Chapter Thirty-Eight
Augustine didn’t remember the journey back. Not properly.
There were flashes that stuck: the DLR rattling beneath her; the blur of glass buildings giving way to something quieter; the sound of her own footsteps echoing a little too loudly as she walked the last stretch.
None of it felt real, though, so by the time she reached the flat in Greenwich, it felt less like she’d travelled there and more like she’d simply arrived.
The door clicked shut behind her and she stood there, looking around the hallway with new and knowing eyes.
The flat was small and neat. It was filled to the brim with things that didn’t belong to her, things that would never belong to her, in fact.
It was safe, yes, but there were no real traces of her here, not in the way there should have been.
Not like there had been in the room above her shop.
Here, there was no clutter built up over time, or knick-knacks with stories attached to them.
There were no little, absent-minded messes that came from actually living somewhere.
No photographs on the fridge, or mussed up linen on the bed.
There was no life here. Not really. It was all just . . . placed. All so terribly functional. Completely and utterly temporary.
Like a holding pen.
Augustine let out a breath, her shoulders sagging slightly as she moved further into the flat. Her fingers brushed over the back of a chair in the living room, testing it almost, in the hope that she might suddenly recognize something if she just touched enough of it.
Nothing came, though. Of course it didn’t. This wasn’t home. It had never been home.
It was just where she’d been put after her real life had been carefully dismantled and packed away out of reach.
That realization should have hurt, Augustine reflected, but strangely, it didn’t.
Instead, there was just a hollow kind of emptiness inside of her, like her grief had been wrapped in cotton wool before it could fully hurt her.
She sank slowly onto the edge of the sofa, her hands falling loosely into her lap.
Theo isn’t dead. The thought passed through her mind again, still as unbelievable as when she first heard it.
Theo wasn’t dead, but then, he wasn’t quite alive either. So, what was he? She’d held him. Spoken to him. Fallen in love with him. What had that been? Relationships were hard enough when your partner was alive. Apparently, they were even harder when he occupied a category all of his own.
Augustine‘s eyes stung, yet no tears came this time. She should have been crying. She should have been furious, or heartbroken, or overwhelmed. She should have taken to her bed like a melodramatic Victorian widow, curtains drawn, hand flung dramatically across her brow.
Instead, there was nothing. Just a hollow, echoing absence where her emotions should have been. It was like someone had reached inside her and carefully removed her feelings, exactly how Maddy had reached inside and taken her memories.
“Well, this is unsettling.”
Suddenly, Roy was there, lounging in his usual spot by the fire, one arm slung lazily over the back of the chair, a book in his lap as always.
He eyed her. “You were out all night,” he added, narrowing his gaze slightly.
“Where were you? I mean, I know the landlord was here yesterday fixing a pipe, and you didn’t want to hang with him and make awkward conversation and all, but staying out all night and then all day today was a bit of a dramatic avoidance technique. ”
Augustine looked up but didn’t say a word.
Roy frowned. “Don’t give me that look,” he added. “What is this, some kind of—” he waved a hand vaguely — “moody, mysterious, don’t speak to me, I’m channelling 1994 Kylie right now phase?”
Augustine just stared at him.
Roy leaned forward slightly, squinting at her. “Hello?” he tried again. “Earth to Augustine? Did someone unplug you?”
She still said nothing, and Roy sat back, clearly irritated now. “Well, this is new,” he muttered. “You’re not normally this dull. That’s usually why I tolerate you.”
Augustine shrugged faintly, the movement small and unbothered. “I was with Theo,” she finally said, but her voice was toneless and flat.
“Hot guy?” Roy’s entire expression shifted instantly, interest sparking in his green eyes. “Back in your little memory field trips, were you?” A grin spread across his face. “God, tell me you finally slept with him?”
Augustine shrugged. “I slept with him,” she admitted. “But not in the past.”
Roy’s grin slipped, “I’m sorry, what?”
“I slept with him. Last night. But not in the past. In the present. Very much in the here and now.”
Roy’s brows pulled together, confusion settling in properly now. “You . . . can’t do that,” he said slowly. “He’s a ghost.”
Augustine gave a bitter half laugh, looking away. “Sure,” she uttered. “If you say so.”
