The Known/Unknown Quantity

Chapter 58: Autumn Fires

Chapter 58: Autumn Fires

A few nights later fireworks lit the skies overhead. A bonfire was set in Tadfield square and an effigy was burnt. Back at Jasmine Cottage the scene was similar, but instead of Guy Fawkes it was a likeness of an old witchfinder whose feet were licked by the flames, and Newt lit the fire.

"It's all in good fun," he admitted to the witch, who kept her opinion to herself. She noted a very visible absence of Shadwell among their little party, and folded her arms and looked at her husband.

Newt shrugged a shoulder to his head, "He knows. He's decided to fume about it."

"Has he?"

"For a few minutes," Newt added with a lame smile," then he stormed off to the pubs, no speech or anything."

"Hmmm."

"I think he's having a change of heart."

"I think he won't admit to it. Quite a display of betrayal, he might think of this." She looked him up and down holding the flaming torch. "Might be disgusted with you, setting your ancestor on fire."

Newt shifted and pushed his glasses up with one finger. "He's not spoken a word of burning yours, since we arrived."

"All in good fun?"

Newt wordlessly regarded the bonfire, then tossed the torch in.

"I think I'll just check on our guests, then?"

Newt didn't look back, and only answered her after she touched his arm. "Huh? Oh, yes."

"So, I'll just go over there."

"Quite."

"If you need me."

"Need you, why would I need you?" he chuckled nervously.

"Right." With that, she kissed his cheek, and left him to it, drifting off to the others and not looking back.

The Them were there covertly. Anathema dreaded asking Adam how they did it. It was like asking him how he could be at school and at her house at the same time, and decided to chalk up their clandestine shenanigans to childhood wiliness. It was still a game to them, now that Crowley provided all the dark fabric from the mirrors. Already this night they had been ninjas, spies, both witches and witchfinders, and a couple of vampires with a proclivity for red velvet cake.

I'mean, it was there. The angel had baked it just for them, but it was the demon who had suggested the flavor, and now that Aziraphale saw the result, he was giving Crowley impertinent looks.

"It is a good flavor," she offered the angel as she sat in the garden, watching the activities of the demon and the kids. The angel rolled his eyes and clicked his tongue. He sat his wine glass down, and glared at the offending half eaten cake on the fold out table by his bench.

"Quite," he agreed sourly. "But if I had known Crowley's scheme, I wouldn't had been coerced into making it look like an aardvark." He looked at the thing, and sighed. "Road kill."

"Could have been an armadillo."

"No, just an aardvark."

"Duck? Snake?"

Aziraphale shook his downy curls. "Never a duck. As for snake....he's got a very SICK sense of humor: it was his first choice. I gave him a look, and he dropped it, grinning like the fiend he is."

Squealing echoed in the play rampaging before them. All the children were chasing the demon now into the fields, and then racing back again as he chased them back, hollering laughter all the way. The black fabric whipped around everywhere, hiding them, dropping off them, used to smack each other in the face. At one point Adam paused and stared at them both from the distance, before Crowley scooped him up along with the others hanging off his back.

"He is a thin streak of piss," she recounted, pouring herself some wine. "But a very strong streak of piss."

Aziraphale's brow raised. "Can barely see him under his burden."

"Is this a new thing, you think?"

The angel shook his head. "No, sadly, no. If there is a streak in him, it's one of paternity. Why he wanted an angel to do the dirty work that Saturday, why I finally relented. He knew, deep down, thru cowardice or conviction, that he'd never be able to kill a child."

"You nearly had Shadwell do it."

"Hedging my bets to the end with that sordid business." Then he knitted his fingers together, and shifted. At last, he spoke in low tones. "Adam would have let us do it."

The witch blinked, but said nothing. He looked up at her, his eyes a little haunted. "Did you see how still he was. Curious, watching and weighing us."

"He wouldn't have let you do it. It was just as you said. He was figuring you out, and knew he could stop you if he chose."

"I want to believe that, I truly do, my dear. But there are times I recount the moment. And sometimes I feel as it was an option he held open, in some child-like way of his."

The witch shivered, and let it pass. Then, she asked, in order to break the morose mood," Will you be staying a bit longer?"

Aziraphale busied himself with refilling his wine glass. "No hard plans yet. Why?"

"I'm bringing a few American traditions here this month. Thanksgiving, turkey and stuffing and all of it. Exposing you all to it, whether you like it or not."

"As is we haven't been exposed enough in that cottage." The angel hid his smile behind his upraised glass.

"Are you sure Crowley's humor hasn't left a mark on you?" she muttered, cocking her head.

He sipped the wine, and wouldn't respond.

"Anyway, you're welcomed, if you don't want to wait a month for a nice feast."

"Love too. Pretty sure Crowley won't care. Just don't expect him to consume anything but the liquor."

"There's mimosa in the morning."

"Cheers to that. Although, you're going to have to deal with his day drinking. He likes to keep a mind buzz, and later that evening he might want to fight someone. Shadwell might take him up on it."

"All in good fun?"

"Goodness knows I'm not wrestling Shadwell."

The very possibility of that made the little witch laugh out loud. The angel frowned, but eventually caught her humor and chortled himself. Then he grew quiet again, and added, "But we'll be leaving soon after that. We need to return, for a time, to London, before the end of the month."

"Why?"

Aziraphale sipped his wine, and then looked at her, smiling thoughtfully. But the smile didn't reach his eyes. "We have something to do Dec 1st. An...observance not to be missed."

"Really?" she asked with genuine curiosity. "For how long?"

"A little over 40 years. Every year. On the dot."

"You and him, every time?"

"Too important to miss," he whispered, staring out into the night. "One of the few times our encounters...well never mind." He grew very quiet, inward, and his face flickered a series of expressions.

Anathema sat with him in the garden, in absolute stillness, as the fireworks began, Crowley and the children mere flashing silhouettes against the bonfire, shouting a joy that would be temporary, and no less significant for it.