Holding Court

by K. C. Held

  “Understood, Your Majesty.”

  Gran stands up and pulls me with her. “Thank you, Hank. You have a magnificent place here. I’m sure Juliet will greatly enjoy working at Tudor Times. So sorry to have worried you. We’ll be on our way.”

  King Henry stands as well. “Good night, Mistress Gilbert. Thank you for…elucidating things.” He gives us a little bow. “I’ll expect you here at one o’clock tomorrow, Mistress Verity. And we’ll try this again.”

  “Thank you, Your Majesty. See you tomorrow.”

  “Give my regards to Lady Anna. I hope my call did not distress her overmuch.”

  I hear Gran stifle a snort as she pulls open the study door. “I’m sure she’s very grateful for your concern, Hank,” she says, and I’m not sure which of us is the bigger liar.

  Chapter Nine

  Thanks for Throwing Me Under the Bus

  “What the heck, Gran? Thanks for throwing me under the bus. I am so not ever going back there,” I say as we make our way to the staff parking lot.

  “Of course you are.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “We’ll discuss this in the van.”

  I unlock my bike and stow it in the back of the antique shop van.

  “Can I drive?”

  “No.”

  “Why not? The least you could do is let me drive after making me look like a total whack-job.”

  “Get in the van, Juliet.”

  I get in on the passenger side and Gran pulls out of the staff parking lot and onto the narrow, winding road leading down the hill from Lunewood Castle going all of fifteen miles per hour.

  “Are you sure it’s safe to ride your bike on this road? There’s barely enough room for a car.”

  “Well, if I had my own car it wouldn’t be a problem, would it? But since I’m never coming back here it doesn’t matter anyway.”

  Gran sneaks a glance at me, then goes back to white-knuckling the steering wheel.

  “I don’t even have a Great Aunt Dorcas.”

  “I know, dear.”

  “Then why the hell did you make all that up about me having retrocognition? There’s no way that dead girl was a hallucination. I touched her. She was real.”

  “I know she was, dear.”

  “What?”

  “What you saw was real. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t a hallucination.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Of course it does. You saw a dead girl. But whether she was a part of the physical world or a vision of the future remains to be seen.”

  “You really think I might have imagined her? That it’s some new blip in my ‘gift’?”

  “Whether she’s a blip or not, you saw her and that means something. For the time being I would prefer for Hank Bacon, and anyone he talks to, to think you’re seeing things that aren’t really there. Sometimes it’s beneficial for people to think you’re nuttier than a fruitcake, dear. And this is one of those times.”

  “How do you figure?”

  “Hank told me you claimed the girl you saw had been strangled.”

  “Yeah. She had a thick gold chain wrapped around her neck. It was cutting into her skin.”

  “So, how do you think that chain got there? If what you saw wasn’t a blip, as you call it, that means someone is responsible for strangling that girl and hiding her in a secret passageway. And I’m fairly certain they don’t want anyone drawing attention to that fact or they wouldn’t have bothered to hide her in the first place. But if the only person who claims to have seen the body happens to be nuttier than a fruitcake…”

  “No one will take me seriously. Super.”

  “Which means you’re not a threat. And therefore not worth strangling.”

  “It also means I’m never going to get asked out on a date. And forget prom. I might as well become an actual nun.” I lean my head against the window, and we drive in silence for a while as I ponder my woeful future.

  “I give up. Screw saving up to buy a car. I’ll just ride my bike to school and have sweaty helmet hair for the entirety of my high school career. I am not going back to Tudor Times tomorrow and acting like I hallucinated a dead body. I’m enough of a freak show already. I’m sure it’s perfectly fine when you’re old and people can just call you eccentric, but when you’re sixteen years old and have never been kissed and most of your peers already treat you like a pariah, being a psychic weirdo totally sucks.”

