Legacy of the Witch House (TheCorsair and Xanaphia)

[TheCorsair]

“Well, that looks like a promising one.”

Chewing on his pen, he stared at the burning green image on his computer screen - four interlocking circles that created a design faintly resembling the head of a goat. “Wow. It’s churning out some batshit insanity tonight.” A grin. “Bet my followers will love it.”

He clicked the ‘save image as’ command, named it ‘devilgoat.jpg’, and saved it to his desktop. A few more close cis pulled up Instagram. “All 46... no, wait, 47 of them.”

With the image uploaded and published, Pete - Dr. Peter Jae Ahn professionally, PJ to his family - leaned back in his chair and yawned and stretched and contemplated coffee. His walls were a clutter of sky charts and shelves crammed with books, and two posters (one displaying a Mandelbrot man and the other showing relative sizes of real and fictional starships). His desk, by contrast, was surprisingly neat. Just a coffee mug (empty, displaying a stick figure proclaiming itself a ‘sexy, shoeless god of war’), his laptop, three toy Daleks, and a small globe of the moon floating between magnets.

A quick glance at his phone confirmed that, if he hustled, he’d have just enough time to drink a cup of coffee before his 8:30 class. Astronomy 101, bane of the new tenured Professor. Then he noticed the Outlook alert. “Better look,” he sighed. “In case there’s a meeting or something.”

He read it, blinked in surprise, and read it again. It was from a Dr. Rebels-Perez in the History department, contacting him about “trianglemoon.jpg”. Why? Because she had seen almost the exact same image in a 17th century witchcraft trial court document. And she’d included a scan as well!

Chewing on his pen again, coffee forgotten, he began typing a reply.

“From: Ahn, Peter J. <peter.ahn@miskatonic.edu>
“To: Rebelo-Perez, Marta <marta.rebeloperez@miskatonic.edu
“Subject: trianglemoon.jpg

“Dear Dr. Rebelo-Perez,

“No, that image isn’t computer-generated art. All of the images like that are generated by feeding a set of equations attempting to describe the structure of space-time into a graphics rendering program. As far as I can tell, it’s just a really unusual coincidence.

“Out of curiosity, do you have any others diagrams that match up with my renderings?”

Clicking send, he snapped the laptop shut. “Probably not,” he uttered grabbing his mug. Still just enough time to grab some coffee, and his students would understand. Most of them would have their own anyway.

 

[Xanaphia]

The aroma of roast coffee mingled with grilled onions and egg-white omelets, filling the kitchenette with the scent of freshly cooked breakfast. It wasn’t until she flipped one omelet onto her plate before Marta realized the mistake she’d made.

“Shit.”

Nkendi loved her omelets, loved getting treated to breakfast in bed, loved spending the morning cuddling and even working off that breakfast. But Nkendi wasn’t waiting for her in the bed they’d shared. She likely wasn’t in bed at all, as it was mid-afternoon in Kenya about now. But Marta had come across her ex’s picture on Instagram, and the combination of memories and routine had driven her to make two omelets for breakfast.

She supposed she shouldn’t be surprised that three weeks couldn’t erase five years. Especially not when she kept seeking Nkendi in everything she did. The picture that had allowed her ex to consume her thoughts lingered on her laptop screen, cursor still hovering precariously over the like button.

God, what kind of loser still follows their ex? she chided herself, scrolling away from the picture before she could give in to the temptation to like it. Another tab contained her emails, and hopefully, distractions.

Her grad student had sent over their thesis, looking for feedback. That would occupy a few hours’ time. But not before she finished her coffee, and could focus on laborious dissections of 1840’s Prussian culture. Department fundraiser reminder, a student seeking clarification on the midterm, and an update on her grant proposal. Nothing that took more than a minute to respond to and once more tempting her back towards Instagram, and pictures of Nkendi’s golden umber skin and cheekbones so sharp she could cut herself on.

In the span of a sip of coffee, another email appeared. Ah, the new astrophysics professor had gotten back to her. And he had uploaded more images. When she followed the man on Instagram, she’d hoped to find out if he had a girlfriend or boyfriend or some preference either way. Not computer-generated fractals that corresponded to some illustrations in the witchcraft trial evidence file she’d been going over. But she’d take it. Even if Dr. Ahn didn’t turn out to be a potential rebound hookup, he could still prove to be an interesting distraction.

So she poured over the files, finding a few similarities, and two more nearly identical configurations.


“From: Rebelo-Perez, Marta <marta.rebeloperez@miskatonic.edu
“To: Ahn, Peter J. <peter.ahn@miskatonic.edu>
“Re: trianglemoon.jpg

"Dear Dr. Ahn

“Fascinating. The curvature of space-time? Perhaps I can yet get Goode Brown off on charges of witchcraft, by proving she was only engaging in rudimentary astrophysical calculations!

Spiderwebs.jpg and Devilgoat.jpg also match up pretty close to the scans I am sending over. Maybe I could pick your brain about some of the numbers sequences I found in combination to the sketches? I know one string of numbers correlates to the Fibonacci’s numbers, but I can’t seem to place the significance of others. Maybe they hold some significance to your studies?”

Glancing over at the clock, she had just enough time for a quick shower before her 9:30 am class.

 

[TheCorsair]

Four hours of lectures, an hour long staff meeting, and forty-five minutes with a struggling freshman later, Pete had largely forgotten about the email he’d received. Which made the reply a delightful surprise as he read it - particularly the scans of the two magic circles. “That has to be a coincidence,” he murmured as he stared at them. And it did, right?

Curious, he opened a new program and - with some effort and a little swearing - overlaid the renderings on the magic circles. “Damn,” he breathed. They weren’t just similar. Sure, he had to resize and rotate the renderings, but they matched up. Perfectly.

After a moment, he pulled up Outlook.

