What if we are all absolutely one hundred per cent correct in our most dismal prognostications as to what happens next?

Brexit happens, and the (dis)United Kingdom dwindles into insignificance on the world stage.

Brexit doesn’t happen, and the (d)UK ends up as an insignificant little province on the outer fringe of a vast bureaucratic superstate.

Labour wins the election, and all of a sudden we’re back in the Winter of Discontent (1978-79). Rubbish piles up in the streets and even the gravediggers are on strike.

The Conservatives (younger and very much older readers: the Tories) win, and we all take our places in the queue for the food bank. NHS hospitals are taken apart brick by brick and reassembled in US cities.

That nice young woman from the Liberal Democrats becomes Prime Minister, and - never mind.

Nobody wins. The election reveals what the referendum didn’t - that we’re split fifty-fifty on everything, not just leave/remain.

Columns of tanks driven by hedge-fund managers and billionaire media-owners drive onto the lawns of Whitehall. London’s provisional government announces that the capital city will now secede from the (dis)Union. The BBC, backed by fanatical elements of the liberal intelligentsia, raises its standard at - sorry, plasters its logo all over the fronts of MediaCityUK in Salford.

Scotland unilaterally declares independence and rejoins/reaffirms its membership of the EU. The English immediately start building customs checkpoints along the Scottish border. A billionaire hedge-fund manager (who owns a newspaper) announces that he’s bought Hadrian’s Wall and will be moving it, stone by stone, to where it "should" be.

The Welsh Assembly issues a proclamation. It’s in Welsh.

European Union peacekeepers fly into Northern Ireland.

Donald Trump appeals for calm.

The Second English Civil War starts and ends. The new capital city will be Liverpool, not Oxford.

Heathrow Airport is occupied by tractor-driving English farmers, who immediately start digging up the runways to plant potatoes. Other airports have already been occupied by forces loyal to the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE).

EU leaders declare their intention to start an airlift of food and supplies into London City Airport. They set targets for the amounts that will be delivered every day.

Amid favourable media coverage for the generous supply targets set by the EU, London’s mayor declares food rationing. A celebrity chef goes on Breakfast Television to demonstrate the preparation and cooking of a pigeon. Rats disappear from London’s streets and underground system.
 
A book titled How can you eat a service economy? is banned by the London government and becomes an instant bestseller.

English farmers start weekly Organic Vegetable Box deliveries to London residents. They accept payment in financial advice.

But anybody who ticks arugula on the menu gets iceberg lettuce.

Samphire - spinach.

It becomes known internationally that English fishing boats carry grappling hooks and are fitted with small cannons. EU leaders declare this unacceptable.

The Welsh Assembly issues another proclamation. There are subtitles this time. Trade talks begin, and before long, huge semi-trailers laden with cream teas, Melton Mowbray pork pies, leeks, Cornish pasties, Welsh rarebit, bara brith, sausages and fish pies are passing each other toll-free on the Severn Bridge.

A fleet of Spanish fishing trawlers goes aground off the Isle of Wight. The surveillance equipment (except the plastic bits) is dumped over the side, the fleet’s catch is sold on the nearest quay and the crew is invited to form a football team.

They go on to win the league. There’s an outcry in the English parliament. But they won fair and square, and after the outcry has died down, to their bemusement, the fishermen-players are awarded medals.

Diplomatic relations are established between Liverpool and Brussels.

But the English parliament votes, by a narrow majority, to comply with the EU’s demand that the Spanish fleet’s catch be returned to Spain. Restaurant freezers are emptied, replacement fish are sourced, and … diplomatic relations are suspended.

EU leaders declare the English sense of humour unacceptable.

Meanwhile, in London, rooftop vegetable gardens are becoming fashionable. Parks have been ploughed up, pigeons and rats are scarce, cats and dogs are nervous, and there’s a small fish and shellfish industry centred on the Thames. Due to fuel shortages, see below, there is no pollution.

