The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2766 by Angharad Copyright© 2015 Angharad

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This is a work of fiction any mention of real people, places or institutions is purely coincidental and does not imply that they are as suggested in the story.
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I returned to my study and did some more work on the survey listening to a CD of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony number 5, which helped to smooth my ruffled feathers and I got through all the emails from the past week before Simon came to look for me.

“Oh Tchaikovsky, I like this one,” he said and sat down to listen to it. I pretended not to notice his conducting was pants.

The final track was the Marche Slav and he continued to sit there waving his fingers in time to the tune as if he was instructing an orchestra oblivious to my watching him and smiling—well okay, smirking. It made my efforts of musical megalomania seem in better time than his, not that I was exactly a budding Marin Alsop but I felt I had a better sense of timing than he did, being always a beat or two behind the orchestra.

“What are you grinning at?” he asked.

“Nothing,” I lied pretending to be innocent of any possible charge.

“So how come you resemble a Cheshire cat?”

“Meeee?”

“Yes—what was the last bit?”

“The music?”

“Duh—what else?” he rolled his eyes.

“Marche Slav.”

“Course,” he shook his head. “Put it on again will you?”

“What the whole thing?”

“Yeah, why not? I could do with calming down after learning my wife is a female Harry Potter.”

“I am not,” I protested.

“No, so what does zapping people with magic spells constitute then?”

“I didn’t zap him—well not deliberately.”

“No of course not, you did it unconsciously which probably makes you even more powerful than the aforementioned young Potter and even more dangerous.”

“How is Harry Potter dangerous—he’s the good guy.”

“Ah, but mowdiewarp...”

“Voldemort.”

“That’s what I said, didn’t I?”

“No, you said mowdiewarp, an auld Scots term f’ a mole, hen.”

“For a mole hen? Is there such an animal?”

“You know damn well there isn’t, hen.”

“Aye, mebbe.”

Standing up, I declared, “I’m awa’ tae ma pit.”

He looked at me in a degree of astonishment, “Whit?”

“Ye hear me alricht, Jimmy,” I retorted in a very poor Glasgow accent.

“Are ye wantin’ tae mak’ somethin’ o’ it?”

“No,” I said loudly and waved my hand at him, there was a blue flash and he disappeared over the back of the settee landing on a pile of books behind it. After the groans a white hankie was waved over the top.

“Are you all right?” I asked running round to him once I’d got over the shock.

“I dunno, but your copy of John Donne’s greatest hits looks a bit sad.” He held up my copy of the complete works by the poet and mystic, it was looking in need of some tlc. “And you can stand there and deny you’re not Harry Potter’s accomplice?”

“I have no idea what happened, unless the energy thought I was in some sort of danger.” I shrugged because it was the best answer I could think of but I wasn’t very happy with it.

“Danger? From me? I’m your husband in case you’d forgotten.”

“Ah but most domestic violence is caused by husbands to their wives.”

“Just a moment, I was the one knocked over the sofa...”

“Ah but it might have been playing the percentages.”

“What does that mean exactly?”

If I’d known I might have told him instead I told him what I thought. “Your acting was obviously too good and it fooled the goddess who was obviously watching over me.” This was more male cow poo, but it might eventually make him talk about other things.

“I thought you didn’t believe in gods and goddesses?”

“I don’t and it doesn’t make the world any easier to understand.”

“It might if you did.”

“I’m quite happy where I am thank you.”

“Cathy, I know you prefer to look for mundane answers to these questions but if it were that easy we’d all be doing it, not just you and the favoured few.”

“But it was easy, look I’ll show you...”

“NO,” he said very loudly, “John Donne might not be so lucky next time.”

“This is pointless, I’m going to bed.”

“Wait for me,” he said struggling to tidy up the books he’d landed on.

I lay on my back while he gently stroked my breast, “So if it wasn’t the good fairy, then what causes it?” he asked.

“I don’t know, now if we’re going to make love are we going to get on with it or are you going to ask me silly questions all night?”

“Faced with a choice like that...” he said before becoming more physical, but you don’t want to hear the dirty details.

“We have half a mind to make the seed you carry from your mate cause you to carry his child—then you might believe.”

“Milady, it’s not that I don’t believe in you, it’s more a case of trying to integrate it into the modern world without sounding like some cheapjack paperback novel.”

“Catherine, you obstinately refuse to believe in us except when it suits your purpose or you need help for yourself or one of your children.”

“I’m sorry if I give that impression, milady, it isn’t my intention.”

“We wish what you said was the truth, Catherine, but at times we feel you are either lying to us or to yourself. Perhaps we should make you pregnant—it would certainly cause you to think.”

“You can’t...”

“We can’t? Catherine, we are a goddess, can’t is not a word we understand.”

“I mean, you musn’t, I don’t have the equipment to carry a child.”

“Oh dear, it would appear you have a problem.”

“Please, milady, you can’t do that to a baby—it would die.”

“So it would.”

“Please, I beg of you don’t do this to a baby, it will have done nothing to disrespect you. I you must punish me, do it to me not some innocent who has done you no wrong.”

“Why should we worry about that?”

“Because you’re female, you’re the essence of the maternal spirit. How could you harm a baby? Please I beg of you, don’t harm my baby.” I felt the tears rolling down my face.

“Hey, wake up, babes, it’s just a dream.” Simon rubbed my shoulder and I woke up, my face wet with tears and my body wet with sweat.

“She was going to kill my baby just to prove a point.”

“Who was and what baby?”

“I’m pregnant and she was going to kill my baby.”

“Who?”

“The goddess.”

“How could she, you can’t get pregnant you haven’t got the necessary...”

“That was how the baby would die, it would be an ectopic pregnancy. It could kill me too.”

“Where would the egg come from, you don’t have any ovaries?”

“But it was so real.”

“It was just a dream, babes. You keep saying there is no such thing as a goddess and besides being a mother herself, how could she kill a baby?”

“I must be cracking up.”

“It was just a bad dream—that’s all.”

I rose and washed, and after popping on some clean knickers and a nightdress returned to bed. Simon was fast asleep. I was just dropping off when a bright light woke me up again.

“We shall forgive you this once, Catherine, because you were right, we could not harm a child even one conceived by as disrespectful a woman as you. Our essence is strong in you, if only you’d believe it would be even stronger. Goodnight, Catherine, sleep well you might well need your strength on the morrow.”