Call Me Stranger

By George Lambelle

"Call Me Stranger" is an escapist fantasy concerns a time-travelling Cat trying to save his previously Good witch after she was misled into becoming Bad. The scenarios cover present day, North Yorkshire and the Tyneside of a thousand years ago.  The central Warlock is an unprepossessing, rather boring accountant who has no idea ab

• Language: English
• Publisher: Westwood Books Publishing
• Release date: Jan 21, 2022
• ISBN: 9781685360887

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Copyright © 2021 by George Lambelle.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Westwood Books Publishing LLC

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www.westwoodbookspublishing.com

TIME

There is no horizon during the Passing of Time.

No land. No sea. No sky. No clouds.

No true light or true dark, although there are Moments of both, illuminating and hiding the multitude of Changing Colours.

There is Good and Bad.

There is also, of course, Time itself.

But in another Dimension altogether.

You might travel through Time for a week -- and yet arrive at a point only seconds after you left it. It might also only take those same few seconds to pass by several Centuries.

Like traveling the World.

You arrive quickest only if you take the shortest route. Without a map or the right vehicle, you can be lost for a very long time.

The Cat knew all the routes.

Not that he had a map -- just a Good memory.

He had traveled time forever. He was there when it began. Naturally, he had been very young -- and like us all did not have a perfect memory then. That was a pity because the Cat would have liked to have gone back to the beginning and started all over again.

He might even have tried to draw a different shape for his journey into and out of Life.

Or would it eventually become Lives? He wanted only one. He hoped it would not become more than one, because it had taken so long to find a suitable Witch to start his first Life.

Finding his Witch had been his first Search through Time.

Losing her had started his Second Search -- this one for Help. It had gone on for nearly a thousand years according to the Time by which humans live.

But still, he had been unable to find the kind of Help he needed. He knew there must be somebody wandering Time who would be able to Help.

But he didn’t know where.

For it had to be somebody Special.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-one

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

CHAPTER ONE

Norman

The moon was a crescent and the stars merely cheeky pinpricks in a dark three-dimensional infinity as the Cat stalked down the old High Street.

Blue-black, haughty, and fifteen feet tall, the Cat’s measured strides took him silently past century-old buildings housing the small shops and cottage homes of the fishing village in North-East England. Marske-by-the Sea was changing but still based much of its economy on the sea.

Traditions were fading into fringe housing estates planted there to cash in on the village’s name which made modern designs socially acceptable, if brazen, in their clash with a heritage built in stone.

As the Cat walked, he did so with a clear sense of purpose and eerily began to shrink to more acceptable proportions.

He stopped at the gate of Number One-Three-Three -- a terraced cottage close to Lloyds Bank and unusual because on the right-hand side of the garden’s black wrought iron fence, there was a public footpath which actually passed beneath part of the first floor.

The Cat bounded onto the top of the wrought-iron gate and, using the same movement, landed lightly on the crazy paving which was the path. Without even a glance at the beautiful rose trees dominating the postage stamp garden, he stalked straight up to the front door.

Once on the stone step, he paused and looked back as if checking for prying eyes among the sleeping houses opposite.

Not surprisingly, at 2 a.m. nothing was moving. Perhaps, it was because the Cat was concentrating hard on doing something.

With his hind feet firmly fixed on the doorstep, he walked his front legs up the woodwork until he reached the letterbox where he hung on until his rear end caught up. Shrinking until he was less than a foot long, the Cat pushed the flap open with his head and followed it with the remainder of the diminutive body.

A moment later, the flap dropped down, momentarily trapping the Cat’s tail, which slithered through in silence apart from a half-mewed, half-muted squawk of pain.

Thus, the Cat introduced himself to the home of Norman Boosbeck; an accountant who was currently sound asleep, unworried, and dream-free way into another mundane day of figures and financial fuss of cussed clients and their self-made problems. It was the life he loved.

The cottage was built around a central staircase, fitted between the walls of the front and rear rooms. The Cat glided from the front door vestibule with the outer wall to his right and passed by the rocking chair in the front living room. Then, he entered the dining room, where he turned left and padded to the foot of the stairs, which was neatly hidden behind a curtain in the corner.

