Chapter Text
Agnes Montague listens to her radio tinkling Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Major and wonders what she has to live for tomorrow.
There’s Christmas, she likes wandering around and seeing the lights. New Year's Day- the fireworks. There’s Gertrude. There’s Jude, and the rest of the Cult. There’s Jack.
Okay, she decides. Another month, at least. She spits out the last of the charcoal tablet- boiled toothpaste tastes terrible, but she likes her teeth clean- checking the time on he clock in the hall. 18:37. About an hour before Jack gets off his last shift- not the café, the Tesco one. They’re going on a walk. Agnes knows very little of what other girls do when they’ve got a date, but a bath can’t be a step in the wrong direction. Agnes goes to one of the freezers- industrial strength, one for food, one for bathing. She’s sure the energy bill must be through the roof, but showers just evaporate on her, and no tap water stays cold enough. Agnes clambers inside and sighs as the ice hisses around her. She looks up at her ceiling and resists the urge to pull the lid closed.
After her bath, Agnes gets dressed. The new skirt Jude had stolen for her, only slightly singed. I thought you would like it, she had said, jarringly bashful. It’s electric blue with turquoise fish darting through the fabric as she walks. She twirls. Her skirt goes up like Marilyn Monroe. Agnes smiles giddily as she spins. She catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror and stops. She looks ridiculous. Agnes lets her face settle back into safe, comfortable neutrality, as it should be.
Now to find a top. She is sure there is a blouse that matches the fish, somewhere- or did it get lost in the move? Worst luck, but there is a white one, so that will do. Her favourite soft leather gloves- dyed blue, haha! And sandals. Always sandals. Her feet get too hot with socks, and she melts the rubber soles. Agnes does up the straps (she can’t stand when shoes slap on the ground) and inspects. She looks alright. Not quite fashionable, but she’s of her time, she’s never really been comfortable with showing skin below her neck.
Jack will like it.
Agnes looks down at the skirt and wonders what Jude would say about her gift being worn on a date with a nobody normal. With a sigh, she takes off the skirt.
Stops.
Puts it back on again.
In the Co-op, Agnes debates a picnic in her mind, mulling over the mechanics of buying wine without the cashier spilling it everywhere. Maybe bundle it up, somehow? Of course, she didn’t have a coat... Jack would, but that rather defeats the point of a surprise- and it would be a bit weird to come out of the Co-op just to send him back in...
The door opens, a very tall goth stumbling in. Agnes looks at him properly- she has always paid attention to the oddities of humanity. Live people often ignore the strange and unusual, she quotes to herself, as the goth trips over a display. I myself, am strange, and unusual.
“Hey!” The goth leans heavily on the counter, looking very close to falling off. Agnes can see the cashier wrinkling her nose. “Do you have any lighter fluid? Also, hair dye.” Which seems unnecessary, in her opinion. For one thing, his hair looks like it’s still drying. A long tress of it drips onto the counter, like oil. Actually, it's probably not just-dyed- just very, very black, and wet. He doesn’t seem to notice, grinning up at the cashier. “Also, something that will make me not throw up. And some fags, please, if you wouldn’t mind.”
The cashier looks like she regrets being alive today, but nods wearily and leads him down the nearest aisle. Agnes keeps watching. In his hunt for various items he didn’t ask for, the goth drops a container of wilting salad, plastic cracking open. He stares at it for a second, then up at her. He’s young, she realises. Can't be older than twenty. All but his eyes. Red-rimmed and kohl-coated as they are, seem so very old, and a shocking green. Witch’s eyes, cat’s eyes.
He grins.
Agnes would probably follow him for a bit any other day, see what other messes this interesting young man gets into. That’s what she did with Jack, a week or so after he asked her out. Oh, speaking of...
Agnes breaks their staring contest (?) to check, and yes, Jack has finished his shift. She sighs and puts back the wine. A walk will do, for today. She leaves the Co-op to the goth’s mercy and crosses the road.
“We’re going on a walk,” she calls to Jack, resisting the urge to jog up to him. Oh-so-calmly, she reaches his side. Jack nods, of course- he doesn’t have anything going on, she checked. He smiles, a high blush settling deeper on his cheeks.
“You don’t want a coat?” he asks, already fidgeting with his zip, sweet thing. Agnes shakes her head.
“You know, I've never seen you in anything thicker than a sundress. How do you stand it? It’s nearly December.”
“I run hot,” Agnes says, truthfully.
They wander through Bolefield Park for an hour or so, their breath fogging. Agnes wonders what his hand would feel like in hers without the gloves- but no. She has to concentrate hard enough for just this. She squeezes Jack’s hand rapid-fire, SOS SOS SOS. It’s the only thing she knows in Morse code. Jack smiles soppily at her, when he thinks she isn’t looking. Silly, sweet thing.
