After running Satan out of town, they treated Jack like a celebrity. Bleary-eyed villagers—roused by the uproar—lined up to give thanks, to the consternation of both Jack and the innkeeper. Ronan blubbered his gratitude.
He found it strange. This place and its people seemed lean, dirty, and worn by hard days, but one farmer had a stack of riches probably worth more than the entire hamlet. No-one offered an explanation, though, and he’d had enough for the day. Night. Whatever.
The village priest—Father Joshua—had offered Jack his hospitality at the church. Though tempted by natural protection from any vengeful forces of evil, he declined. He had the same offer from the innkeeper, and that was closer.
He slept fitfully, in a straw bed with more insects per square metre than a hotel room has semen. After a couple of hours, the sun rose, and he stumbled downstairs to breakfast. This was unsweetened porridge, which tasted like cardboard.
With a sigh, he swallowed the last tasteless bite. The food was shit. The beds were shit. Everything smelled of shit. He missed technology, convenience, printed books that cost less than a house, and beer that didn’t taste like someone had pissed in it.
He really wanted that pizza.
“Who do you expect to understand that call-back,” said Razor, “when we have been abandoned for four months?!”
He shrugged inwardly. When you think about it, it’s a few hours from our perspective.
“Nobody cares about that!”
Explains why no-one ever reads this junk.
“Don’t be silly—who doesn’t want to read The Riptastic Adventures of Razor?”
Literally everyone.
A silence overcame them, and several faces fluttered across his mind. He sighed again. Once his thoughts became still, he couldn’t help but long for warmth to fill the emptiness within—nothing could dull it anymore.
“And here I thought they’d be better off without you.”
Yeah, well I’m better off with central heating and a microwave.
“When was the last time you paid your heating bill?”
He paled.
Whatever the case, now he had a base of operations, he needed to shift his perspective. Finding a way home was his priority.
“Don’t just change the subject!”
Maybe he’d be able to find a magus who could help, but he doubted it. The general attitude of the region probably scared them all away. Therefore he had to think about leaving some kind of message, a beacon they could use to locate him—a henge shaped like a penis, for example, or a giant carving in the ground saying ‘Jack woz ‘ere’ with the date.
What was the date?
“The same as the last time you paid your bills, I presume.”
Before he could retort, the scraping of wood on wood resounded as a bald man pulled out the chair across from him and sat.
“Good morning, Jack,” said Father Joshua.
“Morning,” he said, raising an eyebrow at his choice of adjective.
“I trust your accommodations have been sufficient?”
“Trust is a funny thing. Serious question.”
“Please, ask away.”
Leaning in, Jack gestured to the innkeeper rubbing glasses with a filthy rag. “Does he actually charge people for this?”
The priest knit his brow. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Alright,” he said, sighing, “so to begin with, the bed had more lumps than a cancerous ball sack. Honestly, you could barely call it a bed at all—how am I supposed to sleep on that? No heating, drafty as fuck, everything’s dirty, and the food? I could eat dirt and get more flavour! Then there’s the beer, which doesn’t really qualify as beer, more just murky piss-water.
“Overall, zero out of five stars, wouldn’t recommend to my worst bloody enemy.”
Razor gasped. “This isn’t TripAdvisor! Have some tact, you miserable bastard.”
Joshua coughed into his hand, sounding stilted. “Well… perhaps a small tour would improve your foul mood? Knowing the village may be of benefit for the remainder of your stay, however short.”
“Why not?” said Jack. He didn’t really care about the odds and ends of the place, but scoping it out could lead to a location for his beacon. Nodding to the innkeeper, he followed Joshua out into the sun, shielding his eyes against the brightness.
It looked much the same as it had in the dark, dusty and wooden and archaic. The windmill spun slowly, a few people strolling through the dirty streets. A smell of burning iron wafted through the air, smoke rising from the chimney of a stone building next to the mill—a smithy, he assumed. He regarded the hills as they strolled, ignoring the sounds of rustling fabric, pounding hammers, and talking priests.
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Wait.
What in the name of fuck was that?
Rising from the centre of the hills, a thick green trunk massed with vines pierced through the clouds.
“I do believe it’s a beanstalk.” Razor’s voice was dry.
Thanks for clarifying that, he thought with a mental tut, I’d actually gone blind.
“Well, that won’t do. How are you supposed to know where to swing me?”
He sighed. Tapping the priest’s shoulder, he pointed and said, “what’s with the giant beanstalk?”
Joshua turned back, eyes flat. “We don’t know. It just popped up one night.”
“I’d like to make an insight check.”
Sentient weapons don’t get skill checks. Now bugger off back to the Shadowfell, you cursed piece of shit.
A shock jolted through his waist, and he took it as a victory. “Someone plant some magic beans, or something?”
“I hope not,” said Joshua, grimacing. “Magic is strictly forbidden here.”
Because of course it was. He’d been right to keep Razor’s sentience a secret, then.
“I think you should have told them,” she said, voice bright. “Think of all the bloodshed…”
I’d rather not, thanks. Regardless, that kind of plant didn’t grow naturally. Some kind of sorcery was afoot here, the thought sending a blossoming warmth through his chest. Finally, a lead. Maybe it was nothing, but it was the first indication of something that could potentially send him home.
He had to take the chance.
“I wanna check it out,” he said.
The priest made a face. “Of course, but are you sure? It’s not very interesting, and we’ve heard tell of wild creatures in the area…”
Shrugging, Jack patted Razor. “I’m sure I’ll be fine.”
