Doctor Who: The Legends of Ashildr Read online

  We argued some more, but I think that was the turning point. He could see the merit of my argument, and finally Edward agreed to talk to some of the other villagers.

  ‘What I’m suggesting isn’t dangerous,’ I stressed. ‘It’s merely finding out the truth. I’m not asking you or the other villagers to do anything you haven’t already done. But this time we can make use of it.’

  With Edward persuaded, the other villagers offered only token resistance. Before long, I was unfolding my map of the area on the same table where Edward, Maria and I had eaten our bread and cheese. With the help of the villagers I was able to add some details to the map. Together we traced out the various paths through the woods, or at least the ones they knew about.

  That done, I told them what I proposed. They listened in silence, occasionally nodding in agreement. It was fairly simple. We would go into the woods, each taking an allocated path. As soon as we saw one of the ghosts, we would leave.

  But everyone needed to take careful note of where they were when the apparition appeared to them – and of where the ghost did not want them to go.

  Several of the villagers decided to go in pairs. Others, those either more brave or more foolhardy, were happy to go into the haunted woods alone. But the important thing was that we had enough groups to cover each of the paths. With everyone allocated their own route, we nervously shook hands. And I confess I was probably as nervous as any of them, because I knew that if harm came to any of the villagers then it would be solely and heavily on my conscience.

  It was with a sense of shared trepidation that we made our way towards the woods. I admit that I also felt a keen anticipation, a thrill of excitement at the prospect of discovering more about the so-called ghosts of Branscombe Wood.

  I walked with Edward and Maria to the point just within the woods where our paths diverged. I could see the apprehension in both their faces, though they tried to hide it, as we said our goodbyes. Then they turned and walked briskly along their path, hand in hand like teenaged lovers. I allowed myself a smile. Was I perhaps just a little envious of their love, of the fact that they each had someone to share their life? Perhaps I was. But I put aside all such thoughts and turned to start along my own path.

  They told me later what they had seen, gathered again in Edward and Maria’s house a few hours later, and I listened to all their stories.

  A few – a very few – had encountered no apparitions, no strange figures, and continued along their path until it finally emerged on the far side of the wood. But most had been warned away. Each person, it seemed, had encountered someone appropriate to themselves. Even those who walked together did not always see the same figure, warning them away from the path they had taken.

  One woman had seen the long-dead grandfather she remembered from when she was a child. She described his stature and expression, the lined face and wrinkled hands as he warned her away. A man haltingly described his meeting with his wife – dead for just over a month. The tears welled up in his eyes as he told us in a cracked and emotional voice of meeting her at a junction of his path and another. He had tried to go to her, to embrace her, he said. But she had backed away, shaking her head. That more than anything seemed to affect him.

  A younger couple struggled to keep their composure as they admitted they had met the daughter they had lost over a year ago. The young girl had called out to them, laughed and smiled just as they remembered. You can never forget the sound of your children’s laughter, the mother told us. I turned away at that, afraid that my own expression would betray the fact that I knew all too well that this was true.

  Edward and Maria had each seen different figures. They heard the same words, the same warnings. But Edward heard them from his long-dead father. Maria from her older sister, who died before she was twenty. I felt a moment of pride at how they both kept their emotions in check.

  When they asked me what I had seen, I told them that it was the same knight as I had encountered before. There was nothing to be gained from telling them the truth.

  Not that I lied to them, because I did see that same knight. This time, I ignored his warning, walking right up to him. So close I could see the holes in his armour that my arrows had made. As I reached him, the knight vanished. And another figure appeared, a little further along the path.

  My heart skipped a beat as I saw the long mask jutting out from the man’s face. A mask I knew only too well. He was a plague doctor. In fact, I was certain he was a plague doctor who had attended my children in their sickness.

  ‘Death lies this way,’ he said. His voice echoed slightly, distorted by the mask. ‘Do not risk your life by coming further down the path. Turn aside while you still can.’

  But, whether out of bravery or stubbornness, I continued.

  ‘I warn you – stop!’

  As I reached the man, I fancied I could smell the plague on him. The sickly stench of death and decay. And then he too was gone, and another figure stepped out of the shadows and onto the path ahead of me.

  ‘Turn aside,’ he commanded.

  I stopped abruptly. The man’s face was shadowed beneath his helmet and so he could have been any of a dozen or more of the Viking men from the village where I had grown up.

  He took a step towards me, his face still concealed. ‘This is not a path you should take. Even you are not immune to the horrors that lie ahead if you continue.’

  I would like to say that I continued down the path. I would like to say that I braved him out, and he too disappeared as I went on my way. But in truth, this sudden confrontation with my own childhood, with all that happened to me so long ago, was too much. I turned and ran back the way I had come.

  But, as I said, I told Edward and the other villagers nothing of this. I merely described the knight of Agincourt once more. They wanted to know how I knew the knight, how he was relevant to me as their own apparitions were personal to them. I told them vaguely of being caught at the edge of a battle while travelling in France. I said I had seen the knight die. I did not say that it was almost two hundred years ago, or that it was I who had killed him.