“From: Ahn, Peter J. <peter.ahn@miskatonic.edu>
“To: Rebelo-Perez, Marta <marta.rebeloperez@miskatonic.edu
“Subject: re: trianglemoon.jpg

“That is absolutely weird! I have no idea how or why these match up, but I would love to talk about it. Do you have some time this evening? We could-“

His stomach rumbled, reminding him that he’d skipped lunch. Again. And by now the coffee stand in the lobby would be closed, so there was no real hope of finding anything resembling real food. Or... wait. The vending machines on the third floor!

Ten minutes later he was back at his desk, hunched over a microwaved Cup Noodles and a Coke. The toy Daleks seemed to stare at him judgementally as he slurped up the faintly chicken flavored pasta. “Hey!” he told them. “It’s kinda like real food!”

Swigging down some soda, he pulled the laptop over and returned to the email. “-grab dinner. My last class is finished at 6:30! today, so I’d be available after that. How about Green’s?”

He tapped send, and picked up the Cup Noodles with a sigh of regret. “I need to make better life choices,” he told himself, sipping the lukewarm ‘broth’ and chewing on a partially rehydrated orange cube that no doubt told itself every morning it was a real carrot. Then a thought struck him, and he pulled up the History Department’s faculty list.

“Well hell,” he murmured, staring at the picture of Dr Rubelo-Perez. “You are not what I was expecting.” He’d assumed older and stockier, not his age and cute.

There was a knock at his door, and the silhouette of a student in the frosted glass. Hurriedly, he downed the rest of his makeshift lunch. “Come in!”

 

[Xanaphia]

“Omelet?” Thomas, Dean of History asked as she pulled her lunch from the microwave in the social studies lounge. Marta laughed, nervously imagining that he could read her hopeless pining in the simple act of eating leftover breakfast for lunch.

“Well, the eggs were going bad so I had to cook them up.” The lie fell easily from her lips, as easily as the lies she told herself about her own wellbeing. Two classes and two office hours spent painstakingly analyzing and critiquing a thesis went out the window, and Nkendi was on her mind again. Dammit, this time next week she wouldn’t have any time to mope over what could have been, because she’d been neck deep in mid-terms to grade.

Her phone’s alert tone got her hopes up, but it was just her sister, Lena, inviting her out to dinner to meet the new boyfriend, Jeff. She’d already had enough of Jeff, when Lena had sent over YouTube videos, gushing over how smart and skeptical he was. Marta had stomached precisely one and a half of his conspiracy theory videos before swearing off spending any time with the man. She tried not to be offended that Lena equated one of his hour-long ramble sessions with the peer-reviewed essays Marta spent months on.

Luckily, the email she’d gotten from Dr. Ahn gave her a great excuse to get out of it, even if she did have to fudge the details a bit.

Sorry Lena, I have a date tonight.

Immediately upon sending the text, she regretted it, sighing against the barrage of texts that arrived in response. Pushing aside the phone, and ignoring the insistent buzzing, she typed out a response to Dr. Ahn.

“From: Rebelo-Perez, Marta <marta.rebeloperez@miskatonic.edu
“To: Ahn, Peter J. <peter.ahn@miskatonic.edu>
“Subject: re: trianglemoon.jpg

“Dear Dr. Ahn

“My last class wraps up at 7, so I could meet at 7:30 at Green’s. I look forward to getting to the bottom of this.”

By the time she’d finished up her response to Dr. Ahn, there were four texts waiting for her.

A date? With who?
Do I know her?
Where did you meet?
When can I meet her?

Knowing it wouldn’t stop until she responded, Marta tapped out a quick response.

Just a colleague, it isn’t serious. And he’s a guy.

A guy? You like men again?

Marta rolled her eyes at that.

IDK, I’ll let you know tomorrow.

That ought to buy her an evening of peace.

 

[TheCorsair]

“From: Ahn, Peter J. <peter.ahn@miskatonic.edu>
“To: Rebelo-Perez, Marta <marta.rebeloperez@miskatonic.edu
“Subject: re: trianglemoon.jpg

“7:30 works. I’ll see you there.”

Pete stared at the screen, feeling unaccountably nervous. It wasn’t like he was going on a date or anything, not that he’d had one recently anyway. But it wasn’t a date. It was just two University professors, meeting to talk about an unexpected parallel in their research. That’s all. He was just meeting a fellow professor.

A cute fellow professor.

“I’m an idiot,” he groaned, laying his head in his desk.

There was a knock at his office door, before it swung slightly open. “Hey, Pete,” greeted Dr. Michael Brown, “you hitting the gym tonight?”

“Nope,” he answered, looking up. “Evening class, and then a dinner meeting.”

“Ah. That sucks.” He shook his head. “Don’t forget we have the game coming up on Saturday.”

“I haven’t forgotten,” Pete assured him, still wondering how he’d been roped into the departmental basketball team. “I’ll be there.”

-*-

Green’s was busy, full of people and the buzz of conversation and the background noise of four televisions playing four different channels of ESPN. Occasionally, a click of pool balls could be heard. Overall, it was an ambiance that made Pete glad he’d taken the time to change into something a little more casual. Slacks and a polo shirt were dressy enough here, let alone the suits he wore to class.

“Hey, prof!” his waitress smiled after he grabbed a small table near the back, “want to get started with some drinks?”

“A Sea Belt Scitch ale,” he answered, digging his laptop out of his messenger bag. “And I’ll need two menus - I’m meeting someone.”

 

[Xanaphia]

“You are not going to think about Nkendi at dinner,” Marta instructed herself, taking one last look in the review view mirror in the parking lot of Green’s. The reflection looking back at her seemed unconvinced. Gathering up the briefcase that doubled as a purse, Marta headed for the restaurant. Heels clicked along the pavement, not hurrying precisely, but conscientious of her pace. 7:30 had cut closer than she expected, and she was still wearing the white, button-down blouse and brown pencil skirt she’d been teaching in all day.