The moon starts to hide behind the thick clouds. Jack is checking his watch anxiously, and she almost laughs. To be worried about the time! She turns to him and
stumbles.
“Agnes?” Jack asks in the distance, but Agnes is clutching her chest, trying to make sense of the world through the agony howling at her insides. A flame needs oxygen, but none is entering her lungs now, none feeding her brain. Is this what they feel? she thinks, or at least has the shape of thinking. When we raze their lives to the ground?
“The tree,” she hisses. Jack is helping her up. He looks so very scared.
“The tr- what tree? Agnes, what’s going on? What can I do?”
“Phone.”
“Over there- Agnes?”
Agnes shoulders through the glass and dials the first number she can remember. “Hello?” Jude says, gruffly, like the world isn’t ending.
“Jude. Jude, I- the tree. It’s falling. Help me, I- I can’t-”
Jude's mood shifts instantly. “Alright- alright, stay calm. What I do, I get the stuff, I get the-the guys- where are you? Should I pick you up?”
“No time,” Agnes wheezes. “I can get home. Call everyone there.”
“Okay. Okay. Stay safe. Bye.”
Jack helps her to her street, arm in arm, and up the stairs, and Agnes can’t even enjoy it. Outside, the whole gang’s here- Sandy, Lola, Eugene, Rod, Sydney, Jude. Diego and Arthur are hissing orders, plotting out her salvation. She loves them all fiercely, in her heart of hearts. They want the best for her. They will do their best for her.
This is not going to be any fun.
“I’m sorry, Jack,” Agnes says. He is sweating, but only holds her more tightly, silly thing. “This was the best month of my life. But I have to go now. Goodbye. Thank you.”
She waits for him to let go of her arm, braces for when her legs crumple underneath her. But Jack just stares. And then, so softly, he says, “Can I kiss you goodnight?”
And without a moment’s pause, Agnes leans in.
Jack screams. He jerks on the floor, half-rolling, arms coming up to twitch over his beautiful, ruined face. Agnes can smell meat cooking. She blinks away the rest of her tears and leans against the wall.
“Come on, Agnes,” Jude says quietly, and has her around her shoulders. Leather jacket. Leather gloves. She came here on her bike.
Agnes is lead numbly to her table, propped up only by the back of her chair. People move around her, chanting, shouting, ordering. Candles here, spiders there. Agnes is not really listening. She does what they tell her, moves when necessary, light the appropriate sacrifices. But in the quiet moments, the restless moments, as her disciples pray, Agnes closes her eyes and presses her fingers to her lips. The scream rings, over and over again. But his eyes, but his lips, but his skin-
And then it is over. The Cult heaves as one, slumping over a chair or on the floor. Agnes stares ahead blankly.
“No. No, there has to be something we can do!” Jude is clawing herself up again, shaky as a lamb. “It can’t end like this.”
“It can, Jude,” Agnes whispers. “And it will.”
“What? Agnes, don’t- don’t say that.”
“The ritual will never work. Not with me. I’m not- I'm not powerful enough, it’ll just tear us all apart.”
“Agnes, stop this,” Arthur sighs. “Don’t let doubt into your mind, you’ll-”
“No.” Everyone sits up straighter. Agnes can smell meat cooking. Even Arthur paws at his collar, flushing. “Listen to me. The ritual won’t work. It just won’t. But there’s a way we can fix it. We can’t do this with me. I have the power, maybe, but I'm- a faulty conduit. If we attempt the ritual with me- the flame will just... fizzle out.”
Sydney frowns consideringly. “So," they say, "what are you saying?”
“I’m saying that we give the spark back. Create a new messiah, a better one.”
“Do you know how we can do that?” Diego, always with the details.
“I think I do.” Agnes nods, swallowing. “If you want a flame to die, you don’t make an explosion out of it. You suffocate it. I need to die quietly.”
The effect is instantaneous; Jude and Diego jump up, spitting protest, Sandy and Rod gasp, Sydney falls off their chair. “No!” and “Are you kidding me?” and “I won’t let you!” and “There has to be another way!”
She watches it, and it doesn't translate. It's just noise, just babble
“I don’t think there is. I die, and our god can move on, into another form. I hope not a child this time.” Agnes laughs, bitterly. “I’m afraid we are rather too human for this work.”
