5 Apr 2014

The Story of Ivy Coldstone (Part 1)

The church was small in comparison to other churches Alice had been used to over her years. This one was very similar to medieval churches back on Earth, but this was had been built more for functionality than for look or space. Instead of stone, the walls inside were polished metal with marble floors. The ceiling still rose high, but there were metal beams up there holding the roof up.

A stained-glass window looked out over the Martian landscape and, of course, didn’t let in any light. It was purely for decorative effect.

She and the Doctor slowly walked towards the front of the church, their footsteps echoing on the marble floor as they got closer and closer to the coffin.

The Doctor hadn’t told her much after they had left Little Pebbleford, and to be fair Alice was still concerned about the mysterious stranger who had caused her to black out, the readings that the TARDIS had registered coming from her brain and the mysterious death of her Headmaster David Grove. But Alice knew that the Doctor was upset about the death of his friend, Ivy Coldstone, and she felt it wrong to pressure him with her own problems at this time.

They had made a quick trip somewhere into the future and had materialised on a base covered by a protective glass dome on Mars. They were greeted by one of the workers that lived on Mars Base 5 and were escorted down a long, tube-like corridor towards the church. The tube had been more or less transparent, apart from the frame holding it together and the floor, and Alice had marvelled at the field of stars above her. Sometimes she had to pinch herself to remind her that this was all real. She was actually travelling through space and time.

Before she realised it, the Doctor had stopped and they were standing in front of the coffin. The lid was closed and the Doctor reached out to open it.

I put my hand on his arm to stop him. “Wait.”

“Alice, I have to pay my last respects,” he said solemnly.

Alice looked at him with sad eyes. “Tell me about her.”

“What?” he said, retracting his arm from the coffin lid.

“Tell me about Ivy. Tell me how you met her.”

“Alice…”

“Please, Doctor,” she said. “I’d like to know her. Then maybe I can pay my respects as well.”

The Doctor glanced back at the coffin and then at Alice. He smiled sadly and guided her over to the front chair pew. “It was a while ago, back when I was a different man.”

“How do you mean? When you had hair?”

The Doctor smiled. “Yes. When I had hair.”




London, 1859




Ivy Coldstone stood on the banks of the Thames, his long, red, curly hair blowing gently in the breeze. She stared out across Westminster bridge and towards the fairground on the other side. She had been looking forward to this evening for a long, long time. A chance to have a little bit of fun with her love at last.

Her love, James, clasped her hand and turned to smile at her.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said, her Irish accent a contrast amongst the Londoners. “It’s about time we went and had a little fun.”

Ivy had moved to London with her parents to escape the famine. She was only 13 when they had arrived, but in the ten years they had been here, her father had managed to get a job working at a textile factory, and Ivy had become a nanny for the Gilbert family. The Gilberts had three children. One of them, James, was in his mid-twenties and required no looking after, of course, but the other two were younger being 10 and 8 and the Gilberts needed someone to keep them in control at all times. Mr and Mrs Gilbert were both school teachers which meant that they weren’t always there for their children.

Isabelle and Harold Gilbert, the children, were a handful, and Ivy had come to rely on James to help her out. Their parents hadn’t known about it, and during that time Ivy and James had fallen in love. Unfortunately the Gilbert’s had discovered that Ivy wasn’t doing all the work herself and had dismissed her, causing James to fall out with his parents and run away to live in the slums with Ivy and her parents.

James’s parents had disowned him and he hadn’t seen them since.

In a fit of anger at his parents, James had proposed to Ivy. The Coldstone’s had been overjoyed. The Gilberts had not even batted an eyelid.

So when Ivy had heard that the famous Nottingham Fair was coming to London, she knew that herself and James had to go to finally have some fun with each other.

“Come on,” said Ivy, gripping James’s hand and making a run for the bridge.




Somewhere, up above in the space/time vortex, the blue box of the time and space machine known as the TARDIS span unceremoniously around and around, travelling to which ever destination it would find next. It always seemed to have a mind of its own.

Inside the TARDIS was smaller than it had been in the past. This Doctor had gone for a much more minimalist approach. The console was white with a tube that rose to a high-up ceiling, and the main walls were almost like a dome, white and adorned with various round circles. It was very similar to how he had decorated it many, many moons ago when he had first started out on this journey.

Standing at the controls was the Doctor. A different Doctor. This was the Doctor before he had regenerated into the current incarnation. This Doctor was much younger, to a Human looking in his forties. He had a full head of brown hair which was ever so slightly spiked. He also had a goatee beard and dark, dark eyes.

