Happy Holidays, Petimetrek! - Part 2
Dec. 26th, 2018 08:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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go_exchangeProfessional Ascendants - Part 2!
The weather the next day was nice, almost aggressively so, as though it had tolerated one day of rain and decided that was quite enough of that, thank you very much. All that was left was a thick layer of mud and the scent of the earth heavy in the air. If there had been a rainbow, and it would have seemed wrong if there wasn’t, Sarah had missed it. That was a shame.
Sarah was pulling out papers; brochures to art galleries she should inquire about, photographs of paintings she needed to add to her portfolio, descriptions of her pieces and letters of introduction. All the more tedious trappings of being a professional artist. She was holed up in her room because her mother was home, and probably deep-cleaning the refrigerator. Just once Sarah would like to see Adam get roped into helping with the terrible chores.
There was a knock at the door, and then a ring of the bell.
Sarah dropped her papers on the bed. The window in her room looked on the front yard but not the front door. Therefore she couldn’t see the knocker, but she could see a familiar bicycle leaning against the gate. Excitement and anger flared in her chest.
“I’ll answer it!” she called to the kitchen, and bolted for the door.
Anathema was standing on the stoop, same coat, same jewelry, and a graphic-print t-shirt that read It’s not magic, just common sense. “Hey.”
"Adam's not home," Sarah said by way of greeting. "He never is these days.”
Anathema bit her lip. “Okay,” she said, puzzled. Then, “I’m not looking for Adam.”
“Of course you are,” Sarah blurted.
“Can he drive?” Anathema said.
“He’s eleven.”
“Exactly.”
Sarah stepped onto the porch and closed the door behind her. “You were looking for him two days ago, and he didn’t say anything about you finding him.” It wasn’t proof, but Adam liked to talk.
Anathema opened her mouth, frowned, and closed it. She shook her head and the purple in her hair swished around her face. “That’s not important,” she said. “I need to get to London and my friend with a car has gone off.”
It was quite a favor, but to Anathema’s credit, Adam would definitely not be in London. Anathema shifted from foot to foot as Sarah looked her over. The mud on her boots clumped onto the stoop. “What’s in London?” Sarah asked finally.
“A demon,” Anathema said.
“First angels and now—”
“I need to see someone about a book,” Anathema said quickly. “I’ll explain on the way, but I’ve got an address and no way to get there.”
“Not even on your flying bicycle?”
Anathema turned to look. The bicycle was sitting on the ground. “I don’t think it actually does that,” she said, but didn’t sound convinced. “But I’ll have you know it didn’t rust.”
Sarah laughed. “Yeah, sure.” She weighed her options. Staying home would be safe and disappointing. Leaving would be risky and thrilling and, desperate times or not, Anathema had chosen her. She grinned. “We’ll be back here by tonight, won’t we?”
—
Anathema had not expected that to work. She felt rather smug that it had.
Sarah drove with her multicolored hands loosely around the steering wheel, giving Anathema sideways glances whenever she took her eyes off the road. Possibly she was mulling over what Anathema had said.
Most people didn’t really believe in witchcraft or demons or prophecies, or rather, they believed that they were things that might really happen, but always happened to someone else. Anathema had learned to be Nice and Accurate, and so she had told Sarah that she had burned a book, and needed to see a demon in London about getting it back. “It’s a book written by my ancestor, a witch named Agnes Nutter,” Anathema had explained. “She was writing about the future.”
—
Sarah, as people were wont to do, rationalized it all. Anathema had lost an heirloom and wanted it replaced. The only existing copy was held by some shady book dealer. “We’re not in any danger from this demon, are we?” she asked.
“Nah,” Anathema said. “I’ve got protective sigils. And a knife. And I think he’s mostly harmless.”
Anathema, Sarah decided, had an excellent sense of humor. She could use more of that. Her boyfriend of two years ago had been funny and adventurous and they’d planned to travel the world together. They’d checked off England, Spain, and Scotland before they ran out of money and realized that, without new and exciting locales, they were rather boring people who just so happened to be fantastic at travel itineraries. Anathema was not a boring person. And she was terrible at travel.
They had to stop at the cottage to grab her wallet, and Sarah raided her cupboards for snacks and found mostly granola. She had an address and no directions, and her only map of the area was covered in thick black lines that swirled and centered on Lower Tadfield. Most of the important road names and junction were entirely obscured.
“You’re not prepared for a day trip at all,” Sarah said as they pulled out.
“I would be if I knew what to prepare for,” Anathema huffed. “Things usually turn out all right.”
“You’re ridiculous,” Sarah said.
—
“Here we go,” Sarah said out of the blue. “We’re officially out of Lower Tadfield.”
Anathema looked out the window. There were no signs, just countryside and trees, but the more she looked the more she could sense it; in the color of the grass and the sharpness of the air.
“My favorite point on this road,” Sarah said. “Everything gets a little more real. Sometimes Tadfield is like living in a bubble, you know? Like the whole world might pass you by if you let it.”
“It’s a weird town,” Anathema agreed.
“I’m getting out of there, soon as I can,” Sarah said. “Back to university, and I’ll set up in a city somewhere. Look, the roads get bad right away, the trees more gnarled, it’s like an entirely different world.”
“It feels loved,” Anathema said. “That’s what I get from Tadfield anyway. Someone—” and it was only speculation, really, but she didn’t say who, “really loves it.”
Sarah scoffed. “Someone, maybe, but not me. I like this bit right here. A little wild, a little off. People come to pain the scenery of Tadfield, and it’s gorgeous, sure. That’s where I started. But out here things have teeth and personality.” She shook her head. “Maybe it’s just ‘cause it’s my home. I dunno.”
“Homes are odd places,” Anathema said. “You can’t go two steps in mine without tripping over some piece of Device history. We’ve got a few actual Devices cremated and stored on shelves, because they wanted to see how things turned out.”
“Not really.”
“Honest.” She found herself thinking about Newt all of a sudden. “My family likes living in the past and in the future more than they like living in the present.”
“My parents live in the past,” Sarah said, nodding. “The good old days. Back before people had lives, apparently.”
“Maybe the Youngs didn’t have lives. The Devices got into all sorts of trouble.” Anathema spent the next ten miles regaling Sarah with tales of intrigue. Roland Device, who had infiltrated the government to match top-secret cover-ups to certain prophecies. Henrietta Device who’d run away from her family only to have a vital epiphany while exploring the South Pole. Lucretia Device who had caused a scandal by fooling a pastor and marrying a woman, and then made people feel bad about being upset by joining a volunteer firefighting group and saving lives.
Sarah perked up at that last story. “Lucretia sounds like quite a woman,” she said carefully.
“I wish I’d gotten to meet her,” Anathema said.
The silence was heavy with two young women keeping their thoughts and hopes to themselves. She couldn’t be, Anathema thought. She watched Sarah’s face as she focused on the road, the thoughtful crease of her eyebrows.
“So what makes you different?” Sarah finally asked. “Why’d you leave the family burial grounds for Lower Tadfield?” They were questions no one had ever thought to ask.
Anathema ran her hands through her hair. “I thought the world was going to end,” she said honestly. “Then it didn’t.”
“That led you to Tadfield?”
Anathema almost blamed Agnes for sending her there, but that wouldn’t be entirely accurate. Sarah deserved accuracy. “I just wanted to understand it all,” she said.
“And do you?”
“No.” Anathema gave a dry chuckle. “I understand less then when I started. Without this book we’re going to fetch… What is there to be besides a descendant?”
“Resplendent,” Sarah suggested, only half-serious. “Ascendant. Phosphorescent.”
