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Here's a special gift for onetbls from your Secret Author!

Title: A Visual Treatise on the Material Remains of Witches in the County of Lancaster
Recipient Name: @onetbls
Rating: G
Pairings: Anathema/Newt
Warnings: Accidental RPF? It’s a Time Team crossover.
Summary: One of the very last things that Anathema Device, historical research consultant, ever expected to find herself doing was being a guest expert on an episode of Time Team. Newt, her long-suffering partner, found the entire thing hilarious.

The author has allowed the mods to divide this fic into five parts.


A Visual Treatise on the Material Remains of Witches in the County of Lancaster



"I'm sorry, can you repeat that?" said Anathema Device, frowning down at the notepad in front of her.

"I see," she replied. "And would I be required to … present this information, once the … Oh. Yes. Well then."

She paused, scribbled something down, and set the pen on the table. "Yes, I could do that. Yes. At your office? London. Alright. Okay. I could do Thursday, is that acceptable? Excellent. Thursday at half ten. Wonderful. Yes. Thank you. See you then."

She put the phone down and stared across the room at Mnemosyne[1] who, in true cat fashion, stared back at her unblinkingly.

"Well then," she said. Mnemosyne continued staring.

"I think I ought to call Newt," she said. "I don't know why, exactly, but …"

Mnemo at long last blinked slowly at her.

"I know, I know, you're right. It'll help with the emotional processing part," she told her, and broke out of her still reverie to move over to the sofa and give the black feline her due. Mnemo purred and rubbed her cheek on Anathema's palm. Anathema smiled and leaned over her to pick up the phone handset. Newt's work number was on speed dial; he managed to lose and/or break mobile phones at enough of a rate that his employer had stopped providing him a company Blackberry.

"Hello, NATS Software. Newton Pulsifer speaking," answered Newt flatly.

"Hello, love," replied Anathema.

"Oh, hullo," said Newt, perking up. "How's things? Anything exciting happening in the thrilling world of research consultancy?"

Anathema smiled. "Actually…"

"Huh. That's new," said Newt. "Is it to do with that hotel chain again?"

"Oh - no, not them. I got a call from Channel 4," she said, slowly. "They want me to be on an episode of Time Team."

There was a weird sputtering noise and a long pause. Finally, Newt said, "They what?"

It all came out in a rush then, one breathless sentence that Anathema could hardly manage to control. "One of their usual documentary researchers is on mat leave, and they need someone to do some research on a site up in Lancashire - Malkin Tower, actually - and they got my name from someone at English Heritage, and so this television person called me up, and said they needed someone, and they were told I was 'good at witches'."

"We were only watching Time Team the other day," said Newt, stunned.

"I know."

"And they just called you up?"

"Out of the clear blue sky," she said. "I was just working away on the report for Addington's, and there it was."

She paused. Mnemo chirped at her, peeved that the petting had stopped. "I've got a meeting with them on Thursday, to talk over the contract and everything. He said the filming season starts up in the spring, and they're still working out what the dates are for that dig, but he'll be able to give me a rough estimate for having the work done on Thursday."

"That's great, that's … really great. Absolutely mad, but great," Newt said, and started to laugh. "You're going to meet Tony Robinson."

Anathema burst into laughter, loud barking laughs, and the cat hopped away with a glare.

"You're absolutely right, sweetheart," she said through giggles. "I am! I'm going to be on TV. What in the…"

Newt pulled away from the phone, and she could hear him trying to quiet his laughter while also apologizing to someone, presumably a co-worker. "I mean, seriously, but that's all I can think of," he told her. "I just can't believe it."

"No, but I haven't even told you the best part," Anathema chuckled. "I haven't even told them about Agnes yet. They'll lose their minds. I'm going to be the Local Historian. They'll ask me to stand on the site and Feel Connected To My Ancestors, Newt."

"Oh my god."

"I know."

"You’re going to blow their minds. Absolutely blown clean off."

"I know," Anathema laughed. "'Good with witches', God."

Newt snorted, and she heard another co-worker in the background. "Sorry, I've just got - I can't believe I've got to keep this quiet."

"Alright, I'll let you go," she said. "I'll leave you to the task of manfully trying to maintain your composure while you pursue your very serious business."

