Doctor Who: Magic of the Angels

by Jacqueline Rayner

  Amy had nowhere to go. ‘Oh help oh help oh help,’ she muttered, backing away.

  Rory ran towards the stage. Mrs Collins and Mrs Hooper followed him as fast as they could.

  Then there was another flash. Amy blinked. Suddenly the Angel was poised over her, its fangs bared, its hands clawing for her.

  Amy was almost bent backwards to avoid its deadly touch. Somehow she managed to creep back just a little further. But now she was out of room. The next time she so much as blinked, the Angel would get her.

  ‘Amy, look out!’ Rory cried.

  It was too late. Amy had moved too close to the edge of the stage. She wobbled... Then, with a cry of despair, she fell.

  As she fell, a lot of things happened at once.

  Something green flew past Amy. There was another blinding flash. There was a scream...

  Amy picked herself up. She was shaking with fear. The Angel had moved again, and there was no trace of Sammy Star.

  ‘What happened?’ Amy asked in a trembling voice.

  Rory gently put his arms around her. ‘An apple,’ he said. ‘Someone threw an apple. Just as Sammy Star set off that firework, or whatever it was. I think I saw the apple hit him, but then I was blinded. We all were.’

  ‘So he fell off, and the Angel got him,’ said Amy. ‘I tumbled off the stage, so the Angel went for the next nearest target. It was used to catching people falling off that walkway.’ She looked at the Weeping Angel, now standing beneath the walkway. It was stone again. ‘Who threw the apple?’

  The Doctor came down the stairs at the side of the stage backwards. ‘I’m not going to take my eyes off that Angel,’ he said. ‘I think I can tell you the answer without looking, though. You didn’t expect to see yourself on stage, did you, Mrs Hooper? To see the dreadful moment when young Amber Reynolds got lost.’

  ‘Lost,’ came Mrs Hooper’s shaky voice. ‘I was so very lost.’

  Amy had her eyes fixed on the Angel too, but she could hear that Mrs Hooper was crying.

  ‘I was there, on stage,’ said Mrs Hooper. ‘All of a sudden, it didn’t seem like a dream any more. It was real.’

  ‘That was you!’ Amy cried. ‘The girl who vanished. The girl who I tied up. That was you! Oh. Right. You’d already told me that, before it happened. No wonder she looked familiar. I’d seen her face on the MISSING poster. Your face, I guess I should say.’

  Rory rested his hand on Mrs Hooper’s arm. ‘It must have been a shock to see yourself like that,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, my dear. It was a big shock, waking up from the dream. But I am awake now. You know, I wouldn’t change things. I met my Albert back then, I had my lovely girls. As I woke up, though, all I could think of was Max. That was the moment when he stole Max from me. That was the moment I lost Max for ever.’

  Amy hadn’t thought much of Amber Reynolds the girl. Not that she’d spent a lot of time getting to know her. She thought she liked Amber Hooper the adult, though.

  Rory coughed. ‘Er, Doctor?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Are we going to have to stay here for ever? I just wondered.’ Rory took Amy’s hand and squeezed it. ‘Sammy Star might have gone, but the Angel’s still here.’

  ‘We could go and find that box,’ Amy said. ‘The one Sammy Star locked it in.’

  The Doctor shook his head. ‘That wouldn’t keep it trapped for long. It was only so placid because it was getting fed every night. Let it miss a few meals and it’d soon find a way out of the box.’

  ‘Er, Doctor,’ said Rory again. ‘I don’t know if this is a good time to mention it, but I think the cameras are still on.’

  ‘Oh well,’ said Amy, ‘I suppose it might be fun to see yourself on TV.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Rory began, then stopped, his mouth hanging open.

  ‘What is it?’ Amy asked.

  ‘See yourself,’ he said. ‘See yourself! Doctor! What if the Angel saw itself in a mirror? It would be looking at itself for ever!’

  ‘Yes!’ yelled Amy, jumping up and down. ‘Go Rory!’

  The Doctor didn’t seem so sure. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘It might work. It all depends if eye contact is the main factor or just the state of being watched. Then there’s the risk of something getting between the Angel and the mirror. Not to mention what might happen if it goes dark, or if the mirror gets broken...’

  ‘Oh,’ said Rory. ‘I thought it was a good idea. Sorry.’

  ‘It is a good idea!’ Amy cried.

  ‘No,’ said the Doctor. ‘I’ve just explained that—’

  Amy cut across him. ‘The image of an Angel becomes an Angel,’ she said.

  ‘Yes!’ Now it was the Doctor yelling. ‘That’s it! Rory, I won’t let anyone ever call you stupid again. Quick, there’s a large mirror down in the prop room. Take Amy and bring it up here. Go on, now, chop chop. Amber and Kylie here will keep watch with me. As long as we don’t all blink at once we’ll be OK.’

  Amy and Rory hurried away, leaving the Doctor and the two old ladies staring at the Weeping Angel. Now the theatre was empty they had no problems getting to the prop store. Even the dogs had gone.

  ‘Right,’ said the Doctor as they arrived with the mirror. ‘We have to put it in just the right place. We want the Angel almost nose to nose with its image.’

