Charming the Vicar

by Jenny Frame

  That infuriating long fringe held in a topknot at the back of her head emphasized the short, shaved in sides and back of her head. She imagined running her fingernails down that soft short hair, and her heart sped up. Finn was very attractive, in a boyish way. Delicious.

  Bridge shook off the feeling quickly. What was she thinking? Finn wasn’t her type. It wasn’t that she didn’t find butch women attractive, but just that normally their energies didn’t mix. She was too much of a femme top for most butches.

  “I’m sorry from my presumption, but it’s just habit. In Axedale we don’t lock doors and are in and out of each other’s homes.”

  She noticed again Finn’s gaze travelling up and down her legs, as she had when they’d met on her walk. Maybe Finn was a leg woman, and maybe she did notice her, even though she seemed determined to be rude.

  Finn closed her eyes for a second and returned to her cool impassive gaze. “So now that you’re here, what do you want?”

  Bridge picked up her basket and walked over to the coffee table. “I brought you this. It’s some things the people of the village have put together to welcome you here. There’s bread, scones, jam, and Mr. Butterworth’s damson gin. I’ll warn you though, it’s very potent.”

  Finn walked the few steps to her and looked in the basket. She nodded and said, “That was kind. Thank them for me.”

  Bridge was more than a little annoyed. Thank them? Why was it that everyone else got a better reception than she did?

  “Have I done something to offend you?”

  Finn took another step into her personal space. “Do you push your way into the lives of everyone you meet, Vicar?”

  They stood toe to toe. Finn had a few inches of height on her but her heels cancelled out the difference.

  “Or is it just that you want to get your hooks into the famous lesbian who’s moved into your village?”

  Bridge laughed sarcastically and moved to within inches of Finn’s lips and whispered, “I wouldn’t worry, Magician. You are not my type.”

  Finn appeared to be taken aback by that answer, then bit back, “Where’s the dog collar today, Vicar?”

  Bridge cleared her throat and stuffed her hands into the pockets of her biker jacket. “I simply felt like dressing in civvies today.”

  “Bollocks.” Finn laughed. “You think I have a problem with religion and what your dog collar represents, so you came over without it, hoping I would be more amenable to your ministering.”

  Bridge spluttered, “I—”

  “Don’t try and psychologize me. I’m the master of psychology and the human mind. Why can’t you just leave me alone and direct your do-gooding to someone else?”

  Finn clearly had an arrogant streak a mile wide, but instead of angering Bridge, Finn’s outburst made her chuckle thinking how much fun it would be to wipe that uppity sneer right off her face—preferably with Finn on her knees. A ripple of excitement spread throughout her body at the thought.

  Those feelings had been lying in cold storage for a long, long time, and now she felt them, standing in front of this cocky butch.

  As that part of herself started to waken, she stood a little straighter and said confidently, “You’re the master, are you?”

  “Haven’t you seen my shows on TV?”

  “Only snippets. Conjuring isn’t my thing.” Bridget was amused by the look of annoyance on Finn’s face.

  “I am not a conjurer. I’m a mentalist and master of illusion.”

  “Oh, how marvellous. Can you pull a rabbit out of a hat?”

  “Sit down at the table, Vicar, and I’ll show you just how good I am.”

  * * *

  Conjurer? Bloody woman, thought Finn as they sat down at the dining room table. This vicar, who knew nothing about her or her skills, was laughing at her.

  She took her pack of cards from her jeans pocket and began to shuffle them in her trademark elaborate fashion.

  “Are you going to show me a card trick?”

  “No. I don’t practice magic any more.” Finn placed her cards on the side of the table.

  “Why?” Bridge asked. “I understand from the newspapers you’ve been grieving for your sister but—”

  “Don’t. I told you not to minister to me. My private life is no one’s business but my own. Now let me show you just how good I am, Vicar.”

  Bridge sat back and crossed her legs nonchalantly. “Off you go then. Impress me, Magician.”

