Chapter 15: The Cure for the Common Cold
We talked long into the night, and then slept on our respective sofas, and woke and talked some more. Selkie told me her story and I told her about Mog Ruith, and Johannes in the cells, and Mister Cholderton and Mister Bauer, about John Weatherby and Lord Angus Lepusstrom and the whole office of the Witch Finder General, and about her mother and our night time exploits on the South Downs, I even told her about the flatmate reinventing the spork.
We spent most of our time wrapped up warm under our respective blankets, both coughing like twenty a day smokers, and the following morning streaming with snot and horrible. When we needed a meal, or more often, tea, we both went together and padded about slightly dazed only able to perform any action more complicated than boiling a kettle at a team. In retrospect, and only in retrospect, it was very pleasant. At the time it was rotten. At some point I phoned work and called in sick, explaining that I had been caught out at night on the South Downs after getting lost on a walking trip and had been in no state to call on Monday and I was very sorry. Selkie laughed, and told me that a bigger lie would have been simpler, and I explained that I was not really comfortable with lying and it was easier for me to get in as much truth as possible.
At some stage, near lunchtime, we reached the point where we had explained everything to each other up till the moment where I had found her tied to the rock, and Selkie had explained that, as soon as the druids had left her to her fate, and she had felt the first touch of the cold water, her ambivalence to her own death had vanished. Of course, by then it had served its purpose.
'So,' I said, 'do we have any idea what they were up to, what they were summoning, and what or who the dragon is.'
'What did my mother say?' asked Selkie.
'She was evasive on the subject.'
Selkie thought for a moment. 'Did she say she knew?' she asked.
'She said maybe.'
'Which means yes.'
'I figured it probably did, either yes but I'm not certain, or yes but I don't want to tell you.'
'Probably both.'
I nodded, and took another sip from the latest cup of strong sweet tea. 'And?' I said, 'what does it mean.'
'The dragon,' said Selkie, 'is almost certainly King Arthur.'
'Really?'
'Arthur Pendragon, son of Uther Pendragon. Sleeps beneath the earth and will return to make England great again.'
'Of course,' I said, 'but what about the thing coming now, the enemy he will recognise.'
'I don't know,' she said, 'his enemies in the stories were Mordred and Morgan the Fey and the green giant, things like that.'
'Wasn't there a bore with spines, or a giant hedgehog or something.'
'I'm don't really know the legend that well,' she said.
'I read it as a kid,' I said, 'but I don't remember much.'
We lay back for a bit, both trying to remember what we could. We sniffed, and sneezed, and coughed, and generally felt rubbish.
'The operative word,' I said, 'is legend. If it was based on truth then all well and good, but if it was just a story it surely cannot be summoned from over the horizon.' I looked at her for confirmation.
'True,' she said, 'but once you accept King Arthur was real, what else do you accept.'
'Well,' I said, 'if Sir Gawain had really found the holy grail there would have been no need to write the DaVinci code.'
'And some would say that was reason enough to quest for it.'
I laughed, and then burst out in a fit of coughing, which set Selkie laughing, and then coughing herself, which made me laugh more. When we had both recovered, I asked if it was lunchtime yet.
'Could be,' she said, 'what do you fancy?'
'What have you got?'
'She shrugged. 'Soup,' she suggested.
'Soup is good.'
Together we emptied a tin of tomato soup into a pan and set it on the stove. Selkie stirred it while I made yet more tea.
'What about your mother?' I asked, 'shouldn't she have got in touch by now.'
'Ah,' said Selkie, 'about that.'
'Yes.'
'Well considering how close I came to going back to the sect, Mother has almost certainly gone back.'
'She was one too?'
'I told you,' she said, 'the Black Goat is the source of all modern magic. Anyone who knows anything either is or was a member.'
'And this fact was conveniently avoided earlier.'
'Well, it's a bit different with mother.'
'Different how?'
'She didn't leave of her own accord.'
'Oh,' I said.
