Episode XCVIII - Advent Horizon, Part II

            Sarah had agreed to meet Thomas back at St. Stephens the next day.  There was some kind of lunch for the elderly going on and he knew that Jen would be helping to serve.  She would know what to do, he had told her, everything would be okay.

Sarah wasn't really sure what to make of that.  She didn't see how anything could be okay.  There was still another monster out there somewhere and she couldn't guarantee that the next time it appeared she'd have a strong man with a sharpened piece of plumbing to help her.  As much as she liked Thomas - she was still confused on that point after he had backed out of their kiss, even if they had walked back to her house hand in hand - she didn't want to have to rely on him to defend herself.  It was the Twenty-first Century, after all.  A woman ought to be able to look after herself, even from monsters.  So, after telling her mother that she was going to try and do some of that Christmas shopping on her own today (and making it clear that her mother would not be welcome) she slipped into the kitchen, put a large cook's knife in her handbag and then hurried out into the cold.

The snow had fallen steadily all of the previous afternoon, evening and on into the night, so the world was the brightest, purest white it could be and the thick drifts at the edges of the pavement came up to just below Sarah's knee.  Fortunately the gritters had been out and people had been diligently clearing snow from their driveways, so there was a reasonably clear path to follow up the hill, with surprisingly little ice.  Children who had probably got the day off school because of the weather could be seen running around, throwing snow balls at each other and rolling larger ones to make snowmen.  Sarah passed a particularly fine specimen halfway up the hill, wearing an impossibly long scarf of rust red, gold and purple, with a fez perched upon its unblemished head.

The churchyard at St. Stephens was particularly picturesque and Sarah paused for a moment to admire the sight of the snow drifts piled up against the gravestones and highlighting the branches of the yew trees.  She lingered just a little longer than she needed to, however, staring at the door into the church and wondering if she should really go in.

What if I don't? She wondered.  What if I forget all about this?

She was startled out of her reverie when Thomas stepped up beside her and said, "B-b-beautiful, isn't it?"

"Oh, yes.  I was just admiring it." she replied rather hurriedly.

"S-s-still, w-we'd better s-step inside before w-we f-f-f-freeze."

She nodded, knowing that it was far too late to back out now.  She was committed to this, whatever it was.

They walked into the sanctuary of the church and were immediately greeted by a group of high-spirited old ladies who all managed to make borderline cheeky remarks about how handsome Thomas was and whether or not Sarah was his new girlfriend.  Somehow they managed to survive the onslaught and make it intact into the kitchen, where Jen was laying some biscuits out onto plates.

"Sarah!" she said, turning round and greeting them with a huge smile, "I thought I'd seen you here yesterday.  How are you?"

"Not great," Sarah admitted, before recounting the events of the previous day.  Jen's expression went from delighted to horrified to intrigued once Thomas brought out his contact lens tub filled with monster ash.

"W-we hoped y-you m-might be able to f-find s-s-something m-more about these c-creatures," he stammered as he handed it over.

"Well, I'll certainly give it a try."

Jen led them through into a small meeting room with an overhead projector at one end of a low table.  She placed the tub carefully to one side and then rummaged through a nearby box of stationary and emerged with two sheet of acetate.  Next she dashed out of the room and returned with two glasses, one filled with water and a toilet roll tube.  Sarah couldn't help but wonder whether they were about to get a demonstration of a classic make from Blue Peter, but no, there was no sticky-back plastic and no washing-up liquid bottle.

"What are you going to do?" she asked.

"I'm going to attempt to make a rudimentary microscope," Jen replied, "although to be honest I'm not sure how well it will work."

She placed the cardboard tube around the the empty glass and set it to one side, then she took some of the ashes out of the tub and placed them on one of the sheets of acetate.  Next, ever so carefully, she poured a little of the water onto the exposed ashes.  Almost immediately the room began to fill with green vapour.

"Oh, this is not good."

She ushered everyone away from the mysterious chemical reaction and opened the door into the meeting room, where several old ladies looked up in consternation at the sight of excited youth and green smoke.

"Don't worry," Jen said with an awkward smile, "everything's under control."

As the vapours died down the trio ventured into the room once more to find that the acetate and the ashes and turned to a ball of greenish molten plastic goo.

"I guess I'll have to examine them dry, then," Jen said with a sigh before finding another sheet of acetate and placing another small amount of the ashes upon it, then she switched on the overhead projector, placed the acetate on top, then layered over the other acetate to create slide.  Finally she took the glass with the toilet roll tube around it and placed it on top, peering through the open end and adding small amounts of water from the other glass at intervals until she was satisfied.

She was still staring through the makeshift microscope when the door to the meeting room opened a crack and a small, largely bent-over old lady stepped inside and cleared her throat, making Sarah, Thomas and Jen startle and turn around.

“The ladies and I,” she began somewhat nervously, “well, we were a bit worried you might be dabbling with… with the occult-” her wrinkled expression took on such a look of horror at that word that Sarah had to fight back the desire to giggle “-and we thought we had best just check, for accountability, you know.”

Jen smiled her bright warm smile, left her microscope behind and put a hand on the old woman’s shoulder.