  “Juliet, honey—”

  “I’m not done yet! Did you know the Maid of Kent is a nun? A nun! Nuns do not wear fabulous gowns that give them awesome cleavage. Also, Elizabeth Barton, that’s the Maid of Kent’s real name, was known as the Mad Maid of Kent because most people thought she was batshit crazy. How ironic is that?”

  “On the contrary, dear. It sounds to me like you’ve found the perfect job.”

  “Why does the perfect job have to involve me behaving like a freak? And do you seriously want me to work someplace where someone is strangling people? I’m sure Mom will be delighted with the idea. Which reminds me, what’s up with her telling Hank to call you?”

  “She was about to board her flight. And you know how your mother is. She doesn’t like discussing the family gifts with outsiders.”

  “I’m sorry I’m such an embarrassment to her. It must be nice to have a gift you can hide.”

  Gran pulls into our driveway and turns off the van. “Juliet, we all have our ways of coping. Your mother’s gift is every bit as frustrating as your own. She spent years getting the credentials necessary to back up what she already knows just by touching something. Your mother can’t explain why she can do what she does, but she’s found a way to live with it and even use it to her advantage. You would do well to do the same. That’s all your mother wants for you. How you cope is up to you, but I will tell you that hoping your gift will magically disappear is a waste of time. You will never be ‘normal.’ And the sooner you embrace that, the better off you’ll be.”

  “Gee, that sounds super, Gran, but what am I actually supposed to do?”

  “‘I think that somehow, we learn who we really are and then live with that decision.’ It could be worse, you know. Your Great Aunt Velva had that thing with rodents, and she never did figure out how to get rid of them.”

  “As if being named Velva wasn’t bad enough. I should have been a boy. None of the men in our family are cursed, right?”

  “To the best of my knowledge only the women bear special gifts. Unless you count Velva’s brother Vester, who I understand had a peculiar talent for playing musical instruments with his nose.”

  “If you’re trying to make me feel better, it’s not working.”

  “‘Remember always that you not only have the right to be an individual, you have an obligation to be one.’”

  “Oh God. Please stop quoting Eleanor Roosevelt. I hate it when you do that.”

  “Fine. But you have to admit the woman was a genius. Now let’s go inside and you can tell me all about Tudor Times. I expect Cami will be along any minute. She’s worse than Gladys Kravitz.”

  “Who’s Gladys Kravitz?”

  “She’s a nosy woman who lived next door to a witch. Never mind, it’s from a television show before your time. You think your family is nuts? Just be glad you don’t have a mother like Endora.”

  Gran heads inside and I’ve just finished putting my bike away when Cami’s kitchen door flies open.

  “You’re back!”

  “Yup.”

  “How was Tudor Times? Did you see Grayson? Did he admit he’s madly in love with you?”

  “Yes, I saw Grayson. And do you know what I was wearing when I saw him?”

  “A sumptuous Tudor gown that gave you unbelievable cleavage?”

  “No, that would be Bree Blair with the gown and the cleavage. Because she also works at Tudor Times.”

  “Seriously? Bummer.”

  “You have no idea. She gets to play one of Henry VIII’s beautiful young wives. Gu
ess who I get to play?”

  “I thought you were supposed to be a psychic maiden or something.”

  “Yes, the Maid of Kent. Do you have any idea who the Maid of Kent was?”

  “A psychic maiden?”

  “Correct. She also happened to be a nun. A batshit crazy nun, I might add.”

  “Whoa. Double bummer.” She winces and then obviously tries to rally. “But if she’s crazy that totally takes the pressure off, right? You can blurt away with total abandon.”

  “Just don’t. I could’ve happily gone the rest of my life without finding out what a wimple is.”

  “What is a wimple?”

  I give her a death glare and stomp into the house.

  “So, no cleavage, huh?” she says, trailing me to the kitchen.

  “If you’ll excuse me,” I say, throwing open the freezer door, “I don’t have time to discuss my lack of cleavage and unattainable boys with fantastic abs. I have a double date with Ben and Jerry.” I grab a container of New York Super Fudge Chunk and pry the lid off.

