Free The Clairvoyant Curse by Anna Lord Page A

without anyone ever knowing it.

Chapter 6 - The Green
Fairy
     
    Unsure of the time, the
Countess was hurrying back to the minstrels’ gallery, concentrating
on remembering the labyrinthine twists and turns, dizzy with
success, when a small man wearing a clerical collar and a tight
dinner suit that looked as if it was wearing him rather than the
other way around stepped directly into her path. His pipsqueak
voice matched his pipkin frame which was topped off with flat
yellow hair centred with a bald patch that looked like a halo stuck
on the back of his little, round, bowl-shaped head. His face
possessed no distinguishing features and resembled every other
nondescript cleric she’d ever met.
    “Are you lost?” he
squeaked.
    “No, er, yes,” she replied,
feeling suddenly woozy and lightheaded - the after-effects of too
much wormwood on an empty stomach. “I was looking for Madame Moghra
but I think I took a wrong turn. All these dark corridors look
alike. I’ve been trying to find my way back to the minstrels’
gallery for the last ten minutes.”
    “You are nowhere near the
minstrels’ gallery,” he said, watching as she appeared to sway like
a bobble toy in a bath, “and Madame Moghra is in the great hall
where she has been all evening.”
    “Oh, yes, quite, well, I was
not entirely honest with you,” she confessed sheepishly. “I
actually have in my possession a valuable gift for Madame Moghra
from Lady Moira Cruddock and I didn’t want to deliver it in front
of all her guests. I thought I might leave it in her bedroom. You
must be Reverend Blacksnake?”
    “Blackadder, and you must be
the Countess, this way to Madame Moghra’s bedroom.”
    She used the hollow halo at the
back of his head as a point of reference. It was glowing like a
corpse candle in the dark, lighting the way to beautiful death as
she trailed after him, trying to think of something to say, though
she was not normally lost for words and found making conversation
with total strangers extremely easy.
    “Have you been long with Madame
Moghra’s menagerie?”
    He stopped abruptly and she
almost ran into him. Before she could apologize he aimed a venomous
look over a tightly upholstered shoulder. “Menagerie?”
    Oh, dear, that was clumsy and
tactless. La fee verte was playing havoc with her
tongue-tied brain. Reverend Blackadder was clearly the sort of
little man who took offence easily. The slightest slight probably
got his back up. “I’m, er, sorry. I, er, meant…” she began
stutteringly before he cut her off.
    “Don’t bother apologizing – I’m
guessing you heard that term from the white witch. That’s how she
usually refers to us. She makes us sound like a bunch of circus
freaks who have escaped from a zoo.”
    “Speaking of zoos - I enjoyed
your performance last night. Moliere’s cheval , wasn’t
it?”
    He beamed, and walked on. He
had a light, quick, bouncy step that favoured his toes - his heels
hardly touched the ground. “Moliere was a genius. I used to be on
the stage before I found God and then Madame Blavatsky.”
    “You’re a Theosophist,” she
said, following the bouncing beacon - it was like following a will
o’ the wisp through a dark swamp.
    “Yes, how did you know?”
    “Someone mentioned it,” she
replied vaguely, unable to remember who. The white witch? The
singing fairy? The death-eater? The ghost maker?”
    The corridor widened and she
caught up to him so they could walk abreast and avoid any more
collisions.
    “It’s an interesting religion,”
she said when her brain caught up to her feet.
    “Theosophy is a philosophy,” he
corrected acerbically, “not a religion. Do you know much about
Madame Blavatsky?”
    “I can’t say that I do.” Right
now she didn’t know much about anything at all and was having
trouble putting one foot in front of another.
    “It’s a shame we don’t have
more time. I could enlighten you. It could change your life. But
getting back to your original