“Very well,” said Joshua, hands behind his back. “But I shan’t accompany you to the hills—a shepherd must remain with his flock, you understand.”
“You have sheep?” He narrowed his eyes. “Where?”
A sigh rang through his head.
“No, that’s not—never mind,” said Joshua, palming his forehead.
“‘Scuse me,” came a rough voice from behind him, “did I just ‘ear you’re going to the ‘ills?”
Turning, Jack noted the arrival of a girl with braided pigtails and a light cloth dress. Her face was pockmarked, and she swung an empty bucket in her right hand.
Joshua smiled. “Ah, Jill! And how are you this fine morning?”
“Thirsty,” she said. “Need someone to come up the ‘ill to the well wi’ me.”
“Why?” said Jack, pursing his lips.
“There’s creatures out there.”
He pointed toward the gate. “There’s a lake over there.”
“Ah, but that water’s not as good as the well water,” she said, shaking her head.
By all the gods—imaginary and real—this woman was an idiot. “What’s the difference?” He'd taken a dip the night before, so he knew how clean it was. Unless his vomit had been washed up from the Lady’s alcove.
“Just better.”
“You’re going anyway, yes?” asked Joshua, placing a hand on Jack’s shoulder. “Perhaps the village’s saviour should accompany the innocent girl to the well.”
He threw up his arms. “Just put a well in the village! Why the bloody hell do people have to go trekking up hills just to get water? Where’s the logic?”
The girl gave him doe eyes. “Please?”
Sucking his teeth, he considered. This sounded like the beginning of another nursery rhyme, and he was done with that. Why should he become a cautionary tale for children?
How did this one go again? Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water…
“It can’t be that bad,” said Razor. “What could that little girl possibly do to you?”
With an aggravated sigh, he said, “fine. Let’s go.”
***
Hannah’s heart tore itself in two as she watched Dr. Wen fiddle with the panel next to the door. A gentle hand brushed across her shoulder, and she turned to Lydia, who wore a tight expression.
“Ye’ve nae idea what ye’re daein’, have ye?” said Lizzie, rubbing her temples.
“How very dare you,” he said, as though he were reading from an autocue. “These systems are my bread and butter. I was almost there, and then I found this peculiar little transmission coming from off in deep space—I just need to apply the translation matrix…”
Heat rose in her gut. “And how is that supposed to help us find Jack?”
“I agree,” said Lydia, her grip tightening. “All you’re likely to find is a message from aliens asking if George has finished book six yet.”
“He’s probably dead by noo,” said Lizzie.
Lydia cocked her head. “I thought he was an immortal Faerie?”
“No,” said Dr. Wen, “that’s Brandon. How else could he be so consistent?”
Screwing her eyes shut, Hannah seethed. “Whatever! How does any of this help?!”
“Well, it might…” said the time-traveller. “You never know. Ah, I have it!”
He tapped the screen, and a booming voice rang across the storeroom:
“HAVE YOU BEEN IN A STARSHIP ACCIDENT THAT WASN’T YOUR FAULT?”
***
Legs burning, Jack trudged after the young girl. She skipped ahead of him up a steep incline, seemingly unbothered by the exertion.
“Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water…” she sang.
His throat flexed. Was this the origin of the nursery rhyme? Some idiot dragging him by the ear up a pseudo-mountain until his lungs exploded?
“I believe you’re being a little over-dramatic…”
Ignoring her, he continued on, jaw set against his aching muscles and the onrushing dizziness.
“Jack climbed up knowing nothing…” she sang.
Wait, what? Was she trying to start a fight?
“Like a lamb to the slaughter!”
Okay then. Because that wasn’t ominous at all.
Forget having a screw loose, this girl was still flat-packed—fresh off the delivery, complete with pictographic instructions that required a team of expert codebreakers to crack.
“I agree,” said Razor. “Very strange. Just to be safe, we should cut her.”
I’m not slicing up a little girl!
“Not ‘slice up’ per se, just make a new hole or two.”
He sighed as they finally crested the hill, dirt path crunching beneath their feet. His trainer soles—already worn to the thickness of tracing paper—began disintegrating. Great.
The peak was surprisingly flat, forty square feet of mercifully level ground. Jill skipped over to the centre. There stood a well, made of grey stone with a wooden canopy shielding the top.
Sighing, he wandered across to the other side, surveying the lush green plains and a forest stretching into the distance. These lay in the shadow of the beanstalk, its thick green arms reaching out as if to choke the light away.
His eyes traced its height. He gulped. From afar—with the hills masking its bottom—it was nowhere near as imposing. It thrust itself beyond the sky, surpassing the hills without effort, and looming over both the civilisation and nature surrounding it like the threat of social mobility over billionaires.
Even still, he had to try. He’d climb the monstrous thing, find some ridiculous flavour of magical creature at the top, and ask if it knew anything about time travel. Easy.
“Oi, Jill,” he said, flicking his eyes over his shoulder. “What was that song about, anyway?”
The only answer came as a wooden bucket flying at his head. His skull exploded in light, buzzing reverberating through it as he felt his feet give way beneath him.
He pitched forward into empty air.
Arms scrambling, he tried to regain balance. This only accelerated his tumble. Cold gripped him—the bumpy decline to the distant bottom seemed dangerously close. Hammers impacted his ribs and torso from every direction, threatening to pulp his insides. The shocks paralysed him.
A manic giggle rang out above.
And over the noise of onrushing wind and his body smashing into the side of the hill, a single voice pierced through.
“I told you we should have cut her.”