Chapter Twenty-Nine
Augustine finally dragged herself out of bed and took a lukewarm shower before making a lukewarm cup of coffee. She was holding her drink in one hand and a half open tin of cat food in the other when the doorbell rang.
“Roy!” she called out. “Can you get that?”
There was no answer from her roommate however, and Augustine scowled. He’s probably still in bed, she realized. Probably still sound asleep, entirely untroubled by the ghosts of previous boyfriends, missing memories or secret doors behind walls. Lucky him.
She set the tin of cat food down on the counter, ignoring Bird’s chirrup of protest and hurried to the front door, tripping on a pair of boots on the way. She caught herself on the door frame, swearing under her breath before yanking the door open.
Her landlord, Steven, stood on the other side, and Augustine blinked at him.
For a second — too long a second — her mind just .
. . wandered, still somewhere else entirely, caught between ghosts and memories and everything she was trying not to feel.
Steven shifted awkwardly under her gaze.
“Uh, good morning? I’m here to fix the leaking pipe? I left a message yesterday.”
“Oh.” She blinked again, slower this time, like she was dragging herself back into her own body. She’d done that a lot this week. “Oh, yeah.”
The pipe. Right. Reality sank in and she chewed on her lip, caught between two worlds and feeling odd for it.
Steven waited, watching her with a puzzled expression. “So . . . can I come in?”
“Oh! Yeah. Of course,” Augustine replied, flushing slightly. She stepped back, pulling the door wider. “Come in.”
He nodded, brushing past her, and Bird immediately materialized from nowhere, winding around his legs like he’d been waiting all morning for a new victim.
“Nice cat,” Steven remarked, glancing down as Bird purred loudly, tail flicking.
“Thanks,” Augustine said automatically, shutting the door behind him. “He thinks everyone belongs to him once they walk through the door, though, so be prepared to have your personal space invaded.”
“I like cats, so that’s no problem,” he replied, half-smiling.
“Great. Then you won’t mind feeding him again in about an hour?” she asked. “I have to go to work.”
Steven smiled again. “Sure. I wouldn’t want him starving on my watch. Besides, a cat’s probably good for this place. He’ll make it feel less . . . ghostly.”
“Ghostly?” Augustine’s stomach turned over. “That’s a strange thing to say about a place you own. What do you mean?”
Steven shifted on his feet, already looking like he regretted saying a word.
“Yeah, um—” he rubbed the back of his neck, glancing briefly towards the hallway like the flat itself might be listening in.
“Look, this is going to sound a bit ridiculous, but some of my previous tenants thought this place might be . . . haunted.”
The word hung there, slightly embarrassing, and Augustine blinked.
“Haunted,” she repeated, flatly.
“Yeah,” Steven said quickly. “But not, like, The Exorcist haunted or anything. Nothing dramatic. Just—” he gestured vaguely, clearly searching for something that sounded much less insane — “just things moving when they shouldn’t.
Music playing at odd hours, even when nothing was on.
Lights flickering. That sort of thing.” He hesitated again.
“And apparently the temperature would just change. Like, suddenly too hot or too cold for no reason.”
Augustine’s stomach twisted again, just slightly, and she thought back, quickly, running through her time here. The quiet nights. The stillness.
“Well,” she said after a moment. “Nothing like that has ever happened to me here.”
In other places, sure, she thought, thinking of Theo. But not here.
Steven blinked, clearly surprised. “Really?”
“Yes.”
He let out a short, relieved laugh. “Well,” he said, a little too lightly, “I guess the curse is broken then. I mean, not that I think there’s a curse,” he added quickly. “Obviously. That was a joke.” He gave her an apologetic look. “I hope I haven’t, um . . . frightened you.”
Augustine almost said I’m a witch, I’ve heard worse. Almost said I believe in ghosts, actually — I’ve met one.
But she didn’t. Instead, she just tilted her head slightly, studying him briefly, before letting it go. “No,” she said simply, then, because it was easier, because it was normal: “Do you need me to show you to the kitchen?”
