Sentinels
Content Warning (click to expand)
death of a loved one, death of a child, sexism
by Patricia Court
May 2026
Through the quivering leaves of the wood, Gwen saw the police car pull off the A road and head in her direction. She closed her mobile and stood, high-heels sinking into the mud, drumming her blood-red fingernails on the roof of her Mercedes.
A hawk cried overhead, circling above the gabled brick arches of the old railway station. It was too large a station for a place like Upper Nordmoor. Someone at some point obviously had ambitions for the little village. Upper Nordmoor only ever had one track — the A road occupied the original railway right-of-way — but where most towns would have had a slender station, Upper Nordmoor had an enormous terminal and a whopping three platforms. Built in 1837, the building literally marked the transition from the Regency Era to the early Victorian Era.
But that was Gwen thinking like an estate agent again. She had a bigger problem to worry about: Her missing builder.
The police car crunched up the gravel lane and came to a stop next to Gwen’s car. The door opened and an officer, too tall to wear his hat while driving, stood up. He was about 35 — not much older than Gwen — with broad shoulders and eyes blue like Caribbean waters. As he donned his checker-striped hat, Gwen noted his rank.
“Good afternoon, Sergeant,” she said politely, “I’m Gwen Winchester, from Winchester-Smith-Barnaby. We’re the company doing the condominium flat conversion here.”
“Police Sergeant David Jones,” the policeman said pleasantly. “What seems to be the trouble?”
“Our builder stopped answering both his mobile and his office phone three days ago,” Gwen explained. “He’s doing the prep work. We have an army of sub-contractors scheduled to start on Monday, and we couldn’t get a progress report. I drove up from London this morning to see what the matter might be, and I found it like this.”
Gwen swept a hand, trying not to jangle her gold bracelets, across the scene. Several sawhorses were still set up as makeshift worktables, with power tools still plugged into the portable generator, out in the open. A lunchbox stood open on the steps in front of the arched front doorway, its contents molding and half-strewn by birds and rodents. The wind through the broken windows made a faint moaning sound, and the whole scene looked as though the builder had simply vanished into thin air.
“The builder’s name?” P.S. Jones asked.
“Mark Guinness.”
P.S. Jones nodded. “I’ve met him a couple of times down at the pub. Shall we go take a look?”
“Of course.” Gwen motioned him to lead on. Even through the unfortunate cut of his uniform pants she could make out that he had strong legs and a firm rear end.
The original woodwork in the expansive passenger waiting area had been stripped ages ago, so their footsteps on the tile floor echoed off the bare masonry walls. The brickwork columns and arches remained impressive, though. “This is going to be the main lobby,” Gwen found herself explaining. “We’re going to get three luxury flats back in the old offices and shops to the right there, and two more smaller ones in the luggage-handling area to the left. Then, out here were the platforms are, we’re retaining the original roofline but enclosing the ends with modern glass and concrete walls. That’ll be another six, two-story units, for a total of eleven residences, starting at just under £1.2 million. Should do wonders for the local economy.”
Jones nodded and clicked on an oversized Maglite. Rodents scurried away from the light. Mark Guinness had gotten some of the basic framing installed and had apparently stopped the roof leak. All the remaining puddles seemed to have come in through the unglazed windows. The post-rain scent from outside mixed with the smell of mold and decay inside. Jones’ light scanned the whole terminal building slowly. “How does one get out to the platforms?”
“Originally, they built a tunnel, though we don’t think they were ever used. Realistically, we step out to where the track was and the hop down into the gravel and scramble back up on the other side.”
“Where was this tunnel?”
“Right over here.” Gwen led Jones into a deeper gloom past where the ticket counter had once stood, its outline permanently etched into the mosaic of tile on the floor. A rusted iron scissor gate stood mangled in the arch at the top of the staircase. Gwen couldn’t imagine trying to negotiate a staircase while moving luggage. It was no wonder this station had never expanded to use its full capacity.
“This gate’s been forced,” Jones said.
Sure enough, the two halves of the gate had been twisted apart from each other just enough to allow a man to slip through, a tattered wooden “KEEP OUT” sign pushed aside.
“We weren’t planning to do any work down there,” Gwen said. A chill blew up from the old tunnel. “We were just going to use it for the services run.”
