“The Spenser name is powerful, and could bring great resources to bear.” He ignores Peggy’s pouting, a calm conviction rising in his voice, his eyes. “If we could somehow convince her of the merit, of the business case, this could diversify Spenser’s prospects and benefit the community in a sustainable, spiritually significant way. I can’t help but think that my sister truly does have a loving, compassionate nature. It simply needs to be liberated.”

“Pfft. All that meditation must have really made your damn mind go blank, then.”

Meanwhile, I feel a grin creep across my face as I observe the little silver spirals twisting in and out of the fresh emerald-coloured cloud emerging around Smart Alec Brother Gyaltso. Peggy may well smell bullshit and bubble gum, but I see an opportunity for putting both my new and old skills to good use here, even if it is just a distraction from shock and sorrow and chaos. I’ve learned a thing or two about finding and freeing people’s truths lately, and the impulse to make a living with a sales smile and a marketing pitch dies hard. What remains of the money Mama left me isn’t going to last forever. It’s no surprise to hear her voice quip ever so faintly in my ear, Jesus saves, Moses invests.

“Stacey,” Smart Alec Brother Gyaltso says, as he sways to the edge of his seat, and spends a few too many moments gawking at me, like he’s scanning for pieces of himself in my eyes.

“It’s Crow,” I say, like I mean business. Because I do.

“Right. Crow.” His hands and fingers weave into what I imagine is some sort of sacred cross between a snivel and a prayer formation. “I realize that an apology is insufficient. But that day on the wharf, I feel we made a genuine connection. Perhaps, from that, a prosperous and mutually beneficial relationship could grow. My collaborator Wendy and I are hosting an event at the fire hall next weekend, entitled —”

“Rig Yer Mortis. I know. I’ll be there.” Because who am I to ignore what feels like a deep, insistent nudge from a faintly conspiratorial Universe? Or maybe that’s just Cletus gearing up for another furious flurry of rib kicks and bladder jabs.

Turning a rundown rural fire hall into a half-decent space to host a celebration of life for a woman they all called Scruffy Effie was no great feat. But making that same spot into a place that can pass for an oasis of spiritual conversation and meditative profundity? It doesn’t really matter how many pictures of lotus flowers you tack over top of the dartboards. There’s not enough patchouli incense in the world to fully cloak the smell of a sewer that needs suctioning. And plunking a piece of red cloth and a Buddha statue on top of a rusty old dehumidifier just doesn’t cut it either.

But that must be my big-city-asshole critical self talking, because nobody at the Rig Yer Mortis seems to care, or even notice. Gyaltso, Wendy, Allie, and four other people I should probably recognize — but don’t — sit on cushions arranged in a lopsided circle. They take turns gawking at what sits just outside the ring, in between the tea table and the Buddha that guards the rusty old dehumidifier: a four-foot-tall, pale beige, translucent egg-shaped thing.