A Witch In Time

A Witch In Time-3

Mrs. Ladle finished dealing the main deck and put another, smaller one, in the centre of the table.

“The goal is to collect sub-sets of seven, eight or nine cards. If the card you lay exactly matches, or is opposite, or part of the same genre or family, then you can choose to pick up the entire pile, if you think they'll compliment your floaters which you keep next to you.”

“When the hell did floaters become a part of this?” said Stitches, who was starting to think that a prolonged and in depth chat with Professor Crumble about quantum physics would be easier to understand because it had less rules.

“Okay,” said Ollie. “If for instance, the Eighty Six of Slippers is on top of the pile of cards and I put the Twenty Three of Pants down, I could take the pile?”

“No,” said Mrs. Ladle.

“But why not? They're both objects that you can put things in aren't they?” he said.

“Yes they are, but they're not part of the same sub-set or genre,” said Mrs. Ladle. “But, if you played a Wallop at that point, the rule is suspended for your turn and you could take the cards. See, I told you it wasn't all that difficult.”

“That's easy for you to say,” said Stitches, looking at his cards the way that someone from Newcastle would look at a glass of squash. “This sounds more involved than one of Hector's rambling stories.”

“Oh, tish and piffle,” said Mrs. Ladle. “I'm sure you'll pick it up once we get going.”

“That's exactly what I thought when I last spoke to Hector,” said the zombie. “Three hours later I had a headache and wanted to ram his brush up his trousers.”

“So what's the ultimate hand?” said Ronnie, who not only liked to play cards, but liked to win even more.

“The Grand Slammer Jammer,” said the witch. “You have to collect twelve sub-sets, get all four hats in your hand, have a floating Tree card, and then draw the One Hundred of Particles from the discard pile. If you get that, it's an instant win.”

“Looks like I'll be going for that then,” said Ronnie, lighting a fag.

“I wouldn't be too optimistic about that if I were you, mate,” said Stitches. “There doesn't seem to be anything remotely instant about this game.”

“As sarcastic as that observation was, he's sort of got a point,” said Mrs. Ladle, lighting a cigarette as well. “According to the history of the game that came with it, it's never been seen during play. It seems that the odds are so high that it's next to impossible to get. Apparently, and I quote, 'there's more chance of being run over by a bus being driven by a moose with a law degree, who's dressed in scuba diving gear,' although how they came to that conclusion is beyond me. Still, it's better than just saying 'it's not very likely', I suppose.”

(Now, those of you reading this may be under the impression that I'm leading you down a certain path, and that a situation, however unlikely, is being cunningly and subtly set up with well chosen words and cleverly crafted phrases. Well, to put your minds at rest and to allay any fears that you may have regarding me doing something so blatantly obvious, I would like to point out here and now, that that is absolutely and positively the case. And yes, I know some learned and well read people may call it crowbarring in a plot point, whilst other erudite scholars of letters and noble prose may accuse me of bending the rules and offending literary normalcy, but to all of them I say this. I couldn't give a flying pile of poo. It's my story, my characters, and therefore my rules, so get stuffed! There, that'll put a pulp fiction shaped pin in their balloon of pretentious wafflings. Who needs a Nobel Prize anyway? Cormack Macarthy would be proud).

A couple of hours, dozens of fags, rather a lot of alcohol, and a pile of cakes the size of Mount Etna later, Ollie said something.

“You're not going to believe this. I've got twelve sub-sets put to one side, all four hats in my hand, and a Tree card in my floating pile.”

“How unexpected,” said Mrs. Ladle.

“What a fantastic surprise,” said Ronnie.

“You couldn't have made it up,” said Stitches.

“Me got a cake stuck up my nose,” said Flug.

“Well, it's your turn, dear,” said Mrs. Ladle, “so let's just see what happens. Hey, if you do get The Grand Slammer Jammer we'll have to let Excalibur know so he can put it in the paper. Not for my benefit of course, but it'll be nice to take a copy to the next coven meeting. The sisters will be purple with envy when they see it.”

(Purple was the colour that witches turned when they were a bit jealous. This was on account of them being green by nature. It was a handy biological signal that let people know how a witch type person was feeling, especially if, like the witches, their physical characteristics were outside the norm. And it wasn't just related to those of a witchy bent either. Thanks to Mother Nature, all sorts of anatomical weirdness has been sorted out, so that you, or I, will be able to tell exactly what's going on with someone and what mood they're in. Smurfs, for instance, are blue, so it'd be no good if one turned blue when he got cold would it? They go red. And imagine the confusion if a Chinese person got jaundice and turned yellow. That's why they turn pink. Of course the whole thing could fall down if a Chinese Smurf catches a chill that causes his liver to pack up, but happily there's no chance of that ever happening. Everyone knows that Smurfs are from North Wales).