“Well, I’d better check it out.” Jones slipped through the opening in the gate.
“Hang on, I’d better be with you,” Gwen said. “It’s our liability insurance, and my father’s a real stickler for detail.” She glared at the gate for a moment before gingerly slipping through, trying desperately not to get her suit dirty. Probably a lost cause, but it was instinct.
Jones shone the light down the staircase. Iron risers, reddened with age but intact, with wood runners descended into the gloom. Jones tentatively placed his weight on the first step. It creaked, but held. “Tread carefully,” he advised, and moved down into the blackness.
The stairs sagged under Gwen’s weight, each step feeling progressively soggier than the last. At the first landing, Jones stopped to scan below with his light. It revealed nothing other than a century and a half of rotting debris, and cobwebs so thick they could have been used as curtains. He crept down the rest of the dank stairs. Gwen followed as carefully as she could, the sound of her heels echoing off the walls.
The tunnel reeked of rot. The brickwork down here — what could be seen of it through the cobwebs and the silt — was much more utilitarian than in the station itself. Rodent bones covered the ground. Shafts of light sliced down through the darkness where staircases to the other platforms had long since collapsed and sat in piles of rotting wood and twisted rust.
LEAVE UPPER NORDMOOR!
The voice had been hoarse and airy, and seemed to come from everywhere at once.
Jones looked at Gwen. Gwen stared up at Jones.
“Hullo?” Jones called out. “Hullo? Is anybody about?”
LEAVE UPPER NORDMOOR!
The voice sent a chill through Gwen’s bones. Jones put a muscular arm around her shoulders protectively. Gwen grabbed her mobile and started recording video, evidence against whoever the prankster was.
“This is the police,” Jones said in a firm voice, his light illuminating rat bones and water stains. “Show yourself.”
The figure emerged as if made from dust. A shirtless man, moving toward them, passing through the cobwebs as if they didn’t exist. Or as if he didn’t exist.
LEAVE UPPER NORDMOOR!
His translucent mouth didn’t seem to move as he spoke, and the sound still seemed to come from everywhere.
Gwen pointed her mobile directly at the figure.
LEAVE UPPER NORDMOOR!
The shadow raised his hand. The light glinted off what could only have been a broadsword, which suddenly looked very, very solid. He brought his hands together over his head and raised the sword to strike.
Gwen screamed. Jones stepped in front of her and drew his nightstick.
The figure charged, a breathy battle cry echoing through the tunnel.
Jones fell back into Gwen as the figure slammed into him, and dissipated. The dust that had comprised him curled around Jones and chilled Gwen like a blast of arctic air from a walk-in freezer. In the air where his chest had been, a shape hung in the dust, lingering for just a second before vanishing. An odd shape, made of straight lines, almost like a Chinese character or a Rune.
LEAVE UPPER NORDMOOR!
The voice almost seemed to plead that time, and it felt as though it had been whispered directly into Gwen’s ear.
• • •
April 1837
All the chandeliers in the manor house were lit, as if they could hold the cold and dark of the night at bay. The butler, Barrowman his name was, led Phyllida Potts though the dank pantry from the kitchen and into the overwrought dining room.
Percy Tracy Hines, Baron of Upper Nordmoor, stood in what was meant to be the sitting room beyond. There wasn’t anyplace to sit anymore, as the furniture had been removed to make way for standing desks and drafting tables. The walls had been taken over by maps of England, charts, and odd lists of cities. Tracy Hines cut a dashing figure, larger-than-life and audacious even in stillness.
“The Widow Mrs. Potts,” Barrowman announced formally.
Tracy Hines smiled a broad, toothy smile. “Mrs. Potts!” He shook her hand vigorously. “It’s so good to see you. It’s been, what, five years now?”
Phyllida shifted uncomfortably in her peasant’s attire. “There like,” she said. “But I have to tell you, This is no sort of social call.”
Tracy Hines’s visage gave way to a look of genuine concern. “Why, whatever is the matter?”
“It’s all this!” Phyllida waved her hand at the maps and charts — routes for new rail lines, where great steam engines would haul people and goods across the country, and right through Upper Nordmoor. “Upper Nordmoor be a special place. You know that, you do. The villagers and me, we know you need to stop.”
