by Cavan Scott
Masie’s eyes went wide. ‘The little girl is Mum?’
The Doctor nodded, indicating the hole. ‘And the tree used to stand right here.’
The concrete was cleared away now, leaving nothing but compacted earth.
‘Noah,’ he said, standing up and rubbing his hands down, ‘I need a shovel. Can you get one for me? Out where I found the axe?’
The boy hurried out into the growing darkness, returning with a spade that was almost as tall as he was. He passed it down to the Doctor, who returned to the hole and resumed both his excavation and the story.
‘A link was established between the Boggart and the girl. She never knew about it, and neither did the Boggart. It was lost in its dreams, until the tree was grubbed up.’
‘To build this place,’ Bill said, watching him dig.
The Doctor threw a shovelful of dirt over his shoulder. ‘The Boggart woke up deep within the ground. All it could hear from above was noise and confusion. It was scared.’
‘So scared,’ Sammy said, gasping as the Doctor’s foot pushed the shovel back into the exposed ground.
A breeze ruffled Bill’s hair. The Doctor looked up, alarmed.
‘No!’ he said firmly, glancing up at Sammy. ‘No, tell it we’re trying to help.’
Bill staggered. She knew why the Doctor was worried. This was like before, in the TARDIS.
‘Just want to be home,’ Sammy whimpered as the wind intensified.
‘What’s happening?’ Noah cried, hugging his sister close to him.
Bill was struggling to stand. The wind was blowing them back from the hole.
‘It’s trying to protect itself,’ he shouted above the storm. ‘It’s scared.’
Masie screamed as lights appeared all around the outhouse. Shining Men stared in through the windows, light streaming from their eyes and mouths.
‘I know how it feels,’ Bill said.
‘I’m trying to get you home,’ the Doctor cried out as Bill was blown from her feet to skid across the tiles. The Doctor’s shovel clattered to the floor. He had fallen on his back, buffeted by the winds.
Above them, the Shining Men had slipped through the walls of the outbuilding. They didn’t walk. They barely moved. They just shifted forward in the blink of an eye.
‘I thought the Shining Men were an attack,’ the Doctor shouted, crawling back towards the hole. ‘Breaking through the veil between the Invisible and the Visible, but I was wrong. They were a cry for help. The Boggart was already here and it was alone.’
‘Alone!’ Sammy and the Shining Men wailed in unison.
‘Even now it can’t help it. It has no way to understand what’s happening. The Shining Men are manifestations of its fear; its mind splintered over and over again. That’s why people feel trapped in their presence, why they feel they can’t get away.’
He’d reached the hole in the floor now and was hanging on to the broken concrete.
‘When one of its avatars met Sammy, their minds linked, thanks to the special bond they already shared. Meanwhile, across the veil, the Fae heard the cry of their prodigal son. They came looking, but we couldn’t understand them. And we were afraid.’
Bill didn’t know who he was talking to, her or the Shining Men. He started digging into the dirt with his bare hands. She crawled forward, fighting against the wind, and helped, clawing through the earth.
‘It’s forgotten what it’s like not to be scared. Everything is a potential threat, even the sound of someone trying to dig it out.’
The light from the chorus of eyes shone brighter than ever, reflecting painfully from the swimming pool’s white tiles.
Bill looked down, grit and dirt in her eyes. There was something there, in the earth. It glinted in the light.
‘Doctor!’
He saw it, shoving his hand deep into the earth.
‘That’s what fear does,’ he shouted, his voice hoarse as he tried to drag what they’d uncovered from the ground. ‘It blots everything else out. You can’t think straight. Even if someone tells you one thing, you believe the other. Once you give into fear, it consumes you, remaking you in its image.’
Bill plunged her own hand into the ground, her fingers touching something hard and cold. It felt like the links of a chain. She wrapped her fingers around the metal and pulled.
‘That’s it,’ the Doctor yelled. ‘Nearly there.’
The wind was so strong now that she thought she was going to be lifted from the floor. She pulled and she pulled, but the thing in the ground wouldn’t budge.
