Chapter Fourteen
Augustine made a show of squaring the tarot deck against the counter, busying her hands in the universal language of please don’t continue this emotionally inconvenient conversation.
Theo watched her shuffle, the cards snapping softly against one another, his eyes curious but warm.
Augustine glanced up at him, and abruptly, she hesitated.
Outside, the afternoon would be rolling along exactly as it always did.
The morning yoga sessions would be over by now, which meant the yummy mummy crowd would soon begin drifting past the shop windows, prams squeaking and coffee cups in hand.
One or two of them might try the door, frown at the closed sign Augustine had hurriedly tacked up, and wander off to the organic soap shop two streets over instead.
Then there were the tourists. There was a cruise ship docked in Greenwich today, and Augustine knew the Americans and Canadians would wander into town and peer through her glass, pointing at the shelves of candles and tarot decks and jars of herbs.
They loved such things. Couldn’t get enough of them.
Augustine winced slightly at that thought. She was probably losing a respectable amount of business by sitting here ineffectively becoming smitten with a ghost instead of effectively running her shop.
Uncertain, she looked back at Theo. Suddenly, she noticed the careful way he was watching her. Saw the quiet hope in his expression. A hope she instantly knew she had no intention of letting down.
Fuck. She thought. I’m such an idiot.
She couldn’t help herself. She smiled at him, warm and reassuring.
“That’s the first time you’ve smiled at me,” he told her, smiling back. “I like it.”
Augustine’s stomach tingled pleasantly.
He’s a ghost, she abruptly reminded herself. A ghost looking for his girlfriend. He is one hundred per cent off limits, in every sense, sixth included.
Shaking the stomach tingles away, Augustine spread the deck carefully between them. Strange. The cards were now feeling familiar in her hands . . . Almost like old friends waiting for her to greet them.
“I’m going to use a five-card cross spread,” she explained. “It’s normally used for decision-making, and—”
“But I’m not making a decision,” Theo interjected. “I’m trying to find someone. Get some answers to questions I have.”
“I know,” Augustine agreed, beginning to separate the deck. “I know you’re not making a decision.” She glanced up at him briefly. “But it’s the closest structure I’ve got to what we need.”
Theo nodded slowly. “Well, I guess you’re the expert.”
Augustine huffed softly at that. “Let’s not get carried away.” She spread the deck across the table between them, the cards fanning out in a loose arc. “Okay,” she said. “Here’s what we’re going to do. I want you to pick five cards.”
Theo blinked. “Pick them?”
“Yes.” She gestured towards the spread. “Just point to the ones you feel drawn to.”
He leaned forward and Augustine watched as his hands hovered uncertainly over the cards.
They were nice hands, she thought again. Large, but elegant. The kind of hands that looked dependable. Capable. Gentle when they needed to be, but firm when it counted. The sort of hands you’d trust to hold something fragile.
Or someone, her mind added, and quickly, she dragged her thoughts back into line.
Theo swallowed, clearly nervous, his fingers drifting over the spread without quite touching it. “How will I know which ones I’m drawn to?” he asked.
“You’ll feel it,” Augustine said.
He glanced up. “How?”
She tilted her head, considering. She’d always been the one reading the cards, never the one being read for. She searched her memory, trying to recall how others had described the feeling. “I don’t really know,” she admitted. “But I was once told it’s a little like warmth in your fingertips.”
“When I was living, if I ever felt warmth in my fingers, it was probably my blood sugar dropping,” Theo remarked.
She thought about it. “Okay. So, when your body needs sugar, it sends you a sign, right? Think of the cards as being like your body. When they want your attention, they’ll find a way of letting you know.”
“Even if I’m dead?”
Augustine shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never read for a ghost before. I guess we’ll find out.”
Theo looked back down at the spread again, brows knitting slightly as if he were attempting to apply statistical reasoning to something that very stubbornly refused to be statistical.
After a moment though, his hand stilled above one of the cards.
“I don’t know why, but this one,” he said quietly, pointing.
Augustine slid the card out from the spread and placed it face-down in front of them. “Okay,” she said. “Four more.”
Theo exhaled slowly and continued.
His second choice came quicker, his finger pointing to a card on the left, but the third took longer, his hand hovering indecisively before settling on a card near the middle.
By the fourth card, his movements had grown a little more confident.
His fifth he chose almost immediately, like something had nudged him towards it.
When he finished, he sat back slightly, looking faintly unsettled. “I did feel something,” he admitted. “A sort of . . . warmth.”
Augustine nodded, unsurprised, and gathered the chosen cards together. She began arranging them carefully on the table.
One in the centre.
One crossing it.
One above.
One below.
And then, finally, one to the side.
The familiar shape of the five-card cross settled between them like a map she hadn’t unfolded in years.
Theo leaned forward again, studying the cards. “So,” he murmured, as Augustine rested her fingers lightly on the first card. “What happens now?”
“I start the reading,” she told him, and slowly, Augustine turned over the first card.