Page 103 of A Ghost’s Guide to Haunting a Witch

“God, keep your voice down, Maddy,” Augustine hissed, looking around the path for anyone who might be listening.

Maddy only shrugged, entirely unconcerned. “We’re witches,” she said again, louder this time. “And we know that vampires, werewolves, warlocks, wizards, all that jazz . . . they’re real, too, right? Well, so are the people designed to bring us down. And your Theo, sadly, was one of those people.”

Augustine winced. “But you said you liked him, you said he—”

“I did like him,” Maddy cut in gently. “I really did.”

For some reason, Maddy’s words only made everything worse.

“No.” Augustine dragged a hand through her hair, pacing a step away before turning back again. “You’re wrong. You have to be wrong.”

“I’m not wrong,” Maddy said, still maddeningly calm, before a strange look crossed her face. “It gets worse. Theo’s dad — he’s the one who was hunting Mum. The one who’s probably now looking for us.”

Maddy’s words held Augustine in a chokehold, every syllable a vice around her neck. The sounds of London carried on around them — traffic somewhere beyond the river, the distant wail of a siren — absurdly ordinary against the sudden violence of her world.

“No,” she finally uttered. “No, that’s—”

Theo’s father: the witch hunter who hunted Mum. The words collided together in her mind, and Augustine felt sick.

She took a small step backwards before she realized she was moving. “You can’t be serious,” she said, but there was no conviction left in her words now. Just horror. “Maddy . . . no. Theo’s dad? Hunting mum? Maddy . . . Maddy . . . ”

“I’m not wrong,” Maddy said softly.

Suddenly, terribly, too many things made sense to Augustine. That impossible, magnetic pull towards each other that should never — never — have existed, not when Theo had been born into the family that had been hunting hers.

A coldness crept through Augustine. Not because Theo was his father’s son, but because she knew, with cold certainty settling through her chest, exactly what this meant.

“But Theo . . . he hasn’t said a word, hasn’t mentioned that at all—”

“Yeah, I deleted his family history from his memory,” Maddy explained blithely.

“Maddy.”

“Don’t look at me like that, Ags. It was at his request, and I was in his head anyway,” she carried on. “Apparently he was never into witch hunting like the rest of his family. He and his dad fell out about it, and he was estranged from them because of his refusal to do it. So, he asked me to delete it — oh, and the last Skywalker saga movie too.”

Augustine did a double take. “What?”

Maddy shrugged. “I know. Bless him. He thinks those movies end with number eight.” She sighed suddenly. “I just wish I hadn’t messed up all your memories,” Maddy added mournfully. “I should’ve left that one in.”

“The Star Wars movie?” Augustine asked flatly.

“Oh no,” Maddy replied. “That one can stay in the memory garbage heap.” She shook her head. “No. The one about him being a witch hunter. Just that one, so that when he inexplicably came back — and I’m still trying to process that little nugget of information, by the way — you’d both know.”

“Know what?” Augustine asked, something in her chest already tightening in anticipation of the answer.

Maddy held her gaze. “To stay away,” she said simply. “But instead, you had to fall in love with each other all over again. Which is a massive inconvenience when you’ve spelled as hard as I have recently.”

Augustine looked out at the river. Suddenly, this wasn’t just about a spell gone wrong, or missing memories, or a ghost that had inexplicably found his way to her side. No. This was about every warning she’d ever been given. About every reason she and her sisters had to be careful.

“He’s really a witch hunter?” she asked, her voice small.

Maddy tossed her cup into a nearby bin. “Yep. And when you found out, you were terrified,” Maddy continued. “Not just for yourself, but for all of us. For the coven. For Celeste. For Clem. For me.” A small pause. “You knew what witch hunters do, Ags. You still know what they do. I told you, I liked Theo, and he seemed like a nice guy. But we couldn’t take that risk. He didn’t want you to take that risk either. I mean, he has a family. Uncles. Cousins, and all of them witch hunters. He was just as terrified, you know. Scared that one of them would figure you out because of him. He was devastated when he found out who you were. Who Mum was. When you first met, he thought you were just this, you know, slightly kooky new-age shop owner.”

“When did he find out? About us? About me?” Augustine asked tremulously.

“When he met me,” Maddy confessed. “You know how witch hunters feel when they meet a witch? Mum described it as being like a surge of power, which is the height of fucking irony. Well, when you wanted me to meet Theo we all went out for dinner. He was so friendly and I may have had a vodka or five, and I don’t know, I guess my guard was down and anyway—”

“Anyway what?”