A Pocket Full of Posies (Book 3)

Chapter Fourteen

Introducing yourself to a bunch of strangers who have gathered together solely to learn about your entire life story is surprisingly a lot easier when you've got a foul-mouthed Welshman by your side. Ava, Carmen, Jamie and Tom are all close enough to each other to not need a blessed stone each, so Carwyn takes Carmen's as we move between families to keep my energy under the radar. Annabel is tagging along, as are the rest of the Gruffuds, as Carwyn translates conversations for them. Thankfully, there seems to be at least one person from each family who can speak English.

We start with the smaller Indian family, who have settled in London, and they seem pretty nice. One of the kids is midway through asking me what a Tracker looks like when a woman, whose name I can't remember, tells him to hush it, then apologises to me. Everyone's been asked to invite a spirit with them to this thing as a way for me to prove my ability, like what Kato did with their dead barman when she and Mosi found out about it.

It's sort of like a bring your pet to school day, except the school is a huge house in the midlands, and the animals are dead people. This family have a guy with a few missing fingers. Interesting choice. I describe him, then the second I notice the amazed looks on their faces, promptly make my escape before anyone can ask any more questions.

The routine continues and remains fairly standard as I move on to the first European family, who I find out are French. Their ghost is a little girl. I was worried I'd find it hard to grow the balls to speak to these people normally, but I'm finding it suspiciously easy. It's as if my anxiety couldn't be bothered to show up or something. It's bloody great.

I might be deluding myself and end up having a breakdown some time within the next hour or so, but so far, so good. I'm sure I say some stupid shit--hell, without a doubt do I say a lot of stupid shit--but it doesn't bother me, and the more I talk, the more my confidence grows.

As we move onto the Japanese couple, I find out only the one is an actual spirit talker. The other is just her translator, and it turns out she did fly here all the way from Japan. Hopefully the fact she can't speak English will stop her realising how much of a disappointment I am. Lina's voice snaps at me in my head. Okay fine, how much of a slight disappointment I am. Her spirit is an old woman, who doesn't stop smiling the entire time I'm there. Said old woman thinks I'm handsome, apparently, so I make a mental note to let Carmen know she needs to up her game if she wants to keep me.

Carwyn informs me that the next family are kind of a big deal. One of the two remaining non-connection spirit talking families, apparently. They settled in the USA several generations ago, but derive from Russia, and I have to catch myself as I go to ask them whose team they were on during the Cold War. I don't understand why the hell my mind works like it does sometimes.

As I'm describing their spirit, who's a rather plain looking middle-aged man with no obvious physical injuries, I notice one of the younger family members staring at me. She's not even trying to be subtle, and I can't quite tell if her green eyes piercing into mine means she fancies me, or wants me dead. As the intensity of her gaze increases, I think the latter would be preferable. Annabel refers to the family as arseholes as we leave, and I'm not sure if she's making that judgement based on first impressions, or if she's remembered something.

Once we've finished doing the rounds, we head back towards my friends and Mary, and I take it as my opportunity to ask Carwyn what the hell Carmen was talking about with his siblings and niece a little earlier. The answer is embarrassing, but also completely unsurprising.

"They asked if you were okay," he says after speaking a few sentences to them in Welsh. "They thought you looked a bit ill and confused." He laughs. Doesn't even try to hide it, just laughs. "Your girlfriend said that's just your face."