Page 46 of A Lullaby for Witches

“Has some blackguard trifled with you?” George’s eyes darkened, his jaw tightening, and for the first time Augusta realized that this was a man who might look gentle and kind, but could be capable of violence. A man like Chris.

Augusta waited for her own answer, as if she were waiting on a cue for the next line in a play. The source of her words were somewhere just beyond her grasp, like a vague memory. But no sooner had she opened her mouth then it all vanished again: the cold bench beneath her, sweet-smelling apple trees and George’s hand on hers. She was sitting in the parking area behind the backyard, the buildings of Main Street just visible through the thinned trees.

She blinked rapidly, trying to regain her bearings. She hadn’t just witnessed the past, she hadbeenMargaret, seen the world through her eyes, felt an unspoken understanding between herself and George. Had anyone witnessed her strange journey from her office to the parking area? She must have looked like a sleepwalker, moving through the house without paying any heed to her surroundings.

For a long while she just sat with the lingering memory of George beside her, the sharp, salty air curling between them. If she waited long enough, would it all come back? Did shewantit to all come back? There was only one thing that was certain, and that was her hallucinations were becoming more intense, more vivid and all-encompassing, building to something. But what?

“So, where should we start?”

Augusta looked up from her work, half expecting to find George lounging in the doorway instead of Leo. Her mind was still sticky, full of cobwebs, like she still had one foot in the past.

“Where should we start what?”

“Looking for Margaret.” He came in and sat in her extra chair. “You didn’t think I’d forget, did you?”

“Right,” she said. She hadn’t thought he’d forget, but she hadn’t really been certain if he was serious or not. “I was just doing some data entry.”

“Must be some serious data entry. I think I was standing there for about a full minute before you noticed. Not,” he added, a tad sheepishly, “in a creepy way.”

Part of her wanted to tell him about the hallucination, but the tender moment between her and George had been so private, and she couldn’t bring herself to share it with him. “I might have been thinking about Margaret, too,” she said, in an attempt to at least partially tell him the truth.

Leo didn’t press the matter, and she turned her mind toward the search, tapping her pen against her desk as she thought. There were plenty of places where Augusta knew to look for Margaret, but she and Leo couldn’t very well interrogate her dreams or penetrate her hallucinations. “Hmm... Office of Vital Records?” she suggested, although she wasn’t holding out hope. If there was any record of Margaret there, someone would have probably found it long before now. But she was looking forward to spending the hour with Leo, and maybe she would turn something up for her exhibit.

“Sounds good to me.” Leo waited while she saved her work and gathered up her notebook and water bottle. “So,” he said, “everything going okay since last week?”

It took her a moment to realize he was talking about Chris, her nasty encounter with him. At first blush Leo looked casual and unworried as he leaned against the doorframe, waiting for her. But then she noticed his hand at his side, curling and uncurling into a fist, and the tightness in his jaw. She wasn’t used to seeing him look anything other than laid-back, and while she was flattered that he was upset on her behalf, she didn’t want him to think of her as a victim.

“Yep, everything is great,” she said in a tone that didn’t invite further comment. She didn’t want to think about Chris; it was bad enough that the fight played over and over in her head—the feel of his hands digging into her shoulders, her back slamming into the wall.

“He hasn’t come around anymore?”

“Nope.”

Leo seemed to get the message, and when she had all her stuff together, they left, making small talk until they reached the town hall a block away.

The binders of yellowing paper were almost as ancient as the clerk who pulled them and set them down on a rickety table for them. “No phones, no pens and keep your voices down,” she instructed Augusta and Leo before returning to her desk and picking up her knitting needles.

“So, what are we looking for exactly?” Leo asked in a whisper.

Augusta let her gaze roam the overwhelming collection of binders in front of them. She had no idea what they were even looking for, let alone where to start. “Wasn’t this your idea?”

He raised his brows. “Yeah, but you’re the expert.”

“I’m hardly an expert,” she said. “But maybe we should check all the family names first, like Harlowe and Foster, just to make sure that there’s nothing obvious we’re missing.” It was a long shot, but it was possible that Margaret was hiding somewhere in these binders, perhaps with a different last name. Or maybe there was a record of a marriage that had previously been overlooked.

“See, you say you’re not an expert, yet you always come up with these great ideas.” Already pulling the first binder toward him and scouring the pages, Leo added, “I think it’s time to admit to yourself that you’re kind of amazing.”

“Voices down!” the clerk called from her desk before Augusta could fully process what he had just said.

“Busted,” Leo whispered.

They worked quietly, but it was hard to concentrate when she could hear Leo’s soft breathing next to her, see his rolled sleeves and open collar from the corner of her eye. As she suspected there were no Margaret Harlowes, so she flipped to theMs on the off chance that Margaret might show up with her first name listed as her last. It was a long shot, but they were here and there was nothing else to do. Tracing her finger down the names, she stopped as one jumped out at her.

Montrose, Louisa. b. 1829 d.185?

She racked her brain trying to remember where she’d come across the last name. She could see it in her mind, printed neatly on cream-colored paper. Then it came to her. It had been on her family tree, on her mother’s side. It was probably a fairly common name, but she made a mental note to check her family tree again when she got home and see if the name and dates were a match. She was about to tell Leo when he leaned over and said, “Jill just texted me—she and Reggie are going to The Sea Dog for drinks after they close up and asked if we wanted to meet them there.”

Demoralized by their fruitless search as well as not really wanting to return home to a night of TV reruns on the couch, she said, “Yeah, I’d be up for that. Should we go over and meet them now?”

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