This ceiling just had cracked plaster. Newt had never been in a woman's bedroom before, but he sensed that this was one largely by a combination of soft smells. There was a hint of talcum and lily‑of‑the-valley, and no rank suggestion of old T‑shirts that had forgotten what the inside of a tumble‑dryer looked like.
He tried to lift his head up, groaned, and let it sink back onto the pillow. Pink, he couldn't help noticing.
"You banged your head on the steering wheel," said the voice that had roused him. "Nothing broken, though. What happened?"
Newt opened his eyes again.
"Car all right?" he said.
"Apparently. A little voice inside it keeps repeating 'Prease to frasten sleat‑bert.' "
"See?" said Newt, to an invisible audience. "They knew how to build them in those days. That plastic finish hardly takes a dent."
He blinked at Anathema.
"I swerved to avoid a Tibetan in the road," he said. "At least, I think I did. I think I've probably gone mad."
The figure walked around into his line of sight. It had dark hair, and red lips, and green eyes, and it was almost certainly female. Newt tried not to stare. It said, "If you have, no one's going to notice." Then she smiled. "Do you know, I've never met a witchfinder before?"
"Er‑" Newt began. She held up his open wallet.
"I had to look inside," she said.
Newt felt extremely embarrassed, a not unusual state of affairs. Shadwell had given him an official witchfinder's warrant card, which among other things charged all beadles, magistrates, bishops, and bailiffs to give him free passage and as much dry kindling as he required. It was incredibly impressive, a masterpiece of calligraphy, and probably quite old. He'd forgotten about it.
"It's really just a hobby," he said wretchedly. "I'm really a . . . a . . . ," he wasn't going to say wages clerk, not here, not now, not to a girl like this, "a computer engineer," he lied. Want to be, want to be; in my heart I'm a computer engineer, it's only the brain that's letting me down. "Excuse me, could I know‑"
"Anathema Device," said Anathema. "I'm an occultist, but that's just a hobby. I'm really a witch. Well done. You're half an hour late," she added, handing him a small sheet of cardboard, "so you'd better read this. It'll save a lot of time."
– – -
Newt did in fact own a small home computer, despite his boyhood experiences. In fact, he'd owned several. You always knew which ones he owned. They were desktop equivalents of the Wasabi. They were the ones which, for example, dropped to half‑price just after he'd bought them. Or were launched in a blaze of publicity and disappeared into obscurity within a year. Or only worked at all if you stuck them in a fridge. Or, if by some fluke they were basically good machines, Newt always got the few that were sold with the early, bug‑infested version of the operating system. But he persevered, because he believed.
Adam also had a small computer. He used it for playing games, but never for very long. He'd load a game, watch it intently for a few minutes, and then proceed to play it until the High Score counter ran out of zeroes.
When the other Them wondered about this strange skill, Adam professed mild amazement that everyone didn't play games like this.
"All you have to do is learn how to play it, and then it's just easy," he said.
– – -
Quite a lot of the front parlor in Jasmine Cottage was taken up, Newt noticed with a sinking feeling, with piles of newspapers. Clippings were stuck around the walls. Some of them had bits circled in red ink. He was mildly gratified to spot several he had cut out for Shadwell.
Anathema owned very little in the way of furniture. The only thing she'd bothered to bring with her had been her clock, one of the family heirlooms. It wasn't a full‑cased grandfather clock, but a wall clock with a free‑swinging pendulum that E. A. Poe would cheerfully have strapped someone under.
Newt kept finding his eye drawn to it.
"It was built by an ancestor of mine," said Anathema, putting the coffee cups down on the table. "Sir Joshua Device. You may have heard of him? He invented the little rocking thing that made it possible to build accurate clocks cheaply? They named it after him."
"The Joshua?" said Newt guardedly.
"The device."
In the last half hour Newt had heard some pretty unbelievable stuff and was close to believing it, but you have to draw the line somewhere.
"The device is named after a real person?" he said.
