Happy Holidays, cursiell_4!
Dec. 12th, 2020 05:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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go_exchangeTitle: Roots of Knowledge
Recipient: cursiell4
Rating: T
Pairings and Characters: Anathema Device/Newton Pulsifer, Crowley/Aziraphale, Agnes Nutter, Jaime Hernez, Original Female Character
Summary: Agnes isn’t quite done with Anathema yet.
Word Count: 8,101
Author’s Note: I do not speak Portuguese, so I tried to confine my use of it to simple, easily verifiable phrases. If any errors have slipped through despite this, I apologize unreservedly.
003. Thefe wordes of myne unread remain, but I repeat: ye saga continuef. Embrace wonne anothere in the warmth of myne latest flaymes, and I sharle meet the Younge boy and see yowe on the Othere Side of thee Worlde, youre Worlde that yette liveth.
Sleep is a curious thing. One of the pleasures of the world, the demon Crowley would swear up and down, but even as he meant to enjoy every minute of it in this wonderful, indefinitely preserved world, he found to his distress that it was beginning to lose its savour. In his immaculate flat in London, a Crowley with little in the way of low-grade evil to attend to tossed and turned in his bed, desperate to shut out one insistent, chilling thought: Now what?
Not far away in London, the angel Aziraphale, who had never slept a wink and didn’t intend to start now, stared at his accounts, wholly unwilling to admit to the parallel thoughts thronging his head like the sort of halo angels rarely wore, any more than demons routinely sprouted horns. Surrounded by his precious books, neither burnt nor drowned by tidal waves from bloody seas, Aziraphale oughtn’t to have had a care in the world. And yet, as the clock ticked with no sense of urgency at all, he paced about the two or three square metres of the shop not occupied by stacks upon stacks of literary treasures, unable to put his finger on why.
Forty miles away in Tadfield, Newton Pulsifer slept soundly, the dreamless sleep of the contented individual who knows he’s lucked out to a disproportionate degree and isn’t about to question how, but next to him, an equally unconscious Anathema Device watched as a woman halfway around the world, her grey-streaked hair spread over her pillow in every conceivable direction, lay awake with a case of insomnia to rival Crowley’s, but originating from the rather more earthly cause of a late spring storm. A long, blinding, spidery bolt of lightning came home to roost within striking distance of the woman’s home.
As the walls shook at the answering clap of thunder, Clara Hernez heaved a sigh and tossed her bedclothes aside.
‘Merda,’ said Clara, glaring out the window. The storm may not have the sentience either to have targeted her personally or to be humbled by her displeasure, but if she was to be roused from her bed at half past one in the morning to unplug a computer that had cost a month’s wages, she would express it in no uncertain terms.
Jaime and Ana hadn’t wanted to buy it, something about how they wanted their children to climb trees while the world still had trees, but Clara found it useful both for the children’s schoolwork and for doing the calculations necessary to keep her fledgling embroidery business, a new chapter she hadn’t imagined would be necessary to start in middle age, afloat. She carefully removed the cord from the socket, and more lightning flashed outside as the house shook again at the thunder following on cue, and then words scrawled themselves across the monitor in a font resembling old-fashioned, nigh-illegible handwriting.
Mistrefs Hernez, they read, set against a blue screen straight out of a low-budget film. Charmede to meat yowe at last.
Once she’d accepted that she would have to sell her family’s farm, Clara had learnt enough English to converse with the dark-suited foreign merchants who came to call, but this English, if such it could be called, was hardly penetrable based on her experience of ‘Where is the library?’ and ‘The black cat runs through the green grass’ and ‘What you’re offering won’t even cover the equipment, quit lowballing me’. She stared at it. Without knowing why, without ever knowing why, she sat down at the keyboard.
‘O quê?’ Clara typed, and she swore the wind was laughing.
And Anathema Device sat bolt upright, sporadic raindrops pelting the roof of Jasmine Cottage like a gentle but insistent knocking on her skull, and a light breeze swatting jasmine vines against the window in a wave ‘hello’ from another plane. Agnes Nutter had more to say.
***
001. The Pulcifer boy a goode lad may be, but in this matter he be Wronge. Maike these wordes knoun to him, that he may take your Hande, and youre First Grate Adventure may begin.
Anathema gripped the bedside table, as if to hold her mounting panic at bay. She ought to have known she’d never escape Agnes, but if she wasn’t meant to escape Agnes, that could only mean further apocalyptic shenanigans, and she’d destroyed the only roadmap to avoid them—
No, Anathema told herself. That’s not all it could mean. You’re getting overexcited.
And even if that was what it meant, at least this time she wouldn’t be alone right up until the day of. Nodding to no one in particular, she switched on the lamp.
‘Newt,’ said Anathema. ‘Newt, wake up.’
‘Mmmm,’ Newt sighed into his pillow, still lost to the sleep of the blissfully ignorant. Anathema shook him, as much out of envy as urgency, and this time he woke, blinking in the dim light. ‘What—what’s going on? Are we late for something?’
‘Quite possibly,’ said Anathema. ‘Listen, I had a dream about Agnes. Well, not exactly about her, but about this woman in another country. She was speaking a foreign language, but I couldn’t tell which one. There was a storm, and she went to unplug her computer, and then Agnes spoke to her.’
‘Agnes spoke to her?’ asked Newt, through an undignified but, given the circumstances, more than understandable yawn. Anathema nodded.
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘through the computer. Words appeared on the screen, and they could only have been written by Agnes. You know her style.’
‘On the computer screen?’ asked Newt, and to Anathema’s surprise, he was grinning. ‘So either the ghost of Agnes Nutter has gone high-tech, or I’m rubbing off on you.’ He shook his head. ‘It was just a dream, Anathema.’
‘It can’t have been,’ said Anathema. ‘It felt real, everything about it felt so real…and when was the last time you dreamed about a person you’ve never met, in a language you don’t speak?’
‘It could’ve just been gibberish,’ said Newt. ‘That is, your subconscious just filled in something that sounded like a foreign language based on what you’ve heard on television, or in films. And the woman could’ve been a sort of, er, stock figure, couldn’t she?’
‘I…suppose so,’ said Anathema, drawing her knees up to her chest. ‘But I don’t think so. Newt, what if we’ve made a terrible mistake?’
Newt shook his head. ‘You have a right to live your own life, Anathema,’ he said, and then his eyes widened, as though struck by inspiration. ‘Come to think of it, that must be it. You’re nervous about your interview, so your subconscious has cooked up some sort of nightmare scenario where Agnes needs you back on the payroll.’
‘I’m not nervous,’ said Anathema. ‘Pepper’s mum said I had no reason to be. She said her colleagues loved my thesis.’
‘All the same,’ said Newt. ‘It’s normal to be unsure about starting a new life, and doesn’t it make a lot more sense than a three-hundred-year-old ghost taking over a computer?’
Anathema hesitated, and Newt reached over to take her hand. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘it’s almost five in the morning. Let’s try to get in a few more hours of sleep and worry about this when the sun comes up, all right?’
‘All right,’ said Anathema. She wasn’t convinced, but she was tired.
*
Halfway around the world, Clara Hernez was wired. After an hour or so of frustration, Clara had ascertained that the spirit who had taken over her computer was named Agnes, and that Agnes could understand her, whether she typed back, spoke aloud, or merely responded in her head, but seemed incapable of replying in kind. A breakthrough had been reached, however, with this suggestion: ‘Sownde yt oute.’
Not that Clara necessarily believed she wasn’t simply having a bizarre dream, but if she was, maybe she could use it to write a children’s book and come into some money to buy back the farm that way, if Agnes’ suggested lottery dates proved inaccurate.
‘They are accurate,’ said Agnes. ‘Also nife.’
‘Knife?’ asked Clara, confused.
‘Nice,’ corrected Agnes. ‘As in prefice. Alle yowe must do is meet myne descendant and the Pulcifer lad. He is a nice manne, if sometymes dimme. A vaft improvement on hys ancestor.’
Clara squinted, sounded it out, squinted again, and sounded it out again. ‘When are they coming?’ she asked.
‘Notte yet,’ said Agnes. ‘First they muft go wheyre the Occident terminates, and the Black Chariot defieth all lawes stationary.’
There was a knock at the door. ‘Mãe?’ said Jaime, yawning as he stepped, hesitantly, into the room. ‘O que está fazendo?’
‘Não te preocupes com isso,’ said Clara, visions of coffee fields dancing in her head. ‘Volte pra cama.’
*
Anathema hurried downstairs for a pen and paper. Black Chariot…well, that was classic Agnes, at least.
‘Wake up, Newt,’ she said, switching the light lamp back on and holding the notepad in front of him. ‘We’ve got to go somewhere in the West End.’
***
004. Youre fyrst stop lieth in London Towne. There will ye finde faces at once olde and new, and the Serpente sharle taike on the unlikely roll of Peas Maker.
Practical Occultist. Professional Descendant. Student of History’s Forgotten Inventors. Witch.
Anathema had rather hoped that her next job title would be ‘Norton Polytechnic Lecturer’, but it seemed that ‘Interesting Soho Day Person’ would come have to come first, if the former came at all. Wandering through central London brandishing her pendulum, with a confused and still sceptical Newt following at her heel, she shook her head as she rounded a corner. An illegally parked black car in a major urban centre was hardly a fair clue, but at least this signal was traceable, neither cloaked nor overwhelming. Even if it seemed to be two signals overlapping one another, opposite in tone but complementary, forming a strange sort of harmony that, as she closed in on it, seemed to be crooning, ‘Is this the real life?’
Mere blocks away, Crowley flipped through a book without reading it, and Aziraphale stared at him.
‘My dear, if you aren’t actually thinking of purchasing that, might I request that you place it, ever so carefully, back where you found it?’
‘Huh?’ said Crowley. ‘Oh. Right. Sure.’ He waved a hand, and the book resumed its place on the overstuffed shelf.
‘Thank you,’ said Aziraphale. ‘Now, is there any chance of your telling me just why you’re here?’ He leaned over the counter, nerves plain upon his face. ‘You haven’t heard from your side, have you?’
‘What?’ said Crowley. ‘No, not a peep. Why, have you heard from yours?’
‘No indeed,’ said Aziraphale. ‘Quiet as a mouse, as it were.’
‘Are mice quiet?’ asked Crowley. ‘Aren’t they supposed to squeak or something?’
‘Oh dear,’ said Aziraphale. ‘Have I mangled another of your modern expressions?’
‘No, and that one’s hardly modern. I was just realising it doesn’t make much sense.’ Crowley leaned back in his armchair. ‘Say, why don’t we open a bottle? Just the excuse you need to close up early.’
Aziraphale shook his head. ‘Why are you here, Crowley?’
Crowley shrugged. ‘Does a friend need a reason to stop by?’
‘Not typically,’ said Aziraphale, ‘but nonetheless, you usually have one. Are you sure there isn’t something troubling you?’
‘I didn’t think there was,’ said Crowley. ‘But if you must know, I couldn’t sleep last night.’
‘You don’t need to sleep at all,’ said Aziraphale. ‘But if you insist on adopting the custom, isn’t the occasional bout of insomnia part and parcel of it? I fail to see what’s so alarming.’
‘For humans, maybe, but not for me. I slept for nearly an entire century, angel. I’ve never not been able to sleep. Not until recently.’
‘Recently?’ asked Aziraphale. ‘What do you mean, recently? Not just last night?’
‘On and off since last summer,’ said Crowley. ‘Since we—you know—since it didn’t happen. It’s just, you know, what do we do now?’
‘We enjoy it, of course,’ said Aziraphale. ‘Wasn’t that the entire idea? Why you tempted me into it, as it were?’
‘Oh no,’ said Crowley, ‘don’t you lay that at my feet. You were a willing participant, angel, as every last one of your precious books can attest.’ He leaned back further, settling into a proper slouch. ‘But yeah, it was.’
‘And haven’t you been enjoying it, then?’ asked Aziraphale. ‘You’re not having second thoughts, are you?’
‘Bless me, no,’ said Crowley. ‘And of course I’ve been enjoying it, but when I get back to my flat it’s just as if there’s…something missing. Have you felt that?’
Aziraphale sighed. ‘Truthfully, yes.’ Then the shop’s bell rang, and he stood up straighter. ‘And I’ll be damned if it’ll be one of the books. Just a moment, my dear.’