"Definitely serious. The most serious business that's ever…bizzed," Newt replied, still stifling giggles. "I'll see if I can't get off work early and we can go celebrate, yeah?"

Anathema shook her head. "Not yet. Wait 'til Thursday. You don't want to be jinxing it, you know."

"And if anyone would, it's me," said Newt, sighing. "Alright. See you tonight, sweetheart."

"Bye," said Anathema, smiling. "Now, where's that cat got off to…"


[1] Mnemosyne was a Greek goddess of memory.
---

124 Horseferry Road was precisely as ridiculous and flamboyant a building as Anathema had expected, right down to the rainbow-coloured Big 4 statue guarding the entranceway. It was a big glass thing that looked like it was made of Lego, with jutting red beams and chaotic boxes sticking out haphazardly. It had character, she had to give it that; the problem was that she wasn't sure the character was entirely pleasant.

The interior wasn't much better. Layers upon layers of glass walls, floors, and railings merged with cable cords strung across the gap between circular floors to create an effect the architect probably called "striking" but Anathema preferred to call "disorienting". It looked a bit like the inside of a great glass tunnel spider's web, except the flies were executives in trendy suits and rumpled people with earpieces.

"Good morning," she said, approaching the receptionist, a nervous-looking young woman who jumped when she saw Anathema. "I'm here for a meeting with Mr. Anthony Bryant?"

"Oh! Yes," said the receptionist. "Let me just make sure you're on the list for today… Can I get your name, please?"

"Anathema Device," said Anathema. "Research consultant." And part-time witch.

"Oh, yes, there you are. Could you just sign here, and here, please?" She handed Anathema a clipboard with a biro attached by a string. Anathema signed and duly passed the clipboard back, and got a rainbow-coloured lanyard in return.

"Here's your visitor pass. You'll have to return that here on your way out. If you need a parking pass, you'll get that when you leave. Mr. Bryant is on the second floor, in the Chadwick Street wing of the building. You'll follow the signs for on your left for room 214. Got it?"

"I'm sure I'll find my way there," assured Anathema, who vaguely thought that spiritual energy would help her find the way even if the signs did not.

The signs proved clear enough, although Anathema admittedly got turned around in one of the spiralling, cable-befouled glass stairwells, and she found herself being ushered into room 214 by a cheerful man in a red jumper.

"Anthony Bryant," he said, flopping down into his desk chair. "So nice to meet you, Ms. - Anna Thema Device, you said? Right?"

"Anathema," she corrected. "All one word."

"Right, right. Sorry about that. Lots going on here, as you can see," he waved expansively around at the piles of binders and boxes slowly colonizing the room. "Busy as a bee, I am. And hopefully you'll be as well, if we can get this all sorted! So take a seat, and we'll just have a look at all this then."

Anathema smiled, and took a seat on the brightly-coloured plastic chair sitting in front of the desk. He pushed a file folder with the Channel 4 logo towards her, and opened one of the large binders, flipping through tabs until he found what he was looking for.

"That’s for you," he said. "That's got the project scope for the Malkin Tower dig in there, some of the key questions we're looking to answer - mainly the historical narrative ones, so providing information about the people and the stories around the site. We've got different researchers actually working on nailing down potential locations for the site, on the archaeology side, so if you could keep your research more towards the personal, that would be great."

"That's no problem at all," said Anathema, slowly leafing through the documents. She knew her face probably looked a bit odd; she could almost hear Agnes laughing. "Are there any particular stories or people you'd like me to focus on?"

"Nope," Bryant replied. "You've got free rein. Well, sort of. Usually how it works is our researchers bring us a few possible storylines at a preliminary meeting, and we - that's me and some other producers and one of the execs - and we'll see which we like best and which suit whatever's turned up on the preliminary site research. Usually we narrow it down to two or three, and we'll film bits for all of them."

"And then choose which to keep as the dig progresses?" Anathema ventured.

"Bingo." Bryant clicked his pen at her. "Are you familiar with Time Team?"

Anathema blushed a bit. "I've watched a few episodes."

