Holding Court

by K. C. Held

  She could not have been more wrong about both the cleavage and the gown I will be sporting. To my utter mortification I discover that the Maid of Kent was a nun.

  Chapter Four

  Your Nun Is Pregnant

  The first person I see as I step out of the costume shop, in my full-on nun ensemble, is the impossibly gorgeous Bree Blair. She’s dressed up like a Tudor queen in a fabulous gown that gives her the kind of cleavage it would take a Miracle Bra for me to achieve.

  Seriously? As if my life didn’t suck enough right now?

  “Jules! What are you doing here?” She envelopes me in a rose-scented hug. She doesn’t just look perfect, she smells good, too. I should hate her. But I can’t.

  “Uh, hi. I didn’t know you were working here. How…awesome?”

  “I know, right? When did you start? Oh, how fun! Are you the Mad Maid of Kent? That’s so perfect!” She somehow manages to say this and sound sincere instead of insulting.

  “Um, yeah. Today’s my first day. King Henry hired me on a trial basis.”

  “Oh, you’ll be great! Isn’t this wild? I never thought I’d get to see the inside of this place. But here I am. Don’t you love my gown?” She grabs her skirts and spins around in a circle. “I get to play Catherine Howard. She was Henry VIII’s fifth wife. I’m learning so much about Tudor history. It’s totally fascinating, don’t you think?”

  “Yeah, totally,” I say.

  “You haven’t seen Grayson, have you? He was supposed to bring me his car keys.”

  “Um, I saw him outside a while ago,” I say and realize I would rather die than run into Grayson while dressed as a nun. “Yeah, so, good luck, but I have to go, uh, have the gift of visions.” And then my head is filled with the image of Grayson’s sweaty chest inches from my own and I am no doubt blushing furiously as I blurt out, “Durst the truth for the lady who waits!”

  “Sorry?” Bree responds.

  “Yeah, I have no idea what that means,” I say. “Just ignore me and my brilliant flashes of nonsense.”

  “You’re too funny, Jules,” Bree says, but she doesn’t look all that amused. “I’d better finish getting ready.” I’m certain she’s finally decided I’m too weird to waste her time on when she reaches out and squeezes my hand. “I’m so glad you’re working here. It’s been way too long since we’ve had a chance to hang out. And this is such a perfect job for you.” She gives me a wink, and then she’s gone in a rustle of scarlet silk and heaving bosoms.

  I practically sprint for the Oratory, which is where the Nutty Nun of Kent apparently has her visions, in an attempt to avoid running into Grayson, or anyone else I might know. I’m uncomfortably sweaty by the time I reach the door to the room where I get to hang out and be ogled by tourists. I use the front flap of my tent dress to wipe the sweat off my forehead before pulling open the heavy wooden door.

  Inside the octagonal room, another woman in a nun outfit is standing with her back to me, talking on a cell phone.

  “I know. He said this is a family establishment and he can’t have the ‘younger castle guests’ asking about pregnant nuns.” She pauses. “I know. I’ve got maybe two more weeks, but still. It freaking sucks. I don’t know how he found out. It was probably Sarah, she’s always up in everyone’s business. If she ratted me out I’m going to—”

  The woman whirls around and I finally put it together. Your nun is pregnant.

  “I have to go,” she says into the phone, then shoves the contraband device under the front flap of her dress. She looks like she’s only a couple of years older than me, and she’s wearing her nun outfit without a belt, so I probably wouldn’t have noticed otherwise, but now that I do know, I can see the way her tent dress poofs out a little too much in the front.

  “Who are you?” she demands.

  “Jules,” I say, holding out my hand, “Jules Verity.”

  “Well, Jules Verity, I guess you’re the lucky girl who gets to take over my job while I get transferred to the gift shop,” she says and shakes my hand, gripping it a little too tightly. “I’m Angelique Boden, the pregnant nun.”

  “I’m really sorry,” I say. “I had no idea.”

  She waves a hand. “Not your fault.”

  This is debatable, but I decide against telling her I was the one who told King Henry his nun was pregnant. Instead I blurt out, “Endure the boots or face the doom!”