  To discourage any further discussion, I unfolded the map once more on Edward and Maria’s table.

  ‘You want us to show you where we each saw our ghost,’ Edward said.

  I nodded. ‘If we mark the sightings on the map, then that may give us some clue as to their purpose,’ I told them. ‘Perhaps we will discern a pattern of some sort. We shall see.’

  So, one by one, they showed me the point on the map where they had encountered the ghost. I marked each position clearly on the map with a cross. It took a while, as each and every person was keen to recount their own adventure. We all listened patiently, and as the light dimmed and evening drew in, it became clear to me that it would be another day before we could progress further with our investigations and exorcism.

  Finally, as Maria lit the candles round the edge of the room and I struggled to make out the detail of the map in the gloom, the last of the encounters was reported. I drew a cross at the relevant point. We agreed to meet again in the morning and examine the map to see what we could deduce from our day’s work. But, in truth, I had already seen all there was to see. I had discerned the pattern that had emerged when we were but halfway through plotting the positions of the apparitions.

  And so I was somewhat preoccupied as Maria served the evening meal. I did my best to seem interested in Maria and Edward’s conversation. They were keen to talk again about what they had seen in the woods, and also to question me about what our next stratagem could or should be.

  But I kept my own counsel, and did not reveal what I had deduced. For one thing, I wanted to see the map in daylight to be absolutely sure I was right. For another, I wanted to ponder some more on how to approach the problem of the ghosts. But if I was right, then at least we had some focus for our attentions.

  I retired early, wanting to spend some time alone considering the matter. But in fact I soon slipped into a deep s
leep. I did not awaken from it until the sun had been risen for several hours. But I felt refreshed. And as I washed and dressed and made my way downstairs, I knew that really there was only one course of action open to us.

  The villagers who had been brave enough to venture into the woods the previous day gathered again at Edward and Maria’s house. Once more I unfolded the map on the table. I had already unfolded it on the floor of my small room upstairs to check that I was not mistaken in what I thought I had seen. It was even more clear than I had imagined. So I was confident not only that I had something to tell them, but also that they would easily see it for themselves.

  ‘These crosses,’ I reminded everyone as they stood round expectantly, ‘show the places where we all saw the ghosts in Branscombe Wood yesterday.’ I pointed to them in turn as I spoke. ‘I think they form a pattern. A pattern that tells us why the ghosts appear.’

  I let this sink in as the villagers leaned forward, straining to get a better view of the map. I waited a few moments, but when no one spoke, I went on:

  ‘They form a ring,’ I explained. ‘Not a perfect circle, because the apparitions appear at points where they can persuade whoever they meet onto another path. But look.’

  I drew a line through the crosses, forming a better circle than I had expected.

  ‘So how does that help?’ one of the villagers asked.

  ‘That was what I wondered,’ I said, biting back the impulse to comment on the man’s evident stupidity.

  ‘Does it mean that the ghosts emanate from somewhere within that ring?’ Edward suggested.

  ‘I think it does,’ I agreed. ‘But I also think there’s more to it than that. What do the ghosts do?’ I prompted.

  ‘They turn us aside from our chosen paths,’ Maria answered.

  ‘And why would they do that?’ I asked.

  ‘Because they don’t want us to go that way,’ another villager said.

  I nodded. ‘So let’s look at the ways they don’t want us to go.’ I pointed to the various paths, each marked with a cross. ‘And they all lead into this ring.’

  ‘It’s as if the ghosts are a fence around that area,’ a young woman said. ‘Like a fence round a field.’

  ‘Exactly,’ I agreed. ‘But we would put a fence round a field to keep cattle or horses or sheep inside. This fence…’ I pointed again at the map. ‘This fence is there to keep people out.’

  ‘But why?’ another man asked.

  ‘Because,’ I said, ‘I believe there is something in that area that the ghosts don’t want anyone to see. Something they are protecting. Or rather, something that is using the ghosts to protect itself.’

  There was a short silence as they all considered this.

  ‘So, what do you suggest we do?’ Edward asked at last.

  ‘Well, I don’t know about the rest of you,’ I said, ‘but I’d like to know what it is they don’t want us to see. So I suggest we go and take a look.’

  ‘Past the ghosts?’ Maria asked.

  ‘But they want to keep us out,’ someone else said.

  ‘She is right,’ Edward said. ‘If we want to get rid of the ghosts, we need to know why they are there. And it seems there is only one way to find that out.’

  ‘I can’t make any of you come with me,’ I told them. ‘But I intend to go to the area inside that ring I’ve drawn on the map, and see what is there.’

  ‘No one’s ever been there,’ the young man who had lost his daughter said.

  ‘Jane has,’ his wife said quietly. ‘And we all know what happened to her.’

  ‘Then we must go there to stop it happening to anyone else,’ I countered.

  There were some muttered agreements.