‘Doctor?’
‘Just a little more!’
The light from the Shining Men was intense. She couldn’t see anything but the glare, not the Doctor, not her own hand. She couldn’t see, she couldn’t breathe, and as the wind raged, she couldn’t hear.
All she knew was that she was very, very afraid.
Chapter 34
The Final Deal
Bill was thrown back, her hands snatched away from the metal links beneath the ground. She slammed against the tiles, and everything went dark.
She opened her eyes. The wind was gone. The light was gone. Even the Shining Men were gone.
Everything was fuzzy, but the first thing she saw when her focus returned was an arm hanging over the edge of the pool.
‘Sammy!’ she croaked, forcing herself up. She ran to the shallow end, bounding up the steps. Sammy was lying face down beside the pool. Her children were nearby, wrapped in a protective hug from their grandmother.
Sammy wasn’t moving.
Bill turned her over. She looked so pale. Was she even breathing? She put her ear to Sammy’s mouth, listening for breath. She wasn’t even sure what to do if see couldn’t hear anything.
‘Mum?’
It was Noah, pulling himself from Hilary’s arms. He crawled over to them.
‘Mum!’
Bill jolted up as Sammy coughed, a rough, painful hack.
‘Sammy love,’ Hilary said, appearing by their side, Masie with her.
Sammy’s eyes flickered open, but no light streamed out. They were bloodshot and tired, but brilliantly human, even as they narrowed in confusion. ‘Mum?’
‘Oh love,’ Hilary sobbed, pulling her daughter into a bear hug. ‘It’s you. You’ve come back to us.’
The children fell into the embrace, three generations clinging to each other and never wanting to let go.
A tear spilled down Bill’s cheek as she sat back and let them have their moment.
‘Bill.’
The Doctor’s voice was soft. He was down in the pool, his discoloured suit covered with dirt. In front of him, curled in a ball, was the Boggart.
Bill ran down to join them. A thick metal chain was wrapped tight around the creature, rusted with age but still as strong as when the Fairy Finder had come to call. The Boggart’s skin was scarred whenever it met the iron, the hair of its head full of mud and twigs, as Sammy’s had been when they had pulled her from beneath the tree.
And it was crying like a frightened puppy.
‘Is it …?’
‘It’s not dangerous,’ the Doctor told her, kneeling forward to examine the creature that flinched even before he came near.
‘I was going to say is it hurt?’
‘Of course it is,’ the Doctor replied. ‘Look at it.’
Above them, Noah let out a cry of alarm. Bill realised that the pool wasn’t empty any more. It was filled with creatures that crowded around them. Some were Boggarts, all limbs, teeth and hair. Others hovered above the ground on buzzing wings, or hunkered down on the ground, glaring at them with eyes that just didn’t make sense.
Bill found it hard to focus on any of them, as if her brain was struggling to believe they were there in the first place.
The Doctor got to his feet to address the visitors.
‘I did as you asked.’ He looked down at the cowering Boggart. ‘I found the Lost. Take him and be gone.’
None of the creatures moved. In
stead they held back, their eyes flicking from their bound brother to the Doctor.
The Doctor took a moment and then slapped his forehead in a broad pantomime. ‘Of course, silly me. You can’t come near, because of the iron. That isn’t watered-down rubbish like steel, but atomic number 26, one hundred per cent ferric. I bet it’s blocking psychic powers like stone walls block Wi-Fi, not to mention what it’ll do to your complexions if you get too close.’ He snatched up the pickaxe, holding it with one hand. ‘You want me to release him?’
‘You promised,’ said one of the flying creatures, its voice like dead leaves in the wind.
‘No, I’d said I’d return him to you, which I have. That was the deal.’
The Boggart whimpered on the floor.
‘Doctor, let it go,’ Bill told him. ‘Stop being so cruel.’
He ignored her, continuing to stare at the creatures. ‘Unless you want to make another bargain.’
‘What do you have to offer?’ whispered the voice.
