The Lost Child of Lychford

by Paul Cornell

  “I probably got more out of that than you did,” said Judith, taking her hand from the stump. “In terms of info, I mean. It turns out that, as I suspected from the fairies getting involved, one of the boundaries has been weakened in an impossible direction.”

  “You mean in a dimension beyond the four we know about?” said Autumn.

  “That’s what I said. Which is a bit serious, because when one of those sods steps in, things get all . . .” She did a sudden twisting motion with both hands. “They don’t have to pay attention to the boundaries of mind, of memory. The fairies have a lot of trouble with the existence of beings who can do that, because, though they don’t like to acknowledge it, they themselves are all about their relationship with human minds and memories, and this lot instead are all . . .” She did the motion again. Lizzie found she really didn’t like what it implied. It looked like Judith was turning something inside out. “They can get into your head, mess with what you think you know. It’s also harder for us to see the problem. I don’t know yet how I can work out exactly what’s being done to reality. It feels like it’s ongoing, like something that’s gathering in strength, echoing back and forth and building up. Still, I think I know a way to see where the initial distortions are.”

  “So is this anything to do with my ghost?” asked Lizzie.

  “If it is,” said Judith, “then this might turn out to be a bloody terrifying Christmas.”

  Lizzie took a few moments to take that in, and realised that if she thought about it at any length . . . no, she needed to keep going. She looked at her watch. “Okay,” she said, “very much taken on board, but I’ve got the wedding couple coming. Give me a call if you find out anything else.” The other two agreed that they would, and she headed off down the hill, her boots sliding on the frost that had started to form on the grass. The moon rising behind the hill cast long shadows over her as she made her way back down to the river.

  * * *

  Autumn watched Lizzie go, worried for her friend. Lizzie’s spirituality sometimes felt like a force field that she used to keep difficult emotional stuff at bay until it all got to be too much. While for Autumn herself, difficult emotional stuff was more of an adventure playground.

  She felt Judith’s hand land on her arm, like the skeleton grabbing out from one of those old novelty money boxes. “You’re with me, my apprentice,” she said. “We’re going to try summat.”

  “Every day,” said Autumn, “you remind me more of the Emperor from Star Wars.”

  Judith considered that for a moment. “Nice to finally get a bit of respect,” she decided.

  * * *

  Lizzie got back to the Vicarage with ten minutes to spare before the wedding couple were due to arrive, and frantically cleared up her study, which basically involved grabbing everything on the floor and throwing it into a cupboard. She always tried to make the place look welcoming, because wedding couples always arrived with several fallacies in their heads. They thought she was empowered to stop them from getting married, probably after she’d decided they weren’t holy enough. But actually, though she herself didn’t have to agree to marry them, she had no legal right to stop anyone else doing so, if legally married they could be. They also always thought she was going to talk to them about sex. As if anyone needed “the conversation” these days. As with everything else, they got their ideas of what she did from sitcoms, if anywhere. These were the people who’d decided to take the stress she was always already under and pile on some more.

  She heard the sound of a car pulling up in the drive, and went to switch on the kettle. It had boiled before the doorbell rang. Which was right at the moment the kitchen clock indicated was the appointed time. Wow, these two were either very scared or very precise. She opened the door to the very tall Alan Bathurst, and the really quite tiny Emma Beeson, who were both wearing jumpers with Christmas motifs and matching woolly hats and grinning at her like idiots.

  “Festive,” said Lizzie. “Do come in.”

  * * *

  “We’re going to be a little demanding,” said Alan, leaning forward in the sofa in Lizzie’s study, and somehow managing to loom from a sitting position. He, like his fiancée, had a rich Swindon accent.

  “Oh?” said Lizzie, killing off several sarcastic replies before they could reach her lips.

  “Yes,” said Emma. “We hope you don’t mind. We have made a plan.”

  Lizzie had been wondering what was in the briefcase that Alan had placed on the floor in front of them. “An order of service, you mean?”