Moving slowly and with great care, he turned left again at the top of the stairs and through the open door into Norman’s bedroom.

Norman stirred as the Cat landed lightly on the corner of the double bed. He sat down, purred -- and then smiled as he contemplated the recumbent accountant.

Norman turned over and grunted as though feeling the weight of the Cat’s steady stare. Ten minutes later, the Cat hopped onto the floor and watched the duvet move one way and then the other as one man’s peaceful night was filled with a new and restless uncertainty.

The remnants of the previous night’s stars still hung in pale hints of their former sharpness -- ineffective in the grey-blue of the spring morning -- when Norman opened a single bleary eye. He contemplated the new day which, for him, had arrived too soon with even its soft light an abomination to his sight and mind.

In the High Street, post breakfast life had already started with paper boys and girls tramping disinterestedly past the little shops and terraces. Buses and cars growled and whined intrusively through what was still attempting to be a sleepy village.

Norman slithered a leg off the bed and onto the floor. The duvet tried to follow and, sighing, he heaved it back. With stiff legs and thudding heels, he gave up the hunt for slippers and took his six-foot angular frame downstairs without bothering to wash. He was due at the office on the dot of nine o’clock -- and he would be there exactly on time.

Today, though, was not a normal morning.

Norman was on the wrong metaphorical foot because he felt awful after a night of nonstop activity both physical and mental. His mind still carried a fading memory of a woman engulfed in flames – the last fragment of a disturbing dream. He could not remember such unease and found himself pulling faces and scratching head, chest and abdomen without any semblance of relief from an unnerving inability to retain his normal balance.

Arriving downstairs, Norman went into the back kitchen to set up the kettle and toaster.

The Cat sat placidly in the corner, occasionally contemplating a paw as Norman, pausing only to switch on the TV set for the morning news, returned upstairs to dress.

He never saw the Cat!

After a brief splash in the bathroom, the still groggy accountant returned fully dressed and was soon sitting at the breakfast table struggling to stomach his cornflakes, tea, and toast.

The Cat was now stretched out under the table watching television.

It was then that Norman began to make contact with the world and was immediately irritated. The television picture was obliterated with interference so that he couldn’t follow the news. It still held Norman’s bleary eyes in the way a washing machine can fascinate a laundrette audience.

With nausea wobbling his intestine, he gave up on the cornflakes and tried the toast. As he lifted it towards his mouth, Norman’s arm froze as his gaze took in what was happening on the television screen.

The television presenter was pushing her head through the jagged flashing lines and speaking directly to him: Sorry, but I can’t make myself heard through all this crackling. I’ll have to come out.

The Cat sat up, stood up and walked interestedly around the table. Norman still saw nothing as the Cat settled quietly behind his chair to keep a feline eye on the television.

Oh lor’!

The six-inch brown-eyed brunette climbed out by pushing a couple of wavy lines aside much as a boxer lifts one rope and pushes down another to get out of the ring.

The Cat waved a paw and the presenter’s tiny legs twinkled her over to the ashtray. The cigarette groove made a seat of just the right curve and dimension.

Again, the Cat swung an airy paw.

Two other figures climbed from the set and strolled unconcernedly towards the other edge of the ashtray. Both were slightly taller than the girl by a couple of inches. Norman recognizes one of them as an international swimming star and the other as the girl’s co-presenter.

She was introducing the swimmer who was about to be interviewed by her partner. As she did so a hand popped through the wavy lines and pointed a finger at the ceiling before flicking it down directly towards the other presenter, who took up the cue.

Good morning and this morning, my guest is the swimming star, Craig Whisper, world record holder over four hundred metres.

Norman choked into helpless silence.

The sun-tanned swimmer - a study in relaxed masculine fitness -- strolled athletically to the other side of the ashtray and answered questions in a deep, husky voice which came -- not from him -- but from the TV.

With a show of irritation, Norman switched off the set. The lines and the little people vanished.

The Cat sniffed and, giving Norman a bleak glance, brought his paws back into action.

To Norman’s dismay, the wavy lines reappeared and with them the tabletop scene, which continued as if nothing had happened. The girl though had disappeared and now a male newsreader in a blue jacket, pink shirt and claret bow tie above multi-colored knee-length shorts, was fumbling through the sheaf of papers.