  Finn’s simmering annoyance ramped up a couple of notches. “Oh, I will. Now I need something of yours to pick up the vibrations. A watch perhaps?”

  She watched with amusement as Bridge went to take off her watch and found her wrist bare.

  “What? I was sure I put it on this morning.”

  Finn reached into her pocket and pulled out Bridge’s watch. “Looking for this?”

  “Wait—how did you get that?”

  “I told you I’m the master,” Finn said with extreme confidence.

  She looked at the watch face: Cartier. That was part of the puzzle she had to work out about Bridget Claremont. Everything Bridget wore was designer, and a vicar’s salary didn’t normally stretch to those types of items. Added to that her upper-class accent and admitted good education—Bridget clearly came from a family of some substance. This was all information she could use in her cold reading.

  Bridge tapped her fingernails on the tabletop and Finn couldn’t help but gaze at the bright red nails. She could certainly imagine Bridge using them as claws on someone’s back, and that thought made her shiver.

  Bridget slapped her hand down sharply on the tabletop, breaking Finn’s focus. “I’m up here, not down there, you know.”

  Finn immediately looked up. Get a grip.

  “Vibrations?” Bridget said. “I thought you didn’t believe in the supernatural? I thought you were some atheist crusader?”

  Finn set the watch between them. “I’m going to show you just how good I am, and why you shouldn’t even attempt any psychology tricks with me. Put your palm on the watch.”

  Bridget sighed but then did as she was asked. Finn rubbed her palms together vigorously and closed her eyes for a few seconds. She then placed her palm on top of Bridge’s.

  Finn felt a spark, then felt warmth spreading up her arm. She heard Bridge gasp. She obviously felt it too.

  Why did this happen every time they touched? She opened her eyes slowly and found Bridge’s soft gaze like a caress.

  “Show me you’re the master then,” Bridge said with a hint of challenge in her voice.

  “I can see an old box of photographs at home.” She felt Bridge tense immediately, and knew she was getting a hit. “Yes, it’s becoming clearer, an old box of photographs, in a wardrobe or cupboard. Does that mean anything to you?”

  Bridget nodded briefly and cleared her throat nervously. Finn knew she was on the right track, and now she just had to follow the scent.

  “The box of photographs has been in the wardrobe for a long time, and you’ve been meaning to sort through them, and scan them onto your computer. Does that make sense?”

  Again, Bridge nodded, the tension in her hand rising.

  “Now there’s a woman in those photographs, and she’s coming through to me now.”

  Bridge looked up at her sharply. Her breathing increased and the tension deepened by the second. Finn had a hit.

  “This woman—” Finn brought her free hand to her forehead and rubbed it tensely. It was all part of the showmanship.

  “What about her?” Bridge said out of nowhere.

  “She’s very faint, but she’s trying to give me her name…It starts with an E. Is there someone who’s passed on with the initial E?”

  “Ellen,” Bridge blurted out.

  Finn could feel Bridge’s hand tremble underneath her own. This Ellen clearly meant a lot to her. All the visual cues were telling Finn she was getting hits with every word. Even though Bridge should have known this was all tricks and showmanship, Fin
n was sucking her in, as she always did. People were predictable, no matter where they came from in life or what they did for a living. They were all susceptible to illusion.

  “Yes, Ellen. That’s right. She’s telling me that you feel a great sadness at her passing, that you had unfinished business?”

  “Yes.” Bridge’s voice cracked with emotion, and Finn was sure she could see the start of tears well up in her eyes.

  She had taken this too far. Finn didn’t like the vicar’s persistence, but she would never want to hurt someone who’d recently lost a loved one, especially since she knew what that felt like. Finn assumed Ellen would be an aged great-aunt or something. She had to make this better.

  Finn looked into Bridge’s eyes with sincerity and said, “She said you shouldn’t feel bad about her passing—”

  Bridge snatched her hand away and stood up quickly, hurrying out the front door.