He winked. "Good, good. So you know the format, then. Always helpful. Sometimes we get researchers in who are just all over the place, lots of ‘critical analysis’ - whatever that is - and it's just not helpful. We want simple, we want relatable, we want something that makes the viewer feel connected to the past. Something that lets us put some names and maybe even some faces to whatever little bits of pottery gets dug up, you know?"

"Right. So," said Anathema, pausing a little. "You said on the phone that you also want me to present?"

"Ah, yes," Bryant said, a bit sheepishly. "I'm rather afraid that our usual -- actually, I said that, didn't I? Anyway, so our usual presenter for the historical sections is on maternity leave, and the local historian who wrote us and got the whole ball rolling doesn't really have the expertise for that sort of thing. So if you don't mind…"

He trailed off. Anathema wondered, faintly, whether the offer had been conditional on what she looked like. She rather hoped not; certainly they didn't apply that sort of standard to any of the men on the show, and Bryant seemed likable. Actually, Anthony Bryant was altogether rather different than what Anathema had expected a television producer to be like - for one, he was distinctly less American, which was an altogether baseless impression she was faintly embarrassed about. Secondly, he seemed genuine in his interest in the show and in putting out educational programming; he spoke with energy and passion, and there was an aura to the office that reflected his dedication. There was a poster with the show's title card, and couple of photos of the cast and crew at work, and one of the bookshelves was stuffed mostly with DVDs and old VHS tapes of historical documentaries, history-themed coffee table books and the kind of pop history that occasionally made the best-seller's list for non-fiction. But she supposed, a little cynically, that caring about history and education and being likable didn't make you at all immune from also being the kind of person who turned away a perfectly competent person based on their appearance.

"It's not an issue," Anathema told him. "Not at all. Actually, it's perfect."

Bryant raised an eyebrow, but he was smiling, and spun his clicking pen between his fingers. "Always wanted to be an actress?"

"No," said Anathema. "I'm a witch."

The pen spun wildly out of Bryant's control and went flying across the room. He dove after it, hopelessly, before catching himself and straightening in his seat. "I'm sorry, beg your pardon?"

Anathema stifled her laughter. "You couldn't tell from my name?"

He shook his head very slowly, eyebrows climbing into his hairline.

"Device," she repeated. "The Malkin Tower witches, Elizabeth Device and her children."

Bryant shook his head. "I'm sorry, I…"

"That's where I get my name from. They're my ancestors," said Anathema, slowly, and then, "We've got a very comprehensive family library."

Bryant unfroze, clapping his hands and smiling. "Really? That's astonishing. No wonder Laura suggested you."

He was beaming at her, leaning back in his chair and grinning like Mnemo when she saw a freshly vacated spot on the sofa. "My word. That's fantastic. Perfect. Just wonderful!"

"I did tell you," said Anathema with no small amount of satisfaction. "In fact, I'm rather excited about it. I've always wondered where they lived, and what their lives were like."

"Of course, of course," said Bryant. He'd found another pen and was rapidly scribbling something on a scratch pad. "Related to the witches. Superb. Hmm… Let me just…"

The rest of the meeting progressed in a flurry of paperwork. Bryant took another look over the info packet he'd given her, just to make sure there was nothing that needed changing, and then he walked her through the contract and release forms and waivers. She didn't need to sign them right away, but she could mail them or fax them by the end of next week. He explained the update schedule, and the various deadlines for anything she'd want reproduced or made available for the shoot - he suggested, to both her amusement and horror, that they might film a segment in her family's library, or at least have some of the relevant sources brought up to the dig site - and the pay schedule, which was installments conditional on approval of her work, but he felt confident it would fly, broomstick in hand, over their expectations.

At the end, he walked her all the way back out to the front of the building, through the disorienting glass hallways and spider's-web staircases. He thankfully didn't stick around as she returned her badge, but said his goodbyes in the main atrium, leaving Anathema alone under the great glass skylight, with amusement bubbling up in her chest and the sensation of ghostly laughter in her ears.



"I'm being serious, Newt," Anathema said. "I would like to learn a bit more about them."

Newt raised an eyebrow at her over his pad see ew. He'd picked up Thai takeaway on his way home from work, because he knew she craved tofu pad thai like plants craved light, and also because Newt had extremely low-key ideas of what constituted a celebration. Thai takeaway and supermarket wine (the pricier kind, but on sale), and the pint of Hagen-Daz that was sitting in the freezer was about it.