  Cami gets out two spoons and throws me one. “Well, how did the psychic part go?”

  “The psychic part was unexpectedly awesome. It was the dead body part that sucked.”

  Cami freezes with her spoon halfway to her mouth. “The what?”

  “Yeah. It’s a long story.”

  “Good thing I’ve got all night,” Cami says, pulling up a chair.

  Gran puts on a pot of tea, and Cami and I excavate fudge chunks while I give them both the lowdown on my first day at Tudor Times, including the part where I tried to hide from Grayson so he wouldn’t see me in my nun costume. And then I tell them about how I found myself in a secret passageway looking down at a dead girl. Who promptly disappeared.

  “What the hell?” Cami says.

  “I know,” I say. “And then King Henry called Gran and she came to Tudor Times and convinced him I was nuts.”

  “Why would she do that?” Cami asks, looking questioningly at Gran.

  “Because if I’m just the crazy psychic girl no one will take me seriously,” I explain.

  “That sucks.”

  “Being strangled to death sucks more,” Gran interjects.

  “As of right now it’s just my word that the dead girl even existed. And if no one believes me, I’m not a threat to whoever killed her and then made her disappear.”

  “You so have to go back and find out who she is and what happened to her. And you have to do it without getting murdered, okay?” Cami says.

  “That shouldn’t be a problem since I have no intention of ever going back.”

  “What? Why not?”

  “Gee, lemme think. Why would I want to pass up dressing like a nun and acting like I’m nuts while working in a castle where someone likes to kill people and make them disappear? Yeah, it’s a tough call.”

  “But Jules, what if whoever strangled that girl kills someone else? And you could have stopped them?”

  “Seriously? That’s what you’re going with? You’re not even going to ask me if I’m sure she was real and not just a hallucination?”

  “Either way, you need to find her,” Gran says.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means you need to figure out if that girl was real or a ‘blip,’ as you so eloquently put it.”

  “So you’re perfectly fine with me going to work someplace that potentially has a murderer on the loose?”

  “That reminds me,” Gran says. “I have something for you.” She gets up from the table. “I’ll be right back.”

  “So, does Grayson look good in tights?” Cami asks while we wait for Gran to return.

  “I am so going to kill you. I had to wear a freaking nun costume. Do you have any idea how bad wimple hair is?”

  “Again, I ask, what’s a wimple?”

  “It’s a word that shouldn’t even be in my vocabulary.”

  “But your Prince Charming came to the rescue, right? I told you he likes you.”

  “Cami, seriously, quit it with the whole Grayson-is-secretly-in-love-with-me thing. It’s not funny.”

  “But I swear he likes you! He’s always staring at you. He obviously—”

  “He obviously has a girlfriend. And Bree Blair is the only thing standing between me and daily humiliation at the hands of the Josh Gaddises of Lunevale High. There’s no way I’m getting on her bad side.”

  “Bree Blair doesn’t have a bad side.”

  “Yeah, that’s my point. I have no chance with Grayson. He and Bree are clearly totally into each other, they have all these inside jokes and are constantly together. I mean, have you seen the way he looks at her?”

  “I saw the way he looked at her in seventh grade. But when’s the last time you saw a PDA from those two? It’s like they’re an old married couple or something.”

  “Just because they’re not swapping spit on the quad like Whitney Petty and her flavor of the month doesn’t mean they’re not in love. Some people prefer to keep that stuff private.”

  “So, if Grayson Chandler was your boyfriend, you wouldn’t feel the need to make out with him every chance you got?”

  I’m momentarily distracted by the image of Grayson and me making out in the middle of the quad. I blink it away. “Stop. Just stop it, Cami. It’s not going to happen. Not for someone like me, with someone like Grayson. If he happens to be staring at me it’s probably because he’s waiting for me to have a PTS moment and do something embarrassing.”

  Cami shakes her head. “It’s not like that. You sell yourself way too short, Jules.”

  “You’re my best friend. You’re obligated to say that.”