  She gives me a funny look, then lifts the hem of her dress. Her painfully puffy-looking feet are sporting metallic purple toe polish and chunky black Doc Martens sandals decorated with silver spikes. Definitely not de rigueur nun wear. “You’ve obviously never been pregnant. There’s no way I can fit my feet in those boots at this point, and I fricking hate those itchy stockings. I’m allergic to wool. So Geoffrey can suck his insistence on ‘authenticity.’ What are you, some kind of costume Nazi?”

  “No. I, uh, I didn’t mean… It’s none of my… The stockings are really itchy. I’m sure you… I like your shoes. The metal spikes add a really nice touch.” I give her a thumbs-up.

  “Okay, then.” She takes a seat at the carved oak table pushed up against one of the stone walls. The room is beautiful, all Gothic arches and stained glass windows. Next to the table is a heavy wooden chest flanked by iron candlesticks holding fat, flickering candles. On the opposite wall a large embroidered pillow sits on the colorful tile floor in front of an altar tucked inside a small alcove.

  “There’s a character dossier in the chest there. Why don’t you pull it out and I’ll give you the lowdown on the Mad Maid of Kent. I have a feeling you’ll fit right in.”

  I assume she’s referring to the “mad” part. “I wasn’t really expecting the nun part,” I say.

  “Me, either.” She leans back and gives her belly an affectionate pat. “Pull up a chair, sister.”

  I open the wooden chest and retrieve a leather portfolio featuring an engraving of a young woman lying sprawled on the steps of a church.

  “That’s our girl,” Angelique says, pointing to the picture. “Elizabeth Barton, otherwise known as the Mad Maid of Kent. Basically she was a servant girl who got sick and started raving like a lunatic. Then a bunch of priests decided she had the gift of prophecy and told her she should become a nun. So then everyone thought she was this fully legit prophetess and came to see her and hear about her visions and it was all hunky-dory until she pissed off King Henry and he had her executed.”

  “Nice.”

  “Yeah. So, anyway, you get to hang out in here and pretend to have visions when the tourists come through on their tour of the castle. And then you give a performance in the Great Hall during dinner. Don’t worry, I’ll walk you through it all.”

  “Thanks, that’d be great. So, um, what are you going to do now that you can’t play the Maid of Kent?”

  “I get to work in the gift shop until I explode. And Hank’s offered me six weeks of maternity leave, but I doubt I’ll come back after I have the baby. I like the gig, but Lunevale itself is so not my scene.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “You grow up here?”

  I nod.

  “How old are you, anyway?”

  “Sixteen. And I desperately need a car so I can do something besides ride my bike around Quirky Town, USA.”

  She laughs. “I remember being your age. Just got your license?”

  Uh-oh. Blurt alert. “Augustus arrives with that which you seek!” I yell in her face.

  “What?”

  “Sorry,” I say. “I didn’t meant to—”

  “Who told you to say that?”

  “What? No one. I have a blurting problem. It happens more when I’m nervous. Like now. My friend Cami calls it Psychic Tourette’s Syndrome. PTS for short. I call it mortifying.”

  She narrows her eyes at me. “You mean you’re actually psychic?”

  “Not really. Most of the stuff I say doesn’t make any sense. But sometimes it’s more specific. I know it’s annoying and everything, but I don’
t know how to stop it and— I’ll just stop talking now.”

  “Interesting.”

  “Wait a minute,” I say. “Aren’t you psychic?”

  “You mean, do I have the ‘gift of visions?’ Hell, no.”

  “But how do you do readings and stuff for people?”

  “Jules, honey”—she leans forward as far as her belly will let her and takes my hand—“you’re pretending to be a batshit crazy psychic nun from the sixteenth century in a castle owned by a guy who’s obsessed with Henry VIII. How much credibility do you think is expected here?”

  “Uh, yeah. Good point.”

  “That said, you can make a killing on tips if you read people right. It’s the best part of the gig, moneywise. And you don’t have to have the gift of visions to read people, you just have to be a quick study.”

  “What does that actually mean?”

