by Paul Cornell
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For Lizbeth Myles
1
THE AIR CONTAINED THE first chill of autumn. Judith Mawson knew it well. She was walking along the side of the playing field, by the allotments, carrying a bag. She didn’t know what she was doing here. She stopped. She had known. She patted herself down. She was in her light coat, and too cold, but she was always too cold. Her handkerchief was . . . where was it? Oh, tucked in her cuff. Where she never kept it. Probably.
Right. She must have come out here for some reason. She looked out over the playing fields and watched parents and children on the swings and slides. What day was it? No idea. How could she find out what she was doing here? Ah. The bag. She looked in it. It contained a sheaf of posters, a box of drawing pins and a packet of Blu Tack. She picked out one of the posters: Lychford Festival. Bands, beer tent, fun run, children’s shows. A great day out for the whole family!
Well, that sounded hellish.
She looked around, and saw, ahead of her, a noticeboard. Ah. Right. Got it. Someone must have signed her up for this. They must have realised how helpless she was feeling right now. Oh, give the old bugger summat to do, keep her busy, that’s what they were thinking, when everyone in this town owed their lives to her, several times over.
Oh. She’d just remembered a lot of things about who she was and what she did. And a lot of it was pretty damn surprising. She was the wise woman, the hedge witch, who’d bathed in the waters of the well in the woods decades ago and had spent her days since protecting Lychford from the evil (or just very different in a probably evil sort of way) stuff beyond its invisible borders. But now those borders were basically gone, because her apprentice, Autumn, had made some big errors of judgment.
Not the girl’s fault. Judith’s fault for not knowing what to do with an apprentice. She’d known she needed one because . . . because this forgetting had been going on a lot longer than she’d told people.
Where had her power gone? Where had her knowledge gone? Into the forgetting. Into the bloody past. Ever since they’d gone to rescue those idiots who’d strayed into the other worlds that surrounded Lychford. That had been too much for her, in the end. She’d carried the magic of this town on her back too long. If summat big did come out of the darkness for them now, with the boundaries only makeshift replacements, did she have anything at all left in her to help? She was pretty sure she were all right at the moment, as she stared at this bloody noticeboard, but she was pretty sure she was okay most of the time. Then she’d find evidence that someone had been walking around in her body being stupid while she was away in cloud cuckoo land. And that weren’t magic, that were just this useless porridge between her ears, going off. She’d gone around the bingo the other night, sitting down at tables where she didn’t know anyone, asking where her sister was, that was what her son . . . whatever he were called . . . that was what he’d told her. She couldn’t believe she’d been there. She’d yelled at him. Of course she bloody had.
Postering. That was what she was doing now.
She shouldn’t yell at him. At Shaun—that was his name. She should do what Lizzie and Autumn said, because they were the only ones she had now, the only ones who could understand enough to help her. That must be why she was here at this bloody noticeboard, because she’d finally got to the point in her life where she’d do things for whoever asked because she were desperate.
Didn’t deserve help. Not after the life she’d had.
Oh God, she was frightened. She was more scared of this than of anything she’d faced down in the dark of the woods across all those years.
Come on, you stupid woman. Look at this board. Do the job. What have you got here? Every inch of the noticeboard was taken up with posters and postcards: film shows at the Fincham Hall; yoga classes; the History Society had a talk about the Civil War; baby bounce at the library; the festival in the next town, Northcott. She recalled now that she’d seen several of these posters on the previous noticeboards she’d visited. Well done, brain, good effort, dear. Were any of these past their sell-by date? She realised she had no idea what day it was. She looked again at the poster she was meant to put up. It looked to be the final version, with all the attractions on it. The Festival was in mid-September. She looked again in her bag and saw that she’d bought the Gazette. Or found it. If this was the current one, it was the week of September 3rd, which meant . . . no, all of these events on the posters were still to come.
So. What to do?
Well, the History Society seemed to get everywhere. They laminated their posters and stapled them to posts. They wouldn’t miss one or two. Judith pulled out the bolts from the noticeboard, swung back the double glass doors, took the poster down, crumpled it up, and put it in her pocket. There still wasn’t room to put up hers, though. Bloody Northcott had no business putting up posters for their festival in Lychford. It wasn’t like the Lychford Festival went over there and . . . well, they might, Judith had no idea. But whatever . . . down it came. Still not quite enough room. The last person who’d postered here had arranged everything that was left with fiendish precision. The film show at the hall was summat by Agatha Christie, and Judith hated Agatha Christie, so . . . Finally, she had space to pin up the Festival poster. She did so, and triumphantly swung the doors closed again.
Her Festival poster was now half obliterated by the wooden edges of each of the glass doors where they met in the middle.
Judith glared at the noticeboard. She’d had no idea this job was going to be so bloody awkward. This didn’t seem like anything she’d normally be getting up to. Normally she’d be on those swings over there with her mum and dad. Where had they got to? Well, of course they’d be at home, wouldn’t they?
