Page 39 of A Lullaby for Witches

Phebe was still watching me with unnerving scrutiny. “Mmm-hmm,” she said, as if sensing my deepest thoughts. “You’re beginning to realize you don’t know as much as you thought. Well, you go muse on that somewhere other than my front step. I don’t want to see you again.”

And with that, she shut the door.

22

Augusta

“Wow. These are...amazing.”

It had been a day since Augusta’s discovery of Ida Foster’s letters, and she’d barely been able to wait until Jill had come in that morning to show her. Jill carefully slipped the letters back into the Mylar sleeves Augusta had made for them and placed them on the desk. There wasn’t any reason for Augusta to feel proud or protective of the letters—anyone who had opened the desk probably would have found them—but as Jill leaned over to look at them again, Augusta felt her heart tighten a little.

Sharon was standing behind Jill, reading over her shoulder. “Lori is going to be very excited. It’ll be interesting to see if we have George’s side of the correspondence in the archives.”

Augusta wasn’t holding her breath. If the letters indeed referenced Margaret and her disappearance, then she couldn’t imagine that they were in the archives after she’d already been through everything with a fine-toothed comb.

“Speaking of the archives,” Jill said, “I do want to touch base about your exhibit. We’ve got time, but it can’t hurt to look ahead. Did your trip to Boston turn anything up?”

“Yes and no.” Augusta filled her in on the ledgers and the entries for a girl’s wardrobe, and her theory about what it might mean for proof of Margaret’s existence.

“It is compelling,” Jill agreed. “I’d like to get Lori’s take on it before jumping to any conclusions, though. If nothing else, it should give you a good starting point for your exhibit. But don’t get too wrapped up in just finding Margaret—I’d still like to see you broaden your scope a bit.”

Augusta said she agreed, but she had no intention of abandoning Margaret now, not when she had just found such a tantalizing clue.

Sharon glanced at her watch. “I have to run to Boston, so I’ll take these with me if you’re all set?”

Augusta nodded, knowing that she didn’t really have any choice, as much as she would have liked to keep the letters in her desk so she could pore over them again. She kicked herself for not taking any photos of them with her phone first.

“Will you be okay if I duck out early, too?” Jill asked. “My in-laws are coming from Beijing and Brian wants to meet them at the airport.”

“Yeah, of course. I can arm the house and lock up when I leave.”

“Great. Reggie is just across town at the hardware store, so if you need anything you can give him a buzz.”

The old house was so peaceful when she was the only one there, and she was looking forward to making a mug of tea, turning up her music and getting some work done.

A storm was rolling in and Augusta grabbed her cardigan and settled in at her desk. On Main Street, the old-fashioned lamps were turning on, and the first raindrops started to patter against the windows. Chris had been texting her all day, so when she saw her screen light up, she turned off her phone. She wasn’t going to let him steal her precious work time.

Opening a new tab on her browser, she scrolled the apartment listings on Craigslist and was surprised to find that she might be able to afford her own studio apartment in Tynemouth on her new salary. Maybe she would even get a cat. Or two.

A noise downstairs pulled her out of her search. Turning down the music, she strained her ear. She’d become used to the idiosyncrasies of the house and the constant background of creaks and groans. But this didn’t sound like settling floorboards, the scurry of the mouse that was forever outwitting Reggie or even ghostly footsteps. This sounded distinctly human and very much in the present. Someone was banging on the door, trying to get in.

Sighing, she grabbed her phone and shoved it in her pocket. There was always a handful of people who either didn’t see the sign or didn’t believe it when it said they were closed and insisted on coming to the front door and pounding away until someone answered.

Augusta hurried downstairs to where the pounding was growing louder. “We’re closed!” she called, putting her ear to the door. She waited for a grumble and the receding sound of footsteps.

“It’s me,” a familiar voice said curtly. “I texted you, but you didn’t answer. Can you open the door?”

Augusta’s heart sank. If only it were a belligerent tourist trying to get in. But it wasn’t. It was Chris.

She hadn’t seen him since the night of the breakup, and she’d left all his texts unanswered. They had vacillated between terse one-line messages likewe need to talkorcall me, and more sinister ones like:I’m standing on the pier. I don’t know what to do without you. The guilt she’d felt had been almost unbearable, but she knew that that was what he was counting on and that she couldn’t give in.

But now he was banging down the door to her workplace. She only waffled for a moment before unlocking the door and stepping back.

He looked surprised when the door swung open, his fist still half-raised in mid-knock. Behind him the passing headlights of cars illuminated him in flashes. “I texted you,” was all he said.

It was pouring outside, so Augusta gestured for him to step inside, and closed the door behind him. They stood awkwardly in the front hall, surrounded by the artifacts of another era. They’d only been broken up for two weeks, but already he felt like he belonged to another chapter of her life, one she had been long overdue in ending.

“I’m working,” she said tersely. She didn’t like the collision of her worlds, his intrusion into her sanctuary.

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