Chapter Text
Anathema sat in a leather chair, looking across the room at several watercolor landscape paintings. They were some of the only color in the office. The walls were gray, the floor a darker gray, the table and curtains were black and the furniture was beige. The colors were meant to be neutral and soothing, she was sure, but they felt dreary to her. Almost absently she wondered what Agnes would say about this before she caught herself. She smoothed her skirt and carefully raised her eyes to meet the gaze of the woman who sat across from here.
She was a middle aged, a little plump and just starting to gray around the temples. She looked nice in the dark blue skirt suit she wore. A leather bound lay open in her lap, but she didn’t look at it. “Alright Anathema,” she blinked once around the name but continued with hardly a pause. “Tell me, what brings you here today?”
A deep breath filled her lungs and let it out slowly before replying. “I came to the realization recently that I’ve never made any decisions for myself. Not really.” Her eyes dropped to her lap. Saying it aloud sounded so much worse than it had when it was just in her head. It had sounded pretty bad then.
“And why do you think that?” The woman asked. Her tone was encouraging, positive. There was a pleasant neutrality in her expression.
Anathema looked up and met her gaze steadily. This was the first test, then. “I was trained from early childhood to follow and decode certain teachings handed down by one of my ancestors. I was supposed to do one thing in my lifetime. I did that thing, and now I…” she paused and looked down to frown at her fingers. “I don’t know what to do next. I don’t know how to ‘next’. I feel like I’ve just been along for the ride so far and now I’m finally taking the wheel, so to speak, and realizing I don’t know how to drive.”
When she looked up, the therapist was still smiling at her. “Well, that first step to getting a driver’s license is learning about what happens around you on the road. Why don’t we talk about your life and try to come up with a few things that you might feel were decisions that were made for you?”
~~~
“Welcome home,” Newt said from the kitchen table as she walked in the door. He’d pushed away his breakfast dishes and had the newspaper open in front of him. She walked over and gave him a kiss, surreptitious taking a glance at what he was doing. Any hopes that he was job hunting or even reading were quickly dashed when she saw the half finished sudoku puzzle in front of him. He’d become addicted to them after moving to the US with her.
Stifling a sigh, she gathered the dishes to bring them over to the dishwasher.
“Oh honey no, don’t do that,” Newt said, watching her. “Let the maid get those.”
“It’s her day off, remember?” she asked as she loaded the washer. “I asked you to get the dishes before I left?”
“I forgot,” he admitted. “And I might have dozed off here for a little bit. Anyway, how did your appointment go? Do you think you’ll keep this one?”
She nodded slowly, remembering the therapist’s smiling implacability. “I liked her, she was nice. I’m not sure if I’m going to keep her yet. We haven’t gotten into the really weird stuff yet. But she didn’t flinch when I vaguely told her about Agnes, so I think I’ll at least go back for a second visit.”
“Great. I’m so glad, love,” Newt said, rising and coming over to her. “I’m so happy you’re working through all of this. I really want us to have a normal life together.”
He pulled her into an embrace and she sighed, resting her head on his shoulder. “Yeah,” she said. “I know.”
~~~
“I’m not asking you to believe all of this, I don’t think I’d believe it if I hadn’t been there, but I feel like context is necessary,” Anathema told the therapist. This was the second test.
“My job, or at least part of it, is to listen without judgement. It’s also my job to help you get to where you want to be,” she paused for a moment. “And as strange as what you say might sound, I do have to keep in mind, things were very odd world wide there for a bit. And it looked for a moment like we might all die in a nuclear apocalypse. I know it affected a lot of my patients very deeply.
“Right now we’re talking about you, though. And we’re talking about what skills you are going to need to learn in order to live your own life. Not a life dictated by your family, however ancient, or by anyone else.”
“Right now, what I want is to know how people live their lives without someone guiding them,” Anathema said. “Without Agnes’s prophecies, I just feel lost. Adrift.”
The therapist nodded encouragingly. “People often feel that way when something that has been a major part of their life ends. Filling that void sometimes helps. Can you think of something you might enjoy or find fulfilling?”
“Not really. To be honest, I’m not even sure what I enjoy when it’s not directly tied to Agnes or the prophecies.” She shrugged helplessly.
“That’s some homework for you then. Find something you enjoy doing. I have a couple directions you might try exploring like puzzle solving or treasure hunting.”
“I’ll try anything, I guess,” Anathema said. She meant it too. The thought of picking her own activities wasn’t nearly as scary as the thought of a life yet lived that stretched out before her.
~~~
“Oh, there you are,” Newt said as she emerged from what had, until a few days ago, been one of their spare bedrooms. “I was getting worried. Would you mind terribly changing the television channel? The daytime television on this station is rubbish.”