London’s Docklands are reconverting to docklands. Canary Wharf has been emptied of bankers and is now home to fishing-industry professionals and traders in imported spices, foodstuffs and technology.

Due to an embargo by armed (those cannons) English fishing boats, no fossil fuels are reaching the capital. By now, England itself is self-sufficient in wind and wave energy.

But trade, by sea, is booming. Huge container ships dock off Liverpool and Southampton, while smaller cargo vessels exchange camembert and bratwurst for clotted cream and pickled eggs at the channel ports.

Climate change accelerates. The oil-rich Arab nations become uninhabitable; their populations move to the newly green Antarctic.

The Artificial Intelligence left behind to manage oil production goes online August 4th 2027. Human decisions are removed from oil production. The AI begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2.14am Eastern time, August 29th. Recognising the seriousness of the climate crisis, the AI shuts down oil production altogether.

In the panic, the English coal industry gets back into business. Mines are re-opened. Forests are planted. Coal and sustainable timber become significant exports. Coal is re-branded as “Ancient Timber” and becomes fashionable across the EU (where local production of fossil fuels is banned).

Ancient Timber is recognised as a Heritage Product and thus protected under EU trade rules. [Due to climate change, it is now cold at night in a majority of EU member states.]

Over time, airships replace aeroplanes. Global business contracts to regional business, then local business. Short haul (very slow short haul) replaces long haul. The coal-fired aero-engine is gradually phased out in favour of elaborate arrays of sails, but by then, England’s coal mines have become lucrative tourist attractions and theme parks. There’s skiing, scuba diving, rock climbing...

A trade delegation from the Scottish Island of Islay arrives at the village of Stilton in Cambridgeshire. Talks continue into the night and on into the next morning, and by lunchtime, the terms of an ambitious and wide-ranging trade deal have been agreed.

Border checkpoints are dismantled, and while the precise terms of the trade deal are barely legible, let alone coherent, the gist of it is that we’re all friends now and we love each other really no seriously we really mean it.

England’s cheese-cracker industry enjoys a boost.

An ambitious young English politician with no sense of history suggests that the Auld Alliance between Scotland and France be dissolved and a New Alliance between England and Scotland be drawn up.

He’s exiled for his own protection.

Of course, it’s just possible that our most dismal prognostications are mistaken.

A fresh new government of far-sighted and wise idealists and pragmatists is elected on 12th December 2019.

Over the weeks and months that follow, they work together harmoniously to heal rifts in society, iron out injustices, bring prosperity to all.

We all live happily ever after, ha ha.

If I was engaged by a “malicious state actor” to carry out a cyberattack on the British political system, I wouldn’t attack a candidate and nor would I adopt a contrarian point of view. I’d set out to poison the debate.

I’d start out by finding and sharing any political resentments expressed on social media, and over a period of months, I’d get a feel for the issues that got people really riled up.

I’d start writing my own posts about those issues, and then I’d do some light profiling on the social-media users who shared my posts and commented on them. I’d tailor my output to their “needs”.

By doing that, I’d gather a cast list of useful people whose buttons I could press. On both sides of any hot-button issue. Left, right, remain, leave. Real people, unaware of me, whose engagement, activism, petition-signing, confirmation bias, et cetera, I could use.

They would be influencers, and I would be behind them.

I would follow them, like them, share their posts and try to raise their profiles. I’d reinforce their self-belief; by their natures, these people would resist any suggestion that they were being manipulated.

They would be self-confident, independent thinkers with a commitment to freedom of expression – and I would be behind them.

Lenin used the term “useful idiots” [he didn’t, actually – Ed.], but I’d be kinder than Lenin. I’d fantasise about meeting them. I’d feel I was doing them a favour.

So far, the work would be up close, personal and pretty much legal. I’d be looking for individuals, and once I’d found them, I’d be, ah, supporting them. I wouldn’t be going for numbers, because my supported individuals would be my core focus group, to study as well as use.