“We are not ‘dabbling’ in the occult, Jean.  This is science-” the old lady pulled a face almost as notable as the one for the o-word, “-a perfectly respectable use of the talents God gave us to reason and investigate.”

“Oh,” Jean said, “well, that’s fair enough then.”  She turned halfway through the doorway before adding, “would you like some tea?”

Once Jen had politely declined she returned to the examination of the ashes and the room fell silent for a few moments until Sarah felt the need to speak up.

“Well,” she asked, “have you found anything?”

Jen looked up and frowned.  “It’s hard to tell, really.  This isn’t a very good microscope, but, from what I can see this isn’t any kind of organic matter that we know of.  I can’t recognise any cell structures or anything remotely like them.”

“W-would you, in ash?”

“But that’s just it!  This doesn’t look like ash at all, more like finely ground sand.”

“The monsters did appear to have skin like stone.  Perhaps on this other world life can exist like that?” Sarah suggested.

Jen looked thoughtful for a moment.

“If you don’t mind, Sarah, I’d like to bring this situation to the attention of a friend of mine.  She’s a theoretical physicist at the University and I think she would be very interested in this whole other world theory.  If I could take this dust or ash or whatever it is to show her, she might be able to do something more useful with it than I can – although what I can hardly begin to imagine.”

Sarah shrugged, already feeling disappointment rushing in.  Somewhere in the midst of all the makeshift science she had actually begun to hope that they might find something useful.

“Sure,” she said, “if you think it will do any good.”

“Cool, I’m meeting her for lunch tomorrow, so I’ll broach the topic then.”

Sarah gave Jen her number so that they could keep in touch about any progress that might be made and then, just as Sarah had both hoped and feared, Thomas offered to walk her home again.

“It’s okay”, she said, trying to hide her own uncertainty, “I think I’ll be fine on my own today.”

Thomas clearly couldn’t hide his own disappointment and his bright blue eyes grew dark and melancholy for a second.

“We could meet up later in the week, though,” she added, wondering if she did it only to see his cheeks dimple again when he smiled.

“Th-that would be… I m-mean, I would like that, yes.”

“Then it’s a date-” she regretted the word as soon as it was out of her mouth, but Thomas continued smiling and, after she had taken a deep breath, it seemed like maybe it wasn’t the wrong word after all.

She took his number and promised to call him later in the week, then headed back out into the cold to do some shopping so her mother wouldn’t worry – with Thomas watching her nervously until she was out of sight up the hill – feeling unsure about where any of this was heading, but eager to find out nonetheless.

She received a text from Jen on the Wednesday.  It read, ‘Maria’s v excited by ashes. Wants to meet u. I can give lift to Derby if needed.’

She met Thomas for coffee later that day and explained what Jen had proposed.  Unsurprisingly he was all for it.

“Y-you might find a w-way to g-get to Ellis,” he suggested.

“I doubt it,” Sarah replied, “if he really has ended up in another world… well… that can’t be easy to recreate.  I doubt one physicist in Derby would be able to solve that problem.”

“S-still, if someone is offering…”

“I know.  I’ll reply to Jen later.”

The sat in silence for a moment, each staring at their empty coffee mugs.  When Sarah looked up again she realised that Thomas had beaten her to it and that he had a strange, intense look in his eyes.

“I r-really l-like you, S-S-S-S-” he dropped his gaze, ashamed by his own stammer.

“I like you a lot too, Thomas.”  She let the statement hang in the air for a while.  “I was disappointed on Sunday, though, when you pulled away from that kiss.  It’s left me feeling confused.  I mean, what do you want from this?”

Thomas looked up again, took a deep breath and tried to explain.

“I w-want to be w-with you, but I kn-know that it isn’t a good thing for Christians to d-date n-non-Christians.”

“Why ever not?” Sarah asked, genuinely shocked at such an archaic-sounding notion.

“What I b-believe… it m-means everything t-to me.  H-how c-can I n-n-not share that w-with a p-person I w-want to s-s-s-spend the r-rest of m-m-m-my life w-with?”

“Whoah,” Sarah pushed her chair back a little, “who said anything about the rest of our lives?  If anything happens it would be on a trial basis, just like any relationship.  Taking it one day at a time.  Besides, marriage-”

“That’s exactly w-w-why, then,” Thomas replied, sounding more disappointed than Sarah would have expected and despite her sudden and unexpected anger, it hurt her to hear him like that.  “I d-d-don’t want a r-r-relationship that’s not going anyw-w-where.  I d-don’t mean that I w-want to m-m-marry you now, but it has t-t-to be a p-p-p-possibility, s-s-somew-w-where down the line, or there’s n-n-no point.”

Sarah was surprised and not a little offended by all of this, but Thomas sounded so sincere, so hurt, that her heart went out to him.

“I don’t understand,” she replied and then, before he could speak again, added, “but I want to.  Teach me about what you believe and while you do we can see if there’s anything to us or not, a sort of pre-dating trial run, you might say.”

Thomas’ eyes lit up.

“There’s a c-course run in the ch-church on Th-thursday evenings.  We could go t-t-to that?”

“Yeah, sure.  Why not?”

Thomas smiled and his cheeks dimpled the way that Sarah had already grown to love.  It made her smile in return, but in her heart she was wondering, how on earth am I going to explain this to mum?

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