‘Knock ’em dead,’ said Crowley absently. His head snapped up, however, at the instantly recognisable gasp of ‘You!’
*
‘I remember you,’ said Anathema. The two figures made an almost perfect study in contrast. She remembered well enough the night they’d knocked her down—and driven off with the Book!—but they also figured into another memory, a blurry one of monumental importance in her life that she was, somehow, not allowed to access. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Newt nod.
‘You were there…that day,’ he said, trailing off. ‘But I don’t remember—’
‘Because no one does,’ said Anathema. ‘But if Agnes led me here, I wouldn’t be surprised if you do.’
‘Anathema Device,’ said Aziraphale, bowing his head in acknowledgement. ‘What do you mean, Agnes led you here? You don’t mean to imply…’ His mouth opened, and his eyes widened in awe. ‘Do you mean to say there are further prophecies?’
‘Well,’ said Anathema, her face burning. She ought to have been prepared for that question. She ought to have been prepared for everything. ‘Er,’ she stammered. ‘There, er, there were? And now there aren’t, but there might be anyway? Er, could we sit down? And since you clearly know me, could you maybe tell us who you are?’
‘Wine?’ said Crowley, a bottle miraculously appearing in his hand. Anathema and Newt stared at him, and then at one another, each silently confirming that the other wasn’t crazy. Aziraphale folded his arms, his mouth dropping open.
‘My dear,’ he breathed. ‘Do you really think it’s wise to, er, reveal ourselves to—’
‘To whoever she is, as that name means nothing to me? Sure, angel. We can erase their memories if necessary, and I’d like to know what’s going on.’ He removed his sunglasses, revealing snakelike pupils, and held out his free hand to Anathema. ‘Madwoman with the bicycle, eh? Good to see you. Crowley, Serpent of Eden, resident demon of Mayfair and inexplicable recent insomniac.’
Anathema blinked, taking in the sight of a monster who really didn’t seem all that monstrous, even accounting for his threat to erase her memory, whose aura read as positively friendly and strangely hopeful, holding out his hand like any other new acquaintance might. She took it.
‘Anathema Device, practical occultist and former professional descendant of Agnes Nutter. Wine sounds great.’
*
‘Well,’ said Anathema, sipping her wine on the couch in Aziraphale’s back room, ‘there weren’t supposed to be any more prophecies, but there wasn’t supposed to be any more world, either. And it looks like all of us—but mainly Adam’—and oh boy, did she need to talk to him—‘had a part in making sure that there would be more world. So, er, cheers to us? But it meant that there were more prophecies. We received the manuscript that morning. But, er, Newt and I thought that…after three hundred years…maybe it was time my family retired from the professional descendant business. So we, er…we burnt it.’
Aziraphale’s mouth opened and closed several times, and then Crowley sprang into action, stepping between the two of them. ‘Let me handle thissssssssssss,’ he hissed. ‘I’ll let you know when it’s sssssssssssssafe to come back in.’
*
It took a while. About five minutes in, Newt had suggested grabbing a drink at the pub across the street, and about thirty minutes in, Anathema dearly regretted not taking him up on it. The wind chafed their faces, and they huddled together on the bench.
Gradually, though, the cold, punishing air warmed around them, in a way that Anathema knew couldn’t be entirely attributed to Newt’s arm around her shoulders, but felt analogous to it, somehow. At last, the door to the shop opened, and Crowley beckoned them inside, retreating theatrically.
At least their memories didn’t appear to have been erased yet. That had to be something.
They resumed their seats in the back room, and Aziraphale stood to greet them, refilling their wine glasses. ‘Right,’ he said, in a distinctly arch tone, just short of a divine smiting, ‘you were saying?’
Anathema nodded, and took a deep drink of wine. ‘I was saying, we thought it was over. But last night I had these dreams, only they weren’t dreams, they were visions. Visions of Agnes, or her spirit, rather. She appears to have taken up residence in someone’s computer.’
‘Someone’s computer?’ said Aziraphale, blinking in surprise. ‘Did, er, did you see whose?’
‘Sort of,’ said Anathema. ‘That’s to say, I did, but I don’t know her. Agnes called her “Mistrefs Hernez”, but that’s not a lot to go on. She’s a middle-aged woman in another country, and she speaks what sounds like a Romance language, but I can’t tell which one. I’m pretty sure it’s not French.’
‘Well,’ said Aziraphale, ‘if you’ve seen her in your dreams, I suppose our most efficient course of action would be to put you to sleep.’
‘Not permanently,’ Crowley clarified, with a grin that plainly suggested he was enjoying being the nice one, or at least Aziraphale not being the nice one, for once. ‘Just a quick fact-finding nap.’
‘All right,’ said Anathema. ‘How much wine have you got?’
‘It’s rather simpler than that,’ said Aziraphale. He snapped his fingers, and Anathema keeled over, unconscious. Newt stood up, indignant.
‘You—you wake her up this instant,’ he sputtered. He patted Anathema’s face, gently but urgently. ‘Anathema! Anathema!’
‘She’ll be fine,’ said Crowley, ‘and she’ll wake up automatically once she’s learnt something worth reporting. More wine?’
*
Clara sat at her kitchen table, sipping what would not be her last cup of coffee as she flipped through an English dictionary that was thoroughly outdated, but not nearly outdated enough for her purposes. It was one thing to dream in a foreign language, quite another to dream in a butchered foreign language. The only thing stranger would be if it hadn’t been a dream at all, and the list of lottery dates carefully copied out in her own handwriting made a strong case to that effect.
She pushed the book aside and turned to gaze out the window, smiling at the flower boxes covering every bit of the balcony. It had grieved Jaime quite as much as herself when she’d signed the final deed of sale, but she’d insisted that if they couldn’t have a farm, at least they could have a garden. Once she’d settled in, they’d planted these together with painstaking care, as the next best thing.
She’d feared the storm might have battered them a bit, but they looked good as new, with curious blossoms opening up and the first tiny fruits growing on the tomato vines and the dwarf orange tree. Assuming she was neither being conned by a sinister organisation nor developing a mental disorder, the coming summer looked bright.
The door opened, and Clara turned to see Jaime, home well before his off time. ‘Jaime?’ she asked. ‘É uma e meia. Está tudo bem?’
*
Anathema’s eyes opened, and they met the eyes of an unnecessarily worried Newt. She smiled wanly at him, and then turned to Aziraphale and Crowley.
‘It’s no good,’ she said. ‘I saw her again, all right, but she’s with her son, and they’re speaking their native language because why would they speak anything else to each other in private. I can’t learn more about them if I can’t understand what they’re saying.’
‘Could, er, could you two fix that?’ asked Newt. ‘Do a, er, snap your fingers, or something, so Anathema can hear what they’re saying as English, like in science fiction?’
Crowley shrugged. ‘Sure, why not.’ He snapped his fingers, and Anathema passed out again.
‘Did a demon just lift the curse of Babel?’ asked Aziraphale, with exasperated affection.
‘Only temporarily,’ said Crowley defensively. ‘I’ll reverse it once we’ve got our intel. Sounds like Anathema’s got more than enough on her plate as a psychic anyway.’
‘She does, actually,’ said Newt. ‘She’ll appreciate your understanding.’
‘Shut up,’ said Crowley, taking a deep drink of wine.
*
‘I took my lunch early,’ said Jaime. ‘I was worried about you.’
‘Won’t your supervisor be angry?’ asked Clara. ‘You said he didn’t even like it when you ate under the tree.’
‘Only if he finds out,’ said Jaime. ‘Are you all right, Mother? You were miles away this morning.’
‘I’m just tired,’ said Clara. ‘I had the strangest dream, which I don’t think was a dream at all.’
Jaime nodded. ‘Didn’t all of us, just a few months ago? That day no one remembers?’
Clara nodded in turn. There had been...something had happened that day, she was sure of it, but she couldn’t say what it was, except that it was green. ‘This time, I do remember,’ she said, pushing her chair back from the table. ‘If I tell you, you’ll think I’ve gone mad.’
Jaime shook his head. ‘You’ve always been mad,’ he said. ‘Where do you think I get it from?’
Clara laughed. It was true, of course, and she couldn’t be prouder for it. ‘Follow me,’ she said, gesturing towards the computer room.
‘Welcome backe,’ read the screen. ‘Show himme the liste, it wille be quicker that way.’
‘Is it broken?’ asked Jaime. ‘I knew it was a waste of money.’
‘It’s not broken,’ said Clara. ‘It’s possessed.’
Jaime smiled. ‘That’s no madder than trees retaking the city all at once.’
‘Is that what happened?’ asked Clara. ‘I remember it, except that I don’t.’
‘Yt is indeede,’ said Agnes. ‘Yowe helped. Goode manne.’
‘She says it is, and you helped,’ said Clara, and Anathema blinked in confusion, until she remembered that from Jaime’s perspective, none of the previous exchange had been in English. ‘She says you’re a good man.’
Jaime grinned, and he tipped an imaginary hat to the screen. Clara laughed, and Agnes continued. ‘Yowe must get backe to the Placa, beefore the Owlde Lubberwort taike note of thy absense. Use the Door betwixt Nelson and Giovanni, and maike haste.’
As Clara squinted at the sentence, another appeared under it. ‘In the Lande of Saul, Anathema.’
*
Anathema sat up, the scene rapidly fading from her mind. She strained to remember it, and then registered that Aziraphale, Crowley, and even Newt were now looking at her expectantly.
Lande of Saul…Saul, St. Paul…
‘They’re in Brazil,’ she said. ‘São Paulo, to be exact. She told me so directly.’
‘The computer woman, or Agnes?’ asked Newt.
‘Agnes. She wrote something to the son, I think it was an insult to his boss, and then she wrote to me. “In the Lande of Saul, Anathema”.’
‘Well,’ said Aziraphale, still in that bracing tone hinting that forgiving and forgetting were two different things, and the former might be part of his job, but the latter absolutely was not, ‘that would seem a reasonable interpretation, but São Paulo is a metropolis of fifteen million inhabitants. Hardly a precise set of coordinates.’
‘It’s a start,’ said Crowley. ‘So, next stop Heathrow? You can do more research on the plane.’
‘Wait a minute,’ said Newt. ‘Don’t we, er, don’t we need tickets, and our passports, and luggage, and…?’
Crowley grinned at him. ‘I generally find that tickets and passport control are things that happen to other people.’
‘Absolutely not,’ said Aziraphale, shaking his head firmly. ‘I can scarcely believe that you would even suggest such a thing. I will not be roped into your demonic schemes, nor will I permit these nice people to—’
‘Fine,’ said Crowley, waving an impatient hand, ‘we’ll pay and everything. But I’m not about to sit around here while those two drive back to Tadfield and convince themselves we’re a massive hallucination.’ He snapped his fingers, and suitcases appeared in front of them. ‘There. You’re packed. Let’s go.’
‘Beg pardon,’ said Anathema, ‘but are you sure you’re supposed to come with us?’
‘How do you mean?’ asked Crowley. ‘I think we’ve been pretty useful so far.’
‘Yes, of course, but…’ Anathema paused, uncertain. ‘In my initial dream, Agnes only told Mrs Hernez to meet me and Newt. She didn’t say anything about you two.’
‘Tough,’ said Crowley. ‘I find myself in the market for prophetic guidance these days. Aziraphale?’
‘If you think I intend to pass up a chance to meet the prophetess Agnes Nutter, Miss Device,’ said Aziraphale, in a way that strongly suggested he considered ‘unworthy swine’ an equally appropriate form of address, ‘you are dearly mistaken.’
Anathema sighed. ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘Heathrow, then?’
‘I suppose,’ said Newt, with the air of someone for whom this is about as far as possible from how he had expected the day to go, but who has long given up the fight for some semblance of normality, which was in fact his situation.
***
002. Youre Guide sharle meete yowe where groweth the new Tree of Knowledge. Three centurief of grief be reckoned with nowe, Locale Spirit to Followe.
The odds of there being a nonstop flight to the correct destination, with exactly four seats available, departing within hours of one’s arrival, with just time enough for last-minute shopping for essentials and a lavish, if somewhat tense, dinner at an airport Thai restaurant, had to be pretty short if one’s travelling companions weren’t supernatural entities, so it was probably a lucky break they’d insisted on tagging along. But Crowley hadn’t thought to specifically assume that the seats would be together, so Anathema sipped a gin and tonic and flipped through her hastily-purchased São Paulo travel guide with increasing unease, Newt trapped in a middle seat two rows behind her and Crowley and Aziraphale several rows ahead, on opposite sides of the aisle.