Anathema shook her head. There didn’t seem to be a point to any of that. How did one move on from the Apocalypse? “I just want answers,” she said.
“All right, then,” Sarah said. “So what’s today’s question?”
Anathema went with the easy answer. “Will the demon even be home when we get there?”
—
By the time they were close enough to London and Sarah had to focus all her attention on the traffic, Anathema had explained that the markings on the map were ley-lines around Lower Tadfield, and given Sarah permission to paint her necklace, and had touched her shoulder four times, probably on accident.*
[*They weren’t.]
Sarah had also come to a conclusion. Anathema was a landscape after all. Not a forest or a field of the sort Sarah often painted. You couldn’t flush birds out of her hair or admire the pastoral quality of her chin; she was too precise for much foliage. No, she was a cliff-face. Accurate and straightforward, yes, but with unexpected angles and crevasses that kept you always the tiniest bit uncertain what she meant by them. She didn’t just encourage you to look and feel peaceful, she encouraged you to climb.
She almost said something about it. Then Anathema pointed to a rather swanky building and said, “We’re here.”
—
Crowley answered the door to his apartment, obnoxiously on the top floor of a very tall building, with a glare that quickly turned into a look of uncertainty. “You’re the witch,” he said. He was wearing sunglasses even though he was indoors, and what seemed to be an expensive black suit. Maybe it was to counter the sparse, aesthetic white of his apartment.
“Anathema Device. Professional apocalypse stopper and descendant.” She held out a hand to shake.
“Sarah Young,” Sarah said, extending her own.
Crowley did not shake either hand. “Young as in—”
“She drove me here from Lower Tadfield,” Anathema said. “I’ve done something very stupid, and I’d like some help undoing it. Occult help, preferably.”
Crowley looked rattled. He stepped nervously away from them both. “I don’t help people,” he said, affronted. “How did you get this address, anyway? The phone books invariably get it wrong.” This was, Anathema gathered, on purpose.
“Witchcraft. More reliable than phone books.” Anathema brushed inside. In her head, Agnes Nutter said, and thee fall walk into the ferpentf denne, Anathema, and thee fall never returne, becaufe thou art a bloody ftupid fool. Anathema ignored her.
Crowley followed. “You can’t just walk in here,” he protested, despite Anathema having done just that.
“You and your angel friend stole my book of prophecy,” Anathema said. “And we saved the world together. Well, we were both there at least. The least you can do is hear me out.” She sat down on the sofa. Sarah hovered by the doorway. Her eyes were wide as though, despite all Anathema’s warnings, she still hadn’t believed the truth of the situation. Nothing to be done for that now.
Crowley stood with his arms crossed about halfway between them. He looked at his watch. It was a very expensive watch. “Two minutes,” he said. “After that there will be consequences.”
“What sort of consequences?” Sarah asked.
Crowley gave her a look that clearly said you shut up, I’ve still got two minutes to think of them. Sarah closed her mouth abruptly.
Anathema cleared her throat. “Agnes Nutter wrote a second book of prophecy,” she said. “It was delivered to me the day after we all got back from the airfield.”
Crowley’s mouth fell open. “There’s another one?”
“There was,” Anathema said. “Newt and I burnt it.”
“You what?”
“It was a bad idea.”
Crowley ran a hand through his hair, which succeeded in not mussing it up at all. “Well?” he asked. “How long did she give us before we’ve got to go through this whole thing again? And don’t say something like a hundred years as though that’s ages away. Blink of an eye, really.”
“I don’t know,” Anathema said. “I’m not sure what she was getting at. We never read it.”
“You never—!”
Crowley had a television in his flat. Flat screen. Able to play anything on any channel (or video recording) at the press of a button. It only worked for Crowley. Anyone else pressing the button would come quickly to the conclusion that the remote was out of batteries, and the rest of it had never been plugged in. At this moment, the television screen shattered.
All three turned to stare at it, open mouthed.
“Ngk,” said Crowley. He turned back to Anathema. “Witch, do you really mean to tell me that you had another book of prophecies and you burned it without reading anything? No thought to who might need it?”
“Well that’s why I’ve come to you, isn’t it?” Anathema retorted. She was not about to let herself cry in the presence of a demon, and so reacted with anger. “I’ve got to get that book back, and I can’t do it alone.”
Crowley pinched the bridge of his nose. He looked unwell. “I can’t,” he said. “I can’t just snap my fingers and—” he snapped his fingers. A pile of very fine ash appeared on his very white carpet. He winced.
“Is that it?” Anathema demanded, but she knew it was. It was the aura off that pile of ash. It felt like Agnes. Anathema thought she might be sick.
“Assuming I got the right book.” He looked at the pile and swallowed thickly.
And fo the ferpent lofef hif lunche in plain fight, Agnes said in Anathema’s head. Withe ye foon to followe.
“Could you tell me where to find the angel?” Anathema asked weakly. She’d made a backup plan and wasn’t about to let it go to waste. “Maybe he could—”
Crowley’s face was a mixture of anger and terror. “Never,” he said, his voice thick with a snakelike hiss, “tell Asssiraphale you sssset fire to a book. Essspecially not one like thisss.”
“Why not?” Sarah demanded. Her voice shook.
Crowley started and turned to face her. “Becausse,” he said. “He’s going to be upsset.”
—
After they both promised they wouldn’t breathe a word, Crowley conjured up a plastic bag and put the ashes in it. Anathema tucked the whole thing into her pocket. She felt just a little bit more secure having it, even if she had no one to take it to.
Sarah was silent as they left the flat and entered the elevator. Ten floors was a long way down. “That’s what we came to London for?” she asked. Her voice was very small, and she scrunched her key ring over and over in her hand.
“I thought he’d be more helpful,” Anathema said.
Nine floors.
“He was an actual demon.”
“Uh-huh.”
Eight.
“And there’s an angel somewhere that probably wants to kill you.”
“I wasn’t expecting that, either,” Anathema admitted. She hefted the plastic bag full of ash. “I’ll just have to recreate this, I suppose.” She no longer felt confident about her chances.
Seven.
Six.
Five.
“How the hell,” Sarah said deliberately, “does that demon know my brother?”
Four.
“What makes you—”
“Did you see how he looked at me?” Sarah burst out. “As soon as he heard my name, suddenly he was afraid of me. A demon. Me. And don’t try to tell me I was reading that wrong. This has been happening to me my entire life and I’m sick of it. You were looking for Adam earlier, and yes, it does matter. What has he done, and how does that demon know my brother?”
Two.
One.
“Ah,” Anathema said. “About that.”
—
Anathema had never learned to drive. There hadn’t seemed much point. If she had, she would have offered to take the wheel back to Lower Tadfield, because Sarah barely seemed to see the road. Her soft jaw was tight, her knuckles white around the wheel. Her aura appeared brittle and sharp, like it would cut Anathema if it had any physical presence.
Anathema had done her best to explain. Her head was clearer now that she was away from Lower Tadfield— and away from Adam— but the bag of ash was heavy on her thigh, feeling for all the world like it would never change back. Besides, there was no good way to say “it turns out your younger brother is the Antichrist” and expect Sarah to take it well.
Anathema had padded the story with details; the Nice and Accurate Prophecies, the horsepersons, the angel and the demon. The aliens and rains of fish and Tibetans made Sarah’s grey eyes flashed in what might have been recognition. Her memory may have been tampered with as well, but all those phenomena were still in there somewhere.
"You're not joking," Sarah said once she was done.
"I never was.”
“Does that mean my dad is Satan?”