  “It means when someone walks in you do an assessment, decide on what tack to take, and start talking. You can tell from their body language if you’re on the right track. It’s easy once you get the hang of it. You ever heard of Miss Marple?”

  “As in, Agatha Christie’s The Body in the Library Miss Marple?”

  Angelique nods. “See, Miss Marple has this theory that the world is made up of certain types of people and once you figure out what type someone is, you know almost everything you need to know about them. Let’s take you for instance.”

  “Um, let’s not?”

  “Oh, come on, it’ll be fun. I’ll pretend I’m giving you a private reading so you can see what it’s like. I’ll do you and then you can do me.”

  “I liked it better when all I had to do was act batshit crazy.”

  She laughs. “Okay, I’ll walk you through a typical day first. Once you’re in costume, you come up here and one of the pages will bring you the schedule for the day. If you don’t have any private readings scheduled, you leave the door open and act nunly while the castle guests troop through on their tours. You pick one or two people from each group to do premonitions for. Nothing fancy, just a line or two. Then, once everyone is seated in the Great Hall for dinner, you head over to the minstrel gallery and spy on the guests while they’re waiting for the show to start.”

  “Okay, you lost me. I’m supposed to spy on people?”

  “Only if you want to get the good stuff. There’s a big wooden balcony halfway up the wall in the Great Hall where you can stand and listen in on everyone down below. Once I’ve got something I can use for the show, I go downstairs. King Henry and his wives do their thing and sit down for dinner, the jester does his thing, blah, blah, blah, and then King Henry calls you over and asks if you have any visions to report, and you do your crazy nun shtick and make a prediction about someone in the room and King Henry asks if any of the castle guests can verify if what you say is true, and if you’ve done your job right, someone will jump up all breathless and excited and you look like a psychic genius and King Henry thanks you and you’re done for the night. Easy, right? You can stay up in the gallery tonight and watch me do my thing. Sound like a plan?”

  “Sure,” I say, but I feel panic welling up inside me. Or maybe it’s another blurt. Sometimes I can’t tell the difference.

  “Good. Now I’ll show you what I do for the private sessions. Let’s pretend you just sat down for your reading.” She clasps her hands together, bows her head and murmurs something under her breath. Then she looks up at me and gives me a beatific smile. “Welcome, my child. What can I help you with?” She speaks in a quiet, soothing voice that sounds nothing like the no-nonsense one she was using a few seconds ago.

  “Um, I was hoping you could do that whole psychic thing?”

  “Of course, of course. Give me your hand, my dear, and let us see what we can find out about your future.”

  She sounds totally earnest and concerned and it’s not hard to pretend she’s an actual nun.

  “What I need you to do is to remain open and relaxed so that you can receive whatever messages come through.” She smiles at me and takes my other hand. Then she winks and says in her normal voice, “Okay, I’ve set the scene, given you an idea of what to expect, and encouraged you to go along with me. Now I’m going to tell you the things I know from observing you. You’re female, above average looks, sixteen years old, Caucasian, brown hair and blue eyes, tall and slender. You have sensitive skin but you take very good care of it, you have a scar above your left eyebrow, no evidence of smoking, drug taking, or alcohol use. Unfortunately I can’t tell you anything about your clothes since you’re all nun-ed up, but you have no visible tattoos, your ears are pierced once each, you have no discernible accent, and your hands are clammy.”

  “Wow,” I say as I pull my hands away from her and wipe them on my dress. “Sorry about the sweaty hands.”

  “No worries. Okay, now that I’ve Miss Marpled you and settled on a preconceived stereotype, I’ll focus the reading on areas that are generally of concern to people like you. I.e. romance, school, friendships, family, etcetera. Then I’ll say a bunch of stuff that seems to pertain specifically to you but could really apply to anyone.”

  She takes one of my hands again and looks at me earnestly. “You don’t have a boyfriend but there is someone you’re interested in. Someone who’s unattainable or refuses to acknowledge you exist. You generally like school, but sometimes have trouble fitting in. You feel like your parents aren’t being as supportive as they could be, and that frustrates you. Now I pause and wait for you to confirm my statement.”

