Read The Ghost Who Fed Them Bones for Free Online Page B

and settled a few bets in the process. I have the torso,” he laughs shyly, “not that I asked for it. Peter placed the bet on my behalf, just to keep me in the loop, I suppose. What do you have?”
    “I’m not involved.”
    “Too frivolous?”
    “No, I simply didn’t happen to be there when they were arranging it. Peter told me about it, but I am sure that by then al the body parts were taken.”
    “Gruesome, isn’t it?”
    “A body part is a body part to me, but it must have much more significance to you as a healer.”
    “A former healer.”
    “Whatever.”
    Alan shrugs his shoulders. “In the end, we live, we die, and if you are dead it probably doesn’t matter too much what the several parts of your body are doing.”
    I am about to protest that it matters a great deal, that is why the entity is so spectacularly angry, but zip my lips firmly before the first word escapes. I am not meant to know. However, I think that Alan notices. “What do you think?” he asks.
    “I don’t think anything.”
    “That would surprise me,” he retorts, and we continue in companionable silence for a short while until Natalie accosts me to insist that we take her home.
    “Mike and I are going swimming in the river,” I tel her.
    “You’re not!” Sarah protests. “People have been known to dissolve in there.”
    “You wil certainly come out of there dirtier than when you went in,” adds John Jr..
    “Mike and I do it every year. We are not dead yet, nor have we ever emerged smel ing anything other than sweetly.”
    “I want to go home now,” Natalie moans.
    “We won’t be long,” I assure her. She flounces off. “Don’t go off far, Natalie, or we wil have to leave you behind. Mike and I are going now, aren’t we, Mike?”
    “Ready when you are,” beams Mike.
    “I’m coming too,” declares Peter. “I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”
    “You haven’t got your costume!” cuts in Fiona.
    “I am not going to swim. I only want to spectate, and to clap each time Paul and Mike swal ow a disease. It could turn out to be even more fun than Inspector John’s garden!”
    Inspector John winces. He doesn’t find the emergent treasures of his garden the least bit fun, and nor do I.
    So we pile back into the cars and drive down to the bridge overlooking the pool that is fed by the river. Mike and I strip off with our swimming costumes underneath, Peter claps, and we wander into the water amid about twenty-five other people who are already bathing. Mike and I ease ourselves down into the water itself and laze there. “You’re missing out!” I tease the rest of them.
    “No costumes,” Fiona replies emphatical y.
    Peter turns to John Jr.. “Do you think that they have those little fish in there that swim up your penis?”
    “I wouldn’t be at al surprised,” John concurs.
    “You two are disgusting,” disapproves Sarah, smirking. Alan and Inspector John decide to take a short, evasive strol along the flats. Mike and I get up and get out again.
    “Do you have any towels?” Fiona inquires.
    “No, that’s OK. We’l use our clothes,” I reply, rubbing myself down with my trousers while Mike grabs a shirt. “We’l drive in our costumes and have a shower when we get back to Valflaunès. Natalie is eager to get back.”
    Natalie pul s an expression to intimate that she is past caring, for her return home or for me. Her former fondness for me has definitely dissipated into -ex.

    “OK, see you guys in a few days,” waves Mike.
    “Paul,” Inspector John engages me, having returned from his excursion with Alan, “I was hoping that you would cal round to my house sometime soon. Perhaps you could help me out.”
    “We could bring a couple of spades, if that is what you mean,” Mike proposes.
    “I was rather hoping that I could rely on Paul here’s psychic powers.”
    Mike laughs. “Psychic powers? Paul? He wouldn’t notice a bus if it hit him. You need Mum for that. Shame she is in Agay. She