Chapter Nineteen
The light was fading fast as Augustine made her way back through Greenwich, the sky a curious mix of pink and purple as the sun began to set over the city.
Pumpkins crowded front steps and shop windows, their carved faces already glowing.
Strings of orange fairy lights were draped around railings and door frames, while fake cobwebs stretched between hanging baskets and drainpipes.
Somewhere in the distance, she could hear the ‘Monster Mash’ playing, while the smell of coffee and popcorn was sweet in the air.
Just another October day, Augustine thought as she cut through the market, weaving between commuters, tourists, and clusters of students wrapped in scarves and heavy coats.
From one of the pubs came the muffled sound of laughter and clinking glasses, warm against the growing chill, while the Cutty Sark loomed in the near distance, lit gold against the darkening sky.
By the time Augustine turned onto her shop’s street, Greenwich was wrapped in that peculiar vibe of a late afternoon in October where everything felt stranger somehow, depicting the city itself holding its breath and waiting for something mythical to emerge.
Like the southbound extension to the Bakerloo line perhaps.
Or maybe that was just her, she thought wryly, projecting her current situation onto an entire city.
“Theo?” she called as she walked in, but there was no response. He didn’t appear.
The shop sat exactly as she’d left it. The stools by her till were still slightly askew and the tarot deck lay on the countertop. The air felt still and expectant, and Augustine hovered momentarily just inside the doorway. “Theo?” she tried again, a little louder this time.
Nothing. Just that same ringing silence.
She stepped further in, letting the door click shut behind her. “Right,” she said to herself. “Great. Fantastic. I come back to face my emotionally complicated ghost situation and he’s . . . what? Gone?”
She dropped her bag onto the counter, glancing around again, anticipating he would materialize at any moment. Could he even do that? Just appear and disappear at will? The thought made her pause.
Do ghosts have schedules? she wondered. Or do they just float off when they get bored? I locked the door with Theo still inside. What if he wanted to haunt the Cutty Sark or something? Maybe Roy was right. Maybe Theo can go through the walls?”
She frowned, peeling her coat off and hanging it on the rack by the door, before she turned slowly, taking in the shop properly now.
It wasn’t a pretty sight. The closed sign still hung in the window and the incense had clearly burned down to nothing hours ago. The Priestess Reversed had that faintly abandoned feel to it that small businesses get when left alone too long.
Shit. Augustine winced.
“Well done,” she told herself. “That was an excellent business strategy. Close during peak hours because you accidentally time-travelled into a dead man’s girlfriend.”
The yummy mummies. Gone.
The tourists. Gone.
At this rate, even Mrs Clayton had probably—
“You’ve been closed all afternoon.”
Augustine froze, before slowly, she turned around.
Mrs Clayton stood in the doorway like an avenging spirit of retail justice, pearl embossed handbag clutched firmly in one hand, her lips pressed into a thin and highly unimpressed line.
Augustine blinked. “Oh,” she said faintly. “Hi, Mrs C.”
“Hi, Mrs C indeed,” Mrs Clayton replied crisply, clearly annoyed. “I came to see you today. Twice, in fact. Imagine my surprise when your shop was locked up in the middle of the day and you were nowhere to be found.”
Mrs C sounded like the world’s most aggrieved but enthusiastic customer, which was odd, given that she never bought anything. “Right. Sorry. I had, uh, an emergency.”
“An emergency?” Mrs Clayton’s expression turned from annoyed to concerned within a millisecond. “What happened?”
“Oh.” Augustine waved a hand. “Nothing, really. Just . . . something I had to deal with.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yes.” Augustine cleared her throat. “Are you? Okay I mean?”
Mrs Clayton shrugged. “I’m fine. When am I ever not fine?”
“And how’s Mr C?”
At the mention of her husband, Mrs Clayton sighed. “That ridiculous man of mine,” she said, her expression sad but fond. “Actually, he’s in a coma now.”
“Oh, no.” Augustine reached a hand towards the older woman, but Mrs Clayton stepped aside, straightening her back and fiddling with the clasp on her bag.
“There’s no need to fuss.”
“I’m not fussing,” Augustine replied gently. “I’m trying to offer sympathy.”
“I don’t want sympathy. He’s not dead . . . at least, not yet. I heard the doctors talking though. They don’t think he has long left.”