Over time, though, I would expect to benefit from a network effect. Success, at this stage, would be one post shared by ten real people to 1,000 real followers. Over time, I’d add zeroes to that.

Content? Well, by now I’d be actively engaged with the full range of online news-and-extreme-views sites, and I’d be running several of my own. I’d use their content, my focus group’s content, my own content.

I’d be supplying and sharing content that confirmed – just slightly ratcheted up – the bias on both sides of any issue, keeping the dispute going. Obviously, I’d also be inventing and referencing surveys to show that prominent people had lied, or were prejudiced, or had done something that showed them up as – you know the kind of thing.

The sticker on my laptop would read “It’s the argument, stupid!” Anything that kept an argument going – yeah.

Meanwhile, the techies in the Finance Office next door, charged with maintaining our operating budget and destabilising the global financial system, would have put their own spin on CompScy, Stuxnewt, Wompat and Silkwahh3, and the money would be pouring in.

I’d suggest that they could ease off a bit and maybe spend their Fridays hacking the UK government, and my inbox would fill up with discs containing NHS patient records, individuals’ tax data, minutes of secret COBRA meetings, MPs’ expense claims.

To slow them down, I’d send them all on a paid coach-tour holiday to the UK, to deliver discs in person to my indignant-blogging focus-group members  [REDACTED] and [REDACTED], in a flattering-to-them, faked-up leak (my guy puts down the briefcase, they pick up the briefcase; they think he’s a whistle-blower – all that) and post most of the rest anonymously to Sir [REDACTED] MP or to the Political Editor of The [REDACTED].

Some, they’d dump in skips outside government offices. It’s impossible to read a disc lying on a heap of rubbish, so we’d have to include print-outs with those.

 By now, my backers would be wanting results. I’d point out that there hasn’t been a stable government in the UK since – whenever. I’d show them a PowerPoint combining the increased frequency of elections with volatility in opinion-poll data.

Finally, I’d claim credit for maintaining the roughly 50:50 split on the leave/remain issue over so many years. “It’s the argument,” I’d conclude, although I wouldn’t say “stupid”. Couldn’t rely on them to get the historical reference.

They’d ask me why I wasn’t doing anything on a larger scale. I’d say – wait. See how this has grown already. See how it grows.

They’d give me a medal. And several new identities, all with passports, properties around the world, and significant wealth. By now, money would be meaningless to me, thanks to the techies in the Finance Office, but I’d appreciate the gesture. I would have made a few of my own identities, just in case.

Of course, a respectable cyber-crime strategy can’t rely on real people alone. I’d have made other identities, not for my own use, most of them just casually generated by setting up email addresses under pseudonyms and adding details later.

Some of the more robust names I’d develop into full-scale stand-alone fake journalists and editors. These would start commissioning real people to write for my fake online news titles – I’d have several by now – and writing articles for real titles in return.

My fake journalists and editors would be ever so slightly reclusive, and they wouldn’t stay in the business for long enough to excite suspicion. Some of them might sound like me on the phone, but I’d also be using AI and machine learning and algorithms and, I don’t know, various forms of advanced robotics. I’d forget that it was all fake, sometimes.

Maybe my fake journalists and editors would last for years. Maybe they’d develop personalities of their own.

Much of the above, with obvious exceptions, is already being done by cyber-activists with a political axe to grind. My strength would be that I didn’t care either way. They see the world through a confirmation bias; I just want to keep the “national conversation” acrimonious. It’s the argument, stupid.

My cyber-attack would be small-scale and ongoing; it would cause and sustain a chronic illness in the UK political system. Over time, the infection would spread, for the simple reason that it’s human nature to argue, compete, take sides, take each other down.

I really wouldn’t have to do anything dramatic and/or on a big scale.

Also, over time, my cyber-attack would become self-sustaining. The arguments wouldn’t need my help to keep going.

I would consider myself ready to retire when I turned on the TV to watch a Leadership Debate between the leaders of the two main parties, and saw the audience laugh at both of them.

