Page 85 of A Ghost’s Guide to Haunting a Witch

The fantasy felt so real it almost hurt.

“But ghosts aren’t supposed to linger forever,” she added quietly. “My grandmother told me that. They’re supposed to move on. And if I care about him — really care about him — then I’m supposed to help him move on . . . Not keep him because losing him would hurt me.”

“Well, honey.” Roy sat back. “That absolutely sucks for you. Did you know that Madonna once told Oprah that being in love meant being brave and not expecting anything in return? That’s like you.” He pointed at her. “Except you come without bustiers and back-up dancers.”

“Roy.”

“Right, sorry,” he said quickly, holding up a hand. “Wrong tone. You’re in the throes of a tragic, existential, and possibly cursed timeline. Less Vogue, more Evita. Got it.” A beat passed, before he leaned forward slightly, his expression shifting from flippant to more thoughtful. “You know, I think it’s time you called for reinforcements. The magical cavalry, if you will.”

Augustine stilled. She didn’t even need to ask who he meant. “No,” she said immediately. “Not yet.”

I’m not even sure what I would tell them. I’m not even sure I can trust them. I mean Maddy clearly knew something. She knew about the room upstairs. She lied to me.

Roy continued to study her. “Okay. I know your sisters are . . . a lot, and I know the whole coven situation is complicated. Honestly, it’s a bit cult-adjacent, but in such a wholesome, girl-powerish kind of way I can’t be judgemental about it. The four of you are like the Spice Girls after Ginger left. My point is,” Roy went on, “if anyone’s going to understand memory spells, witches messing with your life, secret rooms, all of this—” he gestured vaguely, encompassing everything — “it’s them. You normally tell them everything.”

“Yeah, I do, and they . . .” Augustine trailed off as a thought suddenly grabbed hold of her.

I tell them everything, she repeated in her mind. Everything.

“Maddy,” she whispered. “Maddy was there when I met him. I mean, I even called her before I went on my first date with him to ask her about what I should wear. She knew about him, Roy.” Silence settled again, heavier this time, and Augustine’s thoughts turned inward, circling something she couldn’t quite bring herself to say. Suspicion was rankling within her mind, hot and awful.

“Maddy knew about the room, too,” she added, and his eyes flicked back to her.

“The upstairs one? Above your shop? Behind the magic wallpaper?”

Augustine nodded slowly. “She told me it didn’t exist. Said it belonged to the office next door . . . She lied to me.”

“Or,” Roy said carefully, “maybe she thought she was telling the truth.”

Augustine considered this, weighing up the idea that her sisters — her coven, her family — had been caught in the same spell she and Theo had. That their memories had been altered, just like hers. That Theo had been erased from all of them, cleanly and completely. It made sense, and would be easier, because that . . .

Well, that meant no one had betrayed her.

But then Maddy had known his name, hadn’t she? As soon as Augustine said Theo Manford, Maddy had reacted. Badly.

Augustine swallowed. “No,” she stated quietly. “There wasn’t a spell. Not for her. She knew.”

When Roy spoke again, his voice was gentle. “Okay. If Maddy knew, then this spell wasn’t meant to fool everyone.” He paused. “So maybe the important question right now isn’t who erased your boyfriend. Maybe the real question is why.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Augustine woke slowly, like someone being pulled unwillingly to the surface. She didn’t feel at all rested, despite having stolen a few hours’ sleep in the early morning, when her brain and body had literally become too tired to function, and her eyes had closed without her even realizing it.

For a long moment, she lay in her bed and gazed at the ceiling, trying to gather the scattered pieces of herself back into something human. Into something functional. But it didn’t work.

Everything was still there, jumbled and unpleasant in her mind. Theo. Their missing memories. The witch who’d cursed them, whoever she was. Maddy. The flat upstairs. How to get into the flat upstairs. The lie of it all. The lie of everything.

It pressed in on her from every direction, a suffocating weight that hadn’t eased even slightly with the night. If anything, it felt worse now, sharper and more defined, like her brain had spent the last few hours helpfully reorganizing her panic into labelled compartments.

She turned onto her side, dragging a hand over her face. God, she was so tired. So, so tired.

Tired of thinking about Theo, of wondering where he was, if he was anywhere at all. Tired of replaying the fragments of him she did have, like worrying a loose thread she couldn’t stop pulling. Tired of wondering who had taken him from her, and why.

Tired of wondering how much Maddy knew, which sat heavily in her heart, because it came with something else tangled up in it. Something quieter, but much worse: doubt. Doubt about Maddy, and her intentions. Maddy, who she’d never had reason to doubt before.

Augustine squeezed her eyes shut briefly.

Then there was the room. The hidden one above the shop. The place she had lived, apparently, and yet somehow forgotten entirely. The place someone had gone to the trouble of hiding from her, not just physically, but mentally, too.