It had become absorbed into their bloodstream and they had all reported that they had felt more powerful and stronger than ever before.
Margot had run a few tests and had been able to freeze time, slow it down and even speed it up. But it was difficult for them to control and every now and then one of the team members would flare up and have to be sedated to calm them down.
Ultimately, it was a dangerous situation they found themselves in.
And Jayne was feeling guilty and entirely responsible for what had happened. Lilly and her brother should never have been allowed in there on their own, especially not Brandon. She wasn’t exactly sure what had happened, but she gathered the power source of the shed-TARDIS had escaped, damaging it’s interior and twisting it and it’s occupants beyond anything recognisable.
Jayne and the others had come a decision, however. They had to open up the machine and try and see if there was some way to repair the damage.
Jayne and Margot stood before the metal door. Jayne took a deep breath and removed the key from around her neck. Taking a quick glance at Margot, she inserted the key into the lock and turned it. The door slowly clicked open.
The first thing she could feel was the cold. It felt bitter and there was a biting gust of wind that blew out and caused her to take a sharp intake of breath.
‘What the hell’s happened in there?’ asked Margot.
‘The dimensions have collapsed,’ said Jayne. ‘They’ve expanded beyond the console room.’
‘Then…what do we do?’ asked Margot, more clueless that she had hoped to be.
‘We go inside and get Brandon and Lilly out.’
Jayne pushed the door open and stepped through the darkness. She continued to walk for a couple of seconds until eventually the darkness cleared in front of her. She was standing amongst blackened and charred trees. Her feet felt cold and she looked down. She was standing in thick, pure white snow. She walked a little further. She emerged on top of a gently sloping hill. All around were fields and hills of deep snow. Above her the sky was a burnt orange colour and it was snowing. She shivered and pulled her cloak tighter around her.
Margot appeared at her side. ‘How is this even possible? It looks like some kind of twisted version of Narnia.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Jayne. ‘TARDISes are psychic. They’re living things.’ Jayne knelt down and scooped up the snow, letting it slowly melt in her hand. ‘When it’s dimensions collapsed, it probably latched on to the nearest location it could find and tried to reconfigure itself, but failed miserably.’
‘So,’ said Margot, gazing around and spotting a church in the distance, ‘this is modelled on Thornsby?’
‘Kind of,’ said Jayne, making her way down the hill.
‘But what about Brandon and Margot?’
There was a flash across the sky and the land around them shook.
‘This place is unstable,’ said Jayne. ‘It’s like it’s still trying to expand, but it can only go as far as the TARDIS shell.’
‘But, isn’t the dimensions of a TARDIS supposed to be infinite?’
‘Not necessarily,’ said Jayne, sitting down on a rock halfway down the hill. ‘This TARDIS is a much more basic design, built for war.’
‘So what happens when the dimensions - this land - reach as far as they can go?’
Jayne looked at Margot. ‘The walls burst?’
‘Look!’ said Margot, noticing a staggering, brown-cloaked figure emerging from a copse of trees.
The two women ran down to the figure. It was clearly female-shaped.
‘Lilly?’ said Jayne. ‘Lilly are you okay?’
Lilly lifted her head and looked up at the two women. Her face was gaunt and her skin blackened and stretched tight over her bony features. Her eyes were glowing white and her mouth was blackened with perfect white teeth.
‘Oh my God, Lilly,’ said Jayne, hands to her mouth. ‘I’m so, so sorry.’
Lilly didn’t say anything, just mumbled and raised a bony hand towards Jayne.
The two women stepped back, but then they realised that Lilly was actually pointing. She was pointing back the way they had come.
The ground shook again and Jayne turned around. Up at the top of the hill, near to the trees were Jayne and Margot had come from, was another cloaked figure. It was looking down at the three of them and then turned, making it’s way towards the exit door.
‘Brandon!’ yelled Jayne, her voice echoing around the strange land.
‘Stop…him…’ said Lilly weakly.
Jayne and Margot pounded as fast as they could up the snow-covered hill. Brandon was already at the exit. He turned to face his sister and smiled, his face twisted and identical to Lilly.