"Oh, yes. Fine old Lancashire name. From the French, I believe.
be telling me next you've never heard of Sir Humphrey Gadget‑"
"Oh, now come on‑"
"‑who devised a gadget that made it possible to pump out flooded mineshafts. Or Pietr Gizmo? Or Cyrus T. Doodad, America's foremost black inventor? Thomas Edison said that the only other contemporary practical scientists he admired were Cyrus T. Doodad and Ella Reader Widget. And‑"
She looked at Newt's blank expression.
"I did my Ph.D. on them," she said. "The people who invented things so simple and universally useful that everyone forgot that they'd ever actually needed to be invented. Sugar?"
"Er‑"
"You normally have two," said Anathema sweetly.
Newt stared back at the card she'd handed him.
She'd seemed to think it would explain everything.
It didn't.
It had a ruled line down the middle. On the left‑hand side was a short piece of what seemed to be poetry, in black ink. On the right‑hand side, in red ink this time, were comments and annotations. The effect was as follows:
3819: When Orient's Japanese car? Upturned.
chariot inverted be, four Car smash ... not serious
wheles in the skye, a man injury??
with bruises be upon … take in …
Youre Bedde, achinge his … willowfine = Aspirin
hedd for willow fine, a (cf.3757 Pin =
manne who testeth with a witchfinder (cf. 102) Good
pyn yette his hart be witchfinder?? Refers to
clene, yette seed of myne Pulsifer (cf. 002) Search
own undoing, take the for matches, etc. In the
means of flame from 1990s!
himme for to mayk ryght … hmm …
certain, together ye sharle … less than a day
be, untyl the Ende that is (cf. 712, 3803, 4004)
to come.
Newt's hand went automatically to his pocket. His cigarette lighter had gone.
"What's this mean?" he said hoarsely.
"Have you ever heard of Agnes Nutter?" said Anathema.
"No," said Newt, taking a desperate defense in sarcasm. "You're going to tell me she invented mad people, I suppose."
"Another fine old Lancashire name," said Anathema coldly. "If you don't believe, read up on the witch trials of the early seventeenth century. She was an ancestress of mine. As a matter of fact, one of your ancestors burned her alive. Or tried to."
Newt listened in fascinated horror to the story of Agnes Nutter's death.
"Thou‑Shalt‑Not‑Commit‑Adultery Pulsifer?" he said, when she'd finished.
"That sort of name was quite common in those days," said Anathema. "Apparently there were ten children and they were a very religious family. There was Covetousness Pulsifer, False‑Witness Pulsifer‑"
"I think I understand," said Newt. "Gosh. I thought Shadwell said he'd heard the name before. It must be in the Army records. I suppose if I'd gone around being called Adultery Pulsifer I'd want to hurt as many people as possible."
"I think he just didn't like women very much."
"Thanks for taking it so well," said Newt. "I mean, he must have been an ancestor. There aren't many Pulsifers. Maybe . . . that's why I sort of met up with the Witchfinder Army? Could be Fate," he said hopefully.
She shook her head. "No," she said. "No such thing."
"Anyway, witchfinding isn't like it was in those days. I don't even think old Shadwell's ever done m
ore than kick over Doris Stokes's dustbins."
"Between you and me, Agnes was a bit of a difficult character," said Anathema, vaguely. "She had no middle gears."
Newt waved the bit of paper.
"But what's it got to do with this?" he said.
"She wrote it. Well, the original. It's No. 3819 of The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, first published 1655."
Newt stared at the prophecy again. His mouth opened and shut.
"She knew I'd crash my car?" he said.
"Yes. No. Probably not. It's hard to say. You see, Agnes was the worst prophet that's ever existed. Because she was always right. That's why the book never sold."
* * * * *
Most psychic abilities are caused by a simple lack of temporal focus, and the mind of Agnes Nutter was so far adrift in Time that she was considered pretty mad even by the standards of seventeenthcentury Lancashire, where mad prophetesses were a growth industry.
