Doctor Who: The Way Through the Woods (8 page)

‘But we haven’t heard a peep out of Rory since we left him in 1917,’ Amy told Jess. ‘Look, I know it’s a lot to take on board all at once, but I’ve found that if you don’t bother worrying about how it can possibly make sense, it suddenly all makes sense. If I’m making any sense.’

They were sitting in Jess’s car, which she had parked on Long Lane, near the start of the footpath that led across the fields past Swallow Woods. A century earlier, Rory and Emily had passed this way, before vanishing.

‘Oh, I’m following you,’ Jess said. ‘I’m not sure I like where it’s taking me, but I’m following you. Carry on.’

Amy began winding her scarf back round her neck. ‘OK, so we waited and we waited. I was supposed to go after Laura into Swallow Woods, but we didn’t get the signal from Rory in time. Next thing we knew, Laura was gone. We hopped back to 1917 to take a look, and there was Rory heading into the woods with Emily.’ She frowned. ‘Oh, yes, very cosy… Anyway, that meant everything was still going to plan. We nipped back to now, and I got ready to follow Vicky Caine. But still no signal from Rory. So we popped forwards fifty years to see if there was anyone else we could follow, and that’s when we found out that the woods and the town weren’t there! We were both getting a bit panicky now – well, I was – because we knew then that you were the last one, and that if I didn’t go with you, we’d have missed our chance, and that whatever is going to happen will happen… Will have happened… Oh, you know what I mean! Don’t think about it too hard. Not to mention that poor Rory was nowhere to be found… A perfectly straightforward clean-up job. What a joke! Nothing’s ever straightforward with the Doctor.’

‘The Doctor. Yeah, I’ve seen him around,’ said Jess. ‘You notice new people here. Particularly new people like
that
. Tall, thin, jumps around as if someone’s put a hundred-and-fifty volts through him. Oh, and the bow tie, of course. Very dapper. Makes him look like someone senior in
Mad Men
.’

‘Dapper?’ said Amy in disgust. ‘That bow tie is a disgrace— Hey! You know the Doctor?’

‘Small town, and my job is to know what’s happening in it. I know when people go missing, and I know when strangers pop up from nowhere and start hanging around Swallow Woods. Particularly when one of them wears a bow tie and jumps up and down a lot. You’re both a touch cracked, aren’t you?’

‘Maybe. But that doesn’t mean we’re not telling you the truth.’

‘Hmm. Well, I’ve been trying to keep tabs on your friend. Not an easy job, given that those occasions when he left town for a few days now turn out to be minor excursions backwards and forwards through time. Still, I’ve done my best, even if my poor car’s racked up the mileage.’ She patted the dashboard. ‘Could have been worse, I suppose.’

‘Oh, so
that’s
why it took so long to find you!’ Amy rolled her eyes heavenwards. ‘While I was dragging around town looking for you, you were busy driving about looking for the Doctor! Well, that’s great. That’s typical. Anyway, you’d have struggled to find him today—’

‘—because he’s helping the police with their enquiries.’ Jess turned the key in the ignition and the engine and the lights went off. ‘Poor Gordon Galloway. I think he may have drawn the short straw. At least you occasionally make sense.’ She smiled at Amy through the darkness. ‘Told you it was my business to know everything that happens around here.’

‘OK, now I’m officially speechless.’

‘Thank goodness for that… Are you ready for our excellent adventure, Amy? I think it’s about due to start.’

‘Always ready,’ said Amy, and grinned.

They left the car, crossed the lane, and climbed over the fence. As they walked across the field, Jess said, ‘Don’t you get scared, Amy?’

‘Scared? Of course. But even when things are scary, they’re still amazing.’

‘I didn’t mean that so much as… Tinkering with time. Don’t you worry you’ll get something wrong? Break things somehow so that they can’t be put right?’

‘You can’t think that way,’ Amy said. ‘You’d be paralysed if you did. If I’ve learned anything from the Doctor, it’s that it’s always better to act. It’s always better to do
something
. OK, and then it’s true that you have to accept the consequences. But if you think about it, nobody’s guaranteed a happy ending, are they? Not in the great scheme of things. And you never know in advance what ending is best.’

‘Not much different from real life, then?’

‘Not really, no. Sometimes the heebie-jeebies are worse.’

The trees were now very close. ‘I think I understand where you’re coming from,’ Jess said, feeling some heebie-jeebies of her own.

