The days leading up to her date with Leo—was it a date? Or were they just hanging out as friends?—were long and exhausting. Work was a minefield; every time Augusta so much as blinked, she was afraid that she would slip into another waking dream. Yet whenever it did not happen, an unaccountable sadness welled in her chest, that feeling of homesickness, of loss. Nights were likewise unrestful, full of dreams that were not quite hers.
But as soon as Leo pulled up in front of her house, she pushed aside all the unpleasantness and decided that she would enjoy tonight. God knew she needed a night out, and she still couldn’t quite believe that she got to spend it with Leo. Sliding into the passenger seat beside him was like coming home.
“So where are we going?” she asked when they’d pulled away from the house, both pretending like they couldn’t see her mother peeking out through the blinds at them.
“There’s this outdoor food festival going on tonight... I thought we could grab a bite to eat and walk, if that sounds good?”
They pulled up to a park filled with food trucks, lights strung all through the autumn trees. Families strolled around the lit-up green, and a folk band was playing on a small stage in the middle. It was perfect. She could get whatever she wanted to eat and not have to worry about being self-conscious while they meandered the illuminated paths.
Leo got something from a Mexican stand, and Augusta got a mango lassi and a savory pastry. There was an outdoor art exhibit, and they wandered the park, hunting for all the sculptures that had been tucked into the winding paths.
“Hey, so I feel like I should explain myself,” Leo said suddenly.
“About what?”
“The other day, when I asked if you were on something—”
She shook her head. “It’s fine. I understand, it’s hard to believe. I probably wouldn’t believe me either.”
“No, it wasn’t fine. I believe you, and anyway, it’s not any of my business.” They’d gradually slowed until they were standing in front of a sculpture of birds taking flight, a small pond their backdrop. In the twilight, their black silhouettes looked so real, like they had simply been frozen in time on their ascent. “I think I mentioned that my ex-girlfriend died. I can’t remember if I told you any more than that.”
He was looking past her, at the glassy surface of the pond, but he seemed to sense the shake of her head. “Well, she died shortly after we broke up. It was an overdose, though it was never clear if it was accidental or not. She would threaten to hurt herself a lot, and after a while I stopped taking her seriously.” Shoving his hands in his pockets, he kicked at a rock, sending it splashing into the water. “I thought she was trying to guilt me into coming back, but she was serious.”
The full implication of this and what it must have felt like for him pierced her right through the heart. In the aftermath of their breakup, Chris had made veiled references to hurting himself and Augusta had been worried, scared. How terrible it must have been for Leo to be saddled with such a sense of guilt. “Oh, Leo. I’m so sorry,” she said, wanting to reach out and take his hand, but stopping herself.
“That’s why I don’t drink, in part,” he said. “I never want to be in a situation where I’m not in control of myself. Not just because of accidentally taking it too far, but also in case I have to drive someone to the hospital or do CPR.”
She’d never put it together that Leo didn’t drink. He rarely joined her and the others for after-work drinks, but if he did, he usually had a club soda or something. She hadn’t thought anything of it.
“Anyway, when I saw you...” He trailed off, his jaw tightening as he quickly looked away. “Well, I’m just glad that you’re all right.”
It didn’t seem quite appropriate that she was flattered he was so concerned for her—after all, it was born out of a terrible experience for him—but she couldn’t help but feel glad that he’d shared. “I get it,” she said. “No harm done in asking.”
They continued walking, leaving the birds in flight behind until they found a bench. There was plenty of room, but Leo sat near her, and she could feel his warmth even in the cool evening air. Leo, visibly brightening, asked, “So, where are we in our Margaret search?”
“I guess that depends,” Augusta said cautiously. “I haven’t had much time to do research, but I feel like I know so much more about her now since...since my last episode.”
“Like what?”
Augusta gazed out at the modern scene before her, feeling a million years out of place. Two children with balloon animals ran ahead of their parents, who were pushing a stroller. The light strain of folk music drifted from an outdoor speaker on the main green. It all seemed so impossibly far away from Margaret’s life. “I think she got into some kind of trouble with her lover. She was pregnant, and the man she wanted to marry turned out to have betrayed her. He was already engaged.” She remembered the bone-deep sense of betrayal, could feel Margaret’s hurt. “Her brother—or rather, cousin—the youngest one, Henry, he had worked against her in the hopes of...well, I’m not sure of what. I have the impression he might have had some kind of feelings toward her. Like, romantic feelings.”
Leo raised his brows. “Oh, wow, that’s fucked up.”
“No kidding.” She shuddered, remembering the way her skin had crawled when Henry had turned his gaze on her. “That’s not all. Remember when you found those family names and Montrose was one of them?” He nodded. “Well, I think Margaret was adopted.”