‘I will undo the chains, if Jane Schofield and Charlotte Sadler are returned to me as they were. It’s a simple enough transaction. What do you say?’
‘You have our word,’ came the reply.
‘And that’s good enough to me. Of course, this would have been a lot easier if I still had my sonic screwdriver …’
He raised the axe above his head, and Bill felt her heart jump to her mouth. Surely he wasn’t going to –
Clang!
The pickaxe struck the padlock the Doctor had positioned beside his feet. The chains slipped free of the lock, falling from the Boggart.
The creature lifted its head and opened its eyes, which blazed with the fury of the Shining Men. Then it unfurled its limbs like the first snowdrop of spring and rose into the air, long, emancipated arms stretching out after centuries of being constricted. Its lips drew back into a warm, genuine smile that glowed brighter than its eyes, its entire body becoming incandescent.
‘Home,’ it croaked, hope filling its gruff voice. ‘Home at last.’
Bill shielded her eyes as the light flared before fading a second later. The Boggart was gone, as were the rest of the Fair Folk.
Two bodies sprawled where the Boggart had been found. One wore a dilapidated bomber jacket, the other a police uniform, its tattered fabric dyed gold instead of navy blue.
‘PC Schofield,’ the Doctor exclaimed, dropping onto one knee. ‘Charlotte!’
Even in the half-light of the outbuilding, Bill could see that something was wrong. Schofield’s hair was brittle and milk-white, while Charlotte’s skin was like tissue paper, creased with age.
They were old, like Harold Marter before them. Too old. Their breath wheezed in narrow chests, their limbs so thin and fragile that it looked like a single touch would snap their bones like twigs.
‘No!’ the Doctor bellowed, jumping to his feet. ‘As they were! That was the deal. I took you at your word.’
‘And the debt will be paid,’ rasped a voice. Bill span around, expecting to see the Boggart behind her. Instead, the voice came from Sammy, her eyes blazing one last time. Her children scuttled back as she rose into the sky, hanging above them like an angel.
‘You saved me, Doctor,’ the Boggart spoke through her. ‘And I will pay what I owe.’
Light streamed from her body, like sunbeams breaking through clouds. Bill jumped back as it washed over the frail bodies in front of them.
‘Settlement is made,’ the Boggart said, and the light cut off as someone had flicked a switch. Sammy let out a cry, not with the voice of the Boggart, but that of a woman who suddenly finds herself hovering two metres from the ground.
She dropped, Hilary stepping forward to catch her before she fell into the pool.
Charlotte and PC Schofield stirred at Bill’s feet. They no longer looked like crones on the cusp of death, but the vibrant, vital women Bill had first met.
The Holland family ran down the slope of the swimming pool and the hugs began again. This time Bill was in the heart of them. Sammy hugged Bill, Bill hugged the kids, Hilary hugged them all. The Doctor leant on the pickaxe and smiled, before a voice from the tiled floor made him laugh out loud.
‘Will someone please tell me what the hell is going on?’ PC Schofield said, staring up at them all in bewilderment.
Chapter 35
And They Lived …
‘What did you do with the mug?’ Hilary Walsh asked the Doctor, who was skulking near the lounge door, looking decidedly uncomfortable.
‘The mug?’
‘I made you a cup of tea,’ she reminded him. ‘When you came to look at Noah’s room.’
‘You left it in Velma,’ Bill reminded him.
‘Velma?’
‘My camper van,’ Charlotte said from the leather chair in the corner of the room. ‘Guess I’ll never see her again.’
‘I doubt she’d pass her next MOT,’ the Doctor told her.
‘That’s nothing new,’ Charlotte said, still looking shell-shocked.
Sammy knew how she felt. She could remember hardly anything about the last few days, not since she’d run out to confront the Shining Man. There were scraps of memories, but she was pretty sure most of them weren’t even hers. All that mattered was that she was home, snuggled on the sofa with her kids.
‘Did someone mention tea?’ she asked, going to stand up. ‘I’ll pop the kettle on.’
‘No you won’t,’ her mum told her, springing into action. ‘I’ll make one for everyone, and then I’m running you a bath, Sammy love.’