  Finn immediately tried to run after her. “Vicar, wait!” But she was gone.

  “Fuck! What were you playing at?” Finn slammed her hand against the front door in anger.

  * * *

  Bridge hurried home, barely raising her head to anyone who tried to engage with her. She felt the world closing in on her, and all she wanted was to get home to her bedroom.

  She walked through the door and ran up the stairs. She heard a voice behind her shout, “How did you get on with Ms. Kane, Vicar?”

  She opened her bedroom door and called back, “I’ll fill you in later, Mrs. Long. If anyone calls, I’m not available.”

  Bridge shut and locked her bedroom door, took off her biker jacket, and threw it on the bed. She held her hands over her face and couldn’t stop the tears she had been holding in.

  Her brain couldn’t process what had just happened. How could Finn know about Ellen?

  Bridge got a tissue and dried her eyes. Her gaze was drawn to the wardrobe in the corner. It was calling to her, as it always did, but was she strong enough to look?

  I must do this.

  She walked across to the wardrobe and rested her hand on the knob. Her heart started to beat rapidly. “Come on, Bridge. You can do this.”

  Bridge quickly opened the door and there on the top shelf was a box labelled photographs, just as Finn had predicted. It had sat in here since she’d moved to Axedale, and she had never once opened it. This wasn’t just a box of photographs—it was a box of memories. Memories that she tried hard not to think about too much, memories that represented a different life.

  Maybe today should be the day.

  She took the box down, blew a cloud of dust off the top, and carried it over to her bed. Bridge sat beside the box and inhaled a long breath before taking the lid off. Pictures of all different sizes were piled in the box. One on top caught her eye, and she smiled as she picked it up.

  It showed Bridge in her early twenties, dressed in a skimpy leather outfit with thigh-high lace-up heeled boots, a coiled whip rolled up in her right hand. She turned it over and written on the back was Red’s Christmas party. 2002.

  The next photo she picked up had her and Harry posing in it. Bridge wore a similar outfit, and Harry had on leather trousers, biker boots, and a black sleeveless T-shirt. They were both laughing with drinks in their hands.

  Harry hadn’t often gone to Red’s with her, but occasionally she liked to join Bridge at her favourite club.

  She remembered that night like it was yesterday, even though she hadn’t thought about that time in her life much recently. Because of the person who was missing from the picture.

  The one who had taken the picture. Her friend, and first love, her unrequited love, Ellen.

  Bridge put that picture down and picked up another that brought new tears. Ellen. The woman who had changed the course of her life.

  The woman in the picture was wearing a black catsuit, her beautiful red hair pulled back into a ponytail. Bridge was with her in the picture, and unbeknownst to Ellen, looking at her adoringly.

  Bridge traced her painted fingernail over the picture of Ellen, hoping to feel connected. Even after all this time, the pain was still real, and she was hard to think about. Why this had to come up now, when she was supposed to be helping someone else with their grief, she had no idea.

  As the pain was threatening to spill over, she looked over to the thing that had saved her from pain before, her dog collar. It was hanging with her black shirt from a hanger on the door. It represented her faith, the thing that kept her sane.

  She shut the box and got up quickly to grab the collar and shirt. Once she was dressed, she looked at herself in the mirror, and felt so much calmer and stronger. The dog collar was Bridge’s armour, against pain and the world. Was Finn right? Did she hide behind it?

  Quickly shaking away those thoughts, she put the box of photos back in the wardrobe.

  “I’ll always keep you in my prayers and my thoughts, Ellen.”

  One day she would sort out the old photos, but today was not the day.

  * * *

  Finn had spent the day wallowing in guilt. What she had meant as some sort of arrogant brush-off for the vicar had upset Bridge. She sat on the couch in her living room, shuffling the cards that helped her calm, and looking at the picture of her sister on the coffee table. Next to the picture was a glass and an open bottle of vodka.

  “You would be so ashamed of me, Carrie. I hurt someone, just because I could.”

