Doctor Who: The Way Through the Woods (14 page)

‘Mr Williams, I don’t understand all this—’

‘Doesn’t sound much like Harry Thompson any more, does it?’ Turning back to Harry once again, Rory said, ‘How many? How many have come here?’

‘One hundred and seventy-three,’ the young man rattled off promptly, like a machine reading out data.

Rory recoiled. There was a sick taste in his mouth. ‘A hundred and seventy-three!’

Emily pulled at his arm. ‘You’d better start explaining things, mister, or else I’m going to start getting right ticked off with you.’

‘How many pictures did we count, Emily?’

‘What?’

‘On the screen over there. How many different people?’

‘More than a hundred, I reckon. We never got to the end, did we? What are you saying, Mr Williams?’

‘This isn’t Harry,’ Rory said. He stood up, and turned away, repulsed. He ran down to the console, waving it back to life, and he started hunting, certain now that he would eventually find what he was looking for.

‘All these
people
!’ he said, as the images rushed past. ‘They came this way, and it took their memories! Emily, that might be Harry’s body, but it’s certainly not Harry that’s talking to us. It’s the ship!’

Rory looked down at the console. He waved his hand and stopped the flow of pictures. The blow on the head hadn’t taken his memories away. There he was, on the screen, surrounded by impenetrable text. ‘It takes memories! The ship steals memories! My memories!’

In the foyer of the police station, Jess watched the storm and waited for the car to arrive to take her home. As the wind hammered at the roof, Galloway came through the double doors that led back into the main part of the building. He stood for a moment peering unhappily out at the rain running in rivulets down the window. Then he pulled out a newspaper and shook it out to use as an umbrella.

It was worth one last try. ‘Please,’ Jess said. ‘Don’t search the woods. Talk to the Doctor first—’

‘I have talked to him. All I want to know is where he’s keeping Laura Brown. Unfortunately, he had nothing useful to say.’ Galloway pushed open the entrance doors. ‘Go home, Ms Ashcroft. Get a good night’s sleep. Call me tomorrow once you’ve had a chance to think – and if you’ve anything sensible to say.’

He ducked out into the rain. It was lashing down now, a real storm. Jess watched the inspector sprint across to his car, holding his copy of
The Herald
over his head. There was a flash of lightning followed by a long roll of thunder so loud it almost seemed to make the ground shudder. This, Jess thought, desperately, was how it would feel at the end of the world. Soon the dogs would be going into the woods, yelling, barking, on the hunt for the strange fox creature that she had surely seen…

Behind her, the officer at the desk, in a doubtful voice, said, ‘Inspector Galloway didn’t mention anything about it…’

‘No?’ A young female voice. ‘Well, he was quite clear in his instructions to me.’

Jess looked round. There was Ruby Porter, a study in nonchalance. Standing behind her…

The Doctor, handcuffed, and uncharacteristically meek.

‘He’s wanted down at the search,’ Porter went on. ‘If we really
are
going to search the woods,’ she and the officer shook their heads at outsiders who insisted on blundering about near Swallow Woods, ‘then I suppose we’d better do it properly.’ At this point, Porter noticed Jess. ‘How about I give Ms Ashcroft that lift home at the same time? Save you the bother of rustling up a car.’

Now that Porter had given him a solution to his small but immediately pressing problem, the officer was much more willing to let the pair past. Pushing the Doctor ahead of her, Porter walked over to the doors.

‘Follow me,’ she muttered to Jess on her way past. Jess dutifully obeyed. Porter led them through the rain towards a little dark blue car. ‘In the back, both of you,’ she hissed.

Jess opened the back door and shoved the Doctor in, hurrying after him and shaking the water from her hair as soon as she was inside. Porter, getting into the driver’s seat, said, ‘I suppose I’m going to get disciplined for this. At the very least. Probably fired.’

‘Cheer up!’ the Doctor said. ‘Might never happen! Might not get the chance. After all, it’s entirely possible that this time next week the town won’t be here any longer. Under those circumstances, I seriously doubt anyone would have disciplinary procedures on their mind—’

Porter, furiously, started the car.

‘Doctor—’ Jess said, urgently.

He raised his cuffed hands to stop her. ‘The word you are looking for,’ he said, ‘is were-fox.’ He leaned forwards to address Porter. ‘Constable,’ he said, ‘the gadget with the green light. Did you have any success in… umgph!’

The end of his sentence was lost. Porter had shoved the sonic screwdriver between his teeth, without taking her eyes off the road. The Doctor turned and dropped the device into Jess’s lap.