Sammy didn’t argue.
Her mum bustled from the room, pushing the Doctor out of the way. Sammy still wasn’t really sure who he was, other than that he was a friend and Noah adored him.
PC Schofield walked in, wearing her peculiarly gold uniform. She handed a mobile phone back to Bill.
‘Thanks. A car’s on its way. Turman’s in hospital.’
The police officer had the same look in her eyes, like she’d just come out of a dream.
‘I suppose they’ll want to talk to us all,’ Sammy said. ‘But what are we supposed to say?’
‘Beats me,’ Charlotte admitted. ‘Any advice, Doctor?’
Sammy looked towards the lounge door.
‘Doctor?’ Noah said, leaning forward on the sofa.
Sammy pushed herself up, walking out to the kitchen. ‘Mum, are the Doctor and Bill with you?’
‘No, love. They’re in the lounge, aren’t they?’
Sammy turned to see the front door was ajar.
‘They haven’t gone?’ PC Schofield asked, flinging the door open and looking out on the street. ‘How am I supposed to explain all this to the Sarge without them?’
A wave of dizziness washed over Sammy. Her mum was beside her in a flash, helping her back to the sofa.
‘Mum?’ Masie looked over from where she was passing her mobile phone to that Charlotte girl. ‘Are you all right?’
‘I’m fine,’ Sammy insisted. ‘I promise.’
Of course she was. She was home.
‘I could have done with a cup of tea,’ Bill complained as they trudged through the wood.
‘We have tea,’ the Doctor told her. ‘A whole room of tea. Straight on past the boot cupboard and second door to the right.’ He paused. ‘Or is that the observatory? Anyway, it’s all in there. Earl Grey. Darjeeling. PG Tips …’
He held a branch aside so that she could continue along the path, apologising to the tree as he let it swing back.
‘Or you could wait until we get back to Bristol. You know how Nardole likes to fuss around you. I bet he can even find some Battenberg.’
She pulled a face. ‘Ugh! Can’t stand the stuff.’
‘There’s no accounting for taste.’
‘What about this place?’ Bill asked as they found the TARDIS exactly where they left it.
He paused by the door. ‘What about it?’
‘Are they gone now? The Fae?’
He looked around at th
e trees, sniffing the air. ‘The veil has been secured again. The barrier only lowered thanks to all the fear generated by the Shining Men craze. That’s how the ultra-terrestrials could slip back and forth. I doubt they’d want to come back for a while.’
‘And the Shining Men? The fake ones, I mean.’
‘Oh, they’ll be forgotten soon enough. Some other nonsense will replace them online.’ He patted down his pockets, looking for the key. Then he stopped and sighed.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘The key’s still in the Invisible,’ he told her mournfully.
Bill couldn’t believe what she was hearing. ‘Then how are we supposed to get back into the TARDIS?’
He smiled and clicked his fingers, the TARDIS door snapping open behind him. ‘Magic?’
She smiled, shoving him into the control room. ‘Show off.’
Boggle Wood reverberated to the unearthly sound of the TARDIS engines. The noise faded away and with it the police box.
‘Gotcha!’ said Charlotte from behind a tree. She pressed the red button on Masie’s camera app and checked the footage. On screen, the Doctor and Bill got into the TARDIS and the blue box disappeared.
She paused the video and smiled.
This was going to go viral …
Acknowledgements
My thanks go to Justin Richards, Charlotte Macdonald and Albert DePetrillo for making my childhood dream of writing a Doctor Who novel a reality.
Thanks also to Edward Russell for giving me a sneak peek of Bill on screen, George Mann and Mark Wright for keeping me sane during writing, my agent Jane for keeping everything ticking along, my fellow authors Mike and Jonathan for our mutual support group and Andrew James for giving me a little time off from the Ninth Doctor to concentrate on the Twelfth.
And also, thank you to my wonderful family, to Clare, Chloe and Connie, for supporting me as I hammered away at the keyboard and babbled on about fairies and boggarts. Love you.
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