“I don’t think so. Agnes talked about baby swapping at some point.”
“Hmm.”
And then Sarah had gone silent. That was miles ago. Anathema spun her rings around her fingers and stared out at the road.
They passed a gnarled tree that Anathema recognized from the first half of the journey. Sarah had said she wanted to paint it; said the bark looked like it meant something. Maybe it did, because that's when Sarah burst out, "you know, that almost makes sense." She gave a strangled laugh. "Would explain a lot, really. The Antichrist. Hell."
Anathema nodded encouragingly.
"You know what else it'd explain," she said. "Why you wanted me to drive you. I thought it would be fun, maybe? Friends? I should have known better."
"Hold on," Anathema said. "That's what it was. And you had a car, but--"
Sarah twisted her hands around the steering wheel. "You brought me along to help you bully the demon! As leverage, 'cause if something happened to me the Antichrist would be all up in arms, right? Sigils and bread knives, hah!”
Anathema’s mouth fell open. “Sarah.”
“You would do anything for that stupid book.”
Anathema’s anger flared. “Don’t you dare.”
“There are enough people who want to tell you how to live your life. I’ve got a family full of them. It’s stupid and you’re better off without it.”
“Without that book, I am nothing.”
“And,” Sarah continued, pulling threads together without really listening, “I’m the only one with a car? Hah! Your boyfriend has one. Am I supposed to believe he wouldn’t drive you?”
“He’s not my boyfriend!” Anathema snapped, and then, before she could think better of it, “I’m gay.”
The car swerved. Anathema clutched the door. She shouldn’t have said that. Not all of a sudden like this. If she’d only known when she was bound to say it…
Finally Sarah responded. “No, you’re not.”
“I probably am,” Anathema said. “Or something. It’s only occurred to me recently.”
Sarah shook her head. “You’re playing me again.”
“How would that be playing you?”
More silence. Sarah’s eyes were still glued to the road, but Anathema blinked and suddenly they were filled with tears, already tracking halfway down her cheeks.
“Woah,” Anathema said. “Sarah, okay, pull over.” The car shuddered at the sudden change in terrain, then stopped. Sarah continued to cry.
Anathema was not particularly good at comfort, but she did her best. Placed a hand on her shoulder that Sarah leaned into. Offered reassurances— things would be okay, really— that she couldn’t properly cite. Didn’t ask for an explanation when Sarah finally answered her question with a strangled, “That’d be too convenient.”
They might not have been friends anymore, but at least they were warm bodies.
And to be fair, it was a lot to handle. Anathema cried too, hiding her face behind Sarah’s back as they held each other.
Anathema didn’t notice, until Sarah had cried herself out and turned back onto the road, that Agnes had nothing to add.
—
They arrived at Jasmine Cottage several hours later. Night was falling. The ride had been quiet but safe, and the only lasting casualties were the used tissues now littering Sarah’s car. Anathema insisted Sarah stay on the sofa while she made tea. It took her several minutes to notice a message light blinking on the phone. The last Anathema had checked, there was no way for that phone to save messages.
She pressed the only button, which was “play.”
“Uh, hi,” said the all-too-familiar recorded voice. “You know what I said about Aziraphale being upset if he ever found out about the second book? Well he did. He wants to see it for himself. Nothing to worry about, probably. Just, ah, don’t set it on more fire than it was already, I suppose. Won’t be long.”
The machine clicked off and then, job completed, stopped existing.
“Well shit,” said Anathema.
There was a knock at the door.
Anathema and Sarah each jumped about a foot in the air, but it was not an avenging angel on the doorstep. It was Newt.
“What are you doing here?” Anathema demanded.
“I think I’ve made a mistake,” Newt said. “Shadwell had his phone number. I thought, well, he’s an angel, maybe he could help you. I’m not sure that went so well.”
“No,” Anathema said. Her voice was weak. “No, I don’t think it did.”
“What are you going to do?” Sarah asked.
Anathema’s mind was blank with fear. She leaned against the wall of the cottage so she wouldn’t fall over. I don’t know I don’t know I don’t know.
“I’ll scare them off,” Sarah decided. She set her jaw firmly. Her aura pulsed with determination. “If the demon doesn’t trust me, the angel won’t either. I’ll get them to… go away, or something.”
It might have worked. It was certainly a better plan than anything Anathema had come up with. But instead she said, “No.”
“What do you mean, no?”
Anathema took a breath. “I honestly did want to be friends. I didn’t mean to use you. If I make it out of this, I don’t want you mad at me.”
Sarah gaped.
“Crowley said it was probably nothing to worry about," Anathema said, not meaning it. “Go.”
—
It was too much. Sarah went. The secrets of the universe pulsed through her body, and that made her very powerful indeed. Working on instinct only, she left her car at the cottage and ran down the muddy road. With every squelch of her foot in the mud she thought about going back, but her body wouldn’t cooperate. Realizations pounded repetitions in her head. Angel coming, demon coming, Anathema’s gay, Adam’s been magically screwing me over THIS WHOLE TIME.
It wasn’t until she was heading up the drive, breath coming short as she entered the warm glow of the porch light, that she realized she’d been going home. She did not take off her shoes or even wipe them on the mat, but instead squelched her way upstairs.
The door to Adam’s room, decorated by a painstakingly scrawled Keep Out sign, was closed but not locked. Sarah pushed it open.
—
A black Bentley, fully intact but not quite right, drove into Lower Tadfield. In the driver’s seat was a demon who felt that coming back to this town at all, let alone two weeks after the Apocalypse had almost happened, was a terrible idea. Still, he was there because Aziraphale had asked him to be. Also, he had a car.
On the passenger side was an angel who hadn’t quite come to terms with his collection of rare books being burned up and replaced with different rare books. He folded his smooth, brown, well-manicured hands in his lap, then unfolded them, then folded them a different way. If there was any chance… a second volume of Agnes Nutter’s work that had been unknown for centuries would be the crowning achievement of any collector… Well, he had to see it for himself, even if there was, as Crowley assured him, nothing left.
“Jasmine Cottage,” Crowley said to himself. “Down this way.” He rested a hand on Aziraphale’s arm.
—
“You’re not allowed in here,” said Adam. He sounded surprised, and Sarah realized she couldn’t remember the last time she’d been in his room. She didn’t recognize half the mess on the floor, and there were so many magazines with spaceships and Elvis on the covers.
“You need to help Anathema,” Sarah said.
“No I don’t.” Adam said. He was lying on his stomach on the bed, a piece of paper and a pencil in front of him. The comforter shouldn’t have been firm enough for him to write without stabbing holes in the paper, but he was doing it anyway. “I told you, she doesn’t really want to see me.”
Sarah felt a slight breeze, as though the world had displaced a little air when it shifted. She held her ground. “Don’t you dare, you little brat.”
“Come on,” Adam said. “I’m busy. Lea’me alone.”
The breeze came again, but it didn’t take. “No,” said Sarah.
Adam wrinkled his nose. “You’d better.”
“I know what you are,” Sarah said. “And I don’t care.”
“What do you mean, what I am?”
Sarah fixed him with a Look.
Adam said, “Oh.”
Sarah said, “Anathema just needs a book fixed. That’s all. And you owe me.”
“No I don’t.”
“You owe me,” Sarah repeated, “for cheating on every damned coin toss and guessing game your entire life. Besides,” she continued. “I can tell your friends that the drought was your fault. Dad might not believe me, but they will.”
—
Anathema was watching out the window when the Bentley pulled up, right behind Sarah’s Beetle. The headlights were on this time; otherwise she might not have seen the car or the two figures that stepped out.