“Oh, Mrs. Potts.” He placed his hands on her shoulders familiarly. “Dear, dear Mrs. Potts. I know how the villagers fear change, but this— this is inevitable. This is the future. We can’t stop the era of the railroad from coming. If we don’t embrace it, Upper Nordmoor will shrivel up and die. I’m doing this to preserve Upper Nordmoor, not to destroy it.”
Phyllida chuffed and pulled away from him, momentarily forgetting her station. “Upper Nordmoor can’t have all these outsiders! She can’t! It’s dangerous!”
Tracy Hines looked up at the overwrought ceiling. “We can’t stop now. The terminal is nearly complete. The first line is already being laid and will be here in just three weeks. We can start regular service in July.”
“Well, you have to.” Phyllida said quietly. “Or, more true, we give you no choice. Your workers won’t work for you no more. We’ve summoned The Sentinel.”
The color drained from Tracy Hines’s normally ruddy face. “I’m telling you right now, I won’t stop. You know what that means.”
“We can’t unsummon The Sentinel,” Phyllida said. “And if some of us have to die, we’re ready to. Are you ready to kill for your railroad?”
• • •
May 2026
Jones had driven Gwen down to the local pub, which for some reason Gwen couldn’t fathom had the front end of a German Fokker parked in front of it. He’d left her alone there. She sat in one of the booths, trembling, staring at an empty mug.
The landlord wandered over with a carafe. “Decaf?”
Gwen nodded, and he refilled the mug.
“I have stronger stuff,” the landlord said. “You look like you could use it.”
“No, thank you,” Gwen said. “I’m out of control enough already.” She had reviewed the video on her mobile a dozen times. It showed wind rustling through the tunnel. The video went shaky when she screamed and Jones stepped in front of the lens. No mysterious voice. No ancient warrior made of dust.
The landlord nodded with a polite smile and headed back to the bar, stopping to straighten a pastel drawing of the local manor house. The walls were decorated with etchings and photographs of it, both in its glory days and as the ruin of today. Gwen’s company had made three offers on the property, and were rebuffed each time. It was a pity. People love to be lord of the manor, even if they can only afford 1,000 square feet and a corner of a ruined stone wall.
The bell over the door rang, and Jones entered with Mark Guinness.
“Mark!” Gwen sprang to her feet and skirted between the haphazard tables to him. “Where the hell have you been?”
“Hi, Gwen,” Mark said sheepishly.
“Where did you find him?” Gwen asked Jones.
“At home,” Jones said. “Sometimes people who won’t answer their telephones will open the door for a police officer.”
Gwen ordered them over to her booth, and then went to get them drinks. “So,” she said as she sank down into the booth and dropping a pint in front of each of them, “what the hell happened?”
“I don’t think you’d believe me if I told you,” Mark said.
“You might be surprised,” Jones said.
“Well,” Mark began slowly, staring at one painting in particular which showed an elf lifting a boulder to build a castle wall, “you see, Upper Nordmoor is a very special place.”
“Yes, I know,” Gwen said. “That why we think there’ll be such a good market for condominium flats here.”
“No, not like that,” Mark said. He leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially. “There’s magic here.”
“Like broadsword-wielding ghosts,” Gwen said automatically.
Mark started back on the bench. “You saw The Sentinel?”
“The what?” Jones asked.
“The Sentinel,” Mark whispered forcefully. “He’s protected Upper Nordmoor since before there was a King of England. He doesn’t want us building in that terminal. And if you don’t do what he says, people die.”
“Look, if that this we saw is real, we can get an exorcist of something,” Gwen said.
“You can’t exorcise The Sentinel!” Mark shouted. The landlord stopped his conversation with two old men at the bar and looked over at them. Jones smiled and waved politely at them. Mark went on, “He’s not a ghost. He’s a force of the magic of Upper Nordmoor itself. If he says to stop work, I stop work. I’m sorry. That’s just it.”
Gwen met his eye carefully. “In that case, Mark, you’re in violation of your contract, and my company will expect its advance returned. I’ll get another builder to pick up where you’ve left off.”
“Gwen, you can’t!” Mark said. “The Sentinel will kill!”
“Mark,” Gwen said sharply, “we’ve got four million pounds invested in this already. If any spirit thinks it’s going to stop me now, I’ll kill.”