There was a stark finality to her words, and Augustine felt a knot of grief for the woman.
Mrs Clayton had always been a kind of thorn in her side here.
She was a product of her time, deeply unimpressed by incense, tarot, or anything that couldn’t be neatly explained over a nice cup of tea.
Even so, Augustine liked her. In a world where so many people spoke in vague terms or whispered half-truths, Mrs Clayton never did.
She said exactly what she thought, whether people wanted to hear it or not.
Augustine had never enjoyed their conversations — not quite — but she had come to value them.
And now her husband was dying. Slowly. Augustine wouldn’t have wished that on anyone.
“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I really am.”
Mrs Clayton nodded briskly. “I sat with him this morning. There was a whole room of them. Men. All asleep. All ill. There were nurses cleaning them, changing their wires, feeding their tubes with medication.” She paused, her mouth tightening. “It’s no way to be.”
Augustine swallowed.
“He’d be better off dead,” Mrs Clayton added, almost matter-of-fact.
Augustine flinched. “Don’t say that. Quick, knock on wood or something.”
“No.” Mrs Clayton shrugged, as though it were nothing.
“He’s an old man, Augustine. He’s lived a good life.
You should have seen the man in the bed next to him.
Couldn’t have been more than thirty. At least my Dennis is old and had his time.
All the same, he shouldn’t linger like this.
I’m his wife. I want him to die comfortably. Die with dignity.”
A small silence settled between them.
“Do you . . . want anything?” Augustine asked after a moment. “Tea? Water? A candle that smells like cat wee but promises eternal youth?”
That earned her the faintest flicker of amusement in Mrs Clayton’s eyes. Still, the older woman shook her head. “No. I just came to talk. It’s nice to have someone listen to me, once in a while.”
Augustine nodded. She understood that. “Are you going back to the hospital?”
“Yes.” Mrs Clayton adjusted her bag again. “I should go. I want to be there.”
“For visiting hours?”
“No.” Mrs Clayton met her eyes. “For when he goes, dear.”
“Of course.” Augustine’s cheeks reddened as a flood of understanding and embarrassment went through her.
“Right. Well, let me get that candle for you anyway. Hang on, I put it in a cupboard.” She turned, kneeling down to a cabinet and rummaging through it quickly.
“It’s actually been a big seller, despite the scent.
And the price tag. And the fact that it contains uric acid.
” She stood again, brandishing the candle triumphantly, but Mrs Clayton was gone.
Just another one of her disappearing pensioner moments.
“She has got to stop doing that,” Augustine muttered, putting the candle down on the counter with a humph, but only silence followed and for a long moment she stood there, staring at the door which Mrs Clayton had just gone through.
She still wondered what it must be like, having a whole lifetime with someone.
All the irritation, the habits, the small arguments over nothing.
Augustine ran her finger in a circle over the solid wax of the candle.
She’d never known anything that persevered like that.
Her longest relationships had lasted just a few weeks, perhaps a few more — long enough for charm to curdle into annoyance, for her interest to flicker out.
That was the way of it. For her, and for her sisters.
Their mother had been the same, too.
If Augustine had a father, she’d never met him, and so the idea of a consistent male presence in her life felt as abstract as the notion of forever itself.
Her mother had never put stock in such things.
Eglantine, forever practical and decisive, thought of marriage as a trap, and regarded all men with open suspicion.
When she wanted a child, she chose a warlock as one might choose a particular herb for a potion: carefully, purposefully, and with no expectation of keeping the source close afterward.
Hardly the vision of matrimonial harmony.
Augustine let out a quiet breath, her gaze drifting back to the door. She tried to imagine it. Tried to imagine years stacked upon years with the same person, the same voice in the next room, the same footsteps on the stairs. Familiarity not as a trap, but as something steady. Something wanted.
She couldn’t quite picture it, and perhaps that was why it unsettled her. Or maybe, just maybe, it was the small flicker of jealousy within her chest she felt when she thought of Mrs Clayton, in love for all eternity.
Just like Theo, she thought suddenly. He’s still in love with his girlfriend, whoever she is. So in love with her that he’s still looking out for her, even from the other side.
“You’re back.”
Augustine startled, turning sharply. Theo stood by the till, just as he had before, suggesting he’d never left at all.
“So are you,” she returned weakly, and he nodded.