The restaurant was crowded, but she still managed to pick her companion out from across the room. He too saw her, nodding in acknowledgment to her small wave as she made her way to him. He was still the handsome man who’d inspired her to investigate his social media to see if there was any point in pursuing him, and since she hadn’t concluded either way in that inquiry, she tried not to fixate on it. If nothing else it should be interesting to find the intersection of history and astrophysics, outside of Copernicus and Galileo.

“Thanks again for meeting with me, Dr Ahn,” she greeted, extending a firm handshake. Her words carried a slight, yet persistent, accent, her native Spanish brushing against the vowels. Taking the seat across from him, she began immediately taking files out of her briefcase.

“So, I looked into the specific case a little deeper, and I found more records from after her trial. Apparently, she scrawled even more diagrams on the floor and walls and of cell. I haven’t checked to see if these match up to any of your images, but I thought we could review it together?” She handed over two photocopied pages, each containing three images. While he looked over the diagram, she picked up the menu and looked it over. By the time the waitress returned with his drink, she was ready to order.

“I’ll take the Providence Select IPA with a Bleu-Cheese burger, with a side of avocado, please.”

 

[TheCorsair]

Pete tried not to stare when he spotted Dr. Rebelo-Perez weaving through the crowd, but it was hard. The staff photo he’d seen had made her look cute and kind of nerdy. Her current outfit, although strictly professional, kicked that up a few notches to sexy. Or was that just him? He hadn’t had much of a social life since moving to Arkham, after all. But he tried hard not to stare as he rise and shook her hand.

“Thanks again for meeting with me, Dr Ahn,” she said, taking a seat and opening her briefcase.

“Thank you for contacting me,” he replied, taking his seat as well. “I’m, uhm, really curious about the coincidences you found. You just don’t see things like that, not normally.” He paused as she stared xtracted a Manila folder. “Any ideas on where to start?”

She slid the folder over. ““So, I looked into the specific case a little deeper, and I found more records from after her trial.”

“Her trial?” He opened the folder, glancing at the top image. “This would be the Goode Brown you mentioned in your email?”

“Apparently,” Dr. Rebelo-Perez continued, “she scrawled even more diagrams on the floor and walls and of cell. I haven’t checked to see if these match up to any of your images, but I thought we could review it together?”

He spread the three images out. “These are the images? Hm. Let me check.” Waking up his laptop, he began searching through the images he’d posted on his feed. “No,” he finally said, “I don’t...”

At that moment, their waitress returned. Marie, he recalled, finally placing her. She’d been in his PHYS 330 (Oscillations, Waves, and General Relativity) course last semester. Good student, too - managed a high B in a challenging course. “Are you ready to order?” she asked.

“Yes. Turkey club on a croissant, lightly toasted...” he glanced at his bottle. “And another Sea Belt.” Dr. Rebelo-Perez ordered in turn, and Marie headed back towards the kitchen as he turned his attention back towards the screen. “The closest image I have to any of these is this one,” he finally said, scooting his chair partway around the table and angling the laptop so she could see. “Mandela, I called this one.”

As she looked at it, he picked up the three images she’d brought and flipped through them again. “It doesn’t surprise me that I don’t have other exact matches, though. I generally only post the renderings that really interest me. There are a lot more that get modeled.”

He sipped his beer. “See, my research is trying to model spacetime as an 11-dimensional Calabi-Yau n-fold, and then using that model to make predictions about fine and gross cosmological structures that will allow us to unify classical and quantum physics.” He grinned as he sipped his beer. “The sort of thing that gets you a Nobel, if it actually works.”

The bottle clicked as he sat it down. “The renderings are, in an extremely simplistic sense, a two-dimensional representation of what spacetime would - and I use the term advisedly here - look like at a specific point from outside.” He pulled up the original images she’d sent, with the ‘spiderwebs’ and ‘devilgoat’ overlays. “Honestly, if these didn’t match so perfectly, I might have written the whole thing off as a coincidence.”

 

[Xanaphia]

Dr. Ahn beamed as he explained his research, simplifying it without dumbing it down. His passion was intoxicating. Well, his passion and his cologne, the clean scent wafting over as he scooted closer. She tried not to follow those thoughts, those temptations to drink deep of his fragrance and bite along that strong jawline. But the fact he could manage smart enough to go over her head, without being patronizing or condescending to her, was incredibly sexy.

“Nobel Prize? Ambitious,” she acknowledged with a nodded and a sip of her drink. “Now, how does that correlate to M-Brane and string theory? Is that outdated now, or–” The questions were cut off by the arrival of their dinner, and their own hectic attempts to clear a space on the increasing crowded table for their plates. With the natural lull in the conversation, Marta maneuvered to her own topic of expertise.

“I was actually researching how accusations of witchcraft have stifled scientific thought in woman between the 15th and 17th centuries. So many victims of the witch trials were midwives or practitioners of natural and herbal medicine. I had originally overlooked this Goode Brown because there is no record of her execution. Upon closer inspection, perhaps her diagrams are an example of sacred geometry, and seeking mathematical patterns in nature.”

A few more bites gave Dr. Ahn a chance to respond. Maybe it was just a coincidence. Even if the woman had been an astronomy genius, it seemed impossible that she’d calculated using math that hadn’t been invented yet to prove unity between competing theories that also hadn’t been invented yet. Quantum physics wasn’t even a hundred years old, after all. Dr. Ahn would likely be able to figure out if her data points and numbers had been lucky chance, or some advanced numerical calculations.

“These are from copies of her writing found in her home, but it’s mostly numbers and gibberish.” She pulled out the small book from her briefcase, flipping through pages before finding the relevant one. “So It seems like she used this string of numbers to create these diagrams. Like I said in my email, I know this one is Fibonacci’s sequence, but I can’t place the significance of the others.” Handing him the book, she returned to her burger.