It was no good. The glossy photos of museums, parks, and a cathedral that had evidently taken more than fifty years to complete—in the twentieth century, no less—promised wonders, but no clues to where they ought to head when they landed. The gin would get her there faster, if only her anxious thoughts could slow down enough to be receptive to it.
The two men sitting next to Anathema suddenly unfastened their safety belts, stood up, and joined the rather long line for the lavatory, both shifting about in discomfort. Moments later, Crowley sat down beside her, sprawling over both vacated seats.
Anathema wrinkled her nose. ‘Did you do that?’
‘Hey,’ said Crowley. ‘Free will. They chose to drink five beers in two hours on a crowded aeroplane. I just assisted them. Anyway, I thought you might need another push.’
‘Right now, I just need someone to talk to,’ said Anathema, taking another sip of her drink.
It was Crowley’s turn to wrinkle his nose. ‘Isn’t that Witchfinder boy’s job?’
‘Normally, yes, but he’s a bit tied up right now.’ She shifted in her seat, turning to look directly at him. ‘What did you mean earlier, when you called yourself an “inexplicable insomniac”?’
Crowley shrugged. ‘Just what I said. I couldn’t sleep last night.’
‘And not because you were being haunted an ancestress through a computer on another continent, I suppose,’ said Anathema. ‘Does this happen to you a lot? I mean, to your kind?’
‘No,’ said Crowley. ‘My kind, as you put it, don’t usually sleep at all. It’s just fun.’
‘Until it doesn’t happen,’ said Anathema. ‘When I had my first Agnes dream, Newt didn’t believe me right away. He thought I was worried about this job interview I’ve got next week. I’ve applied for a lecturer position at Norton Polytechnic. It’s my first interview ever, because I’ve never had time for a real job before.’ She took another sip. ‘Well, he was wrong, of course, because my dreams were real, but I could see what he was getting at. Is there something like that, maybe, that you’re worried about?’
‘There’s the utter lack of something like that,’ said Crowley. He reclined both seats, the better to achieve an Adam-level slouch. ‘That’s the trouble. I just kept thinking, you know, “now what”. Aziraphale and I worked together to save the world, because, well, just trust me when I say it’s infinitely preferable to either alternative.’ He glared at the tray table, and a drink of his own appeared on it. ‘And that’s done, and great, everything’s spectacular. No apocalypse to promote or prevent, no messing people about per Word of Adam. No reason to visit Aziraphale, no reason to leave the flat at all. Not that I’m not enjoying every continued minute of Earth, but it’s like I’m just, you know, marking time until the next one.”
Anathema stared at him. Not much of that had made sense, but one bit in particular didn’t add up at all. ‘No reason to visit Aziraphale? You two don’t live together?’
‘Live together?’ said Crowley. ‘Why would we?’
Good night, miss. Get in, angel.
Oh. Now that made sense.
‘Er,’ said Anathema, ‘no reason. I misunderstood something three months ago, and I’m just now realising how and why. But you are friends, at least, aren’t you? Do I really need to explain someone literally as old as sin that friends don’t need an excuse to drop by?’
‘Older,’ said Crowley. ‘I started the whole thing, remember? And not to me, but maybe you should try that one on Aziraphale, since he didn’t seem to get it when I said it.’
On second thought, perhaps her original instinct hadn’t been too wide off the mark. ‘Well, if you normally come prepared with one, of course he wouldn’t.’ Anathema leaned back against the headrest. ‘Just tell him that all those things you love about the world, all those concerts and restaurants and fine wines you were both going on about at dinner, that he’s part of all that for you. And you don’t need or want to hide that behind official business anymore, even if you still had any.’
‘I knew you’d be no help,’ said Crowley into his drink. For a professional tempter, he was a shockingly bad liar. ‘Anyway, I thought it was your head needed to be shrunk.’
Anathema laughed. ‘Sure,’ she said, ‘now and probably always. You don’t live your whole life according to a prophetess’ Book, going everywhere and doing everything to prevent an apocalypse you’re not even sure you actually can, because if you could, then wouldn’t there be more Book for after, without getting your head turned all the way around several times over. But I thought I was doing all right, all things considered. Now I don’t know what to think.’
She paused, finishing up the last of her drink, and looked at him.
What the hell.
‘If there are more prophecies on the horizon, I don’t know what I’ll do. I was just starting to like my life, for once.’
Crowley sighed. ‘Help us help you,’ he said, as though struggling vainly to suppress the instinctive kindness that poured out of him. ‘Do whatever rituals Aziraphale asks you to do to try to recreate the missing manuscript, and then work with him on it. You won’t need three hundred years. Three hundred hours at the outside. Oh, and badger the shit out of the Antichrist we know.’
Anathema smiled. ‘Thank you.’ She stared through his sunglasses. ‘Please don’t erase my memory.’
Crowley nodded. ‘You and Newt keep your mouths shut, and I’ll have no reason to.’
‘We will,’ Anathema promised. ‘You can knock me out again now.’
*
‘So what’s it like being a ghost?’ Clara asked her computer, as Jaime and Ana herded her grandchildren off to bed.
‘For the Moste Parte, itte is a crufhing Boar,’ said Agnes. ‘Juste a Lotte of wating arownde and watching what Wonne hath alreddy Seen. But once in a Whyle, Wonne hath a Cunning Planne, and maikes a new Friend.’
‘I see,’ said Clara. ‘In that case, wouldn’t you rather go to Heaven?’
‘That hath been grately Overfold, or so I haf heard,’ said Agnes. ‘Littel better than thee Other Plase. The Hangers-On can atteft to this.’
‘Hangers-on?’ asked Clara. ‘What are hangers-on?’
‘Celeftial idiotes,’ said Agnes. ‘But grate funne, of coarse. Yowe will See.’
‘I will?’ asked Clara. ‘When?’
‘To-morroe, whenne yowe taiketh thee Meatinge I haf afkede foure at thee Placa, at Eleven onne thee Clocke, wheyre Tufks meat the Home of Odysfeus.’
Clara stared at the screen. ‘You cannot expect me to sound that out.’
*
Anathema groaned and fumbled for her notepad. Eleven o’clock—in the morning, she dearly hoped—at a plaza, where tusks meet the home of Odysseus. Of course Agnes could never make it easy, not even when she was flying halfway around the world on what by all rights should have been a lazy, cosy November afternoon at Jasmine Cottage, preparing for her interview and maybe putting up Christmas decorations.
Anathema chewed on the pen cap. The home of Odysseus…Ithaca. She flipped through the travel book, then turned to its glossary, just in case. Ithaca, Ithaca…nothing. Could Agnes just mean Greece? Was there a Greek restaurant they were meant to patronise?
And what about tusks…well, ivory, that was an allusion Agnes had used more than once in The Nice and Accurate Prophecies, but the guidebook revealed no obvious connection to São Paulo. Some non-clairvoyant sleep might help.
Well, she thought, eleven o’clock at a plaza, that’s better than nothing. But plaza as in city square, or plaza as in shopping centre?
She checked her watch. If she was doing her mental math correctly, they’d touch down at about seven in the morning, local time, which left four precious hours to figure out where they were meant to go and then get there.
Anathema turned to the seats next to her, but they had been reclaimed by their rightful passengers. Gingerly, she unfastened her safety belt and made her way around them.
‘Crowley,’ she whispered urgently. ‘We need a map. The biggest, most detailed map we can get. What are the chances the airport shops could open as soon as we’re through passport control?’
‘Ngh,’ said Crowley, clutching a pillow over his face, his seat reclined to what had to be an intentionally obnoxious degree.
‘Is that a yes?’ asked Anathema.
‘Sure,’ Crowley mumbled. ‘Whatever.’
Anathema patted him on the shoulder. ‘Take my advice,’ she said. ‘You’ll sleep better for it.’
Across the aisle, Aziraphale set down the book he had been reading, and he gave her a curious look, which suggested something along the lines of ‘Don’t think I intend to overlook your burning an Agnes Nutter manuscript, but I would very much like to know what that was all about’. Anathema winked at him, then headed back to her seat.
*
With two and a half hours to go, and the clock rapidly ticking, the four of them sat clustered around a massive map spread over what, courtesy of Aziraphale, was a truly miraculously clean terminal floor.
‘A plaza,’ said Aziraphale, ‘where tusks meet the home of Odysseus. Are you quite certain you read the clue correctly?’
‘Positive,’ said Anathema. She squinted the various praças marked out on it. None seemed to fit.
‘Wait,’ said Newt suddenly. ‘What about this place?’
Anathema stared at the spot he was pointing at: Shopping Jardim Sul, a brand-new high-end shopping centre, according to the legend. ‘What about it?’ she asked, rubbing her tired eyes.
‘Look at the cross streets,’ said Newt. ‘Rua Ivora and Rua Itacaiúna. “Itacaiúna” could be what Agnes was getting at with Ithaca, couldn’t it?’
Her heart suddenly lighter, Anathema beamed. She could have kissed him, and would have done if Aziraphale and Crowley hadn’t been there.
‘Yes!’ she cried. ‘Brilliant, Newt! That’s it, it must be.’
‘The Itacaiúnas is a river,’ Aziraphale objected. ‘It’s got nothing to do with Ithaca. Are you quite sure Agnes would leave such a, well, imprecise clue?’
‘Not the first time,’ Anathema assured him, ‘nor the first inappropriately Eurocentric one. And it’s…let’s see…’ Her face fell as she looked back down at the map. ‘Absolutely nowhere near us.’
Crowley grinned. ‘Leave that to me.’
After several near-misses of the near-fatal variety, most notably when Crowley had to be reminded, more than once, to drive on the right side of the road, they made it to the Shopping Jardim Sul with an hour to spare. Anathema sank down onto a bench, under the limited shade of a lone, small, malnourished tree, and clutched her distressed stomach. Newt sat down next to her.
‘Just think,’ he said. ‘I could have been trimming the vines this afternoon.’
Anathema laughed weakly. ‘There’ll be time enough for that,’ she said, staring at the many and varied storefronts around her, opening their doors to the day’s first wave of shoppers. ‘We can only hope, anyway.’
Newt’s brow furrowed. ‘What do we do if there isn’t?’ he asked, and Anathema shook her head.
‘Continue imposing on those two indefinitely,’ she said. ‘Oh, and have more than a few words with one Adam Young.’
Newt nodded. ‘Is that what you two talked about?’ he asked. ‘You and Crowley, I mean, on the plane?’
‘Something like that,’ said Anathema. Then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw that one shopper had stopped in her tracks, and she looked very familiar indeed. Her motion sickness forgotten, Anathema leapt to her feet.
‘Hello?’ she called, waving at the woman, who stared back at her with an expression reminiscent of someone doing complicated long division sums. ‘Are you Mrs, er, Senhora Hernez?’
Clara smiled and nodded, and she broke into a run as she approached them. ‘You must be Anathema,’ she said, her arms outstretched, and Anathema stepped forwards and hugged her. ‘You can call me Clara. I have to say, I’m relieved you’re real.’
‘I could say the same to you,’ said Anathema. ‘Clara, this is my boyfriend, Newton Pulsifer, and these two are our friends, Crowley and Aziraphale.’
Clara grinned. ‘Of course,’ she said, ‘the hangers-on.’
‘Hangers-on?’ said Aziraphale indignantly. ‘Us?’
‘Come on,’ said Clara. ‘Agnes will be so happy to see you. We live just a few blocks away. My son works here, you see, so we have to be close. Follow me.’
Ordinarily, Anathema took note of her surroundings when travelling, both for her safety and just to remember, but now her heart raced with anticipation, and she had scarcely registered that they’d left the plaza before they stood in Clara’s foyer. She took their jackets and beckoned them down the hall, to the computer room that looked exactly as it had done in Anathema’s dreams, down to the last crack in the plaster.
‘Sit down,’ said Clara, gesturing towards the chair.
Anathema did, the others crowding behind her, and with trembling hands, she typed, ‘I’m here.’
‘I knoe,’ the screen replied, and Anathema knew, not that there had been any doubt before, that this was no trick. She could feel the spirit’s presence in the room, as real as the ground beneath her feet, and its hearty amusement, and slight, if well-earned, sense of superiority, could only belong to Agnes Nutter. ‘Wellcom, Anathema and Companie.’