Another dream! Norman knew it.

He groaned and literally lurched from the room, leaving his unfinished breakfast on the table. He would have tripped over the Cat, but the animal anticipated his direction and faded out of sight with his head last to dissolve staring hard into Norman’s unseeing eyes.

As soon as he disappeared up the stairs, the Cat reappeared, hopped onto the table via Norman’s chair and glared fixedly at the dishes which slowly faded away and were gone.

The Cat stretched out across the tabletop and, closing his yellow eyes, sighed and settled down to wait.

The noise of running water echoed into the dining room as Norman took a cold shower in a heroic bid to bring back reality.

Ten minutes later, he came cautiously down the stairs still scrubbing the towel through his dark brown hair. He peeped around the stair corner dreading what he might see.

To his horror, he saw that the girl presenter and the swimmer were casually leaning against a photograph at the right of the set. They talked quietly as the newsreader worked from the ashtray.

The Cat was dozing on the tabletop right in front of his eyes, but Norman saw nothing but the television. He leaned against the wall and sighed.

Oh lor’!

The Cat shot to seated attention -- fully alert and smiling mischievously.

To Norman’s frustration, though, nothing else happened, except that the three tinies continued regardless.

There was a rattle at the front door. The morning paper had arrived. It was an excuse to leave, but Norman was only able to shuffle sideways, still looking at the television corner. He reached the paper and picked it up, inadvertently dropping the wet towel and tripping as he tried to catch it, before being saved from falling by the wall.

He shuffled back into the dining room where the news was still being read from the ashtray.

Norman’s confusion was complete.

This was just too real! He couldn’t control it. All he could do was survey his wrecked routine -- and he lived by routine. Everything in order. A life without surprises was a good life for the unadventurous, sensible, and professionally well-balanced Norman Boosbeck.

Oh lor’!

A mouthful by Norman’s standards, who was never given to over-reacting.

He thought of the witch in his dream. A witch being burned alive. A pair of yellow eyes studying him with never a blink.

The Cat’s yellow eyes followed Norman as he wandered weakly back to his chair.

Still, Norman didn’t see him as he tried to muddle a rational answer to the past hours. Dreams, he was sure, always had a personal connection. Something which had happened in his life. Or as a result of something which had preyed on his mind.

But what? The illogicality of it all bemused his ordered accountant’s mind.

President Bush has just taken off his trousers in public for the first time since his election.

Norman jumped!

Good, said the newsreader. You are paying attention, and returned deadpan to the bulletin.

The paper slipped from Norman’s grasp, leaving him with the two outer sheets.

On page three, there was a full color bikini-clad girl, whose lips were moving.

What’re you looking at? she squeaked and promptly slid from the page and grew into a full-size, fully-formed female. She heaved at the table cloth to cover herself causing the Cat to jump for the safety of the floor.

Norman fumbled inside his shirt pocket for his spectacles. It was instinctive. He always did that when confused and felt the need to be positive.

Honestly, Norman. Can’t you see enough without those?

The spectacles fell to the floor.

Hey, you! The tiny newsreader shook an irritated puny fist. Clear off. You’re interrupting the news.

Drown in the sink, snapped the girl and reached out as if to grab him.

At that, the female presenter leaped onto the forearm of the bikini girl and ran up to her shoulder, where she grabbed the long strands of blonde hair lying upon it.

The unfortunate full-size girl screamed and tried to shake the six-inch tall female clear without success.

Geronimo, howled the midget as she swung back and forth on the blonde tresses like Tarzan’s Jane.

The Cat pointed a paw, the TV switched off and the midgets disappeared -- but it wasn’t over.

Fluttering her eyelashes, the girl advanced behind the table cloth and a pair of dewy eyes. Norman’s nerve broke and he fled for the kitchen. The kitchen door slammed shut, apparently of its own volition. He was trapped.

He pulled, heaved, and gasped at the door, but it remained irrevocably shut!

In a blind panic, Norman turned to look back into the room. His left hand still clutched the newspaper, which had been turned into a scrunched-up mess as it got between his hand and the door handle.

The girl smiled and, to Norman’s dismay, he saw she had no teeth.

