by Paul Cornell
She went to the paint pot, and found almost nothing left in it. She’d used up a lot of it in her experiments. Still, it didn’t matter how much she had if she didn’t know what to do with it. The idea of what she could actually do, and the idea of where she might get the ingredients to do it came together in her mind in one terrible moment. She had to put a hand onto the bench to support herself. How could she even be contemplating this?
Judith had said this working, whatever it was, had required sacrifice. So sacrifice could be used against it. There was an obvious sacrifice she could make.
If she was going to do it, it had to be done today. She didn’t see she had a choice. She pulled on her coat and headed for the door, and after she’d locked up, she called Judith and then Lizzie and left messages, sharing her discoveries and her plan. It was possible she wouldn’t see either of them again.
6
Judith found the place in the woods surprisingly quickly. Every tree had its history visible, and golden threads of information shone between them, leading her down the years to her memories. He’d been so beautiful. Ridiculous. Nasty. Spouting such bollocks. He’d told her he loved her and she’d just said that must be great. He didn’t get the words he was after, but she didn’t leave him with anything to complain about. Or so she’d thought. He’d stormed off, and it was only later, when she met Arthur, she’d discovered the curse he’d placed on her, what she’d lived with ever since. That had made her how she was, she supposed, if that was how personalities really worked.
She found the place they’d buried the squirrel. It was still a black pit in the world of her greater senses, still stank of contamination. She’d protected herself with silver, dabbed on her wrists, but to her eyes a halo of shining armour. She dug hard and swiftly, her old body screaming at her, her willpower letting her ignore it.
She found the squirrel. It was a skeleton, but it was still being killed by what Robin had infested it with from that twig. It hissed its little skeletal mouth at her, in torment. She harvested the black tarlike stuff with a spoon from the back of her cutlery drawer, one she was willing to throw out, and gathered it into a velvet bag that squealed and squirmed in her hands. Then she contained the velvet in several ziplock sandwich bags and was finally satisfied that death couldn’t escape.
She gave the squirrel all the peace she could with water and words of release, but still couldn’t quiet it. She hadn’t expected to be rid of her old sins that easily. She covered it again with earth as swiftly as she could, and, propped up by her stick, headed home with her awful prize.
She wondered, as she often had, what had become of Robin. Those who played with such magic usually got eaten by it. She stopped at the signpost that indicated the way back to Lychford and read the sign which Autumn hadn’t been able to make out on the way to the well: All Other Routes. All of them, they had that right.
She realised there was something standing in the bushes nearby, and turned to look at it. It was the thing that had killed Eric Parker—that had also been the wisp that had first tried the town’s defences. It was now fully formed, a silhouette of a man, a pit in human form, a whole demon. It smelled of piss and broken promises.
Judith prepared herself for it to attack, but instead it simply raised an arm and indicated she should proceed. From the bushes around it stepped many others of its kind.
They were biding their time, she realised. They could afford to wait. Sometime after 7 p.m. tonight they’d be able to walk into Lychford and harvest as they pleased.
Unless Judith could bring herself to do a terrible thing.
Autumn had never before felt such fear as on that early afternoon, as she ventured into the woods. She hadn’t gone by the paths Judith had shown them, but into the parts of the forest she remembered mainly because she’d taken care never to go back there. With her new senses, it felt even more like she was stepping into a nightmare. The forest loomed over her and confirmed with every stride that she was deliberately walking back into what had destroyed her life.
She found herself fighting to stop jogging downhill, her boots slipping on the carpet of decaying leaves, as, after a point, every angle of the forest floor led to what was ahead. She fell just as she saw it and scrambled back onto her feet. Here was what those without her new senses could never find. Across two stark and leafless trees was hung a garland of blossoming flowers. In the gap between the trees it was summer. Blue sky shone there, and here was the smell of heat and nature that took her stomach right back there, and . . . oh, God, there it was, very quietly, that music.