“That’s a nice car,” Newt said, somewhat ruining the drama of the moment. “A real classic.”
“Hush,” said Anathema. She opened the door before either of approaching figures could knock. It felt good to be able to do that. Like she was, again, a little bit ahead of the times.
“Come in,” she said, with a note of doom in her voice.
“Don’t mind if we do,” said Crowley. He was holding onto Aziraphale's arm, which seemed only right. His face was pinched and worried, but he looked more at ease by Aziraphale’s side than he had in a flat by himself.
Anathema hadn’t remembered much about Aziraphale from the airfield, and looking at him now she could see why. His appearance; old green sweater pulled over a round belly, thick glasses over soft, dark skin, seemed almost curated to get its owner dismissed as a harmless eccentric. Then he looked into Anathema’s face and she got the sense of something gold and fiery and very, very dangerous.*
[*It was not his aura. Aziraphale and Crowley had auras which looked surprisingly normal, that is to say human, only quite a bit older.]
“Young lady," Aziraphale said. "A young man in the Witchfinder Army led me to believe that Agnes Nutter had written a second book of prophecy?”
“Er,” said Newt. Crowley gave him a sharp look.
"Yeah," said Anathema. She pulled out the plastic bag filled with ash. "Mistakes were made." She spread her feet on the floor and prepared to be smote.
Aziraphale made a strangled noise in the back of his throat and took the bag in reverent hands. "Oh dear," he said. "Oh dear."
Crowley watched the bag as though it foretold his own demise, which it very possibly had.
"Is there anything you can do?" Anathema asked cautiously. This was not quite the reaction she'd expected.
With shaky hands, Aziraphale handed it over to Crowley, who clearly did not want to hold it. "You're quite sure you can’t—?"
"Sorry, Angel."
"Ah."
Anathema swallowed down waves of guilt.
Aziraphale fixed her with a sharp look. "And just how," he said, "did it come to resurface and be burnt in the first place?"
Anathema opened her mouth to give a Nice and Accurate answer. The door opened.
Immediately the cottage got warmer and brighter, and everyone stepped back as a surly eleven year old boy slouched inside. He was followed by his older sister, watching him with her arms crossed, compelling the Antichrist to behave, in the way only an eldest sibling can.
"Ngk," said Crowley, and very nearly dropped the bag.
"Sarah," Anathema said.
"What're you all lookin' at me for?" Adam demanded unnecessarily.
"Where's the book?" Sarah said. "He's promised to fix it up."
Aziraphale took the bag from Crowley and wordlessly extended it. Adam took it, unimpressed. "Is this all?" he said. "Seems a lot of fuss for something that's only gonna tell you boring stuff you already know."
"It's very important," said Anathema.
"You promised," said Sarah.
Aziraphale put his hand over Crowley's and squeezed.
Adam rolled his eyes. On the upswing, the book was a bag of ash. On the downswing, the bag of ash was a book. A very old book, with familiar type on the front. Anathema and Aziraphale shot forward, eyes gleaming. Adam held it out of their reach. "You gotta promise this is the last favor," he said. "I didn't save the world jus' so I could go around doing favors for everybody, an' I don't want this to set a president."
"Promise," said Anathema, as Aziraphale said, "of course, of course."
Sarah and Crowley shrugged.
"Good." Adam tossed the book into the air. As everyone grabbed for it, he slipped past Sarah and out the door, running free at last.
To no one’s surprise, Aziraphale won the scuffle, and retreated to the side of the room clutching the book to his chest. Anathema’s fingers itched to grab for it, so she grabbed onto Sarah instead and demanded, “Let me see it.”
Aziraphale glared. “I’m not sure that’s such a wise idea.”
“It’s my book.”
“You burnt it.”
“I got it back,” Sarah said. “Why don’t we, ah, look at it now, before we decide who gets to keep it.” Anathema considered it a sign that she’d made friends with a woman who was able to stand up to an angel.
Aziraphale seemed about to decline, but Crowley shrugged at him, and he relented. They spread the book on the kitchen table and clustered around the Further Nice and Accurate Prophecies.
—
Forewarde: dedicayted to thofe who have recovered thif book
i. When thif text be read, I will have been burned and burned again.
Yef of courfe I faw that. Who do you take me for?
ii. To the ferpent:*
This booke doth not speake of the End. There will be one, but I have yet to fee it. Blame the Witchfindere Armie for that one. I’m juft getting to the goode part.
[*“That’s me,” Crowley said. Anathema shushed him.]
iii. To the book collectore:
I’m glad to have met fuche a devoted fan. Tayke my advice and look to the future.
ix. To the Witchfinder:*
No harde feelingf, eh? There will be a place for you too. Try Thai food already, whatevere that if.
[*”That’s me,” Newt said. Aziraphale shushed him.]
x. To Anathema:
I don’t know the anfwer, Anathema. But I fufpect you alredie do.
xi. To Sarah:
Fhe was telling the truthe.
xii. Af the followinge prophecies will show, it is an Exciteing Worlde that Is To Come.
—
Crowley sagged against Aziraphale’s side in relief. “It’s not soon,” he murmured.
“Once again, it is ineffable,” Aziraphale said softly. “But no. Not soon.”
Anathema shook her head and read,“yef of courfe I faw that,” over and over. It was okay, then. She had been supposed to burn the book. All of this was in accordance with the prophecies. She wasn’t sure why she’d ever doubted it.
Newt shuffled, feeling a bit of an odd wheel. Aziraphale was drawing gentle fingers up and down Crowley’s spine. Anathema was clutching Sarah’s hand. He wondered if an angel or a demon could arrange to have takeaway delivered to Lower Tadfield.
Sarah rolled around the phrase she was telling the truth again and again in her mind. She’d already known it, sort of. Expected something different from Anathema and been proved right.
“It is ascendant,” she said suddenly. “That’s what you can be instead of a descendant, Anathema.”
Anathema’s lips quirked up in half a smile. “Ascendant?”
“It doesn’t matter what we’re descended from,” Sarah said. “We get to rise past that. Whether Agnes saw it or not.”
Anathema’s grin was dazzling. “Professional ascendants,” she said. “It’s got a ring to it.”
It had been a long day, and Sarah was just wrung out enough to be reckless. She leaned forward and kissed Anathema. Anathema kissed her back. It felt like flying.
—
In the aftermath of the aftermath, they kissed more. Sarah took Anathema to her room, and then Anathema took several of Sarah’s paintings to her cottage. The aerial view of a town became an artist’s rendition of ley-lines. Anathema rested her chin on Sarah’s shoulder and offered critique, and this was the first of Sarah’s paintings to be accepted to a gallery.
Newt worked up the courage to ask Crowley for restaurant recommendations. He couldn’t afford any of them, but Crowley waved his hand and said he’d take care of it. The first Thai place he tried was delicious, and the register shorted out right when Newt was about to pay. “That wasn’t me,” Crowley admitted later. “I forgot. A job well done, though, I must say.”
It was decided Aziraphale would keep the book in his shop. “For safekeeping,” he said rather haughtily to Anathema. “Because he misses his collection,” Crowley explained privately to Sarah. The rarest book in the world didn’t make up for Aziraphale’s life’s work, but it was a start. Crowley deciding to more or less move in at the same time helped as well.
Anathema was invited to come and read it and make notes whenever she wanted, and at first this was an extensive, weekly trip (if only because Sarah would only drive her once a week). Slowly, the trips became less and less frequent, and then Anathema was gone for an entire month while she and Sarah went abroad.