• • •
June 419
Ettar, the old witch, drew lines in the earth with a stick. People emerged from their round huts, roofs smoking with their cooking fires, to observe.
“A warlord moves from the East,” Ettar said in her warbly voice. “A warlord moves from the West. Two armies will meet here.”
“That’s not possible,” one of Modon’s daughters said from the edge of the crowd. “The magic protects us, keeps us hidden.”
“If they think nothing is here,” Ettar said, “they think it’s a good place for a battle.”
“Can we fight them?” Hector, the blacksmith’s son, said.
Ettar nodded, and traced a shape in the earth with her stick. Two runes, combined as one: the homeland and the pawn. “Have your father fashion this into a sigil. If you wear it, you will always be able to protect Upper Nordmoor from invasion.”
The blacksmith’s son nodded and rushed toward his father’s forge.
“And may the gods pity you,” the old witch said quietly.
• • •
May 2026
“Gwen, you can’t go down there.”
Jones had slipped into calling her by her first name so naturally that she had barely noticed. “Try and stop me,” Gwen said, and then paused. “I mean, short of using your police powers. Remember, I’m an owner of this property.”
Jones blinked but didn’t stop her. She had removed her jewelry and taken off her soiled jacket. She slipped through the gate again and began to climb down the step, wishing she’d brought flat shoes. She pulled out the crucifix on the end of her rosary and held it out in front of her. As she got to the first landing, she heard Jones on the steps above her. “I thought you said we shouldn’t be down here.”
“Well, you certainly shouldn’t be down here alone,” Jones said.
Gwen descended the rest of the way and peered down the tunnel.
LEAVE UPPER NORDMOOR!
Gwen held her rosary out in front of her.
LEAVE UPPER NORDMOOR!
“I command you to leave in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit!” Gwen shouted.
Again, mist coalesced into the form of the bare-chested soldier. LEAVE UPPER NORDMOOR!
“I will not!” Gwen barked.
The misty figure lowered his sword. The scarcely visible features on his face almost looked sad.
I KILL!
Gwen braced herself. Jones appeared beside her, his nightstick at the ready.
The Sentinel raised its sword and roared, and then vanished abruptly.
Gwen blinked.
Nothing appeared. Nothing attacked.
“So, what, now?” Jones asked. “Is it gone?”
“I don’t know,” Gwen said. “I’m making this up based on a half-remembered Catholic school education.”
“Somehow I’m not surprised you were a Catholic schoolgirl,” Jones said.
“I don’t think I—”
Jones’ mobile rang. He answered it. “P.S. Jones…. Right… On my way.” He disconnected sharply. “I’ve got to go. The landlord of the pub has a medical emergency.”
• • •
May 1837
Percy Tracy Hines stood in front of his beautiful, new train terminal, as the crew of itinerant workers huddled on the edge of the wood, refusing to move any closer. Two of them argued about whether The Sentinel had spoken in English or Gaelic.
“Don’t be cowards, lads!” he roared to the assembled workers. I know The Sentinel is quite a sight, but he’s not going to harm you!”
“It said it would kill, so it did!” one worker shouted back, in a thick Irish accent.
“It won’t kill you!” Tracy Hines roared. “And I’ll lay this track myself if I have to!”
He swept into the terminal, scooping up an enormous hammer on his way.
The workers looked at each other, concernedly.
From beyond the terminal, the sound of a stake being driven into the ground echoed off the new, brick walls.
“Percy, no!”
Phyllida Potts emerged from the wood, looking shaken. Workers parted to let her pass.
She staggered forward and collapsed on the steps.
“Percy,” she called weakly, “it will kill me!”
The Sentinel appeared over the old woman. Her scream set everyone’s hackles on end.
And Phyllida Potts breathed no more, her lifeless face frozen with her mouth still open.
• • •
May 2026
Gwen couldn’t keep up with Jones on the country lanes, and he beat her to the village by a good five minutes. She parked directly behind Jones’ police car and dashed into the pub, just in time to see Jones pull a sheet over the landlord’s body. Jones glanced up at her as she shut the door. “I think we should all clear out the pub until the coroner’s had a chance to get here,” he said authoritatively.
A few of the pub denizens nodded, a couple of them taking their drinks with them as they shuffled past Gwen into the street. Mark Guinness stood in the far corner, his face buried in shadows.