“What do you mean? Why?”
How to explain this. Somehow, she’d just known that Margaret had been adopted by her aunt and uncle’s family, the same way she’d known that Margaret was pregnant; it was just part of her. “Think about it,” she said. “There’s no evidence of her birth anywhere in the Harlowe archives. The first thing that shows up that could even maybe be related to her is the expense for girl’s clothes. Before that she would have been just a baby. You said that Louisa Montrose was related to the Harlowes on Jemima Harlowe’s side. I think she was Margaret’s mother. She got into trouble, or died in childbirth, and the Harlowes adopted her daughter.” She didn’t tell him about the book with Louisa Montrose’s name in it. After she’d found it, she’d gone back to look at her family tree, and sure enough, there was Catherine Montrose and her daughter Louisa, born of an unknown man. After that, the line went dead.
Leo seemed to digest this. “So your common ancestor was Margaret’s grandmother?”
“I think so.”
He gave her an appraising look that made her skin tingle. “Maybe that’s why you’re able to see all of this,” he said. “Maybe there’s some kind of... I don’t know, some kind of genealogical memory passed down.”
It seemed crazy that she would be able to see things as her ancestor did, but was it any crazier than the hallucinations? “I was poking around online, trying to find information about reincarnation and stuff like that, anything that could explain it. It’s hard to know what to believe when it comes to all this, though.”
“Hmm,” was all he said. He leaned back on the bench, rubbed at his jaw as if thinking of something unpleasant, then looked away uneasily.
“What is it?”
He grumbled something that sounded an awful lot like “God help me for what I’m about to do,” and then leveled his gaze back on her. “You should talk to my mom,” he said.
Augusta blinked. “What?”
“My mother,” he repeated. “She’s into all of—” he broke off, gesturing vaguely “—all of that stuff. Crystals, angel cards, past life regressions... New Age stuff.”
Augusta absorbed this, then gave him a sly smile. “Are you saying you want me to meet your mom?” She still wasn’t sure if this was a date, and now she was going to meet his parents. So much for her big plans of taking some time for herself and getting some distance. It was impossible to keep her feelings tamped down inside of her when he was sitting so close to her that she could have rested her head on his shoulder.
“Yeah, I am, though I hope I don’t regret it,” he muttered. “She can be...a lot. But she’d like you,” he added quickly. “That’s for sure.”
“I’d love to meet her,” Augusta said. “I need all the help I can get.”
“It’s almost a three-hour drive up to Maine,” he said, as if hoping this might dissuade her after all.
“I love road trips,” she countered brightly.
He slanted her an amused look. “Well, in that case, I guess I have no choice but to bring you up.”
Exceedingly pleased with herself, Augusta took a long sip of her drink. Not only did she have an excuse to soak up some more one-on-one time with Leo, his mother might actually be able to help her. For the first time in what felt like months, she allowed herself to hope. She was free of Chris, free of the limitations she’d placed on herself for so long, and soon she might be free of the hallucinations, as well.
Being out in the fresh air with the faint pulse of music made her brave, hungry to take her ranks among adventurous souls who followed their hearts on crisp autumn evenings. She allowed herself to tilt her head just a little to the side, enough that she could rest her head on Leo’s shoulder.
She held her breath, her heart beating fast as she felt Leo shift a little, and then he was finding her hand and lacing his fingers through hers. The music had ended, and the only sounds were the shrieks of playing children. It was almost perfect, except for one thing.
She flicked her tongue over her lips. “Leo?” she asked.
“Augusta?”
“Is this a date?”
There was an almost imperceptible stiffening of his shoulder, and it took what felt like an eternity for him to answer. “Well, let’s see,” he finally said. “I picked you up at your house and brought you to this ridiculously romantic food fair, we’re sitting on a bench and your head is on my shoulder, and I was just getting ready to kiss you.” He paused. “Sure seems like a date to me.”
He was going to kiss her. Augusta tilted her face toward him as he cupped her jaw, her eyes drifting closed. Warmth buzzed through her body, anticipation mounting until it was almost unbearable.
But the kiss never came. Blinking her eyes open, Augusta drew back. Leo’s expression had hardened as he stared past her toward the path. “Do you know that guy? He’s staring at you.”
She followed his gaze and her whole body went rigid. What were Chris and Doug and Gemma doing there? And why did she feel like she’d been caught doing something wrong? Beside her, heat practically radiated from Leo. “That’s him, isn’t it? Your ex?”
Before she could fully process what was happening, Leo was pushing up from the bench, striding toward the path. “Leo,” she warned, trying to catch up to him. “Don’t say anything. It’s fine.”
He didn’t even slow his step. “He assaulted you. It’s not fine.”