‘Nice to finally meet you,’ Anathema typed, hardly able to think. ‘I mean,’ she added, verbally, ‘for two-way communication.’
‘Yef,’ said Agnes. ‘Yt moste certainely is. On myne lyfe, Anathema, and myne afterlyfe, I am so proude of yowe.’
Anathema’s breath caught. ‘You are?’ she said, helpless to stop herself. ‘But—’
‘Of coarse,’ Agnes’ scrawl interrupted her. ‘Yowe saved thee Worlde.’
‘I had help,’ she typed, and Newt, Crowley and Aziraphale nodded in agreement.
‘Indeede,’ said Agnes, ‘efpecially fromme the Enemie of All Computinge Machines.’ There was a line break, and then she added, ‘I like yowe, boy, pyn-tester though yowe be, but keep youre distanse. Clara hath done Nothinge to deserve such Havok as yowe may wreak.’
Newt blushed, but he nodded. ‘Right. Of course. I’ll stay over here.’
‘Thank yowe,’ said Agnes. ‘As for the Matter of the seconde Booke, Anathema, yowe made the right choife.’
Anathema blinked, stunned. ‘You—you wanted me to burn it?’ Behind her, Aziraphale gasped.
‘I would Nevere haf chocen the Lyfe of a Seer, nor condemned myne descendants to such,’ said Agnes, ‘but Needes Muste, when the Ende draweth nigh. With that consern dispenfed with, yowe had the right to claym youre freedom.’
‘But then,’ said Anathema, her mind reeling, ‘if you didn’t want me to read it, why did you take the trouble to send it to us?’
‘Yowe had to haf the choice,’ said Agnes, ‘and Mafters Cranby, Bychance and Baddicombe certainely made it worth myne while.’
‘I…suppose so,’ said Anathema.
It couldn’t be true; it was too good to be true. She drew a deep breath. ’Well,’ she said, ‘in that case, I suppose there’s only one thing left to say.’ She glanced at each of her companions in turn. ‘Thank you, Agnes. For everything.’
‘Youre welcome,’ said Agnes. ‘All of yowe.’
‘That’s great,’ said Crowley. If his aura was any guide, then for once he actually felt relaxed, as opposed to desperately trying to appear so. ‘More to the point, though, Agnes, while we have you here, does this mean the Ende doesn’t draweth nigh, and won’t for a good long while?’
‘Notte as Far as I can See,’ said Agnes. ‘There wille be an Ende, Serpente, as yowe welle knoe, but it wille not be Soon, notte bye myne definition or yourf.’
‘Great,’ said Crowley. ‘Thanks. Really good to know.’ Anathema hadn’t imagined it; he’d rarely been happier in six thousand years of existence. She knew the feeling, at least on a micro, human lifespan level.
‘Inne the meantime, trie liftening to myne favourite descendant and tye up loofe ends,’ said Agnes, and Anathema swore she could feel the eyeroll that, had Agnes been able to take a corporeal form, would have accompanied that statement, as surely the sun would rise on many days to come. Crowley flushed scarlet, and it took all of her remaining self-control not to laugh.
‘Er,’ said Aziraphale hesitantly, ‘you truly never intended for the manuscript to be read?’
‘Itte was not a longe reade,’ said Agnes. ‘Yowe haf alreddy burnt through the fyrst parte.’
‘I see,’ he said, bowing his head reverently. ‘Well, in that case…thank you for your devotion to duty, Mistress Nutter. We are all…forever in your debt. All the same…if there are any copies—’
‘There are notte,’ said Agnes. Aziraphale’s aura dimmed, seemingly in spite of himself. If she weren’t a Device, Anathema might have felt sorry for him. ‘And yef,’ Agnes contined, ‘that if certainely true. Doe notte worry too much, Hangers-On. Yowe wille have Options whenne yowe need themme.’
‘Options?’ asked Crowley, raising an eyebrow.
‘And yowe wille Knoe Themme,’ said Agnes. ‘Yowe wille notte neede me.’
Crowley and Aziraphale gaped at one another, but before either could interrogate Agnes further, Newt broke in. ‘Just one question,’ he said. ‘Er, why bring us all here? I mean, other than to tell Anathema she did the right thing?’
‘To tye up loofe ends,’ said Agnes. ‘And because Brazil if lofely thif tyme of year. A welle-earnede holidae before that new Jobbe.’
Anathema grinned. She hadn’t thought she could be happier than she had been a second ago, simply knowing she had made the right call, absolved of the permanent weight of the world in cryptic old English form. She’d almost been right. ‘Does that mean I’m going to get it?’
‘Yef,’ said Agnes, ‘as yowe alreddy knew. Lette that be myne laste prophecie.’
‘Thank you,’ Anathema repeated. She chanced a glance at Newt, and his look of glowing pride was the best kind of too much.
‘Youre welcome,’ said Agnes. ‘Nowe enjoye this Lande of Saul.’
‘I made caipirinha,’ said Clara, beckoning them towards the kitchen. ‘Welcome to São Paulo.’
‘Welcome to the future,’ said Newt, and Anathema squeezed his hand.
***
005. Yt will be alle right.
It took all of a glass and a half of caipirinha for Anathema to realise that, while it couldn’t exactly be said that she hadn’t slept in 48 hours, fact-finding sleep hardly counted as rest, and with jet lag on top of it, she would definitely need to get her head down. Clara had laughed and shown her to the fold-out couch, promising sight-seeing tomorrow.
She’d half-awakened twice, first when Newt joined her and then to the sound of two excitable children returning from school, but when she finally regained full consciousness, the sun had set. She squinted in the dim light of dusk and made out three figures clustered around the kitchen table: an angel, a demon, and a man she’d seen in a dream. The pitcher of caipirinha, doubtless refilled many times, sat in the centre of the table.
‘That’s the one,’ Jaime Hernez slurred, in a dreamy sort of drunkenness. ‘That poor, sad little tree. But that day, just that day, it was a fearsome giant. You can’t stop progress, they tell us. But that day, that poor tree fought back, and I helped it. All over the city, the trees rose again.’
Jaime hiccoughed and slumped forwards, and Crowley turned to Aziraphale.
‘Pity it was just that day,’ he said, his voice low and seductive. ‘Just think. One determined bit of rainforest defying the march of time, beautifying the centre and getting in a lot of people’s way.’
‘When you put it that way, either of us could do it,’ said Aziraphale uncertainly, swaying in his seat.
‘Together?’ asked Crowley, tentative and hopeful. ‘I mean, if you leave me to it, I’ll terrorise the thing.’
‘Well,’ said Aziraphale, his aura shining as bright as day, ‘we do owe these people a host gift.’
‘C’mon,’ said Crowley. ‘Time to re-enter the garden.’ He stood up, unsteadily, and offered his arm, and Aziraphale, equally unsteady on his feet, took it, and they stumbled out the door.
Anathema wondered vaguely if either of them had the faintest idea where they were going, and she knew, with no Book to tell her, that they’d get there anyway.
She smiled at the ceiling. Crowley was half-getting it, and with no End immediately forthcoming and reasonable confidence that she’d get to keep her memory, she’d have plenty of time to keep working on him, when she wasn’t busy living her life.
Newt yawned loudly. ‘What are you thinking?’ he asked, and she rolled over to face him.
‘I was thinking that “Professor Anathema Device” has a nice ring to it,’ she said, because she’d thought of little else since Agnes’ last prophecy. ‘I was also thinking that I’ll have holidays off. We should plan a proper trip here, maybe for Easter. We should plan trips all over the world, take full advantage of its guaranteed continued existence.’
Newt smiled. ‘And your freedom to explore it, of course.’ He kissed her forehead, and she sighed and drew closer to him. ‘I don’t think you actually needed Agnes to rubber-stamp that for you, but I suppose it’s nice of her.’
‘Right,’ said Anathema, taking his hands in hers, ‘which is why I’ll owe her and Clara a return visit. Maybe she’ll have got her farm back by then. I’d love to see it.’
Newt nodded. ‘I’d say we should invite the Hernezes to Tadfield, but Jasmine Cottage hardly has enough space for us.’
Anathema grinned. ‘Good job Clara’s got a nice and accurate lottery guide and we’ve got miraculous hangers-on, then.’
‘Not to mention a friendly neighbourhood Antichrist,’ said Newt, and they laughed and laughed.
Recipient: cursiell4
Rating: T
Pairings and Characters: Anathema Device/Newton Pulsifer, Crowley/Aziraphale, Agnes Nutter, Jaime Hernez, Original Female Character
Summary: Agnes isn’t quite done with Anathema yet.
Word Count: 8,101
Author’s Note: I do not speak Portuguese, so I tried to confine my use of it to simple, easily verifiable phrases. If any errors have slipped through despite this, I apologize unreservedly.
003. Thefe wordes of myne unread remain, but I repeat: ye saga continuef. Embrace wonne anothere in the warmth of myne latest flaymes, and I sharle meet the Younge boy and see yowe on the Othere Side of thee Worlde, youre Worlde that yette liveth.
Sleep is a curious thing. One of the pleasures of the world, the demon Crowley would swear up and down, but even as he meant to enjoy every minute of it in this wonderful, indefinitely preserved world, he found to his distress that it was beginning to lose its savour. In his immaculate flat in London, a Crowley with little in the way of low-grade evil to attend to tossed and turned in his bed, desperate to shut out one insistent, chilling thought: Now what?
Not far away in London, the angel Aziraphale, who had never slept a wink and didn’t intend to start now, stared at his accounts, wholly unwilling to admit to the parallel thoughts thronging his head like the sort of halo angels rarely wore, any more than demons routinely sprouted horns. Surrounded by his precious books, neither burnt nor drowned by tidal waves from bloody seas, Aziraphale oughtn’t to have had a care in the world. And yet, as the clock ticked with no sense of urgency at all, he paced about the two or three square metres of the shop not occupied by stacks upon stacks of literary treasures, unable to put his finger on why.
Forty miles away in Tadfield, Newton Pulsifer slept soundly, the dreamless sleep of the contented individual who knows he’s lucked out to a disproportionate degree and isn’t about to question how, but next to him, an equally unconscious Anathema Device watched as a woman halfway around the world, her grey-streaked hair spread over her pillow in every conceivable direction, lay awake with a case of insomnia to rival Crowley’s, but originating from the rather more earthly cause of a late spring storm. A long, blinding, spidery bolt of lightning came home to roost within striking distance of the woman’s home.
As the walls shook at the answering clap of thunder, Clara Hernez heaved a sigh and tossed her bedclothes aside.
‘Merda,’ said Clara, glaring out the window. The storm may not have the sentience either to have targeted her personally or to be humbled by her displeasure, but if she was to be roused from her bed at half past one in the morning to unplug a computer that had cost a month’s wages, she would express it in no uncertain terms.
Jaime and Ana hadn’t wanted to buy it, something about how they wanted their children to climb trees while the world still had trees, but Clara found it useful both for the children’s schoolwork and for doing the calculations necessary to keep her fledgling embroidery business, a new chapter she hadn’t imagined would be necessary to start in middle age, afloat. She carefully removed the cord from the socket, and more lightning flashed outside as the house shook again at the thunder following on cue, and then words scrawled themselves across the monitor in a font resembling old-fashioned, nigh-illegible handwriting.
Mistrefs Hernez, they read, set against a blue screen straight out of a low-budget film. Charmede to meat yowe at last.
Once she’d accepted that she would have to sell her family’s farm, Clara had learnt enough English to converse with the dark-suited foreign merchants who came to call, but this English, if such it could be called, was hardly penetrable based on her experience of ‘Where is the library?’ and ‘The black cat runs through the green grass’ and ‘What you’re offering won’t even cover the equipment, quit lowballing me’. She stared at it. Without knowing why, without ever knowing why, she sat down at the keyboard.
‘O quê?’ Clara typed, and she swore the wind was laughing.
And Anathema Device sat bolt upright, sporadic raindrops pelting the roof of Jasmine Cottage like a gentle but insistent knocking on her skull, and a light breeze swatting jasmine vines against the window in a wave ‘hello’ from another plane. Agnes Nutter had more to say.
001. The Pulcifer boy a goode lad may be, but in this matter he be Wronge. Maike these wordes knoun to him, that he may take your Hande, and youre First Grate Adventure may begin.
