Page 82 of A Ghost’s Guide to Haunting a Witch

Her breath caught, and Augustine looked down at Bird again. His sleek black fur and his calm, steady presence. She admired the way he fit so easily and naturally into her world, like he’d always been part of her life.

Except he hadn’t.

“Is that how you came to me?” she whispered. “Did Theo find you? Did he give you to me?”

Bird tilted his head slightly, as if considering the question.

“You’re an odd gift,” she went on. “I mean, I don’t even like cats—”

She stopped, the words hanging there, sounding wrong the moment they were spoken, and Augustine clapped a hand over her mouth.

Of course I like cats, she tried to tell herself. She had Bird, didn’t she? Why would a woman who didn’t like cats keep one as a pet? Still, even as the thought formed, something else stirred, older and sharper. A memory.

Her own hands, small and childlike, in a hallway that always smelled faintly of polish. And her mother’s voice, cool, distant, threaded with a particular kind of magic that never failed to make her smile.

Her mother had a cat, and Augustine’s nose wrinkled slightly as the image of that feline came into focus. She’d been pale furred and sharp-eyed, always watching and waiting. That cat had never liked Augustine, nor any of her sisters — not really. It would wind around her mother’s ankles, purring like it belonged there, just another daughter to add to her mother’s brood. Augustine tried to love her, she really did, but the moment she got too close, the cat would hiss and extend her claws. The scratches on her skin were delivered quickly, with a precise and unapologetic aim, leaving sharp red welts across her arms and hands.

“You shouldn’t provoke her,” her mother would say. “She’s just a baby.”

Some baby, Augustine thought now, as she remembered the fear she’d developed of that cat, which transferred easily onto others.

Her fingers tightened slightly in Bird’s fur without her meaning to, as another memory layered over the first, this time of their neighbour’s garden. She recalled the warmth of summer and long grass under her feet. She remembered she and her sisters playing happily outside, an ice cream in each of their hands. But she also remembered the feeling of something watching them from just beyond the fence.

That cat.

It was larger and much meaner than their mother’s, the kind of cat that didn’t just scratch but stalked. It would slip through the hedges like a shadow, silent and deliberate, scattering birds, sending anything smaller running. Augustine remembered the way it had looked at her once, perched on the wall, tail flicking slowly like it was deciding whether she counted as prey or as a nuisance, yellow eyes glinting in the shadows.

She’d stopped going into the garden after that.

It was true. She didn’t like cats. She hated them, in fact.

Her gaze dropped to Bird, still curled comfortably in her lap. Her hand moved automatically, stroking through soft black fur, her touch gentle and familiar against him.

“I don’t like cats,” she repeated, but the words were wrong, because whatever she felt about those cats, this one was different.

This one had chosen her. Or maybe been given to her. So no, Augustine didn’t like cats, but she loved this one.

“You’re mine,” she told Bird, the words quiet but certain, and Bird purred louder, as if in agreement. “I just wish I remembered where you came from.”

“Charming,” a voice said dryly from across the room. “What a touching, not at all inappropriate moment.”

Augustine jumped. Properly jumped, in fact, her shoulders jerking and heart lurching into her throat as she twisted in her chair.

“Jesus Christ, Roy! You want to scare me to death or something?”

“Maybe.” Roy lounged in the armchair like he had always been there, legs stretched out, one arm slung over the side, watching her with open amusement.

“You weren’t here a second ago,” she accused.

“I was,” he said easily. “You were just having a moment and didn’t notice.”

“I was not having a moment.”

“You were talking to the cat.”

“Well, I always talk to Bird—” Augustine stopped and exhaled, waving her free hand. “Besides. That’s irrelevant. I was not having a moment. I was brooding. That’s entirely different.”

“How so?”