“Since I was a girl, I knew the legends of the Doctor. They say he ended the most vicious war in all of history. They say he brought the universe back. They say he can speak every language ever discovered, and knows how to fix every toy that ever existed, no matter how broken. He was like a god to me, always watching over. Like a guardian angel.
Do you know what I learnt about guardian angels? They don't exist.
The siege of my planet had been waging for centuries, but the Doctor had always been there to save the day. Except for one time. The one time when I needed him the most, when it really mattered... my guardian angel was having a dinner date. And his negligence, his ego, his disinterest, cost me my family’s lives. My sister... only a child. She couldn't do things for herself, couldn't defend herself. She relied on me, and I relied on the Doctor. But the Doctor was busy, drinking wine and laughing with his friend.
Do you know what it's like? To have lost everything, everyone you ever cared about. And then to find the man you thought would be your saviour, who your friends and neighbours — your parents — told you would always be there to save the day... laughing. I swore he would pay.
That was the day I lost my faith in the Doctor. That was the day I swore to serve the Silence. So don't you dare tell me, Miss Smith, that the Doctor is a good man. He's not a good man. He's a monster.“
“Why are we doing this again?”
Zoe tutted at Dan’s stupid question and looked up at him. But she furrowed her brow, as she didn't have an answer. Eventually she shook her head in dismissal, and sighed. “Just grab more chairs! Beth, quit checking your phone!”
Beth looked up. She had been lost in her own thoughts, wondering about that text she had received a few minutes earlier by Zoe. Silence. It had to mean something, but what? There was a thought nagging at the back of her head, like the word had some significant meaning, but she couldn't for the life of her remember what it could be. She begrudgingly ignored the feeling and got on with stacking chairs in front of the door.
Once they had used up all their chairs, they took a step back and admired their work. The door was invisible behind the precarious tower of plastic and metal.
“Awesome!” Zoe exclaimed, wiping her hands. “Now we can work out a plan in peace.”
“For what?” Dan asked. “Why are we here?”
“It's obvious, isn't it?” Beth suddenly offered.
“Is it?” Dan asked sceptically.
“We're definitely defending ourselves, but we can't remember what from. Whatever we're fighting can probably make you forget, or something.”
“Great,” Zoe said dryly. “How are we supposed to fight something we can't remember?”
Dan piped up once more. “We have to think about all the things we can remember. We definitely know that we have to look after Melody.”
“And we definitely know they can destroy stuff,” Zoe added, a little too eagerly.
“And that word you texted me: silence,” Beth said. “It’s gotta mean something.”
“I remember the feeling of forgetting.”
The trio turned to look at Melody, who had been standing in the corner quietly for the past five minutes.
“What d’you mean?” Dan asked.
“Every time I try to think about what I did before you guys found me, my head goes all fuzzy. I remember some things, but they’re always… confusing. I hate that I can’t remember. I think what we’re fighting has something to do with my past. I have to know.”
“I get that,” Beth said diplomatically. “But if these… things are hanging around that lady and Manton, they’re gonna be bad. And we’ve gotta look after you.”
“But —” Melody stopped herself, and shuffled her feet. “Okay.”
The trio shared a look, and Dan placed a hand on Melody’s shoulder, smiling warmly when she looked up.
“We’ll help you get your memories back,” he said assuringly. “But we’ll deal with that another time. First, we look after ourselves and stop whatever’s after us, right?”
“Right,” Melody mumbled reluctantly, at which point Zoe took centre stage.
“Talking’s great, but we’ve gotta move. Dan, you go with Melody. Look after her. If you can’t, get to Sarah Jane. Beth, we’re gonna stay here.”
“Why are you guys staying here?” Dan interjected. “You should come with us.”
“Guys?” Beth said slowly.
“We gotta make a distraction so you guys can get away,” Zoe said confidently.
“Guys…” Beth said again. This time, Melody followed her gaze and frowned.
“Distract what? We don’t even know what’s after us!” Dan complained.
“We’ll figure it out!” Zoe huffed. “Just go —”
“You’ve gotta come with us,” Dan said stubbornly.
“Guys!” Beth snapped.
“What?!” Zoe glared at her, but faltered when she noticed Melody’s wide-eyed expression. Beth slowly pointed upwards, and Zoe and Dan finally looked up to see what had been bothering her. The lights were flickering sporadically, and there was a building hum in the air, like an electric current.