Anathema gripped the bedside table, as if to hold her mounting panic at bay. She ought to have known she’d never escape Agnes, but if she wasn’t meant to escape Agnes, that could only mean further apocalyptic shenanigans, and she’d destroyed the only roadmap to avoid them—
No, Anathema told herself. That’s not all it could mean. You’re getting overexcited.
And even if that was what it meant, at least this time she wouldn’t be alone right up until the day of. Nodding to no one in particular, she switched on the lamp.
‘Newt,’ said Anathema. ‘Newt, wake up.’
‘Mmmm,’ Newt sighed into his pillow, still lost to the sleep of the blissfully ignorant. Anathema shook him, as much out of envy as urgency, and this time he woke, blinking in the dim light. ‘What—what’s going on? Are we late for something?’
‘Quite possibly,’ said Anathema. ‘Listen, I had a dream about Agnes. Well, not exactly about her, but about this woman in another country. She was speaking a foreign language, but I couldn’t tell which one. There was a storm, and she went to unplug her computer, and then Agnes spoke to her.’
‘Agnes spoke to her?’ asked Newt, through an undignified but, given the circumstances, more than understandable yawn. Anathema nodded.
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘through the computer. Words appeared on the screen, and they could only have been written by Agnes. You know her style.’
‘On the computer screen?’ asked Newt, and to Anathema’s surprise, he was grinning. ‘So either the ghost of Agnes Nutter has gone high-tech, or I’m rubbing off on you.’ He shook his head. ‘It was just a dream, Anathema.’
‘It can’t have been,’ said Anathema. ‘It felt real, everything about it felt so real…and when was the last time you dreamed about a person you’ve never met, in a language you don’t speak?’
‘It could’ve just been gibberish,’ said Newt. ‘That is, your subconscious just filled in something that sounded like a foreign language based on what you’ve heard on television, or in films. And the woman could’ve been a sort of, er, stock figure, couldn’t she?’
‘I…suppose so,’ said Anathema, drawing her knees up to her chest. ‘But I don’t think so. Newt, what if we’ve made a terrible mistake?’
Newt shook his head. ‘You have a right to live your own life, Anathema,’ he said, and then his eyes widened, as though struck by inspiration. ‘Come to think of it, that must be it. You’re nervous about your interview, so your subconscious has cooked up some sort of nightmare scenario where Agnes needs you back on the payroll.’
‘I’m not nervous,’ said Anathema. ‘Pepper’s mum said I had no reason to be. She said her colleagues loved my thesis.’
‘All the same,’ said Newt. ‘It’s normal to be unsure about starting a new life, and doesn’t it make a lot more sense than a three-hundred-year-old ghost taking over a computer?’
Anathema hesitated, and Newt reached over to take her hand. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘it’s almost five in the morning. Let’s try to get in a few more hours of sleep and worry about this when the sun comes up, all right?’
‘All right,’ said Anathema. She wasn’t convinced, but she was tired.
Halfway around the world, Clara Hernez was wired. After an hour or so of frustration, Clara had ascertained that the spirit who had taken over her computer was named Agnes, and that Agnes could understand her, whether she typed back, spoke aloud, or merely responded in her head, but seemed incapable of replying in kind. A breakthrough had been reached, however, with this suggestion: ‘Sownde yt oute.’
Not that Clara necessarily believed she wasn’t simply having a bizarre dream, but if she was, maybe she could use it to write a children’s book and come into some money to buy back the farm that way, if Agnes’ suggested lottery dates proved inaccurate.
‘They are accurate,’ said Agnes. ‘Also nife.’
‘Knife?’ asked Clara, confused.
‘Nice,’ corrected Agnes. ‘As in prefice. Alle yowe must do is meet myne descendant and the Pulcifer lad. He is a nice manne, if sometymes dimme. A vaft improvement on hys ancestor.’
Clara squinted, sounded it out, squinted again, and sounded it out again. ‘When are they coming?’ she asked.
‘Notte yet,’ said Agnes. ‘First they muft go wheyre the Occident terminates, and the Black Chariot defieth all lawes stationary.’
There was a knock at the door. ‘Mãe?’ said Jaime, yawning as he stepped, hesitantly, into the room. ‘O que está fazendo?’
‘Não te preocupes com isso,’ said Clara, visions of coffee fields dancing in her head. ‘Volte pra cama.’
Anathema hurried downstairs for a pen and paper. Black Chariot…well, that was classic Agnes, at least.
‘Wake up, Newt,’ she said, switching the light lamp back on and holding the notepad in front of him. ‘We’ve got to go somewhere in the West End.’
004. Youre fyrst stop lieth in London Towne. There will ye finde faces at once olde and new, and the Serpente sharle taike on the unlikely roll of Peas Maker.
Practical Occultist. Professional Descendant. Student of History’s Forgotten Inventors. Witch.
Anathema had rather hoped that her next job title would be ‘Norton Polytechnic Lecturer’, but it seemed that ‘Interesting Soho Day Person’ would come have to come first, if the former came at all. Wandering through central London brandishing her pendulum, with a confused and still sceptical Newt following at her heel, she shook her head as she rounded a corner. An illegally parked black car in a major urban centre was hardly a fair clue, but at least this signal was traceable, neither cloaked nor overwhelming. Even if it seemed to be two signals overlapping one another, opposite in tone but complementary, forming a strange sort of harmony that, as she closed in on it, seemed to be crooning, ‘Is this the real life?’
Mere blocks away, Crowley flipped through a book without reading it, and Aziraphale stared at him.
‘My dear, if you aren’t actually thinking of purchasing that, might I request that you place it, ever so carefully, back where you found it?’
‘Huh?’ said Crowley. ‘Oh. Right. Sure.’ He waved a hand, and the book resumed its place on the overstuffed shelf.
‘Thank you,’ said Aziraphale. ‘Now, is there any chance of your telling me just why you’re here?’ He leaned over the counter, nerves plain upon his face. ‘You haven’t heard from your side, have you?’
‘What?’ said Crowley. ‘No, not a peep. Why, have you heard from yours?’
‘No indeed,’ said Aziraphale. ‘Quiet as a mouse, as it were.’
‘Are mice quiet?’ asked Crowley. ‘Aren’t they supposed to squeak or something?’
‘Oh dear,’ said Aziraphale. ‘Have I mangled another of your modern expressions?’
‘No, and that one’s hardly modern. I was just realising it doesn’t make much sense.’ Crowley leaned back in his armchair. ‘Say, why don’t we open a bottle? Just the excuse you need to close up early.’
Aziraphale shook his head. ‘Why are you here, Crowley?’
Crowley shrugged. ‘Does a friend need a reason to stop by?’
‘Not typically,’ said Aziraphale, ‘but nonetheless, you usually have one. Are you sure there isn’t something troubling you?’
‘I didn’t think there was,’ said Crowley. ‘But if you must know, I couldn’t sleep last night.’
‘You don’t need to sleep at all,’ said Aziraphale. ‘But if you insist on adopting the custom, isn’t the occasional bout of insomnia part and parcel of it? I fail to see what’s so alarming.’
‘For humans, maybe, but not for me. I slept for nearly an entire century, angel. I’ve never not been able to sleep. Not until recently.’
‘Recently?’ asked Aziraphale. ‘What do you mean, recently? Not just last night?’
‘On and off since last summer,’ said Crowley. ‘Since we—you know—since it didn’t happen. It’s just, you know, what do we do now?’
‘We enjoy it, of course,’ said Aziraphale. ‘Wasn’t that the entire idea? Why you tempted me into it, as it were?’
‘Oh no,’ said Crowley, ‘don’t you lay that at my feet. You were a willing participant, angel, as every last one of your precious books can attest.’ He leaned back further, settling into a proper slouch. ‘But yeah, it was.’
‘And haven’t you been enjoying it, then?’ asked Aziraphale. ‘You’re not having second thoughts, are you?’
‘Bless me, no,’ said Crowley. ‘And of course I’ve been enjoying it, but when I get back to my flat it’s just as if there’s…something missing. Have you felt that?’
Aziraphale sighed. ‘Truthfully, yes.’ Then the shop’s bell rang, and he stood up straighter. ‘And I’ll be damned if it’ll be one of the books. Just a moment, my dear.’
‘Knock ’em dead,’ said Crowley absently. His head snapped up, however, at the instantly recognisable gasp of ‘You!’
‘I remember you,’ said Anathema. The two figures made an almost perfect study in contrast. She remembered well enough the night they’d knocked her down—and driven off with the Book!—but they also figured into another memory, a blurry one of monumental importance in her life that she was, somehow, not allowed to access. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Newt nod.
‘You were there…that day,’ he said, trailing off. ‘But I don’t remember—’
‘Because no one does,’ said Anathema. ‘But if Agnes led me here, I wouldn’t be surprised if you do.’
‘Anathema Device,’ said Aziraphale, bowing his head in acknowledgement. ‘What do you mean, Agnes led you here? You don’t mean to imply…’ His mouth opened, and his eyes widened in awe. ‘Do you mean to say there are further prophecies?’
‘Well,’ said Anathema, her face burning. She ought to have been prepared for that question. She ought to have been prepared for everything. ‘Er,’ she stammered. ‘There, er, there were? And now there aren’t, but there might be anyway? Er, could we sit down? And since you clearly know me, could you maybe tell us who you are?’
‘Wine?’ said Crowley, a bottle miraculously appearing in his hand. Anathema and Newt stared at him, and then at one another, each silently confirming that the other wasn’t crazy. Aziraphale folded his arms, his mouth dropping open.
‘My dear,’ he breathed. ‘Do you really think it’s wise to, er, reveal ourselves to—’
‘To whoever she is, as that name means nothing to me? Sure, angel. We can erase their memories if necessary, and I’d like to know what’s going on.’ He removed his sunglasses, revealing snakelike pupils, and held out his free hand to Anathema. ‘Madwoman with the bicycle, eh? Good to see you. Crowley, Serpent of Eden, resident demon of Mayfair and inexplicable recent insomniac.’
Anathema blinked, taking in the sight of a monster who really didn’t seem all that monstrous, even accounting for his threat to erase her memory, whose aura read as positively friendly and strangely hopeful, holding out his hand like any other new acquaintance might. She took it.
‘Anathema Device, practical occultist and former professional descendant of Agnes Nutter. Wine sounds great.’
‘Well,’ said Anathema, sipping her wine on the couch in Aziraphale’s back room, ‘there weren’t supposed to be any more prophecies, but there wasn’t supposed to be any more world, either. And it looks like all of us—but mainly Adam’—and oh boy, did she need to talk to him—‘had a part in making sure that there would be more world. So, er, cheers to us? But it meant that there were more prophecies. We received the manuscript that morning. But, er, Newt and I thought that…after three hundred years…maybe it was time my family retired from the professional descendant business. So we, er…we burnt it.’
Aziraphale’s mouth opened and closed several times, and then Crowley sprang into action, stepping between the two of them. ‘Let me handle thissssssssssss,’ he hissed. ‘I’ll let you know when it’s sssssssssssssafe to come back in.’
It took a while. About five minutes in, Newt had suggested grabbing a drink at the pub across the street, and about thirty minutes in, Anathema dearly regretted not taking him up on it. The wind chafed their faces, and they huddled together on the bench.
Gradually, though, the cold, punishing air warmed around them, in a way that Anathema knew couldn’t be entirely attributed to Newt’s arm around her shoulders, but felt analogous to it, somehow. At last, the door to the shop opened, and Crowley beckoned them inside, retreating theatrically.
At least their memories didn’t appear to have been erased yet. That had to be something.
They resumed their seats in the back room, and Aziraphale stood to greet them, refilling their wine glasses. ‘Right,’ he said, in a distinctly arch tone, just short of a divine smiting, ‘you were saying?’
Anathema nodded, and took a deep drink of wine. ‘I was saying, we thought it was over. But last night I had these dreams, only they weren’t dreams, they were visions. Visions of Agnes, or her spirit, rather. She appears to have taken up residence in someone’s computer.’
‘Someone’s computer?’ said Aziraphale, blinking in surprise. ‘Did, er, did you see whose?’
‘Sort of,’ said Anathema. ‘That’s to say, I did, but I don’t know her. Agnes called her “Mistrefs Hernez”, but that’s not a lot to go on. She’s a middle-aged woman in another country, and she speaks what sounds like a Romance language, but I can’t tell which one. I’m pretty sure it’s not French.’
