Page 129 of A Ghost’s Guide to Haunting a Witch

“Says the woman who’s going as ‘shop owner who stays home’,” Maddy said, and Augustine shot an annoyed glance at her.

Celestine set her chart aside, reaching for a cloak draped over the back of a chair. “I’m going as something astrologically significant and deeply misunderstood.” Augustine watched as she popped fake vampire fangs into her mouth.

“Vampires are not deeply misunderstood,” Augustine told her. “Nor are they astrologically significant.”

“Of course they are. Pluto is lord of the underworld,” Celeste retorted.

“Don’t be so picky, Ags. Celeste makes a great vampire,” Maddy added, before she pointed at Augustine. “While you are coming in costume as my sister who actually leaves the house for once.”

Augustine opened her mouth to argue, before she took in her sisters. She looked at Maddy, bright and insistent, and then at Celestine, already halfway dressed. They were hardly ever together. Hardly ever in the same place at the same time. Augustine sighed, gazing at the shop around her and the life she’d built. At the magic she’d finally stopped running from.

“All right, fine,” she finally agreed. “If Mars insists.”

Maddy whooped.

“But,” Augustine added quickly, pointing a wax-covered finger at her, “if anything remotely traumatic happens, I’m leaving immediately.”

“Deal,” Maddy said, while Celestine smiled faintly.

Augustine shook her head, but there was a small smile tugging at her mouth now as she turned back to the candles.

* * *

The office was already loud by the time they arrived.

Music thumped somewhere too close to the walls, cheap speakers doing their best, with the lights dimmed just enough to feel intentional rather than broken. Decorations were everywhere — fake cobwebs stretched across door frames, plastic pumpkins clustered in corners, and there was a bowl of something aggressively fluorescent on the drinks table. Maddy had clearly been hard at work that day.

Augustine hovered just inside the doorway, suddenly and irrationally certain she’d made a mistake. She’d been here before. She remembered it all too clearly. The cobwebs. The costumes.

Steve Jobs in the corner.

“God, I hate this already,” she muttered.

“You love it,” Maddy said, grabbing her wrist and tugging her further inside. “You just don’t know it yet.”

“I know it,” Augustine replied. “I hate it. I’ve been here before, remember?”

Twice, she reminded herself, carefully keeping that fact to herself.

Celestine drifted in behind them, eyes flicking briefly upward like she was checking something only she could see. “Nothing catastrophic yet,” she said. “That’s promising.”

“You mean comforting,” Augustine dead-panned.

Maddy was already being pulled away — friends, colleagues, people in questionable costumes calling her name — and within seconds she was gone, swallowed into the noise.

Augustine exhaled slowly. “Well,” she murmured. “That’s me abandoned all over again. And this time she didn’t even give me wine.”

Celestine didn’t reply straight away. Instead, she watched Augustine. Not that Augustine was doing anything in particular, simply staring off into the shifting blur of bodies and costumes and noise, her gaze unfocused, like she was seeing something else layered over it all.

Celestine’s expression softened. “Maddy told me what happened, you know. She told me the whole story. I wish you’d just run off with him, you know,” Celestine added.

Augustine blinked. “Who?”

Celestine gave her a look. A long one. “Don’t play that card with me. You know I’m talking about Theo.”

Augustine shrugged, a small, noncommittal movement.

Celestine sighed. “You should have just gone,” she said. “Disappeared. No one would have found you. You could have been together. And safe.” A beat. “You could have just done that.”