Marley and Bill were out in the country as well, Marley inspecting a small country church with not a tower cklock, but a longcase clock, located in the apse of the church's nave, by the front entrance, and just under a window in the second-story wall at the first floor foot of the staircase, such that the chimes rang out across the nearby churchyard and as far as earhot would allow. It was on the Knights' registry not because it actually governed anything, but rather because it tended to react when things were less than normal in the area.
There was also a collection of standing stones in the near vicinity of the church, which Bill had remarked on (how the fledgeling raven even knew of such a place so far from London was a mystery, but he was a rather mysterious bird anyway, so Marley let it be), and which Marley had decided to visit and look around in when he had finished his inspection of the church clock. He noticed that it's pendulum was off-beat by approximately twenty-six minutes of arc; such a thing was not necessarily abnormal in old clocks on uneven stone tile floors such as the church was floored with, especially considering the maze that was built into the pattern of the flooring, but he noted it down in his book anywhay, and set about realigning the pendulum and levelling the case. In the end, though he had gotten to the church when the Vicar was just arriving in the morning, it was now just past noon.
"So, ye fixed th' auld lady, 'ave ya?" the vicar asked. "Tha's good. I expect we'll 'ave no more bees in teh works, then?"
"Er...Bees?"
But the old fellow just laughed and waved him off, leaving Marley to ponder the nature of country humor.
But later, while he looked at and sketched the layout of the stone circle (such as it was; it was no Stonhenge), and Bill chased bugs and wrens, and finally got divebombed and chased off by a family of sparrows, he kept hearing a faint but insistent and rather angry buzzing off in the distance. It seemed to move around a lot, going to all points of the compass, but never staying long in one place, and its cause never becoming visible. Marley would have laughed it off as a simple swarm of rather wayward bees, but then Bill came and perched on his shoulder, and told Marley he (Bill) had an itch in his tailfeathers. This had proven in recent weeks to be a sign that magic, or at least a very strong thaumic potential, was in the air. Thus it was that, compass in hand and Bill telling him when he was about to twitch in irritation, Marley and his little friend started off across the fields, following the apparently ambulatory thaumic phenomenon.
And thus it was, when the scream at the location of Celia and Reid's picnic sounded, that Marley and Bill were within earshot of the cry, and came running.
"WHAT!? WHAT HO!" Marley screamed in response. "WHAT"S THE MATTER!?"
Suddenly Bill actually screamed a human-like scream and nearly bowled Marley over, heading in the oppositre direction.
"WE'RE FOR IT! RUN LOOBY!" A mass of yellow and brown tiny bodies were hot on his tail.
Marley summoned the fire spell, while striking a spark with his snaplight- and WHOOSH! a part of the swarm, a nearby bush, and something unidentifiable blazed into flame. Bill squawked like a demented parrot and dove smoking into the pocket of Marley's watch coat as Marley fell backwards onto the truf and covered his syes with his arms - but nothing happened. He sat up, and looked around. He suddenly noticed a carriage, Toby looking at him with an expression of shock, amusement, startlement, and not a little indignation, and Celia and Reid nearby - and a slightky-charred, well-laid-out picnic spread in the middle of everything.
"What ho, Milady, and...Reid? Was that you two screaming that we heard?" He looked down at himself. "A fine rescue party I am..."
"You kin say 'at agin, ya great hulkin' Looby," Bill said as he clawed free of teh pocket amd flapped up into the air agian. "Wha' d'you bathe in, tar slurry?"
