by Neil Gaiman
GREEN MINISTER
A formality? You make me a laughing stock in my country, and you call it a formality?
BROWN MINISTER
Somebody has to sign the peace agreement first!
The Blue Minister grabs the pen . . .
BLUE MINISTER
They do. And it’s going to be me.
The Brown Minister’s gun comes out.
A beat. All the guns come out. In moments EVERYONE has a gun in each hand, and every hand is pointing at a different person. It’s like Tarantino cubed.
In the background, Queen’s song ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’ starts playing.
Eyes. Guns. Hands. And War sitting in the middle of it all, with nobody pointing a gun at her.
Door opens.
And, pushing his way through the knot of gunmen hanging around the door, comes the International Express Man, bespectacled and uniformed and inoffensive.
INTERNATIONAL EXPRESS MAN
Don’t mind me, gents, what a day, eh? Nearly didn’t find the place, someone doesn’t believe in signposts. Still, found it in the end, finally asked at the post office, they always know at the post office, had to draw me a map though.
He looks around the room. People with guns are too baffled to do anything. He sees War, steps underneath a gun, and walks over to her. He’s holding a long, thin, brown-paper-wrapped parcel.
INTERNATIONAL EXPRESS MAN (CONT’D)
Package for you, miss. You’ll have to sign for it.
He hands her a clipboard. We see her write WAR, in elegant handwriting, on the receipt.
He takes the clipboard, hands her the large package, and walks out, through the gunmen.
INTERNATIONAL EXPRESS MAN (CONT’D)
What a lovely place you have here, always wanted to come here on holidays . . .
And he’s gone.
The people with guns are still pointing their guns at each other.
War opens the parcel. In it, is a sword. Beautiful and very dangerous-looking. She holds it by the hilt.
WAR
Finally!
The people with guns have her surrounded. The Blue Minister points his gun at her.
BLUE MINISTER
Put that down.
WAR
Oh, you sweet thing. That’s not going to happen. Is it?
(to the room)
I’m sorry, folks. I’d love to stay and get to know you all better. But duty calls.
208INT. HOTEL CORRIDOR – DAY
War comes towards us through the doors. A beat. ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’ is playing quietly in the distance. Then the shooting begins.
GOD (V.O.)
She’s the first of the four, and you can’t have a war without her. She’s been killing time for so long now. Time, and sometimes people. And now sixty centuries of waiting are about to end.
And we pull back . . . The tick-tick-tick of ‘Everyday’, our THEME SONG, begins . . .
TITLES SEQUENCE
209EXT. LANCASHIRE VILLAGE – DAY – 1656
TITLE CARD: LANCASHIRE, ENGLAND. 1656
GOD (V.O.)
This is also the story of a witch, a witchfinder and a book. And that story starts about 360 years ago with the last witch burning in England.
Music: lute music becomes ‘Everyday’ by Buddy Holly, done as if it were a seventeenth century folk piece or chorale.
It’s a damp, misty morning. Striding towards us comes a Witchfinder Major. He is dressed in a sober costume that is Hammer Horror Witchfinder General, only slightly more military and puritan. He is arrogant, and is called ADULTERY PULSIFER. A Witchfinder Private, MAGGS, comes running towards him. They talk while walking.
MAGGS
Major Pulsifer! The bone fire is built on the green. All is prepared.
PULSIFER
And where is the hag?
MAGGS
In her cottage. She suspects nothing.
PULSIFER
I thought you tested her with a pin.
Maggs produces a large ivory-handled hatpin.
MAGGS
We did. Regulation issue, Witchfinder’s pin. Pricked her all over.
PULSIFER
What was the result?
MAGGS
She said it cured her arthritis.
PULSIFER
Hmm. Of what else is she accused?
MAGGS
Predicting the future, mostly. She told Mistress Bulcock that Adultery would be coming to town.
PULSIFER
(cold)
Such nonsense.
MAGGS
That’s you, isn’t it?
PULSIFER
It is NOT me! My given name, Witchfinder Private Maggs, is Thou-Shalt-not-Commit-Adultery. But you can call me Witchfinder Major Pulsifer.
MAGGS
So, they don’t call you Adultery Pulsifer?
PULSIFER
They do not.
MAGGS
Because children can be cruel, Witchfinder Major.
CUT TO:
210INT. AGNES NUTTER’S COTTAGE – DAY – 1656
AGNES NUTTER is standing by a table, writing a note. On the table is a book — a brand NEW copy of The Nice and Accurate Prophecies. Next to it is a locked box, with an envelope. Next to that, another envelope, with INNE YE EVENTE OF MYE DEATHE written on it.
AGNES
(to herself as she writes)
Good milkman, bring no more milk, not this day or ever, for today I am to die in flames. Yours, Agnes Nutter. PS my best wishes to your wife.