But she was a treat to listen to, everyone agreed.
She used to go on about curing illnesses by using a sort of mold, and the importance of washing your hands so that the tiny little animals who caused diseases would be washed away, when every sensible person knew that a good stink was the only defense against the demons of ill health. She advocated running at a sort of gentle bouncing trot as an aid to living longer, which was extremely suspicious and first put the Witchfinders onto her, and stressed the importance of fiber in diet, although here she was clearly ahead of her time since most people were less bothered about the fiber in their diet than the gravel. And she wouldn't cure warts.
"Itt is alle in youre Minde," she'd say, "fogett about Itte, ane it wine goe Away."
It was obvious that Agnes had a line to the Future, but it was an unusually narrow and specific line. In other words, almost totally useless.
– – -
"How do you mean?" said Newt.
"She managed to come up with the kind of predictions that you can only understand after the thing has happened," said Anathema. "Like 'Do Notte Buye Betamacks.' That was a prediction for 1972."
"You mean she predicted videotape recorders?"
"No! She just picked up one little fragment of information," said Anathema. "That's the point. Most of the time she comes up with such an oblique reference that you can't work it out until it's gone past, and then it all slots into place. And she didn't know what was going to be important or not, so it's all a bit hit and miss. Her prediction for November 22, 1963, was about a house falling down in King's Lynn."
"Oh?" Newt looked politely blank.
"President Kennedy was assassinated," said Anathema helpfully. "But Dallas didn't exist then, you see. Whereas King's Lynn was quite important."
"Oh."
"She was generally very good if her descendants were involved."
"Oh?"
"And she wouldn't know anything about the internal combustion engine. To her they were just funny chariots. Even my mother thought it referred to an Emperor's carriage overturning. You see, it's not enough to know what the future i.. You have to know what it means. Agnes was like someone looking at a huge picture down a tiny little tube. She wrote down what seemed like good advice based on what she understood of the tiny little glimpses.
"Sometimes you can be lucky," Anathema went on. "My great-grandfather worked out about the stock market crash of 1929, for example, two days before it actually happened. Made a fortune. You could say we're professional descendants."
She looked sharply at Newt. "You see, what no one ever realized until about two hundred years ago that The Nice and Accurate Prophecies was Agnes's idea of a family heirloom. Many of the prophecies relate to her descendants and their well‑being. She was sort of trying to look after us after she'd gone. That's the reason for the King's Lynn prophecy, we think. My father was visiting there at the time, so from Agnes's point of view, while he was unlikely to be struck by stray rounds from Dallas, there was a good chance he might be hit by a brick."
"What a nice person," said Newt. "You could almost overlook her blowing up an entire village."
Anathema ignored this. "Anyway, that's about it," she said. "Ever since then we've made it our job to interpret them. After all, it averages out at about one prophecy a month‑more now, in fact, as we get closer to the end of the world."
"And when is that going to be?" said Newt.
Anathema looked meaningfully at the clock.
He gave a horrible little laugh that he hoped sounded suave and worldly. After the events so far today, he wasn't feeling very sane. And he could smell Anathema's perfume, which made him uncomfortable.
"Think yourself lucky I don't need a stopwatch," said Anathema. "We've got, oh, about five or six hours."
Newt turned this over in his mind. Thus far in his life he'd never had the urge to drink alcohol, but something told him there had to be a first time.
"Do witches keep drink in the house?" he ventured.
"Oh, yes." She smiled the sort of smile Agnes Nutter probably smiled when unpacking the contents of her lingerie drawer. "Green bubbly stuff with strange Things squirming on the congealing surface. You should know that."
"Fine. Got any ice?"
It turned out to be gin. There was ice. Anathema, who had picked up witchcraft as she went along, disapproved of liquor in general but approved of it in her specific case.
"Did I tell you about the Tibetan coming out of a hole in the road?" Newt said, relaxing a bit.