“What happened?” Gwen asked.
“I’m afraid that means you, too, Gwen,” Jones said, motioning toward the door.
“What happened?” Gwen insisted.
“It looks like it’s probably his heart,” Jones said, “but I’m not a medical examiner.”
“No,” Mark said. “It weren’t his heart. It were The Sentinel.”
“Come along, Mr. Guinness,” Jones said, “let’s all step outside the pub.”
“The Sentinel, I’m telling you!” Mark roared. “You went to confront it, didn’t you? You didn’t back down, and it killed Jim here! Just like it always kills!”
“Wait a minute!” Gwen said. “You mean it doesn’t kill us?”
“No.” Mark stepped out of the corner and loomed over the dead body. “That’s not how the magic works. Whoever summons it, it starts by killing people close to them. And if The Sentinel still doesn’t succeed in its mission, eventually it kills the summoner.”
“What kind of daft rule is that?” Jones exclaimed.
Mark shuffled, still looking down. “Keeps us from summoning him unless it’s actually important.”
“Who’s ‘we’?” Gwen asked.
Mark didn’t answer.
“Mark!” Gwen barked. “We’ve got to put a stop to this. Do you know who summoned that thing?”
Mark’s face went blank. Finally, he shook his head, slightly.
“But it’s someone who was close to what’s his name, Jim, here, right?” Gwen asked.
Another long pause preceded Mark nodding.
“Come on, Sergeant,” Gwen said. “You need to do a family notification, right?”
“Gwen, I can’t let you come with me for that,” Jones protested.
“We have to stop this thing before anyone else dies!”
Mark snapped out of his stupor. “Then you have to leave!”
“Not on your bloody life,” Gwen said, then stopped. “Sorry, bad turn of words. Look, Mark, everywhere we go there’s villagers who think we’re going to be the death of their village. We never are. Everywhere we’ve done an adaptive re-use project, the village thrives, and the people are happier afterwards. They’re just scared of change. I have to talk to whoever summoned this thing and get them to call it off.”
“You can’t call it off!” Mark bellowed. “It just keeps on killing and killing.”
“Well, then,” Gwen said, “we have to find out who it is, so I can tell them to get their estate in order.”
• • •
June 419
The newly minted sigil hung on Hector’s the bare chest. He had taken the sword his father had forged for the Lord, and walked along the riverbank toward the smoke from the fires of the enemy’s campsite.
The advancing army brought destruction in its wake, even without a battle being fought. They had cleared a chunk of forest and burned the trees to keep their bonfires sparking up into the twilight. They had killed the best game, including nursing mothers, and roasted the meat to a char.
Hector emerged into the new clearing and stood as imposingly as he knew how. Filthy men and a handful of camp followers ate, drank, and laughed raucously. Finally someone noticed him and a hush fell across the camp. “I must speak to the warlord,” the blacksmith’s son said in his strongest voice.
Several men laughed. A man with a tangled, red beard rose from beside one of the fires. He wore Roman armor that looked like it had been forged for a larger man. He swaggered up to the Hector, drawing his own sword as he moved. “And what have you to say to the warlord?”
“I say it only to the warloard,” Hector said.
“You’ll say it to me or I’ll run you through!”
“I’m the sentinel,” Hector said. “I defend the people who live here. And there’s no force in existence that can stop me.”
The red-bearded man laughed and pointed his sword at the boy’s chest. “Then show me your prowess!”
He lunged.
His sword split the blacksmith’s son’s chest just below the breastbone.
Hector’s mouth fell open. He looked down at his impaled body, and then back and the tangled-bearded man, his eyes watering in pain and disbelief.
The entire camp laughed, sneering and pointing at the dead boy who was too stubborn to fall.
“Always…” Hector whispered.
The tangled-bearded man’s sword fell to the soft bed of rotting leaves as the boy’s body vanished.
The camp went silent.
LEAVE UPPER NORDMOOR!
The boy’s figure re-formed out of smoke and mist, five times its original size.
The warlord with the tangled beard defecated on himself, and the entire army fled without stopping to pick up any equipment.
• • •
May 2026
The landlord’s wife was a round-faced woman with auburn hair. Her eyes puffed with tears and her nose glowed with blowing. She sat on an overstuffed sofa in her house across the green from the pub, Jones occupying a hard side chair across from her, his hat on his knees, keeping a respectful silence. “How… How did it happen?”
