Chris Brosnahan - POV

‘Is it feeling okay?’ I asked her.

‘It feels like curtains closing,’ she said. ‘It feels like I’m looking at a huge stage, and the curtains are dropping between acts.’

I smiled. ‘I like that way of describing it.’

‘Will it be as good as I’ve heard?’ She asked. ‘Will it be as good as everyone says?’

‘Sarah, if the curtain just came down at the end of the first act, then the second act is going to be entirely revelatory, just you wait.’

She smiled and began to laugh. ‘It’ll be worth it, then? Oh God, I can’t see. I can’t see. This is really weird. Is this okay?’ Her voice cracked, and her knuckles went even whiter than before. She was becoming hysterical.

This was okay, though. The procedure was almost finished. As long as she gave me time to finish it, this would have actually gone pretty smoothly.

‘It’s more than okay. The second act is just beginning, and I promise you, Sarah......’

‘What?’

I dropped my voice and whispered to her as gently and as calmly as I could.

‘… you ain’t seen nothing yet.’

My name is John MacFarlane. I am a forty-seven year old optometrist. I actually tend to think of myself as an optomist, due to the fact that I have always had a weakness for bad puns.

I have been married for the last seven years to a wonderful woman called Rachel. We met eleven years ago, after I recovered from a very difficult period in my life, and we have an eight-year-old daughter called Natalie. I started studying when I met Rachel, and quickly excelled at optometry, and ended up helping to lead the research into improving it.

I was born near the start of the century. I don’t feel very old when I think about the fact that my parents were born in the twentieth century, but it’s something that Natalie consistently finds amazing. It seems unfeasibly old to her.

‘They watched Clinton get into office,’ she said to me as I tucked her into bed. ‘CLINTON. That’s insane.’

‘I remember Clinton,’ I said to her, sitting down on the bed in front of her. ‘I liked Clinton.’

‘Yeah, but you don’t remember him as president, do you?’

‘No, but he was around as an ex-President. And he seemed pretty cool back then.’

‘You’re old.’

‘I’m not old.’

‘You’re old. And stupid.’

‘You’re young and annoying,’ I said, smiling.

‘You’re so old, you remember Clinton. How are you not dead?’

‘It’s a mystery to me.’

‘You probably remember cavemen. Were Granny and Grandad cavemen?’

‘They were not cavemen.’

‘Are you sure? Had they discovered fire when you were little?’

‘I am not old.’

‘It must have been difficult growing up before fire.’

‘It was very difficult. Before we had fire, we would have had no way of burning someone as annoying as you at the stake.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘Burning at the stake. It’s what they used to do to witches.’

‘Why did they do that?’

‘They thought they were evil.’

She gasped. ‘That’s awful!’

‘It was very awful,’ I agreed. ‘And they did it for a long time.’

‘What happened?’

‘Well, this was back in Britain, and they used to have something called a witchfinder general and he would find out if someone was a witch.’

‘How would he find out?’ Her eyes were open wide, and staring at me. I loved the way she would do that. There was no pretence over something she didn’t know. Only questions and assumptions that I knew the answers. I hoped she would never lose that attitude, although I knew that she would.

‘He’d throw them into a lake, and if they couldn’t swim, they were innocent. But then they drowned. If they could swim, they were burnt. Or he would jab needles into their skin and if he found a spot that they didn’t bleed from, they were a witch. They were mainly women, too.’

Her mouth was gaping open. ‘That’s horrible. And stupid. How stupid is that? There was no way those poor ladies could win!’

‘I know.’

‘How did it stop?’

I warmed to the subject, remembering what I’d learnt as a child. ‘A bunch of village women got together, because village women were smart, and they thought about it. Because the witchfinder wasn’t actually part of the church. He was something like a freelancer and the church would pay him. So they pointed out that if he wasn’t part of the church, then he couldn’t be getting his information about witches from God.’

‘So how did that help?’ She frowned, confused. God, I loved her expressions. Complete honesty and lack of self-awareness. She was going to be brilliant when she grew up. You could see the potential exploding out of her in every direction.

‘Well, they pointed out that if he wasn’t getting his information from God then he must be getting it from the Devil, as that was the only other way he could have found out.’

‘So what happened?’ she asked.

‘He was burnt as a witch.’

She laughed out loud for an impossibly long time, barely drawing breath. She had a big, loud and high laugh. I couldn’t help but join her.

When she stopped laughing, she folded her arms and nodded. ‘It served him right.’

‘It did serve him right.’

‘Village women are awesome.’

‘Yes, they are.’

‘Awesome.’

‘Awesome,’ I agreed.

‘How long ago did this happen?’

‘Back in the sixteen hundreds.’

‘Wow. That’s hundreds of years ago.’

‘How many hundreds?’

She counted backwards on her fingers. ‘Five hundred years ago. Wow.’

‘I know.’

‘How old were you then? Twenty?’

‘Go to sleep.’

‘Can I read about the witchfinder and the village women first?’ she asked.

‘Only for a little bit.’

She folded her little reader into a small square and searched for information about witchfinders.

‘Thanks, Dad.’

‘Goodnight, Nat-Mac.’

‘Goodnight, Dad-Mac.’

I closed the door slowly, looking in at her fascinated face illuminated only by the glow of her reader and smiled.

I went downstairs, walking carefully down – my ankle was broken years ago and it has left me with a pronounced limp ever since. It still hurts at times, as it never quite reset properly. Rachel was playing her favourite multiplayer role-playing game on the bigger display unit. I could see the little reflection in her eyes where the IDRoPs were reacting to the game. She touched her finger to her watch and paused the game. ‘Did she go okay?’

‘She’s reading a bit. I was telling her about witches.’

‘She’d better not get nightmares.’

‘She’s a tough kid,’ I said. ‘I think she’ll be fine. She loved it, really.’

‘Okay then.’

‘How’s the game going?’

‘Not bad. I reached the next level, but I haven’t figured out what to do yet. You going to log in and join me for a while?’

‘I’m going to get a sandwich first, then I will. Do you want anything?’

‘Fancy sharing a bottle of wine?’

‘You read my mind,’ I said. ‘Can you share the level with me, and I’ll be on in ten minutes?’

‘I’ve already shared it with you. It’s just waiting for you to log in. Check the news, by the way – there’s been a clone outing.’

‘They’re still going?’

‘I know, right?’

‘Okay, I’ll be back in a minute.’

‘Cool.’

There was a shout from upstairs. ‘DA-AAD!’ followed by some stomping down the stairs.

‘Is that the sound of angelic, cherubic footsteps?’ Rachel asked me. ‘You did a great job putting her to bed.’

‘What do you want, honey?’ I said loudly enough for her to hear.