Doctor Who_ Wooden Heart - Martin Day [60]
Saul was already on his feet – his legs wide and braced against the bucking of the boat – and he whirled the oar high over his head. He brought it down on the monster’s head with a sharp crack!
The creature flinched and splashed back into the water. Though it retreated, other creatures were already moving into position, writhing over each other like alabaster worms.
Martha glanced around wildly. The water in the bottom of the boat was already ankle deep, and Petr was rowing for his life, struggling against the extra weight and the sudden fragility of the vessel. Saul stood, oars in his hands like paddle-ended spears, waiting for the next attack.
Assuming the boat wouldn’t entirely fall apart in the meantime.
Jude was back at school, watching children swarming over the playing fields like ravaging ants. She was distant from them – distant and different. Shouted invitations to join in quickly became curses and jokes at her expense.
‘Boring little bookworm! Boring little bookworm!’
Jude found herself turning away, not sure if this was a memory or a dream or something else altogether. She became aware of the wind tugging at her hair, a gentle breath on her cheeks that cooled her humiliation – and then a whispered voice, which she felt rather than heard.
Don’t you want to hurt them? Make them stiffer?
Jude turned, trying to isolate the source of the voice, trying to answer it in her own mind – but her thoughts seemed sluggish and uncontrollable, like logs caught in a slow, powerful river.
You could, you know. You’re brighter than all of them – you could think of something.
‘They’re just little kids,’ said Jude. Though she was aware of her lips moving, she wasn’t sure if she was actually making a sound. ‘They don’t know any better.’
Like all your people, perhaps. So young, so… immature.
Now Jude thought about it, the voice sounded a little like the Doctor’s – wise and thoughtful and cloaked in mystery. But it seemed to have no gender, no age, no accent. It was like every voice Jude had ever heard, rolled into one.
‘We have lived here for centuries,’ said Jude firmly, reacting more at the implied criticism of the entire village and its way of life than she had to the ridicule of the children.
You are young, and you have lived in peace for far too long. You have only recently encountered conflict and dissent…
Suddenly Jude was surrounded by fog, watching figures fighting in a small amphitheatre of light. Her eyes widened, she cried out – it was her father! And Uncle Petr was trying to throttle him!
She tried to run forward, but the fog held her in place, allowing the cold, empty voice to whisper once more into her ear.
This is what happens, you see. Free will, and then, within moments… betrayal and fighting and selfishness…
‘No!’ shouted Jude, though neither struggling figure seemed to hear her. ‘They’re good people. They must be… They must be confused.’
Would you not like to intercede? How far would you go to protect your father?
‘I just want my father to be all right! But I like Petr as well. He’s always been kind to me.’
The two fighting men vanished, the fog spinning Jude around and presenting one image after another: her mother forcing her to eat boiled yellow tubers (They’re good for you, make you big and strong!’), that lad at school she thought she’d liked but who ended up being a two-faced idiot (‘I pretended to like you ’cos I wanted to get close to Leya – that’s all’), the one argument she’d ever had with her father… She couldn’t even remember what the circumstances were now, but Jude had ended up locked in her room without food for an entire day.
Don’t you wish things were different?
The voice was quite insistent now, a harsh edge creeping in – Jude was reminded of a child, in danger of losing an argument, or a teacher whose authority was being questioned.