Bad Grace Chapter 9: 2:03 Hazardous Guesses, a good omens fanfic

see Prologue for warnings, rating, and summary

In which Ginger must try a new technique for translating Agnes' prophecies.

2:03 – HAZARDOUS GUESSES

GINGER WAS IN HER TASTEFULLY DECORATED, yet still entirely humble home, inside her personal library, hunched studiously over her 1837 cherry wood secretary desk. This sat beneath an enormous charcoal and pencil sketch by Chasseriau, of Christ kneeling before the cross, held itself by angels. The final image of Christ In the Garden of Olives was breathtaking, but this had been Ginger's first real art acquisition, and it was still her favourite.

She was currently puzzling over Agnes' book. The first three prophecies were extremely easy to decipher, as they were directed at Ginger herself. She knew that it meant the book was destined to be hers, and that she was undoubtedly the only one who could manage the task of unraveling the madness within.

But after those few lines, things became hideously more difficult. Such inanity as "55: Myne spirit ariseth throue smoke and flames and til my return I remayne in the black wode" and "82: Lo, the serpynt and thee healer seek a new passtyme that vexeth them both", were beginning to vex Ginger herself. After the first page, everything had become schizophrenic.

That sort of thing, according to her new Boss, was typical. And very possibly true.

But Ginger pressed on nonetheless, hardheaded as a rhinoceros and equally likely to stamp flat the fire of her frustration.

Yesterday she had, on a whim, abandoned her usual way of tackling a translation – which was start at the very beginning and trudge obediently through to the ending – and simply opened a page at random and try to make some sense of anything at all. She was shocked and a bit affronted to read:

278: Owle Maiden thinks she can easier guess my wordf by cheating. Tis not so. Go unto the final page and ye shalle find only another riddel.

Huffing with indignity, she turned to the last entry on the last page of the text and read:

4227: Once apon a tyme, theire waf an angel and a daimon and who liveth together in peace and harmonie in a cottage onne the Southernmost Downef. Thee rest of the storey sharl be found inn the Pagef of Life. So ye should back yerself up and read alle the wordf properlie.

Oh, Holy Spirit, the cheek of this woman! She was like the devil, leading Ginger deliberately down a path and then taunting her from beyond the grave with a fairy tale and chastisement. The very fact that she was capable of doing this gave Ginger a small and nearly imperceptible psychic jolt.

But Ginger stuck to things better than the toilet paper one never knows is on one's heel coming from the loo (at the Ritz, no less), until lifelong humiliation has already been ingrained upon the psyche and you can never show your face in public again.

So she would be forced to do what Anathema's entirely family line had done (though she knew it not). Start a catalog on note cards and cross-reference everything. She sighed to think she was becoming a librarian in her old age. Using note cards would make it more difficult to carry to her volunteer job. Opening a notebook was easier by far. But obviously Agnes didn't intend it to be easy on any level. Ginger must not only translate the text, she must determine the entire order of events from the mishmash, and she must do it strictly on her own time away from work.

Oh well, she squared her shoulders and fetched some blank recipe cards from the kitchen, sure that her cook wouldn't miss them, and made a note to herself to have the maid run out and buy some real note cards later. She turned back to the last passage she'd read and transcribed:

16: Upon the Great Circlef the Lamb hoppes and bends and hoppes again, and picks up thee stone that winf the game. The Disciplef are pleas'd whereupon they eat of sweet bread and sweeter wine the Dove hath made.

Ginger was pleased to know that the new Christ would have his Disciples back and they would be there to aid him, feasting upon bread and wine conjured by the Christ himself. It seemed to indicate that the Christ would move about from place to place, covering a great distance, and eventually triumph. She still wasn't sure about the Great Circle, but that would come with more research.

Then she turned the page and was immediately struck by the next passages.

17: In the Hous of Sweet Blossom the Lamb doth wait for its hour, as New Jerusalem lookest upon the open'd bellies of those gravid and falls ill.
18: The Ladie of God's Home lays out three Fates for the Dove and struck fear into the Accursed Plann'r, who rememberf more of World's Ende than she thinks.
19: When the date of Resurrection in the year after thif books finding cometh, the Antichrist and the Two Powers sharl shouwer down upon the Lambe.

Ginger couldn't yet fathom what all of it meant, but she was sure of three things:

1. The Christ was currently in a place of great terror, with a flowery name, where pregnant women were tortured. Ginger knew that New Jerusalem was the title to be given to the returned Christ's bride, which might mean this was set in the very distant future. She hoped not, as that would mean she could not locate the Christ until he was much older, and that thought filled Ginger with dread. Of course some scholars thought the wording was metaphorical, indicating New Jerusalem was to be a perfect city, as near Heaven as one can find on earth. And this might be a clue to his location. The Boss had only said that the child would be born somewhere within the United Kingdom, but that was all he had the ability to be sure of. °

2. That a godly woman would predict to another woman, a cursed and evil one, that the Christ was fated to change all her plans. Ginger couldn't be sure if this had happened yet or was destined to come – Agnes' timelines were proving to be as tangled as the Gordian Knot and the Minotaur's Labyrinth combined. The pagan bitch. However, if the scene were set in the future, then perhaps it might be a reference to Ginger herself, striking a blow of fear into the heart of someone evil. She felt an inward swell of joy. Certainly not pride, because that was a sin.

3. That sometime, probably around Easter, the Christ was in deep trouble indeed. Her Boss had told her the Antichrist was on earth already, had been for several years, and had already caused trouble enough the past summer, though the world didn't end, how fortunate. That explained what Ginger had sensed in August, the microscopic shift in everything that made her run to the Holy Land for spiritual confirmation. But who were these other Two Powers? Demons? Hellbeasts at the Antichrist's command? This was the only passage giving a definitive timeframe – next year. Approximately six months from now.

Somehow, she had to speed up her research and find this child before it was harmed. The world's salvation depended on the Christ's return. And upon poor, dear, modest Ginger's great abilities to cut through bovine defecation.

She would seek out houses with flowery names. Where in all of England to begin that search, she didn't yet know. Luckily her cousin Philip was a highly respected Post Master in Ireland and it was possible he could lend a hand, especially if Ginger reminded him ever so gently about the way he kept that bottle of 'medicine' and those magazines of 'prurient interest' in the drawer of his desk at home, which his properly abstinent (in every way) and extremely shrewish wife didn't yet know about.

° Ginger had once asked why her Boss didn't just take the book and read it himself. He had given her One Of Those Looks and said he couldn't touch the blessed thing so could she possibly shut up and simply do her Sacred Duty. She determined afterward that, no matter how personally embarrassing it might be to wear protective absorbent items in one's undergarments, it was far less embarrassing than not wearing them.