by Paul Cornell
She was going to be alone at Christmas, when a tally was made of who was alone and who wasn’t and loneliness became a thing everyone talked about. She was going to be alone and in love. Was this what love was going to be like for her from now on? This was so not her.
Autumn closed her eyes and tried to will herself to sleep.
* * *
Days are not days as we know them in the places where Finn, Prince of the Blood, walked and thought, far from the fields we know, and whether these were places and whether or not that was walking or thinking, these are also not exactly what we’d mean by those words.
But let’s say there was a moment when he came to the edge of Lychford, and he was thinking of why—since he’d been so urgent last time, since his message had been one of impending danger—he’d heard nothing since from the three whose mission it was to protect the borders of this place.
He moved, proudly and unhesitatingly, to cross those borders himself, intending to manifest once more to Autumn and ask what progress had been made.
He stepped not through, but straight past.
Shocked, he tried again. Again, the border to step over eluded him.
Scared and furious now, he bellowed and struck where the border should be, bringing something like lightning and sunlight and gravity together all at once where his fist hit—
—nothing.
He stared at the gap in the realities. This wasn’t possible. The worlds had been rearranged, entirely without the permission of his people or anyone else, to cut off the humans inside from all aid.
Finn calmed himself, then turned and said a word and ran, became a light and a hare that skipped over hills and was the wind and was the hills and would get to where his people existed at the speed of the word leaving his mouth. His father had to know of this. He had not the faintest idea what even his people might do to stop this. The worlds had been turned inside out. There might already be horrors abroad in Lychford.
* * *
With four days to go before Christmas, Lizzie got to the church early and had everything ready for the wedding rehearsal before Alan and Emma and their families and supporters arrived. At least this was something she’d gotten down to a fine art. This lot, of course, had all their added extras. Indeed, they’d brought along a couple of examples of the statues they were going to place in the church on the day.
“So why do you want . . . this, exactly?” she said, looking up at a carved face that was veined, bulbous, not really much of a face at all. The body of the thing was also not something you’d expect to stand in a churchyard without comment. Those were wings, weren’t they? Sort of. Too many arms, really. The whole thing looked like a melted cherub.
“Sentimental reasons,” Alan said with a laugh.
“This is exactly like the first one we, err, pinched, when we were students,” said Emma. Her maids of honour nodded, like this was a story they’d heard often. They were an interesting pair themselves, identical, but Lizzie had been assured they weren’t twins. They had eyes that were strikingly green and sort of golden at the same time. Alan’s best man, Derek, was also quite something. He must have been over eight feet tall, and Lizzie hadn’t really gotten a good look at him, because his face was somehow continually hidden in shadow. He was now carrying the second statue, just as ugly as the first, to the specific spot where this lot wanted it placed.
The father of the bride, Stewart, was present only as a shaft of pulsing green light, which seemed to emanate from somewhere under the floor and faded into the roof. Lizzie had been assured he was going to wear something more formal for the ceremony itself. She leafed back through her forms, worried that she was somehow missing something. But no, there didn’t seem to be anything odd going on. “Where did you say you were from?” She should know that, shouldn’t she? She should know that offhandedly.
“Swindon,” said Emma. “So not too far to drive.”
“Are we okay with the order of service now?” asked Alan.
Lizzie wanted to say that actually this was the first thought she’d had about it since the night she’d last seen them, but no, bright and professional, that was the way. She’d had no notes last time she’d read through it, eccentric as it was. She could hardly remember anything about it. She took it from her papers and noticed there was one point she should ask about. “What do you have for the moment when I have to—?”
Emma, of course, had produced a doll of a baby before she’d finished the sentence.
“And here’s the other thing,” said Alan, putting a very heavy ceremonial knife into her hands. “I’m assuming you won’t have one of your own.”
Everyone laughed. Lizzie took the doll and the knife up to the font. “And it should be up here, at the end of the service?”
“Right at the climax,” said Emma.