Jude is seething with rage, leaving little scorch marks in the floor as she paces. She rounds on her. “Human? God- it’s this coffee shop boy, isn’t it? Putting ideas into your head, I'll-”
“You will do nothing,” Agnes spits, feeling a roar of heat spark through her nerves. Hold your breath, Agnes. Hold your breath. Taking a moment to compose herself, she says, more quietly, “The boy has nothing to do with this. Our work is always first in my heart, you know that. And, with my heart, I have felt this for a long time. Tonight has only confirmed it.”
“No! No. This is just a- a minor setback-”
“Jude.” Eugene says quietly. “She’s right.”
Of course, Jude goes nuclear at this.
They talk, argue, fist-fight, scream for an hour.
“Go to hell!”
Another.
“No! Fucking! Way!”
Another.
“Fuck you!”
But eventually, it is decided. Agnes will die, and she will die tonight.
“Now?” Jude asks her hoarsely. It was almost impressive how long she could yell. There are little balls of salt crusting her eyelids. Agnes ignores them. “Why wait?” she asks.
Jude has nothing to say to that.
And so, Lola pulls out some rope- uncharred. Her hands flicker over her as she walks past; like she wants to squeeze her shoulder. She doesn’t. She stands on the table and ties it to the lampshade, testing the lever of it without preamble. It holds. Agnes stands back as they grind the chair out of the way, and steps up onto the chair. Carefully, she is handed the noose.
Agnes looks at it.
She can smell meat cooking.
She nods and loops it snug around her neck.
“Any last words?” Arthur asks, half a joke. His lip is pulled back a little, showing off a snaggle tooth. Agnes blinks.
“I... thank you.” she says finally. “For everything. You’ve always been family to me. Always protected me. I love you for that. And... leave Jack alone, wouldn’t you, Jude? He’s been through enough as it is.”
Jude says nothing. Agnes closes her eyes and breathes. “I think that's it. Pay the rent. Clean up this place. Stay safe. I love you. Goodbye.”
She does not know who kicks the chair away. It is amazing, really, how all her composure flies out the window as the noose tightens- Agnes retches almost immediately, acid in her nose and throat. Her eyes bug, and Agnes starts to wish they’d used the standard drop method. But no. Breaking her neck would be too quick for it to work. She must, must be snuffed.
Agnes realises quickly that she does not want to be snuffed.
Agnes realises that she does not want to die.
It is incredible how much this hurts, just for a few minutes. Everything has become blood rushing in her ears, noise and pain and colour. Her legs scuttle reflexively and knock against something, trying to find leverage. Despite herself, her hands twitch around her neck- but Lola is too good at her job. She forces them to drop, jerking. Something begins to drip through her fingers, warm and sticky. Is she bleeding, somehow? Is she melting away to nothing?
It occurs to Agnes that she has never truly been afraid before. Fear is so loud. Blood thumping, whining, crying. Light flashes, everything shakes. She wants it to go away. She just wants to go away.
Agnes closes her eyes, longing for the quiet, for the End. It comes.
There now, it whispers. Just like going to sleep.
And that is the first time Agnes Montague’s spark goes out.
Agnes Montague listens to her radio tinkle Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Major and, in an uncharacteristic display of emotion, asks the mirror, “What the fuck was that?”
On reflex, she checks the time. 18:37.
She can smell meat cooking.
She’s never had visions before. More of the Beholding’s domain, if anything. Maybe Gertrude’s found a good book. It is rather a rude decision, if it’s that. To stop being human without any notice. Ignoring the pit in her stomach, Agnes goes through the motions. The moment of pure ice-cold gives her clarity. She will go through today as she planned. If she dies, she dies. It is meant to be. Or going to be, regardless- the Web has had her most of her life, why should it stop at orchestrating her death?
Yes, she nods shakily. If I die, I die. If I live...
Agnes decides to wait outside Tesco, with all the smokers. A man asks for a light. She almost wants to give him one, just to see how he’d react. Probably just take his hand off, though.
She can smell meat cooking.
“Oh, Agnes!” Jack looks pleasantly surprised by her presence as he turns the corner. “We going somewhere?”
She nods jerkily, and Jack takes her hand. Gloves, thank G- well. Thank someone. They walk to the park, as if she was a real person who has never, never, never-
“I had a dream,” Agnes blurts out, after a half-hour. Jack looks surprised again, but nods. Their- are they dates?- tend to follow Newton’s laws. They are silent, and stay silent, or Jack answers her questions, his rambling a rolling ball in motion. He gestures her to go on.
“I think it was a dream. Or an omen, maybe. It was like today,” she says. “Almost exactly like today. I was getting ready, and I got dressed, and I went out to meet you. We walked this same walk.”
“Are we having the same conversation?”
“No. No, we were quiet before.”
“Maybe it’ll be different this time.”
“Mm.”
