.

After leaving Pascal on my doorstep, Magnus strode off, turned the corner, and a few seconds later I heard a car engine start, then the familiar sound of gravel snap crackle and popping.

"What's this all about?"

Pascal looked pretty miserable. "You and I got the flu hard but we normally don't get sick. Everyone thinks it's because we're despondent."

"It's Valentine's Day, I'm not allowed to go to work, and Chester is full of hot women. Do I look despondent?"

He smiled, just a little. "No. But Henri says he's cutting off the wifi until I talk to someone about my feelings. Preferably Max, he said, but he also gave me the option of whispering my worries to a stone and throwing it into a river."

I was in the doorway and Pascal was down one step. I wasn't sure if I wanted him to come in. "Hmm. I'm not in the mood to talk about my feelings and I don't think I ever will be. We could tell everyone we talked. You're a bad liar, though. Tell you what, I'll drive you to a river. You can confess that you've been training like shit, throw the stone, and we can go to Cheshire Oaks. I want to buy a shoe rack."

Pascal stepped aside and waved. He waved at nothing. Literally nothing.

"Dude!" I said, and if I hadn't been fully awake until that moment, I certainly was now. "Where's my car?"

"It's what I'm trying to say. It's a conspiracy. The Brig has stolen your car."

"Hasn't he heard of taxis?"

"He probably has told every taxi firm in Cheshire to inform him if you try to escape."

I shook my head and sighed. "You might as well have a cup of tea while we decide what to do. Have you had brek?"

"Yes, Max."

He wiped his feet and slipped his trainers off, leaving them where Emma had said to put a shoe rack. He was in his Chester training tracksuit - he'd obviously been kidnapped at some point between leaving his room in the digs and leaving the house, otherwise he would have had his kit bag with him. "Take a seat," I said, and popped the kettle on. He sat and looked at the documents on my kitchen tables - I had a sudden pang of fear. Had I written anything specifically about the curse? Nothing that could get me caught, I didn't think. I took two clean mugs and picked up my box of Yorkshire Tea. When I did so, my hand passed through the box - a very strange feeling. The reason was simple - for the first time since I'd moved in, there was no box of tea.

Panic ensued.

"Are you all right?"

"Emma drank the last tea and didn't replace it! What the shit. I thought she was classy."

"There are teabags there."

"Where?" But I'd already seen what he meant. Next to the bread bin was a tupperware. I opened it, removed two tea bags, and clipped it closed again. "Why? Why would someone do this? Oh! The biccies!" My Hobnobs had also been transplanted from their natural home - the packet, twisted round at the end - into another tupperware. "She's running riot! Can you believe this? What next?"

"It keeps them fresh."

"What marginal gain you get in freshness you lose in accessibility. No, this is awful." For a moment, I wondered if letting Emma move in had been a mistake. Between the way she was enshittifying tried-and-tested systems and the Brig stealing my car and my physios telling me what to do and where not to go, I felt surrounded by people controlling me, and I did not like that.

"There's a match missing," said Pascal.

"What?"

"Here on your papers." I used a teaspoon to jiggle the teabags in the mugs, then walked around behind him. He'd been looking through my fixture printouts. Page 5 of 7 included five of the January fixtures, plus all the February ones. Above 'February 2024' I'd used a marker to draw a thick line and written 'transfer window closes'. When I'd drawn that line, I'd felt that it represented an impassable wall. Once I crossed that threshold, my squad would be fixed for the rest of the season and I could plan accordingly. Yeah, great. That line hadn't stopped the Saudi Pro League signing one of my players.

The page was mostly clear - the date and time of the fixtures, the names of the clubs, and even their crests. But with matches being postponed and rearranged, it had got somewhat chaotic. Less printed, more handwritten. I scanned up and down. "What's wrong?"

Pascal tapped the very bottom. "Peterborough Sports should be here. It was rearranged for Tuesday 27th."

"You're right. Thanks. Can you fill it in?"

While he did that, I jiggled the tea again. You have to agitate the water so it brews properly. "What are these numbers?"

"Which?"

"Farsley have 37. Hereford 40. It's not the fixture number."

Those were the average CAs from the last time we'd played those teams, and was the most cursey thing I'd written down since Jackie had been to my house in Moss Side (when I had a perk shopping list written on some paper by the toaster), but it felt pretty safe to talk about it. "It's an estimate of the team's strength. Helps me rotate the team. Farsley and Hereford are among the weakest in the division so we can rest two of Glenn, Aff, Sam, or Henri. Then it's Spennymoor, right?"

"Yes. 44."

"Yeah, they're not bad. They have their moments. Not too worried about them, but I wouldn't have, like, three of the fifteen-year-olds on the bench or anything like that."

"What number shall I write for Peterborough Sports?"

"43."

"Then it's Kidderminster. Away. 51."

"You can change that to 52."

"Is it out of one hundred?"

"The points system is based on ancient Mayan poetry. It's hard to explain." I added milk to his tea, stirred, and placed it in front of him. He mumbled thanks and looked significantly towards the kitchen counter but if he was hoping I'd offer him sugar, he was dead wrong. First, no, gross, disgusting, don't do that. Second, I didn't have any sugar.

I stared in horror at a new jar that had appeared beside the bread bin. It was white and had a cute lid and a five-letter word printed in an old-fashioned font. The word started with the letter S.

"Is this how you plan?"

I finished my own tea and returned to the table. "It helps. It's all in my head but sometimes I like to write things down. You get a different perspective if you think it or read it or write it. Like this. The current league table."

I wrote out the top four positions.

Team

P

W

D

L

F

A

GD

Pts

Chester

Kidderminster

York

Darlington