"Don't look at me like that," she said, while Newt fumbled a prawn. "We don't actually know a lot about the Pendle Devices, at least in comparison with the later ones."

"Right," Newt said, sarcastic but fond. "Because it goes against the laws of gods and nature for you to live like the rest of us, with only a vague notion of what your 18-generations-back granddad might have been doing."

Anathema scowled at him and went back to her tofu. "Very funny."

"I try," he said, deadpan. "Did he tell you when you get to meet Tony Robinson?"

She laughed. "Not until the day of filming, I think. He talked about maybe shooting a bit at my mum's place, in the library there, which is a horrifying idea now that I really think about it, and they'd probably do that ahead of time."

Newt nodded. "You said horrifying, I say reality television gold. Imagine your mum meeting Tony Robinson."

"Could you stop with the Tony Robinson for just one minute?"

"Totally," said Newt. "Give you time to really think the concept over. Imagine it in full. Really have a good think about it."

Anathema shuddered. Her mother, bless her, was a Character. Anathema loved her, no question, despite her name and despite her mother's tendency to introduce herself at New Age meetings as a Witch By Marriage. She'd continued to care for the library, for all of it, even after Anathema's father had died. She'd let Anathema retrofit the room to bring it up to preservation grade after she took a course on preventive conservation one summer, and hadn’t complained that her utilities bill had gone up due to the dehumidifiers. But she was possessed of that trait very common in mothers, which was that she was extremely proud of her only child, and was almost entirely incapable of not talking her up in front of everyone she met, while also telling everyone extremely embarrassing details about Anathema's childhood.

No, Anathema thought. If they insisted on visiting the library, she'd make sure her mother was out of town. Maybe she'd buy her a weekend retreat to the Isle of Skye. Maybe the Orkneys. Someplace suitably pagan, and suitably far away.

--

Filming week rolled around quickly, one of the upsides to a winter busy with research. She'd lost almost all of January to conducting some provenance research for a regional museum - the usual sort of ‘is this really X major historical figure's X?’ project, but one of the few she'd actually been able to come back and tell them yes, yes it was, or at least there was a very high probability of it. She'd made no mention at all of the fact that the object practically played its history on a screen whenever she went near it, because she hadn't been able to find a citation format yet that covered psychic visions.

They had booked her a room in the village inn for the dig and the shoot, which was terribly nice of them. Anathema rather expected she'd be offered a tent, or to have to pay for herself, but Anthony Bryant had breezily assured her that expenses were covered, within reason. She arrived on Tuesday afternoon, the day before the dig was to start, and got settled in. The inn was consistent with her previous experience of village inns - dark, damp, remodelled at one point along the local tourist gimmick, which in the case of Newchurch-in-Pendle was witches.

Not Anathema's type of witch, the kind that knew their way around a theodolite and had never stood around a cauldron unless there was dinner involved, but the broomsticks-and-pointy-hats kind. (Thankfully, Anathema noted, if Newchurch-on-Pendle had ever tried to appeal to the Celtic-Woman-and-the-Sacred-Feminine type of witch, they'd fortunately left that in the previous millennium.) Newchurch-in-Pendle was all about that kind of witch, and it seemed like at some point all the local business owners had got together and agreed to really commit to the idea. The inn was called the Three Witches, with the sign to match; the pub part on the ground floor advertised "Witching Hour" specials, and the menu was more of the same. The high street was positively festooned with themed shops and little tea rooms with names like The Tea Cauldron and Crones & Crumpets and The Scone Witch. There was a children's toy shop named, horrifically, Toy & Trouble. Thankfully the local grocer had opted out, and Anathema managed to buy herself a small stock of vegetarian snacks without having to stare down another green-skinned, warty-faced mascot.

She ate dinner at the inn. There were only two restaurants in the village, and she figured there was no doubt she'd get a chance to eat at Eye of Frog (really) before she left. Plus it gave her a chance to meet some of the crew before tomorrow, which was a good networking opportunity if nothing else. The inn was entirely filled up with members of the production team, along with experts and a scant few archaeologists. These were, one production assistant cheerfully informed her, the ones with bad knees, the rest having chosen to sleep in trailers down by the dig sites.