‘Ms Ashcroft,’ he said politely, holding up his cuffed hands and nodding down at the sonic. ‘That button, there— No,
there
. Yes! That’s the one!’

‘It’s not Harry talking to us,’ Rory said. ‘It’s the ship! It takes memories! The ship steals memories. My memories!’

It was as if the ship heard him speak. Once again, the walls shuddered, with even more force, and the body-that-was-once-Harry convulsed. Emily put her arm around the boy’s shoulder.

‘Stolen your memories?’ she snapped. ‘Nonsense! You got a tap on the head, that’s all! Not stolen any of mine, has it?’

‘Perhaps it can only cope with one person at a time. Perhaps you’re next! Oh, I don’t know, Emily, I’m not the memory-stealing spaceship!’

‘Anyway, how can a man be a ship? That’s like saying he’s a motor car or a train!’

‘It’s using his body as a kind of transmitter…’ Rory cast around for an example she might understand. ‘Like he’s a walking telegram! He’s carrying messages from the ship to us. He’s the means by which the ship is able to talk to us.’

‘Well, if he’s passing on messages, that’s good, isn’t it? We’ll be able to talk to the ship, maybe ask it to let us go home?’

‘You don’t understand – the ship isn’t
asking
him to pass on messages. It’s
making
him do it.’

‘Eeuw!’ said Emily. ‘That’s horrible!’ Her hold on Harry’s hand got tighter. ‘But is Harry still in there? Are you there, love? Can you hear me?’

‘I don’t think he can be there. I think the ship has taken his memories, like it’s taken some of mine—’

‘Poor thing!’ said Emily, and from the way she was stroking Harry’s hand, Rory got the distinct impression she wasn’t talking about him.

‘Er, excuse me? My memories too? Pinched? Stolen? Not here?’

‘Oh, yes, but look – you’re still intact, aren’t you? Still standing, still talking. Whereas Harry can’t remember a thing, and as for the ship… Well, you heard it! All that talk of learning, and growing – it sounds like a child to me.’

‘Pinched!’ Rory tapped the side of his head. ‘Stolen! No longer there! Honestly, what does somebody have to do to get some sympathy around here?’

‘I’m not saying it’s not horrible for you, just that I don’t think it knew any better.’

‘That’s all very well for you to say, Emily, but it’s not your memories that have been stolen! And it’s not you that could have been turned into a walkie-talkie!’

‘A whichety-what?’ Emily shook her head. ‘You do talk some nonsense! And look! You’re upsetting him!’ She put her arm around Harry, who was shaking violently. ‘Hush, love, it’s all right!’

‘Me? Upsetting
him
? Anyway, him – it’s not a him, it’s an it! And what about all the people it’s taken? Too right it should be upset! It should be very upset! Not to mention ashamed!’

Harry – or the ship – began to moan, a low drone pitched at the same level as the engine’s throb, like the wind howling round a wasteland.

‘Oh, do stop! Look what you’re doing to him!’ Emily patted the young man’s hand. ‘Shush now! Don’t you worry! It’s not your fault.’

‘Er, well, actually, it
is
its fault. One hundred and seventy-three times over. All those people! It doesn’t bear thinking about… What did it
do
with them? Did they spend their days like Harry here, stolen from their friends and their family, walking around this tiny ship like… like
zombies
! It’s awful, Emily! And it could have happened to us! It could have taken us! It’s already taken some of my memories! Did I mention that? My memories? Taken?’

‘
Taken
…’ whispered the ship, in Harry’s voice. ‘
Stolen
…
Lost
…’ Slowly, tears began to roll down the young man’s cheeks. Once again, the walls around them shook hard, as if a deep and guilty wave of sorrow was passing through them.

‘Don’t, Mr Williams! Please! Can’t you see you’re distressing it? It’s like bullying a child!’ To the young man, the young ship, Emily said, ‘Don’t listen to him, love! Here, what should I call you? If you’re not really Harry? Do you have a name? Can you tell me? No? Ship sounds so funny, but I suppose it’ll have to do. Don’t upset yourself, Ship. You didn’t know what you were doing. Now you know, you can stop, can’t you?’

‘Maybe it can stop, but it can’t take back what it’s done,’ Rory pointed out. And with another deep sigh of shuddering grief, Ship said:

‘Sorry… Sorry to be… Sorry to be born…’

It shook again. The lights on the walls dimmed and flickered. This time some patches stayed dark, and others turned an alarming red. The hum rose in pitch and volume, the unmistakable sound of an alarm, like a wind howling through the trees.