“But on the day itself—?” Lizzie couldn’t help feeling, as she stood there, the point of the knife sticking into the plastic of the doll, that she was missing something rather important. Was there a point of procedure about this that she hadn’t got straight? Why was something inside her screaming that she shouldn’t be doing it? She sighed inwardly. Her brain was such a jumble at the moment. Bloody Christmas.
“Don’t worry,” Alan assured her, “on the day itself, we’ve already arranged to get hold of the real thing.”
* * *
Autumn tried to work. She went downstairs each morning, made herself get as far as the door, attempted to swing the sign on it from CLOSED to OPEN . . . but if it wasn’t to do with getting Luke into her life, what was the point? She was barely sleeping, just finally giving in to exhaustion in the early hours.
One evening, she went over to the Vicarage, hoping to find Lizzie, who was now not answering her phone any more than Luke was. She was surprised to find the Lizzie who opened the door was looking as pale and nervous as she did. “It’s not going to snow,” she said, without even a hello. “No white Christmas this year.”
“Can I come in?”
Lizzie gestured impatiently that she could and Autumn entered, startled about what she’d just noticed about Lizzie’s hands. But no, never mind that, that wasn’t important, she had something urgent to ask. “So, have you heard from Luke?”
“Who?”
Autumn held in the sudden fury she felt at that impudent question. “Luke! My Luke!”
“Is that the bloke you—? I’ve never met him. Why should I have heard from him?” Sounding very distracted, Lizzie led her into the kitchen, where . . . oh my God.
A small boy stood in the middle of the room, weeping. On seeing Lizzie, he instantly grabbed for her hand. “No hurting!” he shouted.
Lizzie sighingly pulled her cardigan sleeve away from him and pushed past him to get to the kettle. This, Autumn realised, must be that ghost Lizzie had told them about. Back when . . . yeah, Judith hadn’t been into the shop for ages now, what was that about? But no, there were more urgent matters at hand. “I think there were some specific words I said to Luke that he didn’t like, or maybe it was the way I said them. Should I go over to the agricultural college, do you think?”
Lizzie made a sudden gasp of pain that made Autumn look over to where she was washing out two cups. She’d gotten the water on her hands, and the backs of her hands were . . .
“Sorry,” said Lizzie. “For some reason I’ve been trying to stop myself from being able to use my hands. It’s the stupidest thing. I can only hurt them for a little while before I can’t manage it anymore. I’ve tried burning them with candles, sticking them with a screwdriver. I can’t quite bring myself to use the scissors but, you know, I’m going to have to get to that soon, or it’ll be, I don’t know, too late.”
“No hurting!” yelled the boy.
Autumn was stunned for a moment by the horror her friend was inflicting upon herself. But hey, it was nothing compared to what she was going through. “You think you’ve got problems? I think I’ve now filled up Luke’s voicemail. Or he’s switched it off—”
<
br /> “Will you just stop—!” That had been a sudden shout from Lizzie. The kettle was now starting to boil. “Sorry, sorry, I need to concentrate. Making you tea just gave me an idea. I should have seen it sooner. I’m going to try boiling water on my hands. See if I can ruin them completely.”
“Why . . . why—?”
“Then I’ll be useless to them. I won’t be able to do the thing.” She made a stabbing motion. “I’ve tried everything else. I don’t know who this ‘I’ is I’m talking about. Myself, I’m fine. Just a bit busy. There’s just . . . you know, something inside, trying to do something to stop all this.”
“All what? If you can’t listen to this important stuff I’m telling you about Luke for five minutes—”
“No hurting!”
“That can wait. This is important.” The kettle was boiling furiously. Lizzie snatched it off its stand and made to pour the water over her hand.
Reflexively, Autumn leapt forward and knocked the kettle into the sink.
Lizzie cried out, pushed Autumn away, and grabbed for the kettle. Autumn, furious at her, tried to get it off her.
“Don’t!” cried the little boy.
Lizzie slapped Autumn as hard as she had ever been hit by anyone.
