Blake and Wynsum Fry

Blake and Wynsum Fry are linked by an unsettling encounter and by Blake’s conviction that Wynsum’s appearances are deliberate. Their connection remains ambiguous: Blake does not offer proof of supernatural power, but insists that Wynsum is dangerous and that meeting her cannot be treated as chance. A king of spades left at Blake’s gate makes that unresolved tension tangible, tying Wynsum’s attention to her hostility toward Jack Harkness.

Encounter and Its Aftermath

Blake’s account places Wynsum on a cliff above the cove, watching as Blake stood by the rocks near the Bonython stream. The scene begins in unusual calm: the sea is still, the air is clear, and Blake has gone down early to look for driftwood. Against that quiet, Wynsum’s presence feels less like an ordinary meeting than an interruption. Blake notices the practical difficulty of her arrival: she has no car, the first bus from Helston goes to Lizard village, and walking from the main road seems unlikely. Yet she is there, looking directly at Blake.

The moment is brief. Wynsum disappears from view, apparently by stepping back, although Blake describes the effect as if she had blinked out. Blake goes around by the shore road and climbs the lane towards the cliff, but finds no trace of her. The contrast between Wynsum’s normally slow movements and this sudden vanishing sharpens Blake’s uncertainty: the account records what Blake sees, while leaving open whether the disappearance is a trick, a misperception, or something Blake cannot explain.

Blake also considers a less personal reason for Wynsum’s watchfulness. Perhaps she was examining the rock pools and trying to identify the one in which her brother drowned; Blake wonders whether years of storms and tides have shifted the rocks enough to make the original pool impossible to locate. This speculation complicates the encounter rather than resolving it. Wynsum may have been watching Blake, or absorbed in a place bound to her own past, and Blake cannot establish which.

The Card and Harkness

When Blake returns to the entrance gate, a king of spades playing card is pinned to a pillar with a rusty pin. Blake identifies the card as Wynsum’s mark and explains that Wynsum calls Harkness the King of Spades. The object therefore carries a message associated with Harkness, even though it is left at Blake’s gate. Wynsum’s action draws Blake into a conflict whose immediate target or purpose remains uncertain: Blake wonders why the card has appeared now, but the account supplies no answer.

Blake removes the pin, and the card falls to the ground. Rather than pick it up, Blake leaves it face down, noticing a geometrical labyrinth pattern on its reverse and wondering whether Wynsum selected it specially. Later, the card is gone. Blake hopes Wynsum has gone too, but the disappearance of the card does not explain who removed it or whether Wynsum returned. The sequence gives their connection a material trace while withholding a clear message: the card marks Wynsum’s presence, but its specific meaning to Blake is not disclosed.

Blake’s Warning to Don

Blake’s strongest account of the relationship comes in a conversation with Don Challenor after Don has encountered Wynsum. Blake rejects the idea that the meeting was accidental, telling him that he does not meet Wynsum by chance. The warning is categorical, but Blake does not ground it in a simple claim of belief. When Don asks whether Blake truly considers her a witch, Blake makes belief itself secondary: what matters, Blake says, is that things happen, and that their occurrence makes their nature apparent.

That distinction helps explain why Blake’s attitude is difficult to reduce to either credulity or skepticism. Don frames witchcraft through familiar supernatural imagery, including spells and broomsticks, and dismisses the possibility that Wynsum’s playing cards merit trust. Blake does not answer by demonstrating a supernatural mechanism. Instead, Blake treats the consequences of an encounter as more persuasive than an abstract argument about what is possible. The warning is grounded in experience and apprehension, though the evidence leaves the source of that apprehension uncertain.

Blake also explains how Wynsum first entered their life. A woman Blake used to clean for mentioned going to Wynsum, prompting Blake to seek her out. Blake expected a harmless elderly woman who would tell a visitor what they wanted to hear, but found her very different and far from harmless. Blake tells Don that the earlier encounter was meant to help and proved a mistake. The account does not specify what help Blake sought or what Wynsum did; it establishes instead the gap between Blake’s expectation and subsequent judgment.

A Relationship Defined by Uncertainty

Blake’s descriptions combine practical observation with conclusions that exceed what can be verified. The bus route, the distance from the main road, Wynsum’s usual slowness, the hidden card, and the vanished figure are concrete details; none independently proves that Wynsum has supernatural abilities. At the same time, Blake refuses to let the absence of proof make the encounter ordinary. The tension between those positions is central to their connection: Blake reports an unexplained presence, considers mundane alternatives, and still warns Don not to dismiss Wynsum as harmless.

Wynsum’s relationship to Blake is conveyed chiefly through watching, a cryptic sign, and Blake’s retrospective account of seeking her out. There is no evidence here of a settled alliance or continuing intimacy. Instead, the contact moves from Blake’s mistaken expectation of harmless counsel to unease at being watched and marked, then to an effort to keep Don from repeating Blake’s mistake. The card’s association with Harkness further suggests that Wynsum’s attention reaches beyond Blake, but its placement at the gate makes Blake a witness—and possibly a recipient—of that attention. Their connection consequently remains unresolved: Wynsum’s actions are specific, while their intention and means remain obscure.