What happened next

To those assembled, it did indeed seem as if nothing had happened. "Give it a moment", said Cedric.
The word had been heard a thousand times by everyone but only Cedric knew the secret of intonation.
There were no thunderous sounds, no flashes of lightning. They were standing round the hole in the road.
"What just happened?", asked Mellisa, a little confused but strangely calm. Bertha smiled knowingly.
"He's shifted us. It's a bit like pressing a re-set button". Mellisa frowned, "Can you do that?" she asked quietly.
Bertha gave a brief nod. "Our Cedders may be a bit of a dollop, but he knows his incantations!"
It was a strange group standing around the pit. Cedric, Mellisa, Bertha, a Victorian school teacher, William the dandy
and now there were two others who hadn't been there a few moments before. Cedric turned to an elderly man in a grey suit
who was cleaning his half moon glasses. "James", said Cedric, "Glad you could make it." James placed his spectacles
on the bridge of his nose, "I didn't really have much choice dear boy, if you're going to start invoking time bending
mantras, no one and nothing is safe. I assume it was the Abra derivitive?". Cedric nodded that it was.
The slight, grey haired woman at Jame's side spoke for the first time. "Jimmy dear, is this going to take long? I've got
a cake in the oven at home". James patted her hand, "Dotty my love, time will take what it needs for itself"
James addressed Cedric. "Are you ready?" he asked. Cedric glanced whistfully at Bertha. "I'm ready", he said.
James closed his eyes and mumbled something under his breath. Cedric shimmered for a moment then vanished silently.
James looked round at his new companions. "It's back to the potting shed for our Cedric! Now, to the task at hand...."

Cedric may have appeared to be a dollop but he had hidden depths, gifts and talents. The other-worldies would watch him in his potting shed. Cose to their nature and able to raise green things out of that brown substance. He was one with nature : the seasons, her stirrings and vagaries. They felt,given time, they could learn of this world via him. Will was a poser and the grey suits grey and boring, interested only in desecrating this world and not the intrinsic rhythmic, patterns of time and space. They were clones of Sir john Major, bankers all. Cedric was not aware of his gifts. He was a simple man and happy in his body, poor as it was. Bertha, Melissa and the Victorian teacher all sensed his special qualities but could not quantify them-they just thought he was worth it. They sensed his animal magnetism,the raw sexuality in the body of a youth-Adonis personified-potential for what? Back at the pit Will de Smythe noticed there were scattered bladders, empty, bearing his logo "Oh acracadardabria, fiddlesticks they have imbibed my elixir. Oh God what next?".................

Will found his notebook inside his blazer and flicked through some pages 'ah ha' he said to himself that's what I want. He stood up straight cleared his throat and spoke the words 'through time and space, fire and earth, take me back to the entrance of hell.' And with a flash he was standing between Bertha & Melissa. 'Thank goodness that worked I was frightened I was going to appear next to the grim reaper himself!' he said in a high pitched voice, everyone laughed.

Nervous laughter echoed round. They were all tense. They sensed something momentous was happening. In their different ways they were all reacting to the atmospherec, momentum surrounding them. The birds had stopped singing, the world was silent and still except for a crescendo of breeze, then wind, then a rushing, gushing sound through the leaves of the trees. the grass shivered. Darkness descended, cloying, toying with the group. They hugged themselves, quivering, shivering as if to reassure their psyches that they would cope with whatever the immediate futurewould bring. The pit was molten, expanding and shrinking, molten larva ,blood red, viscuous and oily was bubbling, churning, turning and heaving. Sulphurous, stinking smoke filled the air and stung their lungs-the ground heaved,undulating-a primeal roar filled their world. Will cupped his hands round his mouth and screamed: "Look yonder, over that hill,there's a..................................and do you know what? They have

have only three legs Tripodia are the only terrestrial organisms of a sufficient size to be seen by the naked eye and what a size. Elephantine and balancing precariously on only three points of contact with the ground they were hunted almost to the [point of extinction back in humanity's early history when the unusually rapid onset of mutation followed by even more rapid survival of the fittest left the remainder both invisible and insubstantial.
Now here they were suddenly visible and solid, their gate a slow whirl from one pod to the next advancing over blue remembered hills in a menacing formation. What fiend had suspended the laws of the universe this time? Had a few words uttered without understanding of the consequences caused such a change, arousing an archetype from the collective unconscious, or a product of hysteria? Then again

Melissa turned to Bertha 'We need to warn everyone to stay in doors and get in their cellars' She screamed over the deafening sound. 'I know someone at Sky News' She shouted back to Melissa 'Try filming them on your phone so and sending it to me so I can show my friend as proof' She said close to Melissa's ear. Melissa got her IPhone out and tried to film them without shaking. Then sent it to Bertha. Wow she thought Bertha knows a lot of people.