 

[TheCorsair]

Dr. Rebelo-Perez leaned in a little as she explained her own research, giving him a glimpse of cleavage that he found it difficult not to stare at. So he concentrated on her face, watching her lips move as she spoke. Which led to wondering what she’d taste like, and that didn’t help. “Upon closer inspection,” she finished, “perhaps her diagrams are an example of sacred geometry, and seeking mathematical patterns in nature.”

“I’m hardly an expert on that,” he said carefully, “but I thought sacred geometry revolves around the golden ratio, not...” he tapped a print-out, “not multi-vector calculus.”

In response she drew a small book from her briefcase and pages through it. “These are from copies of her writing found in her home, but it’s mostly numbers and gibberish.” A pause as she located the page, and he used it to take a bite of his sandwich. “So It seems like she used this string of numbers to create these diagrams. Like I said in my email, I know this one is Fibonacci’s sequence, but I can’t place the significance of the others.”

He took the book, struggling to ignore the tingle as his fingers brushed hers. “Yeah, that’s the Fibonacci sequence he agreed,” pursing his lips. “But the rest of these..?” He frowned. “They’re grouped in patterns of four....”

Frowning now, he grabbed one of the magic circles Dr. Rebelo-Perez has printed out and laid it on the book next to the numbers. “There are symbols here,” he said. “Worked into the design....”. A chill seemed to go through him as he rotated the page. “My God.”

Holding the notebook open with one hand, he began rapidly working the laptop with the other. “These could be tuples,” he said, bringing up a program and tapping numbers in. “Which means if we feed them into my program, they should...”

Food forgotten he stared at the screen, eyes widening as he watched a pattern develop. “My God...” he whispered, then turned the laptop so she could se the screen. On it burned a familiar pattern in multiple colors, pulsing slightly. “They’re an initial condition state.”

He grabbed his beer and killed it. “Hang on,” he murmured, chair kegs scraping the floor as he shifted closer to her, trying to let her watch as he worked the mouse and entered more numbers and commands. “So if we then run it through the Ehrenrest theorem...”

The screen blanked for several seconds, and then lines of polychromatic light sketched arcs and lines. “Fuck. Me,” he breathed, manners and professional decorum lost as he stared at the result. “What. The. Fuck?”

 

[Xanaphia]

Marta watched Dr. Ahn work, wishing she had a stronger grasp of Calculus. She’d taken it as an undergrad, before she’d decided on a major, and passed (barely), but that was over a decade ago. She knew enough to know that STEM wasn’t for her. Still watching him work, watching him put the pieces together was intriguing, even if she didn’t understand the fine details. But, that was why she reached out, wasn’t it? To consult with an expert on the subject?

“I have so many questions.” She laughed, washing down her burger with the last swig of beer. “So, these equations are an attempt to map space-time and unify astrophysics with quantum physics, right? Did you develop them? I don’t see any equations in her writings, so I have no idea how she calculated these figures.” She flashed an awkward smile, aware she was out of her depth. Slipping further out of her depth as he scooted closer to her, and his warmth and scent caressed her senses.

Please –please– don’t sound like an idiot in from of him.

Marta though for a second. “Goode Brown was a Puritan woman in 17th century Providence. Her education would have consisted of reading and writing, and simple arithmetic. Not even basic algebra, and certainly nothing approaching multi-vector calculus. Where did these numbers come from, and how was she able to translate them into diagrams?”

Pushing aside her empty plate, she made more room for his laptop and scooted even closer, to get a good look at the developing shape. “As it stands, Goode Brown was able to utilize advanced calculus to diagram and create models of space-time in the same century that Copernicus theorized an elliptical planetary orbit.” Turning, and suddenly cognizant of how close Dr. Ahn was, she laughed away her nerves. “Maybe she was a witch.”

 

[TheCorsair]

“I have so many questions,” Dr. Rebelo-Perez laughed, sounding a tiuch nervous as she stared at the tendered image.

“Yeah,” Pete replied, reaching blindly for his beer, unable to tear his gaze away.

“So,” she asked scooting her own chair around to get a better look, “these equations are an attempt to map space-time and unify astrophysics with quantum physics, right? Did you develop them?”

“Most of it is standard model physics and quantum physics equations,” he replied, acutely aware of her presence. She was close enough now that he could feel the warmth of her body. “Some of the unification equations are my original work, and some of it derives from the incomplete doctoral thesis of Walter Gillmsn.” He shifted a little in his seat, and felt suddenly awkward as his thigh brushed hers.

She didn’t seem to notice. “I don’t see any equations in her writings, so I have no idea how she calculated these figures.”

“I’m... not sure.” He grabbed one of her scans, pointing out the symbols drawn in them. “These are... I don’t know. Arabic, maybe? But the patterns are suggestive of equations,.” He frowned, looking from the paper to the screen and back. “Like, like someone trying... trying to write an equation without...”. He shook his head. “I... don’t know.”

Dr. Rebelo-Perez began explaining who Goode Brown was, and although it was interesting it just added to his confusion about the results in his screen. “As it stands,” she concluded, “Goode Brown was able to utilize advanced calculus to diagram and create models of space-time in the same century that Copernicus theorized an elliptical planetary orbit.”

“That’s about the size of it,” he agreed slowly. “It’s too close for coincidence, crazy as it sounds.”

He turned to look at her, and found himself staring right into her brown eyes. He was close enough to smell the beer in her breath, and he found himself wondering how she would taste. And then the moment passed with nervous laughter as both of them drew back a little. “Maybe she was a witch.”

“Maybe,” he agreed. “Or a once in a thousand years genius.” He glanced back at the screen. “What... why did she draw these on a prison wall? Do you have more of them?”

