Read Online The Avalon Chanter by Lillian Stewart Carl - Free Book Online

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Glastonbury, who said he was getting messages through automatic
writing from one of the old monks. But no matter. Not now. When
word went round about her dementia, everyone who’d called her
loony, even about Britannia ,
crawled away red-faced.”
    “ Well yes, I should think so. Except .
. .”
    “ . . . Except I’m more than
occasionally picking up images, vibes, stray emotions from the
past, and I’m not demented. Nor you and Alasdair and your
ghosts.”
    “ Exactly. Dementia is too easy an
answer.”
    Alasdair mimed pouring a drink down his
throat, followed by eating motions.
    “ Well,” Jean said with a down boy gesture, “I’ll let you go.
You’re going to love the Angle’s Rest, by the way.”
    “ Good! Michael and I will pack the baby
and the bagpipes and be seeing you tomorrow afternoon,
then.”
    “ Safe journey.” Jean switched off and
let Alasdair usher her out the door.
    She opened her mouth to fill him in, then saw
Hildy the tabby cat still ensconced on the window seat. Now,
however, she sat upright, ears perked forward, tail twitching, nose
pressed to the window, which from this angle was little more than a
mirror. “What is she looking at?”
    “ What are cats ever looking at?”
Alasdair found a light switch and pressed it.
    The sitting area plunged into shadow rather
than complete darkness, but even as they zeroed in on the window
seat the illusion of the mirror cleared. Peering past the cat, Jean
remembered the old wives’ tale that if you looked between a cat’s
ears you’d see a ghost. Funny about old wives’ tales, how many of
them had some basis in reality.
    Although what she saw now was nothing
paranormal, just a large, blond, very much alive Lance Eccleston
stamping down the alley outside the four-foot-tall garden wall.
“That’s not who I saw walking up to the priory,” she said.
    “ That’s Crawford at the priory,” said
Alasdair beside her, his breath misting the glass.
    Hildy looked up at him, then at Jean, and
made a hasty retreat first to the floor and then down the
stairs.
    “ Yeah, I know. You can see his jacket
reflecting the light. A little while ago he was shining the
flashlight on that wall of windows and now it looks like he’s
sitting on the bench in the cloisters. But also a little while ago
I saw someone walking up the road toward him, not in anything
reflective and without a flashlight.”
    “ Good way to go falling into a trench,
with no torch. How’d you know it wasn’t Lance, in the dark and
all?”
    “ Not as large. I thought it was Tara or
the redhead from Gow House.”
    “ No good judging size in the darkness,”
Alasdair stated.
    “ Yeah, well . . .” Jean’s stomach
grumbled. “Come on. Let’s stop stalling around and get some
food.”
    She allowed Alasdair his roll of the eyes,
which he pretended to hide as he turned the light back on. He
followed her down the stairs, out the door onto the street, and
across Cuddy’s Close.
    The signboard fixed to the front of The
Queen’s Arms sported a generic crown, not a portrait of either of
the Elizabeths or even Mary, Queen of Scots. Considering the nearby
priory, the eponymous queen could be Mary, Queen of Heaven. Or the
queen of a chess set. Right now Jean didn’t care. The door of the
pub stood open, allowing a bright streak of light to fall
invitingly across the pavement, and windows shone behind baskets
filled with wind-buffeted flowers. Voices and the clink of
glassware echoed from inside.
    Within minutes she and Alasdair had
introduced themselves to James Fleming behind the bar, obtained
alcoholic beverages, ordered meals, and found a bench in a corner
as quiet as a pub was likely to provide.
    Jean sipped cautiously at her Lindisfarne
mead, sweet but potent honey wine, and decided that if bees drank
this, she was signing up for the hive. Taking a good swallow, she
assessed her surroundings.
    If she hadn’t already known James was Pen’s
husband, she would have thought he was her