I hope so, Jack. I really, really hope so.
The moon hides behind thick clouds. Jack is checking his watch. Agnes sighs. She does not trip this time.
They get to the phone booth faster than in her vision, as if that means anything. She knows the way. Jack walks her to the flat, up the stairs. The gang is there, waiting.
Jack asks to kiss her.
She leaves him, howling, and goes inside. Agnes watches all the little things she ignored before- Sydney’s nervous laugh, the crease in Diego’s brow when he focuses, Eugene almost tripping over a wayward box. Rod comes in a little later- he must have dumped Jack outside. No one has ever told her much about the afterlife- all that mattered in their line of work is that the right people are dead or alive enough to feel pain. She would say she thinks there might be something, if she was pressed; but it is not a comfort. She was made to bring Hell on Earth, and possibly beyond. Even the most merciful God probably wouldn't like that much. And if there is nothing...
Ah. Yes, she thinks; she can see the appeal of the End. It is easy to give in to this kind of fear. After all, as they say, there is nothing certain but death, and change, and taxes.
The ceremony fails, of course. Agnes proposes her solution, with precisely the same response. And the same answer.
"Jude," she says. "Promise me you won't hurt him."
Jude looks up at her, face pale and soft as ashes. But she nods, like a soldier, like a martyr. "Okay," she says, and nothing more.
The noose tightens, and it is hard to decide if it is worse than last time. Knowing what to expect does not make it hurt any less. She keeps her eyes open this time- she wants to Watch the world continue as she fades. Through the tears, through the haze, she can feel something dripping through her fingers. She manages to turn her head and look. Hot tears are streaming down Jude’s cheeks, evaporating quickly. The stump of her wrist bubbles. Jude was holding her hand. She didn’t notice that before. Once all this is over, Jude can probably melt herself a new hand, a better hand. But it was sweet, she thinks through the roar, of her to try.
The Cult is silent and ashen, watching Agnes kick reflexively. Arthur's red-rimmed eyes are focusing on a single spot beneath her- her shadow, perhaps. Sydney has their arm around Lola. Jude is starting to sob.
I love you. She is saying. Please don’t go. I’ll miss you.
The last thing Agnes Montague does in this life is force her swelling lips to smile gratefully at her family, at Jude. And then, the world is a kindly nothing.
“Fuck.”
Agnes glares at her reflection. What now? Deathbed visions, as far as she knows, don’t generally happen twice. Something strange is going on. Time for an experiment.
So, Agnes stays inside. As usual, there is absolutely nothing to do besides stare out the window and listen to the radio. No books to read, no paper to draw on, not even something to do with her hands (she’d learned her lesson about cleaning supplies in her last flat). Just like it’s always been. So, chasing the thoughts of her last two endings out of her mind, she looks out the window and people-watches- the construction workers, the night-shifters, the couples- making up stories about their lives while she braids her hair. It is a game that has served her for decades, and easy enough for what undernourished imagination she has; that lady’s name is Magnolia, and she has a business and three children and a mortgage, whatever that is. This man is Stefan, and these boys are Andreas and Reginald, and they all hate each other. Agnes imagines houses and flats and bungalows (bungalows bungalows bungalows, it is so much fun to say), dogs and cats and lizards, children, all in a line, or happy by themselves. This is her favourite game, to pretend to be ordinary.
As Agnes dreams up a world for Ermingarde Donaghue-Smythe, a lawyer whose new husband is growing suspicious of the Room He Must Never Enter, she feels the pain stab at her, and she thinks I can cope this time, until a moment later, when it howls. Agnes curls into herself on the window seat, trying not to catch like the wildfire she is. She likes this seat. It's her window seat.
Okay, she thinks, as she forces her lungs to move by themselves. It hurts. Obviously. The pain is there, and tangible. But it is just pain. It is not good or bad, it just is. Feel it, acknowledge it, and move on.
This does help, a bit. The jabs subside after a half hour or so, leaving a dull ache nestling in her gut. She does not get up to call anyone- she can’t be bothered to go and find her gloves so she can use the landline. It probably won’t do anything anyway. She chose to end it all the last two times. Maybe this is a sign from her god, or the God, or Satan, or the Universe, that she isn’t finished here yet. So she lies, curled like a woodlouse, and tries to go to sleep.
And, she does.
The dawn wakes her (no curtains- she's really got to invest in those). The hall clock reads 07:48, and Agnes smiles. She survived the night. Of course she survived. Agnes nods, far less resigned to this news than she might have been a week ago. Dying was not fun. The world (the Web?) wants her to live. She is going to live.
And upon that epiphany, a wrecking ball smashes through Agnes Montague's window, killing her instantly.