  I nod my head.

  “You have strong feelings for someone but it’s a complicated situation and you’re not sure what to do.”

  “Um, how do you know that?”

  She laughs. “Honey, you’re gorgeous. If you don’t have a boyfriend, you should.”

  “Uh, thanks,” I say, and try not to blush.

  “You’ve just started a new job and are feeling uncertain as to whether or not you’re up for the challenge it presents.”

  “Ha, ha.”

  She drops my hand and starts laughing. “Sorry, couldn’t resist. Okay, if you’re having trouble coming up with stuff for someone you can always fall back on the crazy nun persona. Like so.” She moans and puts her hands to her veil as her eyes roll up into her head. She mumbles something unintelligible that sounds like it might be in Latin. Then she focuses on me again and says, “I will try to pass on this message, but it is difficult to translate and you must help me decipher its meaning.” She shivers and grabs my hand. “Mistress Verity, you have considerable unused talents that the spirits urge you to take advantage of. Do you understand this message?”

  “Um, I guess so,” I say. I know she’s messing with me, but it’s still kind of unnerving to a have a nun staring at you and pretending to whisper urgent messages from the spirits. “I’ll, uh, work on that.”

  “You shouldn’t be so critical of yourself, Mistress Verity.”

  “I know, but—” I clamp my mouth shut. I can’t believe I’m actually falling for this shtick.

  “All right, Jules. Relax. I’m making this stuff up. Now I’m going to do what’s called ‘fishing.’” She leans forward. “Your parents divorced when you were a little girl?”

  I try not to respond at all.

  “Aha! You just gave yourself away.”

  “What’d I do? And how did you know that?”

  “Your left eye twitched. And it was a lucky guess, plus the odds are in my favor. Okay, so, the other thing you can do is phrase your questions using the negative. No matter how the person responds, you can act like they’re confirming your statement. Let’s try it: You’re not an only child, are you?”

  I nod.

  She nods back. “I thought so. Now if you’d said, ‘No, I have ten brothers and sisters,’ I could have made the same response and acted like you were just confirming what I already suspected. Get it?”

  “You’re not married, are you?” I say, and she looks surprised for a moment, then laughs.


  “Very good, you’re a quick study.”

  “This is all making me kind of uncomfortable. Can’t I just mumble a bunch of stuff in Latin and call it a day?”

  “Not if you want a big tip.”

  “People actually tip you?”

  “Absolutely. Are you kidding? That’s what makes the whole thing worth it. This job doesn’t pay enough without the tips. Okay, so I think you get the picture. If you ever have a reading that’s going south, you want to have a couple of ‘outs’ that you use. If someone is obviously not buying your spiel you can say something like, ‘You must open your heart to these messages, my dear.’ Or, ‘The spirits are doing their best, but you must try harder to make sense of their messages.’ You can always blame the spirits. ‘The messages are not very clear today,’ or, ‘The spirits are finding it difficult to come through today,’ whatever. Capiche?”

  “Got it.”

  “You can also use drama or flattery to spice things up. You know, roll your eyes back in your head and mumble a few Latin phrases, yada yada, tell them they have soulful eyes, blah, blah, blah. Sometimes people simply want someone who will listen to them. In those cases you just do a lot of nodding and smiling.”

  I nod and smile.

  “Then at the end you wrap it all up in a way that makes you seem like a psychic genius.” She leans toward me, an earnest expression on her face. “What the spirits want you to take away from all this is that your mother and father love you very much, even though they often seem wrapped up in their own problems. This new job you’ve started is going to be a really positive thing for you, you’re going to form new friendships and tap into some of those special talents you need to take advantage of. And that boy you’re in love with, things are going to be shifting soon. Don’t give up hope. You have some strong support from the spirit world, they’re watching over you and will help you succeed. Thanks for letting me pass on these messages today. It was a pleasure meeting you, Mistress Verity.” She squeezes my hand and I swear she’s tearing up. Then she says, “I’m starving. Grab me a Snickers out of that chest, would you?”