“I thought they were broken,” Dan breathed.
“You hear that?” Zoe asked nervously. “It sounds like —”
“Look out!” Melody cried, suddenly grabbing each of the trio and pushing them backwards with surprising strength.
BAM!
The door exploded in a burst of blue light, and three suited figures peered in through the entryway. The room devolved into a frenzy of noise as the group all spoke over each other.
“Get back!” Dan grabbed a chair and hurled it at the nearest Silent. It toppled over, and Zoe and Melody used the distraction to rush forward and knock the other two off their feet. “Out, out out!” he yelled, following the girls as they shot for the stairwell. They’d reached the double doors when Zoe abruptly stopped, and grabbed Beth by the arm.
“You two go,” she said. “Get Melody to Sarah Jane.”
“Come with us!” Dan urged.
“It’s dangerous here,” Melody cried.
Zoe glanced over her shoulder at the threat. “We’ll keep them busy. You see one, take a picture on your phone, otherwise we’ll keep forgetting them. Make it your wallpaper or something.”
“But —” Dan tried to protest.
“Move!” Zoe bellowed, shoving them through the doors as the Silents pushed themselves to their feet.
“Be careful,” Melody said anxiously.
“Yeah, don’t die,” Dan added, and then he and Melody were gone.
“Where now?” Beth asked.
“Dunno,” Zoe admitted. “Sort of making it up as we go along.”
“Great,” Beth said dryly. The Silents had spotted then, and were starting to build up their electricity once again. Beth pushed Zoe towards another hallway. “Run!”
And they were off.
Sarah Jane looked at Kovarian with newfound sympathy, but she held her ground. “Madame Kovarian, I understand what you’re going through, but the Doctor —”
“Understand?” Kovarian said bitterly. “You understand? You haven’t any idea what’s it like.”
“I do,” Sarah Jane said softly. “I lost my parents at a young age, too. I was just a baby. These things are never right, but sometimes they just happen! You can’t blame others for it, and certainly not the Doctor. Not after everything’s he’s done for us.”
“You don’t have a clue,” Kovarian said firmly. “You never knew your parents. I grew up with mine. I bore my sister’s pain. And then I lost them all, because of him.”
“The Doctor makes mistakes,” Sarah Jane conceded, “as do we all. But him not making it in time is not his fault. And you’re wrong, I do know what it’s like. I met my parents, so long ago now, and they were absolutely wonderful. And then they had to die, but they accepted it, without debate, for the ones they loved. For me.”
Sarah Jane’s voice cracked, and she took a moment to compose herself.
“That’s the way of the universe. Most days, it’s a beautiful place, but there is an ugliness there that comes out sometimes. You can’t blame the Doctor all your life. You have to move on.”
“I can do whatever I want,” Kovarian said heatedly. “You are right about the universe, I will give you that. It is a sacred place, and I am protecting it.”
Sarah Jane frowned. “What do you mean?”
“The Doctor is not just incompetent, he is a liability. He threatens the very equilibrium of space and time itself. And we are putting a stop to it. That is the way of the universe.”
“I don’t understand.”
Kovarian rolled her eyes. “How could you even hope to? Your precious Doctor is not the hero you think he is. He is a ruthless warrior, soaked in the blood of millions, and many more will perish at his hand.”
“He’s not perfect,” Sarah Jane tried feebly, “but he would never —”
“Wouldn’t he?” Kovarian said sharply. “The Order of the Silence was founded to maintain the peace, to stop the Doctor from bringing about the universe’s end, by any means necessary. A few light years away, he is sitting in a dark room right now, cowering from the war he has brought upon my home, preparing to utter a word that will bring the stitches of time crashing around us.”
“And what word would that be?” Sarah Jane asked worriedly.
Kovarian waved a dismissive hand. “Oh, it is an insignificant word in itself, but it holds the power to kill millions.”
Sarah Jane sighed wearily. “And you want Melody to deal the finishing blow.”
“Very good,” Kovarian commended, “you’re catching on. Yes, Miss Smith, Melody Pond will kill the Doctor.”
“Why are we hiding?” Melody asked fearfully.
“I don’t know,” Dan admitted.
“Are we going to die?”
“No way.” He turned from his position by the window to look at Melody’s face, overcast with shadows that made her look older than she actually was. “We’re gonna be okay here.”