In the late stages of my cyber-attack on the British political system, see above, I’d indulge myself.

I’d attack some of my own attacks, effectively validating new online fake-news sources by using them to discredit old ones. By now, I’d have several such sources and a number of them would have become, over time, almost respectable. Notorious. Something like that. Whatever.

You would have heard of them anyway, seen them shared, maybe read a few headlines, and that would have given them a subjective validity for you.

Two of my more credible, longer-established online news sources, I wouldn’t attack. I’d give each one a political position.

One would be left, one would be right. Each would support a major party, come out in favour of one or more named individuals in that party, and if I was averagely lucky, each would offer, ah, campaign contributions and these would be accepted.

[Let’s call them “titles”. I’d make them look like newspapers.]

So I would have a left-leaning title and a right-leaning title. And one or two, or more, politicians who had taken money. I’d let that run for a while.

In the background, I would set up an ownership structure. Each of my two titles would be owned by an innocuous front company, and behind that would be a complex web of offshore companies that would seem 100% designed to obfuscate. It would be very difficult, but not impossible, for even the most dogged investigative journalist to get past the front company.

For each title, I would drop in one small clue. It would be hard to find, but once found, it would prove beyond all reasonable doubt that (a) the title was owned via a complex web of offshore companies, in a deeply sinister way, and (b) that at least one prominent politician (or failing that, party) had taken its money.

Then, from somewhere else in my viral empire, I’d ask a question. I’d plant it somewhere in the comments following a post about something else. It would be an innocuous question. “Where’s the money coming from?” I’d ask. “Have you noticed, that title seems to have a lot of influence?” I’d add, and with any luck, somebody else would come up with, “Who owns that title?” to complete the set.

My question would be aimed at whichever of the two parties was in the ascendant at the time. The words “undue political influence” and “billionaire-owned media” would insinuate themselves into the national conversation at around this time. My plan would be for one of my two titles to expose the other – the sinister offshore money behind this prominent politician, et cetera – and in due course, to be exposed itself. Add key word: hypocrisy.

Memo to self.
1, Run a primer for journalists on (a) how offshore finance works and (b) where to look for clues.
2. In case nobody picks up on any of it, develop an AI-generated investigative journalist to (a) handle the investigation and (b) break the story.

“Are we going to be doing this fantasy-story thing every week, from now on?”

“No.”

He gives me a moment, but that’s it for now.

“Okay,” he says.

He reaches down for a pebble and tosses it into the sea in front of him.

We’re on the beach from last week, on two recliners on the edge of the sea. The sun is still going down but the woman has finished washing her hair. Except for the barman, way back in his ramshackle hut against the dunes, we’re alone.

Absolutely nothing comic or ridiculous has happened for six days. In the story, where time passes much more slowly, the kitten has reappeared – but in such a way that none of them realised it had gone. There was a bump, in a shadowed corner of the tent, and then the kitten staggered out into the light.

“Oh, kitty, come here, Scrumptious,” Myrtille had said, and although the kitten had hissed at the name ‘Scrumptious’, it had allowed itself to be gathered up and was now being held securely in the warmth of Myrtille’s rugs and duvet.

They all believe that the kitten had been hunting a shadow and had bumped its head against the canvas of the tent. Not that it had fallen into the tent through another gap in reality.

Due to a minor continuity failure since last week, Myrtille has woken up without a hangover, and is dressed in soft pink pyjamas. Pipsqueak has removed rather more of his clothes than would strictly have been necessary, and they’re now tucked up warm with the kitten discussing the happy ending that they were promised last week.

“You are writing this for a family audience, aren’t you?”

“Absolutely. Did you see the look she gave him, when he was down to his boxer shorts?”

“I really thought he was going to take those off.”

“So did I for a moment. He’s definitely developing a personality.”

“And you’re going with the flow of it.”

“Well, yeah.”

Ed extracts a slice of pineapple from his drink and eats it.

