From Herring to Eternity by Delia Rosen

Mr. Dickson the Third. My home is now a temple. No one is doing any excavating there.”
    “What are you talking about?”
    “The structure has been blessed, bottom to top. Made hallow by a recognized priestess, witnessed by members of her congregation,” I said. I read from the back of an envelope I’d stuffed in my bag the night before from while I was on the web. “By virtue of statute 501(c)(3), and subsets thereof, my Bonerwood abode is now recognized, by law, as being a site used for religious purposes.”
    The pause that followed was more than pregnant. It was bulging with quintuplets.
    “What is the definition and affiliation of your church?” he asked.
    “Wiccan,” I said proudly. “It’s a hive of the Nashville Coven.”
    “A hive?” he said flatly.
    “That’s right. It’s how we witches describe a spin-off, a bud.”
    “ You witches?” he said, less flatly. “You’ve been a Wiccan how long?”
    “Since my priestess initiated me,” I told him.
    “What is the name of your priestess?” he asked.
    “Sally Biglake.”
    “Of the Cherokee?”
    “Of the Cherokee Nation ,” I corrected him.
    Dickson was silent for a moment. “I recommend you get yourself an attorney,” he said. “You will be needing one very soon.”
    “Thanks for the legal advice,” I replied, and hung up.

    It was a slow day—it happens, for no reason that I have ever been able to ascertain. Sometimes there are more tourists, less regulars. Sometimes the reverse. Sometimes both. Today was light on either and I decided to get out.
    It wasn’t quite so random as that. Ever since Tippi’s visit, I’d been wanting to put some claws into Robert Barron. Some of that was my own unfinished business with his stupid, swaggering way and some of it was wondering if he had had a reason to swipe Lippy’s trumpet case.
    The Oak Slope Marina was a short drive east along I-40, located on the reservoir known as the J. Percy Priest Lake. There was a big sign at the entrance to the lake grounds themselves that talked about how the Percy Priest Lake was the home of the Stewarts Ferry Reservoir project, which was undertaken by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 1946, renamed in 1958 to honor Congressman Priest, and was completed in 1967. The USACE still operated and supervised the dam, the power house, the lands and waters, and so on.
    Once I reached the marina—self-described by a billboard that proclaimed A R ESERVOIR OF F UN !—Barron’s boat was easy to find. There was no cutesy nickname for his thirtysomething-foot SP Cruiser, which looked like a cross between a motorboat and a sailboat, gleaming white and proud in the sun. No, it was called simply and boastfully, The Baron . The gently rocking vessel was moored in a slip or a berth or whatever you call them, right where the land met the wharf or pier or whatever you call them. The entirety of my brush with boating was the Staten Island Ferry, and only then to take friends and relatives visiting Manhattan on a quick harbor scoot past the Statue of Liberty. I had never even taken a rowboat out in Central Park. When I crossed water, it was by bridges, tunnels, or air—and, once, in summer camp, on a rope.
    I didn’t know whether Barron would be there but chances were good: he’d had a bag of galley-type supplies when he was at the deli—toilet paper, veggies, and beer—so I hoped he intended to be here for a couple of days.
    Maybe to get yourself a treasure map? I thought as I walked up the plank or ramp or whatever you call the boarding-thing toward the front of the boat.
    There was a chain across the top. I stopped.
    “Robert?” I called toward the back of the boat. “You here? It’s Gwen Katz!”
    I heard light footsteps.
    Two sets of them.
    Barron stuck his big head through a big window or porthole or whatever you call them. Another man stuck his head out the hatch or door, just beyond. I didn’t know whether I had stumbled on a business meeting or a tête-à-tête.