 

[Xanaphia]

“Well, like so many who are imprisoned for their beliefs or their discoveries, I imagine she was seeking some way preserve her findings. Or filling the time in her jail, in an attempt to keep her sanity and her mind sharp.” Marta brushed her hair back behind her ear and it was then she realized just how much time had passed in Dr. Ahn’s enthralling presence. The restaurant had been busy when she arrived, but by now the crowd had dwindled, and employees were cleaning tables and sweeping the floor, in preparation to close.

“Are you two ready for the check?” the cheerfully patient waitress asked, clearing the empty bottles and plates away. After an embarrassed nod, she placed the bill on the table and took away the dishes. Marta pulled two crisp twenties from her wallet, which would cover her part of the bill and leave a substantial tip. She’d worked a similar job to put herself through school, and she still remembered how tough it could be. Plus, they were among the last patrons to leave, so it was the least she could do.

“I have more records for her back at my place if you want to join me.” The words came out so quickly, too quickly for her to pull them back before he understood. It didn’t give her nearly enough time to prepare herself for a possible rejection, or a mention of a significant other waiting at home for him. But, to her surprise and delight, he agreed, and after a moment of exchanging contact info (with the requisite, “please, call me Marta”) and her address, they got into their respective cars and drove to her place.

Marta’s upscale apartment opened into the combined living room/ kitchenette/ dining area, with a hallway toward the back of the room leading the bedroom and bathroom. A large bookcase dominated the west wall, filled with books, and overflowing onto the large desk fitted into the north-west corner of the room. Surrealist artwork decorated the walls, most prominently Marta’s favorite, a print of Frieda Kahlo’s What the Water Gave Me.

Marta motioned towards the couch that sat in the middle of the living area, “Make yourself comfortable, please.” Meanwhile, she searched through the books on her desk, rearranging several before finding the one she was looking for. “I didn’t copy the last diagram because it was unfinished, or I think it was unfinished. It doesn’t seem to fit the recurring patterns of the other ones.” She opened the book to the page with the diagram and took a seat beside Peter so see what he could make of it.

 

[TheCorsair]

The realization of how long they’d been at Green’s came as a shock, as did the same navigation back to Dr. Rebelo-Perez’ house. He’d hoped she had more data, but he hadn’t quite expected that. “I’d love to,” he said hurriedly, handing Marie two twenties. And then, worrying that he’d sounded too eager, he busied himself packing his laptop away before digging out his phone and exchanging addresses and numbers.

He spent the walk back to his car, and then the drive to Marta’s apartment, thinking. Why would a 17th century woman know how to develop these equations? They were the results of centuries of work by hundreds of people. Why on a prison wall? What would Marta look like naked?. That last one was haunted him as she let him into her apartment, and he tried hard to brush it aside.

“Make yourself comfortable, please,” she invited, gesturing towards her couch. He took a seat and pulled his laptop out, starting it up as she searched through her books. “I didn’t copy the last diagram because it was unfinished, or I think it was unfinished. It doesn’t seem to fit the recurring patterns of the other ones.”

He looked at it, curious. “Could be... anything,” he admitted. “Except that it’s got some of the same symbols. You say it was unfinished?” When she nodded, he scratched his head and laid it down.

“I was thinking,” he said slowly, trying to articulate half-formed ideas. “I don’t think she was trying to, to preserve her work.” There are easier ways than this to lay them out, if she’d discovered all of this on her own.” He picked up the paper again, stared at it. “Even if she believed it was a mystical thing, this is a solution. It doesn’t preserve anything, other than the fact you did it.”

A nagging thought struck him, one that prompted a question without knowing where it was going. “These were on her cell wall? Do you have any photos, or... well, anything that shows where they were in relation to each other?”

 

[Xanaphia]

Marta considered Peter’s suggestion, re-reading the section about Goode Brown in the book. “Do you think maybe she was still trying to solve the equation in her cell, perhaps? That, even then after she’d been convicted of witchcraft, and awaited her death sentence, she wanted to solve this problem?”

Marta relaxed into the cushion, eyes narrowed and lips pursed. It’s just…the understanding of the universe during this time is so far removed from what we understand now. Like I mentioned before, the idea that the Earth revolves around the sun, and not the other way around, was a controversial idea in this time period. None of this seems possible, given the scientific context of the era.”

And yet, despite all the reasons she gave for why this couldn’t happen, the diagrams and numbers from Goode Brown’s notes proved it had, somehow. The conflict between what the facts of history suggested should be true, and what the evidence otherwise proved, intrigued and disturbed Marta. She needed to reconcile the contradictory facts, and sought further answers in the book that created these inconsistencies in the first place.

Her shoulder brushed against his, when she leaned in, and he didn’t move away, so neither did she. God, his warmth felt nice, leading to thoughts about how he might feel up against her. Perhaps pinned between his body and the wall, while they kissed hungrily. Fuck, she wanted to kiss him. Instead she cleared her throat, and tried to clear her mind.

“It seems she disappeared on the day of her execution., which explains why I couldn’t find the record of her execution. The puritans were nothing if not methodical record keepers. When officials arrived the morning of her execution, her cell was found empty. This,” she pointed to one of the diagrams, moving it away from the rest, “was the first they discovered, on the floor of her cell. Beside it was…”

She examined the diagrams, and referenced the book, finally picking another out and placing it beside the first. The record went into detail about the sticky crimson substance used to create the symbols, which she skimmed over until she read more depictions of the symbols.

“Okay, so this one was on the west wall of her cell,” explained, moving another diagram to approximate the scene illustrated in the book, “and this one was on the east.” With a shrug, she turned towards Peter again, captivated by the fire in his eyes as he traced invisible lines between the patterns. Again, the temptation to kiss him returned, but she restrained herself. “Does this illuminate anything for you?”

 

[TheCorsair]

Marta found the book she was looking for and sat next to him. Right next to him, their legs touching, her arm brushing against his as she turned pages. God, she felt good touching him. He wanted to pull her into his lap, feel those legs straddling him, taste her skin as he... wait? What? What had happened - what hadn’t happened - to Goode Brown?