What? Of course not. Where had that come from? No, couldn’t think about that, didn’t make sense. She turned and looked over to the playing fields. They weren’t there. She could see the old cottages that had stood there, one of them falling into the others, where its thatched roof had burned. Marie Higgs had lived there, and Alex Sarll, who’d left to go into the merchant navy. After she’d finished here, she’d go and knock on his door and see if he could come out to play.
She realised there was a weight behind her, an odd sort of weight. No, come on, not an odd sort of weight at all—it was the kind of feeling she’d become used to, being the wise woman of Lychford all these years.
All what years? No, no, had someone said summat? What had she been thinking about?
Here, this was an urgent weight. It said there might be danger. Or opportunity. She turned to see. There was a path that led across the allotments, right over two of them, in fact. It had high hedges on both sides. It turned a sharp corner. It was lit by a different sun than was in the sky on this late summer day. A sad sun. An awful sun. The sort of sun that you got after a fire. The smell that went with it was the smell of approaching winter. The path didn’t seem to be in this world at all. It weren’t attached to anything. It was like one of her posters, one thing put on top of another. It had never be
en here, not as far as she knew.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“It’s new,” said Doreen. Her sister was standing at the noticeboard with her. She had her hair like Doris Day and was wearing that blue-and-white striped dress she put on whenever they went down the hall for a dance.
“I thought ’twere,” said Judith. She realised she’d finished her task. The poster was up now, and she could see all of it, even if the lettering was so small she couldn’t read all of it. She looked around again, and the cottages, the new path, and her sister, were gone. Well, that was what magic was like, wasn’t it? Probably. Where had the magic started and ended there? Where should she go now? Home, for a cup of tea. But where was that? Where were her parents?
If she kept walking, she decided, she would probably find what she was after.
* * *
“Dementia,” said Shaun Mawson. “Let’s call it what is, Reverend.”
The Reverend Lizzie Blackmore realised that she had indeed been euphemising, something she never did when it was her elderly parishioners who were suffering. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“No, well, it’s hard to face it, isn’t it?” Shaun was still in his police uniform, sitting with a cup of tea at Lizzie’s kitchen table in the Vicarage.
“That’s why I wanted to talk to you about it. Apart from yourself, Autumn and I are the ones closest to your mum—”
“The only ones who’ll talk to her, you mean.” He smiled as he said it.
“—and we were wondering how you planned to proceed.” Lizzie realised that, again, that wasn’t as direct as she wanted to be. “I mean, do you have power of attorney for Judith?”
“As of last week. I went to see Pete at Stanshaw and Kemp, and got the papers together, and I took them over and had a sit-down with Mum. She nodded along and asked me to leave them with her so she could read them before she signed them. I didn’t think she would, but when I came back, she had. I told her it was for the best, then she told me that now I could . . . do what I’d always wanted to do, put her away in a home and never have to see her again!” Shaun kept smiling, but his eyes didn’t.
Lizzie closed her eyes. “I’m sorry. I hear that a lot from relatives in your position.”
“Then a couple of minutes later she asked me if I’d found those papers she’d signed, then a couple of minutes after that she told me I should stop bringing those papers over, because she’d never sign them.”
“So, do you think consent here is . . . complicated?”
“No. She signed them. It’s sorted.”
Lizzie wanted to say that she knew there was a lot more behind that typically concrete policeman’s statement. But she didn’t want to hurt Shaun by getting him to plumb depths he didn’t want to explore. He was middle-aged and had never married. He was the sort who still enjoyed, when he wasn’t doing his job, being one of the lads down the pub. He’d probably trundle along to the end of his life, just the same. He was probably thinking a lot about that now, thanks to his mum. They all were.
“I don’t think,” he continued, “we need to do this yet. She’s still looking after herself okay. But she’s forgetting more and more. I went ’round there the other day, and she had three dinners sitting in the oven. She’d made it for herself three times.”
“And are you thinking about how long it might be before she forgets to switch something off?” Lizzie was pretty sure neither Shaun nor Judith’s savings, if there were any, were enough for a home help.
“That had occurred to me. But I pop over every night to make sure she’s okay. Like I said, it’s not time yet.”
“I’m sure you’ll make the right choice. And we’ll be here to help when you do.”
“Thanks for that. There’s a good retirement home in town. Ashdown House. I’ve had a look around in there, and it were a sheer relief—lots for them to do, a really good atmosphere. Though you do see ones who are just staring into space, or who are shouting. God, I didn’t like to hear that shouting.” He stopped and took a long drink. “Anyway, that’s what I’m considering. If she went in there, it’s not as if we’d all vanish from her life.”
“Absolutely.”
“Also,” said Shaun, keeping his “just the facts, ma’am” voice going, “I’ve been worrying about . . . Mum always sort of . . . made out that what you two and she did was, like, important. That summat terrible might happen if she stopped. Is that where we are right now? How worried should I be?”
