Relics, Wrecks and Ruins

by Aiki Flinthart

  “No shit!” Murphy gave a gasp. “That really happened?”

  “But Galahad’s no dummy.” Edith chuckled. “He’s put the wooden goblet down and is still considering. That’s it. Left a bit. Warmer. Warmer. Red hot!” She gave a smug smile and punched the air. “Yes! He’s gone for the ceramic mug with ‘What Would Jesus Do?’ written on it.”

  Her face took on a faraway expression. “Isn’t that funny? I’ve got one just like it at home.”

  “Who knows?” Jensen scowled at the woman. “That’s problem number two. The Witness becomes…eh… part of any given scene they observe. Their emotional state and desires influence their…interpretation, if you like.”

  He gave a stoic shrug. “Now we have to employ a team of psychologists to separate what really happened from what the Witness wants to happen. It’s costing us a fortune.”

  “So, where do I come in?” Murphy had a cold feeling in the pit of his stomach.

  “You kidding?” Jensen opened the clipboard and began to read the contents. “Billy Wayne Murphy. Life imprisonment for the murder of two eleven-year-old girls. Psychologists say you’ve never shown remorse. Have no emotional involvement with what you’ve done. In any capacity, whatsoever.”

  He raised an inquisitive eyebrow. “I can’t imagine how that must feel. Which is the whole point, really.”

  “It doesn’t feel like anything at all,” Murphy said coldly.

  “Of course. Of course.” The scientist shut the clipboard with a snap. “Of course, of course, of course.”

  “Because I’m innocent, you idiot,” Murphy fumed. “I was framed.”

  “A man without emotions.” Jensen was still lost in his own musings. “Absolutely perfect. You’ll be able to trawl through history in an objective manner. Aha. See things exactly as they are. You’re just what we need to save the project.”

  “I am not a psychopath,” Murphy repeated. “I was fixing my toilet at the time.”

  Then an incredible thought struck him.

  “Listen!” he said. “We could use your machine to prove my innocence! Go back and find who actually killed those girls!”

  He tried to grab the scientist’s arm but both hands were shackled to his legs by chains.

  “We already did.” Jensen glared at him and pulled away. “It was definitely you.”

  “Wait a bloody minute!” Murphy exploded. “You just said, if the observer expects me to be the killer, or wants it to be me, then that’s exactly what they’ll see. Right?”

  “Correct.” Jensen nodded.

  “So who was the sodding Witness?”

  “Me.”

  “You bastard!” Murphy tried to lunge at the scientist but his chains snapped tight and he fell flat on his face.

  “You’re hardly going to be impartial yourself, eh?” Jensen hauled Murphy to his feet. “At least helping us gets you out of prison.”

  Murphy thought for a while. Then grinned.

  “When you plug me into Sonja, I could see who really committed the crime.” He brightened. “Once we know, we might be able to find physical evidence to back that up.”

  “Ehm…” Jensen looked sheepish. “Not anymore,”

  “S’cuse me?”

  “It’s a quantum thing. Schrödinger’s cat and all that stuff.” The scientist pursed his lips. “Once a past event has been observed on a quantum level, it kind of…becomes history. To all intents and purposes.”

  Murphy frowned.

  “Take your case, for instance,” Jensen continued. “Did you kill those kids? There are only two possibilities: yes or no. But…ehhh…now that I’ve looked at it, there’s only one. You definitely did it.” He spread his hands generously. “Therefore, you may as well assist us. Get off death row, eh?”

  “I’m not a psychopath,” Murphy shouted. “I have emotions. My view of history won’t be worth a crap.”

  “Shhh! Nobody has to know that.” Jensen put an urgent finger to his lips. “We need you on board to keep up corporate funding. The chairman’s patience is running out.”

  “Oh. I see. Right.” Murphy gritted his teeth. “Well, since the morality of this project also seems to be a thing of the past, why don’t you just pretend Sonja found some terrible scandal in this…chairman’s past and blackmail him into keeping it going?”

  “Because we needed a totally credible Witness to take on someone that powerful.” Jensen smirked. “Which is where you come in.”