“We don’t know yet,” Jones said. “The coroner is examining him now, but it looks like natural causes.”
A new round of sobs exploded from widow.
“Someone summoned The Sentinel,” Gwen said from the foyer.
Her tears stopped instantly, and she glared at Gwen coldly.
“This doesn’t involve you, Gwen,” Jones said. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Potts.”
“You’re that developer,” the widow said.
“I’m from Winchester-Smith-Barnaby, yes,” Gwen said. “And I’m sorry about your loss. Your husband seemed like a very nice man.”
She broke down into tears again. Gwen invited herself into the sitting room and rested a hand on Jones’ shoulder. “Do you know who summoned it?”
The widow shook her head.
“We have to find out,” Gwen said, “or, if I understand this right, it’s going to kill again.”
“Why don’t you just leave!” the widow roared. “Just get out of Upper Nordmoor! You don’t know this place! You don’t love this place!”
“Of course I love this place!” Gwen roared back.
“All right, ladies…” Jones said, making a patting gesture in the air with both of his hands.
“When I select a location, it’s because I’ve completely fallen in love with it! It’s because I’d give anything I had if I could afford to live there! And I know if I feel that way, other people will, too!”
“You’re killing people!” the widow screamed.
“Whoever summoned that thing is killing people!” Gwen yelled back.
“Gwen—” Jones tried again.
“Even if I turn around and go back to London right now,” Gwen said, more calmly, “the money to this town dries up, and you all just waste away. By bringing in some residents with real money, real professional income from London, who can spend some money and invest in this glorious village, people who care about the people and the culture here — that’s the only way this village and the people in it are going to survive. So I’m not leaving. I’m fighting for the survival of Upper Nordmoor, too.”
The widow’s chest heaved.
“Now,” Gwen said firmly, “who was close enough to your husband that The Sentinel killed him first?”
• • •
June 1837
With a deafening shriek, the locomotive released a funnel of steam. It chugged, shaking the ground, as it tested the track through the station.
Percy Tracy Hines stood by the track triumphantly.
A beautiful woman in a white dress emerged from the wood on the far side of the gravel-covered artificial clearing that would one day be a labyrinth of iron tracks. She clutched a bundle wrapped in cheesecloth to her breast. As Tracy Hines saw her, his face fell. He looked both ways and crossed the tracks to meet her. “Jasmine,” he said holding out his oversized hands to her, “I’m so sorry about your mother and your brothers.”
Jasmine Potts stood unmoved, still clutching her bundle. “You killed them, you know.”
“The Sentinel killed them,” Tracy Hines said. “All I did was bring the railroad to Upper Nordmoor. Regular passenger service can start as soon as the crews to our East and West tie us into the main lines.”
“She warned you,” Jasmine said. “And you kept going anyway. You’ve always been so blinded by your dreams Percy, that you never thought about what your actions did to other people.”
“Jasmine—”
“And it didn’t stop, did it?” Jasmine said. “Even after she died. You kept going. You didn’t care who died, did you? Did you stop when she died? Did you stop when George died? Did you stop when Archie died? Who has to die before you care?”
“I care, Jasmine,” Tracy Hines said, “but I’m not the one who summoned The Sentinel. They should have thought about what they were doing first. They should have come and talked to me, and I could have reassured them that Upper Nordmoor is going to be better for the railroad, not worse.”
“You never listened,” Jasmine said, and handed her bundle to Tracy Hines. He pulled back the cheesecloth, and recoiled.
The bundle was a dead baby.
“Jasmine! Your baby?”
Jasmine Potts looked Percy Tracy Hines directly in the eyes. “Yes,” she said simply, tears coming to her eyes, “and yours, too.”
• • •
May 2026
Rebecca Potts lived in a tiny mother-in-law suite behind her son’s house.
Gwen pointed firmly at a patch of ground where Jones wouldn’t be visible from the porch, and didn’t let up until he stood there obediently. She knocked on the door.
The old lady answered the door without releasing the chain.
“Mrs. Potts?” Gwen said.
“Yes?” It was obvious from her voice that Mrs. Potts had been crying.