Lizzie considered, just for a moment, telling Shaun the truth. He had, after all, always known that his mum’s involvement with magic was real. She decided swiftly against. What would be gained by panicking this man, the town’s entire law enforcement community? She managed her most comforting smile. “You’ve got enough to worry about. Leave that side of it to me and Autumn.”
* * *
Autumn Blunstone stared through the mist above one of the beakers on her work table, and realised she was falling asleep. At 9 A.M. She’d had a few hours of slumber, somewhen in the early hours. She couldn’t keep this going. Soon she’d be no good to anyone, and . . . well, she was no good to anyone now.
It was all her fault. She’d allowed an old, deep-seated anger out to play; she had let it out, and as a result, the barriers around the town—that had protected this nexus of worlds from everything that lay beyond, protected all of this reality, even—had collapsed. Judith, who, it turned out, had been mentoring Autumn with a view to her taking over, had, in her efforts to rescue people, used up almost all the energy she had. So in one move, Autumn had pulled down the walls and hobbled the guardian. All because she was angry at things she should be angry at. Damn it. She couldn’t even feel the guilt for that straightforwardly.
In the weeks after, Judith had largely retreated to her cottage. She was still meant to be Autumn’s employee, here at Witches, Autumn’s magic shop. Autumn was still paying her, but when she did come in, the conversations they had weren’t something she wanted customers to hear. She wanted Judith to keep as much of her dignity as possible, and the residents of Lychford, especially those who frequented her shop, did like to share the local news.
Not that she was opening the shop very often. She’d been spending her days, instead, on two projects. The first involved working her way through everything she could find—from what notes she’d made since accepting the reality of magic, and from the Internet—on sorcerous ways to combat the depredations of old age. She hadn’t found anything she could use. The sunnier traditions of magic, when it came to illness, were all about treating symptoms, and wandered alarmingly toward the idea that nature should take its course. The darker side, of course, said that nothing was impossible, but that terms and conditions applied. And right now, given what might be immediately threatening Lychford, given the guilt Autumn felt already, she wasn’t even tempted. After what little she’d learned from the first, her second project was becoming more urgent every day. If she couldn’t restore Judith’s marbles, she would have to step up and attempt to protect Lychford herself. With the aid of Lizzie, of course, but it wasn’t as if there seemed to be any implicit need for the wise woman of the town to have helpers. She was supposed to be friends with the local vicar, and Judith had considered the idea of an apprentice, and had thus let the three of them become a thing, but the awful fact was that defending the town, and the rest of reality, was largely down to the wise woman herself.
It was becoming clear that the outsider would have to defend the town. Not that she’d truly seen herself as an outsider until the last few months. But maybe it had always been the case. She wasn’t sure she’d ever known how to be wise. If only Judith had kept much in the way of records. But the trunks in her attic, when the old woman had allowed Autumn up there to search, had turned out to be filled with journals written in a truly impenetrable hand, a few twigs, which all felt like they’d once possessed magical power that was long gone, and several unidentifiable items that were actually rotting. It was as if the material memory
of the wise woman was decaying just as her biological memory was. Maybe that wasn’t a metaphor, even. That was where Autumn’s science kept failing her, the idea that in magic metaphor was often reality. But the . . . poetic connections . . . between cause and effect that seemed to be the case in magic weren’t chaotic, they were a system that could be learned, and so they weren’t divorced from the scientific approach. There was just a step in the way. A step she kept tripping over. Which was actually a metaphor, just for once.
She realised she’d been on the edge of a dream. There was noise coming from somewhere. It was from the shop. Someone was knocking on the door. She heaved herself upright and went to answer it. The only thing that made her want to was the idea that it might be Judith. But no, it probably wasn’t. These days she wasn’t often out and about.
Autumn opened the front door to find herself face to face with her boyfriend, Luke. Well, she was pretty sure he was still her boyfriend. They hadn’t actually spoken much in the last couple of weeks. “Hi,” he said.
“Hi.” She didn’t want to give him the impression she really had to get back to what she was doing, but she wasn’t sure she could help it.
“So . . . is everything okay?”
Autumn bit her lip. She hadn’t told him anything about what had happened. Mainly because he didn’t know magic was real. So, like the rest of the town, he was aware that she’d been questioned about a disappearance, and that the old man who’d disappeared had since come back to Lychford and wouldn’t talk to anyone about where he’d been. There’d been a few jokes down the pub about that. They’d laughed about what she’d done to him, and her joining in had meant that they didn’t believe she actually had done anything to him. Probably. Luke might not actually be so sure. She’d told him, as a cover story for the presence of magic in her life, that she had some mental health issues. That therefore Luke could expect her to sometimes say weird stuff and that people would sometimes say weird stuff to her in return. As cover stories went, it was pretty ridiculous. And harder on her, probably, than telling the truth would be. It had had the added effect of making Luke careful around her. And thus, though they’d come close a couple of times, Autumn hadn’t had sex with him. And God, she really wanted to. When she had a minute. Or, rather, about a day to convince him she was in her right frame of mind and that her consent was enthusiastic.