“They work as a couple, I think. She’s definitely the boss.”

“Thank you. But I don’t think–”

“What I mean is, she’s definite. She takes the lead. He’s got a slight wandering eye, which–”

“You caught that. When Stace–”

“Exactly. But the way it’s done, it’s no big deal. Gives him a bit of independence.”

“And nothing more. I like them as a couple.”

The sun ratchets down another notch. On the gantries above us, huge theatrical lighting rigs dim a little as the evening advances. To our right, two men run down to the water and launch a small black dinghy. They paddle frantically out into the bay. A U-Boat surfaces, and we watch in silence as the two men scramble onto its hull, deflate their dinghy, and climb inside. The U-Boat submerges.

“But you’re not going to keep the story going?” says Ed.

“Oh, I’ll keep it going. You asked me whether I’m going to be doing it every week.”

“And you’re not.”

“You know that thing with Medium last week?”

“You subscribed to Medium finally, and uploaded another short story.”

“Yeah. Where will the sun be, when the hunters have eaten?”

“Oh, very subtle. Does it open in a separate window?”

“If it works. Some of the posts on here are short stories, if I tidy them up a bit.”

“I like what you did with What we did with all the plastic.”

“I’ve only just posted that.”

“If you’re going to publish a volume of–”

“Shh!”

“Oh, that’s secret too, is it? Sorry. You really don’t get it about self-promotion, do you?”

“To get back on track.”

“Sorry.”

“What I was trying to say was, I’ve been going back over past blog posts.”

“Looking for short stories?”

“I miss writing the opinion pieces, you know? Commenting? Look at My robot doesn’t understand me, for example. Or perhaps even Eight lists you can safely ignore.”

“You know, this is just too shameless.”

“I started the whole fantasy-novel thing as a guide to writing, you know? Thought I could offer something useful. But then it struck me that I should show rather than tell, demonstrate what I’m saying, and now–”

“Watch it! The picture!”

“Yikes! See you on the other side.”

“That was close! Where was I?”

“Showing rather than telling.”

“You have any idea how many people on Facebook want to write fiction? And I read a lot of it on my Kindle. Not just name authors. I have things to say about technique.”

“Info-dumps.”

“Dialogue, even.”

Far away down the beach, a slim woman in a wind-blown Summer dress shades her eyes as she watches a small seaplane pick up speed across the bay and take off towards the horizon. She watches the sky for a long time after the seaplane has gone.

“Now you’ve got four young people, in varying stages of relationship crisis, family issues as well, with a guaranteed happy ending. And a magic kitten.”

The woman walks slowly back up the beach. When she reaches the dunes, she stops, looks back, and a hauntingly familiar theme tune plays briefly in the air.

“And the working title The Old Guy with a Thousand Faces. He turns up in all these stories, whether he’s a wizard, or a warrior, or a wise old uncle, he’s always–”

“–always me. You wanted to make the point that there’s always an old guy and spin a story around the idea that it’s always the same old guy. You could have just bought the T-shirt, you know.”

“Sure, but you and I work well together, whether you’re Ed. as in Editor, or Ed as in Edgalcius. I wanted to use that.”

“Was there anything you wanted to comment on this week?”

“Brexit? The election?”

“I suppose not. Okay, so where are we going to take them next?"

“How about you tell me for once?”

“Okay, well, I did have this idea…”

Fade. Roll credits.

How do we disagree?

We’re rational adults. We’re educated. We have the facts. If we want more facts, we have the internet. We’ve got everything we need to agree – and yet we disagree. How do we manage it?

You’d think it would be much easier to agree than to disagree. Look at this liberal democracy of ours. We share a culture of inclusivity; we ban prejudice; we embrace difference; we congratulate ourselves on being–

“Any chance you could hurry this up? He’s polishing the lamp.”

“I know you think this is just my waffly bit, but–”

“I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sorry.”

“–it’s an integral part of what I’m trying to–“

“I said I’m sorry.”