Ollie reached over and drew the top card from the discard pile. And what do you know? Sure enough, wonder of wonders, what a fantastic surprise and who would have credited it etc, he'd pulled the One Hundred of Particles.

“Wey hey,” he shouted. “An instant win.”

He tucked the card into the others that he was holding and laid the winning hand down on the table.

“That is rather amazing,” said Ronnie, leaning back in his chair and rolling himself another smoke. “I've played poker for years and never even seen a straight Royal Flush. First game of Tempus fugit c*m ludis and we get that.”

“I am rather proud of it actually,” said Ollie. “I wonder if I'll get a certificate or something. Or maybe…” He paused for a second and looked around the room. “Did you feel that?”

“Yes I did,” said Stitches, looking round he room. “It was weird. It felt like the house shrugged its shoulders.”

Mrs. Ladle got up from her chair. She stood perfectly still and remained silent for a few seconds. Then, bizarrely, she sniffed the air.

“Something doesn't smell right,” she said.

“Flug has had a lot of cakes,” said Stitches. “Maybe that sugar substitute is repeating on him.”

“No. This is something else,” she said. “This is more atmospheric then gastric. Just let me check outside, make sure everything's alright.”

Thirty seconds later they heard, “Can you all come out here please?”

The four of them joined Mrs. Ladle outside the front of the house. They looked. They saw. They stared at each other. They swore.

“Guys,” said Ronnie. “I don't think we're in Skullenia anymore.”

* * *

Ethan logged off of Ollie's' computer and shut it down (although 'shut it down' was rather a generous way of describing what he did. He closed it when it started to make funny noises as he tried to access one darknet site too many, which in this case, was one. On a side note, why is it, when a computer overheats is it said to freeze?)

He hadn't been looking at anything in particular, just checking emails. It was something that he'd taken to doing every other Friday evening when the boys were at Mrs. Ladles. He stayed away as he didn't much go for card and board games, one, because he was a bit rubbish at them, two, he had a competitive streak a couple of miles wide, and three, he simply didn't have the patience. (Even playing patience tried his patience).

Although good for a laugh sometimes, this combination of character traits was rather potent. Wanting to win, and not being able to, had caused quite a few scenes in the past, usually of the getting all big, hairy, toothy and having a werewolf type paddy variety. When Ethan lost his temper in a big way, his lycanthrope genes had a habit of sneaking out to say hello so he felt it best if he didn't get involved.

Feeling a bit thirsty he popped downstairs to the kitchen. Normally he'd have a cold glass of milk, but right now he fancied a cup of hot coffee. Ollie might be half human but thanks to his vampire DNA he usually kept his office rather cold.

Mere minutes later, much sooner than you might expect, he was pouring boiling water into a mug. (It's a fact that water doesn't take long to boil in Skullenia, a strange phenomena that was caused by a combination of assorted factors that included something to do with the altitude, the liquids unique chemical composition, its centuries long journey through the mountains, the various minerals it absorbed along the way, and the fact that Crumble had dropped a beaker full of something blue and bubbly down the drain a couple of years ago. The professor hadn't been quite sure exactly what it was or why he'd made it in the first place, but it meant that the local water now had a boiling point of about eight and a half degrees, and would come to temperature if placed under an energy saving, three watt light bulb, or a glare from Mrs. Ladle).

He chucked in a couple of spoonfuls of sugar and went to the fridge to grab some milk.

“That's unusual,” he said to himself as he opened the door (and it wasn't the light coming on that surprised him if that's what you're thinking, although that's a constant source of wonder whenever a fridge is opened by anyone, anywhere in the known universe, because they never, ever work. It's one of those expected annoyances that happen all the time, things that've become a part of everyday life that we just accept as the norm because there's absolutely nothing we can do about them. Other examples are not being able to open a carton of orange juice without squirting half of it on your trousers, going into the Post Office to find that the shortest queue is longer than a life sentence in an all male Turkish prison, returning to your vehicle in a virtually empty car park to find that some bonehead has parked so close to you that you need a tin opener to get in, or sitting in the cinema and finding yourself surrounded by people with enough snacks to feed a third world country, all of which are in packaging so loud that The Big Bang sitting three aisles away asks them to keep it down. Another thing is…well, I could go on but let's just say that more or less everything that happens outside my front door annoys me. That's probably why I write stories. I don't have to mix with people).

Next to the milk was Ollie's tankard and it was full to the brim with blood. Ollie should have had it before he left, but in all the excitement, Flug must have forgotten to give it to him. And there was no way that Ollie would have voluntarily taken it or reminded Flug that it was dinner time. His memory was quite selective when it came to his corpuscle based dietary requirement.