“My name is Gwen Winchester, and I think you’d better explain to me exactly how this magic works.”
Mrs. Potts’ eyes narrowed. “Monica called me. You’re that developer.”
“Yes, and I’m not leaving, so if you don’t want any more of your loved ones to die, you’d better start explaining.”
“Go back to London.”
Mrs. Potts moved to shut the door, but Gwen stuck her foot in it. “Then you’re killing someone else!”
“You killed my son!” Mrs. Potts roared.
“You killed your son! Now let me in before you kill someone else!”
Mrs. Potts and Gwen glared at each other. Finally, Mrs. Potts looked down at the ground and muttered. “You have to take your foot out of the door for me to open the chain.”
Gwen pulled her foot back. The door closed. It was several seconds before Gwen heard the chain slide. Mrs. Potts opened the door. She wore a simple housecoat. A ceramic copy of the symbol The Sentinel wore dangled from her neck. “You’d better bring that police officer in with you.”
Obediently, Jones stepped forward. He and Gwen stepped into the little sitting room. It was cluttered with furniture from a hodgepodge of different styles. A lot of it was probably antique, though Gwen doubted Mrs. Potts knew the value of any of it. She had a glass of water sitting without a coaster on a ring-stained Queen Anne side table next to a charming but tattered wingback armchair. Mrs. Potts motioned for Gwen and Jones to have a seat on a 1960’s sofa. “The spell can’t be cancelled,” Mrs. Potts said. “It keeps going until it does what it was summoned to do.”
“What exactly did you summon it to do?” Gwen asked.
Mrs. Potts sank down into the wingback chair. “To stop anyone from working in that train station.”
“Ever?”
Mrs. Potts blinked. “Ever? I guess. Certainly it’s to stop you from developing it.”
“So, twenty years from now, the train station is falling down and has to be demolished, does it start killing your family members again?”
Mrs. Potts trembled, and grabbed for her glass of water.
“You didn’t think this through at all, did you?”
Mrs. Potts started to cry. “You don’t understand. It’s supposed to scare you off. Nobody is supposed to die!”
“I don’t understand,” Jones said. “It scares us, but it kills you?”
Mrs. Potts sighed and shook her head. “The way the magic works is… well, it’s…”
“It’s daft is what it is,” Gwen said.
Mrs. Potts laughed slightly. “Yes, it’s daft. Nobody knows why it works the way it does.”
“Where did it come from?” Jones asked.
“The Potts women have always controlled it,” Mrs. Potts said.
“You mean your mother’s family?” Gwen asked.
“No,” Mrs. Potts said. “The Potts women. I got it from my mother-in-law. When I die, Jim’s wife will probably get it, since my Billy isn’t married. I’m not part of my old family any more. When you get married you become part of your husband’s family.”
Gwen buried her face in her hands. “Bloody villager stereotypes…” she muttered.
“How do you control it?” Jones asked.
“Well, I’m not sure,” Mrs. Potts said, staring out the window. “Just sort of, will it.”
Gwen pointed at the sigil. “What if we break that necklace there?”
“Oh, you can’t,” Mrs. Potts said, pulling it off. She dropped it on the floor and stomped on it. It didn’t so much as scratch.
Jones stood up and moved over to the sigil, kneeling down to study it more closely. He pulled out his nightstick and smacked it. The sigil bounced, but again settled to the floor without taking any damage. “This day is just getting weirder and weirder.”
“Can you give it new instructions?” Gwen said.
Mrs. Potts shook her head. “It’ll do both. And if it’s confused, it kills.”
Gwen sighed. “You’re bloody lucky my sister’s not still alive. If she’d found this thing, she’d’ve set up a turnstile outside that old train station and sold tickets, and decided it was your problem if it was killing your family.”
“It will kill me, too,” Mrs. Potts said quietly. “Then my grandchildren. It will keep killing until it’s taken every last one of us, it will.”
“And, what, it lays waste to the countryside?” Gwen asked. “There must be some way to call it off.”
Mrs. Potts shook her head. “No, all I could do is replace it.”
“How does that work?” Gwen asked.
“I volunteer to be the new Sentinel,” Mrs. Potts said. “And if it agrees, then it’s my job, for the rest of eternity.”
“So you become the ghost?” Gwen said. “You’d have to die for that, right?”