She made herself walk right up to the edge of it, feeling the volume increase as pressure fell away in her ears, as if she were taking off in an aircraft. She could see, over the low garland, lost in a summer mist, the shapes of buildings beyond. She knew what lay inside those buildings. She knew the way back to the centre of her nightmare. “Finn!” she called.
No reply.
She was sure, with her new senses, that he must have heard her. She’d felt that shout connect. She knew what he wanted her to do, what she had to do if she was going to save everything. “Let me come back with enough time to do it,” she said, and she didn’t know who to, maybe to Lizzie, to the higher love Lizzie represented. “Let me come back.” And she stepped, of her own free will, over the border.
Lizzie spent the afternoon going round the pubs, in her collar, gauging opinion. She saw Autumn had left a voicemail on her phone, but when she listened to it, it was just static that, to her new hearing, seemed to have a mocking tone to it. The sound of it chilled her. Had they done something to harm Autumn? The Sovo workers had taken up a corner in the Railway, and were politely declining offers of drinks and ignoring punters who wanted to have a go at them. The meeting was due to start at 7 p.m.
Lizzie went and stood on the steps of the town hall as people headed in, the whole town, it looked like, including those she knew were planning to vote against, a bleak-looking Mrs. Parker, in the midst of her grief, among them. So the symbols on the doors hadn’t stopped them leaving their houses or, so far, done them harm.
Suddenly, she saw Judith. The old lady had a forlorn look on her face, shaking her head at whatever her son, walking beside her in uniform, was trying to say to her. Lizzie arrived as he left to resume his post as crowd control. “Why haven’t you called? Isn’t there anything we can do? Have you seen Autumn?”
Judith licked her lips, moistening them against the cold. She seemed not to want to meet Lizzie’s gaze. “I got a message from her, which I couldn’t hear. They’d done something to erase it.”
“Judith, what’s wrong?”
“Forgive me, Mother, for I have sinned.”
“Okay . . . but we really should do this in private—”
She finally looked at her, with some of her old wryness. “I wasn’t talking to you.”
“What’s going on? What’s the plan?”
“I’m going to do the only thing I can do, and you mustn’t have anything to do with it.”
Lizzie grabbed her arm. “I’m not going to step away. Not after all you’ve shown me.”
Judith looked angry, but then a sad smile appeared on her face. “On your own head be it, Reverend.”
Maureen Crewdson sat on stage and made herself watch as everyone she knew in town, everyone she didn’t know, perhaps everybody, filed into the hall, and filled every corner of it. The local media, such as they were, had turned out—a couple of reporters and someone from Radio Gloucestershire carrying a microphone. Even the teenagers who sat on the roundabout at the park were here, presumably lured by the possibility of violent conflict. Or perhaps this was all Sovo’s doing. Mr. Cummings had smiled when he said he expected a big turnout. When Maureen had become mayor it had seemed like a reasonably fun thing for a community-minded person to take on. All she had to do, she thought, was keep her sensible hat on, and the challenges were all issues she knew very well from her voluntary work. Then Sovo had arrived.
She had genuin
ely been onside at first, and so when David Cummings had offered to pay her “expenses,” which had sorted her worries about keeping her old mum in the care home she liked, she’d only hesitated a moment: she was being paid to support a cause she supported anyway. They could waste their money on her if they liked. This was obviously just how grown-ups did things.
However, as it became clear the issue was tearing the town apart, she’d started to have her doubts. She’d started to worry about how she could tell those in the anti camp that she was listening to them when she’d been paid not to.
When she put some difficult questions to Cummings, he’d said they had to be very careful who knew about the bribe. He’d actually used that word. If people gossiped, he’d said, she could lose her job, even go to prison, and what would happen to her mum then?
She’d gradually become sure that word had gotten out, that people were gossiping, from the looks on the faces of her former friends, and her colleagues in the town council. The last straw had been when Judith Mawson—her neighbour, who everyone thought of as this rude old battleaxe with mental health issues, but who had started knocking on Maureen’s door when Maureen’s husband had died—had suddenly gotten that awful look on her face. Now here Maureen was, trying to keep a calm expression, while everyone who hated her sat down in front of her and waited for her to be the Judas they expected her to be. It wasn’t as if the other side loved her for what she’d done either.