It was not so much a flight upwards as a struggling climb up a sheer mountainside. Few ascents ever are. Still. A certain tiny cottage in Lower Tadfield looks especially picturesque from above.
The weather the next day was nice, almost aggressively so, as though it had tolerated one day of rain and decided that was quite enough of that, thank you very much. All that was left was a thick layer of mud and the scent of the earth heavy in the air. If there had been a rainbow, and it would have seemed wrong if there wasn’t, Sarah had missed it. That was a shame.
Sarah was pulling out papers; brochures to art galleries she should inquire about, photographs of paintings she needed to add to her portfolio, descriptions of her pieces and letters of introduction. All the more tedious trappings of being a professional artist. She was holed up in her room because her mother was home, and probably deep-cleaning the refrigerator. Just once Sarah would like to see Adam get roped into helping with the terrible chores.
There was a knock at the door, and then a ring of the bell.
Sarah dropped her papers on the bed. The window in her room looked on the front yard but not the front door. Therefore she couldn’t see the knocker, but she could see a familiar bicycle leaning against the gate. Excitement and anger flared in her chest.
“I’ll answer it!” she called to the kitchen, and bolted for the door.
Anathema was standing on the stoop, same coat, same jewelry, and a graphic-print t-shirt that read It’s not magic, just common sense. “Hey.”
"Adam's not home," Sarah said by way of greeting. "He never is these days.”
Anathema bit her lip. “Okay,” she said, puzzled. Then, “I’m not looking for Adam.”
“Of course you are,” Sarah blurted.
“Can he drive?” Anathema said.
“He’s eleven.”
“Exactly.”
Sarah stepped onto the porch and closed the door behind her. “You were looking for him two days ago, and he didn’t say anything about you finding him.” It wasn’t proof, but Adam liked to talk.
Anathema opened her mouth, frowned, and closed it. She shook her head and the purple in her hair swished around her face. “That’s not important,” she said. “I need to get to London and my friend with a car has gone off.”
It was quite a favor, but to Anathema’s credit, Adam would definitely not be in London. Anathema shifted from foot to foot as Sarah looked her over. The mud on her boots clumped onto the stoop. “What’s in London?” Sarah asked finally.
“A demon,” Anathema said.
“First angels and now—”
“I need to see someone about a book,” Anathema said quickly. “I’ll explain on the way, but I’ve got an address and no way to get there.”
“Not even on your flying bicycle?”
Anathema turned to look. The bicycle was sitting on the ground. “I don’t think it actually does that,” she said, but didn’t sound convinced. “But I’ll have you know it didn’t rust.”
Sarah laughed. “Yeah, sure.” She weighed her options. Staying home would be safe and disappointing. Leaving would be risky and thrilling and, desperate times or not, Anathema had chosen her. She grinned. “We’ll be back here by tonight, won’t we?”
—
Anathema had not expected that to work. She felt rather smug that it had.
Sarah drove with her multicolored hands loosely around the steering wheel, giving Anathema sideways glances whenever she took her eyes off the road. Possibly she was mulling over what Anathema had said.
Most people didn’t really believe in witchcraft or demons or prophecies, or rather, they believed that they were things that might really happen, but always happened to someone else. Anathema had learned to be Nice and Accurate, and so she had told Sarah that she had burned a book, and needed to see a demon in London about getting it back. “It’s a book written by my ancestor, a witch named Agnes Nutter,” Anathema had explained. “She was writing about the future.”
—
Sarah, as people were wont to do, rationalized it all. Anathema had lost an heirloom and wanted it replaced. The only existing copy was held by some shady book dealer. “We’re not in any danger from this demon, are we?” she asked.
“Nah,” Anathema said. “I’ve got protective sigils. And a knife. And I think he’s mostly harmless.”
Anathema, Sarah decided, had an excellent sense of humor. She could use more of that. Her boyfriend of two years ago had been funny and adventurous and they’d planned to travel the world together. They’d checked off England, Spain, and Scotland before they ran out of money and realized that, without new and exciting locales, they were rather boring people who just so happened to be fantastic at travel itineraries. Anathema was not a boring person. And she was terrible at travel.
They had to stop at the cottage to grab her wallet, and Sarah raided her cupboards for snacks and found mostly granola. She had an address and no directions, and her only map of the area was covered in thick black lines that swirled and centered on Lower Tadfield. Most of the important road names and junction were entirely obscured.
“You’re not prepared for a day trip at all,” Sarah said as they pulled out.
“I would be if I knew what to prepare for,” Anathema huffed. “Things usually turn out all right.”
“You’re ridiculous,” Sarah said.
—
“Here we go,” Sarah said out of the blue. “We’re officially out of Lower Tadfield.”
Anathema looked out the window. There were no signs, just countryside and trees, but the more she looked the more she could sense it; in the color of the grass and the sharpness of the air.
“My favorite point on this road,” Sarah said. “Everything gets a little more real. Sometimes Tadfield is like living in a bubble, you know? Like the whole world might pass you by if you let it.”
“It’s a weird town,” Anathema agreed.
“I’m getting out of there, soon as I can,” Sarah said. “Back to university, and I’ll set up in a city somewhere. Look, the roads get bad right away, the trees more gnarled, it’s like an entirely different world.”
“It feels loved,” Anathema said. “That’s what I get from Tadfield anyway. Someone—” and it was only speculation, really, but she didn’t say who, “really loves it.”
Sarah scoffed. “Someone, maybe, but not me. I like this bit right here. A little wild, a little off. People come to pain the scenery of Tadfield, and it’s gorgeous, sure. That’s where I started. But out here things have teeth and personality.” She shook her head. “Maybe it’s just ‘cause it’s my home. I dunno.”
“Homes are odd places,” Anathema said. “You can’t go two steps in mine without tripping over some piece of Device history. We’ve got a few actual Devices cremated and stored on shelves, because they wanted to see how things turned out.”
“Not really.”
“Honest.” She found herself thinking about Newt all of a sudden. “My family likes living in the past and in the future more than they like living in the present.”
“My parents live in the past,” Sarah said, nodding. “The good old days. Back before people had lives, apparently.”
“Maybe the Youngs didn’t have lives. The Devices got into all sorts of trouble.” Anathema spent the next ten miles regaling Sarah with tales of intrigue. Roland Device, who had infiltrated the government to match top-secret cover-ups to certain prophecies. Henrietta Device who’d run away from her family only to have a vital epiphany while exploring the South Pole. Lucretia Device who had caused a scandal by fooling a pastor and marrying a woman, and then made people feel bad about being upset by joining a volunteer firefighting group and saving lives.
Sarah perked up at that last story. “Lucretia sounds like quite a woman,” she said carefully.
“I wish I’d gotten to meet her,” Anathema said.
The silence was heavy with two young women keeping their thoughts and hopes to themselves. She couldn’t be, Anathema thought. She watched Sarah’s face as she focused on the road, the thoughtful crease of her eyebrows.
“So what makes you different?” Sarah finally asked. “Why’d you leave the family burial grounds for Lower Tadfield?” They were questions no one had ever thought to ask.
Anathema ran her hands through her hair. “I thought the world was going to end,” she said honestly. “Then it didn’t.”
“That led you to Tadfield?”
Anathema almost blamed Agnes for sending her there, but that wouldn’t be entirely accurate. Sarah deserved accuracy. “I just wanted to understand it all,” she said.
“And do you?”
“No.” Anathema gave a dry chuckle. “I understand less then when I started. Without this book we’re going to fetch… What is there to be besides a descendant?”
“Resplendent,” Sarah suggested, only half-serious. “Ascendant. Phosphorescent.”