Roy gaped at her. “Augustine Pepperday, you cannot have sex with a ghost!”
She shrugged, and Roy’s expression changed again, going from shock to absolute horror. He leaned back in his chair like she’d just announced she’d taken up cannibalism as a new hobby.
“Oh, no,” he said, aghast. “No, absolutely not. I refuse to process that. I mean, a ghost?“ His face changed again. “Tell me you were at least careful, right?”
“Don’t be stupid,” she said flatly. Before adding, “Careful from what exactly?”
“Well,” Roy faltered, suddenly looking deeply uncomfortable. “You know, things. Venereal disease, for one.”
Augustine rolled her eyes. “Oh brilliant, yes, let me just add ghost crabs to the list of things potentially ruining the afterlife.”
Roy frowned. “Well, what about pregnancy?”
“What about it? A ghost can’t get me pregnant, Roy.”
“Hey,” Roy returned quickly, pointing at her, “we watched American Horror Story together. You have sex with a ghost, you give birth to the Antichrist.” He paused, then added, with increasing alarm, “And you’re already a witch, so statistically that feels like a risk factor.”
Augustine just shrugged again, and Roy made a strangled noise.
“No,” he said. “No, no, no. Everything should be bagged and tagged, Augustine. You know that. Basic life— well . . . basic afterlife hygiene.”
“He was bagged and tagged,” Augustine said, her voice turning sharp. “In the mortuary, remember?” She laughed bitterly. “Except it turns out he wasn’t. Bagged and tagged, that is. Or in the mortuary. Or even dead, in fact.”
Roy stopped, and the agitation drained out of him, replaced by something else entirely: confusion. “What?”
Augustine looked at him blankly. “Theo’s not dead, Roy.”
“I’m sorry, I think I may have just misheard you. Did you say not dead?”
“Not dead,” Augustine echoed.
There was a pause. A long one, before Roy opened his mouth and then closed it again. He opened it a second time, like he might finally say something intelligent, before, “But wasn’t he like see-through or something?”
“See-through?” Augustine blinked at him. “No.”
“You just said he was a ghost.”
“I said I thought he was a ghost,” she corrected, already sounding tired. “I couldn’t touch him. Not at first.”
Roy’s frown deepened, and then, quite suddenly, something like panic flashed across his face. “Oh my God,” he said. “Was he the devil in disguise or something?”
Augustine closed her eyes briefly. “Roy—”
“He was, wasn’t he?” Roy was horrified. “Ugh, you’re actually going to give birth to the Antichrist. I knew it, I said it, I called it—”
“Roy!” Augustine snapped. “No.”
He stopped. “No?”
“No,” she repeated, flatly. “He wasn’t a ghost. And he wasn’t an illusion. And he wasn’t the devil in disguise.”
Roy blinked. “Then what the hell was he?”
Augustine hesitated, and for the first time since she’d come back, something a little like uncertainty flickered across her face. “I don’t know . . . I’m still trying to figure that out.”
Roy was properly thrown now, but Augustine’s gaze drifted slightly, unfocused, her thoughts catching on another thread. “Maddy told me something else. She said Theo’s . . . unwell.” The word felt strange in her mouth. Inadequate, even.
“Unwell how?”
“He wasn’t shot,” she said. “Not like he thought. Not like I thought. Maddy says he had a stroke. In the street.” Her voice dipped. “He’s in an induced coma. Over at the QE.”
“How exactly,” Roy said, after a minute, “does a young man like that have a stroke? Unless,” he added, suspicion creeping in, “he wasn’t a young man at all, and you’ve been quietly harbouring a thing for older men this entire time.
” A beat. “Which, frankly, I would respect. Bit of a silver fox connoisseur, are we?”
Augustine simply looked at him. “He was young. Too young for a stroke . . . or he should have been. It was his diabetes. It caused the stroke. It’s rare in a person his age, but it can happen. High blood sugar, stress . . . it probably all added up.”
Roy nodded once, absorbing that, his expression tightening slightly as the reality of it settled in. “Okay, so we’ve got a not-dead, not-ghost, medically-confusing man in a coma. That’s . . . great. Love that for you.”
”He was also a witch hunter. You know—” she waved her hand — “before the stroke. Apparently, that’s why I had him removed from my life. And my mind.”
