wytchcroft

O Come ye Angels full of light
Your gifts bestow good hearts take flight
As prayers with wings may pierce the night
And come at last to heavens bright.

A city awakens

The traffic of this great Metropolis is notorious and with good reason. The sluice gates open of a morning and the city disgorges an ending stream of people, commuters rushing hither and thither to work or places related and such a diversity, the handsome cabs and trolley busses filled with the city-men neat and uncomfortable in their suits, shop girls hurrying, bonnets in hand, men from the factory passing each other with weary nods as the shifts change – awakened at the dawn by the hard stick of the ‘knocker-upper’.

Servants flow out onto the steps of their master’s houses sweeping and washing down, the disinfectors and cleaners nodding them as they pass. Men and Women of the streets and every available trade begin their rounds selling newspapers, flowers, hot breads, meat fresh from the squealing markets.

Even at the crack of dawn it is difficult to traverse the districts at a practicable rate – and by morning it is a virtual impossibility. All of which escaped my reason as I blithely agreed to join the rest of the scientific company on-site at 10.am. Why so late an hour? Well the disinfectors for one thing, and the Police for another and the early Press. None of whom could raise serious objection to our activity but all of whom would be… curious at the least. Such attention would be unwelcome, we had decided very early in our preparations.

By way of introduction

And as for myself, well, by way of introduction I should say that my name is Edward Reams but owing to my profession I am more often than not hailed as Teddy Sparks, or plain Sparky. I am, quite obviously, a man versed in sciences electrical, and for many years I have supplied my knowledge to institutions, organisations, academies, groups, individuals, even the stage.

Point of fact, it was in the cause of assisting the popular theatre that I first met one of our group, Third Act Smith and it was not long into our conversation, (which he has now apparently forgotten,) before we discovered a mutual fascination with the figure of Dr Poliakov and that it was only due to yet another of Life’s familiar quirks that we had not met before – since by all accounts he, myself and Mr Grayling-Thomas had all been abroad in the cities of Venice, Prague and Hunedoara (where I was also able for a time to investigate the properties of potential steel alloys in relation to magnetism) at more or less the same time and had missed each other by days merely or hours in some cases as we had gone aboard or private researchers into the life of that charismatic yet elusive historical figure.

Having thus learnt of one another we wasted no time in coming together and agreeing a focus to our investigations – that focus being the discovery of Dr Poliakov’s lost laboratory and the devices and artefacts therein, most especially the five phials of which the man had written so cryptically yet so tauntingly throughout his life and works.

Imagine our delight when one fine morning that very laboratory was uncovered, plain as day, and in the middle of a proud and crowded city. Such unbelievable serendipity defied rational belief and we were certain that fate – or even somehow Dr Poliakov himself – had decided that the time was right. Right for us that is.

Hubris? Perhaps.

But it’s natural enough – indeed praise worthy, when you are the victor it seems… for what is wrong with ambition? I was to be the next Bošković - a rival for Nikola Tesla, a real one – an opponent of worth… and with Grayling-Thomas’s connections – the benefits to society and its social institutions would have been immense and lasting.

For the love of God – save us!

The doors at the bottom of the steep incline were shut though the barricades of the Police were torn and a paraffin lamp missing, to judge by the impressions left in the dark soft earth. There was light however, faint but definite, glowing through the cracks in the doorway. Wasting no time I wrenched them apart and thankful for the illumination made my way swiftly along the short metallic corridor toward the laboratory. As I did so, I felt myself stagger to my left in an ungainly fashion as though blown by a wind I could not feel and it was as if I were struggling along the deck of some storm-tossed ferry. Yet all about me was quiet and apparently normal.

Placing my hand upon the door to the laboratory, I was thankful for the gloves I wore – I was certain that without them I would have received a dreadful shock, the air felt charged with static force. Nevertheless the door opened easily enough.