  “And people call me criminally insane,” Murphy snarled.

  “Yes. Well. You don’t have to be mad to work here, but it helps.” Jensen’s smile widened into a manic grin. “Ha hah. Hahahahahah ahahahahahahahaha. Sorry.”

  He pointed to a door behind them.

  “The guards will take you for briefing and induction now. We’ll expect you online in a couple of days.”

  Murphy’s shoulders drooped and the chains clinked sadly.

  “Maybe you’re right,” he said finally.

  “Good man.” Jensen patted him gingerly on the shoulder.

  “I mean, you’ve proved I’m a stone-cold killer, then double-crossed me, eh?” Murphy gave a warped grin. “So, your days are most definitely numbered.”

  Jensen blanched. “Statements like that aren’t going to go down well with your parole officer.”

  “Just watch your back, that’s all.” Murphy turned and shuffled out the door, the scientist following a safe distance behind.

  Edith pressed a few buttons and the men slowly faded away. She checked that the time stamp read seven days ago, inserted an earpiece and began to talk into the microphone again.

  “Chairman? It’s me. Just went back and looked a week into the past, as ordered. Your suspicions are confirmed. Professor Jensen was obsessed with the impending failure of his project and intended to blackmail you for some fabricated indiscretion, to keep his funding coming.”

  She adjusted her wig.

  “He enlisted a psychopathic convict called Murphy to facilitate his scheme, but the potential Witness threatened to kill him. Since the professor was found dead a few days later, I assume Murphy found a way to make good his promise.”

  She coughed politely.

  “If you like, I can look at the day Professor Jensen died, just to be sure. No? Oh. You’ve already done that. I understand…And Murphy’s back on death row? Excellent.”

  She nodded sagely.

  “Let sleeping dogs lie, eh?” She glanced at her watch. “In that case, I’ve a couple of hours before lunch.”

  Edith switched off the microphone. She retrieved her gum from under the console, popped it back in her mouth and sat back contentedly.

  “Just enough time to find out what happened to a certain thirty pieces of silver.”

  A Malediction on the Village

  By Garth Nix

  It was the end of winter and a witch on her broom flew with one of the south-bound scattered skeins of pink-footed geese, enjoying their sidelong glances and high-pitched honking, before she sheared off to her destination.

  Mari Garridge had carefully studied her course in Flight Directions for the Sunken Eastern Lands of Anglia, but it was still quite difficult to fix her location and thus, her destination. The ground spread out flat beneath her in all directions, and was crisscrossed with a mystifying number of cuts, canalized rivers, dykes, and flood-mitigation workings leading up to and surrounding the many, muddy branches of a big estuary with several smaller inlets. Beyond the estuary lay the vast swathe of the sea.

  Every small patch of relatively high ground held a church, and a village around the church, often sprawling into areas that surely must flood with great regularity. They all looked much the same from the air.

  But only one village in roughly the right place had a large and shining, official-looking car parked by the green, and what might be described as a small throng milling about: clearly the welcoming party Mari had been told to expect. She angled her broomstick down towards them, once again thanking the unknown gen
ius who had worked out how to affix a padded bicycle seat to the ancient stick of yew. The witches of yore had ridden sidesaddle on the barest padding of sackcloth and leather, a position Mari thought must have led to many falls on long air journeys.

  As always, even with the bicycle seat, she dreamed of having a flying chair or chaise longue of her own. The broom, a borrowed mount which had served the fellows of Ermine College far longer than Mari had been alive, bucked, possibly in response to this thought. She hastily stopped thinking about comfortable cushions and actually sleeping while in flight, and patted the broomstick.

  “Thank you, good broom,” she said, “for all your service.”

  The people below were waving now, so it had to be the right place. Mari came in for a perfect landing on the road by the green, only having to run on three or four yards before she could stop. She stepped off, unstrapped her valise and set it and the broom down before turning to face the welcoming committee who had gathered in front of the war memorial, a plinth of three steps surmounted by the usual figure. This had supposedly been designed so that from different directions, it could be seen as either man, woman or child, and uniformed as being a civilian or a member of any of the four services; but in practice it mostly didn’t look like anything in particular.

