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principiumindividuationis777 · 5 months

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Doeth (Supernatural Drama)

("Doeth" has two meanings: In English, it is an archaic third person form of "to do", but in Welsh, it means "wise".)

"Doeth"

Chapter I

George Root, from a small town in the ceremonial county of Shropshire, England, not far from the Welsh border, was little regarded by his neighbors, which is not to say that they thought poorly of him, but that they thought little about him at all, and such was to his liking.

Root, 42 and for some fifteen years an accountant, would drive a beige car to work and back, take a regular Saturday walk, and otherwise, saw no company of any kind. A frugal man, his wardrobe consisted primarily of hand-me-downs from his father, uncle and grandfather, which Root, having some knowledge of stitching and alterations, had made presentable despite their age.

George's life would have been so routine as to be outside the routine were it not for troublesome neighbors. Oliver S. Allen was pitied by those who vaguely knew him, and despised what few had the misfortune of knowing him well. For purposes of finance and any slight legal difficulties, he spread a story that his wife had died, leaving him alone to take care of his daughter, Kelly.

In truth, Oliver and his wife, Elizabeth, had divorced, with his wife receiving custody of their other daughter, but they were in London, so few locals knew of this. Given the emotional turmoil and an unscrupulous father, Kelly, about thirteen in age, had become much like her father, repeating his bogus tale of Elizabeth's death, and finding particular amusement in pelting George Root's windows with debris to disturb his peace, which the local police dealt with lightly, given that they too believed Oliver's canard.

Root considered contacting a solicitor, but soon, the Allens became the least of his concerns.

Chapter II

Their small town was given a bit of a stir by the arrival of a film producer of some note, the ambitious Terence Mathis, who, hearing rumors that a coven of witches, perhaps dating back centuries or even millennia, lived in the area, wanted to make cinema, or rather, make money, from the legend.

With a loud, colorful outfit that resembled the gaudiest men of the 1970's, the contrast between Mathis and the quiet Shropshire locale could not have been greater, and he was not well received, least of all by Helen Ford, a very religious woman, head of the choir in the town's only church.

"Excuse me, ma'am. Where do the locals say the Simmer lives?" asked Mathis, referring to the name of both the rumored coven and its leader.

"What business have you with the devil, city man?" asked Helen Ford, very sternly.

"Why, profitable business, of course, but there is no devil, and the only magic is the British Pound."

"Turn to God or you will perish. Simmer knows your mind. She has many times placed hexes on our church, and she has powers like the evil one himself."

"Rank superstition, ma'am, but how about you let me take the risk for you? I'll get Simmer away from you for a while."

Noticing telltale signs from Mathis's fingernails, which she had seen in recovering addicts in a larger city, Ford shook her head.

"You're into drugs too, I see. I cannot help you. You are lost."

Scoffing on the exterior but a bit rattled deep within, Terence, on foot, very quickly and against the lights darted out into traffic. As the Fates would have it, at that moment, George Root was driving homeward from accounting, and in his effort to veer away from the reckless Mathis, struck a pedestrian on the sidewalk.

The pedestrian, Agnes Patala, originally Agni Patala, of Indian heritage, beloved among the townsfolk, passed away at 38 of her injuries.

Root was too stunned to express anything. He continued his routine, but now his eyes were dead. Someone, someone preying on the weak, sensed George Root's state of mind and sought to take full advantage of it.

Chapter III

When word reached the Shropshire town that, less than ten miles away, Terence Mathis had passed away of an overdose, Helen Ford again shook her head sadly, telling the congregation that, "She whose name we do not speak took down this wayward soul. Be sober before the LORD."

Helen referred, of course, to Simmer, and soon, dressed in black, with a black star on her forehead, Agnes Amber, the one called Simmer, walked into the town, and everyone, even the police, even the dogs and cats, fled at her approach. A full-figured woman of about five and thirty, she walked briskly until she stood in front of the home of George Root, and Root's pet cat fled, causing Simmer to laugh in a cruel tone.

Simmer would again and again approach Root's home, ring his doorbell, then leave, until finally, Root reluctantly opened his front door.

"I am of the earth. My card."

A card, decorated with pentagrams, read, "Resh Annwn", which read as gibberish to Root but was a mix of Hebrew and Welsh.

"Birch tree, do not fail me…"

Simmer pointed a wand, evidently of birch, at Root's forehead. The next he knew, George, a teetotaler, was suffering the effects of a hangover, and was quite certain that he had been intimate with the stranger.

George managed not to miss work, nor even be late, but his haggard appearance was noted by coworkers as highly unusual for the normally neat, disciplined Root.

Meanwhile, the chaos continued in the once sleepy town: Oliver S. Allen had died, of unknown causes, in his sleep. Helen Ford again asserted before the congregation that it was Simmer's work. Oliver's death, in turn, devastated his already troubled daughter Kelly, who ran away from authorities and became the town's first homeless citizen.