  “Here it is!” Gran comes back into the kitchen and hands me a small pink cylinder. It looks like a fat tube of lipstick with a loop of black cord attached to it.

  “What’s this?”

  “Backup.”

  I pull the lid off the cylinder and instead of lipstick there’s a small LED light and two tiny metal prongs. I press one of the two buttons at the base of the cylinder and the LED light comes on. “A flashlight? You’re giving me a fancy faux lipstick flashlight to protect myself? Gee, thanks, Gran.”

  “Press the other button,” Gran says.

  I press the button. There’s a loud crackling noise, and Cami tips over backward in her chair.

  “Whoa!” she says, then stands up and rights her chair.

  “She didn’t even touch you with it,” Gran protests.

  “I know, but it caught me off guard. I have a very strong startle reflex. Don’t ever try to sneak up on me. Just ask Jules.”

  “Yeah, her auto ninja skills kick in when she gets scared. And it doesn’t take much.”

  “Don’t make me roundhouse you again, Blurt.”

  “Can we focus?” I say and press the button again. “A stun gun? You’re giving me a stun gun to take to work? Is that even legal?”

  “It is if I give you a note that says you’re allowed to carry it,” Gran says.

  “Unless they had stun guns in the Tudor era, I’m pretty sure the ban on twenty-first century technology applies to lipstick-sized stun gun/flashlight combos.”

  “That’s what that little pocket in your nun habit is for,” Gran says.

  “How do you know about that pocket? And that’s definitely not what it’s for.”

  “No, but at the risk of sounding blasphemous, I’m guessing a stun gun would be a lot more useful than a Bible if you find yourself confronted with a murderer.”

  “I’m not going to find myself confronted with a murderer. I told you, I’m not going back.”

  “Well, if you change your mind, consider that little gizmo your knight in shining armor. But it’s for close-quarter contact only. If you have the option, scream bloody murder and run like hell.”

  “Or I could just bring Cami to work with me. All I have to do is hit the stun gun button and she’ll go into ninja mode.”

  “You are so asking for another bloody nose,” C
ami says.

  Chapter Ten

  The Butterfly Effect

  That night I dream about the dead girl. Except in my dream she’s alive. I’m standing in the secret passageway staring down at her when she sits up and smiles at me. “No one cares about polyester,” she says, then the stone floor disappears beneath me and I’m falling. I wake with a jolt and the remains of a scream dying in my throat.

  Gran comes in and sits down on my bed. She gently pushes my sweaty hair off my forehead and says, “Want to tell me about it?”

  “It was the dead girl from the passageway. Except she was alive.”

  Gran doesn’t say anything, just continues to stroke my hair.

  “The girl I saw was dead, Gran. I’m sure of it.”

  “You don’t have to try to convince me, Juliet.”

  “You still think I should go back to Tudor Times?”

  “It’s your decision. But I’ve always been a big believer in the notion that things happen for a reason, which means there’s an important reason you found that girl. And if I were you, I’d want to know why.”

  “You’re not worried about whoever killed her coming after me?”

  “As of right now whoever killed her is getting away with it. There’s no body. No proof. If he, or she, takes you out they’ll have the police all over them.”

  “Gee, that’s comforting.” I sit up. “I don’t get it, Gran.”

  “Get what?”

  “I understand your gift. You help people find their soul mate, and that’s super awesome and people are über-grateful for what you do. And Mom uses her gift to make a living and keep people from getting swindled and all that. But what good is my PTS? What’s the point of having my gift if I can’t prevent dead bodies from disappearing or, more importantly, keep someone from getting killed in the first place?”

  “Juliet, there’s no way you could have prevented that girl’s death. You’d never even met her.”

  “I know, but if I had I probably would have told her something like, ‘Beware the purple garden gnome!’ or ‘You’re going to fart in yoga class!’ The stuff I say is ridiculous. All it does is embarrass me or the person I yell it at. It’s beyond pointless.”