BAD GRACE - quantum witch © 2005
see Prologue for warnings, rating, and summary
In which Anathema and Newt's baby decides its time to arrive, and there is a special cameo.
4:02 – EARLY TO RISE
"ARE YOU ABSOLUTELY SURE this trip is a good idea?" Newt asked for the 9th time (Anathema had been counting) since they'd left Lower Tadfield.
"Yes, dear, it's a good idea. I'm fine, the baby is fine, we are all fine. Except maybe you because you keep fretting your way to an ulcer." She smiled and patted both her bulging stomach and Newt's hand on the gear shift.
They'd borrowed a van from Martha's husband in order to cart along all their supplies for the trip. Anathema had booked a small space at a huge fair being held at the western edge of Brecon Beacons Park in Wales. It was the largest of its kind this early in the year, and she really wanted to advertise her new business in the biggest way possible.
She had made judicious and liberal use of the new greenhouse and her herbal crop was spectacular before spring had arrived. She had also managed to convince quite a number of her tarot clients that specific herbs – fresh, of course – would help them with health issues, both ingested and as aromatherapy. Naturally, she was right, and the extra money certainly hurt no one.
The last several weeks had been spent up to her elbows in herbs, gathering, drying, stuffing into pre-purchased decorative pillows, making various perfumes and actual spell potions for the discerning. She had been aided by Martha, Newt, and Adam and all his friends. Pepper had secretly put a bit of the perfumes on her neck, then blamed her strong scent on having worked so hard at bottling things. Adam just smiled and said it smelled nice to him, and they had quickly busied themselves with other things while they both blushed. The other two boys were still, thankfully oblivious and gagged at the perfume and made faces, occasionally nibbling at various herbs to see what they were like, then making more faces.
Now, at the end of March, Anathema and Newt had a considerable amount of boxes filled with herbs. If they had been stopped by police and rolled down the window, they'd have likely been searched for anything other than legally saleable items. The scents were almost overpowering, and so they had to ride with the windows down most of the time. Fortunately the weather was lovely.
The trip took nearly two days over winding terrain, but they arrived on Thursday afternoon and set up both their booth and their sleeping tent. Anathema made it through the unpacking, then needed a nap. Newt continued to fret, but he figured she must know what she was doing. All those books that made him faint seemed to indicate that as long as there were no previous complications, travel was fine until the last month. So far it had been a literally textbook pregnancy so far, and Newt hadn't been spared a single detail.
THE FOLLOWING TWO DAYS were wonderful, they both had to admit it. Newt had never imagined so many people existed with similar tastes to his wife's.
It was surprisingly financially gainful. Anathema cleverly set up a small burner and kept a steady supply of delectable scents wafting across the area, thus ensuring they did brisk business. They sold nearly as much as the food vendors. By Saturday afternoon, when things were slowly winding down, they had a fine wad of cash in hand.
It had been endlessly entertaining. Every person seemed to be in costume, even if it were their everyday wear. There were ragged hippie types with unkempt hair (who smelled rather more herbal than even Anathema's booth). There were folk in simple blue jeans who walked about strumming guitars and taking requests, so long as you knew the works of Simon and Garfunkel. Which Newt didn't. There was a strolling jester in faux Medieval garb who juggled anything he could lay hands on, and who Newt had to forcibly refrain from Anathema potion bottles. There were plenty of young people wearing all black with fishnet stocking in strange places and so much eyeliner that Newt couldn't imagine how their eyes stayed open (they barely did, actually). He even saw one or two sporting fangs, which he sincerely hoped were fake. One never knew, after having met a genuine demon.
There were many others wearing all black and not so much eyeliner. She generally looked more like Anathema, who wore black because she was a real witch and it was just proper. The other witches (wiccans, they mostly called themselves) seemed to wander around alone or in groups of three. Newt was sure he'd been told why this was, but couldn't remember. Something about the moon, though it was daytime now so he wasn't sure it counted. He hoped to high heavens that, come nighttime, none of the particular threesome walking toward the booth right now would take off their clothes and dance around anywhere within his line of sight.
Between the two old ones, it was hard to tell who was the eldest. The tall, thin severe one, whose steel blue eyes were even now laying Newt's mind bare from twenty feet away, looked like she could have been anything from sixty to a well-preserved five hundred. The other was short and squat and round, and her face was more wrinkled than the coastline of Norway. She smiled toothily at everything, or rather she would have if she'd still had more than three teeth left. But at least she was cheerful. The third was the youngest, somewhat short as well, and also the fattest. She had a distinct waddle to her gait. She also had the most beautiful head of hair. She probably had a very nice personality or two, which Newt had to concede was a very odd thought to be having.
He also thought it was rather stereotypical of them to be wearing tall pointed hats, but he wasn't about to argue it.
The three stopped before the booth and the short ones poked amongst the wares, the older with great enthusiasm. The tall one merely looked at Newt and Anathema. Then she spoke at both of them at once.