Indeed, part of her head was missing.

His eyes were drawn to the newspaper and he saw that he had damaged the top part of the girl’s picture.

He slammed the newspaper shut and the girl disappeared.

Norman stared in the direction of the Cat, who smiled back. Norman still didn’t see him and the Cat sighed contentedly as Norman slowly pulled himself together.

The water in the kettle was still warm, so he made a cup of coffee before returning to the dining room where he collapsed into an armchair and closed his eyes.

He never could cope with women. They un-nerved him and his usual self-possession always deserted him.

The Cat sat quite still as he watched Norman’s slow recovery. As though he had learned something significant, he nodded contentedly and his face broke into a satisfied smile.

When Norman opened his eyes, his coffee was cold. He looked around the room and felt a little better. For the first time, he noticed that the breakfast dishes had gone. Puzzled, he went to the kitchen cabinet and saw them all back in their places.

He could still taste the cornflakes and toast, so he had eaten.

And washed up!

Apparently!

His brow furrowed and he considered for the first time that he might not go into the office today.

The thought was an instantaneous antidote.

He felt quite well.

Curiously, he took a chance and turned on the TV.

Breakfast television came on as normal. After a few seconds, he lost interest and switched it off.

Norman sat down again and into his imagination came once again a twenty-foot high woman with yards of jet black hair. She was screaming and cackling. And there was also this wild mob dressed in funny clothes on a beach as well as three howling men flung onto a fire at the foot of a huge, solitary rock.

The same place as his dream, but the woman was now the twenty-foot high screeching giant and no longer among the flames!

Amidst all this was the Cat. With yellow, staring eyes and a big smile. Not like Alice’s Cheshire Cat. This Cat smiled a knowing smile. It was not malicious. A smile showing the certainty of his own superiority.

The dream itself hadn’t been frightening in the way of a nightmare. He had just been watching something happen. Like seeing a film. But detached -- with no personal danger involved.

He jerked himself upright and fetched his jacket and mac.

The Cat watched him thoughtfully from beneath the table. Then, as though he’d seen enough and was satisfied, he trotted purposefully to the front door. He contemplated the letterbox for a moment as if remembering what happened to his tail earlier that morning. He stood back, waited for the door to open for him and then close of its own volition as he padded into the now bustling little High Street.

He walked purposefully towards the direction from which he had originally arrived, steadily growing back to his original fifteen feet tall and springing gracefully into the air, he dissolved just as he passed over the village’s only roundabout.

Nobody noticed!

A few minutes later, Norman was driving his green Vauxhall Cavalier towards Guisborough and the office.

It was just coming up to 8:30 and the road was filling up with other cars. Norman felt a little irritated with himself.

Dropping off to sleep again had been stupid. It could have made him late! As he left the house, he’d found the morning paper folded neatly on the doormat with not so much as a hint of damage to the girl on page three. So it was just another dream.

What had he been eating? Surely this was all the result of a gastric disturbance.

Darn it!

Norman never swore. Oh lor’ and darn it! was as bad as he ever got.

He was reacting to a jam ahead and in a second -- as if on cue -- the local radio station was giving details of an accident on the Guisborough road. A lorry had shed its load.

Norman switched off the radio and tapped the wheel in frustration. He was never late and suddenly his perfect record was in doubt.

Another glance at his watch.

8:37.

He snorted impatiently.

It must be good to be able to fly.

He glanced in the driving mirror and froze. Two yellow eyes regarded him coldly, but before he could react, his car began to move, keeping pace with the vehicle in front.

Then both left the ground.

Panic took over as Norman pressed his white face against the side window in an attempt to look directly below. Together, the cars sailed through the air about forty feet above the traffic.

It was all over in twenty seconds. Norman could see a dozen or more 12-inch diameter pipes scattered over the road and grass verge. The lorry driver was looking sheepishly at an equally fed-up copper, Panda car parked at the roadside.

They shot past the incident and Norman saw the leading car make a nice four-point landing. Then it disappeared!

Norman bounced in his seat as his own car landed and continued without pause.

Glancing over his shoulder, he saw the road behind was clear.

Nothing behind? No jam??

He looked into the mirror and saw the fading image of a furry face with yellow eyes. Norman’s blood ran cold as his car radio burst -- unasked -- into life.

