Chapter Twenty-Six #2
“Please,” Augustine begged, seizing on this chance. “Please tell me.”
Mrs Clayton shook her head again, stepping back. “No,” she said. “No, I’ve already said too much.”
She moved to step around Augustine, but slower this time. Augustine, desperate, opened her mouth, determined to try just one more time.
“Mrs C, please—”
“You’re a good girl, you know,” Mrs Clayton suddenly said, interrupting her.
“You really are. You’ve been good company for me.
You’ve helped me when you could, too. God knows I had nothing to offer you, no way to say thanks .
. .” She trailed off abruptly, that same earlier sadness crossing her face.
“I made a promise, honey. I didn’t think it was right, what she did, but I was told it was for your own good and—”
“She?” Augustine cut in. “Who? What did she make you promise?”
Mrs Clayton looked at her properly then. “I can’t tell you. But I can tell you this: stop looking for what’s hidden and start thinking about why it was hidden from you in the first place.”
Frustration flared. “That’s not an answer—”
“No,” Mrs Clayton agreed. “It isn’t.” She adjusted her handbag, composure returning in small, practiced pieces.
Gazing around the shop, her eyes flicked to the bookcase.
“This place was all tiles, when I worked here,” she suddenly remarked.
“That’s why, when the fire happened, it was so bad.
The tiles were made of vinyl and the fumes became poisonous and I—”
She stopped.
She didn’t seem to be in the room any more. Her expression shifted, fear flickering across her face, sharp and sudden, chased quickly by something heavier. Sadness. The kind that settled deep, like it had nowhere else to go.
Augustine’s voice softened instinctively. “There was a fire?”
The older woman blinked, like she’d been pulled back from somewhere far away. Then, just as quickly, she shook herself. Her shoulders straightened, while her expression smoothed over into something brisk and dismissive.
“Yes,” she said lightly, too lightly, “but that’s not my point. My point is that when I was here, the walls were covered with toxic tiling, and it was still better than this wallpaper.” She sniffed faintly, glancing around with clear disapproval. “I don’t like it.”
Augustine shook her head. “You . . . you don’t like my wallpaper?”
Mrs Clayton met her gaze and held it for longer than necessary. Long enough for something unspoken to pass between them.
“No,” she replied, “you should take it down.”
Augustine’s breath slowed as she turned, her eyes moving over the walls, the soft, innocuous pattern she’d loved and chosen when she’d opened three years earlier. It was wallpaper, she thought. Just wallpaper.
Except . . . except Mrs Clayton didn’t give hints. She always spoke bluntly, telling people exactly what she thought.
And she thought the wallpaper needed to go. A slow, creeping realization began to take shape within Augustine’s mind and she swallowed, her gaze lingering on the seams, the edges, the places where the paper met the wall.
Then she turned back, quickly and instinctively, ready to ask, to push, to confirm—
But the spot where Mrs Clayton had been standing was empty, and the shop was silent again. The door hadn’t chimed, and there were no footsteps.
Just absence. Just quiet.
Augustine stood there for a long moment, her pulse loud in her ears, her eyes drifting once more to the walls around her.
To the wallpaper.
She would do whatever it took, she decided, to find out the truth. She would do whatever it took to find Theo again.
And with that, she moved.
The bookcase loomed in front of her, tall and solid, but Augustine hardly looked at it. She’d pushed it slightly away from the wall the other day, but it was still in the way, and she needed much more space for what she wanted to do.
She reached up to the top shelf, and one by one, lifted down the half empty spell jars, stacking them haphazardly on the floor.
Next came the second-hand grimoires, and she sneezed at the dust sitting on their dog-eared pages before dumping them next to the jars.
When the bookcase was empty, Augustine planted her hands against the wood.
For a second, doubt flickered within her mind, because this was ridiculous.
There couldn’t possibly be a secret flat in her shop.
A secret upstairs that had been deliberately hidden from her.
Then she thought of Theo, and of the way he’d looked at her.
Remembered the way he’d once kissed her.
Something sharp and fierce surged through her chest, and she pushed at the bookcase.
The muscles in her arms strained, her shoulders protesting as the bookcase resisted, groaning faintly like it had no intention of giving up its place.
I moved you before. I can move you again.
And if I can’t, I’ll take an axe to you until you’re in pieces, she silently warned.
Adrenaline burned through her, and she kept going, shoving again and again, inch by stubborn inch, until the bookcase began scraping aside.
Briefly, Augustine looked down at her floor, and the oak panels she’d lovingly installed when she’d bought the place.
Faint scratch marks were appearing. Last week, that would have sent her into a panicked frenzy.
Now, she simply shrugged, and pushed against the bookcase even harder, until it was completely away from the wall.
Augustine stared at the wallpaper.
It was the same as the rest of her shop. The same faded pattern she loved, showing the same sun-soaked wear of time.
Her brow furrowed, because that wasn’t possible.
This had been hidden. Covered. Pressed beneath a bookcase that hadn’t been moved in — what? Three years? It should have been different, Augustine realized. Brighter. Untouched by the light and sun.
But it wasn’t. In fact, it looked exactly the same, as if it had simply been copied and pasted from the rest of the walls.
A chill slid down her spine.
“A glamour,” she whispered again, but this time the word felt heavier.
Augustine knew of glamours, remembered how good her mother had been at conjuring them.
The trick, Eglantine had always said, was not to use a glamour to hide something that was already easy to hide away.
No. The best glamours hid things in plain sight.
Or in this case, behind the vintage mahogany bookcase she’d bought for a steal on Facebook marketplace.
Her hesitation vanished, and with a sudden, decisive motion, Augustine reached out and caught the edge of the wallpaper where it met the skirting board.
For a second, she paused. This was her shop that she loved.
She’d spent hours and hours decorating it.
Had chosen this paper with love and care. It was important to her.
But Theo was more important to her now. Augustine closed her eyes, remembering his warm smile. Thinking about the way he so softly said her name. The wallpaper was just that: paper. It could be replaced. Theo couldn’t.
Fuck it, Augustine thought.
Then she pulled, the paper tearing with a dry, brittle sound, peeling back in her hands.
Again.
She pulled harder this time, and the strips came away unevenly, curling and ripping as she worked, her movements growing faster, more desperate, more determined. Dust shook loose with each tear, the air filling with the dry scent of old plaster and something older beneath it.
“Come on,” she muttered, half to herself, half to whatever was hiding there. “Come on.”
Another strip tore free. Then another.
And then the bell above her door chimed.
Augustine froze.
“Hello?” a voice called out. “Are you open? Or closed for lunch?”
Augustine looked at the half-stripped wall, then down at herself. She was covered in dust. She was still wearing the same clothes as the day before. Hardly the vision of professional competence.
“Oh, there you are!” A woman walked towards her, basket in hand. Augustine blinked.
“Do you have any of those scented wax melt things?” The woman asked. “My daughter loves them.”
“Umm . . . yes.” Augustine shook herself and focused on the customer. “Yes, I do."
“Great,” the woman grinned, then looked at the wall. “Are you redecorating or something?”
“Or something.” Augustine gestured to one of the display cabinets. “The melts are over here. I’ll show you.”
Five minutes and a sale later, the woman left the shop.
Augustine’s smile dropped even before she was out the door, and she turned back to the wall, determined. Once again, she ripped the wallpaper away in great, ragged handfuls, heart pounding, breath uneven, every movement driven by that same singular need: Find it.
Find him.
Find the truth.
The last strip came away in her hands.
And Augustine . . . Augustine froze.