread. “Maddy told me something else. She said Theo’s . . . unwell.” The word felt strange in her mouth. Inadequate, even.

“Unwell how?”

“He wasn’t shot,” she said. “Not like he thought. Not like I thought. Maddy says he had a stroke. In the street.” Her voice dipped. “He’s in an induced coma. Over at the QE.”

“How exactly,” Roy said, after a minute, “does a young man like that have a stroke? Unless,” he added, suspicion creeping in, “he wasn’t a young man at all, and you’ve been quietly harbouring a thing for older men this entire time.” A beat. “Which, frankly, I would respect. Bit of a silver fox connoisseur, are we?”

Augustine simply looked at him. “He was young. Too young for a stroke . . . or he should have been. It was his diabetes. It caused the stroke. It’s rare in a person his age, but it can happen. High blood sugar, stress . . . it probably all added up.”

Roy nodded once, absorbing that, his expression tightening slightly as the reality of it settled in. “Okay, so we’ve got a not-dead, not-ghost, medically-confusing man in a coma. That’s . . . great. Love that for you.”

”He was also a witch hunter. You know—” she waved her hand — “before the stroke. Apparently, that’s why I had him removed from my life. And my mind.”

“Right,” Roy said. “You know, I think I need a quick 101 course in this witch hunter stuff. I mean, I’ve heard you talk about them, but I don’t actually know what they are. Or what they do. You told me they were nothing I needed to worry about.”

Augustine shifted slightly, drawing her arms tighter around herself. “You don’t need to worry. You aren’t a witch, and witch hunters do exactly that: hunt witches. It’s kind of an inherited role. Passed down through families. They’re trained for it.”

“For what?”

“For finding us,” Augustine explained. “Tracking us. And then . . .” She had to force the next words out. “Killing us.”

“Why?” he asked, genuinely baffled. “Why on earth would any man want to do that?”

Augustine didn’t answer straight away, and Roy gestured vaguely as he went on, “I mean, witches are objectively great. Pointy hats. Dramatic footwear. Excellent use of brooms. There’s branding, there’s aesthetic — what’s not to love?”

Despite everything, Augustine smiled. “We are pretty great.”

“Exactly. So why would any man want to kill one of you?”

She shrugged. “Patriarchy.”

Roy considered that, then nodded. “Yeah,” he admitted. “Sadly, that tracks.”

Augustine sighed. “Men have been keeping women in their place for millennia. No voting, no property, no independence — hell, in some places that’s still true. So how do you think they reacted when some women could do things they couldn’t control? Cast spells. Fly.” She exhaled, long and hard. “They rooted us out. I mean, parts of witchcraft were still criminal until 1951. Before that we had Salem. Bideford. Pendle Hill. Zugarramurdi. Trials and hangings. Burnings. Drownings. Give a woman power, and what do men do? Extinguish it.”

Roy was quiet, before he gave a small, thoughtful nod. “Yeah,” he said. “I mean . . . historically speaking, men haven’t exactly been great with women who don’t do what they’re told.” He swallowed. “Or, you know, with men who don’t follow their rules.”

Augustine glanced at him, and Roy shrugged. “You know I’m gay. It might be a different flavour to witchcraft, but it earned the same nonsense.”

“Roy—”

Roy carried on before she could get another word out. “So, Theo was one of these men?”

Augustine hesitated. “Apparently so.”

Roy absorbed that, his expression shifting as he turned it over in his mind. “What does he say about all this?”