  ‘Look,’ I told them, ‘anyone who isn’t happy venturing into the woods again can go home now. But anyone who wants to help, come with me. If when we see the ghosts again it becomes too much of an ordeal, then leave. Come home, back to the village. But if we can get to the centre of the ring, then perhaps – and I make no promises – but perhaps we can rid the wood of these apparitions. We can make sure no one else suffers like Jane has.’

  I stepped back, allowing them to talk amongst themselves for a while. Several of the villagers left almost at once. A few more drifted away during their discussions. Finally, only half a dozen villagers remained.

  I was pleased to see that Edward had stayed, although he had spoken quietly to Maria and sent her out to the back room. I sensed that she would have joined us if her husband had permitted it. I could not blame him for wanting to keep her safe. Similarly, the young man who had lost his daughter had also stayed with us, but his wife had gone. I suspected that he too had sent her away, desperate to keep her safe whatever fate might befall him.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said to them.

  Dark clouds were gathering in the sky as we set off, perhaps presaging what lay ahead for us. There was little conversation as we made our way out of the village and up the hill towards the wood.

  Rather than split up again, we had decided that this time strength lay in numbers. We would stay together, taking the most direct path through the woods to the area that the ghosts seemed determined to prevent us from entering. I had told everyone before we set off that if the apparitions became too much for them, then there was no dishonour in turning away and returning to the village. I told them this again as we entered the woods. Somewhere in the distance there was a rumble of thunder, punctuating my words.

  I probably felt as apprehensive as any of the others as we started along the path. They tried to hide it, but I could see the anxiety etched across the villagers’ faces, and I was sure my own face told much the same story.

  I cannot say what the others saw. I imagine that we all saw a figure at the same time, standing ahead of us on the path. But it was clear from their reactions that what the others saw was not what appeared to me. It was something personal, relevant, taken from their own past. Just as the knight from Agincourt – now more familiar from my encounters with him in the wood than from the field of battle almost two centuries earlier – was to me.

  ‘It isn’t real,’ I said, as much for my own benefit as anyone else’s. ‘Whatever you see, remember that it isn’t real. It can’t harm you.’

  ‘No?’ one of the men said quietly. He was a tall man, with a bushy red beard. But his eyes betrayed his fear. ‘Remember what happened to poor Jane.’

  ‘She was a child,’ Edward told him. ‘What happened to her was all within her mind. No one laid a finger on her.’

  ‘That’s right,’ I agreed. ‘The only danger is inside our own minds.’

  I’m not sure he was convinced, but we all walked on together, ignoring the knight – or whatever anyone else saw – as he gestured for us to move aside and take another path.

  The figure vanished as we reached it, fading into the shadows and becoming insubstantial until there was nothing left. At once the mood of the group lifted. Someone laughed. We walked on, apparently with more confidence now that this first obstacle had been overcome.

  But the confidence was not to last.

  We had not travelled much further along the path when the next apparition appeared before us. Just as the previous one had melted away into the air, this new figure seemed to congeal out of the shadows as it gained form and substance. Again, I do not know what the others saw. But Edward crossed himself and muttered what I assumed was a prayer.

  Again, for me it was a familiar figure – the otherworldly plague doctor who had diagnosed my dying children. Even when he was fully formed before me, he seemed strangely vague, his outline blurred and indistinct. It took me several moments to realise that this was because I was seeing him through the tears that were welling up in my eyes. Whatever was producing these apparitions, it knew how to find a knife to its victims’ hearts. And then, having plunged it in deep, how to twist it.

  Whatever he saw was too much for the man with the red beard. ‘I’m sorry,’ he stammered, then turned and walked briskly away
. A few moments later, another man followed him, together with a young woman.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Edward asked me.

  I realised he must be able to see the tears glistening on my cheeks. I wiped them away with my sleeve and nodded. ‘Of course. Are you?’

  ‘I think so,’ he replied, and I could hear the tremor in his voice. I was tempted to ask him what he could see, but I feared that might just make it worse for him.

  ‘We go on,’ I said firmly, and I took hold of Edward’s trembling hand. Together we stepped towards the figure on the path, only dimly aware of the others following.

  Again the figure melted away as we reached it. But our numbers were now depleted. There were just two other villagers left besides Edward and myself. One was the young man who had seen his dead daughter. The other was a middle-aged woman with a round face which I imagined was more used to smiling than the anxiety it now portrayed.

  As the next figure began to form out of the heavy air, the woman gave a yelp of horror. The young man sank to his knees, his hands covering his face. The woman backed away a few paces, then turned and ran.

  Edward’s face was pale and drawn. He turned away from the apparition and went to the young man, putting his hand on the man’s shoulder. He leaned down and spoke quietly. I had no doubt that he was telling the man to leave us and go home to his wife. Sure enough the man got slowly to his feet, looked at me with wide, terrified eyes, then turned, and hurried after the woman.

  In front of us, the figure pointed, gesturing for us to turn aside. I have no idea what Edward saw, but it affected him deeply. For myself, it was an effort to put one foot in front of the other. ‘It isn’t real,’ I said to myself over and over. ‘She isn’t real.’ But every halting, fearful step took me a pace closer to my own dead infant daughter.