‘Ready?’

‘Ready.’

The two young women clasped hands, and together walked into Swallow Woods.

At once, the light changed. They were no longer walking at night through a wood on the cusp of winter. Here, now – wherever and whenever this was – it was daytime, and it was summer.

‘Oh,’ Jess whispered.

‘OK,’ said Amy briskly. ‘Don’t worry. This’ll be one of those warp thingies the Doctor was talking about. It’s a perfectly normal side effect of this particular kind of interstellar drive. We’ll soon get used to it.’

‘Amy, your voice is shaking.’

‘Is it? Well, the Doctor said that disorientation was…’

‘Perfectly normal?’ Jess brushed her hand through the thick green leaves of the nearest tree sending golden trails of pollen drifting down. ‘So as soon as time starts progressing in a linear fashion, and the paths start going where I expect them to go – that’s when I should start worrying?’

‘That’s when you should start worrying,’ Amy confirmed. They looked at each other and burst out laughing. ‘It’s amazing, though, isn’t it?’ Amy said. ‘Like stepping through a portal and coming out on another world.’ She frowned. ‘I assume that’s not actually happened.’

‘Would it matter if we had?’ Jess said. She felt light-headed; she wasn’t sure if it was excitement or shock or fear.

‘Well, the TARDIS can travel in space too, so the Doctor could still come and find us – provided the police ever release him. But I do prefer having at least a rough idea of what’s happening. You know, minor details, like where I am and when I am.’

They walked on. The woods hummed with life – the sudden sweet chirping of birds; the dry rustle of grass and the crisp crack of wood. The light through the leaves was soft and shimmering.

‘I like it here,’ Jess said. ‘It’s as if the birds and the animals have been left to get on with things. There’s nobody to hunt them, or disturb them, or harm them. This must be what the world was like before people.’ She frowned. ‘Although, given what you said about time pockets, this could very well be the world before people. Do you have any idea where we’re supposed to be going?’

‘Further into the woods,’ Amy said. ‘Whichever way that is. I’m guessing we’ll know when we get near to the ship. We can hear it already, I think. That throbbing sound?’

‘Yes, of course, I guess I thought that was the motorway. You know how traffic sounds from a distance. But this is different.’

‘Less swooshy?’ Amy suggested.

‘Less swooshy,’ Jess agreed. ‘Steadier, more constant. OK, let’s follow that.’

They went in single file through the trees. The ground became rough, knotted and gnarled with sudden tree roots or unexpected branches, and they made slow progress. After a little while, the trees quietly parted, and Amy and Jess came into an empty glade.

Here, it was winter. The trees were bare and black, and the air damp with thin grey fog and the moist smell of mulching leaves. The women walked together around the perimeter of the clearing. The barren arms of the trees locked together to form great archways. The mist clung to the boles of the trees, curling around them, so that Amy and Jess could only glimpse the start of the bleak narrow pathways that faded into the darkness.

‘Do you know what place this reminds me of?’ Jess spoke in a respectful whisper. ‘The parish church in the village. St Jude’s. But a ruin. It’s like we’re in a ruined church.’

‘St Jude?’ Amy whispered back. ‘That’s the patron saint of lost causes. Your town is
creepy
.’

She walked to the centre of the clearing, where a deep pool of water lay. She dipped her fingertips into the dark liquid and tasted it. Brackish and bitterly cold. Something by the pool’s edge caught her eye and Amy reached over to pick it up. It was a brooch of some kind, jet black, in the shape of a butterfly, scuffed and scarred, as if it had been here for ever. She showed it to Jess.

‘Pretty,’ she said. ‘I don’t recognise it though.’

‘Me neither.’ Amy pinned the brooch to her jacket. She imagined it as a gift from someone to his beloved. Now it was lost, for good. Suddenly Amy felt very sad. She longed to see Rory again; hold his hand, joke with him, kiss him, know that he was safe. Where could he be? Was he lost for good? Amy shut her eyes and touched the tiny jet object, as if it could somehow link her to Rory, through time. She could almost imagine that he was here, now, standing beside her; she could almost feel his breath upon the back of her neck…

‘Who’s there?’ Jess cried out.

Amy’s eyes shot open. Spinning round, she saw a figure dash across the glade towards a gap between the thickly woven trees. Both women moved quickly, too quickly for their prey. They got to the gap first, blocking the escape route. Jess grabbed one arm, Amy the other.