Anathema shook her head. There didn’t seem to be a point to any of that. How did one move on from the Apocalypse? “I just want answers,” she said.
“All right, then,” Sarah said. “So what’s today’s question?”
Anathema went with the easy answer. “Will the demon even be home when we get there?”
—
By the time they were close enough to London and Sarah had to focus all her attention on the traffic, Anathema had explained that the markings on the map were ley-lines around Lower Tadfield, and given Sarah permission to paint her necklace, and had touched her shoulder four times, probably on accident.*
[*They weren’t.]
Sarah had also come to a conclusion. Anathema was a landscape after all. Not a forest or a field of the sort Sarah often painted. You couldn’t flush birds out of her hair or admire the pastoral quality of her chin; she was too precise for much foliage. No, she was a cliff-face. Accurate and straightforward, yes, but with unexpected angles and crevasses that kept you always the tiniest bit uncertain what she meant by them. She didn’t just encourage you to look and feel peaceful, she encouraged you to climb.
She almost said something about it. Then Anathema pointed to a rather swanky building and said, “We’re here.”
—
Crowley answered the door to his apartment, obnoxiously on the top floor of a very tall building, with a glare that quickly turned into a look of uncertainty. “You’re the witch,” he said. He was wearing sunglasses even though he was indoors, and what seemed to be an expensive black suit. Maybe it was to counter the sparse, aesthetic white of his apartment.
“Anathema Device. Professional apocalypse stopper and descendant.” She held out a hand to shake.
“Sarah Young,” Sarah said, extending her own.
Crowley did not shake either hand. “Young as in—”
“She drove me here from Lower Tadfield,” Anathema said. “I’ve done something very stupid, and I’d like some help undoing it. Occult help, preferably.”
Crowley looked rattled. He stepped nervously away from them both. “I don’t help people,” he said, affronted. “How did you get this address, anyway? The phone books invariably get it wrong.” This was, Anathema gathered, on purpose.
“Witchcraft. More reliable than phone books.” Anathema brushed inside. In her head, Agnes Nutter said, and thee fall walk into the ferpentf denne, Anathema, and thee fall never returne, becaufe thou art a bloody ftupid fool. Anathema ignored her.
Crowley followed. “You can’t just walk in here,” he protested, despite Anathema having done just that.
“You and your angel friend stole my book of prophecy,” Anathema said. “And we saved the world together. Well, we were both there at least. The least you can do is hear me out.” She sat down on the sofa. Sarah hovered by the doorway. Her eyes were wide as though, despite all Anathema’s warnings, she still hadn’t believed the truth of the situation. Nothing to be done for that now.
Crowley stood with his arms crossed about halfway between them. He looked at his watch. It was a very expensive watch. “Two minutes,” he said. “After that there will be consequences.”
“What sort of consequences?” Sarah asked.
Crowley gave her a look that clearly said you shut up, I’ve still got two minutes to think of them. Sarah closed her mouth abruptly.
Anathema cleared her throat. “Agnes Nutter wrote a second book of prophecy,” she said. “It was delivered to me the day after we all got back from the airfield.”
Crowley’s mouth fell open. “There’s another one?”
“There was,” Anathema said. “Newt and I burnt it.”
“You what?”
“It was a bad idea.”
Crowley ran a hand through his hair, which succeeded in not mussing it up at all. “Well?” he asked. “How long did she give us before we’ve got to go through this whole thing again? And don’t say something like a hundred years as though that’s ages away. Blink of an eye, really.”
“I don’t know,” Anathema said. “I’m not sure what she was getting at. We never read it.”
“You never—!”
Crowley had a television in his flat. Flat screen. Able to play anything on any channel (or video recording) at the press of a button. It only worked for Crowley. Anyone else pressing the button would come quickly to the conclusion that the remote was out of batteries, and the rest of it had never been plugged in. At this moment, the television screen shattered.
All three turned to stare at it, open mouthed.
“Ngk,” said Crowley. He turned back to Anathema. “Witch, do you really mean to tell me that you had another book of prophecies and you burned it without reading anything? No thought to who might need it?”
“Well that’s why I’ve come to you, isn’t it?” Anathema retorted. She was not about to let herself cry in the presence of a demon, and so reacted with anger. “I’ve got to get that book back, and I can’t do it alone.”
Crowley pinched the bridge of his nose. He looked unwell. “I can’t,” he said. “I can’t just snap my fingers and—” he snapped his fingers. A pile of very fine ash appeared on his very white carpet. He winced.
“Is that it?” Anathema demanded, but she knew it was. It was the aura off that pile of ash. It felt like Agnes. Anathema thought she might be sick.
“Assuming I got the right book.” He looked at the pile and swallowed thickly.
And fo the ferpent lofef hif lunche in plain fight, Agnes said in Anathema’s head. Withe ye foon to followe.
“Could you tell me where to find the angel?” Anathema asked weakly. She’d made a backup plan and wasn’t about to let it go to waste. “Maybe he could—”
Crowley’s face was a mixture of anger and terror. “Never,” he said, his voice thick with a snakelike hiss, “tell Asssiraphale you sssset fire to a book. Essspecially not one like thisss.”
“Why not?” Sarah demanded. Her voice shook.
Crowley started and turned to face her. “Becausse,” he said. “He’s going to be upsset.”
—
After they both promised they wouldn’t breathe a word, Crowley conjured up a plastic bag and put the ashes in it. Anathema tucked the whole thing into her pocket. She felt just a little bit more secure having it, even if she had no one to take it to.
Sarah was silent as they left the flat and entered the elevator. Ten floors was a long way down. “That’s what we came to London for?” she asked. Her voice was very small, and she scrunched her key ring over and over in her hand.
“I thought he’d be more helpful,” Anathema said.
Nine floors.
“He was an actual demon.”
“Uh-huh.”
Eight.
“And there’s an angel somewhere that probably wants to kill you.”
“I wasn’t expecting that, either,” Anathema admitted. She hefted the plastic bag full of ash. “I’ll just have to recreate this, I suppose.” She no longer felt confident about her chances.
Seven.
Six.
Five.
“How the hell,” Sarah said deliberately, “does that demon know my brother?”
Four.
“What makes you—”
“Did you see how he looked at me?” Sarah burst out. “As soon as he heard my name, suddenly he was afraid of me. A demon. Me. And don’t try to tell me I was reading that wrong. This has been happening to me my entire life and I’m sick of it. You were looking for Adam earlier, and yes, it does matter. What has he done, and how does that demon know my brother?”
Two.
One.
“Ah,” Anathema said. “About that.”
—
Anathema had never learned to drive. There hadn’t seemed much point. If she had, she would have offered to take the wheel back to Lower Tadfield, because Sarah barely seemed to see the road. Her soft jaw was tight, her knuckles white around the wheel. Her aura appeared brittle and sharp, like it would cut Anathema if it had any physical presence.
Anathema had done her best to explain. Her head was clearer now that she was away from Lower Tadfield— and away from Adam— but the bag of ash was heavy on her thigh, feeling for all the world like it would never change back. Besides, there was no good way to say “it turns out your younger brother is the Antichrist” and expect Sarah to take it well.
Anathema had padded the story with details; the Nice and Accurate Prophecies, the horsepersons, the angel and the demon. The aliens and rains of fish and Tibetans made Sarah’s grey eyes flashed in what might have been recognition. Her memory may have been tampered with as well, but all those phenomena were still in there somewhere.
"You're not joking," Sarah said once she was done.
"I never was.”
“Does that mean my dad is Satan?”
“I don’t think so. Agnes talked about baby swapping at some point.”