  She was agitated and didn’t know what to do with herself. What she should be doing was going to the vicarage, and apologizing to Bridget, but she did not have the guts to face her.

  Finn downed her drink, grabbed her coat, and went out of the cottage, determined to have a long walk to clear her mind.

  She walked into the heart of the village and stood on the bridge that crossed the river which flowed through the village. Finn leaned over the side and gazed at the trickling water.

  It was so calm and so unlike her troubled mind. Finn had done cold readings as part of her act, and to debunk psychics before, but never just to show off and play a cruel joke on someone. What she had done to Bridget made her no better than the charlatans she had debunked over the years or, more worryingly, her father.

  When Finn’s sister Carrie had died, she had promised herself she wouldn’t perform magic ever again, and she had so easily and arrogantly slipped back into it as if nothing had happened.

  What a joke. It turned out she was the charlatan.

  “All right, mate?” a voice said behind her.

  She turned around and found Quade standing there. “Oh, hi.”

  “Taking the evening air, eh? It’s a pretty village, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, it is. Picture perfect.”

  “I was hoping I’d bump into you. I wanted to let you know that Bridge and I spread the word around the village. If any nosy newspaper blokes turn up, we won’t say you’re here. As far as we’re concerned, you just passed through.”

  Finn was more than a little taken aback. She had been obnoxious and bad tempered, pushing everyone away since she arrived, and yet they wanted to help protect her.

  Yet another reason to feel bad. Finn pushed her hands in her pockets and looked down at her shoes.

  “That’s really kind of you all. I really don’t deserve it.”

  Quade put a friendly hand on her shoulder. “You’re in Axedale now, and we all look after each other.”

  Finn took a couple of seconds to imagine what it would feel like to belong somewhere like here. She didn’t have a home and had been a nomad for most of her life. Since her sister died, she’d been adrift physically, spiritually, and mentally.

  “Thank you. You don’t know how much I need my privacy right now.”

  “I get it,” Quade said. “I was just on my way to the pub. Fancy a pint?”

  “Oh no, thanks. I’m not really good company at the moment,” Finn said.

  “Come on, mate. It doesn’t matter if you don’t want to talk. It’ll just get you out from your four walls
at home.”

  Going to the pub was the last thing she wanted to do, but how could she deny Quade when she had just been so kind to her?

  “Maybe just a quick one then.”

  Quade gave her the biggest smile. “Great, let’s go.”

  It was a short walk to The Witch’s Tavern from the bridge. When they walked into the pub, everyone went quiet for a second, then returned to their chatter.

  “You get us a seat, mate, and I’ll get the first round in.”

  Finn nodded, looked around, and saw a table free at the back of the room, the furthest away from the other patrons. She took a seat and gazed around. It was a classic small village pub. Warm, inviting, and she was sure full of good cheer. The problem was she didn’t want to feel good cheer. In fact, after today, she had slipped even deeper into despair than before.

  Just one pint to be polite, and then I’ll go.

  The walls of the pub were filled with old photographs of the village and estate, trophies, and posters. One poster advertised the village winter show, and another was a sign-up sheet for something called Witch’s Night.

  The pub was named The Witch’s Tavern, and the village had a Witch’s Night? The village must have some connection to witches or the occult.

  Quade put a pint down in front of her and a big bowl of nuts. “There you go, get that down your neck, mate.”

  “Thanks.”

  Quade lifted her pint and said, “Cheers.” She took a sip and asked, “So, how are you settling in at Mason’s cottage?”

  “It’s nice. Like nothing I’m used to.” Finn took a large gulp of lager.

  “You’re from the big city?”

  Finn nodded. “Mostly, although in recent years it’s mainly been the hotel rooms of cities I’ve lived in.”

  Quade took a drink and a handful of nuts from the bowl. “You must have seen a lot of amazing places on your world tours.”

  “I was never in any one place long enough to see them. I’d be packed on the plane ready to perform in the next place almost as soon as the curtain came down on my last show.”