‘Well,’ said Aziraphale, ‘if you’ve seen her in your dreams, I suppose our most efficient course of action would be to put you to sleep.’
‘Not permanently,’ Crowley clarified, with a grin that plainly suggested he was enjoying being the nice one, or at least Aziraphale not being the nice one, for once. ‘Just a quick fact-finding nap.’
‘All right,’ said Anathema. ‘How much wine have you got?’
‘It’s rather simpler than that,’ said Aziraphale. He snapped his fingers, and Anathema keeled over, unconscious. Newt stood up, indignant.
‘You—you wake her up this instant,’ he sputtered. He patted Anathema’s face, gently but urgently. ‘Anathema! Anathema!’
‘She’ll be fine,’ said Crowley, ‘and she’ll wake up automatically once she’s learnt something worth reporting. More wine?’
Clara sat at her kitchen table, sipping what would not be her last cup of coffee as she flipped through an English dictionary that was thoroughly outdated, but not nearly outdated enough for her purposes. It was one thing to dream in a foreign language, quite another to dream in a butchered foreign language. The only thing stranger would be if it hadn’t been a dream at all, and the list of lottery dates carefully copied out in her own handwriting made a strong case to that effect.
She pushed the book aside and turned to gaze out the window, smiling at the flower boxes covering every bit of the balcony. It had grieved Jaime quite as much as herself when she’d signed the final deed of sale, but she’d insisted that if they couldn’t have a farm, at least they could have a garden. Once she’d settled in, they’d planted these together with painstaking care, as the next best thing.
She’d feared the storm might have battered them a bit, but they looked good as new, with curious blossoms opening up and the first tiny fruits growing on the tomato vines and the dwarf orange tree. Assuming she was neither being conned by a sinister organisation nor developing a mental disorder, the coming summer looked bright.
The door opened, and Clara turned to see Jaime, home well before his off time. ‘Jaime?’ she asked. ‘É uma e meia. Está tudo bem?’
Anathema’s eyes opened, and they met the eyes of an unnecessarily worried Newt. She smiled wanly at him, and then turned to Aziraphale and Crowley.
‘It’s no good,’ she said. ‘I saw her again, all right, but she’s with her son, and they’re speaking their native language because why would they speak anything else to each other in private. I can’t learn more about them if I can’t understand what they’re saying.’
‘Could, er, could you two fix that?’ asked Newt. ‘Do a, er, snap your fingers, or something, so Anathema can hear what they’re saying as English, like in science fiction?’
Crowley shrugged. ‘Sure, why not.’ He snapped his fingers, and Anathema passed out again.
‘Did a demon just lift the curse of Babel?’ asked Aziraphale, with exasperated affection.
‘Only temporarily,’ said Crowley defensively. ‘I’ll reverse it once we’ve got our intel. Sounds like Anathema’s got more than enough on her plate as a psychic anyway.’
‘She does, actually,’ said Newt. ‘She’ll appreciate your understanding.’
‘Shut up,’ said Crowley, taking a deep drink of wine.
‘I took my lunch early,’ said Jaime. ‘I was worried about you.’
‘Won’t your supervisor be angry?’ asked Clara. ‘You said he didn’t even like it when you ate under the tree.’
‘Only if he finds out,’ said Jaime. ‘Are you all right, Mother? You were miles away this morning.’
‘I’m just tired,’ said Clara. ‘I had the strangest dream, which I don’t think was a dream at all.’
Jaime nodded. ‘Didn’t all of us, just a few months ago? That day no one remembers?’
Clara nodded in turn. There had been...something had happened that day, she was sure of it, but she couldn’t say what it was, except that it was green. ‘This time, I do remember,’ she said, pushing her chair back from the table. ‘If I tell you, you’ll think I’ve gone mad.’
Jaime shook his head. ‘You’ve always been mad,’ he said. ‘Where do you think I get it from?’
Clara laughed. It was true, of course, and she couldn’t be prouder for it. ‘Follow me,’ she said, gesturing towards the computer room.
‘Welcome backe,’ read the screen. ‘Show himme the liste, it wille be quicker that way.’
‘Is it broken?’ asked Jaime. ‘I knew it was a waste of money.’
‘It’s not broken,’ said Clara. ‘It’s possessed.’
Jaime smiled. ‘That’s no madder than trees retaking the city all at once.’
‘Is that what happened?’ asked Clara. ‘I remember it, except that I don’t.’
‘Yt is indeede,’ said Agnes. ‘Yowe helped. Goode manne.’
‘She says it is, and you helped,’ said Clara, and Anathema blinked in confusion, until she remembered that from Jaime’s perspective, none of the previous exchange had been in English. ‘She says you’re a good man.’
Jaime grinned, and he tipped an imaginary hat to the screen. Clara laughed, and Agnes continued. ‘Yowe must get backe to the Placa, beefore the Owlde Lubberwort taike note of thy absense. Use the Door betwixt Nelson and Giovanni, and maike haste.’
As Clara squinted at the sentence, another appeared under it. ‘In the Lande of Saul, Anathema.’
Anathema sat up, the scene rapidly fading from her mind. She strained to remember it, and then registered that Aziraphale, Crowley, and even Newt were now looking at her expectantly.
Lande of Saul…Saul, St. Paul…
‘They’re in Brazil,’ she said. ‘São Paulo, to be exact. She told me so directly.’
‘The computer woman, or Agnes?’ asked Newt.
‘Agnes. She wrote something to the son, I think it was an insult to his boss, and then she wrote to me. “In the Lande of Saul, Anathema”.’
‘Well,’ said Aziraphale, still in that bracing tone hinting that forgiving and forgetting were two different things, and the former might be part of his job, but the latter absolutely was not, ‘that would seem a reasonable interpretation, but São Paulo is a metropolis of fifteen million inhabitants. Hardly a precise set of coordinates.’
‘It’s a start,’ said Crowley. ‘So, next stop Heathrow? You can do more research on the plane.’
‘Wait a minute,’ said Newt. ‘Don’t we, er, don’t we need tickets, and our passports, and luggage, and…?’
Crowley grinned at him. ‘I generally find that tickets and passport control are things that happen to other people.’
‘Absolutely not,’ said Aziraphale, shaking his head firmly. ‘I can scarcely believe that you would even suggest such a thing. I will not be roped into your demonic schemes, nor will I permit these nice people to—’
‘Fine,’ said Crowley, waving an impatient hand, ‘we’ll pay and everything. But I’m not about to sit around here while those two drive back to Tadfield and convince themselves we’re a massive hallucination.’ He snapped his fingers, and suitcases appeared in front of them. ‘There. You’re packed. Let’s go.’
‘Beg pardon,’ said Anathema, ‘but are you sure you’re supposed to come with us?’
‘How do you mean?’ asked Crowley. ‘I think we’ve been pretty useful so far.’
‘Yes, of course, but…’ Anathema paused, uncertain. ‘In my initial dream, Agnes only told Mrs Hernez to meet me and Newt. She didn’t say anything about you two.’
‘Tough,’ said Crowley. ‘I find myself in the market for prophetic guidance these days. Aziraphale?’
‘If you think I intend to pass up a chance to meet the prophetess Agnes Nutter, Miss Device,’ said Aziraphale, in a way that strongly suggested he considered ‘unworthy swine’ an equally appropriate form of address, ‘you are dearly mistaken.’
Anathema sighed. ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘Heathrow, then?’
‘I suppose,’ said Newt, with the air of someone for whom this is about as far as possible from how he had expected the day to go, but who has long given up the fight for some semblance of normality, which was in fact his situation.
002. Youre Guide sharle meete yowe where groweth the new Tree of Knowledge. Three centurief of grief be reckoned with nowe, Locale Spirit to Followe.
The odds of there being a nonstop flight to the correct destination, with exactly four seats available, departing within hours of one’s arrival, with just time enough for last-minute shopping for essentials and a lavish, if somewhat tense, dinner at an airport Thai restaurant, had to be pretty short if one’s travelling companions weren’t supernatural entities, so it was probably a lucky break they’d insisted on tagging along. But Crowley hadn’t thought to specifically assume that the seats would be together, so Anathema sipped a gin and tonic and flipped through her hastily-purchased São Paulo travel guide with increasing unease, Newt trapped in a middle seat two rows behind her and Crowley and Aziraphale several rows ahead, on opposite sides of the aisle.
It was no good. The glossy photos of museums, parks, and a cathedral that had evidently taken more than fifty years to complete—in the twentieth century, no less—promised wonders, but no clues to where they ought to head when they landed. The gin would get her there faster, if only her anxious thoughts could slow down enough to be receptive to it.
The two men sitting next to Anathema suddenly unfastened their safety belts, stood up, and joined the rather long line for the lavatory, both shifting about in discomfort. Moments later, Crowley sat down beside her, sprawling over both vacated seats.
Anathema wrinkled her nose. ‘Did you do that?’
‘Hey,’ said Crowley. ‘Free will. They chose to drink five beers in two hours on a crowded aeroplane. I just assisted them. Anyway, I thought you might need another push.’
‘Right now, I just need someone to talk to,’ said Anathema, taking another sip of her drink.
It was Crowley’s turn to wrinkle his nose. ‘Isn’t that Witchfinder boy’s job?’
‘Normally, yes, but he’s a bit tied up right now.’ She shifted in her seat, turning to look directly at him. ‘What did you mean earlier, when you called yourself an “inexplicable insomniac”?’
Crowley shrugged. ‘Just what I said. I couldn’t sleep last night.’
‘And not because you were being haunted an ancestress through a computer on another continent, I suppose,’ said Anathema. ‘Does this happen to you a lot? I mean, to your kind?’
‘No,’ said Crowley. ‘My kind, as you put it, don’t usually sleep at all. It’s just fun.’
‘Until it doesn’t happen,’ said Anathema. ‘When I had my first Agnes dream, Newt didn’t believe me right away. He thought I was worried about this job interview I’ve got next week. I’ve applied for a lecturer position at Norton Polytechnic. It’s my first interview ever, because I’ve never had time for a real job before.’ She took another sip. ‘Well, he was wrong, of course, because my dreams were real, but I could see what he was getting at. Is there something like that, maybe, that you’re worried about?’
‘There’s the utter lack of something like that,’ said Crowley. He reclined both seats, the better to achieve an Adam-level slouch. ‘That’s the trouble. I just kept thinking, you know, “now what”. Aziraphale and I worked together to save the world, because, well, just trust me when I say it’s infinitely preferable to either alternative.’ He glared at the tray table, and a drink of his own appeared on it. ‘And that’s done, and great, everything’s spectacular. No apocalypse to promote or prevent, no messing people about per Word of Adam. No reason to visit Aziraphale, no reason to leave the flat at all. Not that I’m not enjoying every continued minute of Earth, but it’s like I’m just, you know, marking time until the next one.”
Anathema stared at him. Not much of that had made sense, but one bit in particular didn’t add up at all. ‘No reason to visit Aziraphale? You two don’t live together?’
‘Live together?’ said Crowley. ‘Why would we?’
Good night, miss. Get in, angel.
Oh. Now that made sense.
‘Er,’ said Anathema, ‘no reason. I misunderstood something three months ago, and I’m just now realising how and why. But you are friends, at least, aren’t you? Do I really need to explain someone literally as old as sin that friends don’t need an excuse to drop by?’
‘Older,’ said Crowley. ‘I started the whole thing, remember? And not to me, but maybe you should try that one on Aziraphale, since he didn’t seem to get it when I said it.’
On second thought, perhaps her original instinct hadn’t been too wide off the mark. ‘Well, if you normally come prepared with one, of course he wouldn’t.’ Anathema leaned back against the headrest. ‘Just tell him that all those things you love about the world, all those concerts and restaurants and fine wines you were both going on about at dinner, that he’s part of all that for you. And you don’t need or want to hide that behind official business anymore, even if you still had any.’
‘I knew you’d be no help,’ said Crowley into his drink. For a professional tempter, he was a shockingly bad liar. ‘Anyway, I thought it was your head needed to be shrunk.’
Anathema laughed. ‘Sure,’ she said, ‘now and probably always. You don’t live your whole life according to a prophetess’ Book, going everywhere and doing everything to prevent an apocalypse you’re not even sure you actually can, because if you could, then wouldn’t there be more Book for after, without getting your head turned all the way around several times over. But I thought I was doing all right, all things considered. Now I don’t know what to think.’
