Page 36 of A Ghost’s Guide to Haunting a Witch

Or someone, her mind added, and quickly, she dragged her thoughts back into line.

Theo swallowed, clearly nervous, his fingers drifting over the spread without quite touching it. “How will I know which ones I’m drawn to?” he asked.

“You’ll feel it,” Augustine said.

He glanced up. “How?”

She tilted her head, considering. She’d always been the one reading the cards, never the one being read for. She searched her memory, trying to recall how others had described the feeling. “I don’t really know,” she admitted. “But I was once told it’s a little like warmth in your fingertips.”

“When I was living, if I ever felt warmth in my fingers, it was probably my blood sugar dropping,” Theo remarked.

She thought about it. “Okay. So, when your body needs sugar, it sends you a sign, right? Think of the cards as being like your body. When they want your attention, they’ll find a way of letting you know.”

“Even if I’m dead?”

Augustine shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never read for a ghost before. I guess we’ll find out.”

Theo looked back down at the spread again, brows knitting slightly as if he were attempting to apply statistical reasoning to something that very stubbornly refused to be statistical. After a moment though, his hand stilled above one of the cards. “I don’t know why, but this one,” he said quietly, pointing.

Augustine slid the card out from the spread and placed it face-down in front of them. “Okay,” she said. “Four more.”

Theo exhaled slowly and continued.

His second choice came quicker, his finger pointing to a card on the left, but the third took longer, his hand hovering indecisively before settling on a card near the middle. By the fourth card, his movements had grown a little more confident. His fifth he chose almost immediately, like something had nudged him towards it.

When he finished, he sat back slightly, looking faintly unsettled. “I did feel something,” he admitted. “A sort of . . . warmth.”

Augustine nodded, unsurprised, and gathered the chosen cards together. She began arranging them carefully on the table.

One in the centre.

One crossing it.

One above.

One below.

And then, finally, one to the side.

The familiar shape of the five-card cross settled between them like a map she hadn’t unfolded in years.

Theo leaned forward again, studying the cards. “So,” he murmured, as Augustine rested her fingers lightly on the first card. “What happens now?”

“I start the reading,” she told him, and slowly, Augustine turned over the first card.

Chapter Fifteen

The Ten of Swords

Augustine tried to keep her face still as the image revealed itself, but something in her stomach twisted painfully. “So . . . this card represents you,” she said, carefully keeping her voice steady.

“Yeah,” Theo said after a moment. “I can see that.” His gaze lingered on the illustration: a man lying face down, ten swords driven into his back. “Seems about right.”

Augustine nodded slowly. “It’s a dramatic card,” she admitted. “I won’t lie. I haven’t drawn it often. Maybe just once or twice.”

“What does it mean?” Theo asked, still studying the card, his eyes roaming curiously over the fallen man, with a dark night sky above him.

“It indicates a painful ending,” Augustine said, swallowing against the tightness in her throat. “Total defeat. A situation that collapses completely.” She hesitated. “And, um, betrayal, too.”