“She... was gone?” Somehow, he wasn’t surprised. It fit too well with his mad idea about what she might have been trying to do. But even now, he couldn’t bring himself to articulate that idea - even to himself. It was too crazy. “Did... did she have friends? People who would have helped her?”

He doubted it. History wasn’t his strong suit, but he remembered reading about the witch trials. The accused rarely had friends, especially once they’d been convicted.

Marta shifted, her leg sliding against his as she moved papers around to arrange the diagrams. “Okay, so this one was on the west wall of her cell,” explained, moving another diagram to approximate the scene illustrated in the book, “and this one was on the east.” She turned to look at him, a curious intensity in her gaze. “Does this illuminate anything for you?”

“Maybe,” he said doubtfully, looking at the arrangement of the papers. Then he gestured at the book. “May I “. She handed it over and he read the descriptions. They were vague, except for the loving details that went into describing how the circles had been inked in blood. But he gleaned a little more. The cell was a timber room about ‘two paces’ square.

“Hm...” he mused aloud. “Call a pace thirty inches? So, about sixty inches square.” Leaning forward, his arm tingling as he brushed against Marta, he opened a program on his laptop and began typing. “She disappeared, you say?”

Chewing on his lip, he began hammering out a program. “Each rendering is a representation of a particular point in spacetime, as seen from a hypothetical ‘outside’,” he said Ashe typed, trying to justify himself. “But in a limited way. Like how a picture is two-dimensional but tricks you into seeing depth.”

The program wasn’t all that complex, being merely an extension of the rendering program he was already using. “I think, maybe, she was trying... to create a, a stereoptic image of a place?” Saying it out loud sounded as crazy as he thought it would. “I think... I think she was hoping... to, somehow, make an Einstein-Rosen bridge.”

 

[Xanaphia]

“Wait, you aren’t serious, right?” Marta stopped, holding up a hand. Peter was a scientist. He’d given her no reason to believe he wasn’t a logical person before that moment. And yet, hearing those words come from his mouth was as disconcerting as watching the History channel disseminate conspiracy theories about aliens.

“Puritans may have been strict and moralizing, but I really think the simpler explanation is that she tricked or convinced her guard to let her go. Then, to save face, he perpetuates the fiction that she disappeared with her magic. She’s already been convicted of witchcraft, and even left these illustrations which support his bullshit story.”

But Peter was focused on his laptop, and Marta’s curiosity got the better of her. So she over his shoulder, watching him recreate Goode Brown’s cell and her designs within the three-dimensional space. He rotated the image in the program, lining up the two circles on opposite walls, to look through both at once, and Marta swore it looked as if there were something beyond the circles. A place, instead of recurring geometric patterns.

No, that can’t be right. She took off her glasses, wiping the lens in hopes of removing the smudge that had to be responsible for the change in perspective. But her lights flickered, before cutting out completely. They sat in the darkness of her living room, illuminated solely by the laptop’s backlight for 3 seconds, before power returned.

Marta relaxed a bit, before glancing up at the center of her living, and seeing…well, something there. A manifestation of the image Peter had manipulated on his laptop. It guttered unnaturally, between purple to black to green. Her heart pounded, adrenaline firing upon her nerves to flee, but she sat very still, instead clinging to Peter’s arm. “What the fuck?”

 

[TheCorsair]

The program ran, rendering each of the circles in turn from the data Marta had provided. It took time, slowing his computer as the untested extension code struggled to juggle the complex calculations required to plot all three calculations with a virtual spatial relationship. And then, it was over.

Nothing happened.

“I don’t know what I was expecting,” he said, laughing nervously as he rotated the image. “I think you’re right. She just found a way to...”. The images aligned, and something clicked into place. He stared, blinking rapidly as he tried to work out what he was seeing.

The lights died, leaving the living room illuminated by the blackish glow of his monitor. Pete found himself holding his breat, tense against his own nerves. Finally, an eternity that was mere seconds long, they came back on.

“Well,” he said, exhaling. “This was...”

Marta gripped his arm, nails biting into his bicep. “What the fuck?” she breathed, voice tense.

He looked up. A replica of the combined image hung above the coffee table, directly above his laptop, pulsing black and dark gold and dark green like a bruise or n the air. “Fuck...” he agreed, before his curiosity kicked in. Dragging out his phone, he fired up the camera and started recording.

“It’s,” he started, licking suddenly dry lips. “It’s, I don’t know. An Einstein-Risen bridge, I think. A wormhole.” He set the camera in the table, bracing it with a book so he could get a reasonable view of the two of them and if the anomalous thing in the air. “It’s a rough circle, or sphere, about a meter in diameter.”

A faint breeze stirred the air if the apartment, moving towards the pulsing orb. “It seems to be sucking air into it, but slowly. That suggests lower pressure on the other side, but not much. Unless, unless the wormhole serves as a barrier?”

Rising slowly, he examined it closely. Through the hole, he could see stars - glittering diamond bright smears and points. As the hole pulsed, he could make out a droning, humming whistle, accompanied by a thin whining sound on the edge of perception. The pitch changed randomly, achingly tune-like But never finding a tune.

“This... can’t be...” he murmured, staring deeper, he could just make out something else. A shapeless shape, twisting and writhing slowly, almost in harmony with the eerie tuneless not-music. “What... am I looking at?”

 

[Xanaphia]

Peter began examining the… well, she supposed wormhole was the best word for it, dictating details as if it were just another finding, and not a complete warping of reality before them. Marta sat a moment longer, awestruck by pulsing distortion. Finally, she joined him in standing, still leaning in close enough their bodies touched.

The circulation of air towards the wormhole wasn’t forceful, but still it seemed to chill the room, drawing in the heat as well. Or, perhaps it was just her, her harried breathing becoming shivers on her skin. Mustering up her courage and curiosity, she peered into portal.