“Fine, what do you want?” she asked, going over to get the remote. They’d discovered the hard way that the computer electronics in smart TVs meant Newt couldn’t operate them himself. Even voice commands would fizzle out Netflix until they could get a repair person in.
“Oh, I don’t know. Just something that’s not a soap opera. Maybe you could turn on a renovation series?” He suggested. After she’d changed the station, he sighed. “Thank you. So how’s your project going?”
“I’m definitely making progress,” she told him, smiling to herself. “I think I’ve solved a couple of the book puzzles, and I’m plotting out where I think one of the treasure items might be.”
“That’s nice, love. I’m glad you are so into all of this. Be careful, though? This is the sort of thing can be dangerous if you let yourself get too sucked into it. I’ve heard of people who have lost years of their lives to this sort of thing,” he said. “I don’t want to lose you to it.”
“You won’t,” she said. “It’s not like that. I just want to find this treasure before my next session with the therapist.”
“Whatever you say, love. Oh, and don’t forget you promised to make dinner tonight,” he said, going back to the show he was watching.
“Like you’d let me forget,” she murmured as she went to take care of some of her own needs.
~~~
“That’s very impressive,” her therapist said when Anathema presented her with her abrieviated notes, a soil stained plastic container, and a newspaper article about her find. “It’s hard to believe you found it so quickly when people have been searching for this for years.”
“I’ve had a lot of practice,” she said with a smile. “I can see that,” the therapist said, nodding. “So tell me, how does this win make you feel?”
“I guess I’m satisfied with it,” she said, frowning thoughtfully. “I don’t think I’d rush out to do it again, though.”
“And why is that?”
“I think,” she said slowly. “ I got a little too involved. It was like I was back with the prophecies, deciphering and always pushing, pushing, pushing to figure out what it all meant. In that sense, the puzzle was engaging, very, very engaging, but I don’t think it felt fulfilling. Not like it used to, anyway.”
“Did this shift happen after the averted apocalypse?”
“Yes,” she said, nodding slowly. “I dint’ notice it a much at first since Newt and I were a little busy figuring out what was happening next. You know, where we were going, what paperwork we were going to need, so on and so on.”
“And how did you feel after the busyness ended?”
She thought for a moment before answering. “Empty,” she said at last. “And just a little lonely. Everything I’d worked for my whole life was suddenly over, and it felt like I had nothing to show for it.”
“And the loneliness?”
“I mean, I still talk with my family of course,” she said, shrugging. “But it’s different. We don’t have any kind of passion anymore. No more prophecies to argue. I mean some of them still want to argue them, but what’s the point? Mostly these days mom just keeps me updated on who’s had what baby and who wants to know when I’m having one.”
The therapist took a slow, deep breath, nodding. “It sounds like this event had a very significant impact on a lot of different aspects of your life. Please correct me if I am wrong, but it sounds as though you feel that it has disconnected you in a major way from your family and your heritage.”
Anathema frowned a little. “I hadn’t really thought about it that way, but I think you might be right. So what’s next?”
“Well, next we try to figure out how to make you feel less lonely. I would suggest trying to reconnect with your family, but it sounds like you’ve already tried that. Maybe instead you could try connecting with the people who went through this event with you. Obviously you have Newt, but you’ve also mentioned others from time to time. Do you think writing to them might be something that could help?”
“Only one way to find out, I suppose. And I wouldn’t mind talking to them again.” She paused and amended. “Most of them anyway. Sargent Shadwell isn’t always the most coherent, and I’m not sure about Crowley…”
“Write to whoever you are comfortable doing so. Remember there is no pressure and no deadline behind this.”
~~~
When she arrived home that afternoon, Newt was asleep on the sofa in the living room. There was a Sudoku book splayed across his chest and a pen dangled from one hand. Anathema crossed the room without waking him and picked up the dirty dishes he’d left strewn over the coffee table. The record player hissed quietly in the background, but she ignored that and instead headed to the study.
The room was small, barely large enough for a desk and a book case, but it held everything she normally needed. She sat at the desk and opened the lowest drawer, pulling out a few things until she found the box she wanted. She opened it and her hand passed briefly over an ancient piece of parchment, carefully folded and and tucked on top of her stationary. Moving it aside, she pulled out several pieces of paper and began to write. Choosing who to write to wasn’t terribly hard. Few people were privy to one of the most important events in her life. In the world really. After a few minutes of thought she decided she might as well write to all of them. She hoped at least a few of them might write back. Now there was a sad thought: writing to a demon who wouldn’t write back.
Shaking off the feeling she sighed and picked up her pen to begin her first letter.
To the Principality Aziraphale, Guardian of the Eastern Gate,
Greetings,
I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to write, though I’m not exactly sure how you personally mark the passing of time…