'JUST THINK OF IT AS LEAVING EARLY TO AVOID THE RUSH.'
In which an angel, a demon, and their adoptive daughter decide to stop Armageddon. Except it's days away, they've lost the antichrist, Heaven and Hell are both breathing down their necks, and th...
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Aziraphale makes a breakthrough. Freddie has Opinions on the matter.
***
Freddie knew that something was up with her Pops as soon as she made her way into the bookshop and found him frantically grabbing various items - his reading glasses (he didn't actually need them to see, but he felt they made him look nifty) as well as the gloves he used for delicate manuscripts. A stack of books was piled on the side of his desk, and Freddie noted that they were all books of prophecy. That wasn't surprising in and of itself - Aziraphale had quite the collection, and he was proud of that fact. More than once a young Freddie had been read bedtime stories from copies of Nostradamus or Mother Shipton. What was surprising was the fact that these prophecy books seemed to be an afterthought, rather than the main event. The focus of Aziraphale's attention, she realized, was the book that had been left in the car by Anathema.
Aziraphale came bustling back into the room with two mugs filled with cocoa. He set his own angel-winged mug down on his desk (atop a coaster, he was notoriously fussy about such things) and handed the other, a dark blue mug patterned with lighter blue stars, to Freddie. She gratefully took it, never one to turn down cocoa, but it didn't stop her frown, nor the confusion and concern flooding her voice.
"What's got you so excited."
Aziraphale sat down at his desk and pulled on his gloves. With an expert's hand, he flipped open the front cover to the title page, then leaned back so Freddie could see. "Have a look."
"The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter," Freddie read. She looked further down the page at a crayon drawing of a child - perhaps Anathema, and her befuddlement only deepened. "Okay. I don't actually know what this is."
"Agnes Nutter is a witch - or was a witch, she lived centuries ago, and anyways, she was burned at the stake. Well, exploded. She filled her skirts with gunpowder, see, to take all the witch hunters with her," Aziraphale explained.
"Good for her," said Freddie. She took a long sip of her hot cocoa, then continued, "I'm still confused what that has to do with us, though."
Aziraphale nodded. "Ah, yes. Agnes Nutter had the gift of prophecy, obviously. But more than that, she had the gift of completely accurate prophecy. She wrote the only book of prophecies said to be completely accurate. I've looked for it for many years, but it was impossible to find anything but a brief excerpt from the publisher's catalogue. That is, until now, when, by sheer happenstance, what is likely the only copy in the world just fell into your father's Bentley... Huh, I suppose his terribly reckless driving did have a positive result, this time. How very ineffable."