The figure writhed, its outline fluid and everchanging. Each second she thought she had a handle on its appearance it shifted, unknowable and completely alien. It possessed what resembled eyes, vacillating between one and three and five and twenty. The imprint of dozens of familiar animals shuffled on its form, from an octopus to a bat to a frog, never retaining any shape longer enough to leave more than an impression. Even its color rippled, a sickening spectrum of visible light that left her slightly nauseous. There was but one fact she could determine definitively.

It was getting closer.

“Make it… can you make it stop?” she murmured, pleaded, dread pooling in her gut. She was half hiding behind Pete, chest pressed into his back. She wanted to turn away, to look away, to close her eyes, but her fear wouldn’t let her, wouldn’t allow her to lose sight of the monstrosity within the wormhole. “Please.”

 

[TheCorsair]

Marta’s presence was a blast furnace in the chilling air of the living room, both a welcome and an annoying distraction as he examined the anomaly before him. “There’s no way to gauge distances from here,” he remarked, speaking to Marta and the camera both. “And that mass out there... I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Was it drawing closer? Was it growing larger? He couldn’t tell, not really. It just pulsed and throbbed and whirled, outlines changing as it went, casting out streamers and reabsirbing them. Smaller screen bjects, things he could barely make out as suggestive pinpricks, whirled about it. He wanted to gibber and grovel before it, placating it. He wanted to observe it, Study it. There were secrets he could learn, things he could know, if he could understand it. It would destroy him, but he wanted to comprehend it.

“Make it… can you make it stop?” Marta whispered, pressed against him. The fear in her voice mirrored the terror churning in his own gut. And whatever it was, it was growing larger. Or closer. “Please,” she added.

What had been the size of his thumbnail was the size of a softball now. Pete shivered, terrified that if it grew to fill the anomaly it would destroy them. “I, I think so,” he said, crouching to reach his laptop. His eyes remained locked on the writhing stellar mass, groping blindly over the keyboard. He found the power button, pushed it, then pushed it again to force restart it.

The anomaly vanished with a little popping sound.

Pete rose cautiously,, breathing hard and staring at the spot where it had been. “It...”. He waved his hand carefully through empty air. “It’s gone.” The same hand combed through sweat matted hair. “Holy shit!” he gasped, elation muxing with relief as the enormity if it all tried to sink in.

He turned to Marta, hands shaking a little with adrenaline. “That... that was...”. She was right there, pressed up against him. “I... We... we just... just...”

He couldn’t have said who initiated it. One instant he was staring into her eyes, feeling her breath in his face. The next she was in his arms, his mouth hard and hungry on hers as her body strained against his. An overwhelming need to feel her around him, a primal instinct to seek life in the face of Bear death, washed over him and he pushed her down onto the couch.

“I want you,” he gasped, fingers tearing at the buttons of her blouse. “Now,” he added, biting at her throat. “Right now.”

 

[Xanaphia]

The portal left an afterimage burned into Marta’s retina, still flickering after Peter turned off his laptop and closed the connection to…well, where ever that was. Her breath caught as he waved his hand through the spot, touching nothing. It was gone.

God, he felt good, and her mind reeled from what had just happened, and what she’d seen. More than anything, she wanted distractions, wanted to push it out of her mind. Replace the horror with arousal and desire, finally acting on the attraction to Peter that was delightfully reciprocated. Maybe she was a little desperate for safety, for something familiar and comforting So she drank him in, his cologne and his taste, and thirsted for more. Her blouse opened and she peeled it off, craving his touch and savoring the heat of his hands cupping her breasts.

Her skirt was too tight to spread herself for him, so she unzipped it and tugged it down as he opened his own pants. Her bra stayed oh, but her breasts slipped from the cups when he teased her nipples. She filled her hands with his shirt, yanking up over his head and away, and then traced invisible patterns on his skin, filling her mind with a model of his figure.

“It’s been a while…” she admitted, back arched to offer his mouth more of her neck and her shoulders and her breasts. “Been a while… since I’ve been with… a man.” She had trouble remembering the last guy she slept with, remembering anything before the portal and the kiss, and ultimately dismissed it. That didn’t matter. Nothing mattered right now but the demanding sultry slickness between her thighs, aching to be filled. Need to be fucked senseless, until the last few minutes faded away.

Her panties didn’t come off, just shoved to one side. Enough room for what they needed now. The heels stayed on as well, scraping his calves as she spread herself for him. The resistance of tight muscles became a liquid grip on his cock, fluid friction replacing the heat they wormhole had sucked away. “Fuck…” she groaned, nails digging into his shoulder blades as she adjusted to his girth. “Oh fuck.”

 

[TheCorsair]

Her fingers scraped his skin as she tugged his shirt and T-shirt off, then dug into his back as he nipped and sucked at her throat. “God,” he gasped, grinding his dick against her satin-covered mound. “You... taste so good...”

“It’s been a while…” she groaned, back arching as he kissed her breasts. “Been a while… since I’ve been with… a man.”

“Me... me too...” he replied, skimming his hands down her body. She was beneath him, her legs hooked around his, so he just tugged her panties to one side. His cock slid over her and her heels dug into his legs as she spread herself wider. “Fuck,” he said, eyes wide at the feel of her liquid heat swallowing his shaft. “Oh... fuck...”

Her reply was the same murmured words as her nails dug into his back and her thighs gripped his, sliding and slipping on the slacks he still wore. This was insane, a rational part of his mind warned him. He was half-naked, fucking a colleague he barely knew. But he didn’t care, not now. All he wanted was her body against his, two animals desperately seeking connection after staring into the unknown.

His fingers dug into her firm rear and hooked her shoukder, pulling her tight against him as he began moving. He wanted to go slow, or he thought he did, but within moments he was driving himself as hard as he could into her cunt. His hands slipped from her body to grip the arm of the couch, gaining leverage to fuck himself harder still in her. The couch creaked in time with his movements, matching his grunts and the answering gasps she uttered.