She paused, finishing up the last of her drink, and looked at him.
What the hell.
‘If there are more prophecies on the horizon, I don’t know what I’ll do. I was just starting to like my life, for once.’
Crowley sighed. ‘Help us help you,’ he said, as though struggling vainly to suppress the instinctive kindness that poured out of him. ‘Do whatever rituals Aziraphale asks you to do to try to recreate the missing manuscript, and then work with him on it. You won’t need three hundred years. Three hundred hours at the outside. Oh, and badger the shit out of the Antichrist we know.’
Anathema smiled. ‘Thank you.’ She stared through his sunglasses. ‘Please don’t erase my memory.’
Crowley nodded. ‘You and Newt keep your mouths shut, and I’ll have no reason to.’
‘We will,’ Anathema promised. ‘You can knock me out again now.’
‘So what’s it like being a ghost?’ Clara asked her computer, as Jaime and Ana herded her grandchildren off to bed.
‘For the Moste Parte, itte is a crufhing Boar,’ said Agnes. ‘Juste a Lotte of wating arownde and watching what Wonne hath alreddy Seen. But once in a Whyle, Wonne hath a Cunning Planne, and maikes a new Friend.’
‘I see,’ said Clara. ‘In that case, wouldn’t you rather go to Heaven?’
‘That hath been grately Overfold, or so I haf heard,’ said Agnes. ‘Littel better than thee Other Plase. The Hangers-On can atteft to this.’
‘Hangers-on?’ asked Clara. ‘What are hangers-on?’
‘Celeftial idiotes,’ said Agnes. ‘But grate funne, of coarse. Yowe will See.’
‘I will?’ asked Clara. ‘When?’
‘To-morroe, whenne yowe taiketh thee Meatinge I haf afkede foure at thee Placa, at Eleven onne thee Clocke, wheyre Tufks meat the Home of Odysfeus.’
Clara stared at the screen. ‘You cannot expect me to sound that out.’
Anathema groaned and fumbled for her notepad. Eleven o’clock—in the morning, she dearly hoped—at a plaza, where tusks meet the home of Odysseus. Of course Agnes could never make it easy, not even when she was flying halfway around the world on what by all rights should have been a lazy, cosy November afternoon at Jasmine Cottage, preparing for her interview and maybe putting up Christmas decorations.
Anathema chewed on the pen cap. The home of Odysseus…Ithaca. She flipped through the travel book, then turned to its glossary, just in case. Ithaca, Ithaca…nothing. Could Agnes just mean Greece? Was there a Greek restaurant they were meant to patronise?
And what about tusks…well, ivory, that was an allusion Agnes had used more than once in The Nice and Accurate Prophecies, but the guidebook revealed no obvious connection to São Paulo. Some non-clairvoyant sleep might help.
Well, she thought, eleven o’clock at a plaza, that’s better than nothing. But plaza as in city square, or plaza as in shopping centre?
She checked her watch. If she was doing her mental math correctly, they’d touch down at about seven in the morning, local time, which left four precious hours to figure out where they were meant to go and then get there.
Anathema turned to the seats next to her, but they had been reclaimed by their rightful passengers. Gingerly, she unfastened her safety belt and made her way around them.
‘Crowley,’ she whispered urgently. ‘We need a map. The biggest, most detailed map we can get. What are the chances the airport shops could open as soon as we’re through passport control?’
‘Ngh,’ said Crowley, clutching a pillow over his face, his seat reclined to what had to be an intentionally obnoxious degree.
‘Is that a yes?’ asked Anathema.
‘Sure,’ Crowley mumbled. ‘Whatever.’
Anathema patted him on the shoulder. ‘Take my advice,’ she said. ‘You’ll sleep better for it.’
Across the aisle, Aziraphale set down the book he had been reading, and he gave her a curious look, which suggested something along the lines of ‘Don’t think I intend to overlook your burning an Agnes Nutter manuscript, but I would very much like to know what that was all about’. Anathema winked at him, then headed back to her seat.
With two and a half hours to go, and the clock rapidly ticking, the four of them sat clustered around a massive map spread over what, courtesy of Aziraphale, was a truly miraculously clean terminal floor.
‘A plaza,’ said Aziraphale, ‘where tusks meet the home of Odysseus. Are you quite certain you read the clue correctly?’
‘Positive,’ said Anathema. She squinted the various praças marked out on it. None seemed to fit.
‘Wait,’ said Newt suddenly. ‘What about this place?’
Anathema stared at the spot he was pointing at: Shopping Jardim Sul, a brand-new high-end shopping centre, according to the legend. ‘What about it?’ she asked, rubbing her tired eyes.
‘Look at the cross streets,’ said Newt. ‘Rua Ivora and Rua Itacaiúna. “Itacaiúna” could be what Agnes was getting at with Ithaca, couldn’t it?’
Her heart suddenly lighter, Anathema beamed. She could have kissed him, and would have done if Aziraphale and Crowley hadn’t been there.
‘Yes!’ she cried. ‘Brilliant, Newt! That’s it, it must be.’
‘The Itacaiúnas is a river,’ Aziraphale objected. ‘It’s got nothing to do with Ithaca. Are you quite sure Agnes would leave such a, well, imprecise clue?’
‘Not the first time,’ Anathema assured him, ‘nor the first inappropriately Eurocentric one. And it’s…let’s see…’ Her face fell as she looked back down at the map. ‘Absolutely nowhere near us.’
Crowley grinned. ‘Leave that to me.’
After several near-misses of the near-fatal variety, most notably when Crowley had to be reminded, more than once, to drive on the right side of the road, they made it to the Shopping Jardim Sul with an hour to spare. Anathema sank down onto a bench, under the limited shade of a lone, small, malnourished tree, and clutched her distressed stomach. Newt sat down next to her.
‘Just think,’ he said. ‘I could have been trimming the vines this afternoon.’
Anathema laughed weakly. ‘There’ll be time enough for that,’ she said, staring at the many and varied storefronts around her, opening their doors to the day’s first wave of shoppers. ‘We can only hope, anyway.’
Newt’s brow furrowed. ‘What do we do if there isn’t?’ he asked, and Anathema shook her head.
‘Continue imposing on those two indefinitely,’ she said. ‘Oh, and have more than a few words with one Adam Young.’
Newt nodded. ‘Is that what you two talked about?’ he asked. ‘You and Crowley, I mean, on the plane?’
‘Something like that,’ said Anathema. Then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw that one shopper had stopped in her tracks, and she looked very familiar indeed. Her motion sickness forgotten, Anathema leapt to her feet.
‘Hello?’ she called, waving at the woman, who stared back at her with an expression reminiscent of someone doing complicated long division sums. ‘Are you Mrs, er, Senhora Hernez?’
Clara smiled and nodded, and she broke into a run as she approached them. ‘You must be Anathema,’ she said, her arms outstretched, and Anathema stepped forwards and hugged her. ‘You can call me Clara. I have to say, I’m relieved you’re real.’
‘I could say the same to you,’ said Anathema. ‘Clara, this is my boyfriend, Newton Pulsifer, and these two are our friends, Crowley and Aziraphale.’
Clara grinned. ‘Of course,’ she said, ‘the hangers-on.’
‘Hangers-on?’ said Aziraphale indignantly. ‘Us?’
‘Come on,’ said Clara. ‘Agnes will be so happy to see you. We live just a few blocks away. My son works here, you see, so we have to be close. Follow me.’
Ordinarily, Anathema took note of her surroundings when travelling, both for her safety and just to remember, but now her heart raced with anticipation, and she had scarcely registered that they’d left the plaza before they stood in Clara’s foyer. She took their jackets and beckoned them down the hall, to the computer room that looked exactly as it had done in Anathema’s dreams, down to the last crack in the plaster.
‘Sit down,’ said Clara, gesturing towards the chair.
Anathema did, the others crowding behind her, and with trembling hands, she typed, ‘I’m here.’
‘I knoe,’ the screen replied, and Anathema knew, not that there had been any doubt before, that this was no trick. She could feel the spirit’s presence in the room, as real as the ground beneath her feet, and its hearty amusement, and slight, if well-earned, sense of superiority, could only belong to Agnes Nutter. ‘Wellcom, Anathema and Companie.’
‘Nice to finally meet you,’ Anathema typed, hardly able to think. ‘I mean,’ she added, verbally, ‘for two-way communication.’
‘Yef,’ said Agnes. ‘Yt moste certainely is. On myne lyfe, Anathema, and myne afterlyfe, I am so proude of yowe.’
Anathema’s breath caught. ‘You are?’ she said, helpless to stop herself. ‘But—’
‘Of coarse,’ Agnes’ scrawl interrupted her. ‘Yowe saved thee Worlde.’
‘I had help,’ she typed, and Newt, Crowley and Aziraphale nodded in agreement.
‘Indeede,’ said Agnes, ‘efpecially fromme the Enemie of All Computinge Machines.’ There was a line break, and then she added, ‘I like yowe, boy, pyn-tester though yowe be, but keep youre distanse. Clara hath done Nothinge to deserve such Havok as yowe may wreak.’
Newt blushed, but he nodded. ‘Right. Of course. I’ll stay over here.’
‘Thank yowe,’ said Agnes. ‘As for the Matter of the seconde Booke, Anathema, yowe made the right choife.’
Anathema blinked, stunned. ‘You—you wanted me to burn it?’ Behind her, Aziraphale gasped.
‘I would Nevere haf chocen the Lyfe of a Seer, nor condemned myne descendants to such,’ said Agnes, ‘but Needes Muste, when the Ende draweth nigh. With that consern dispenfed with, yowe had the right to claym youre freedom.’
‘But then,’ said Anathema, her mind reeling, ‘if you didn’t want me to read it, why did you take the trouble to send it to us?’
‘Yowe had to haf the choice,’ said Agnes, ‘and Mafters Cranby, Bychance and Baddicombe certainely made it worth myne while.’
‘I…suppose so,’ said Anathema.
It couldn’t be true; it was too good to be true. She drew a deep breath. ’Well,’ she said, ‘in that case, I suppose there’s only one thing left to say.’ She glanced at each of her companions in turn. ‘Thank you, Agnes. For everything.’
‘Youre welcome,’ said Agnes. ‘All of yowe.’
‘That’s great,’ said Crowley. If his aura was any guide, then for once he actually felt relaxed, as opposed to desperately trying to appear so. ‘More to the point, though, Agnes, while we have you here, does this mean the Ende doesn’t draweth nigh, and won’t for a good long while?’
‘Notte as Far as I can See,’ said Agnes. ‘There wille be an Ende, Serpente, as yowe welle knoe, but it wille not be Soon, notte bye myne definition or yourf.’
‘Great,’ said Crowley. ‘Thanks. Really good to know.’ Anathema hadn’t imagined it; he’d rarely been happier in six thousand years of existence. She knew the feeling, at least on a micro, human lifespan level.
‘Inne the meantime, trie liftening to myne favourite descendant and tye up loofe ends,’ said Agnes, and Anathema swore she could feel the eyeroll that, had Agnes been able to take a corporeal form, would have accompanied that statement, as surely the sun would rise on many days to come. Crowley flushed scarlet, and it took all of her remaining self-control not to laugh.
‘Er,’ said Aziraphale hesitantly, ‘you truly never intended for the manuscript to be read?’
‘Itte was not a longe reade,’ said Agnes. ‘Yowe haf alreddy burnt through the fyrst parte.’
‘I see,’ he said, bowing his head reverently. ‘Well, in that case…thank you for your devotion to duty, Mistress Nutter. We are all…forever in your debt. All the same…if there are any copies—’
‘There are notte,’ said Agnes. Aziraphale’s aura dimmed, seemingly in spite of himself. If she weren’t a Device, Anathema might have felt sorry for him. ‘And yef,’ Agnes contined, ‘that if certainely true. Doe notte worry too much, Hangers-On. Yowe wille have Options whenne yowe need themme.’
‘Options?’ asked Crowley, raising an eyebrow.
‘And yowe wille Knoe Themme,’ said Agnes. ‘Yowe wille notte neede me.’
Crowley and Aziraphale gaped at one another, but before either could interrogate Agnes further, Newt broke in. ‘Just one question,’ he said. ‘Er, why bring us all here? I mean, other than to tell Anathema she did the right thing?’