“Right,” Roy said. “You know, I think I need a quick 101 course in this witch hunter stuff. I mean, I’ve heard you talk about them, but I don’t actually know what they are. Or what they do. You told me they were nothing I needed to worry about.”
Augustine shifted slightly, drawing her arms tighter around herself. “You don’t need to worry. You aren’t a witch, and witch hunters do exactly that: hunt witches. It’s kind of an inherited role. Passed down through families. They’re trained for it.”
“For what?”
“For finding us,” Augustine explained. “Tracking us. And then . . .” She had to force the next words out. “Killing us.”
“Why?” he asked, genuinely baffled. “Why on earth would any man want to do that?”
Augustine didn’t answer straight away, and Roy gestured vaguely as he went on, “I mean, witches are objectively great. Pointy hats. Dramatic footwear. Excellent use of brooms. There’s branding, there’s aesthetic — what’s not to love?”
Despite everything, Augustine smiled. “We are pretty great.”
“Exactly. So why would any man want to kill one of you?”
She shrugged. “Patriarchy.”
Roy considered that, then nodded. “Yeah,” he admitted. “Sadly, that tracks.”
Augustine sighed. “Men have been keeping women in their place for millennia. No voting, no property, no independence — hell, in some places that’s still true.
So how do you think they reacted when some women could do things they couldn’t control?
Cast spells. Fly.” She exhaled, long and hard.
“They rooted us out. I mean, parts of witchcraft were still criminal until 1951. Before that we had Salem. Bideford. Pendle Hill. Zugarramurdi. Trials and hangings. Burnings. Drownings. Give a woman power, and what do men do? Extinguish it.”
Roy was quiet, before he gave a small, thoughtful nod. “Yeah,” he said. “I mean . . . historically speaking, men haven’t exactly been great with women who don’t do what they’re told.” He swallowed. “Or, you know, with men who don’t follow their rules.”
Augustine glanced at him, and Roy shrugged. “You know I’m gay. It might be a different flavour to witchcraft, but it earned the same nonsense.”
“Roy—”
Roy carried on before she could get another word out. “So, Theo was one of these men?”
Augustine hesitated. “Apparently so.”
Roy absorbed that, his expression shifting as he turned it over in his mind. “What does he say about all this?”
She shrugged. “I haven’t told him yet.”
Roy sat up instantly, indignant. “Augustine Pepperday,” he chided. “You should go talk to him. Right now. Tell him what you’ve learned.”
Augustine let out a short, bitter laugh. “He’s in hospital, Roy,” she said. “Remember? The coma? The stroke?”
Roy frowned at her. “Not that Theo. The Theo you shagged last night,” he clarified bluntly. “The not-ghost, not-illusion, mysteriously tangible one. Go and talk to him.”
“I . . .” She faltered, the words catching. “I don’t know if I can face him now.”
Roy’s expression hardened slightly. “You have to.”
She looked away. “Roy—”
“No,” he cut in, sharper than usual. “I’m not going to let you hide here and leave that poor—” he paused. “What are we calling him now? Man? Ghost? Patient?”
“Theo.”
“Fine. Listen to me. You’ve just found out that Theo, who you’ve fallen in love with — twice, apparently — is either a witch hunter, a coma patient, or some deeply confusing hybrid of the two.
He came to you looking for help, looking for answers .
. . well, you’ve got them now, and he deserves to know. ”
Still, doubt ran through her. Or maybe it was fear, masquerading as doubt. “I don’t know,” she said, running a hand over her face. “I just don’t know.”
“You fell in love with each other twice, Augustine,” Roy said suddenly, his voice painfully gentle. “I think you’ve both earned the right to the truth at least once.”
“I know,” she said, looking up. “But the thing is, Theo and I . . . we said that once we had the truth, we would . . .” she took a deep breath. “We said we would say goodbye.”
Realization dawned in Roy’s eyes. “Oh.”
“And I just don’t know if I’m ready for that. If I’m ready to let him go. Again.”
“Augustine.” Roy replied. “You told me yourself that ghosts shouldn’t linger. That they need to move on. This is how you help him move on. With the truth.”
“He’s not a ghost,” Augustine tried to argue, but Roy shook his head.
“Then stop treating him like one.” He sighed. “Tell him.”