"Oh, I know about them," she said, shuffling the papers on the table. "The two of them came out of the front lawn yesterday. The poor things were quite bewildered, so I gave them a cup of tea and then they borrowed a spade and went down again. I don't think they quite know what they're supposed to be doing."
Newt felt slightly aggrieved. "How did you know they were Tibetan?" he said.
"If it comes to that, how did you know? Did he go 'Ommm' when you hit him?"
"Well, he‑he looked Tibetan," said Newt. "Saffron robes, bald head . . . you know . . . Tibetan. "
"One of mine spoke quite good English. It seems that one minute he was repairing radios in Lhasa, next minute he was in a tunnel. He doesn't know how he's going to get home."
"If you'd sent him up the road, he could probably have got a lift on a flying saucer," said Newt gloomily.
"Three aliens? One of them a little tin robot?"
"They landed on your lawn too, did they?"
"It's about the only place they didn't land, according to the radio. They keep coming down all over the world delivering a short trite message of cosmic peace, and when people say 'Yes, well?' they give them a blank look and take off again. Signs and portents, just like Agnes said."
"You're going to tell me she predicted all this too, I suppose?"
Agnes leafed through a battered card index in front of her.
"I kept meaning to put it all on computer," she said. "Word searches and so forth. You know? It'd make it a lot simpler. The prophecies are arranged in any old order but there are clues, handwriting and so."
"She did it all in a card index?" said Newt.
"No. A book. But I've, er, mislaid it. We've always had copies, of course."
"Lost it, eh?" said Newt, trying to inject some humor into the proceedings. "Bet she didn't foresee that!"
Anathema glowered at him. If looks could kill, Newt would have been on a slab.
Then she went on: "We've built up quite a concordance over the years, though, and my grandfather came up with a useful cross‑referencing system . . . ah. Here we are."
She pushed a sheet of paper in front of Newt.
3988. Whene menne of ... Crocus=saffron (cf.2003)
crocus come frome the
Earth and green manne... Aliens ...??
frome thee Sky, yette ken ... paratroops?
not why, and Pluto's ... nuclear power stations
barres quitte the light-(see cuttings Nos. 798806)
ning castels, an
d sunken
landes riseth, and Levia-... Atlantis, cuttings 812-819
than runneth free, and
Brazil is vert, then Three ... leviathan=whale (cf.1981)?
cometh together and ... South America is green? ?
Four arise, upon iron 3=4? Railways?
horses ride; I tell you the ('iron road', cf.2675)
ende draweth nigh.
"I didn't get all of this one in advance," Anathema admitted. "I filled it in after listening to the news."
"You must be incredibly good at crosswords in your family," said Newt.
"I think Agnes is getting a bit out of her depth here, anyway. The bits about leviathan and South America and threes and fours could mean anything." She sighed. "The problem is newspapers. You never know if Agnes is referring to some tiny little incident that you might miss. Do you know how long it takes to go through every daily paper thoroughly every morning?"
"Three hours and ten minutes," said Newt automatically.
– – -
"I expect we'll get a medal or something," said Adam optimistically. "Rescuing a man from a blazing wreck."
"It wasn't blazing," said Pepper. "It wasn't even very wrecked when we put it back rightside up."
"It could of been," Adam pointed out. "I don't see why we shouldn't have a medal just because some old car doesn't know when to catch fire."
They stood looking down at the hole. Anathema had called the police, who had put it down to subsidence and put some cones around it; it was dark, and went down a long way.
"Could be good fun, going to Tibet," said Brian. "We could learn marital arts and stuff. I saw this old film where there's this valley in Tibet and everyone there lives for hundreds of years. It's called Shangri‑La."
"My aunt's bungalow's called Shangri‑La," said Wensleydale.
Adam snorted.
"Not very clever, naming a valley after some ole bungalow," he said. "Might as well call it Dunroamin', or, or The Laurels."
"'S lot better than Shambles, anyway," said Wensleydale mildly.
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