‘Oh no you don’t!’ said Amy, as they turned the figure round to face them. ‘Come on, let’s take a look at you!’

Jess gasped, recognising her immediately. Amy recognised her too. So would anyone in the country. Her face had been appearing almost non-stop on television and the front pages of the papers for the last four days.

‘My watch,’ Vicky Caine whispered. ‘My watch stopped.’

‘A ship,’ Rory mused out loud, as he and Emily walked slowly along the dim corridor. ‘But is it in flight? Could we be heading somewhere? And why haven’t we seen any crew? Where are they?’

‘You said the machine was dead, remember?’ Emily ran her finger along the wall, from which a gentle yellowish glow was emanating. The light responded to her touch, as it had to Rory’s palm in the hold earlier, thickening around her fingertip as she drew it along. ‘I feel like I’m still in the woods. In October. But the air’s stale. I can tell we’re not really outside.’

‘A ship like this would have to be tightly sealed if it was going to be able to move about in space,’ Rory said.

‘I know that,’ Emily said. ‘Like something in a story by Mr Wells. Me and Sam used to read him to each other.’

‘Sam?’ Rory looked around, bewildered. ‘Who’s Sam? Is there someone else here? Why haven’t you mentioned him before? Emily, you’ve got to tell me everything, you don’t know what’s important!’

‘Oh, shut up,’ said Emily miserably. ‘Sam? Where do you think he is? Sam’s dead.’

‘Dead?’ Desperately, Rory searched through his memories, but he only found empty spaces where this knowledge should have been. Could he forget someone’s death? What else had he forgotten? Who else had he forgotten? ‘When? What happened?’

‘More than a year ago, you fool! In the War. We should have been married by now. But Sammy’s dead and I’ve got myself lost in the woods…’ Emily stopped walking. She turned her back to Rory, but he could tell from her shoulders that she was crying. Awkwardly, he placed his hand against her back and, when she didn’t shake it off, he put his arm around her with more confidence, sure that this was the right thing to do.

She wept for a little while into his shoulder, not noisily but very quietly, like this was something she had done a lot in private. As Rory held her, he felt the faintest echo of a memory – of someone he loved very much, that he would give eternity to be with – but before he could grab hold, the memory drifted sadly away like leaves in autumn. He hugged Emily even more.

‘Shush,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. It’ll be OK. It’ll be OK again, one day.’

Eventually, Emily stopped crying. They hugged each other again for good measure. ‘Pals?’ said Emily.

‘Pals,’ said Rory.

Emily dried her face and gave a rueful laugh. ‘Bet I look a right old mess,’ she said. ‘Stupid bloomin’ War. Ruins everything, don’t it? You can’t get a drink after half past nine, and you can’t get married to your sweetheart.’ She found a hankie in her pocket and blew her nose. ‘And there’s that wretched humming again. I’ll tell you something for nothing, Mr Williams – I know you said you were here to take away the engine because it was dead. But I wonder if you were right about that. Because this place doesn’t seem the least bit dead to me. The lights, the noise. It looks to me like it’s still in working order. Asleep, maybe, but not dead. Alive.’

Galloway burst through the door of the interview room as if he were a thunderstorm howling through.

He found his chief suspect standing right up by the window, one cheek pressed against the dark glass, a look of deep concentration on his jumbled-up face. Since their last conversation, the young man had apparently fixed the blind, which was raised up out of the way to allow him to get as close to the window as possible. The clock had not fared so well. It had been dismantled, and now lay in pieces on the table.

‘How?’ Galloway shouted. ‘How did you know?’

The chief suspect flapped his hand. ‘Ssh! I’m trying to listen!’

‘
Listen
? Now look here, sonny, I’ve just about had enough of you!’

‘Sir!’ Porter grabbed Galloway’s arm, holding him back.

Galloway got himself back under control. Pressing his hands flat against the table top, he said, in a much quieter voice, ‘How did you know that Jess Ashcroft was going to go missing? We’ve found her car, up by the woods. Do you have an accomplice? Is it the red-headed girl? You’ve been seen in the company of a red-headed girl, so was Jess. Is she your accomplice? Or is she another victim?’

The young man looked round. He raised one finger, like he was about to issue a ticking-off. ‘You,’ he said, ‘are a very noisy man. Now listen!’

‘I’m trying to talk to you!’

‘And I’m trying to listen! Shush!’