'This was all a long time ago,' said Selkie, 'but mum was rescued from the Black Goat by my father.'
The kettle boiled and I went about the business of making two mugs of tea.
'There's another thing,' she said sheepishly.
'What's that?'
'My father, is Angus Lepusstrom.'
'You kept that quiet.'
'Yeah, it's sort of awkward.'
'Awkward how?'
'It's a long story.'
I took two bowls from the cupboard and placed them on the table where Selkie filled them each with soup. I placed two spoons and two mugs of tea next to them. We sat down across from each other and ate.
'Mum and dad first met through the hippy druid stone circle scene,' she said, 'around about the same time she met Stokes.' She paused at Stokes' name. 'I still can't quite believe he's gone,' she said.
I put a hand on her shoulder and said 'I know.' She patted my hand and I took it away again.
'Anyway,' she continued, 'a lot of this you heard, the Black Goat turned up and did not make themselves very popular but did make themselves very interesting to certain people, people who were serious about magic, which mum and dad both were. At that time it was actually a lot clearer that the Black Goat were bad news, because they were around, doing stuff, instead of hidding up in Scotland. Which meant that a lot of people would never even consider having anything to do with them. Including mum and dad. Apparently they were mostly made up of nutty Germans and Swedes at the time. The Black Goat I mean, not mum and dad.'
I smiled and blew on a spoonful of hot soup. 'Your mother said that Angus Lepusstrom started working for the government,' I said.
'Yes,' she said, 'he had contacts in that area and was basically poached for the civil service. None of them knew at the time he was working for the witch finder general. They all just thought he had sold out to be a suit.'
'So the office of the witch finder general, what did they do?'
'At the time it was run by another man who's name I don't know. They had noticed the emergence of the Black Goat and were probably more worried about it than anyone else, because of course, when they saw people attempting magic they knew from their records that it was potentially dangerous.'
'So they hired your father, Lord Lepusstrom?'
'Just Angus Lepusstrom at the time, yes. Someone knew someone who knew someone who knew dad, I don't know how they persuaded him, but knowing dad I doubt it took much more than a decent pay cheque and a chance to be someone important in the corridors of power, dad loves all that stuff.'
'So were he and your mother together at this time?'
'I don't know. I get the impression it was a bit on again off again, they don't tell me the gory details.'
'For obvious reasons.'
'Like I'd run a mile yes. It's possible it was a bit free love and that, it was the sixties.'
'Yeah, that's not the sort of thing anyone needs to know about their parents.'
'Quite. Anyway dad became a sort of a paranormal spy or whatever it was he did, and mum remained a hippy and they lost touch for a few years, until dad needed someone to go undercover in the Black Goat and find out what they were up to.'
'So he asked your mother.'
'Exactly. I don't know how he persuaded her, it's possible she did not take much persuading, I gather the Black Goat operated on the periphery of what everyone else was doing anyway, there was a lot more cross over back then, so it's possible mum was a sort of part time member already.'
'She hasn't told you.'
'She keeps it vague, which is something she is very good at doing.'
'I noticed.'
'I bet. Anyway she joins the Black Goat, and for a while she reports back to my father everything they do, and then she stops.'
'What happened?'
'She went native, for want of a better phrase, she decided that she owed her loyalty to the Black Goat more than anything or anyone else.'
'But she left at some point, like you did.'
'No. Not like me at all. Actually there are not that many people who leave the Black Goat voluntarily, they have a habit of chucking people out who can't hack it, and once they're out they tend to see the error of their ways, but I'm one of the few who upped and left of their own accord.'
I wanted to say something like I was proud of her, but I could not find a way of saying it that did not sound unctuous and cringe worthy. Instead I said 'I'm glad you did.'
Selkie gave me a tiny smile and continued. 'Mum was in for quite a few years,' she said, 'but like I said, they weren't isolated at the time and all her old friends still ran into her a lot. Eventually Stokes got worried about her, Stokes always had a bit of a thing for her, and he found dad and told him in no uncertain terms that he should get her out. Dad had a bit of a thing for her too of course, so that's what he did.'
