All Things Undying by Marcia Talley

climbed into the back seat of the Prius.
    â€˜It began begging for a new transmission,’ Alison explained, checking the wing mirror and letting a minibus pass before pulling out into Higher Street. ‘Jon said no way were we going to throw more money at it. This is Dad’s car.’ She smiled at her father who was belted so securely into the front passenger seat that I thought he was in danger of getting gangrene from the waist down. White hair tamed and slicked back, he wore a striped shirt and a checked sports coat, both patterns at war with a yellow paisley tie. ‘Dad’s letting me drive for a change.’
    â€˜I have to confess I’m surprised to see you, Mr Bailey. You seemed like such a skeptic the other day.’
    â€˜Ulterior motives,’ Bailey mumbled. ‘Haven’t seen the Palace since they finished the renovations back in oh-seven. Hear they did a smashing job.’
    Alison grunted. ‘Dad thinks I need a chaperone.’
    Ably chaperoned by the two of us, Alison drove in a clockwise direction through town, taking the long way around to the foot of Coombe Road where we waited at the Floating Bridge Inn, engine idling, for the Higher Ferry, a newly commissioned, state-of-the-art vessel that had been in service only a couple of months. During the short three-minute ride across the Dart, I stepped out of the car briefly to watch in fascination as the ferry was pulled across the river on stout steel cables. Once we reached the Kingswear side and were on our way again, I loosened my seat belt and leaned over the back of Alison’s seat, speaking into her left ear. ‘Do you think they’ll be taping Susan’s show for television?’
    â€˜They usually do, but only the best bits will make it to the telly.’
    â€˜What do you expect, Alison?’ grumped her father from the passenger seat. ‘They’re not going to show her being wrong on the telly, now, are they?’
    â€˜True enough,’ I said. ‘That’s why I think it will be interesting to see what she does in front of a live audience. She’ll be on stage for two hours, performing without a net, as it were.’
    â€˜Complete and unexpurgated,’ Alison added.
    â€˜There will be shills,’ her father proclaimed in the same confident tone of voice that God must have used when he said, ‘Let there be light.’
    â€˜I’ve seen only a bit of that one show you captured on video, Alison. What are they generally like?’
    â€˜It’s an hour long, and they’re usually in three parts. First, there’s a pre-arranged reading. I remember one . . .’ She paused, lightly braking to take a curve at a more prudent speed. ‘Susan didn’t know anything about the woman, had never met her, but she brought a message from the woman’s husband, a soldier who’d been killed in Afghanistan. It was a private detail about a silver bracelet he’d given her on the last night they’d spent together before he was deployed. The woman was in tears, and so was I.’
    Bailey exploded. ‘Bollocks!’
    â€˜You didn’t see it, Dad. Susan was amazing.’
    â€˜You said three segments?’ I asked, trying to keep the conversation on track.
    â€˜Right. There’s the part where she walks up to strangers in shops or on the street – like what happened to you, Hannah, but with cameras. Then she’ll go somewhere that’s haunted, and my God, we do have a lot of places like that in England, don’t we, Dad?’
    â€˜Henges, circles and barrows. England’s got more haunted places than dogs have fleas.’
    â€˜And they’re not all crumbling ruins, either, with wailing damsels or ghostly knights in armor clattering around the courtyards on horseback,’ Alison continued. ‘This couple in a semi-detatched in St Albans complained to Susan about objects constantly being moved. One