The killer, though, was at the end, when everyone got in a line to walk a local field and see what we could pick up. Some of ’em had forked sticks; some of ’em had divining rods. In fact, one lady insisted I borrow hers as I’d come without. So I got in that line and marched up and down that field with the rest of ’em, while they wittered on about tingles in places where, trust me, there was nothing to get tingly about, and to a man missed an underground stream three feet wide. I felt like a right tit.
And that was before I heard someone call my name, and looked up from those fucking useless rods to see three of the lads from college laughing their arses off at the whole sad lot of us. Took me years to live that one down.
So yeah. After that, I pretty much decided anything anyone else said about dowsing wasn’t worth listening to. How was I supposed to know I was going to be facing an exam on it all a dozen years later?
Anyone tempted, at this point, to say something along the lines of Because you’re psychic can leave now. I’m serious. Please do let the door hit you on your way out.
I still hadn’t had lunch, but somehow my appetite seemed to have done a runner. Right then, as I headed back up to the arena like a condemned man trudging to the scaffold, I seriously considered following its example.
Halfway there, I spotted Vi Majors—squeezed into a short, strappy, bright-red sundress, she was pretty hard to miss—and I ducked out of sight behind a woman with a hat. The last thing I needed was for her to come and have another go at me for sneaking around in her bedroom. I was a bit surprised to see her, to be honest. I’d have thought she’d be the last person to come along and support anything her stepmum had organised.
Shit. I hoped she hadn’t just come along to heckle.
There was another familiar figure up by the hay bales, so seeing as I was well early, I thought I might as well join him. Maybe he’d have some words of spiritual comfort for me—God knew I could do with them. Greg, dressed in crumpled linen and dog collar like a vicar from an Agatha Christie show on the telly, was watching the birds of prey with a worrying glint in his amateur taxidermist’s eye. “Tom! Good to see you. Cherry was a little concerned you might not turn up, but I told her we could count on you.”
“Yeah, course,” I muttered, feeling guilty for having thought about bailing on them.
“A truly magnificent specimen, don’t you think?” He beamed up at the Harris hawk currently soaring above the field, blissfully unaware it was being sized up for a wire frame and a couple of glass eyes.
“You want to watch what you say,” I warned him. “If any of those birds turn up dead in suspicious circs, you’re gonna be first on the list of suspects.”
Greg guffawed and clapped me on the shoulder so hard it bloody well hurt. “Rest assured, I should never dream of harming one of God’s creatures merely for my own amusement. Are you all set for your own demonstration?”
“No, and I never bloody will be,” I muttered, feeling a bit like the day-old chick currently being chomped up by our magnificent specimen, now returned to earth.
“I’m sure it will be splendid. You’re a person of some note these days, as I’m sure you’re aware. People are agog to see you demonstrate your talents.”
Great. No pressure, then.
The birds of prey mangled their last baby chick and went off, which I took as my cue to nip around to the gazebo smartish. Dear old Amelia had disappeared, and there was just a grey-haired old bloke fiddling with the speakers, and what had to be the bishop.
He didn’t look much like a bishop to me. Well, yeah, he had on the purple shirt and the dog collar, and a nice bit of ecclesiastical bling in the form of a huge gold cross hanging on a heavy chain around his neck. And there was a hint of Friar Tuck about that well-padded belly. But from the neck up, he looked more like an Italian gangster, with jet-black hair—what was left of it; if he had been a friar, he wouldn’t have had to bother with any head-shaving—and matching goatee.
Sort of like a Tony Stark who’d got religion and gone to seed, or a jollier, churchier version of the old-style Master from Doctor Who. There was a gap between his two front teeth that, once I’d noticed it, I couldn’t stop staring at. I tried to pull myself together and look him straight in his twinkly dark eyes. Did I say twinkly? I’d have called them that at first, but now I thought about it some more, I wasn’t sure the laughter lines around them weren’t just camouflage.
Course, current circs might’ve shaped my impressions of him a bit.
He gave me a questioning look as I stepped into the shade of the gazebo. “Uh, I’m Tom. Paretski. The, um, psychic.” I couldn’t help a wince as I said it.
The bishop smiled, in a manner scarily similar to his dear chum Amelia. “Ah, yes. You know, I’m not at all sure I should approve.” He chuckled. “It’s perhaps just as well that the church tends to frown on witch-burning these days.”
Only perhaps? Nope, nothing twinkly about those eyes. He didn’t invite me to call him Toby either.
“I hear you’re Gregory’s future brother-in-law,” he went on. “It was really quite a surprise to all of us to see him choosing to marry so late in life.”
“Uh, really?”
“Of course, celibacy isn’t for everyone. Even St. Paul recognised that. A viewpoint I understand you agree with.”
“Yeah?” I was rapidly getting lost here.
“Cherry tells me you and your, ah, partner, I believe the common term is, are planning a civil ceremony?” The way he said it got my hackles right up. Like he reckoned gay people were another species or something, and registry office weddings didn’t count.
“We’re getting married, yeah,” I said shortly. One thing was for certain, the bish wouldn’t be getting an invite. I s’pose I should’ve expected the attitude, after what Cherry had said about him getting on Greg’s case about speaking up for gay rights, but well. It could have been all about not rocking the boat, rather than actually being bigoted.
Here’s a word puzzle for you: change the word bishop to bigot in three easy steps.
Or, you know, don’t bother.