He was wearing a white suit with a black shirt and multicoloured tie. He also wore a silver fob watch which he consulted and then popped back into his top pocket.

It had been a little while since this incarnation of the Doctor had come into the world. He had travelled with numerous friends, but each one had left him and he wasn’t sure he was ready to make any more friends just yet. He was content just to travel on his own for a while. He needed a bit of peace and quiet.


And then he heard the beeping coming from the console.

The Doctor groaned when he realised what it was. An alien detection in Victorian London. He had only just recently left Earth and had really wanted to head out to another planet; maybe Crix and Tutorian. Maybe even Centrix, but he knew he couldn’t ignore this.

“Sod it,” he said with a groan and aimed the TARDIS for London, England, 1859.




Ivy and James ploughed into the crowds of people, all eager to see the various stalls and rides that had been put up in the fun fair. The sky was darkening now - it was late September - and all the lights from the various carousel’s and stalls where making Ivy and James stop and gaze in wonder.

Towards the north of the fair, near to the Houses of Parliament, they could see the large, cream banner with red letters declaring that this was the Nottingham Fun Fair. Ivy found it strange, because normally a fair wouldn’t have been allowed this close to the Houses of Parliament. They must have paid them an extortionate amount of money for it.

Ivy and James had bought a toffee apple from a nearby stall and were stood eating and enjoying the sites and smells, when suddenly, before their eyes, a blue box appeared out of nowhere.

Ivy and James stared, open-mouthed at what they could only assume was a magic trick.

The door opened and the Doctor stepped from it. He popped a white straw hat on his head, locked the door and then turned to face his astonished onlookers.

“Hello,” he said with a smile.

“How did you do that?” said Ivy. “That was…amazing.”

The Doctor glanced around him quickly, trying to ascertain exactly where he was.

“I bet nobody else in this fair can do something like this,” said James, taking a huge bite out of his toffee apple.

“That’s right,” said Doctor with a bow and leaning against the blue box, “I’m one of the fairground attractions. The Amazing Vanishing Man.”

“Fabulous,” said Ivy, grinning at him. “You’ll have to show me how you do that.”

“Ivy, Ivy,” said James. “I saw a fortune teller tent over back towards the river. Wanna go and see how married life’s going to treat us?”

“Come on, my darling,” sad Ivy with a grin. “Catch you later, Vanishing Man.”

The Doctor doffed his hat to them, turned and patted the blue box, and then headed into the crowds of people milling around the array of sites to see.




Ivy and James had found the Great Emily. She was sat in a small, rather dark and shabby looking tent. The inside looked even smaller and she was an older lady with grey hair. She sat, hood over her face, amongst various dangling coloured chains. In front of her on a small rickety table was a crystal ball.

“Sit, please,” said Emily as Ivy and James pulled up chairs. She looked up from beneath her hood. “Two of you, eh?”

“We’re getting -”

“No,” said James, lightly kicking Ivy.

Ivy frowned at James.

“Good, good,” smiled Emily. “Don’t give away anything away about yourselves.” She cleared her throat and then clasped Ivy and James’s hands. Her hands were clammy and waxy to the touch. “You’ve come from across the water.”

James arched his eyebrows. “Did the accent give it away?”

“Quiet,” said Ivy, glaring at her fiancĂ©.

Emily suddenly frowned, her eyes remaining tightly shut. She gripped Ivy’s hand tighter, whilst relaxing her grip a little on James’s.

“What is it?” asked Ivy, not sure whether she should be taking this seriously or not.

Her eyes snapped open and she let go of their hands. “I have to shut up for a while.”

“What?” said James. “We’ve just paid you two shilling’s for this!”

“And you can have your money back,” said the old lady, sliding the coins back across the wooden table.

James frowned at the women, but took the money back anyway. He wasn’t about to give his hard earned cash away, especially after he felt stupid for giving it to her before she did the reading.

“No, no,” said Ivy, “I’m not having any of that.” Her eyes were fierce as she stared at the old woman. “Why can’t you finish the reading?”

“I’m sorry, miss,” said the woman, getting up and beginning to pack a small bag. “I have to leave right now.”

“Why?” said Ivy, standing up, her hands spread across the table, her fierce Irish side coming out.

The old women turned to James and Ivy and looked sad. “Because you need to leave as well.”

She gathered a few more items from a small, wooden cupboard in the back, hastily packed them into her bag, grabbed her shawl and made for the exit.

“Wait!” said Ivy, feeling a lot more worried that she knew she should be.

Emily turned to face the youngsters. “I suggest the two of you leave now. Good evening.”




