Doctor Who_ Wolfsbane - Jac Rayner [16]
„Well, Sarah?‟
They were walking back towards the village proper, having kept silent for as long as it took to be out of hearing range of The Manor. Sarah was eager to speak. „I think this Miss Neuberger is definitely a part of it. Very suspicious, the way she was the only one to survive.‟
The Doctor raised an eyebrow, perhaps noting the times when he and Sarah had been some of the very few to walk out alive.
„The important point is that she was apparently a distant cousin of Lady Hester‟s, and Lady Hester owned the house, it wasn‟t entailed or anything. She probably meant to get Lady Hester and her son out of the way, and inherit everything.
She staged the wolf attacks on the sheep, probably killed Lucinda Ryan and that farmer‟s daughter because they‟d discovered her plans or something, and then carried out her real objective of killing off Lady Hester and her only rival to the estate, only it went a bit wrong. Oh, but can you inherit if you‟re insane, though?‟
The Doctor didn‟t answer. He probably didn‟t know, Sarah told herself to make herself feel better. „It might be an idea to find out more about George Stanton, too. See how mad he is.
He might be able to tell us what went on - it sounds like he was actually there. How does one get to see a patient in an insane asylum, though - can you just turn up? Do you need an appointment, or a letter from a doctor?‟
After a few moments, the Doctor spoke, but as usual didn‟t answer her questions. „I should like to have a talk with Miss Neuberger.‟
„So you do think she‟s involved!‟
„I think that I should like to have a talk with her.‟
And more than that he didn‟t say.
„Come on, let‟s go,‟ said the Doctor to Harry.
„Go? Where?‟
„You don‟t think this has got to be investigated?‟
Harry did, of course. He thought it had got to be investigated by the Doctor. But as the Doctor was not here, perhaps this Doctor would have to do.
„I was going to have a look at the woods,‟ Harry said.
„George Stanton says a tree attacked him there last night. Or rather, early this morning.‟
„Excellent! That‟s where I was intending to go. It‟s the blood, I expect. Not on its own, of course - black magic, perhaps, maybe an elemental or two. A ritual sacrifice on a sacred spot. There are a lot of those around here. Very mystical place, the West Country.‟
Harry wondered if the man was quite sane. A too vivid imagination, would be his diagnosis. Too many fantastical novels. And then Harry realised that he was thinking like someone who had not been in UNIT, been to other worlds, met alien monsters and, indeed, had five minutes ago witnessed a lot of vegetables doing very strange things indeed.
„I was just going to have a look around.‟
„Me too!‟ The Doctor strode off, leaving Harry to catch him up or not, as he decided. The Doctor was shorter than Harry, and slightly built, but as Harry hurried after him he felt more like he was running after an energetic giant.
The path they were following was very different to the one they had travelled the night before. Nature had always been a bit of a background thing, the green or brown part of the landscape that differentiated city from country. Now it was slap bang in the foreground. Plants grew as they watched.
Flowers bloomed. Sluggish bees buzzed dopily around, unable to choose from the abundance of pollen. Excited ants engulfed fallen fruit, amazed at this unseasonal bounty.
Blackbirds and thrushes swung from side to side on still-growing bushes, surrounded by a feast of hips and haws but too gorged to peck further.
Inspired, perhaps, by the Doctor‟s words as well as his experiences of the night before, Harry had been thinking of the wood as sinister - a dark, cold place where wolves roamed and friends abandoned you and pitchforks were waved; the sort of spot where wicked witches had their lairs and lost children huddled under shed leaves for warmth. Now, he wouldn‟t say it was friendly or warm - it was November, after all, and even the brightest sunlight was distant and cold -
but it had no such connotations. Perhaps it should still be