  It was easy enough for Mari to identify the chief constable, a hawk-nosed lady of least sixty, because she wore full dress blues, her epaulettes sporting shiny, silver crossed batons. Dame Keble was accompanied by a short male sergeant and a tall woman constable, both in far less well-cut and resplendent uniforms.

  Behind the police presence stood the vicar, also distinctive in a typical green skirt and blouse with the tawny shawl of the Goddess over her shoulders. The man in the bespoke, but now rather faded, gray suit at her side was probably her husband, particularly as he was holding up a plate of raisin-studded rock cakes. Behind him, the woman in overalls holding the Gladstone bag was probably the local doctor but might be the vet.

  The final two members of this ad hoc welcoming party were less immediately identifiable: a man and woman of similar middle age, both countrified professionals of some sort, or so their well-cut, subdued tweeds declared.

  Behind them all, lounging on the upper step of the war memorial, a russet Labrador with intelligent brown eyes and muddy paws watched the new arrival with interest. Or perhaps she was looking at the rock cakes.

  “Who are you?” bellowed Dame Keble, as if Mari was a county over, and not standing in front of her.

  “I’m the district witch,” replied Mari. She undid her chin strap, took off her pointy hat, and flying goggles. Her hair was short, but not cut in a fashionable bob. She ran her fingers through it in a vain effort to make it sit down on top. “Aren’t you expecting me?”

  “You are not the district witch,” declared Keble. “Mother Hartpool is, and she’s due any moment, so you’d better shove off. We don’t need any unlicensed witches here today.”

  “I really am the district witch,” replied Mari, with a sigh. Mother Hartpool had warned her that Dame Keble was rather stupid, the beneficiary of tradition rather than any policing expertise. She caught the vicar’s eye behind the chief constable, noted her apologetic expression, and continued. “That is, I am a locum, standing in for Mother Hartpool. Didn’t you hear she’s been called away to her daughter’s? A new grandchild, I believe.”

  “You’re too young,” said Keble, her eyebrows gathering together above her nose in what was either disbelief or anger. “We need someone qualified!”

  Mari sighed, collapsed her hat and tucked it into her shoulder bag before rummaging around to retrieve her card case. Flicking it open, she took out one of her still new visiting cards and offered it to the chief constable. The worthy received the rectangular pasteboard gingerly, as if it might be cursed, and held it up so she could peer down at it through the lower part of her gold-rimmed spectacles. The sergeant stretched up to read it as well. He was very short, though broad across the shoulders.

  Dr. Mari Garridge BWch MSorc MagD

  Junior Fellow

  Ermine College

  University of Hallowsbridge

  “Hmmm,” muttered Dame Keble. She still sounded suspicious. “Ermine College. Why would a Hallowsbridge scholar take on a locum here? And you’re still too young.”

  “I have only recently taken my doctorate,” replied Mari diplomatically. “I’ve been in Morcoln for several weeks, doing some research into…well…naturally I had called upon Mother Hartpool when I first arrived, so when she got your telegram, she came around to ask if I might stand in, given her imminent departure to her daughter in Stondbury. I agreed, so here I am.”

  “You can’t just become a district witch,” complained Keble. “Ermine College or not. There are necessary procedures, forms to be completed—”

  “I hold a warrant as a provost of the university,” interrupted Mari. “So, ipso facto, I may be commissioned as a district witch at any time or in any county by the Board of Black Velvet. This was in fact done by telephone earlier today, and I have a letter from Mother Hartpool confirming I act in her place. Do you want to read it?”

  “Oh, that’s not necessary,” said Dame Keble, suddenly hearty. Mention of the far-off but potent bureaucratic power of the Board of Black Velvet in Londinium had her backpedaling as fast as she could. “Please pardon my initial…er…remarks, Dr. Garridge. My natural concern over the situation here has made me…worried. Very worried indeed.”

  “Exactly what is the situation?” asked Mari. “Your telegram didn’t say. Other than it was urgent business for the district witch or wizard. Sir Henry sends his regrets by the way. The press of other duties, or he would have come too.”