‘Just stay there,’ said Jayne. ‘We don’t know what might happen if you step outside.’
‘Poor little Torchwood,’ hissed Brandon, stepping from the box.
‘No!’ yelled Jayne as he stepped outside into the crypt.
There were gasps from the rest of the team as Brandon stepped outside. One of the scientists pulled out a scanning device and ran it over Brandon. Brandon turned to look at the scientist and then grabbed his arm.
‘Help me…’ he hissed.
Jayne and Margot ran out of the shed-TARDIS.
‘Brandon,’ said Jayne, ‘let go of him.’
The scientist screamed as his arm began to turn grey.
‘We need scientists,’ said Brandon, his voice husky and gravely.
‘Not like this,’ said Jayne. ‘You were exposed to the inner dimensions and the time vortex. It’s messed with your head. You need to listen to us.’
‘Where’s Lilly?’ asked Don, grabbing the thing by it’s cloak and recoiling in horror when he saw Brandon’s face more clearly.
‘Lilly is ours now,’ it growled.
The scientist had stopped screaming. He had slowly mutated into a similar looking creature to Brandon. He turned and looked back at the rest of the group, slowly smiling he said. ‘Now I am one of them.’
‘How is this possible?’ asked Nivere.
‘Why are you happy to be like him?’ asked Rebecca.
‘It was your fault,’ said Brandon. ‘It was your fault that we came to be here.’
‘It was your fault,’ came Lilly’s voice from inside the box. ‘He sabotaged the ship.’
‘Is this true?’ said Jayne, horrified.
‘Lilly…’ blubbered Don.
‘It was an accident. But you shouldn’t have gone in the first place,’ hissed Brandon. He reached out an arm towards Jayne.
Margot took the initiative and grabbed a wooden chair, throwing it at Brandon. He grabbed the chair by it’s legs and the wood froze up, shattering all over the floor.
‘We can help you,’ said Jayne.
The ground inside the crypt shook.
Brandon fell to his knees and let out a pained cry. ‘I must be free. We must be free.’
‘Then let us help you!’ yelled Jayne.
‘What’s up with him?’ asked Margot.
‘He’s not able to think straight. He’s conflicted. His instinct to survive as the creature he is is overwhelming him.’
‘We will reclaim this world,’ hissed Brandon, throwing his arms up. ‘Poor little people.’
‘Help me get him inside,’ said Jayne to the rest of the team.
‘Seriously?’ asked Thomas. ‘But he’s your brother.’
‘Not anymore. But he can be again. He just can’t stay out here.’
‘I want to be with Lilly,’ cried Don.
‘Get a grip, Turner,’ snapped Nivere. ‘We can’t help her now.’
‘Come on then,’ said Jayne.
The rest of the team picked up chairs and other equipment and began to force Brandon towards the shed-TARDIS. He hissed and growled and lashed out, but slowly and surely, the other scientist and Lilly were forced back inside.
The last thing they saw was Lilly looking sad and lost beyond the doors.
Jayne forced the door closed and locked it. It shuddered for a few moments and then stopped.
She turned to the rest of her team and straightened herself up. ‘Right. We need to forget about who those creatures once were. This is an accident and it’s an accident we created. From now on all of our energies go on trying to save them and putting this right. No one opens that box and nobody goes anywhere near it.’
Don sniffled.
‘We are all concerned and upset, but we are Torchwood. We have to pull ourselves together.’
Nivere looked at her hands. ‘Can we not time travel to the future to get help. Surely if we can manipulate time, we can also travel through it.’
‘It doesn’t work like that,’ said Jayne. ‘We may have time running through us, but we need control and a vortex to actually travel through it.’ She sighed. ‘And Torchwood didn’t want us here in the first place. If they knew about this they’d probably just send a team back to wipe them out. We’re here to help them, not destroy them.’
‘How are we meant to do that?’ asked Rebecca. ‘It’s impossible.’
‘We’ll find a way. We have to.’