  “Ah, not just that!” Alan beamed as he opened up the case and brought out a series of what looked like professionally designed lists. Lizzie realised with slight horror that this couple had their own logo. “This is what happens before, during, and after, and where everyone and everything should be in the church.”

  “Do you mind?” said Emma. “It’s going to take a bit of doing. But please say it’s okay. It’s very important to us.”

  Lizzie leafed slowly through the plans, holding back her every grumpy impulse. “It’s . . . not something we’d usually do. What are these ‘statues’ you’ve got on the map?”

  The couple looked at each other as if it were amazing she’d think there was anything odd about this. “They’re from our student halls,” said Alan. “You know the stupid stuff most people have in their corridors, traffic cones and all that? Ours went a bit further. We nicked actual—”

  “They were nicked at the time,” said Emma quickly, “but these statues we’ve got our eye on are exact replicas, they’d all be bought and paid for.”

  Lizzie pinched the brow of her nose. She’d never had a wedding couple before who thought she was about to rule out their ability to wed on the basis of multiple counts of robbery. “What sort of statues?”

  “You know, the sort you find in . . . now, don’t take this the wrong way—” began Alan.

  “Churchyards?” finished Lizzie.

  Alan pointed at her like she’d got the right answer at charades.

  Lizzie wondered exactly what the right way to take that would be. But still, there was nothing here that was disallowed. These two weren’t attempting to marry at night or to write their own vows, or any of the other things couples couldn’t do that sometimes surprised them. She took a moment to calm herself down. “Okay,” she said.

  “Marvellous,” said Alan.

  “The order of service looks . . . different. But nothing we can’t do. Can you get me the text of these three poems you want people to read?”

  She was not at all surprised when Emma immediately slapped paper copies into her hand. She was aware of the couple looking nervously at each other as she read them through. These were probably from some movie she hadn’t seen. “All fine,” she said, finally.

  Emma and Alan visibly relaxed.

  * * *

  After she’d shown them out, Lizzie slumped against the door. A sudden wave of exhaustion had washed over her. Only to be expected. There was only so much protein in a steady diet of tea and cake, and ahead of her was the assault course of multiple Christmas dinners, most of them in public.

  She was about to go and put the kettle on for more coffee when she heard the knock at the door.

  She wondered for a moment if she’d really heard it. It was a very gentle knock. No, there it was again. There was something odd about it, like it wasn’t a person doing it, but a branch somehow tapping against the front door.

  Lizzie eased herself into a standing position. The knock came again. It had grown neither more insistent nor less. That was what had made her think of nature, rather than a person. If it were someone, why didn’t they ring the doorbell?

  Why was she hesitating to just have a look? This was probably an elderly parishioner, out in the cold and possibly needing her help. Chiding herself, she opened the door.

  The little boy stood on her doorstep, the night behind him, the lights of the park opposite shining through him. He was looking at her. His e
xpression was desperately in need of something.

  Lizzie was afraid of him, and at the same time guilty for being afraid of him. That sense of culpability made her feel like the victim in a horror story, that she deserved whatever he’d come to do. But what was he here to do?

  She wanted to slam the door closed on him. The fear was making her want to do that. Everything she stood for, though, stood against giving in to that fear. She knew, somehow, that to do that would doom her. She suddenly felt like she was on the edge of a cliff. But what did that feeling mean?

  She took a deep breath, made herself calm, and squatted down to the boy’s level. “You can come in if you want,” she said.

  The little boy looked perhaps slightly less lost, just for a moment.

  Then he vanished, without Lizzie ever quite seeing the moment he’d done so, and she found she was looking only at the lights and the dark and the drizzle.

  There was a sudden sound from behind her. It was a sound she hadn’t heard before. But it had only been the house settling, right? Just one of the many noises this place made, most of which she’d gotten used to.

  She closed the door and tried to go back to work, but couldn’t.