Standing on the threshold of Poliakov’s sanctum I was disconcerted further. The chamber itself appeared polished and clean, albeit stacked with a myriad of objects, machinery and devices of all kinds, I admit my breath was taken away as I saw first hand what I had only dreamt of from the writings and diagrams of Dr Poliakov.
There was bright light from a number of sources – some of which sent bursts of lightning and electrical rain into the upper air of the room. Under this glare I could see the rest of my colleagues starkly etched. One of these figures noticed me and hurled itself in my direction – I was taken aback as I saw that I was being confronted by the gnashing teeth and weeping eyes of Grayling-Thomas, a man I new as calm and self-contained. He had his hands to his head and was breathing in short gasps. “For God’s sake save us!” he cried.

I was stunned – not only by the sheer horror of what was before my eyes but by my complete incomprehension of it – other than the flare of the electrical apparatus I could see no other force at work – and the rest of the group seemed entirely calm and unaffected. And there were the ragged thoughts too in my head bitterly protesting; how can this be so? You have drunk the phials without me! But I was the fifth – I AM the fifth, without which there cannot be balance, there can only be failure there can only be –

A strangled cry from Grayling-Thomas snapped my attention back to the world. “For pity’s sake man” he wailed, “save Maud at least!” he was purple in the face now, his eyes crazed.

I struck him then, a good blow and to the side of his face. Grayling-Thomas is a broad fellow, stout of leg, but he rocked back on his heels and gasping.

As if I had broken a spell, or smashed the glass of a gas filled room, everyone in the room sagged and I could hear them letting out deep, deep breaths. Grayling-Thomas looked at me and this time with a steady, thoughtful look – clearly himself again.

“I don’t understand,” he said at last.

“Nor I,” my rejoinder, if not original had the virtue of truth.

Miss McKinney had hurried over, “Are you hurt Howard? Did you – did you,” she corrected herself now and looking at me, “did you strike him?”

“I did.”

“But why? For what”…

“Thank you,” this was Grayling-Thomas, “you have brought me back to my senses, Ted, I’m really very grateful.”

I was still feeling affronted and told him so. “Grateful? Well I am most certainly not so. You have, all of you – pursued this experiment without me – preferring to wire up the lights yourselves, a job I imagine none of you is qualified to do and worse, far worse, you have proceeded to quench the thirst of your personal curiosities and drink the phial’s Poliakov had many times stated must be consumed by a group of five, not only have you offended me but you have nullified the experiment, with no chance at a second attempt! The fact that I find you, Grayling-Thomas of all people, an hysteric – well it is a small comfort.” I was indeed aggrieved.

Coming to themselves, as I say, the other scientists now stepped forward blinking bemusedly and all appearing unsettled. Phillips in particular now looked in alarm first at Grayling-Thomas and then back at me. “But this is not so, what you say, it is not the truth Edward. We – all went as planned! Damn it man you were here!” He actually rubbed his eyes as if stirring from a dream.

I shook my head. “I have only just arrived, thanks to the petty horrors of the traffic system and when I tell you that I have not drunk the phial rightfully meant for me, then I assure you it is indeed just SO.”

For a moment it was bedlam – each of my colleagues attempting to tell their version of events; Phillips had been rendered immaterial, Smith had felt nothing at all, McKinney had been aware of – and perhaps able to control – the flow of time, Grayling-Thomas had seen into the heart of things, realised the ‘essence’ and that each of them, their experiences were bound to differ accordingly.
“In other words,” I said frankly, “You each saw what you wanted to…”

“But I saw, I felt nothing!” Smith objected.

Grayling-Thomas raised a hand, “But even that – it may have been what you truly wished. But – as for myself – I – the experience was so overwhelming… I…”

“Perhaps,” I said sourly, “because you had taken a double dose.” I pointed a finger towards the five empty files where they lay upon one of the benches.

Grayling-Thomas looked shaken, “It’s… possible, I suppose...” and he managed to appear both doubtful and apologetic. Phillips and Smith raised instant objections, both swearing they had seen a fifth man, a man that had assumed to be me – although neither could the impostor in any real detail.