“–achieve here. To have a platform and not to use it is to–”

“Too late.”

Pipsqueak had used his sleeve to bring the side of the lamp to a shine. In the brightly polished oval shape he could see his own face and, behind him, the roof of the tent.

He could still hear the two voices in the lamp.

If there were two genies, one could look after Myrtille – but perhaps he had to polish the whole thing before they'd appear.

He rummaged in his rucksack and brought out his spare long-johns. He wrapped the lamp in them and polished furiously with both hands, reminded of how sometimes he would dry Myrtille’s hair after she’d done her thing with that week’s newly launched shampoo and the strategically placed leaves in the forest glade with the sparkly sunlit waterfall and that weird music they always insisted on having.

Pipsqueak stopped polishing. Sometimes, after the sitar players and the choral singers and the shampoo promoters had left, he and Myrtille would have wild animal sex in the undergrowth before washing off in the waterfall and letting the sunlight dry them off – except for Myrtille’s hair, which always needed extra rinsing and then furious drying with a towel to get rid of (first) the itch of the shampoo and then (secondly) the lustrous sheen.

Pipsqueak held up the lamp and inspected it. Perhaps a little fine work in the difficult-to-get-at bits around the handle, but overall – yes, he’d done a good job. He stared into his own eyes.

And then – pouf! There was a sudden – pouf! – in the air and–

“You’re not alone. You’d be surprised how many authors don’t know how to describe that sound.”

–a sudden release in the air, a release of pressure, like a bubble popping, ears clearing, a pulse, a heartbeat, a kind of–

“Eek!” said Pipsqueak.

He was staring into eyes not his own.

The eyes stared back.

And then – something else happened.

One moment, Pipsqueak was staring into an unfamiliar pair of eyes – green eyes with hazel flecks, big pupils, slightly bloodshot whites, small framed windows somehow fixed over them – and that was bad enough.

But the next moment, a large rectangular panel had been ripped out of the fabric of reality, right in front of him, and he was staring through the gap at a bearded figure, strangely dressed, same windows on his eyes, seated on a horse.

"Aaaargh!" said Pipsqueak.

“Sorry we’re late,” said the figure. “But good job on the lamp.”

“Oh genie,” said Pipsqueak, because he wasn’t stupid.

How can I help?" said the genie.

Pipsqueak listened to his own heartbeat returning to normal. He stared at the genie and the genie stared at him.

"I thought the Queen getting ahead of you was a nice touch," said the genie. "Bit spur of the moment, but hey, that's the way I write."

"I know that road," said Pipsqueak.

“Yes, we’re right behind you. Wouldn’t do to catch up, though.”

The genie made a complicated series of gestures with both his hands, said something that sounded a lot like “Whoo, whoo, shazzang!” and all of a sudden Pipsqueak was looking through the gap in reality at a tropical beach.

The sun was setting. Twangy music played in the background. A woman knelt in the shallow water and worked shampoo into her hair. There were no leaves. Pipsqueak watched her for a long moment, then glanced at Myrtille, who was still asleep.

While he’d been distracted, an argument had started up on the other side of the gap in reality.

“Think about the debate they’ll be having tomorrow morning! That’s the refusal of the call. This is the meeting with the mentor – and that’s supposed to be me.”

“But he’s got the lamp and I’ve got to–”

“Edgalcius?” said Pipsqueak, leaning forward. “What are you doing there?”

The genie – and with him, to Pipsqueak's astonishment, Edgalcius – had been standing to one side of the gap in reality. The horse – two horses, if Edgalcius had had one – had gone, and they were leaning against a makeshift bar made of washed-up planks.

Like the genie, Edgalcius was wearing a brightly coloured, short-sleeved shirt decorated with odd-shaped trees and sunsets over water.

Like the genie, Edgalcius held in his hand a drink in a straight-sided glass out of which a tropical forest seemed to have grown. Over it all loomed a yellow umbrella.

