Chapter Twelve
Theo’s mouth dropped open. “I don’t exist?” His voice rose an octave. “What are you talking about?”
Augustine swallowed down a knot of anxiety. “There’s nothing about you on the internet. No obituary. No news articles. Not even a Facebook page.”
“Well, that one’s easy to explain. I never had a Facebook page in the first place.”
“Okay, fair play to you, I’m anti-establishment as well—”
“Really?” Theo asked dryly, gesturing to her shop. “A witch in a witch’s shop? I would never have guessed.”
“I keep telling you, I’m not a witch.” She gave him a look. “And do you want my help or not?”
He swallowed. “Sorry, yeah.”
“There’s just . . . nothing.” She frowned as she pushed the laptop screen towards him. “No Instagram. No TikTok. No LinkedIn. Nothing. Your digital footprint is about as real as your current one. There’s nothing about your work at the BBC either. Or your murder.”
He made a small, frustrated noise, dragging a hand through his hair. “Look, I promise you, I existed. My name is Theodore Manford. I am — fuck, I was — a statistician for the BBC. I was murdered recently. And I’m pretty sure I had a girlfriend, who I’m now very worried about.”
Girlfriend. Something small inside of Augustine curled up a little at the word, which was ridiculous. Because Theo was dead. He was the non-living embodiment of a relationship that could literally go nowhere.
“You had a girlfriend?” she asked, and she hated that her voice sounded small.
“I think so,” Theo said, before he nodded firmly. “Yes. I did.”
“You think so?” Once again, Augustine felt a pulse of uncertainty. “How can you know the statistical rate of homicide within the inner London area but not whether or not you had a girlfriend?”
Theo slumped into Augustine’s sofa, and she tried not to blink in surprise at the knowledge that he — an apparition — could sit on actual furniture.
“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.
But something was wrong with it.
“Theo?” she murmured.
“What?” he asked quickly.
She leaned closer. At some point — she had no idea when — most of what she’d typed had vanished. The blinking cursor now sat beside just two lonely fragments.
Theo Man
“That’s odd,” she said slowly. “I typed your full name out. I know I did.”
Theo stepped closer behind her, peering over her shoulder. “Maybe you hit backspace.”
“On both words?” she asked sceptically, her eyes lingering on the screen.
Theo Man, she read again, as something stirred at the back of her mind.
Theo.
Man.
The-o.
Her breath caught. “Like a noose,” she whispered. “The o. It’s like a noose.”
“What?” Theo asked.
Augustine turned towards him slowly, her pulse suddenly racing. “The Hanged Man. You . . . you’re the hanged man.”
Theo blinked. “What are you talking about? I was shot. I wasn’t hanged.”
“The tarot card,” she said faintly. “I did a quick, um, read when you left the other day. Asked the cards who you were. They said The Hanged Man.”
“They said?” Theo raised an eyebrow. “I thought you said the cards were just a gimmick. A trick.”
She coloured red but made no reply. Her gaze flicked back to the screen, where the cursor blinked. Theo Man. She swallowed.
I think the universe might be trying to get my attention.
Slowly, she looked back up at him. “What do you want me to do? How can I help you?”
He gazed at her steadily. “Consult your cards. Find out who she is.”
“She?” Augustine frowned. “Your girlfriend?”
He nodded once. “I told you I thought someone might be in trouble because of me — I think it’s her.” His voice softened. “It’s too late for me now, Augustine. But if I can help her — if we can help her — we should. Someone murdered me. I can’t let them get to her too.”
Again, a ‘no’ formed on her lips. She hadn’t done a full tarot read in . . . what had it been? Four years? Maybe five?
Ten, her mind reminded her. When you read Mum’s cards that final time. Remember what happened? That’s why you stopped. That’s why you had to stop.
She gazed at Theo intently. Even now, with the universe apparently throwing signs at her left, right and centre, uncertainty still sat deep in her bones.
Uranus is forming a tight opposition with Mercury, right as the veil is thinning. Celestine’s words abruptly came tumbling back into Augustine’s mind, and she hesitated. Secrets are coming out, she reminded herself.
Secrets she and her sisters needed badly to stay hidden.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I just don’t know.”
“Please help me help her.” Theo’s voice was so soft.
She inhaled deeply, completely at a loss for words.
The air between them felt charged, humming faintly in a song only the universe knew the lyrics to.
Suddenly, ridiculously, she wanted to reach out and touch Theo.
Even though her hand would pass right through him, even though she knew trying to feel him would be like trying to catch moonlight in her palm, she longed to try.
As if sensing the thought, Theo’s hand lifted slightly between them — not quite reaching for her, but not quite staying still either.
“Augustine,” he whispered. “Please.”
She nodded once, sharply, tearing her gaze away from his. “Okay,” she told him. “Okay. I’ll try and help.”