Chapter IV

By this time, George Root, unable to face the outside world anymore, had taken to working remotely, via computer, his sole comfort in life now being his cat, Tao, so named because his fur resembled the Taijitu. George, like Tao, now spent most of his time sleeping.

After three months time, George finally found it in him to step out his front door again and go for the Saturday walk by which townsfolk had one literally set their clocks. The town he saw was not, however, the little town he had known. Police had lost control of the now unruly traffic, and the first to interact with Root was Kelly Allen, who tried but failed to pick his pocket, having become a street urchin and thief.

As George mournfully sauntered onward, a man of considerable stature and dignity, and eccentricity also, being dressed in Victorian gentleman's clothing, seemed to be awaiting him on the sidewalk.

"Do you want something?"

"I know of you and Simmer, but I bring hope."

"What has hope to do with anything?"

"You do not realize the seriousness of what happened," said the strange man, "For Simmer is with child by you, and for reasons you cannot bear to know, the child could be the son of perdition, the scourge of the world."

"You mean the Beast or something?"

"In a manner of speaking, yes. But the hope is in this bottle."

The mysterious man took out a bottle of liquor.

"I hardly think that becoming an alcoholic would lessen my troubles, sir."

"No, it is not to drink. It is firewater, an Americanism, or so we must call it if it is to work. You must destroy the bottle, and your child will be like any other, not the one to fear."

With nothing to lose, George Root ambled back home and bid the stranger enter.

Chapter V

"The conditions are not right yet, but if my friends… ah, there it is…"

The stranger seemed pleased that, from the sound on the windows, outside it had begun to rain quite heavily. He directed Root, the latter unsure of what to make of any of this, back outside.

Kelly Allen, dirty and barefoot, was just then running off with a gnome statue from Root's front lawn.

"Pay that no mind. We must focus," said the Victorian visitor, who began to say something in Latin, of which Root understood very little.

The man then directed Root to hurl down and break the bottle of "firewater" on his front walkway, which George did.

"It is done."

"What is your name, incidentally?" asked Root, drenched from the rain and from the "firewater" on his shoes.

"Raphael."

Though George asked nearly everyone he knew, none of them knew who Raphael was, nor did anyone know of a man matching his description, neither among the locals, nor among regular visitors.

Chapter VI

Two years later, George Root, having recovered such that he was back to his old routine, was one day astounded to see who appeared to be Agnes Amber pushing a stroller, but Amber was not Simmer, but a commonplace citizen just pushing a stroller.

Root parked his car, and approached her on foot, trying to settle in his mind what his eyes were seeing.

"Excuse me. Sorry to trouble you, but I believe we may have met," was Root's stumbling introduction.

"I don't think so…" replied a confused Amber.

"You see… there's no easy way to say this: I think I am this child's father."

"That's possible, seeing as how I have no memory of that night, and you do look like him in the eyes at that."

It became obvious to George Root, the more he spoke to Agnes Amber, that she remembered nothing of whoever and whatever she had once been. This, thought Root, must have been the effects of whatever Raphael did.

Little by little, the two, with Agnes as nothing sinister, just a struggling, single mother, reached an understanding, and genetic tests proved that yes, Root was the father of the sixteen-month-old boy in the stroller, Angelo by name.

Agnes Amber wanted to move into George's place, along with Angelo, but Root was reluctant.

Chapter VII

As Root and Amber discussed their future, torrential rain beat on the roof of George's home, as Tao slept soundly. curled up in a corner.

"I want to do the right thing by Angelo, but I am very fixed in my habits. I may not be what you are looking for in a husband."

"Who said 'husband'? We could just live together."

"After what I have been through, if we were to live as if married, I would, for my peace of mind and soul, need to have us under the sign of the Cross."

"All right, then, will you marry me?" asked Agnes in reply.

"I hide nothing. I am not one for intimacy. It is not part of my routine," explained Root, "My one foray into it, which was rather too grotesque to describe, was most unpleasant, but even if not for this, no, I cannot."

With further terms, such as no alcohol on the premises, thus began an unlikely Marriage: Unlikely for George Root, in that he was a likely lifelong bachelor, and unlikely for Agnes Amber, up to then a woman of far from abstemious habits, now living as the Shakers once had.

More improbable still, Agnes Amber was fully accepted now by the townsfolk, who no longer feared her, as only George Root seemed to have any memory of her ever being out of the ordinary.

While the small Shropshire gathering mostly returned to its tranquil norm, Kelly Allen remained homeless and, by seventeen, a feral one, with several crimes of violence by now. She often looked at Amber and Root's home in bitter envy, wishing she could have such a home, and a family once more. To Kelly, the rain George now loved was a curse, given that she lived outdoors, and her mischief always escalated when the weather was less than fair.

On the first anniversary of his Marriage to Agnes, George found, to his astonishment, a photograph, lying on the floor, of the man he knew as Raphael, the one who had, so far as he knew, broken some dreadful spell. Agnes, however, did not recognize the man, nor did anyone else in town. Tao, the housecat, though, seemed, in his own way, to recognize or acknowledge something about the photo, or perhaps the man.

The end.

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