"You'll be due 'bout now," she said of the baby.
"Um, actually, in another month," Newt said rather squeakily. He couldn't seem to look away from the imposing woman.
"Bit sooner, I thinks." She nudged the older of the remaining two and nodded in Anathema's direction.
"Oh, dear me," the wrinkled face smiled at them both. "Much sooner. Better starts to packin' up all this lovely stuff. But not before I takes one of them aphoredizzical potions you got here. Gal never knows when she'll run into a reluctant gentl'man."
"Er." That was all Newt could manage.
"Why are you trying to scare them?" the young witch asked softly, but with a worried look herself. "They've got plenty time… to… make it to the nearest hospital…"
Anathema had had enough of this. "Okay, look," she said, standing up. And then she gasped in pain. "Oh, God," she moaned. "Newt… oh holy hell, they're right. I thought I was just having a big of indigestion!"
"But-but, it's a month early!" Newt yelled in panic. "Oh hell oh shit oh damn!"
Quit a crowd had gathered by now, all curious and worried. Everyone was shouting helpful hints when the tall thin witch barked out an order no one could resist following. The crowd quickly organised and packed away everything in Anathema's booth, took down the tent, and stored everything neatly into the van within a matter of three minutes.
Meanwhile Newt was freaking out so much he couldn't function. The youngest witch took his arm and guided him toward the van while she sang very softly to him. It almost managed to calm him down, though he knew he was hallucinating because he swore he heard two voices coming from her mouth.
The elder witches had gotten Anathema into the passenger seat of the van already, and had commanded someone to draw a map to the nearest town with a hospital. The eldest pressed a single bag into Newt's hand. "You gives her this right now, it'll stem the tide and won't do her no harm. Get yerself there in one piece, got it?"
"Yes, ma'am," he said obediently, then he floored it.
ANATHEMA WAS PANTING IN DESPERATION, trying to hold off the contractions. The herbal concoction, one she hadn't made, was helping a bit though she knew it was only temporary.
Newt was virtually flying along the winding and unfortunately slightly bumpy road. He reached the main road around the edge of the park. He also utterly failed to notice the name of the road was Bethlehem road, or that it was the day before Easter. His mind couldn't have handled those two facts, on top of his wife being in the midst of labour, without a minor brain implosion.
The tiny town they came to was Baracroywannedd º. Just another unpronounceable Welsh village, but one of the more picturesque which meant lots of tourism advertisements. Fortunately that meant a large sign toward the hospital.
Which was really a hospital-nee-manor-house, but it was fully equipped to handle a birth. If any complications arose, they were just a doddle down the road from Llandeilo, which had a larger facility.
Newt screeched to a halt in the parking lot, and dashed to the door yelling for help. A nurse who was rather more relaxed than Newt would have liked her to be came out, inspected Anathema and nodded, then went back inside. She came back a moment later with an orderly and together they got Anathema out of the van and into a wheelchair, and finally into the hospital.
Fortunately things were very slow busy-wise, or Newt would have screamed in frustration at the slowness of everything else. They took Anathema to an ordinary room and for a moment he did scream slightly.
"Why aren't you taking her to delivery now! There's something wrong! She's a month early! Do something!"
"Sir, please calm yourself. Are you quite sure that the delivery date was correct?"
"Yes!" he shouted, "We know the precise date and time of conception, trust me!"
The doctor raised an eyebrow that clearly asked what sort of sex life the couple had, but then lowered it. "Sir, we are right now placing a call to your usual doctor to ask for records. We do have fax machines, even if we are a bit off the beaten track. Meanwhile, we've given your wife a medicine to slow the contractions."
"Why is this even happening?" Newt gasped, running a hand through sweat-dampened hair. "It's so early…"
"It's not at all uncommon for early contractions, especially since you took such a very long trip by van, over such terrain…"
"Oh, God! I knew it!" Newt groaned and all but collapsed.
"But I'm sure we can keep this under control, sir, with the medication. And her water hasn't broken so- "
"OH, YES IT HAS!" Anathema gave a growling shout. "Just now, but it has! Ohhh, Godddd!"
"Ah," said the doctor. "Well I suppose we'd best get on with things." He signaled for several nurses to get prepped and they wheeled Anathema into delivery.
Newt was nearly white as death, so when he tried to follow a nurse insisted he was going to do nothing but get in the way. His desperate gaze caught Anathema's eyes, and she shouted, "Call Aziraphale! I need him here!"
Nodding, Newt ran to the front desk and called the angel in Soho. And said a prayer to the God he still wasn't sure he believed in.
º This translates to "House of Unleavened Bread". Guess what "Bethlehem" also means? Yeah. Ineffable all right.
(A/N: Not at all to be confused with the actual town of Bethlehem which exists in the same location on genuine maps of Wales. Nothing like it at all.)