“Hmm.”
And then Sarah had gone silent. That was miles ago. Anathema spun her rings around her fingers and stared out at the road.
They passed a gnarled tree that Anathema recognized from the first half of the journey. Sarah had said she wanted to paint it; said the bark looked like it meant something. Maybe it did, because that's when Sarah burst out, "you know, that almost makes sense." She gave a strangled laugh. "Would explain a lot, really. The Antichrist. Hell."
Anathema nodded encouragingly.
"You know what else it'd explain," she said. "Why you wanted me to drive you. I thought it would be fun, maybe? Friends? I should have known better."
"Hold on," Anathema said. "That's what it was. And you had a car, but--"
Sarah twisted her hands around the steering wheel. "You brought me along to help you bully the demon! As leverage, 'cause if something happened to me the Antichrist would be all up in arms, right? Sigils and bread knives, hah!”
Anathema’s mouth fell open. “Sarah.”
“You would do anything for that stupid book.”
Anathema’s anger flared. “Don’t you dare.”
“There are enough people who want to tell you how to live your life. I’ve got a family full of them. It’s stupid and you’re better off without it.”
“Without that book, I am nothing.”
“And,” Sarah continued, pulling threads together without really listening, “I’m the only one with a car? Hah! Your boyfriend has one. Am I supposed to believe he wouldn’t drive you?”
“He’s not my boyfriend!” Anathema snapped, and then, before she could think better of it, “I’m gay.”
The car swerved. Anathema clutched the door. She shouldn’t have said that. Not all of a sudden like this. If she’d only known when she was bound to say it…
Finally Sarah responded. “No, you’re not.”
“I probably am,” Anathema said. “Or something. It’s only occurred to me recently.”
Sarah shook her head. “You’re playing me again.”
“How would that be playing you?”
More silence. Sarah’s eyes were still glued to the road, but Anathema blinked and suddenly they were filled with tears, already tracking halfway down her cheeks.
“Woah,” Anathema said. “Sarah, okay, pull over.” The car shuddered at the sudden change in terrain, then stopped. Sarah continued to cry.
Anathema was not particularly good at comfort, but she did her best. Placed a hand on her shoulder that Sarah leaned into. Offered reassurances— things would be okay, really— that she couldn’t properly cite. Didn’t ask for an explanation when Sarah finally answered her question with a strangled, “That’d be too convenient.”
They might not have been friends anymore, but at least they were warm bodies.
And to be fair, it was a lot to handle. Anathema cried too, hiding her face behind Sarah’s back as they held each other.
Anathema didn’t notice, until Sarah had cried herself out and turned back onto the road, that Agnes had nothing to add.
—
They arrived at Jasmine Cottage several hours later. Night was falling. The ride had been quiet but safe, and the only lasting casualties were the used tissues now littering Sarah’s car. Anathema insisted Sarah stay on the sofa while she made tea. It took her several minutes to notice a message light blinking on the phone. The last Anathema had checked, there was no way for that phone to save messages.
She pressed the only button, which was “play.”
“Uh, hi,” said the all-too-familiar recorded voice. “You know what I said about Aziraphale being upset if he ever found out about the second book? Well he did. He wants to see it for himself. Nothing to worry about, probably. Just, ah, don’t set it on more fire than it was already, I suppose. Won’t be long.”
The machine clicked off and then, job completed, stopped existing.
“Well shit,” said Anathema.
There was a knock at the door.
Anathema and Sarah each jumped about a foot in the air, but it was not an avenging angel on the doorstep. It was Newt.
“What are you doing here?” Anathema demanded.
“I think I’ve made a mistake,” Newt said. “Shadwell had his phone number. I thought, well, he’s an angel, maybe he could help you. I’m not sure that went so well.”
“No,” Anathema said. Her voice was weak. “No, I don’t think it did.”
“What are you going to do?” Sarah asked.
Anathema’s mind was blank with fear. She leaned against the wall of the cottage so she wouldn’t fall over. I don’t know I don’t know I don’t know.
“I’ll scare them off,” Sarah decided. She set her jaw firmly. Her aura pulsed with determination. “If the demon doesn’t trust me, the angel won’t either. I’ll get them to… go away, or something.”
It might have worked. It was certainly a better plan than anything Anathema had come up with. But instead she said, “No.”
“What do you mean, no?”
Anathema took a breath. “I honestly did want to be friends. I didn’t mean to use you. If I make it out of this, I don’t want you mad at me.”
Sarah gaped.
“Crowley said it was probably nothing to worry about," Anathema said, not meaning it. “Go.”
—
It was too much. Sarah went. The secrets of the universe pulsed through her body, and that made her very powerful indeed. Working on instinct only, she left her car at the cottage and ran down the muddy road. With every squelch of her foot in the mud she thought about going back, but her body wouldn’t cooperate. Realizations pounded repetitions in her head. Angel coming, demon coming, Anathema’s gay, Adam’s been magically screwing me over THIS WHOLE TIME.
It wasn’t until she was heading up the drive, breath coming short as she entered the warm glow of the porch light, that she realized she’d been going home. She did not take off her shoes or even wipe them on the mat, but instead squelched her way upstairs.
The door to Adam’s room, decorated by a painstakingly scrawled Keep Out sign, was closed but not locked. Sarah pushed it open.
—
A black Bentley, fully intact but not quite right, drove into Lower Tadfield. In the driver’s seat was a demon who felt that coming back to this town at all, let alone two weeks after the Apocalypse had almost happened, was a terrible idea. Still, he was there because Aziraphale had asked him to be. Also, he had a car.
On the passenger side was an angel who hadn’t quite come to terms with his collection of rare books being burned up and replaced with different rare books. He folded his smooth, brown, well-manicured hands in his lap, then unfolded them, then folded them a different way. If there was any chance… a second volume of Agnes Nutter’s work that had been unknown for centuries would be the crowning achievement of any collector… Well, he had to see it for himself, even if there was, as Crowley assured him, nothing left.
“Jasmine Cottage,” Crowley said to himself. “Down this way.” He rested a hand on Aziraphale’s arm.
—
“You’re not allowed in here,” said Adam. He sounded surprised, and Sarah realized she couldn’t remember the last time she’d been in his room. She didn’t recognize half the mess on the floor, and there were so many magazines with spaceships and Elvis on the covers.
“You need to help Anathema,” Sarah said.
“No I don’t.” Adam said. He was lying on his stomach on the bed, a piece of paper and a pencil in front of him. The comforter shouldn’t have been firm enough for him to write without stabbing holes in the paper, but he was doing it anyway. “I told you, she doesn’t really want to see me.”
Sarah felt a slight breeze, as though the world had displaced a little air when it shifted. She held her ground. “Don’t you dare, you little brat.”
“Come on,” Adam said. “I’m busy. Lea’me alone.”
The breeze came again, but it didn’t take. “No,” said Sarah.
Adam wrinkled his nose. “You’d better.”
“I know what you are,” Sarah said. “And I don’t care.”
“What do you mean, what I am?”
Sarah fixed him with a Look.
Adam said, “Oh.”
Sarah said, “Anathema just needs a book fixed. That’s all. And you owe me.”
“No I don’t.”
“You owe me,” Sarah repeated, “for cheating on every damned coin toss and guessing game your entire life. Besides,” she continued. “I can tell your friends that the drought was your fault. Dad might not believe me, but they will.”
—
Anathema was watching out the window when the Bentley pulled up, right behind Sarah’s Beetle. The headlights were on this time; otherwise she might not have seen the car or the two figures that stepped out.