The note, which we do not linger on, says:
GOOD MILKMANNE, BRINGE NO MOAR MILK, NOT THI∫∫ DAY OR EVER, FOR TODAY I AM TO DYE IN FLAYMES. Yrs AGNES NUTTER. PS MY BEST WISHES TO YOUR WYFE
Agnes is a still-handsome woman in her middle years. She looks up, unimpressed.
AGNES (CONT’D)
They are late.
211EXT. LANCASHIRE VILLAGE – DAY – 1656
Maggs has been joined by OLD GOODY LARMOUR, as they walk to Agnes’s cottage.
PULSIFER
And she runs, you say. With no one pursuing her?
OLD GOODY LARMOUR
Aye! She says that running each morning in an unladylike manner around the village doth improve her health.
PULSIFER
Monstrous! Perhaps invisible demons pursue the witch as she runs.
OLD GOODY LARMOUR
She says it’s good for you. She says we should get more fibre in our diet. I told her, it’s hard enough picking out the gravel . . .
PULSIFER
She is mad, obviously. But how can we be certain she is a witch?
MAGGS
She cured me of the howling pox.
OLD GOODY LARMOUR
And cured my son of the bloody flux. Obviously a witch.
Everyone nods sagely, and goes, ‘Witch.’
MORE VILLAGERS are collecting in their train, men and women. And at that Agnes’s door is thrown open.
AGNES
Adultery Pulsifer. Good people. Thou’rt tardy. I should have been aflame ten minutes since. Right . . .
And she strides off in the direction of the village green. Her skirts are huge and she is waddling slightly.
Agnes clambers, slightly awkwardly, onto the pyre, and puts her hands behind her, to be tied. Pulsifer ties them.
PULSIFER
This is most irregular, Mistress Nutter.
The crowd is slightly nervous, and unsettled. Pulsifer takes a fiery brand from Maggs, and plunges it into the sticks upon which Agnes is standing. She seems entertained by this.
AGNES
Gather ye right close, good people. Come close until the fire near scorch ye, for I charge ye that all must see how the last true witch in England dies. And let my death be a message to the world.
As she is talking the villagers gather in closer and closer. Adultery Pulsifer notices a trickle of sizzling powder, and a couple of nails, falling from inside Agnes’s well-stuffed coat
into the fire that is crackling around her feet. He is puzzled.
212INT. AGNES NUTTER’S COTTAGE – DAY – 1656
Now we see the empty barrels by the table. One barrel says GUNPOWDER, HANDEL WYTH CAUTION. The other says ROOFING NAILS.
213EXT. LANCASHIRE VILLAGE – DAY – 1656
Back on the village green. The villagers are jostling to get a good view of the burning.
AGNES
Gather ye right close, I say, and mark well the fate of all who meddle with such as they do not understand!
Another nail falls. A moment of dawning comprehension on Adultery Pulsifer’s face . . . but it’s too late.
PULSIFER
Oh, bugger.
A grim smile on Agnes’s face, a millisecond before . . . a huge explosion rips across the green.
We see only smoke and the hat that is blown into the air, far above the village green.
GOD (V.O.)
Among the folk from the next village there was much subsequent debate as to whether this disaster had been sent by God or by Satan.
Inside the hat is a tape with THI∫∫ HATTE BELONGETH TO WITCHFINDER MAJOR THOU-SHALT-NOT-COMMIT-ADULTERY PULSIFER written on it.
214INT. AGNES NUTTER’S COTTAGE – DAY – 1656
JOHN DEVICE opens the Inne Ye Evente of Mye Deathe envelope. Behind him are the tubs of gunpowder and roofing nails.
GOD (V.O.)
However, a note found in Agnes’s cottage suggested that any divine or devilish intervention had been materially helped by Agnes’s petticoats, in which she had concealed fifty pounds of gunpowder and thirty pounds of roofing nails.
John and VIRTUE DEVICE, Agnes’s daughter, look with fear and awe at the book and the box on the table.
GOD (V.O.)
Agnes also left behind a box and a book. They were to be given to her daughter and her son-in-law, John and Virtue Device.
John and Virtue open the book.
We look at the book: brand new, more or less. John unfolds a note in it from Bilton and Scaggs, publishers, letting Agnes know this is her free (gratis) author’s copy.
JOHN DEVICE
Dear Mistress Nutter, we take great pleasure in enclosing your author’s copy of your book. We trust it will sell in huge numbers, yea, and be reprinted even unto a second printing. Yrs, Bilton and Scaggs, publishers.
And then he looks at the title page of the book, and we follow down the page with him.
JOHN DEVICE (CONT’D)
The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter . . .
VIRTUE DEVICE
‘Reminiscent of Nostradamus at his best’, Ursula Shipton. What does this mean, John?
He closes the book.
JOHN DEVICE
It means, Virtue, that although Agnes is dead, we must study her book. For your mother knew the future.
Virtue picks up the book. Flips to the middle, reads . . .
VIRTUE DEVICE
Prophecy 2214: ‘In December 1980 an Apple will arise no man can eat. Invest thy money in Master Jobbes’s machine and good fortune will tend thy days.’ This is balderdash.