'Get her out how?'
'He basically had her abducted and taken to some secret MI5 deprogramming facility, because as far as the government was concerned she was essentially a spy who turned. And then shortly after that they were married. Mum says he brainwashed her and she was weak and clung to him because he was the only friendly face there, dad, when he actually talks about it, says it was love.'
'It didn't last long I take it.'
'About long enough to have me and then that was it.'
I tipped up the soup bowl in order to get the last of it on my spoon. 'And then,' I said, 'at some point your father makes a bargain with the Black Goat and gifts them their own land in Scotland.'
'Yes,' said Selkie, 'I didn't know about that.'
'I think perhaps now would be a good time to call and ask him about it.'
She nodded her head reluctantly. 'Brilliant, not only do I have a cold but I have to explain to my dead that I went back to the Black Goat.'
'I think he already knows that.'
'That just makes it worse, besides he doesn't know mum went back.' She looked sullenly into her empty soup bowl. 'I suppose we could try and do something about the cold,' she said.
'Like what?'
'Like a ritual.'
'Hold on, we've been laying about all day feeling terrible and you can just cure a cold by magic.'
'Not magic,' she said, 'and not a cure. But a good placebo might help.'
'A good placebo?'
'Yeah, you know, like a sugar pill or something.'
'I know what a placebo is, I'm just surprised at the concept of a good one.'
'Oh some placebos are better than others,' she said, 'placebos work much better when they are administered by injection for instance.'
'But isn't the whole point of a placebo that you don't know it's a placebo.'
'Absolutely nothing to do with it,' she said, 'it's a whole different part of the mind we are trying to fool.' She stood up, animated and excited at the prospect, and filled the kettle. 'We'll make an infusion,' she said, 'you go to the spice rack and pick out anything you think might help cure a cold.'
'Chilli,' I said, standing up with a lot less enthusiasm, 'chilli cures pretty much anything.'
'That's the idea,' she said, 'I've got some of the real stuff in my room.' She disappeared and I picked out various jars of herbs and spices. She returned moments later sporting a girlish grin and an armful of glass jars. 'Coltsfoot,' she said, placing them on the table, 'Bladderwrack, Hyssop, Lady's Mantle, Dog Rose, and Mugwort.' She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small glass medicine bottle.
'What's that?' I asked.
'Olbas oil,' she said, 'can't hurt.'
The kettle boiled and Selkie, apparently largely cured at the prospect of making the cure, poured the water into a large class bowl and then started adding a pinch of all the spices I had chosen. I examined her own bottles. 'Where do you get this stuff?' I asked.
'Health food shops,' she said, 'some of it I collect myself.'
'Does it actually work.'
'Nah,' she said, 'it's just window dressing, all flour and hats, but it's fun you know, I like having them, like some girls collect fluffy toys.'
She added a few drops of the Olbas oil and then started going through her own herbs, reverently measuring out a little of each. 'This is cool,' she said, 'sometimes I really wish I had a cauldron.'
'I'll get you one for Christmas.'
'You bloody dare.'
'There,' she said, and then 'no wait,' and she pulled a bottle of brandy from a cupboard and added a healthy slug. She stirred the concoction with a metal spoon and announced proudly that is was done.
'Now what?' I said.
'We do what Clinton did not,' she said, 'we inhale.' She picked the bowl up with both hands and carried it to the table, then she found a tea towel, stuck her head under it over the bowl and breathed in deeply. 'Oh yeah,' she said. She passed me the tea towel. I took it cautiously, as if it might explode, and looked at her to she if she was really serious about this. She giggled.
I took a deep breath of the foul smelling mixture. I'll say this for it. It sure as hell cleared my sinuses.
Selkie took it back and took another few breaths. 'It works,' she announced proudly, 'I feel much better.'
'You know what that means,' I said.
'What?'
'You have to ring you're dad now.'
