Chapter Three
There was something to be said for being witch-bred and coven-born but still entirely powerless.
Not that Augustine ever complained. There was no space in her family for complaints.
Her mother, Eglantine, had had her hands full with the demands of her coven, her four daughters, and the necessity of living in hiding — which meant maintaining a perfectly ordinary and very visible public life as managing director of the northern branch of a large telecommunications firm.
Augustine had grown up knowing her mother was one of the greatest witches of her generation.
Of that, there was no doubt. Other girls had mothers who served chocolate cake at birthday parties, handed out plastic party bags, and wore jeans with sensible ballet flats.
Eglantine, on the other hand, made muffins out of the blood of Hestia (surprisingly flowery; honestly not terrible), gave rose quartz as party favours, and floated around in silk skirts that swished as she walked.
Well, at least on weekends she did. Monday to Friday she wore power suits with heels so sharp they could have taken an eye out.
Augustine had watched her older sister, Celestine, grow into a formidable lunar witch, reading stars and planets as easily as other people read headlines.
She’d watched her little sister, Clementine, become a powerful green witch, coaxing life out of soil and stem with nothing more than her touch.
She’d even watched her baby sister, Madeline, turn into a spell witch of rare precision — someone people sought out for magical interventions and occasional hexes.
Augustine had watched all of this happen with deep pride, mild envy, and the creeping realization that whatever gift she’d been meant to inherit had clearly been misplaced in the post. Her mother was a legendary name in their secretive world, and her sisters were well on the way to being so, too, while Augustine . . .
Well, Augustine was just Augustine — or Ags, but to her sisters only.
“You’ll be a divination witch,” her grandmother had once told her, peering at her closely. “You have the sight, just like me.”
In retrospect, Augustine suspected her grandmother’s sight may not have been what it once was.
She’d been trained, at least. Painstakingly so.
Her grandmother, determined if nothing else, had taught her the cards one by one — their symbols, their histories, the careful choreography of a proper spread.
Augustine could read them fluently, confidently, even impressively.
The trouble was, every interpretation came from memory and pattern, not from revelation.
She read the cards the way an actor read lines: well-rehearsed, technically accurate, and entirely devoid of prophecy.
Nothing ever happened.
She never saw the dead. Never heard whispers from the beyond.
Never felt that cinematic shiver people talked about when the veil thinned or curtain lifted.
Messages from the afterlife stubbornly refused to arrive, and frankly, even her mobile phone network was patchy at best. If there was a frequency on which the universe spoke, Augustine had always been just slightly out of range.
She’d opened her shop because there was nothing else she could really do, no other skill she could really offer.
Celestine had taken her gifts and now worked at the University of Edinburgh, as an actual astrophysicist. Clem was off in some developing nation (Augustine wanted to say Chad?
Maybe Somalia?) growing crops from literally nothing.
Even Maddy was thriving, working as a personal assistant for an aging and somewhat doddery CEO in London — living proof that a witch’s true calling was keeping the printer functional and stopping her boss from constantly hitting Reply All when emailing. Standard stuff really.
Augustine was happy for them, she really was.
She loved her sisters. Loved their quirks, their foibles, their dedication to and absolute respect for their craft.
She loved how Celestine surreptitiously dropped notes into her Google Calendar like Augustine, Saturn is crossing Venus on this date, would be a great day to file your taxes or Augustine, the lunar shift into New Moon is today - try Hinge again?
She loved how Maddy would pop by unexpectedly to drop a quick charm on that leaky pipe in her kitchen, until the landlord could come and fix it.
She even loved how Clem treated all plants like emotionally complex dependents, loving and berating them in equal measure.
Any childhood jealousies Augustine once harboured towards them had long since disappeared.
Where envy once sat, there was now only resigned acceptance.
Augustine recognized that everyone else in her family was objectively magical, while she owned a shop and kept immaculate receipts.
Although she was good at running a shop. She really was.
She’d founded The Priestess Reversed three years ago, with the money she’d inherited from her mother. A narrow little place in Greenwich, tucked just far enough out of the way to feel secret, but close enough to tourists to stay solvent; and she loved it.