Nothing to report on the roads today. Everything’s hunky-dory, too, at the airports and railway stations, chirruped the irritatingly bright breakfast show DJ.

Norman drove miserably into Guisborough and stopped in his office car park.

Despite everything, he was in good time. Slowly he walked to the foot of his office stairs behind a couple of secretaries who should have been there at nine o’clock.

They hurried ahead, embarrassed that their tardiness had been spotted. Norman was twenty-seven — reasonably senior even though in terms of a career, very much a young man.

He realized he would have to hurry if he was to walk in dead on time -- a practice he had cultivated out of some sub-conscious pedantry.

He tried to quicken his pace, but his legs became heavy and refused to respond.

Oh, for an escalator!

The staircase began to move. Ahead of him, the two girls screamed. Speed was gathered.

Ahead lay a ninety-degree turn and the stairs banked steeply to the left to take it. The girls’ screams turned into an elongated crescendo as they and Norman hung on for dear life.

The accelerating stairs were unable to take the second bend and smashed straight through the wall and into the open air. Miraculously, neither Norman nor the yelling girls were hurt.

They were in the open air on a crazy ride aboard a raft of about nine or ten stairs covered by a piece of carpet. The handrail came along, too, and instinct made them grasp it, even though they could see that it had no apparent connection with the stairs.

Banking like an airplane, the stairs swung about and shot back through the wall, widening the hole they had just created. Bricks and plasterwork scattered around them and all three ducked as the masonry fell about their heads.

Then the staircase slowed down and stopped, fitting neatly into place, leaving Norman only a few strides to reach the top.

It was almost, but not quite, completely silent, because the girls were chatting away happily. They disappeared through the door at the top of the stairs.

Norman looked back.

No mess. No gaping hole in the wall. No loose or broken bricks. No broken plasterwork. No jagged join mark where his piece of the staircase had separated from the rest.

He pushed open the door which took him into the main first-floor corridor.

A few moments more and he…

Morning, Norman.

Morning, Henry.

…walked into the main office.

Norman worked for a sizeable and reputable country firm in the County Cleveland dormitory town of Guisborough. Outside, the High Street buzzed with noise. Inside, there was the usual polite tippy-tap of computer keyboards and other electrical needs, punctuated by the odd beep-bop of the out-of-date trimphones.

He took off his short, dark blue car coat and tugged straight his double-breasted grey pin-stripe suit.

Morning, Mr Boosbeck.

Sammy hurried past in her industrious way. Norman politely acknowledged her greeting with a bleak smile and settled to his desk in the large open plan office.

He’d been dealing with the income tax problems of a journalist. He worked for a local evening paper but spent most of his time flogging off stories to other newspapers.

The Revenue had finally caught up with him and now he wanted the matter sorted out quickly and delicately because his employer would definitely be miffed to find out about his disloyalty.

He put on his black, square-framed spectacles, opened the file, and tried to clear his mind before tackling the journalist’s figures.

It wasn’t easy. Thoughts kept returning to a snarling, burning female with long, black hair swirling in anger about her head. He realized she must have been twenty-feet tall.

And that Cat…

Around him, the office continued its discrete murmurings. Fax machines hickered near-quietly and every now and then a footfall produced its minimal sound from the dark green, fitted carpet as staff threaded their way between the light oak desks.

Slowly, it all merged into a distant background as Norman’s concentration took over. Outside noises were blotted out as his one-track mind de-recognized them.

Beep-bop!

The telephone was an electric shock, jerking him back to reality.

Boosbeck!

Hello, Norman, said a voice he didn’t recognize.

Who’s speaking, please?

Sir James Hawkney.

He didn’t know the name. The voice sounded rather distant and yet very clear. Also, there was something about the accent, which Norman couldn’t quite place.

Yes, Sir James. Can I help you?

Indeed you can, Norman.

Norman?

The use of his Christian name was unsettling. Even if he was a knight, Norman didn’t like over-familiarity at first contact. Business was business and he preferred to be called Mr Boosbeck until the relationship had time to settle down.

Excuse me, Sir James, but have we met? I’m afraid I don’t recall….

"No, Norman,