‘To tye up loofe ends,’ said Agnes. ‘And because Brazil if lofely thif tyme of year. A welle-earnede holidae before that new Jobbe.’
Anathema grinned. She hadn’t thought she could be happier than she had been a second ago, simply knowing she had made the right call, absolved of the permanent weight of the world in cryptic old English form. She’d almost been right. ‘Does that mean I’m going to get it?’
‘Yef,’ said Agnes, ‘as yowe alreddy knew. Lette that be myne laste prophecie.’
‘Thank you,’ Anathema repeated. She chanced a glance at Newt, and his look of glowing pride was the best kind of too much.
‘Youre welcome,’ said Agnes. ‘Nowe enjoye this Lande of Saul.’
‘I made caipirinha,’ said Clara, beckoning them towards the kitchen. ‘Welcome to São Paulo.’
‘Welcome to the future,’ said Newt, and Anathema squeezed his hand.
005. Yt will be alle right.
It took all of a glass and a half of caipirinha for Anathema to realise that, while it couldn’t exactly be said that she hadn’t slept in 48 hours, fact-finding sleep hardly counted as rest, and with jet lag on top of it, she would definitely need to get her head down. Clara had laughed and shown her to the fold-out couch, promising sight-seeing tomorrow.
She’d half-awakened twice, first when Newt joined her and then to the sound of two excitable children returning from school, but when she finally regained full consciousness, the sun had set. She squinted in the dim light of dusk and made out three figures clustered around the kitchen table: an angel, a demon, and a man she’d seen in a dream. The pitcher of caipirinha, doubtless refilled many times, sat in the centre of the table.
‘That’s the one,’ Jaime Hernez slurred, in a dreamy sort of drunkenness. ‘That poor, sad little tree. But that day, just that day, it was a fearsome giant. You can’t stop progress, they tell us. But that day, that poor tree fought back, and I helped it. All over the city, the trees rose again.’
Jaime hiccoughed and slumped forwards, and Crowley turned to Aziraphale.
‘Pity it was just that day,’ he said, his voice low and seductive. ‘Just think. One determined bit of rainforest defying the march of time, beautifying the centre and getting in a lot of people’s way.’
‘When you put it that way, either of us could do it,’ said Aziraphale uncertainly, swaying in his seat.
‘Together?’ asked Crowley, tentative and hopeful. ‘I mean, if you leave me to it, I’ll terrorise the thing.’
‘Well,’ said Aziraphale, his aura shining as bright as day, ‘we do owe these people a host gift.’
‘C’mon,’ said Crowley. ‘Time to re-enter the garden.’ He stood up, unsteadily, and offered his arm, and Aziraphale, equally unsteady on his feet, took it, and they stumbled out the door.
Anathema wondered vaguely if either of them had the faintest idea where they were going, and she knew, with no Book to tell her, that they’d get there anyway.
She smiled at the ceiling. Crowley was half-getting it, and with no End immediately forthcoming and reasonable confidence that she’d get to keep her memory, she’d have plenty of time to keep working on him, when she wasn’t busy living her life.
Newt yawned loudly. ‘What are you thinking?’ he asked, and she rolled over to face him.
‘I was thinking that “Professor Anathema Device” has a nice ring to it,’ she said, because she’d thought of little else since Agnes’ last prophecy. ‘I was also thinking that I’ll have holidays off. We should plan a proper trip here, maybe for Easter. We should plan trips all over the world, take full advantage of its guaranteed continued existence.’
Newt smiled. ‘And your freedom to explore it, of course.’ He kissed her forehead, and she sighed and drew closer to him. ‘I don’t think you actually needed Agnes to rubber-stamp that for you, but I suppose it’s nice of her.’
‘Right,’ said Anathema, taking his hands in hers, ‘which is why I’ll owe her and Clara a return visit. Maybe she’ll have got her farm back by then. I’d love to see it.’
Newt nodded. ‘I’d say we should invite the Hernezes to Tadfield, but Jasmine Cottage hardly has enough space for us.’
Anathema grinned. ‘Good job Clara’s got a nice and accurate lottery guide and we’ve got miraculous hangers-on, then.’
‘Not to mention a friendly neighbourhood Antichrist,’ said Newt, and they laughed and laughed.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-12-12 02:49 pm (UTC)I really liked your portrayal of Newt and Anathema's relationship. Newt is very sweet and supportive. Everything probably sounds so strange to him, but he is there supporting her every crazy step of the way - whether that means following her through Soho while she is following her tracking crystal or freezing outside because an angel is having a fit over the loss of a book or sitting in the middle seat for a flight from Europe to South America (dude that is love).
I laughed out loud over the sequence with Anathema and Crowley on the plane. Anathema realizing that Crowley and Aziraphale weren't actually together and that she was going to need to play matchmaker by explaining to them that they could see each other without excuses.
I liked the little details, too, like how Crowley is That Airline Passenger. Or how Aziraphale is torn between wanting to know what is going on and still being insulted that Anathema would burn an Agnes Nutter manuscript. Or how Anathema still interacts with the Them (she's probably the Cool Adult who talks to kids in the neighborhood).
This was a great story! Thank you for sharing! (From Ri)
(no subject)
Date: 2021-01-04 11:25 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-12-14 12:25 am (UTC)Thanks for choosing this prompt and turning it into such an adorable adventure.
I wanted to see Anathema and Agnes sharing some words, thank you for this fenomenal encounter. Agnes is so much fun, she makes the funniest, most accurate, comments and names “Pulsifer Lad” (Agnes seemed very willing to meet him :D) “The Hangers-On” ahaha. She would prefer living as a ghost than going to heaven! free spirited high-tech Agnes. She would make a pair of supernatural entities and a couple of humans travel form England to Brazil only to say Hi this is my Granddaughter Anathema, she is great. I’m proud of you. And tell ocassional good advices in that tricky way of hers <3
I love to read Anathema planning things and just living her life. I really like this character and want her to have a happy interesting life. Adored that scene Anathema and Clara finally meet and hug as if they were old friends and haven’t seen each other for a while (Which in a way is true) And relieved to confirm they are real flesh and bone.
That flight and all that traveling sure was tiring, Anathema truly deserved a rest, but then she wakes up ready and exited to start at her new job and willing to enjoy the world that didn’t cease to exist and wouldn’t do for her lifetime, She doesn’t have to do it alone, and is free to be surprised by the winds to come.
The way you described the storm outside Clara’s house got me so immerse in the story I couldn’t help but feel chills of excitement at the lines
“’she swore the wind was laughing.”
Agnes sure made an entrance and the fact all was witnessed by Anathema from far away across the sea makes it even more exiting. It seemed very cinematographic and dramatic, what a great transition, when she wakes up in her own bed afterwards and it is raining there as well (Not that rain in England is an odd thing) but it was a different kind of rain and i loved it. All the transitions between dreams and characters are ver nice but this particular one I LOVE!
You really accomplished Clara as an adorable and admirable woman. Not only she has a little EMBROIDERY BUSINESS of her own but also she suggested to buy a computer and learned enough english to comprehend an old witch, How awesome is that!. SHE IS FANTASTIC! I like her a lot. I can’t wait for her to get back her farm!
I found her relationship with her son heart touching:
“'If I tell you, you’ll think I’ve gone mad.'
Jaime shook his head. ‘You’ve always been mad.’ he said ‘Where do you think I get it from?”
Jaime! I love the guy and his love towards the trees, that tree!. I love trees myself and the idea of “trees retaking the city” and all being “Green” memories as part of the Hernez Familie’s experience during Armageddon makes me want to be there! I mean sure it was chaotic but might have being also beautiful and fair. This family really enjoyed nature and their farm <3 <3 <3 and also coffee.
“ ’Nāo te preocupes com issue,’ said Clara, visions of coffee fields dancing in her head…” And that’s one more reason for Agnes and Clara to be friends. They have all the initiative!
Such a nice, evil… Considerate thing from Aziraphale and Crowley to bring a bit of the rainforest to life TOGETHER so it would stand strong representing the beauty and strength of creation and free will, while messing around with some people. This story wouldn’t be the same without our two favourite ‘hangers-on’.
Loved Anathema and Crowley’s talk, Anathema thinking how she might have misunderstood their relationship but almost immediately reassuring herself, from Crowley’s words, her first impression wast just nice and correct.
Aziraphale rendered speechless when Anathema informed they had burnt Agnes last prophecies down, was incredibly funny. Enjoyed Crowley enjoying Aziraphale not being the “nice” one this time as well.
Newt is so sweet supporting Anathema even when he himself is sceptical about the whole thing, Sleeping unbothered like a newborn. Beside this my favourite Newt moment was:
“‘So either the ghost of Agnes Nutter has gone high-tech, or I’m rubbing off on you.’ He shook his head.”
Agnes literally communicates through the computer is such a fun thing! Oh Newt, we all cherish you!
Once again thank you for this adventure. It’s very enjoyable and fun to read and these new characters are charming. I’m very grateful for those little details that let you know more about them characters, like the children arriving from school and simple things that almost kill the characters like Crowley driving instinctively on the left! Also loved all those different language shenanigans and the “curse of Babel” detail, was an exquisite touch.
Your Prophecy notes were on point and, if you don’t mind, I would love to quote your own words here and hope for you this prophecy, a stress free new year and the best of wishes for the times to come:
“005. Yt will be alle right.”
Happy Good Omens Holiday Exchange Secret Author!
(no subject)
Date: 2021-01-05 12:19 am (UTC)I'm so glad you liked free-spirited Agnes and her various cheeky comments, as well as her friendship with Clara, and Clara in general! Your prompt offered such a unique opportunity to create a new character, and it was such fun to develop her and write her interactions with Agnes. :) They're both so practical -- with, as you say, all the initiative -- and also justly proud of their amazing families. <3
Regarding which, I initially wasn't sure where to set this piece, but then I got to Jaime's scene in my reread of the book and immediately knew I wanted to expand on this. And once I had the setting, I knew I wanted Aziraphale and Crowley to drunkenly decide to help the tree, together, just stumbling into doing something meaningful with silly angelic and demonic justifications. I'm so pleased it all worked for you! <3
Re: Crowley driving on the left, I must admit I'm not the first to make this joke. Good thing his super-imagination ensures it's no worse than driving 90 miles an hour down Oxford Street! :) And I'm so glad you enjoyed the linguistic shenanigans!
Your Prophecy notes were on point and, if you don’t mind, I would love to quote your own words here and hope for you this prophecy, a stress free new year and the best of wishes for the times to come:
“005. Yt will be alle right.”
Awwwwwwwwwww, thank you so much, and same to you! Happy 2021!
(no subject)
Date: 2020-12-20 07:08 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2021-01-05 01:28 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-12-22 12:29 am (UTC)The WEST END. I got what the black chariot was, but I didn’t get the West End, that’s hilarious XD
“forming a strange sort of harmony that, as she closed in on it, seemed to be crooning, ‘Is this the real life?’” Love it
Love Crowley springing into action to save them from an enraged Aziraphale!
“Crowley clarified, with a grin that plainly suggested he was enjoying being the nice one, or at least Aziraphale not being the nice one, for once. “ I bet these are his favorite moments :D
‘Did a demon just lift the curse of Babel?’ asked Aziraphale, with exasperated affection.” <3<3<3
Land of Saul! I could never have guessed that one, either, but it’s so clever! As is Anathema
Oh my gosh he IS older than sin….incredible.
“On myne lyfe, Anathema, and myne afterlyfe, I am so proude of yowe.’” Oh, I’m emotional
They’re going to help the treeee!!! And TOGETHER <3
This was wonderful! I’m so glad you had the Hernez family in this :D Jaime is such a good character for his only two pages or so that he’s in it, and his family here is so rounded out and beautiful! I also love Anathema and Crowley having a chat, and your way of writing Anathema/Newt and A/C, it’s all so good :D
(no subject)
Date: 2021-01-05 01:51 am (UTC)I'm so glad you enjoyed the Hernez family! The prompt just said abroad, so I wasn't initially sure where to send them, but then I got to Jaime's scene in the reread and remembered how much I'd always adored that two-page wonder. I'm pleased his family worked for you! Also glad you liked Anathema and Crowley's chat, as it was a bit too fun to write. :) Thanks so much for reading!
(no subject)
Date: 2021-01-10 09:03 pm (UTC)Jaime definitely needs more notice and now I'll always have this wonderful family to imagine him with!