Chapter Forty-Five #3
“But he didn’t come back,” Roy said, voice thinning. “And it didn’t fix anything. It was just tenant after tenant, year after year. And all the time, I was still dead.” He gazed at her. “When did you figure it out?”
“Embarrassingly late,” Augustine replied. “When I first moved in, my mind was so muddled—”
“Because of the spell?”
“Yeah. Because of the spell. Anyway, you were here, and I just . . . just figured you were a flatmate. I mean, you had a favourite chair and a room of your own and you fed the cat. Like I said, embarrassing.”
“That’s not embarrassing,” Roy replied. “Embarrassing is spending months of your afterlife opening tins of salmon mousse for a cat because it never once occurred to you that dead people probably didn’t have to do that.”
Augustine laughed. “When Theo first came back, I started to wonder if he really was the first ghost I’d seen.
And then I realized he couldn’t have been.
There was my grandmother,” she swallowed, the memory of cool hands guiding hers over cards hitting her hard.
“And then my mind kept going back to you.” She took a small step closer to him.
“Roy, you don’t need to be here anymore.
Steven’s happy. He’s well. He moved on. You can go.
I know you love him, but you can go. Press play again. See what happens next.”
“You mean move on,” he corrected her quietly. He looked around the flat again, slower this time. She watched his eyes take in the worn sofa. The dated wallpaper. The space that had held him in place for over thirty years. “Our home,” he murmured.
Augustine nodded. “It was,” she said, hearing how it seemed to matter. The past tense.
Roy exhaled, long and unsteady. “He’s definitely happy?” He almost sounded like he was afraid of the answer.
Augustine smiled, soft and certain. “Yeah,” she said. “He is. They have a dog.”
“I hate dogs,” Roy said, before he gave a self-aware shrug. “But hey, at least they’re better than cats.”
“No, they’re not,” Augustine argued, before meeting Roy’s eyes and smiling.
“Augustine?”
“Yeah?”
Roy closed his eyes for a second, before opening them again. There was something new in his expression, and Augustine realized that in that moment he was just a man, standing at the edge of something he didn’t understand. “What’s next? After this?”
“I don’t know,” she said honestly. “I really don’t. I hope they have Madonna albums for you there, though.”
There was a pause, before Roy glanced towards the door. “You’re not going to watch, are you?” he asked. “I mean, I like a dramatic exit stage left as much as the next person, but come on.”
Augustine shook her head. “No, I’m not going to watch. This part’s yours.”
“All right then.” Roy nodded once, like he was bracing himself, like if he didn’t move now he never would. He took a step back, and then another.
“Hey! Wait a minute.” The words slipped out before Augustine could stop them.
Roy turned, eyebrows lifting. “What? Changed your mind? Fancy one more episode?”
Augustine shook her head, a small, unexpected smile pulling at her mouth. “No. I just—”
She hesitated, then said it anyway. “Roy. Madonna once said that if she couldn’t be daring in the way she lived her life, she couldn’t see the point on being on this planet. You,” Augustine continued carefully, “always helped me to be daring. Thank you.”
For a second, Roy just stared at her. Then his mouth dropped open.
“Augustine Pepperday,” he said, voice full of absolute, unfiltered delight, “did you just quote Madonna for me?”
“I did,” she confirmed. “I was saving it for a really big occasion. This felt right.”
“Well, you just made my afterlife.” He pointed at her, shaking his head. “There’s hope for you yet, girl.”
She laughed, the sound lighter than it had been in days.
“Did you also know Madonna said sometimes you have to be a bitch to get things done?” Roy continued warmly. “You said you wanted to do more of the right things going forward. Well, consider this my permission to do those right things — but in the baddest bitch way possible occasionally, okay?”
She grinned. “Okay.”
Something brushed against her legs, and Augustine glanced down, distracted as Bird wound himself around her ankles, insistent and warm and very much alive. She bent automatically, scooping him up into her arms, murmuring something soft into his fur as he purred in response.
By the time she straightened, Roy was gone.
There was no sound. No movement. There was only quiet, and she glanced at Roy’s chair, expecting him to still be there, berating her by the fire. There was nothing now, though. Roy had moved on.
“Bye, friend,” she said softly. “Thanks for everything.”
Bird purred, pressing closer into her, and Augustine exhaled, holding him a little tighter, before letting her gaze move slowly around the flat one last time.
Then she turned towards the door.
“Come on,” she murmured, rubbing her cheek lightly against Bird’s head. “Let’s go pack. We need to move on too, right?”
Bird purred again, and Augustine smiled.
Because this time, she meant it.