"They like to be close to the dirt," said the assistant, a short round young woman with burgundy hair. "Helps them get a feel for the place."

"Knock it off, Melissa," groaned another crew member, this one a slightly older man wearing a rugby polo. "You know they're just mad paranoid about looters running around with metal detectors. Oh, and I'm Gavin, by the way. Ignore her, she's full of it."

Melissa laughed, and the two of them introduced Anathema to the rest of the crew members. They were apparently the designated extroverts, and took it upon themselves to make sure any temporary team members felt appropriately welcomed. There was the usual round of asking after degrees and publications and projects. Anathema dug out her own dubious claim to fame in historical circles, which was sorting out the provenance research and arranging for the donation of the Shadwell Collection to the Ashmolean. A few of the archaeologists recognised it - which was a good sign for the quality of the dig - and she happily recounted a few of the better (and less explicitly Unusual) stories from her time working on the project.

The whole thing sounded much more impressive the way Anathema recounted it. In truth, the donation of the Shadwell Collection was the compromise that Newt had wrangled old Shadwell into, after his heart attack and Madame Tracy's subsequent insistence on moving him to a beach cottage where he could ‘take the sea air’. It was, Newt argued, for the wider education of the British people about the menace o' witches. To which Shadwell had reluctantly agreed, and the whole collection - books, bells, and even candles - was cleaned out of his old flat and multiple storage lockers that he'd been renting for years. Anathema negotiated the contract with the museum, and managed to negotiate a role for herself as well; short-staffed as usual, they'd been all too happy to hire her to sort out the collection's provenance, particularly given ‘owned by the Witchfinder Army’ had not exactly seemed particularly legitimate to the institutional lawyers. In the end, she'd even managed a conference presentation on the project, and it had led to more than one contract falling into her lap over the years.

In a way, it’d even led to this one, she supposed. Funny thought, that. Here we are, hunting for witches, or at least their tower. He'd probably be proud, she thought wryly. Keeping up the fine old traditions, and all that. He'd probably also immediately want to set whatever they found on fire, but well, Anathema's family had a fine old way of handling that, too.

Next: Day 1! (Part 2)

(no subject)

Date: 2017-12-16 04:35 pm (UTC)
From: [personal profile] onetbls
Thank you so much gifter!!! I can already tell this is going to be great. I’m actually an anthropology/archaeology major myself and also planning a trip to Europe for next fall where I’m hoping to have lots of cool historical sites on my itinerary 👀 So this is just wonderfully up my street lol. Now to keep reading...
Edited Date: 2017-12-16 04:37 pm (UTC)

(no subject)

Date: 2017-12-18 01:38 pm (UTC)
autisticaziraphale: (Default)
From: [personal profile] autisticaziraphale
I'm late getting around to reading this because work is taking over my life, but this is already delightful. I love the way you've written Anathema and Newt, who are two of my faves. This story promises to be fascinating.

(no subject)

Date: 2017-12-19 01:32 pm (UTC)
notaspacealien: (Default)
From: [personal profile] notaspacealien
I admit i had to look up what "Time Team" was, but this is a cute idea!! Anathema will probably really enjoy this! I am enjoying this story so far, very cute!

(no subject)

Date: 2017-12-20 06:07 pm (UTC)
From: [personal profile] maniacalmole
I'm glad we get to read a story about Anathema!
" for one, he was distinctly less American, which was an altogether baseless impression she was faintly embarrassed about." This made me laugh. And then I did even more when she tells him so bluntly that she's a witch XD
Her mom is a Witch By Marriage! I'm glad we got to learn more about her, she's one of those characters who HAS to be interesting :D
"...she hadn't been able to find a citation format yet that covered psychic visions." Oh man. Citing sources is always the worst, isn't it? XD
I also liked the part about Shadwell :)

(no subject)

Date: 2018-01-04 11:39 pm (UTC)
macdicilla: (Default)
From: [personal profile] macdicilla
Yay for Anathema fic! I'm going to show this to my roommate who loves time team and good omens
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