Autumn fell to the floor, clutching her face.
“Oh no, oh no,” whispered Lizzie. Then she took the kettle again and started to refill it.
Autumn was panting, feeling the anger, the adrenalin . . . breaking down something inside her. She wanted to hurt Lizzie back for this, more than anything, so she could get back to . . . get back to . . .
Oh no. Oh no, what was happening here?
She heaved herself up and grabbed Lizzie’s wrists, making her drop the kettle. “Do that again.”
Without hesitation, Lizzie broke free and did so.
Autumn yelled with the impact, but this time she was ready for it. This time she could feel clearly the sudden insight it brought. She grabbed her friend, and started to heave her towards the door, Lizzie fighting all the way. “Okay, you . . . you keep doing that. You keep slapping me. But you’re coming with me.”
“No! I’m busy! I have to hurt my hands!”
“No hurting!” the child cried desperately, turning to watch them go.
“Listen to him,” said Autumn, hoping against hope she could keep this anger going. “This isn’t normal. We’ve been got at.”
* * *
Lizzie kept flexing her fingers in her gloves as her friend drove through the rain-lashed darkness. This was a complete waste of time, when she had so much to do, and her hands were still functional, and that was breaking her heart.
“It’s good,“ said a small voice from the backseat.
Lizzie looked over her shoulder to see that bloody boy still sitting there, shivering. She was furious that he’d followed her. Only . . . she somehow felt that she’d wanted him to as well. She was doing her best, she was doing all she could do, while part of her, a stupid part, kept trying to hurt her hands . . . or was it the other way around?
“Hit me again,” said Autumn. “I’m starting to . . . to go where we’re going for a different reason.”
“You’re driving, and I’m wearing mittens, you stupid—!”
Autumn made a desperate sound, then reached over to the stereo in the battered old Ford Fiesta and shoved in the CD that had been sticking out of the player. The sound of Greg Lake erupted into the car.
Lizzie made a sound of her own and hit Autumn again.
Autumn swung the car down the driveway and past the sign saying “Hartford Lodge Agricultural College,” and as she did so she began desperately to sing along.
* * *
Luke Halsall was looking forward to going home. Tonight he’d gone for a Christmas pint with his students, then he had some paperwork to do, and he’d be off before lunchtime tomorrow, down south, back to his friends. The nature of his job meant he couldn’t keep his phone switched off, but he’d managed to assign that Autumn woman a different ringtone, a warning siren, and took care to let it go to voicemail whenever she called. He’d been going to call her back after the first message, but before he could, she’d left loads of them, and his guilt had turned into annoyance, then worry. That night had been such a mistake. He’d kept going over it in his head, but no, he thought he’d done the right thing. It seemed like the owner of the magic shop was the villain of one of those horror stories where one didn’t have to do something wrong in order to have someone go the full bunny boiler on you.
Which was a huge pity, because he’d really liked her. When she’d been drunk in the pub she’d been good fun. Apart from her having to keep popping back to the corner to keep that nosy old woman company while she practiced her folk songs. That had maybe been a bit of a warning sign. Even the next morning, she’d acted in an entirely understandable way, but then . . . that phone call by, again, that old woman . . .
His thoughts had kept Luke, as he walked back across the darkened campus towards the tutors’ quarters, from looking at what was ahead of him. But now, as he neared the corner of his housing block, he wondered what the odd shape was he was seeing there by his door. Was someone waiting in the shadows? Oh no, it wasn’t—?!
Autumn stepped out to confront him. “It’s okay,” she said. “I’m not going to try to force you into anything.” Another figure stepped out beside her. Autumn looked between them, as if only now realising what this looked like. “That’s absolutely not why I brought along a vicar.”
* * *
Against his better judgment, Luke let them into his flat. The presence of another person in his slightly personalised abode of vinyl record player and specialist coffee maker, even one as weirdly tense as this vicar seemed, made him feel slightly safer. This was surely that friend of Autumn’s that people had talked about. Maybe this would be a chance to put an end to this. “Listen—” he began.