  She went to search the Vicarage, switching on lights wherever she went. She didn’t find anything, except a series of sounds that always seemed to be just in the next room, that she could never find the source of.

  She couldn’t help dwelling on what she’d just done, on the risk—given what she now knew about the world and what was threatening it—that she had taken.

  She had invited the ghost inside.

  2

  Autumn had half expected Judith to lead her back to her own home, but it turned out this was yet another occasion on which the older woman was not going to let her over her threshold. Autumn and Lizzie had never, in fact, been to Judith’s house. Instead, Autumn realised Judith was heading for the Plough, which was, frankly, fine by her.

  The interior of the little pub had been decorated by the landlord, Rob, with his customary largesse. A small Christmas tree sat in the corner, there were three streamers on the roof beams, and, noted Autumn with a slight twinge of worry, a hopeful sprig of what looked like real mistletoe was hanging right in the middle of the ceiling of the front bar, by the log burner. “Biberomancy,” said Judith, taking a seat at the bar, and ignoring a couple of worried looks from the locals.

  “Divination by . . . drink?” Autumn felt a little awkward to so obviously be here with Judith. Being the owner of a magic shop had given her a rather jolly and sociable relationship with the townsfolk. She was the local eccentric from a local family, who didn’t mind a bit of laughter at her expense. She’d gone along with that wholeheartedly. It was either that or . . . well, end up like Judith.

  “By beer, or at least that’s how I use the word.”

  Rob, looking wary, all seven feet of him, with a beard about as long, had taken his place behind the bar facing Judith. “Don’t see much of you in here, Mrs. Mawson. What’ll it be?”

  “A pint of your worst.”

  Rob’s beard visibly bristled. “I do not keep a bad ale. They’re all Arkells, mind, which some people don’t like, but them’s that don’t don’t come in here. Shall I just pick one at random?”

  “Two pints of 3B,” Autumn said quickly.

  “That’ll do,” said Judith.

  Rob considered for a moment, then nodded to Autumn. “Because it’s you, Miss Witchcraft.” He started to pull the beers.

  “Why,” whispered Autumn, “did you have to say that?”

  “Because now the beers will be given to us with emotional content,” said Judith.

  “Did it have to be negative emotional content?”

  Judith glared at her. “How many times does the world have to show you, you don’t get summat for nothing?”

  Under Rob’s wary gaze, they took their beers into the front bar to sit by the log burner. “So what do we do?”

  “We get rat-arsed—” said Judith.

  “We both have work tomorrow—”

  “—while repeating certain phrases and gestures, and these phrases and gestures will be distorted by the inebriation in a way which directly indicates the shape the town is being bent into. So I’ll be able to see where the distortions are.”

  Autumn liked a pint or two around Christmas time. However, she couldn’t help thinking that Judith wouldn’t be much of a drinking companion. “Is it okay if we chat to people we know?”

  Judith paused for a moment so long that Autumn thought she’d offended her, but no, of course that wasn’t possible. “As long as you keep up the incantation every ten minutes. Follow me.” She started to make a series of sounds in the back of her throat, and Autumn, grateful for the Christmas hits playing over the speakers, began to attempt to copy her.

  * * *

  In order to fully participate in her social evening, therefore, Autumn found herself greeting the many friends who entered, getting up to stand with them in the main bar, then retreating quickly every ten minutes to huddle with Judith, claiming either that she was cold or having a coughing fit.

  “Are you directing your germs at her?” asked Mick, the car mechanic. “Is this biological warfare?”

  “She’s working at the shop now,” said Autumn. “It’d be rude not to bring her along.”

  “Keeps her off the streets, I suppose,” said Paul the builder. “Now she can just be rude in the one place.”