“Cum,” he growled, biting at her throat as his whole body flexed with the effort of fucking her. He released the arm of the chair, hands tangling in her hair and pulling her mouth to his. “Cum on me,” he demanded, fucking her mouth with his tongue. “Cum on me.”

 

[Xanaphia]

The position on the couch was awkward, with one of Marta’s legs propped by the back frame, and the other sliding onto the floor when she lost purchase on his legs. Which kept happening, because the slacks were smooth, and she didn’t want to dig her heels into his thighs. Still, it didn’t matter, her need overcoming her comfort.

Each thrust pushed deeper into her, and pushed the memories deeper into her mind. Soon, Peter, and the pleasure he pounded into her, was all that remained. Delightfully sharp friction forced tight walls apart, demanding space within her. Even pain was a reminder she was alive, grounding her once more in reality. Perhaps the universe was a terrifying, empty place, but, at least for now, she wasn’t alone. “Peter… I’m so close.”

Marta ground against Peter’s hips, taking him even deeper when he bottomed out in her. Every inch of him filled her, completed her, driving anything else away. Nerves trembled, ecstasy replacing fear, and her slick grip upon him became relentless. “Peter!” she cried, rolling waves of passion consuming her mind and thighs. Arms clung to him, just as tight and smooth inner muscles and strong, sleek thighs, needing even more of him. “Peter…” Her voice wavered, whimpered, rapture fading off into contentment.

Finally, nirvana released her, and she released him in return, opening herself to his deep, almost desperate penetration. No more words passed her lips, just gasps and moans, offering all of herself to him, so long as he didn’t stop. Anything, so long as she didn’t have to be alone tonight.

 

[TheCorsair]

Marta cried his name as he drove into her, encouraging him to thrust deeper and harder. His knees slipped on the fabric of the couch, forcing him to brace his feet against the arm so he could continue his desperate, frantic pace. She cried his name again, her arms and hands sliding over his back, encouraging him.

She climaxed with a low moan that turned into gasps as he stroked deep and hard into her. The feel of her pleasure rippling around him, the taste of her flesh, all of it was intoxicating. And then he climaxed, his hips jerking uncontrollably into hers as his cum flooded her. For a timeless instant there was no horror witnessed through an impossible tunnel, no fears of mortality. Just the primal satisfaction of flesh.

By degrees he relaxed, slumping against Marta as his pleasure subsided, taking his weight on his arms. There were marks on her skin, tiny bruises in throat and shoulder where he’d bitten at her. Breathing hard, he could taste the musky flavor of their mutual lust on the air. He should feel awkward, he thought. He barely knew Marta, after all, and he was half-naked on her couch and still buried in her.

But fuck, he still wanted her. The memory of the thing he’d seen still burned in his mind, mingling with the afterglow of his climax to leave him still hungry for her. Breathing hard still, he kissed her with a mix of hunger and tenderness. “Maybe...” he gasped, “Maybe we should, should move somewhere, more comfortable? For round two?”

 

[Xanaphia]

There had been no chance to negotiate a condom, as consumed with mutual lust and need as they had been. No opportunity to discuss protection or contraception, and now, no point. Worse still, his pleasure felt so good inside her, so warm, that even now, as panic receded (but not faded) and logic returned, she didn’t dare ask him to use one. It would have only gotten in the way of what they, she needed in this moment: a comforting culmination of connection.

Marta laughed weakly at his suggestion, clenching against his half hard cock. She didn’t really want to disentangle, not yet, but she’d get a spasm in her back if they stay like this. “Yeah, the bed is probably a better choice for the next round. Unless you’re partial to the kitchen counter.” He gave her a gentle, passionate kiss, and she took two more, still hungering for that connection between them.

The light on his phone caught Marta’s eye as Peter got up, and she recalled how he had been recording the portal with it. And she recalled how he hadn’t stopped recording once they started fooling around. “Shit, I think we accidentally made a sex tape. Or, is it still called a sex tape if it isn’t on tape?” She laughed again, hiding her blush as she retrieved her clothes from the ground.

His laptop sat open as well, stuck on the startup screen, but it seemed more ominous now. As if it were a window from other realms through which they could be watched or reached. The thought was absurd, but she couldn’t shed it easily, feeling the backlight linger on her as she approached the fridge. “Do you want something to drink?” She pulled out a bottled water and took a long drink, before offering him some, “Or do you want something harder?”

 

[TheCorsair]

“Yeah, the bed is probably a better choice for the next round,” Marta replied, opening her lips to his kiss. “Unless you’re partial to the kitchen counter.”

“I’ve never tried a kitchen counter,” he repied, feeling himself tut a little at the suggestion. “How are they for comfort?”

Marta was distracted, though, staring at the place where the wormhole had been. No, wait at the phone. At the phone, which had recorded everything. “Shit, I think we accidentally made a sex tape. Or, is it still called a sex tape if it isn’t on tape?”

The next few minutes were awkward, two people who barely knew one another fumbling for their clothes and trying to decide what to say and how to say it. There were buttons missing from her blouse,something he realized as she pulled it back on, and didn’t bother with her skirt as he pulled his sleeveless undershirt back on. “Do you want something to drink?” She offered. “Or do you want something harder?”

“Water first,” he decided, running his fingers through sweaty hair as he joined her in the kitchenette. “With an option on something harder later.” He drained half the bottle at one go, feeling dehydrated after the experiment and the explosive sex. Shit, he realized. I didn’t use a condom. “Uhm...”

What did you say to a bear stranger after you fucked her brains out? “Uhm...” he tried again. “I, really hm...”. Well. This was going well. Finally, he just bit the bullet. “I have no idea what I’m supposed to do, now. But, Uhm, that was incredible.” He stared at the bottle, rolling it in his hands. “Except the wormhole. That scared the shit out of me.”