Page 32 of A Ghost’s Guide to Haunting a Witch

“What’s your girlfriend’s name?” she asked, and Theo shifted.

“I’m not certain.”

Augustine shook her head. “I’m sorry, Theo, I get that I’m the only person on this side of the death divide that can speak to you, but I’m inching closer and closer to the ‘I can’t help you’ stage again. I mean, you know you were murdered, but not by who. You have my business card, but don’t remember how you got it. And you have a girlfriend, but you can’t even remember her name?”

At that, Theo stood. “You have to help me. That’s why I want you to read the tarot cards. Consult the other side—”

“But you’re the other side!” Augustine interjected. “Not the cards. The cards are just that — cards. They don’t mean anything. Not really. They’re just a trick. A gimmick. A game where lies are told through pretty pictures.”

Augustine recoiled slightly at her own words and clamped her mouth closed in shock. She’d always treated the cards with more respect than that. Always. She’d watched her grandmother contact the other side through them again and again during her training, her face peaceful in the way it always was when she made contact. The cards had been like butter on her grandmother’s fingers, slipping easily to the table, revealing knowledge, advice, even the future.

It had never been that way for her, not even before— well, before that last, final, terrible reading she’d done for her mum. Whenever she’d read the cards, it was always perfunctory. Respectful and dutiful, but never effortless, or gifted from a higher power. She’d always loved the cards . . . even if they never loved her back.

Still, she knew they meant something, so she wasn’t sure why she’d told Theo such a lie.

Not that he even seemed to care.

“No, there has to be more to it than this,” he demanded. “Your card was in my pocket for a reason. Something or someone wanted me to find you. And you can sit here and tell me again and again that you’re not a witch, but I know you are. You can see me, can’t you? Hear me? There has to be more to this. More to it all. There just has to be.”

Augustine looked at him, thoroughly confused. “Maybe there is. I don’t know. I told you, I can’t help you. Besides, how can you be so certain you had a girlfriend, if you can’t remember her?”

Theo hesitated. “Well,” he said slowly, “statistically speaking, a man in his thirties living in London has about a sixty-per cent chance of being in a relationship.”

Augustine gave him a look. “Theo.”

He sighed. “Okay. Look, it’s because I remember loving someone,” he said quietly. “I just can’t remember who.”

“That’s crazy—”

“Yeah, maybe it is.” He frowned faintly. “What? You think I don’t know how I sound? I do. I know it all probably seems insane. I don’t remember her, okay? But I remember how it felt. I absolutely remember that.”

“How it felt? How what felt?”

“Being with someone,” he explained. “Caring about them. Missing them when they weren’t there. That kind of thing doesn’t just disappear.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “The details are . . . blurred. But the feeling isn’t. And despite being dead, it hasn’t gone away. I keep feeling like I’m on the precipice of remembering her . . . her smile or her laugh or her face. It’s like there’s a block there though. Like someone’s built a wall in my brain around her memory. But I know she exists. I know she’s real. And I know someone wants to stop me from finding her.”

Augustine swallowed. What must it be like? She couldn’t help but wonder. To be so in love and so certain of that love?

“And you really don’t remember anything about her?” she queried, gentler now. “Nothing at all? Not her name, what she looks like, where she lives?”

“Of course I remember,” Theo shot back, before his face changed, frustration running through every feature. “But I also can’t remember. When I think of her, something stops me. Something holds me back.” He made a noise of pure impatience. “But I remember the feelings. I remember them so much they actually hurt. Love runs through me for her, and it's so strong, and just so . . . so damn sure.”

Theo paused.

“There is one thing, though. Something more physical,” he added, and she gazed at him.

“What?”

“I remember the way she smelled.”

Augustine blinked. “You remember her perfume?”

“Not perfume,” he said slowly. “Something warmer than that. Something like . . . Something like cinnamon.”

Cinnamon. Augustine reeled back, suddenly caught off guard. “When you first walked into my shop,” she began, her mouth dry, “I could smell cinnamon. I told you that you smelled of cinnamon.”

Hope flared in his eyes. “There’s something more to this,” he whispered. “I told you. You . . . you’re the witch who can help me.”

“No, I’m not a witch, I’m just a—” Augustine’s eyes had drifted back to the laptop screen without her quite meaning them to, and the search bar at the top of the page blinked patiently at her.