“That’s a nice car,” Newt said, somewhat ruining the drama of the moment. “A real classic.”
“Hush,” said Anathema. She opened the door before either of approaching figures could knock. It felt good to be able to do that. Like she was, again, a little bit ahead of the times.
“Come in,” she said, with a note of doom in her voice.
“Don’t mind if we do,” said Crowley. He was holding onto Aziraphale's arm, which seemed only right. His face was pinched and worried, but he looked more at ease by Aziraphale’s side than he had in a flat by himself.
Anathema hadn’t remembered much about Aziraphale from the airfield, and looking at him now she could see why. His appearance; old green sweater pulled over a round belly, thick glasses over soft, dark skin, seemed almost curated to get its owner dismissed as a harmless eccentric. Then he looked into Anathema’s face and she got the sense of something gold and fiery and very, very dangerous.*
[*It was not his aura. Aziraphale and Crowley had auras which looked surprisingly normal, that is to say human, only quite a bit older.]
“Young lady," Aziraphale said. "A young man in the Witchfinder Army led me to believe that Agnes Nutter had written a second book of prophecy?”
“Er,” said Newt. Crowley gave him a sharp look.
"Yeah," said Anathema. She pulled out the plastic bag filled with ash. "Mistakes were made." She spread her feet on the floor and prepared to be smote.
Aziraphale made a strangled noise in the back of his throat and took the bag in reverent hands. "Oh dear," he said. "Oh dear."
Crowley watched the bag as though it foretold his own demise, which it very possibly had.
"Is there anything you can do?" Anathema asked cautiously. This was not quite the reaction she'd expected.
With shaky hands, Aziraphale handed it over to Crowley, who clearly did not want to hold it. "You're quite sure you can’t—?"
"Sorry, Angel."
"Ah."
Anathema swallowed down waves of guilt.
Aziraphale fixed her with a sharp look. "And just how," he said, "did it come to resurface and be burnt in the first place?"
Anathema opened her mouth to give a Nice and Accurate answer. The door opened.
Immediately the cottage got warmer and brighter, and everyone stepped back as a surly eleven year old boy slouched inside. He was followed by his older sister, watching him with her arms crossed, compelling the Antichrist to behave, in the way only an eldest sibling can.
"Ngk," said Crowley, and very nearly dropped the bag.
"Sarah," Anathema said.
"What're you all lookin' at me for?" Adam demanded unnecessarily.
"Where's the book?" Sarah said. "He's promised to fix it up."
Aziraphale took the bag from Crowley and wordlessly extended it. Adam took it, unimpressed. "Is this all?" he said. "Seems a lot of fuss for something that's only gonna tell you boring stuff you already know."
"It's very important," said Anathema.
"You promised," said Sarah.
Aziraphale put his hand over Crowley's and squeezed.
Adam rolled his eyes. On the upswing, the book was a bag of ash. On the downswing, the bag of ash was a book. A very old book, with familiar type on the front. Anathema and Aziraphale shot forward, eyes gleaming. Adam held it out of their reach. "You gotta promise this is the last favor," he said. "I didn't save the world jus' so I could go around doing favors for everybody, an' I don't want this to set a president."
"Promise," said Anathema, as Aziraphale said, "of course, of course."
Sarah and Crowley shrugged.
"Good." Adam tossed the book into the air. As everyone grabbed for it, he slipped past Sarah and out the door, running free at last.
To no one’s surprise, Aziraphale won the scuffle, and retreated to the side of the room clutching the book to his chest. Anathema’s fingers itched to grab for it, so she grabbed onto Sarah instead and demanded, “Let me see it.”
Aziraphale glared. “I’m not sure that’s such a wise idea.”
“It’s my book.”
“You burnt it.”
“I got it back,” Sarah said. “Why don’t we, ah, look at it now, before we decide who gets to keep it.” Anathema considered it a sign that she’d made friends with a woman who was able to stand up to an angel.
Aziraphale seemed about to decline, but Crowley shrugged at him, and he relented. They spread the book on the kitchen table and clustered around the Further Nice and Accurate Prophecies.
—
i. When thif text be read, I will have been burned and burned again.
Yef of courfe I faw that. Who do you take me for?
ii. To the ferpent:*
This booke doth not speake of the End. There will be one, but I have yet to fee it. Blame the Witchfindere Armie for that one. I’m juft getting to the goode part.
[*“That’s me,” Crowley said. Anathema shushed him.]
iii. To the book collectore:
I’m glad to have met fuche a devoted fan. Tayke my advice and look to the future.
ix. To the Witchfinder:*
No harde feelingf, eh? There will be a place for you too. Try Thai food already, whatevere that if.
[*”That’s me,” Newt said. Aziraphale shushed him.]
x. To Anathema:
I don’t know the anfwer, Anathema. But I fufpect you alredie do.
xi. To Sarah:
Fhe was telling the truthe.
xii. Af the followinge prophecies will show, it is an Exciteing Worlde that Is To Come.
—
Crowley sagged against Aziraphale’s side in relief. “It’s not soon,” he murmured.
“Once again, it is ineffable,” Aziraphale said softly. “But no. Not soon.”
Anathema shook her head and read,“yef of courfe I faw that,” over and over. It was okay, then. She had been supposed to burn the book. All of this was in accordance with the prophecies. She wasn’t sure why she’d ever doubted it.
Newt shuffled, feeling a bit of an odd wheel. Aziraphale was drawing gentle fingers up and down Crowley’s spine. Anathema was clutching Sarah’s hand. He wondered if an angel or a demon could arrange to have takeaway delivered to Lower Tadfield.
Sarah rolled around the phrase she was telling the truth again and again in her mind. She’d already known it, sort of. Expected something different from Anathema and been proved right.
“It is ascendant,” she said suddenly. “That’s what you can be instead of a descendant, Anathema.”
Anathema’s lips quirked up in half a smile. “Ascendant?”
“It doesn’t matter what we’re descended from,” Sarah said. “We get to rise past that. Whether Agnes saw it or not.”
Anathema’s grin was dazzling. “Professional ascendants,” she said. “It’s got a ring to it.”
It had been a long day, and Sarah was just wrung out enough to be reckless. She leaned forward and kissed Anathema. Anathema kissed her back. It felt like flying.
—
In the aftermath of the aftermath, they kissed more. Sarah took Anathema to her room, and then Anathema took several of Sarah’s paintings to her cottage. The aerial view of a town became an artist’s rendition of ley-lines. Anathema rested her chin on Sarah’s shoulder and offered critique, and this was the first of Sarah’s paintings to be accepted to a gallery.
Newt worked up the courage to ask Crowley for restaurant recommendations. He couldn’t afford any of them, but Crowley waved his hand and said he’d take care of it. The first Thai place he tried was delicious, and the register shorted out right when Newt was about to pay. “That wasn’t me,” Crowley admitted later. “I forgot. A job well done, though, I must say.”
It was decided Aziraphale would keep the book in his shop. “For safekeeping,” he said rather haughtily to Anathema. “Because he misses his collection,” Crowley explained privately to Sarah. The rarest book in the world didn’t make up for Aziraphale’s life’s work, but it was a start. Crowley deciding to more or less move in at the same time helped as well.
Anathema was invited to come and read it and make notes whenever she wanted, and at first this was an extensive, weekly trip (if only because Sarah would only drive her once a week). Slowly, the trips became less and less frequent, and then Anathema was gone for an entire month while she and Sarah went abroad.
It was not so much a flight upwards as a struggling climb up a sheer mountainside. Few ascents ever are. Still. A certain tiny cottage in Lower Tadfield looks especially picturesque from above.