  The mirror was placed in front of the Weeping Angel, and they all breathed a sigh of relief.

  The Doctor made a round of the cameras, zapping each with his sonic screwdriver. ‘All the recordings destroyed,’ he said. ‘The film crew won’t be happy, but I think it’s better than letting the world end.’

  ‘Yes, I think so,’ said Amy with a grin.

  ‘Now I’m just popping out for a while,’ said the Doctor. ‘Keep an eye on that Angel for me, will you? I’ll meet you in Trafalgar Square in an hour.’

  ‘Where are you going?’ asked Amy, but the Doctor was already out of the door.

  They waited, and watched. It was creepy. Amy was glad she had Rory’s hand to hold. Not that she was going to tell him that.

  An image flickered on the far side of the mirror, and Amy shivered. It got more and more solid, a ghost in reverse, until there were two Angels in the room.

  ‘Phew!’ said Rory. ‘It worked.’

  Amy nudged him. ‘I think I’ve spotted a flaw in our plan.’

  Another image had begun to shimmer into life.

  ‘The mirror’s between them! The Doctor was worried about someone walking in front of it, he didn’t think where the new Angel would go! The image of the first Angel’s still in the mirror, it’s going to keep making new ones! They need to be looking at each other.’

  She was still speaking as Rory leapt onto the stage. He pushed the mirror out of the way. It fell to the floor and shattered.

  ‘Seven years’ bad luck,’ said Amy.

  Rory grinned. ‘Oh, I don’t think so.’

  The new image had gone. Amy looked at the two solid Weeping Angels, now almost nose to nose. They would be looking at each other, frozen solid, for ever.

  Rory looked at his wife. ‘I think,’ he said, ‘that I’m going to keep on being very lucky indeed.’

  * * *

  Epilogue

  AMY AND RORY and the two old ladies left the Angels and went off to meet the Doctor.

  The queue of magic acts had been cleared away from the theatre, but Trafalgar Square was crowded. People were gathered around the Fourth Plinth.

  ‘Just in there,’ Amy heard the Doctor say to a couple of men. ‘Make sure they keep facing each other.’

  ‘What’s going on?’ she asked as they joined him.

  He smiled. ‘Oh, I think I’ve found something to put on the Fourth Plinth. A statue of two angels facing each other. I call it Monument to the Missing. I just had to pop back a few weeks and call in some favours. By the way, while I was there I booked our theatre tickets. Oh yes, and something else.’ He beckoned to Mrs Hooper. ‘Amber, I’ve got someone who wants to see you.’


  Mrs Hooper started hobbling over to the Doctor. Then she saw what he was talking about. She dropped her walking stick and ran like the teenager she’d been only hours before. ‘Max! Oh, Max!’

  The little tan and white Jack Russell leapt into her arms.

  ‘Where did he come from?’ asked Amy.

  The Doctor tried and failed to look modest. ‘Oh, well, I just found Max’s vet record, put the code for his ID chip into the sonic and tracked him down. I swapped him for a wodge of cash, and here we are!’

  ‘Nice one!’ said Amy. ‘By the way, any idea what happened to Sammy Star?’

  ‘No,’ said the Doctor. ‘Which is very good. All he wanted was fame and fortune. I think if he became very famous or very rich in the past, I’d have heard of him. I haven’t heard of him. So he didn’t. That might be punishment enough.’ He frowned. ‘Well, maybe not quite enough. I’m just hoping that all the girls he tricked found good lives back in the past like Amber Reynolds did.’

  Amy gave a big, tired sigh. ‘Time to go?’

  The Doctor nodded. ‘The Angels will be safe here. Trafalgar Square. It’s never empty and it’s never dark. Even if something goes wrong, they’ll always be observed.’ He strode off. ‘Come on, Ponds! Back to the TARDIS!’

  Amy and Rory stood for a moment, watching the Angels being lifted into place.

  ‘Mrs Hooper told me about losing Max,’ said Rory after a minute. ‘A stranger came to the door and bought him off her dad. That’s what made her run away.’

  Amy’s eyes widened. ‘The Doctor said he went back in time – oh no! He did it! He made her run away! Should we tell her? Should we tell him?’

  ‘No,’ said Rory. ‘You heard what she said. She wouldn’t change it. She had a dreadful life here, before she ran away. Back in the past, she met her Albert. Had her girls.’ He bent down and kissed her. ‘You can put up with anything, if it means you get to be with the people you love.’

  In the middle of the square, Mrs Hooper and Mrs Collins started to dance. For a moment, Amy saw them as they had been, two lost teenage girls. Amber Reynolds and Kylie Duncan, dancing at the VE Day party in 1945. Max ran around the women’s ankles, barking happily.

  Holding hands, Amy and Rory walked off after the Doctor.

  As they went, they heard the two old ladies’ voices lifted in song.

  ‘It may be an hour, it may be a week, it may be fifty years. But I know we will find loving hearts still entwined, on the day we meet again...’

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  Published in 2012 by BBC Books, an imprint of Ebury Publishing

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  Copyright © Jacqueline Farrow 2012

  Jacqueline Rayner has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

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  Executive producers: Steven Moffat and Caroline Skinner

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