Mrs. Potts nodded, laughing slightly. “Can you just see me as the defender of Upper Nordmoor? Cutting figure I’d cast.”
“And that ends the current curse?” Gwen asked.
“It should,” Mrs. Potts said. “New Sentinel, new controller. You’re not seriously thinking I should do that, now are you?”
“Can anyone volunteer?” Gwen asked.
“Gwen, no,” Jones said.
“You keep out of this!” Gwen snapped. “Can anyone volunteer to be The Sentinel?”
“Gwen, don’t you dare!” Jones said.
“Listen!” Gwen barked. “The Winchesters have always been willing to kill themselves for their projects. My sister did. My uncle did.”
“Absolutely not!” Jones said.
Gwen sprang to her feet and rounded on Jones. “Now you listen to me! Nothing is going to stop me!”
• • •
June 419
RELEASE ME!
The Sentinel’s non-body formed from the mist and charged at Ettar, the witch, but vanished again as he got within an arm’s length of her.
RELEASE ME!
“I cannot,” the witch said, fingering her ceramic copy of the sigil. “It is your gift. It is your curse. You can only take your revenge on me if I abuse the power you chose to give both of us.”
RELEASE ME!
“I will not.”
DECEIVED!
“You wished to defend Upper Nordmoor. You shall always defend Upper Nordmoor.”
WILL NEVER KILL FOR YOU!
The witch rose from the stone on the green and shuffled back toward her own hut, where her husband worked into the night baking his latest batch of clay pots.
WILL NEVER OBEY!
• • •
May 2026
“Are you sure about this?” Jones asked.
Gwen nodded. “Are you?”
“I’m long past the point where I can put this in a report,” Jones said.
Night had fallen. An owl hooted. Rodents scraped along the masonry. Gwen pulled the sigil old Mrs. Potts had given her out of her purse and held it tightly.
Step-by-step, joined at the hip as if in a three-legged race, they moved together up the steps and into the train station.
LEAVE UPPER NORDMOOR!
“I have the sigil!” Gwen yelled. “We have come to release you.”
The moon cut through the clouds at exactly that moment, illuminating a dank mist coming off of a drainage ditch somewhere.
The mist formed into a body. But it didn’t take an attacking posture. Suddenly The Sentinel seemed small, more boy than man.
RELEASE ME?
“Yes,” Jones said, snatching the sigil from Gwen. “I’m here to release you.”
“Jones! Don’t you dare!” Gwen snatched at the sigil, but he took advantage of his greater height and lifted it up over his head.
“I’m a police officer,” Jones said. “Defending Upper Nordmoor is my job!”
“You’re a male chauvinist pig who is refusing to let a woman make her own choices!”
RELEASE ME?
“Jones! NO!” Gwen jumped, trying to reach the sigil, grabbing his shoulder to pull herself up.
“Yes!” Jones yelled. “From now on, I will be The Sentinel!”
RELEASE—
The mist became flesh. A naked boy of about fifteen appeared wearing an iron version of the sigil around his neck, a bloody cut in his chest just underneath it.
Gwen fell to the tile floor, two fingernails and a heel breaking as she hit. She cried out in anguish, clawing at the air where Jones had been.
But Jones was gone.
The boy collapsed to the floor, shaking violently, crying.
“Jones, no…” Gwen sobbed. “You bastard, no.”
Instinctively, Gwen grabbed the boy and hugged him to her shoulder. She stared at the nothingness where Jones had been.
The mist shifted in the moonlight. Gwen almost thought she saw a figure in it, but it never formed.
“It’s all right,” Gwen whispered to the boy, sniffling. “You’ll be all right.”
The sounds of night creatures competed with their sobs.
The boy spoke, but his words didn’t come out sounding anything like English.
“Shh,” Gwen said. “It’s all right. You’re all right now.”
And they didn’t move. For now, she and the boy just cried.
And, somewhere in the mist, she thought she almost heard Jones one last time.
About the author and the piece (click to expand)
Patricia Court tells us that they wrote this as part of a shared world anthology that ended up never getting published before the writers’ collective behind it dissolved. They reworked it to remove the shared-world elements, but it never found another home. Patricia is an avid cat collector who watches entirely too much British television.
©2026 by Patricia Court. All rights reserved. May not be used for A.I. training.