Doctor Who_ The Room With No Doors - Kate Orman [80]
They’ve gone on their way. Chris has gone on his way. Good. All I need to do is stay out of the way until he’s been a hero. Then I make a dramatic return from the dead, congratulate him, admit modestly that I’d been playacting my death scene, that I’d misled him for his own good. He’ll be upset; they always are. But he’ll have made the choices he has to, and then he won’t need me to be the hero for him any more. He’ll have gone on his way.
Might be a good time now to open my eyeeeeaaaaargh! Pain. Dirt. Pressing on my open eyes close them close them! Grit under my eyelids. Hands won’t move can’t rub them. Weight on me. Earth holding me. Can’t move. They’ve buried me. They’ve gone on their way. They’ve buried me.
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Won’t scream. I don’t scream. I don’t lose control. My eyes are watering.
I can cope, I always do, no matter what they throw at me. I won’t scream.
Keep the eyes shut tight. Keep them shut. Don’t suck in that breath – all you’ll get is dirt. Don’t wonder how deep you are. Wonder how much dirt there is between you and that breath you want, between you and the people who’ve all gone away.
You’d think whoever’s watching wouldn’t begrudge me one little tiny scream. . .
But I can’t open my mouth.
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Third Slice
No sword
‘
’
– Buddha to Mahakasyapa
18
Meanwhile, back at the monastery
Penelope did a quick head count. ‘I think we have everyone,’ she said.
Mr Cwej’s face was quite calm. Almost blank. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Up the hill as fast as we can go, and in through the secret entrance. I’ll take it up in the cart,’ he told Penelope. ‘You can ride shotgun.’
‘What about you?’ Penelope asked Talker.
‘We’ll fly up,’ said the Kapteynian, jerking her wing at the sky. ‘And meet you there.’
‘Shall we run ahead of you, O-samurai?’ Mikeneko asked Mr Cwej. The woman’s voice trembled with exhaustion and suppressed grief.
‘No,’ said Mr Cwej. ‘We’ll all stay together. Put the wounded and the kids into the cart, as many as you can fit.’
There were perhaps two dozen surviving villagers.
Penelope helped
Mikeneko cram the cart. Five children, a man who’d been knocked to the ground by a samurai’s passing horse, a woman who’d been shot through the arm. Penelope had been glad of the ointment and bandages she had brought along.
Three more children clambered into the cart, chattering, watching the Kapteynians take flight. Black wings flapped amongst the trees for a moment, and then they were gone.
Penelope sat beside Mr Cwej in the driver’s seat. As they started moving, she glanced back to make sure the children were hanging on safely. She couldn’t help smiling. One of them had caught a Kapteynian feather, and they were passing it around, fascinated. There was life left in some of the inhabitants of Hekison village, at least.
She glanced at Mr Cwej. The young man was still so calm. It couldn’t be helped. There was no time to deal with what had happened now. First they must reach safety.
Behind them, in a clearing deep in the forest, there was a grave. It was not marked with any headstone, not even a cross of twigs.
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Mr Cwej had dug it for the pod. It had taken five of them to pull the mysterious object clear, once it had miraculously uncovered itself.
They had lowered the Doctor’s body into that shallow resting place. Penelope had removed the arrow from his shoulder, and taken off his jacket and hat. There was no shroud, no priest, nothing but the need to quickly put him to rest so that they could make all speed to safety.
Mr Cwej had seemed paralysed. Once he had helped her lower that small body into the grave, he stood by the side, neither speaking nor moving, clutching the Doctor’s jacket in one hand, the collapsible shovel in the other.
Penelope had awkwardly arranged the Doctor’s hands on his breast. He looked so cold in his shirtsleeves. She wished for something to cover him with. But there was nothing but soil.
She stepped up out of the shallow hole. Mr Cwej held the shovel, still rigid, his eyes locked on the corpse.
Penelope put her hand on the shovel. ‘I will