James had managed to calm Ivy down - just - and they had left the tent and headed nearer to the centre of the fair. They passed fire jugglers, mime acts and clowns riding amongst astonished onlookers on unicycles.

By the time they had reached a stall containing a large, blue and green speckled egg, Ivy had more or less forgotten about the strange fortune teller.

At the stall was a man in a bejewelled top hat, stripy waistcoat and wearing the longest, curliest moustache she’d ever seen. He held his arms out, sticking his large stomach out across the circular table that sat in the middle of his stall.

“Roll up! Roll up!” he bellowed in a Yorkshire accent. “Come and break open the egg. Inside the dragon’s egg is a thousand gold coins. If you can break the egg then it’s all yours. Just four shillings. Roll up! Roll up!”

The egg was rather large - about three times the size of an ostrich egg - and was sat on a small nest of straw in the middle of a round table.

“Another con,” said James, shaking his head.

“How do you know it’s a con?” said Ivy, folding her arms and staring inquisitively at him.

“For starters, there are no such things as dragons. And secondly, why would a dragon egg have golden coins in it?”

Ivy was stuck for an answer and just shook her head. “Just enjoy yourself,” she said with a laugh.

“I’m sorry,” he smiled. “I just can’t help myself sometimes.”

“Such a cynic,” she said.

Ivy was distraction when she spotted the Vanishing Man - the man in the white suit - wander up to the stall. He was looking intently at the dragon egg, rubbing the bristles of his beard.

“Is it a dragon’s egg?” asked Ivy, her eyes sparkling with interest. If he really was with the fair then he’d know for certain.

The Doctor’s eyes flicked to Ivy and then back to the egg. “No.”

“Oh,” said Ivy, a little despondent. She had been hoping he’d say yes.

“But it is an alien egg.”

“I beg your pardon?” said James, his ears pricking up at the word.

“An alien egg,” said the Doctor. He clicked his fingers and the man behind the stall came over. “Could you hand me that egg, please.”

The man laughed, his belly shaking. “That’s not how it works, sir.” He indicated an array of items that you could throw at the egg to try and break it.

“I don’t want to break it,” said the Doctor. “I want to get it off this planet.”

Ivy frowned at this strange white-suited gent. He was certainly spouting some odd things.

“I’m sorry, good sir,” said the man, “but this egg is going nowhere. There are a thousand gold coins to be had…but only in a fair contest.”

“That egg doesn’t contain golden coins,” said the Doctor, going into his pocket and pulling out a strange, metallic tube-like device with a glowing blue end. “And it is very, very, very dangerous.”

The man laughed and shook his head in disbelief.

“Where did you get the egg?” said the Doctor, a little more urgently.

“I picked it up when we were in Carlisle,” he said, “off a man in a suit.”

“And what did he say?”

“He sold it to me for a shilling. Said he wanted to get rid of it.” the man’s voice trailed off.

“All a bit suspect, isn’t it?” said the Doctor. He shook his head. “Dear oh dear, do you people never, ever learn?”

“Now look here -”

“Just give me the egg,” said the Doctor, leaping over the front of the stall with the agility of a cat.

“No!”

“You were given the egg,” said the Doctor, his eyes wide as he looked down at the utterly terrified stall-holder, “because whoever gave it to you knew it was dangerous. It does not contain golden coins. It contains an alien creature.”

“But it’s mine,” said the man, he pushed his way past the Doctor and grabbed the egg.

The Doctor lunged for him, and as Ivy watched on she almost burst into a laughing fit. They looked like some kind of comedy act reserved for the theatres in the West End.

“Give me it here!” said the Doctor, as the man tucked it under his arm and tried to leap over the stall.

The weight of the man caused him to miss it. He caught his feet on the side and went head-first over the counter, landing with a great flump in front of Ivy and James.

“Idiot!” said the Doctor, gracefully leaping over the counter and pulling up the man. “Oh no.”

The man had landed on the egg and it had split in two. Green vapour rose from the inside of the egg and a puddle of green goo trailed along the ground.

“What’s your name?” said the Doctor, as he edged himself and the man away from the cracked egg.

“Peter Humphries.”

“Well, Peter Humphries, I hope you’re better at running then you are at jumping.”

The smoke gathered thicker and thicker and thicker as the watching crowd began to scream and panic in fear.

Ivy and James stood there staring at the smoke as something began to emerge from the cracked remains of the egg…


Next Time: The Doctor continues his story, as he and Ivy confront the fearsome Hoopex. Coming Saturday April 12th 2014.

Story Index

No comments:

Post a Comment