  Other residents chimed in with similar comments, and, after a few token protests of hers turned the tide a bit—because in the end, these were kind and polite people—Autumn changed the subject. She hadn’t really grasped until this evening just how disliked Judith was in Lychford. When she returned to the log burner, the old woman was looking into the fire, her face a mask. Surely, over the years, that background dislike must seep into you, must change you? Was that what Autumn was going to end up like? Alone, part of her said, but Judith wasn’t actually alone, was she? Autumn couldn’t remember, quite, what the details were, and now she thought about it, she was sure she’d once heard someone in town refer to Judith as a widow, but she was equally certain Judith had made reference to someone waiting for her at home. “How’s your husband?” she asked.

  “Piss off,” said Judith. Then immediately followed it with the required noises, meaning Autumn had to join in.

  Autumn had now had three pints. Being told it was imperative that one should drink had an effect. Like one of those social experiment . . . things. It did mean, however, that she wasn’t going to take that on the nose, and when she’d completed the noises she said so. “You coming out with stuff like that is why that lot don’t like you. What’s wrong with me asking about your husband?”

  “You’re not really asking. You’re just making conversation.”

  Autumn was about to reply with her usual compassion when the door of the pub opened. In walked a young man, built, as was obvious even through his hefty pullover and coat, like a rugby player. He had one of those beards that all the blokes had started getting a couple of years back, but it looked . . . all right. Tended to. His eyes were bright and interesting, and he had the most enormous grin on his face. Calls from local lads suggested he was known around here. “Good evening,” he said in return, and his voice was exactly the right sort of posh, immediately suggesting he was somehow laughing at himself.

  He was . . . yeah, on a second and a third viewing, he really was very damn attractive.

  “Yeah,” said Autumn to Judith, “you’re right. Sorry. I’d better get on with the drinking. Same again?” She was up and heading for the mutual acquaintances before Judith could utter another syllable.

  * * *

  It turned out the new arrival was called Luke, and he was a tutor at the agricultural college who’d also been working on one of the local farms with Ben and Kerry Rosset, the locals who’d greeted him with such bonhomie. Autumn immediately offered to get a round in, and Luke, with just a glance to the Rossets
to confirm this wasn’t some drunken loony, agreed. This many pints down, and aware she’d only have ten minutes before having to withdraw, Autumn felt she had to talk fast. Perhaps a bit too fast. She immediately told him all about her shop, and Ed, who kept the tropical fish at the garden centre, wandered over and added the quaint detail that she was friends with the local vicar and employed the local crank. That one, over there. Luke actually waved.

  Judith seemed to consider for a moment, then experimentally raised a hand in response. It looked after a moment like she’d felt something on the surface of her palm, and turned it to examine it.

  “She seems . . . weird,” said Luke.

  “She really is,” said Autumn, who’d taken the opportunity of him turning around to check his finger for a wedding ring. There was none. She’d already given him several opportunities to use the word girlfriend, and he’d seized none of them. “So the agricultural college, they have a wild social life, we hear a lot of stories. . . .” Which got a laugh from the Rossets.

  “It’s all true. Not that I can partake. At the end of the evening I head sadly home to my lonely staff apartment.”

  Was it her imagination, or was he checking her out, too? Right, she needed to come out with something that would indicate she was on a whole different level to any farming women he might know. Something that would say she was not only matey, but full of witchy wisdom, the cunning woman of the shadows. “So,” she said, “are you watching Strictly Come Dancing?”

  * * *

  A blur of conversation gradually got lost somewhere in darkness, and there was probably some . . . kissing . . . and then she must have fallen asleep because where was she now, exactly? Oh. Phew. At home in bed. All the familiar details of that cupboard over there; hello, cupboard. Oh . . . she felt . . . she felt . . . no, managed to keep that down. Still a bit drunk, too, so this was going to hurt even more later. Still, it was Christmas. She’d just gotten a bit too festive. But there’d been something important. Oh, right, Judith. Their magical mission. Well, she’d done her bit. Probably. She remembered Judith had said something to her, late on, had tried to get through to her about . . . right, well, maybe she herself hadn’t learned anything, but she hoped Judith had.