The next few days were spent moving the shed-TARDIS into an adjoining area just off the crypt. Occasionally they would hear screams coming from inside, but the team did their best to ignore them. The rest of the equipment was set up and they began monitoring the readings from the TARDIS. It was just as Jayne had said - the dimensions inside were continually expanding and they were trying to burst through the walls.
And one time - but not the only time - they did…
Jayne was walking outside the church with Father Ainslie, getting some fresh air. It was still bitter outside, but it was now the new year and the snow was melting. Things inside the church had become tense and every now and then she needed to get out and have a breather.
Father Ainslie knew the situation. He didn’t quite understand everything, but he had devoted all of his time to keeping their secret hidden.
The two of them were about to enter the church when Jayne noticed something out of the corner of her eye. Hovering over a few of the gravestones was a small, slither of light. It looked like a crack. And then she noticed it had started to snow again.
‘What is that?’ asked Ainslie.
Jayne picked up her walkie-talkie and spoke into it. ‘Margot, I want you and Ben out here now. We may have a situation.’
‘What about the others?’
‘No. Leave them. I don’t want to cause a scene.’
Unfortunately for Jayne, a scene was what she got. Ben and Margot had attracted the attention of the others and they had been powerless to stop them.
And the crack had widened. They could hear voices coming from beyond it. Ben stood there with a machine monitoring the energy levels coming from it.
‘Well,’ asked Jayne, ‘what is it?’
‘I’m not entirely sure,’ said Ben, adjusting the dial at the side of the monitor, ‘but the energy coming from it is temporal energy. I have a sneaky suspicious that the crack leads to the dimensions of the time machine.’
‘How is that possible?’ asked Nivere. ‘The time machine is underneath the church.’
‘But it’s dimensions aren’t,’ said Margot, moving to stand beside Jayne as the crack grew wider and wider. ‘The doorway in the shed-TARDIS is just a doorway to the inner dimensions.’
‘And the dimensions are expanding,’ said Jayne. ‘They’re expanding so much that it may cause this world to burst at the seams.’
Ben looked extremely worried. ‘If that happens then they will be able to get through. It might even cause time to collapse.’
Father Ainslie didn’t really understand what they were saying, but already a crowd of townsfolk had gathered to watch the strange spectacle.
And then the crack widened even more. Ainslie pointed up towards it.
‘Look!’
The ghostly figures of Lilly, Brandon and the scientist pushed their way outside and scuttled down to the ground. The snow was coming down thicker and faster and the people began to scream and flee.
Almost driven by an animal instinct, Brandon directed Lilly and the scientist to attack. They swooped down and launched themselves at the fleeing people, grabbing them and pinning them down to the ground.
‘Stop! Stop!’ shouted Ainslie, going for his bible. ‘I implore you to stop!’
Brandon turned to the vicar and hissed at him. As fast as lightning Brandon grabbed him around the throat. The vicar struggled, but was powerless against the strength of Brandon. Slowly Ainslie began to alter and shift. His skin blackened and wrinkled and his eyes became huge, glowing globes of light as he transformed into one of the things.
Jayne watched on in horror as her people tried to fight back the creatures. More and more of the townsfolk were being transformed, and then they in turn began to turn others.
‘We need to do something!’ yelled Margot over the commotion.
‘Stay back!’ shouted Jayne.
Brandon’s neck snapped around and he gazed at his sister, a moment of recognition in his eyes.
‘They’ve became feral. All they can think about is survival,’ said Don. ‘And it’s all your fault.’
Brandon hissed and leapt on Jayne. He placed his gnarled hand around her throat and pressed his fingers in deep. Jayne coughed and spluttered, trying to fight him off. She was just about to give up as she felt her skin began to tighten up, when, from deep inside of her, she felt an enormous power. It felt like she had just downed a hundred mugs of black coffee. She felt tingly and so, so alive. She looked at her hands. They were glowing orange. Instinctively she placed her hands on Brandon’s head and slowly forced him back. She was now glowing all over her body. Brandon was cowering from his glowing sister and trying to scramble back to the crack.
The rest of the dozen or so creatures had also spotted Jayne and were attempting to get back to the crack. Slowly and surely Jayne pushed them all back until they were back inside the crack, then, with a flash of her hands, closed the crack up, sealing it.
Everything was still and the surrounding area had cleared. Jayne looked down at her hands. The power had subsided and returned to deep within her.
‘What the hell was that?’ asked Nivere.
‘The time energy,’ said Jayne. ‘That was the time energy. It’s what’s inside all of us.’
The all looked at their hands, as if expecting them to burst into life.
‘The crack’s not gone,’ said a breathless Ben, checking the readings. ‘It’s sealed for now, but it’ll open up again soon. And I get the sense that they’re trying to push themselves through by other means as well. Fading into our time like ghosts.’
The snow had stopped now and it was starting to rain.
‘So what do we do?’ asked Don.
‘We stay here. We stay here and we don’t stop until we find a solution.’
And that’s what they did. The townsfolk never spoke of what had happened that night for fear of being branded as mad, but they all knew they were there. They knew a darkness hung over Thornsby and they knew that there were angels out there to face the dangers. And over time they became known as the Ancestors. The Ancestors of Thornsby. The angels protecting their town from all that was evil.
Time had passed. Years had passed. The team had become close. They had continued to monitor the cracks in space and time, but had come no closer to finding a solution. They lived in the town and worked underneath the church. Vicars came and vicars went, and they all knew the secret. They all knew about the Ancestors.
One particular year, about five years after their initial arrival, Margot had noticed something: they weren’t ageing. They hadn’t aged a day since they had been exposed to the time energy.
‘Then our job could last a very, very long time,’ Jayne had said. ‘We have to continue, and then maybe one day we might be able to return home.’
‘We could go home now, Jayne,’ said Margot.
‘No,’ said Jayne, ‘we can’t abandon this world. It would disrupt everything. We have to stay. We have to put this right.’
Interlude
March, 1902
So much time had passed.
Margot had returned from paying some money to the grocer who provided the food for the group, and was returning to the church. She passed a funeral and the latest vicar, Father Jameson, and gave him a sad smile. It was always sad to see funerals. The people of this time always died from such trivial illnesses. The time energy inside each of them prevented them from succumbing to any kind of disease.
Margot went around the corner of the church, into the door and went behind the curtain at the front of the church. She took one of the candles and then made her way back through the main hall and towards the steps leading to the crypt. It was then that she saw the woman standing in front of the wooden door leading to the crypt.
‘Who are you?’ asked Margot.
The woman turned around quickly. She had long, dark hair - a little unconventional for this day and age - and was dressed in black. She had obviously just come from the funeral outside.
‘It’s you,’ said the woman, in an almost whisper-like voice,
‘Do we know each other?’ said Margot, certain that they didn’t.
The woman didn’t reply and just simply looked her up and down.
‘I asked you a question. Do we know each other?’ said Margot again.
‘No. I was mistaken. I thought you were from the Fieldgate’s funeral.’
‘No,’ said Margot quietly. ‘Who are you?’
‘I’m Caroline Pa-Fieldgate. Caroline Fieldgate.’
Margot nodded and swept passed the woman. ‘I suggest you go back to your funeral. I’m here helping the reverend of this church to clear space in the crypt. For storage.’
‘Okay,’ said the woman. ‘You look a little too spruced up to be helping clear a crypt.’
Margot stared at Caroline, her nostrils flaring. ‘What I do is my own business. Don’t come here again or I shall inform the police,’ said Margot, in the most stuck up voice she could muster. She then turned, opened the door and went inside.
‘What was all that about?’ asked Nivere, as Margot closed the door and leant back on it.
‘Is the time barrier still up around the room?’
The team had put up a shielding around the room using equipment from the time machine. It meant that the room was a second out of time and slightly phased out of line with the real world. It enabled them to remain hidden from any prying eyes.
‘Of course it is,’ said Nivere, grabbing an apple and biting into it. ‘You know the portal is only tuned into our readings. Nobody but us can get in here.’
‘Good,’ said Margot. But she was sure there was something strange about that woman. Something familiar. Maybe not about her face, but she just had this feeling…
Next: Adventures with Thomas and Rebecca and a caravan. Coming Friday 11th October.
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