“I’m not weird,” said Autumn, interrupting him. “At least, not so long as she keeps on—Lizzie—?” The vicar slapped Autumn around the face. “Thanks. Now—”
Luke took a step back. What the hell? “Okay, I’ve changed my mind, I think you should go—”
“Please, just listen to me, just for a few minutes. That’s all I ask.”
“Okay.” He waited.
He realised she was looking at him with a kind of giddy joy, that she’d drifted off, but this time she stopped herself before the vicar could move in to slap her. “I understand, in my moments of clarity, that I’ve been pursuing you in a scary, intense way. I think . . .” She seemed to choose her words carefully. “Something’s upset my brain chemistry.” The vicar picked up a stapler and started to play with it. Autumn grabbed it off her. “This isn’t the usual me. I was hoping that if I came to see you, you might be able to talk me down, but with how I’m feeling now I’m here, nope, not going to happen. So now I need your help in a different way.”
She seemed to know what she was talking about. It was quite a relief to hear that voice he’d heard that first night. Luke had had an uncle who’d been schizophrenic, and this understanding of her own condition reminded him of how he’d been sometimes. He carefully sat down and faced her. “What can I do?”
Autumn took something from her bag. “Look at this.”
She handed it to him and he found he was looking at a saucer full of some sort of potpourri, which he couldn’t help taking a sniff of, and it smelled really weird, kind of—
He managed only a croak as darkness welled up into his head.
* * *
Autumn looked down at Luke’s body where it had fallen onto the sofa. He started to snore. “Okay,” she said, “help me . . .” She wanted to ask for Lizzie’s help undressing him, but that took her back to the awful reason she’d put the sleep powders into her bag in the first place. “Roll up his sleeve. And keep slapping me. Lizzie, stay with me!”
Lizzie had a jam jar in her hands, and had been about to smash it, Autumn had realised. Now she quickly nodded, distract
ed beyond distraction, holding on to the same tiny thread of helping each other that was keeping Autumn herself going. The little ghost that had accompanied them here looked anxiously at them. Lizzie squatted down and administered the required slap to Autumn, which she was starting to find bracing, then the two of them got to work on Luke’s shirt. Autumn found the syringe in her bag, part of the alchemical kit she always carried, fitted a new needle, and drew out . . . well, who knew how much blood was going to be enough? She was making up this recipe based on nothing more than instinct and what little Judith had managed to teach her. Oh, Judith. She’d been deliberately kept distracted from thinking about Judith. “We have to look for Judith,” she said. “She must have been got at, too. But first we have to get back to the shop.” She put the syringe full of blood back in her bag, and made Luke as comfortable as she could. She looked down at him on the sofa, tousled, lost. He’d been ready to listen to her, even at this extremity. “Keep slapping me,” she said to Lizzie. “Slap me lots.”
* * *
Autumn was well aware that the rules for “love potions” were very strict. This was one of those areas where one could easily wander off the path into curse magic and thus invite horrors into one’s own life. All love potions could do, she’d told several young customers, was help make someone’s mind up about what they really wanted. They couldn’t influence that decision, not without terrible penalties. However, Autumn was aware that there were recipes for potions that claimed to be able to do just that. So what if you took such a recipe, but picked every opposite ingredient, and added, as always in these cases, something associated with the target of one’s affections, and blood was the biggest association of all . . .
“What’s the opposite of vanilla?” she asked Lizzie, as they stood in the back-room laboratory area of the shop, water already bubbling in the cauldron. Autumn had taken the precaution of wrapping the Reverend’s hands in three layers of gloves, held on with elastic bands, so at least she’d have some warning if she was going to try any more self-harm. The inability to use her hands seemed, fortunately, to have satisfied her, and she was staring into space, the conflict inside her playing out only in the tiniest of tics. Beside her stood the ghost child, looking desperately between them.