  Or, to be more accurate, Mari thought, but did not say, Sir Henry Brodlington had snaffled the more interesting problem of an ancient oak that had inexplicably relocated itself to a point three miles from where it had stood for a thousand years, its new rooting place unfortunately being in the middle of a significant crossroads.

  “No one else is coming?” asked Keble. She looked up and down the road, as if some sort of convoy should be approaching. “I mean, you’re not expecting anyone?”

  “No,” replied Mari. “I’m sure I can assist you with whatever the problem is. What is the problem?”

  “Well, now you’re here, perhaps I should leave it to Sergeant Breckon to explain,” said Keble. “It is a local matter and he has all the details. Good luck. Come, Entwhistle.”

  Mari was unable to hide her surprise as Dame Keble hurried over to her car, dove into the back and slammed the door behind her. The tall constable took a deep breath, strode stolidly to the front of the car to turn the crank several times before assuming the driver’s seat and pressing the ignition. The car started with a series of loud bangs. The constable engaged first gear and exchanged an indecipherable look with the sergeant, before the car departed in a cloud of blue smoke.

  “Mother Hartpool is often followed about by the Morcoln Messenger and sometimes even reporters and photographers from the metropolitan newspapers,” said the vicar, stepping forward to join Mari, who was staring incredulously after the departing vehicle. “I am sure that’s the only reason Dame Keble came today. Since you have arrived without the folk of the Third Estate, we have become surplus to her diary. I do apologize for the poor welcome to Nether Warnstow, Dr. Garridge. I am Kathleen Evenholme, the vicar here, as no doubt you have deduced. My husband, Lawrence; the good Sergeant Breckon who represents the law in both Upper and Nether Warnstow and two other villages besides; Dr. Ware, who has the local general practice; Lady Lovatt’s steward, Arthur Robe, and her ladyship’s solicitor, Jane Rawson. Ah, I should say Lady Lovatt is our squire, but she is well past ninety now, and does not leave the manor.”

  “Would you like a rock cake?” asked Lawrence Evenholme, proffering the plate.

  “Not right now, thank you,” replied Mari. “But what exactly is happening here? Why do you need my help?”

  Ev
eryone suddenly spoke at once, a cacophony which Mari could not follow, though she was disturbed by the use of one word they all employed.

  Malediction.

  Mari held up her hand. “Quiet please! I cannot listen to you all at once.”

  They stopped talking. The police sergeant and the vicar both tried to start again, but the vicar’s glare and sniff put paid to the sergeant’s effort and he closed his mouth with a thwarted huff.

  “As I was saying,” said Kathleen Evenholme. “There appears to be a curse on the village. Some malediction has been laid, and we need it found and lifted.”

  “I see,” replied Mari, though she didn’t. There was no evidence of a curse or malediction. Usually it would be all too apparent. Dying trees, browned grass, sickened livestock, dead birds, streams and ponds turned to blood, bloated toads burst upon the road…there was none of that, or any of the other portents. The people of Nether Warnstow also looked perfectly healthy. “How has this curse manifested?”

  The vicar held out her thumb, followed a moment later by the others all doing likewise, save the solicitor, Rawson. Mari obligingly stepped forward to peer at the vicar’s offered digit. It was rather red, more so than Evenholme’s other fingers. But only as if she had been washing dishes and her thumb had somehow soaked in the suds longer than the rest of her hand. The others all had similar, somewhat reddish, perhaps slightly chafed, left thumbs.

  “The curse has made your thumbs a little red?” Mari asked. She knew a faint smile was spreading on her face and tried to pull her mouth back into a stern, professional line.

  “Rather more than that!” protested the vicar. “Something tried to pull it off!”

  “Something?” asked Mari.

  “An unseen presence,” said the vicar, pulling her priestly shawl more tightly around her shoulders. “I was working on a sermon last night in my study when it came in. I heard the door slam open, the lamp at my desk suddenly blew out, and the next thing I knew a creature of darkness had my thumb in an icy grip and was pulling me across the room! If I hadn’t struck at it with my pen who knows what might have happened.”