She loved the dark floors that swallowed sound.
Loved the constant haze of incense that clung to her clothes and hair.
Loved the stained-glass windows that fractured daylight into jewel tones and made everything feel enchanted.
She loved the candles, always burning, their flames steady and patient.
She loved the idea of witchcraft the shop sold so well — the promise of something more, something mystical, something just beyond reach.
Of course, it was all quite literally smoke and mirrors, but it paid the bills.
Like today, when she’d been busy. Customers had popped in and out all day, and Augustine had sold several salt lamps, three tarot kits and a fairly awful, but happily expensive, crystal ball in the shape of a skull.
Now it was just after closing, and Augustine was going through a catalogue for new tea-leaf reading cups (mass-made in Vietnam, hand-painted in Cambodia, shipped from China) and divination bowls, when the bell over the shop door chimed.
Augustine looked up, annoyed she hadn’t locked the door properly.
She thought she had. In fact, she’d been more on guard today than she had in a long while after yesterday’s visitor.
Something about him was still — well, not quite bothering her, but lingering, like the way incense clung to a room long after it had burned out.
All day, she’d been stealing glances at The Hanged Man, still sitting atop the tarot deck on her desk.
She’d kept meaning to tidy the cards away, but every time she’d reached for them, she’d stopped, the hanged man’s dark eyes and serene face stilling her hands.
It felt like he was watching her, which was ridiculous, and completely absurd. He was just a piece of cardboard.
Right?
With relief, Augustine watched as Maddy came bounding in, key in hand, brown hair flying, coat unbuttoned, backpack slung lazily over one shoulder.
You wouldn’t immediately guess they were sisters.
Granted, they had different fathers, but still — Augustine often felt genetics could have made at least a token effort.
While her own hair was dark, heavy, and stubbornly wavy, Maddy’s was chestnut-brown and perpetually one loose hairband away from complete anarchy.
Augustine was petite enough to disappear into oversized knitwear, while Maddy had inherited their mother’s height and wore it with casual indifference, towering over her sisters by a good head.
Next to this Amazonian baby sister, Augustine always felt slight and delicate, like she would blow away in a heavy wind.
Then there was the wardrobe issue.
When not at work, Maddy dressed like she was permanently en route to Reading Festival, with chunky boots on her feet and ripped jeans on her legs, giving the vague air of someone who could produce a vape out of thin air.
Augustine, meanwhile, dressed like . . .
well, like a woman who owned a Wiccan shop.
Long skirts. Wispy blouses. The occasional corset. Of all four sisters, Augustine looked the most like a witch, which was ironic, really.
“Maddy,” Augustine greeted, eyeing the open coat. “Do you want to catch your death?”
“After the day I’ve had, maybe I do.” Maddy collapsed onto the battered sofa beside the incense cabinet with the theatrical exhaustion of a woman who fully expected sympathy. “Besides,” she added, “it’s not even cold.”
“It’s October.”
“And London is having a deeply confusing day of sunshine. Let people enjoy things. Actually, forget the people. Let me enjoy things.”
Augustine shrugged. “It’s your funeral. I just worry.”
“Obviously you worry.” Maddy kicked off one boot. “You’ve been doing it professionally since Mum disappeared.”
The words were said lightly, tossed out without thought, but Augustine still flinched, and Maddy immediately noticed.
“Ah. Shit. Sorry.” She rubbed a hand over her face. “You know my mouth runs ahead of the rest of me.”
“I know.” Augustine busied herself pointlessly with straightening a pile of receipts. “It’s just . . . the way you talk about what happened. So matter-of-fact.”
“Well, how else should I talk about what happened?” Maddy asked, frowning.
“It is a fact. Mum disappeared, and you looked after me. Here’s another fact: you still do.
” She pointed accusingly at Augustine. “Case in point — my coat. You’re acting like one undone button means I’ll be dead of Victorian consumption by teatime. ”
“You mean tuberculosis.”
“They’re the same thing.”
Augustine turned to Maddy in surprise. “How do you know that?”
Maddy shrugged. “Jane Eyre. And I don’t know why you’re surprised. You’re the one who made me read it.”