Beside her, she felt David Cummings sit down. She knew he was smiling. She didn’t turn to look.
She watched as Judith entered, the new vicar with her. The reverend seemed to be urgently asking her about something, with such a fearful expression—not something you ever saw on a vicar. She was obviously horrified about whatever Judith had told her. That terrible look on Judith’s face too. All the horror of this moment, she was wearing it. Sunil had come in at the other end of the hall, looking around for Judith and failing to find her. She wished desperately that those two might find some happiness, that at least she’d done some good trying to bring them together. Two rows back, there was Sheila Parker, already crying, comforted by supporters who were glaring at Maureen, as if Eric Parker’s death was her fault too. She had to look away. She had to run this meeting the way Cummings had told her to, had to let all the other bribes he’d doubtless made have their influence, had to keep up the pretence of democracy. She had no way out. She got to her feet.
“Everyone,” she began, “thank you for coming. If you look around you, I don’t think we’re missing anyone with an interest in this matter. Does anyone know anyone who hasn’t got here yet, who ought to be here?” This was the wording Cummings had insisted on.
“My Eric!” shouted Sheila Parker, and there was applause.
It took Maureen a moment before she could continue. She ran through the usual business of a council meeting, with thankfully nothing much in the way of reports or other motions, the councillors having for once realised the crowd would get restive if someone started grandstanding about drainage at the cricket club. Finally, they got to the matter at hand. “Since we’re all here, I have to tell you, the council have been having a series of . . . sometimes fraught . . . meetings about the matter of Sovo building a store here.” Cheers and yells. “It’s time for the vote, though I think I know which way it’s going to go.” She read out the official wording of the proposal and asked for a show of hands for those in favour. Six of the twelve councillors on stage beside her raised theirs. She took a deep breath. “The council are divided equally, so the deciding vote comes down to . . . me.” There was, as Cummings had told her there would be, a roar of disapproval. She talked over it, kept saying it until they listened. “But I don’t want to make my . . . my choice overrule the will of the people of this town. Okay?” They were listening now; this was odd. “Since everyone’s here, I’m going to ask all of you to vote, a simple show of hands, and I’m going to cast my vote with whichever side has the majority. I hope in so doing I will put an end to the conflict that’s done us . . . done us so much damage.” They gradually started to make approving noises. They thought that was fair. Of course they did. That was the plan. She risked a glance across to Cummings. He was acting, doing his best to look shocked, his fingers making nervous shapes at high speed. How many of this audience had he bribed? How could he be so sure the knife-edge vote wouldn’t go against him?
Judith nudged Lizzie in the ribs and whispered, “Look what he’s doing with his fingers. Can you feel it? Whatever he’s planning with those symbols on the doors, it’s happening now.”
Lizzie could feel it. Something was gripping the room, coming and going in waves. She realised she was seeing the rhythm as she felt it, to the same rhythm as Cummings moved his fingers. She could feel it in herself, too, a little intrusion in her gut with every flex, that was moving its way up her shoulder, making the top of her arm twitch, a feeling of pins and needles gripping her, and with the feeling that her arm wanted to move, a feeling that she genuinely wanted to move that arm, because she genuinely wanted to vote, to vote for . . . “He’s using the symbols to control the vote,” she said.
“As simple as that,” said Judith, sounding oddly calm. “Look around, he’s doing it to about half those who were going to vote against. It’s all he needs.”
“I hope that now you can see you’re free to choose.” Cummings had got to his feet, still flexing his fingers, as if nervous. “You’ll see that voting for our store will bring the community together again.” He sat down, and one of the councillors got up to make the case against, but Lizzie could see even she was rubbing at her arm, feeling the same thing many of those against did.
“I have to do it now,” said Judith as the councillor finished speaking, a great sadness in her voice. “I’m sorry.” Before Lizzie could stop her, she was on her feet, and had pulled from the pocket of her coat a blackened twig, which to Lizzie now looked like the most terrifying thing she had ever seen. Judith pointed it at Cummings. “Out out out, death to you, death!” she screamed.