“Perhaps,” I said, once again, “because that too was something you desired to see – in your impatience!”

There was a momentary silence then. Smith scowled. “If we saw what we wanted to see – then I believe that I am correct in my perceptions – for I saw nothing unusual. The rest of you may simply be more suggestible. May have,” and here he looked askance at McKinney and Grayling-Thomas, “more on your conscience.”

Grayling-Thomas was instantly furious, waving an angry fist. But McKinney placed a hand on his shoulder. “No,” she said simply and the bulky man subsided. She looked at me. “There s much we cannot explain, much we have endured – a mystery, yes. But I for one feel transformed…” Grayling-Thomas nodded thoughtfully and the woman continued. “It was purifying fire that we –“

Her words were cut off. “Listen!” Philips called out urgently. “Listen will you?!”

There was a strange new sound – and we could all of us hear it.

An alien hum

An unearthly whine rising in pitch to an unbearable level seemed to coming from the very floors, walls and ceiling of our environs. As the volume swelled we looked around for an instant in utter panic and then made for the exit – making certain, even in our distress, that Miss McKinney was first in our evacuation.

The whine had become a scream and I feared for our hearing, sanity and even consciousness as we stumbled into and along the corridor, a corridor which was now visibly tilting and shaking. Glad indeed that I had left the far doors open, I threw myself through them and onto the muddy earth beyond, feeling the impact as Phillips and smith did the same.

Raising my eyes I could see Grayling-Thomas and Miss McKinney gazing back past us, I noticed that they were clutching one another’s hands. Grayling-Thomas seemed to mouthing the word ‘No’ repeatedly.

And then there was a roaring sound and a dreadful sucking noise as if the earth had come to life and was wantonly feasting. Painfully I turned my head and looked in astonishment upon the empty space where the entrance had been. Mud and soil were pouring down rapidly filling the gap, eager to bury all trace – of what, in any case, had quite simply and beyond all rational sense, vanished.

Slowly, so slowly, we got to our feet… dumbstruck and unsteady. It was McKinney who found voice first. “There was a shadow but it has passed over,” she announced. And then she stepped forward to ask Smith and Phillips if they were hurt, to which they answered in the negative, and I realised that my connection with, and my membership of, the group, was over entirely.

Epilogue:

I receive a letter

Some of you reading this journal may recall the fleeting headlines – ‘Mad Lab Languishes Under Mud’, ‘Lost Laboratory – Lost Again!’, ‘Poliakov’s Final Prank!’ and other such painfully alliterative banners. Some considered the entire affair to be hoax perpetrated by the very newspapers reporting it. There was a brief furore at the Royal Society over the inept handling of the archaeological recovery and over the bungling by the Police, but this too quickly subsided.

None of that strange group to which I had been attached disturbed the papers in any way.
And then, and it was a year to the day since we had clambered from the dirt, I received a letter. It was post-marked from Scotland and contained foolscap of reasonable quality upon which was written out in neat rows one of Poliakov’s more simple codes. Deciphering the text was but the work of a few minutes and the text proved to be, as I had suspected, from Miss McKinney.

There were some brief and unfortunately patronising apologies for my exile from the body Poliakov, none of which I need transcribe, and then there was an explanation of sorts of what had transpired since that fateful morning.

The group, it appeared, had met just once more, at Phillips’s club where confidentiality could be assured. And by McKinney’s account it was he that spoke first as they set about giving voice to their perceptions.

“We – have been,” Phillips said, weakly at first but with gradual confidence and authority, “in some sort of vehicle.”

Smith had nodded. “It would seem so… a sort of a magic cabinet. Such things have been heard of throughout the centuries after all, and in many parts of the globe… and in Poliakov’s writings there are… hints.” His usual air of bewilderment seemed to have evaporated as mysteriously as the laboratory and everything surrounding it.

“Then this… cabinet – this contraption… was Poliakov’s?” I asked.

“Perhaps,” Smith agreed, “in part… for who can say that such a device was truly of this world, by design or construction?”