“It wasn’t assault,” she pleaded. “It was just...” But she trailed off. It had been assault. Why was she so eager to dismiss it as such? But that still didn’t mean that she wanted Leo going for blood on her behalf.
By now, Chris was saying something to Doug, who shrugged and wandered off in the direction of the festival. Gemma looked as if she wanted to stay and watch what happened more than anything, but eventually turned and followed Doug.
Augusta finally managed to put herself between the two men. Chris looked obnoxiously good, like he hadn’t even been through a breakup with his long-term girlfriend. He was probably hitting the gym even more now that she wasn’t around to complain about all the time he spent there, and he’d finally gotten the haircut that he’d been putting off for so long. “What are you doing here?” she forced herself to ask through gritted teeth.
“Doug and Gemma wanted to meet up with some friends. I’m allowed to go out places, too,” he added with a sneer. An unwelcome pang of jealousy shot through her, hot and sharp; when was the last time Chris had taken her out to do anything like this when they were dating?
“You should keep walking,” Leo told him in a dangerous growl that stirred something hot and deep within her. She’d never had two men fight over her honor before, and while it might have been a romantic fantasy, she wasn’t exactly eager to see it play out in real life.
Ignoring him, Chris craned his neck to see around Leo. “Augusta,” he said. “Now that you’re here, I need to tell you something. I’ve tried texting you but you never answer.”
“There’s nothing to talk about,” she said, amazed that her voice came out as steady as it did. “Remember what happened last time you ‘just wanted to talk’?”
Color crept up Chris’s neck, proving that at least he was still capable of feeling some shame about the incident. “I was drunk and things got kind of out of hand—” at this Leo let out a snort “—but I’m sober now and I want to talk to you. To apologize.”
Augusta gave a stiff nod. She didn’t really want an apology; she just wanted Chris gone so she could move on with her life. His guilt was his own problem. Why should she have to carry it, too?
“Okay. Apology accepted,” she said flatly.
But instead of finally leaving, Chris was shoving his hands in his pockets, looking like a guilty kid trying to come clean about stealing cookies from the cookie jar.
“Yeah?” Augusta prodded him. “What?”
“I don’t really know how to say this,” Chris said, shooting her a nervous glance and looking suddenly unsure.
“Say it,” ground out Leo. “And then go.”
“That night, when...well, you know. I saw something.”
Augusta waited for him to go on.
“When the painting fell. I saw...” He hesitated. “I saw something. There, in the hall with us.” There was something in his tone that told her this wasn’t just about him and her and their fight. Suddenly, goose bumps were springing up on Augusta’s arms.
“Margaret,” she whispered.
“Who?” He shook his head as if she wasn’t making any sense. “No, it wasn’t a person. I don’t know what it was. But when you were against the wall, there was this...light.”
“Light?”
Chris gave a miserable nod. “It was...coming from you.”
Rather than vanishing, the goose bumps only spread further. “What are you talking about?” she forced herself to ask.
“There was something happening to you when that painting fell. It wasn’t... Look, I know I was rough and what I did was wrong. I feel like shit, believe me. But there was no way that I pushed you that hard.”
“You were drunk,” she said pointedly. “You’re probably not remembering clearly.” All the same, she got the feeling that he was telling the truth. Why would he lie about something he clearly felt like he needed to get off his chest? All the same, she didn’t want to think too much about what it might mean. It was hard enough to accept that she was able to see things through Margaret’s eyes in the past, never mind that Margaret might be somehow visible to others, here in the present.
“Look, I didn’t have to apologize, and I didn’t have to tell you any of this. Believe what you want, but something fucked up happened and I thought you should know.”
“Yep, that’s it,” Leo said, rolling his sleeves up and stepping forward. “Time for you get the fuck out of here.”
“This is the thanks I get for being the bigger man in this situation. Fuck you, Augusta. And fuck you, random dude that my ex-girlfriend is fucking.”
Blood rushed to Augusta’s face. She couldn’t decide if she wanted to smooth things over or if she wanted to wallop him. Leo, probably sensing as much, took her firmly by the hand. Chris spat on the ground and stormed off, nearly barreling into a gawking bystander. Relief welled in her chest as he walked away. But with his receding back went all the romance, all the magic of the evening.
“Asshole,” Leo muttered. With a light hand on the small of her back, he steered them back to the parking lot. Augusta stole a sidelong glance at her knight in shining armor, his sleeves rolled to the elbow as if still ready to fight. “Have you ever actually punched someone?”
He shot her an amused look. “I might have in some of my wilder days. Definitely never in defense of the honor of such a beautiful woman, though.”
A little thrill ran through her at his words. For all the drama and disappointment of the night, she was leaving with the right man, and nothing really mattered besides that.