The lady laughed airily. “I know what you mean. But, believe this. Your heart will show you the way.”
Faces from her miserable past flashed through her mind, ending with Lance’s sneering visage. Abby shook her head to make the image disappear.
Something in the woman’s demeanor, in the way she seemed so positive, made Abby take heart, though. It sure would be nice to have a prince to add to her list of near misses, even if it ended like all the others. But she’d never be able to tame a dragon, literally or figuratively, so she smiled back at the woman, extended her hand to have it clasped warmly back.
“Thank you. I hope I live up to your predictions.”
The aura reader/shopkeeper rose and parted the curtain for Abby. “I have every confidence in you, friend. Follow your heart.”
It wasn’t until Abby was outside the shop that she realized that the woman had slipped the crystal pendant into her hand. She stared at it for a few seconds, figured the woman was just being exceptionally nice, and slipped the necklace into her jacket pocket.
Tish caught up with her a few steps beyond the shop.
“Everything turn out all right?”
Tish’s face went scarlet. “I guess so. At least I won’t have to appear before the magistrate. Just got a slap on the wrist and a warning that if there should be a next time, I’ll be fined a tenner.”
“Don’t let there be a next time,” Abby suggested. To this the other woman let out a terse laugh. “Anything is better than appearing before the magistrate.”
In answer to Abby’s raised eyebrow, Tish added, “The magistrate is my brother.”
Still mulling over what the fortune-teller had told her, Abby followed her guide around the Glastonbury Abbey grounds. Tish led her past the admission booth, where the woman inside nodded and gestured them in. Her first impression was once again how very old it was. She stepped into the green, grassy precinct of the abbey itself. And her eyes went to the dun-colored ruins of the stone structure that had housed monks in the twelfth century. Wow.
The sun, which had been hiding behind clouds on and off all morning, chose that moment to break through and shine with early spring intensity.
The gaping ruins of the abbey took on a mystical glow.
Fitting for Good Friday, she thought. Tish stood still, her tour guide chatter temporarily cut off as they viewed the ragged, painfully broken church.
It almost creeped Abby out. A shiver that had nothing to do with the temperature ran through her as she peered into the wreckage of the once great building. Hundreds of souls had lived and worshipped in this very place on so many other holy days.
A slight buzz started humming in her ears, growing louder by the second. Dizzy. Wow. She swayed toward the guard railing.
Get out! Get out!
She left Tish admiring the artist’s rendering of what the chapel had looked like 900 years ago, going out onto the carefully tended lawns that surrounded all the buildings. Only when she was beyond the stones did the humming cease. What is going on?
The spring-bright grass beckoned visitors to walk upon its soft carpet. Free of the buzz and hum, and feeling like herself again, Abby ambled along, avoiding contact with the stones embedded in the earth that marked the buildings’ foundations. Eventually, Tish caught up with her and they continued in silence together until they came upon an iron marker.
“Here lies King Arthur and his Lady Guinevere,” Abby read aloud. After a pause, she turned to Tish. “He’s not really buried there.”
Tish giggled at Abby’s astonishment.
“So they say,” she replied. “You’ll like this story. About nine hundred years ago, the abbot of Glastonbury decided he needed a bigger church. While some of the monks were digging around here, they dug down sixteen feet and came upon a huge stone. They dug all around it—mind you, it was huge—and levered up the stone. Underneath, they found a leaden cross with the name ‘Arthur’ written on it. And beneath that, they found the skeletal remains of a huge man and a woman.”
Abby did some mental arithmetic. “That’s about six hundred years after the real Arthur, if there was such a man, was supposed to have lived. How did they know it was him?”
“That’s just it,” Tish answered. “It could have been anybody, or it could have been nobody. The only thing that said it was Arthur was that cross. That was brought to London, of course, and it was still in existence in the 1700s, so the guidebooks say, then it disappeared. But I guess it worked, as far as good publicity. The abbot got the new church, all right, and that, after all, is what the whole thing was about.”
Tish’s whimsical expression spoke volumes.
“Oh, I see. There was no way to prove it was Arthur’s body, and no way to disprove it, either.”
“Right.”
Abby stared at the marker. “What about you? Do you believe it is Arthur and Guinevere’s grave?”
Tish shrugged elegantly. “Me? I think he’s buried on the Tor up there. If I know my history, in the old days, this whole area used to flood terribly. Legend has it that Arthur supposedly went to the island of Avalon, to heal until he was needed again for England. The tor is the highest point around here. If this area flooded, the tor would look like an island, now wouldn’t it?”
“Hmm. Dunno.” Changing the subject abruptly, Abby asked “Do you ever feel strange when you come here, Tish?”
Her guide frowned. “Whatever do you mean?”
Abby wiggled her fingers. Averting her eyes from Tish’s, she continued. “Weird. Like you were buzzing. Humming inside. Slightly electric?”
Tish tilted her head slightly, considering. “No, I’ve never felt that way. Do you?”
Abby dismissed the subject with a wave of her hand. “Nah. Just a silly tourist question. Forget it.”
The next morning, as Abby’s gurgling stomach told her to get into the kitchen and make some breakfast, she thought that she’d better not delay discussing her money situation with Tish any longer. Tying the sash of the borrowed dressing gown tightly around her waist, she entered the vast kitchen; inhaled deeply of the spicy, clean scent that never left the room; and opened the stainless steel door of the restaurant-size refrigerator to see what ingredients were available.
She heard footsteps approaching, and while she straightened up, two strong arms grabbed her from behind and pulled her out into the open.
A man’s deep voice came from behind her ear as his head snuggled into her neck.
“Ah, Duckie, m’love! What miracles are you about to conjure?”
Abby shrieked.
Immediately, the arms released her; she spun to face her attacker and give him a piece of her mind. And looked directly into the face of…the man from the airplane.
“You!” he growled.
“You!” Abby shouted.
They both said, “What are you doing here?”
Chapter 4
Ian crossed his arms over his chest and waited for the strange woman to start explaining why she wore the dressing gown he himself had given Mrs. Duxbury last Christmas and what she had been doing, rooting around in his refrigerator.
The female pulled the dragon-patterned red and gold silk across her breasts and tugged the slim belt tighter, all the while returning his barely disguised glare.
Seconds crawled by, turning the whole bizarre encounter into a staring match. Ian finally broke and glanced