Grayling-Thomas nodded. “Aye, it is conceivable that the knowledge if not the – the transport itself came in part from a higher realm… certainly beyond our current sphere.”

I was reeling I will freely admit, even with all my knowledge, education and familiarity with the works of Dr Poliakov I had not been prepared for this… Could it have been so? Not a laboratory but – not a bunker in effect but a room, part of a structure yes but… a craft? And really – of Extra Terrestrial origin?

“A gift of the Angels,” Phillips said, matter-of-factly.

Such madness – and yet, and yet…

For as you, of all people Charles, know well, Tesla himself talks of such an agency – and, if he is to be believed, Swedenborg says as much… and in both cases they are repeating what Poliakov himself wrote about. Angels, is simply a word he said.

Ridiculous! You might still cry, but when we considered our experiences as if they were the pieces of a jigsaw, there was indeed a certain sense to the idea; Phillips with his aetheric movement, Grayling-Thomas with his insight into the essence of things, Smith with an odd clarity of understanding and far less emotion than the rest of us - and lastly myself with, I believe, a new vantage on Time.”

“Time can be controlled,” McKinney’s letter outlined her vision, “and it can be harnessed. It is a force, like gravity, like magnetism – even as Poliakov speculated.

A craft then, powered by time… what might the effect of this be? Is there exhaust – transformation of energy, a wake left behind, and if a path is cleared then what of the dirt? How many of us can look around us at the world and our fantastical age and not wonder -might Time have polluted itself?”

And what then of the mysterious fifth – that shadowy figure so conveniently explaining my ostracism from the group, ah yes, they had wondered abut that too…

“Could it have been some sort of pilot? Could it have been Poliakov himself? Could we at last have stumbled upon the solution to his disappearance? Grayling-Thomas is of an opinion with which you may find yourself in agreement; “I wonder…” he has said,”Nikola Bošković, Nikola Tesla… perhaps Poliakov? Nikola Poliakov? Is it conceivable that he has never really left?”

Were we then simply the necessary others – to put into place the operation he needed to free himself? It all sounds preposterous and we cannot know for certain – the truth is yet hidden from us. We believe though that all shall be revealed when it is fit, when we are ready to receive it, ready to discover just what may have been contained in the last philtre, that which Grayling-Thomas has dubbed Phial-X the properties of which he has set himself the challenge of deducing, indeed he will not rest until he has discovered it.

And we are not perturbed; we each of us now have a role, our part to play in ‘the drama of life, the greatest of all history plays’ as Smith has described it. Perhaps when the X-Phial is uncovered or replicated we shall enjoy a reunion – for now we are scattered. But all is well, we have our understanding and it is enough, more than enough – for truly, so deep an understanding may be given another name, may be described thus; LOVE.

All of us – we have come through, we have seen into the heart of ourselves, the darkness – surely now we are reborn, surely now we are strengthened, surely now we can go out into the world and work towards the vision of which we have had some glimpse? Those of us who partook here, the four of us – we can out now without pride, without fuss, with no need of personal recognition, but finally with a true and generous altruism; the four of us as Angels now ourselves, mid-wives to the new bright era that awaits us all, even you, poor Charles, please believe that we, each of us, still hold you in high regard and I have therefore written this letter most

Sincerely,

Miss M. McKinney."
…………………………………………………………………………………

the end.
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i hope this was a satisfactory conclusion. i apologise for the length, i actually cut the thing fairly brutally... and it seemed daft to post the epilogue seperately.
the story itself was supposed to be ready for passover - and then easter and then... but at least it's posted!

Some of the characters in the story have real life counterparts: Digby and Sutherland being Gilbert and Sullivan, whilst others are loosely inspired by real figures such as Annie Scott Dill Russell Maunder. Nikola Tesla and Nikola Bošković were real.

i have had real trouble accessing lj and editting documents and entries over the past 3 days, so i apologise if there are unintentional gaps or errors.

this is my last piece of victoriana/fantasia for the forseeable.