The Known/Unknown Quantity

Chapter 130: Something Old, Something New

Chapter 130: Something Old, Something New

When people met Aziraphale for the first time, he seemed a pleasant enough sort. So long as you weren't buying his books. There were instances that were the exception to the rule. A few select individuals perused his shop now and again unharried. And you'd know if he didn't approve of your handling of his books; he would follow up behind you, glowering.

                First of all, he didn't approve of how books might be mistreated. Bad hygiene, bent spines, and dog ears required a heavy sentence of banishment, if not being thrown out the door. Aziraphale did, however, have a large pile of "rescues," usually paperbacks that he kept on hand at a stand in the back. At his discretion he would leave them be, or try to fix them. If, he decided, the condition of the book added to its character and history, well-loved like an old toy, he'd let it alone, perhaps setting it free to the shelves.

                Others publications were victims of brazen abuse, which disturbed him to no end. Since the invention of the printing press the angel became an expert in the restoration and rebinding of these poor tragedies. Every so often he spent a night or two fixing the maltreated.

                He had one beloved journal, old and tattered, residing in the pile. Wasn't exactly hidden there. Just seemed to belong.

                It was hand-bound. It was slim, but full. The last page was empty, but if you wrote on it another page would appear. Reading it was like reading the history of the world through a very select lens.

                Today the angel pulled it out, notated the date, then simply wrote:

                We prevailed.

The women rehearsed. To the men assembling the halogens it looked like a bad production of Hamlet.

                "Do you think they ought to do that on a blasted heath, or in the woods, at least for the look of the thing?"

                "Prefer more bracken," the older witchfinder agreed, setting down his end of the lamp while Newt stood it up. Shadwell's grunted as he popped his back, then checked the wiring: Newt wasn't allowed three feet of the things after set up. "What choice have we got? Can't move the cottage."

                Newt looks out toward the bookshop.

                "No sense in riskin' the lifeboat, laddie."

                "Ah."

                Shadwell wiped his face with his frightenly filthy rag and looked out to the women. He was a bit proud he lived long enough to see a proper display of devilry. Not that he hadn't before. But 100% Bonafede warmed his cockles. "At least that's authentic. Look at em' wavin' their hands around, shoutin' poetry, flingin' stuff. Ah, but no cauldron."

                "There's a small Dutch oven in the coals."

                "That's our dinner." Shadwell let his eyes go to the bookshop himself. "What are...they up to?"

                "Gathering their nerve, I suppose. From what I understand, what's next hasn't been done before."

                Thunder rumbled overhead and the men looked up into a yellowish sky. It was midnight on Christmas, but it seemed like dusk with a bad case of nausea. Possibly a bad fever. The kind of sky that when you see it over the ocean, you head for land as fast as you can.

                Sickening glandular colored clouds rolled above them. But they stop around a dome of air pressure no bigger than the land surrounding Jasmine. And then like pouring smoke, they boiled over some unseen barrier. If clouds could be said to be angry these were simmering, slowing building up to a rage.