215EXT. ANATHEMA’S LOS ANGELES HOME – DAY – 2007
A beautiful house – practically a mansion – in LA.
TITLE CARD: ELEVEN YEARS AGO
TITLE CARD: MALIBU, CALIFORNIA
GOD (V.O.)
The book Agnes left behind her was the sole prophetic work in all human history to consist entirely of correct predictions concerning the following 350-odd years, being a precise and accurate description of the events that would culminate in Armageddon. It was on the money in every single detail. On the night the Antichrist was born, in a house in Malibu, Agnes Nutter’s great-great-great-great-great-granddaughter was drawing on the title page and, metaphorically, the book had just begun to tick.
216INT. ANATHEMA’S LOS ANGELES HOME – DAY – 2007
ANATHEMA, around ten years old, is sitting at the table. Her mother is bustling about, taking cookies out of the oven. On the table is a book. We look at the cover. It’s the same copy of The Nice and Accurate Prophecies that Agnes had sent to her relatives, but 350 years older.
On the table is also a box of well-thumbed index cards. Anathema’s mother takes out some cards, and turns one over. On it is a typed prophecy with handwritten notes.
ANATHEMA’S MOTHER
Prophecy 2214.
YOUNG ANATHEMA
This is boring.
ANATHEMA’S MOTHER
2214, sweet pea. And if you get it right, there’s a cookie for you.
YOUNG ANATHEMA
In December 1980 an Apple will arise no man can eat. That one’s stupid, mom. It doesn’t mean anything. Why do I have to learn this stuff?
Her mother gives her a cookie.
ANATHEMA’S MOTHER
My mom bought 5000 shares in Apple in 1980, sweet pea. That’s worth 40 million today. Okay. 2213? You remember that one?
YOUNG ANATHEMA
(reciting from memory)
Four shall ride, and Three shall ride the Sky as two, and One shall ride in flames; and there shall be no stopping them: not fish, nor rain, neither Deville nor Angel. And ye shall be there also, Anathema.
ANATHEMA’S MOTHER
See? She’s got special plans for you, honey. Agnes gave us the easy job. We just had to keep everything good for the family. You’re the one that’s going to have to save the world.
YOUNG ANATHEMA
(disgusted)
And I have to do kissing.
(defensively)
It’s in prophecy 1401. I’m not stupid.
217EXT. DORKING, NEWT’S HOUSE – NIGHT – 2007
TITLE CARD: DORKING, UK
A dull house on a dull street. We are zooming in to a bedroom window with the light on.
GOD (V.O.)
Meanwhile, in Dorking, Surrey, Thou-Shalt-Not-Commit-Adultery Pulsifer’s great-great-great-great-great-grandson should have been in bed hours ago.
MRS PULSIFER
Newton? It’s after your bedtime, dear.
218INT. NEWT’S BEDROOM – NIGHT – 2007
Newton Pulsifer’s bedroom is the bedroom of a boy who would love to be good at things electrical, but isn’t. NEWT, aged twelve, is wearing pyjamas and a dressing gown. He has much-home-repaired glasses on. Everything about the bedroom tells us the boy in it likes doing things boys are meant to do, but does them really, really badly. The Airfix model airplanes are appalling.
He has a primitive 1980s computer in pieces in front of him, and is putting it back together, thoughtfully.
NEWT, AGE 12
Just a few more minutes, Mum. I’m putting the old computer together.
MRS PULSIFER
You young scientists and your experiments.
NEWT, AGE 12
It’s not really an experiment, Mum. I just changed the plug, and cleaned dust out of the expansion slots. It’ll work now.
He plugs the computer in. Turns it on. The bedroom lights go out.
MRS PULSIFER
I do hope the man from the electric isn’t going to be upset again.
NEWT, AGE 12
It’s not fair. Computers hate me . . .
219EXT. DORKING STREET – NIGHT – 2007
The street outside. In each house the lights go out.
MRS PULSIFER
Don’t worry, love. It’s not as if it’s the end of the world.
220INT. ANATHEMA’S LOS ANGELES HOME – DAY
TITLE CARD: TWO WEEKS AGO
Same place. It’s eleven years since we first met Anathema. Her mother’s waiting at the bottom of the stairs.
Anathema comes downstairs carrying a small suitcase.
ANATHEMA’S MOTHER
You’ve packed everything you need?
ANATHEMA
Everything I could possibly need, Mom.
ANATHEMA’S MOTHER
You’ll need Band-Aids. A theodolite . . .
ANATHEMA
I know the pr
ophecies, Mom.
ANATHEMA’S MOTHER
Do you have a breadknife? Agnes is very clear on bringing the breadknife.
ANATHEMA
They have breadknives in England, Mom.
Her mother looks at her. Anathema takes a breadknife from the sideboard, and puts it into the only open box.
We can see that the room is filled with boxes. Anathema has written what they contain and where they go on the side: