Sunday, 4 November 2018

The Girl in the Woods, Part Two

Part Two: The Little Girl


“Who is she?” asked the Doctor, peering between Mary and Betty.

“The girl in the woods,” said Mary.

“Well, she’s a girl and she’s in the woods,” said the Doctor, “but what exactly is she?”

“She’s a ghost,” said Mary.

“Nonsense,” said the Doctor. “I don’t believe in ghosts.”

Mary looked away from the girl and back at the Doctor. “It looks like your disbelief has been proven wrong then.”

“But it’s impossible,” said the Doctor.

The girl began to raise her arms. They were reaching out towards them. She started to walk towards them. Her movements were jerky and uncoordinated and every step looked awkward.

“Oh no,” said Betty, burying her head on Mary’s shoulder and closing her eyes.

“What does she want?” said the Doctor. “Tell me about her.”

Mary was sure there was no way out of this. She was about to close her eyes as the girl got closer to them, but without warning the sky brightened. The clouds were clearing and a large band of sunshine spread across the woods and came up behind the girl. It was as if she had sensed the emerging sun. She stopped and put her hands to her glowing head and let out a scream. The scream sounded distant, but Mary still covered her ears. As the sunlight hit her the girl disappeared in a huge flash of light.

When the light had cleared she was gone and all that was left was the sound of birds tweeting in the trees above and Betty sobbing into Mary’s shoulder.

“Goodness me,” said the Doctor. “How fascinating.”

Mary turned to face him. She couldn’t work him out. Why hadn’t he been as terrified as her and Betty?

She was about to ask him when there came a ding-ding of a bicycle bell and PC Forrester came peddling through the uneven wooded ground where the girl had been stood. He was a burly man in his late 40’s with a greying moustache and an almost bald head save for a few strands of hair that hung limply over the top of his head.

“Good afternoon ladies…and gent,” he said, noticing the Doctor, still soaking wet in his charred suit. “Is everything okay up this way? We heard an explosion. The Sarge sent me.”





The Doctor emerged from the police station - still wearing his not-quite-so-wet-now suit - and shook his head. The sun was blazing down again and Mary was leaning against the wall across the other side of the street, still holding the picnic basket that Betty had hastily handed over to her before heading home, her face as white as a sheet.

“Mary. Still here?” said the Doctor, spotting her across the road.

“Still here,” said Mary. “I wanted to know what PC Forrester had said.”

The Doctor smiled, put his hands in what remained of his pockets and crossed to her side of the road. “Well he’s going to take a look at the lake, but I doubt he’ll find anything. The…ahem…bomb pretty much obliterated everything.”

“If you don’t mind me saying, sir, you don’t seem at all concerned that you were nearly killed.”

“Please,” said the Doctor, holding his hand up and smiling warmly at her, “you don’t have to call me ‘sir’. The Doctor will do just fine.”

“Very well…Doctor,” said Mary. “But I’m still curious. You were nearly blown to kingdom come.”

The Doctor nodded. “And as I told PC Forrester, I’ve been involved with…incidents before.”

“During the war, you mean?” asked Mary.

“Yes, during the war. A few actually. One more old bomb going off isn’t going to shake me.”

“Hmmm,” said Mary as she and the Doctor began walking down the cobbled street. The street itself was the main road through the village. Here there was a small shop, Allbrights, as well as the post office that Mary worked at, owned by her mother, Patricia Auckland, the police station with it’s ivy-covered walls and a garage for motorcars. It was a fairly quiet affair in Saxerby. Everyone knew everyone else and if you had a secret then you could be sure it’d get found out by the rest of the village.

“You sound like you doubt me,” said the Doctor, looking down at her.

She looked up at him and smiled “Just wondering, that’s all.”

“What about?”

Mary stopped and leant against the low brick wall that stood outside a very rickety looking three story grey-stone house. It was the butcher, Mr Garnet’s house and he rarely made any improvements to the building. In fact Mary could have sworn she saw some roof tiles fall down in the bad storm they had at the beginning of the year.

“Why a bomb would be in Kettleworth Lake in the middle of such a tiny village like Saxerby.”

The Doctor didn’t reply. He just stared down at her.

“I know it wasn’t unheard of for the Nazi’s to drop bombs in the countryside, but it was rare.”

“You know your history, Miss Auckland.”

“History? It was only a few years ago.”

“Yes, of course,” said the Doctor. His eyes darted from left to right. He needed to get a grip. “Well, look, perhaps it was a faulty plane that happened to drop the bomb.”

“Maybe,” said Mary, but she narrowed her eyes and smiled up at him, “or maybe there’s something else going on here.”

The Doctor wasn’t smiling anymore. He was looking concerned. “I think what’s more important is the apparition we saw out in the woods.”

Mary knew full well that he was trying to change the subject, but then realised that what he said was very true. The three of them had just witnessed a full-on manifestation of…something. Something that was fast becoming a serious concern around Saxerby.

“You’re right,” said Mary. “Tell you what, I’ll meet you at Rossiters in 45 minutes and I’ll tell you all about it.”



Rossiters was a very small café a few streets away from the main shopping street. It was set inside a little cottage next to an old windmill that hadn’t been used in years. Mary and Betty often frequented the place in their lunch break (Betty worked as a secretary at the local school) and their blueberry muffins were always popular with the locals.

When Mary got there the Doctor was already sat drinking lemonade and finishing off his third muffin.

“I got you one but I couldn’t resist the urge to eat it,” said the Doctor. He wrinkled his nose. “Sorry.”

“Don’t apologise, Doctor,” said Mary, pulling out a chair beside an old wooden table and sitting down, “you didn’t need to buy me anything.”

Mary ordered a cup of tea and then placed her hands in front of her on the table.

“After you, Miss Auckland,” said the Doctor, gesturing for her to begin.

“Well,” said Mary, a glint in her eye, “it all started about six years ago, back in ‘43. It was during a cold night. There was a terrible storm - lightning, thunder…you know the type. It was Norman Jackson‘s barn that caught fire after a bolt of lightning struck it. The villagers all headed up to the farm to help put it out.”

“Good old British spirit,” smiled the Doctor.

“Well apparently it was during that time that she was first seen. It was Mr Gibson that saw her first. Apparently she just appeared. He said he thought it was one of the villagers that had gotten lost but said it couldn’t be because her head was glowing.”

“And what did he do?” asked the Doctor, taking a sip of his lemonade and smacking his lips. “Lovely.”

“He said she just sort of floated towards him. He panicked and turned and ran. Everyone thought he’d gone mad and I think after a while Mr Gibson thought he had imagined it until Jennifer Buttersby and her five children saw her one night when their dog, Jet, had run away.” Mary’s blue eyes were wide with amazement. “She was beside the small wall across the road from the woods.”

“So I’m taking it that after then people kept seeing her more and more frequently.”

Mary nodded.

The Doctor leaned in towards her. “Mary, all of these incidents seem to occur in or around the woods.”

“That’s right,” said Mary.

He smiled and drained his glass of lemonade. “How do you fancy a trip into the woods tonight?”

Mary sat back in her chair, shaking her head. “Oh, no, sir. No I don’t think that would be a good idea at all. I’ve got a job to get to.”

“In the post office?”

“In the post-” She frowned. “How do you know?”

“I did my research.” He winked.

“You spied on me,” she said, folding her arms.

“No,” he laughed, “I just asked PC Forrester, that’s all.”

Mary shook her head. “PC Forrester was never very good with letting information out. Loose lips and all that.” She frowned again at the Doctor. “But why me? Why are you wanting me to come to the woods with you?”

The Doctor shrugged. “You just seem like you could do with a bit of excitement in your life, Mary.”

Mary frowned at him. “I’m very happy working at the post office.”

“But what do you intend on doing with your life? With your future?”

“I…well, I don’t know.”

“Becoming a doting wife to a hard-working husband at some point in the next five years?”

“And what’s wrong with that?” said Mary, folding her arms.

The Doctor folded his own arms and looked down his nose at her. “I don’t think that life is for you, Mary.”

Mary broke off her gaze with him and sighed. “Maybe not, but that doesn’t mean that I’m going to run away into Kettleworth Woods with a complete stranger in the middle of the night.”

The Doctor smiled at a distant memory. “I had a friend once, a long time ago, who said the same thing. Her life changed so completely…” He frowned. “Just a minute. Kettleworth…Kettleworth…” the Doctor muttered under his breath. “There’s something about that name…something familiar.”

“If you live in the area then there’s nothing strange about remembering the name of the woods.”

“No,” said the Doctor. “It’s more than that.” He tapped his chin. “Listen, is there somewhere I can perhaps get a change of clothes? I’m…ah…not planning on heading home for some time and this suit has well and truly had it.” The Doctor looked back at Elsie Rossiter who was standing behind the counter cleaning a tea cup and looking suspiciously at him.

“I think I can help,” said Mary. “But don’t tell my mother.”



The Doctor looked himself up and down in the long mirror. Mary had taken him back to her house - a small two-up, two-down a few streets away. Her mother was working and the house was empty.

The Doctor was standing in what he assumed was the master bedroom. He examined his new clothes - a greyish-tweed suit complete with a green waistcoat, white shirt with brown pinstripes and a black tie.

It wasn’t exactly his cup of tea - mind you, he wasn’t entirely sure what his cup of tea was now or whether he preferred coffee to tea - but it’d do for now. At least he was dry.

He smoothed his hair down and headed back downstairs.

Mary was sat in the tiny living room, her hands in her lap. It was a tidy but small setting with a small window overlooking the micro front garden, two green armchairs, a wooden table set between them and a coffee table in front of them. Against the far wall was a sideboard with a wireless sat on top of it.

A door led from the living room to the kitchen and another door to the left led to the entrance hallway and the stairs to the first floor.

She heard the creaking of the stairs and stifled a gasp when the Doctor walked into the living room wearing one of her fathers old suits.

“How do I look?”

“It’s like seeing a ghost,” said Mary.

“Quite apt considering what we saw earlier,” said the Doctor. He noticed Mary glancing away to the side. “I’m sorry.”

“I miss him. I miss them both.”

“War does terrible things to people,” said the Doctor, sitting across the room in the armchair.

“They were stationed in Coventry when it was hit in November 1940.” She closed her eyes at the memory of PC Forrester breaking the news to she and her mother. “There was nothing left of them.” She looked back at the Doctor. “Oh, goodness,” said Mary, putting her hand to her mouth and blinking back tears. “You almost look like him.”

“A handsome, silver-haired devil, eh?” said the Doctor, winking and smiling at her and trying to lighten the mood.

Mary cleared her throat and smiled. “But you’re not him. And we have things to do.”

“Yes,” said the Doctor, getting to his feet and patting down his suit, “we do indeed. Where‘s your mother by the way?”

“Not sure actually,” said Mary. “Well, she was at work but was out for a bike ride on her lunch break. She’ll probably be out shopping now. Just as well you missed her. I wouldn’t want her seeing you in father’s old clothes.”



The sun was beginning to set by the time Mary and the Doctor had reached the outskirts of the village. It was a warm, summer evening, but there were clouds hovering over the hills to the East.

The birds were sounding their evening chirps and Mary was now wearing a jacket with her dress. The Doctor, meanwhile, was wearing a brown mac - another of her fathers items of clothing - over his suit.

The trail into Kettleworth Woods was the same route they had taken earlier on to get back to the village. The well-walked track was clear through the tall trees. They seemed to be walking for hours, but in reality it couldn’t have been much more than 30 minutes.

“So, come on,” said Mary, “what are you hiding?” She felt a little more comfortable with the strange man now. She wondered if it was him wearing her fathers clothing that made her feel at ease.

“Hiding?” he said, glancing back at her momentarily. “I’m not sure I understand.”

“You’re clearly not your average, everyday villager, are you?” said Mary, un-snagging a twig from the bottom of her dress. “You’re not from around here, are you?”

“I told you, I’m-”

“The truth, Doctor,” said Mary. She stopped walking and stood just behind him her arms folded. “The truth or…”

“Or?” said the Doctor, turning to face her.

“Or I head back.”

“Okay,” said the Doctor, nodding to her. “Feel free.” He turned and began to walk again.

“What?” she said, frowning and continuing to follow him. “Hang on a minute. This isn’t fair.”

“Life isn’t fair, Miss Auckland,” said the Doctor, turning to her and raising his eyebrows. “If life was fair I wouldn’t have ended up in that lake.”

“Now we’re getting somewhere,” said Mary as they clambered over a fallen tree. “I knew something was off about it all. You were never fishing in that suit and there wasn’t a bomb, was there?”

The Doctor stopped, wiped his hands with a handkerchief and then smiled at her, his grey eyes burrowing deep into her own. “There are things I can’t tell you because it probably wouldn’t make much sense.”

“Try me,” said Mary, folding her arms again.

“Not yet,” said the Doctor, “but I can tell you this - there is more to this world than you are aware of. More to this life than you know.”

Mary didn’t answer, she just continued to stare at him.

“I am a…well, let’s call me a traveller, shall we? I travel the…world investigating strange occurrences. Strange happenings.”

“Like the girl ghost?”

“Exactly like the girl ghost,” said the Doctor.

“And do you see many ghosts?”

“Not so much ghosts,” said the Doctor, “and they’re never really ghosts anyway. There’s always a scientific explanation behind them, but there are other, much more frightening things out there.”

“Mother used to say that Hitler dealt in the occult and the supernatural.”

“Oh, old Adolf was always meddling in things he didn’t understand.”

“You knew him?”

“I punched him once.”

Mary’s eyes widened and she stifled a giggle.

“But, Miss Auckland, I’m afraid the time for chit-chat is long gone. We need to get a move on before we lose our way.”

“But the track’s easy enough to follow,” said Mary, nodding towards the bare dirt through the long grass between the trees.

“We’re not following the track,” said the Doctor. “We’re taking a little trip sideways.”

“Okay,” said Mary, nodding. “Can I ask why?”

The Doctor smiled. “Absolutely. I’ve just remembered where I’d heard the name Kettleworth Woods before, and you’re not going to like it.”



To be continued...

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