Steven shook his head. “No, no, it’s fine. I used to live here. I know where the kitchen is.”
“You lived here?” Augustine asked. “When?”
“Oh, years ago. Back in the nineties. Right after I bought this place. I only lived here for a year or two, though.”
“The curse got you?” she asked jokingly, but Steven didn’t laugh.
“No. I just moved on.”
“Well, it hasn’t changed much since then, I bet,” she remarked, gesturing to the nineties time capsule around her.
“Right,” he admitted, flushing red. “I know it’s awful. It’s just . . . whenever I tried to change anything, things—” He stopped suddenly, and something about the way Steven was speaking made her pause.
“Things what?”
Steven hesitated. It wasn’t for long — just a second, maybe two — but it was enough.
Enough for something to shift in his expression, for something subtle but unmistakable to slide in.
The easy, polite smile he’d been wearing didn’t quite disappear, but it now looked strained around the edges.
Like he was working just a little bit harder to keep it in place.
He looked, Augustine realized, oddly pained, and she drew her brows together slightly, studying him properly.
Steven was objectively attractive, in a quiet, unassuming way.
A little older, maybe his early to mid-fifties, with a softness to his features that made him seem approachable and kind.
The sort of person people trusted without really knowing why.
I mean, he wasn’t her type. Not like that. Still, he was pleasant and easy to talk to. Easy to instinctively like.
Actually, Augustine added silently, he’s very easy to like considering how little he charges for rent. That helped with her assessment of him. A lot.
“When I lived here,” Steven finally said, his voice quieter now, “it was with someone else.”
Augustine didn’t interrupt.
“It was a long time ago,” he added, like that clarified something. Like time somehow made it lighter.
It didn’t sound lighter though.
“When it ended . . .” He exhaled. “I just . . . left everything. Told myself I’d change it eventually. After I got married, I came back. Tried to redecorate. But things, um, happened.”
“Like what?”
Abruptly, Steven straightened, obviously remembering himself, and he shook his head. “No, don’t worry about it. I don’t want to frighten you. Besides, I’m not here to talk about the past. I just want to make sure that the leaking pipe doesn’t follow you into the future.”
Augustine went to talk, but Steven cut her off.
“You can get yourself to work, Augustine. Don’t worry about me.”
Something in the air shifted. Augustine felt it before she could name it — a strange, heavy kind of sadness that didn’t belong to her, but pressed against her all the same. It wasn’t sharp like her own grief. It was older. Settled. Worn smooth with time, but no less present.
Echoes, her mind suddenly told her. It’s echoes of what once was.
The word slipped into place so naturally it almost startled her and Augustine’s gaze lingered on Steven for just a second longer than it should have.
Suddenly, she wondered if this was part of her growing power.
This ability to see emotions clinging to certain people, to certain places.
It wasn’t dramatic; not in a crystal-ball, lightning-strike kind of way, at least. No, it was more subtle than that.
It was gentle but certain, the way she could feel something unfinished in this man, something lingering just beneath the surface, like a story that hadn’t quite found its ending.
Loss recognized loss. Unfinished things recognized unfinished things, and for a brief, absurd moment, Augustine wished she had her tarot cards on her.
She could lay them out on the kitchen table, ask a few careful questions; see what rose to the surface.
See what lingered. Maybe help him, in some small, strange way.
You’re being ridiculous, she suddenly thought, and Augustine blinked.
Right. Ridiculous. Because Steven was her landlord, wasn’t he? Her landlord, who was here to fix a leaking pipe. She shook her head slightly at herself. I mean, what would she even say to him?
Hi, thanks for coming. Do you want a tarot reading to go along with your spanner? Or maybe a quick crystal cleanse while you’re under the sink? I could exorcize your ghost for you over a quick cup of coffee?
Definitely not. And in any event, he’d made it clear he didn’t want to talk about any of this any more.
So, instead, she offered softly, “I’m sorry.” And meant it.