‘Can’t you see what you’re doing?’ Emily said to Rory. ‘You’re hurting it! For all we know you could be killing it! What happens to us then, Mr Williams? What happens to us all then?’

A great gale tore through Swallow Woods. The trees shook and threw whatever they could into the path of Amy Pond. She ducked to avoid a branch that flung itself at her, and ran on. There was a grey patch of light ahead. Amy chased it—

And came out into the glade, the portal place, the ancient green chapel where all paths led. She could distinguish no season here now. The rain lashed down, the trees rocked to and fro as if in pain, and, in the centre of the clearing, the water in the pool was rising. In the distance, faintly, Amy heard the barking of dogs.

‘Got to go,’ Amy told herself. ‘Got to get out!’

She ran beneath one of the great silent arches, the storm battering her. A few minutes later – breathless, exhausted, soaked to the skin – she saw another grey slab of light…

And came back into the clearing, where the trees were writhing and the water still rising. Again, she tried – ran through beating rain with the yell of hounds ringing in her ears – and again she got no further than the glade. The pool was swollen, overflowing, the water lapping almost at her ankles now. This, surely, was the start of whatever disaster was going to befall Swallow Woods and the people of Foxton. Amy had tried her best, but either it had not been enough, or else it had been the last straw.

Teeth chattering, bitterly cold, Amy sank to the ground. The rain lashed against her face. She scrubbed at the water, and then saw, standing on the other side of the glade, framed by a swaying arch of old trees, Reyn.

‘I truly am sorry,’ he said, ‘but I did not lie to you. You cannot leave Swallow Woods.’

‘I must!’ Amy yelled. ‘I have to! There’s nobody else!’

‘But look around you, Amy! Look at what’s happening!’

Thunder rolled and there was a flash of light. Torches? Searchlights? Lightning? Amy could not tell. She put her arms across her knees and dropped her head wearily down against them. ‘There has to be a way. There
must
be!’

‘I’m sorry, Amy,’ Reyn said. ‘There’s no way through the woods.’

‘Of course there’s a way,’ another voice said, a familiar voice that made Amy’s heart somersault in her chest. ‘There’s always a way.’

It felt to Amy as if she had been locked in a deep dark dungeon, and somebody had thrown open the door, let in fresh air and bright sunlight, and then showed her that the key had been in her pocket all along. She leapt to her feet, and cried out in joy.

‘Doctor!’

There he was, the Doctor, leaning against a tree, chucking the sonic screwdriver up into the air and catching it, and looking very pleased with himself.

Amy ran over – and belted him on the arm. ‘You took your time!’

‘Ow! Don’t be
too
excited about seeing me, will you?’

‘I’ve been running around here like a hamster on a wheel, getting
soaked
… What have you been
doing
?’

‘Breaking out of jail. I’m an outlaw now, Pond, a vagabond. A man on the run. I live on the edge, with only my wits and my trusty sonic screwdriver to keep me one step ahead of the law.’

‘So they let you out?’

‘It was in fact a touch more clandestine than that. There was actual stealth involved at one point – but, yes, broadly speaking, they let me out.’

‘And Jess? What about Jess and Vicky? Did they get through?’

‘They got through, just about…’ The Doctor switched on the sonic, and waved it around vigorously and possibly even to some specific end. ‘Ooh, I see! All got very complicated here, hasn’t it? All these fixes and patches. And then three people come along at once! Ship and pilot were so busy with you, Amy, that Vicky and Jess were able to get past both of them… Look at these readings! Someone’s not in as much control round here as he’d like to think. Speaking of whom…’ he swung round and pointed the sonic at Reyn, ‘are you going to introduce us, Amy?’

He was staring at the were-fox with the kind of look that he generally reserved for his more intractable foes.

‘This is Reyn,’ Amy said. ‘Now don’t go Time Lord on him. He didn’t mean any harm…’

‘They usually don’t.’

‘He’s been stuck here too! He couldn’t fix the ship and get away—’

‘Fatalism. Dreadful habit. Leads to all kinds of vices, like trapping passing strangers in your timeless fantasy playground or not bothering to brush your teeth.’

‘I think he’s done his best with limited resources,’ Amy said. ‘No bad breath, at any rate.’ She wiped her face. It was still raining heavily and from beyond the trees came a faint but persistent barking. ‘Doctor, are you going to stand around being all Dark Knight about this for much longer? Or can we skip to the bit where we find out what’s happening and then stop it?’