Lizzie tried to grab the twig from her, certain as she did so that touching it would harm her hands, but Judith pushed her aside and sent her sprawling into the aisle. As the audience yelled and screamed—obviously thinking Judith had some sort of weapon—Lizzie felt the horrible potential of the twig suddenly release itself. For a moment she was sure she could see it, a jagged rip of blackness that consumed the world between Judith and Cummings, murder thrown at him from what had immediately become Judith’s hopelessly blackened heart, the short circuit of hatred bringing a stench that burst across the hall. Lizzie was aghast. Whatever they thought Cummings was, he was also a person, with a real wife and children. She hauled herself to her feet and stared . . . at Cummings raising a bemused eyebrow.
The audience had turned to Judith, some shouting their anger, some now laughing in relief and mockery, some still crying out in fear. She lowered the twig, a confused, desperate expression on her face, a helpless old woman.
Lizzie took Judith’s arm and tried to steady her as she rocked on her feet. She could see she was crying, her fingers numbly still trying to extract an ounce more hatred from what had become just a twig. As Lizzie watched, the wood crumbled in her fingers. Judith curled over, weeping, and sat down.
Lizzie could only sit beside her, horrified. That had been their last chance. Where the hell was Autumn? Had she run away?
“Well . . . ,” the mayor, looking ashen, took a moment to bring the meeting to order, glancing in their direction then away again. “Let’s . . . let’s go ahead and have that vote, then . . .”
Lizzie desperately wondered if she could make any difference with some sort of speech, at least delay things. Suddenly, she heard a welcome, familiar voice from someone who’d sat down beside her. “Let it happen.” She turned to see Autumn, a calm, serious look on her face. Lizzie opened her mouth to protest, but Autumn shook her head. She looked changed, somehow . . . no, she looked more like the Autumn she’d first k
nown: grounded, strong. Lizzie looked to Judith and saw that the old woman was blinking, wondering where Autumn had found such hope.
“All those in favour?” said Maureen.
Lizzie grabbed her own arm, relieved she was able to use her willpower to do that, and feeling . . . actually no urge to raise her hand. The sensation in her arm had remained there, failing to move her arm as if the muscles were too exhausted to carry a weight. She looked around the room. About half of those present had raised their hands, the ones who’d supported Sovo. Some who had previously were keeping their hands down, one or two of those who’d been against had their hands up. It was what you might expect from a free vote. She looked to Cummings, who was staring at the audience in genuine shock now, his fingers working feverishly, fury starting to show on his features.
“Oh,” said Judith, her hand over her mouth in relief and amazement. “Oh.”
“I tied the knot to activate it,” said Autumn, “just before I walked in. Sorry to leave it so late.” She held up a sprig of some sort of herb, knotted and daubed with red paint.
Maureen finished doing a head count and checked with the councillors and the secretary that they all agreed with the number. “And those against?”
Another free show of hands. Lizzie put hers up, as did Autumn, a proud grin on her face, and Judith, astonished. About half the room joined them. There was more counting, which led to a whispered debate on stage. Finally, Maureen looked up from the notepads. “It’s a tie,” she said.
“That’s . . . that’s impossible,” said Cummings. Lizzie was delighted to hear those words from him.
“So it really is down to me,” said the mayor. The room became angry again. Lizzie realised that if what she’d heard about Maureen was true, then they were going to lose anyway. Cummings had obviously realised that too, looking urgently to her. Maureen didn’t meet his gaze. She was instead making eye contact with Judith, who was blinking back tears, urging her on. “I . . . I’ve hated the way this debate has ripped us apart. You all know . . . I took their money.” There were gasps from the crowd, then angry shouts. Cummings was staring at her. Judith smiled, amazed as if she couldn’t believe in this much good. “My friend Judith . . . you just saw what this has done to her. It’s been stressful for all of us, but it’s sent her over the edge, and . . . and I just can’t stand it anymore. I vote against.”