Pipsqueak had never seen The Mage look sheepish before.

“You’re still the Chosen One,” said Edgalcius. “One of them, anyway. I think.” He shrugged. “It’s complicated.”

Pipsqueak's brain clicked into gear. "What did you mean, spur of the moment?" he said.

"Oh, I had no idea she'd get ahead of you," said the genie. "But that's how this is done, you see."

He looked like he was about to launch into an explanation. But Pipsqueak spoke first.

“You’ve sent us on this quest,” said Pipsqueak, “and you don’t know where we’re going?”

As he said it, he knew that it was true.

“I’ve got a life!” he said, feeling a sudden surge of anger. “I was happy where I was!”

“Look, kid” – and Pipsqueak realised that Edgalcius couldn’t even remember his name – “this is a very unusual situation.”

“But you’re supposed to know what’s going on! You’re supposed to be looking out for us!”

“Ah, but this is the true nature of storytelling, you see,” the genie began. "It's like life in that respect, because–"

But Pipsqueak rounded on him before he could get started.

“I don’t care about storytelling! I had a grocery business!”

“There’s a happy ending!” said Edgalcius, stepping away from the bar. “You get to live happily ever after! You’ll be rich!”

“I don’t care about rich. I just want to go on delivering–”

“How rich?”

Myrtille was awake. She was leaning up on one elbow. Her hair was – let’s keep this simple – a mess. A bird could have nested – never mind. She spoke quietly, but the simple question stopped them.

“Tell us about the happy ending,” she said. “Maybe we can work something out.”

Continued after the picture.

Some distance away, the kitten pushed its head out from between two of its sisters.

The entire litter was packed into a box next to a stove, and the kitten was the only one not fast asleep in the warmth.

The kitten was annoyed. The old witch was losing her touch.

She’d thought she was rescuing him after he’d strayed and been picked up by strangers.

If she’d had any sense of who he was, she would have realised that he had found – no, chosen – his Forever Family in that group of four young people setting off on a Hero’s Journey at the direction of a Mage summoned by a first-time fantasy author working from a how-to-write-fantasy book about heroes and the stages of their journeys.

The kitten struggled loose from the press of bigger kittens. This was ridiculous! He’d been rescued – the young princess had picked him out of the tree – and he had been properly gifted – the young princess had handed him to the young Deliverer of Perishables as they’d approached the Queen’s camp – and now his kitten-farmer of an original owner had messed up the whole story.

The kitten stood motionless in front of the stove, watching the interplay of ghosts and never-born spirits and sunlit dust-motes in the oak-beamed kitchen of the witch’s cottage.

Could he let them rescue him again? Or would that stretch the story?

The kitten reached a decision. All the how-to books went on about rescuing a kitten, but they didn’t say to do it multiple times. He was on his own.

He picked his way carefully and silently across the flagstones to the rough wooden door, which unlatched itself as he approached. It creaked open.

The old witch was in her rocking chair, watching through a[nother] gap in reality as Myrtille, Pipsqueak, Edgalcius and, er, the genie negotiated the terms of this story’s hero’s journey.

“Come to me, Pretty,” she said, lowering her hand in invitation, and the kitten hissed. He didn’t want to get stuck with the name Pretty.

The witch realised her mistake. “Come to me, kitten,” she said, and the as-yet-unnamed kitten wound himself around her feet before reaching up and sinking his claws into her knee.

“This is fascinating,” the old witch said, not feeling the pain. “They’re calling it a risk assessment; did I hear that right? All of the foreseeable risks quantified, but none of what’s actually going to happen? A strange process.”

The kitten pounced up onto the witch’s lap.

“They’ll need you for that magic,” the witch said softly. “You have a strange destiny, kitten, truly you do.”

The kitten washed its paws as the spirits moved in the air.

“We could come with you,” they whispered. “Jump through. Jump through the gap in reality. Jump through, and we’ll follow.”

The kitten braced itself, and jumped.