“It stinks.”
“Yeah,” Dan agreed. “People come here to… do stuff. Chris calls it a bando. You don’t wanna know.”
“I want to be with Sarah Jane.”
“We can’t go to her,” Dan said firmly.
“Why?”
“It’s too dangerous.”
Melody groaned in frustration. “I don’t get it.”
Again, Dan sighed wearily. “Neither do I.” Glimpsing at Melody’s troubled expression again, he sat down next to her with the brightest smile he could muster. “You know this cottage’s been abandoned for years? Me and the others came here one time, on Halloween, cos Zoe wanted to scope it out, so I hid in that corner there, and waited. When they came looking for me, I jumped out and screamed. Zoe jumped like ten feet in the air, and I swear Beth looked like she was ready to faint.
“They chucked their sweets at me. I had Mars bars for days.” Dan grinned at the memory, but it didn’t have the intended effect. Melody curled in a ball, and silently disregarded the story. “It’ll be okay, Mels.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yeah, I do. Sarah Jane’s probably got something in her handbag to sort this all out, and Sentinel’s probably screaming at her for taking too long.”
Melody studied his face — his piercing blue eyes, whose emotions never seemed to align with the grin constantly on his face.
“You smile too much,” she said carefully, after a while, and left it at that.
Dan laughed nervously, unwilling to let Melody’s words get to him. She was right, he had no idea what was happening, but he couldn’t let her know that. Dan had learned how to defend his true feelings with jokes and a broad grin, but today it seemed to be failing him. Today he was dealing with the only other person who could catch him out.
He turned back to the window glumly, praying that his friends were way ahead of him and had a solution planned.
Aside from the constant distress brought on by artistic deadlines and strict teachers, Beth loved being in art classrooms. In fact, she’d even go as far to say it was one of her favourite places to be in school. Was it the mounds of clay in the corner? Or the paints, still wet on the canvasses resting on the racks? She absorbed it all as she ran in, almost forgetting everything else.
No.
Don’t forget.
She shook her head and continued running to the other end of the room, cursing herself for forgetting — memory was their only weapon, and she couldn’t let them weaponise her mind. She turned to Zoe, who was busy stacking tables in front of the door.
“Now what?” she asked. “We hiding?”
“No way,” Zoe said firmly, as if the very thought was a personal betrayal. “I’ve got an idea. Remember when we were talking about Mnemosyne?”
“Goddess of memory, right?”
“Exactly,” Zoe confirmed. “And then she had that quote about the block of wax imprinting memories, right?”
“Mm,” Beth said thoughtfully. “That Pluto guy.”
“Plato, you moron.” Zoe rolled her eyes and turned to the desk in front of Beth, dumping a heap of clay on the table. “You’re good at art. Get imprinting.”
Beth stared at the mass of clay in shock. “You what?”
“There’s definitely something chasing us, right? We dunno what it looks like, but we know it’s there, in the back of our minds. Use that!” She pushed Beth towards the station. “Quick!”
Beth just stared at her. “I — I can’t remember…”
“You’re thinking too hard,” Zoe hissed. “Use instinct, Beth. Like when we’re sword-fighting online and I beat you.”
“I beat you,” Beth countered off-handedly, but she obliged and shut her eyes, bringing her hands to the cold, lumpy mass in front of her, and moulding it with her fingers. She recalled an sculpting lesson from a few years back, when she was first starting at Foxgrove High. She’d crafted a cockapoo — it had been her favourite animal, and still was — and baked and painted it masterfully. Dan and Zoe had laughed at the name, but Beth didn’t care in the slightest. She loved her little cockapoo, and she loved Mr Nibbles. Maths and science were subjects she was good at, but they never ignited a love in her like animals did. One day, Beth knew she wanted to be a vet. And until then, she would make do with lessons that allowed her to hone that passion, even if Mr Chandra heavily disagreed with the relevance of creative subjects. Beth had always found that rather odd, considering that, according to Sarah Jane, his own daughter aspired to be a reporter.
Not everyone thrived on equations and formulas. Some were like Zoe or Sarah Jane, who were skilled with their words, or Dan, who unfailingly excelled at figuring out the configurations of computers and video games. Mr Chandra, and anybody else who didn’t see that, needed to stop.
“Stop.”
“Stop!”
Beth was pulled out of her thoughts by Zoe, who was violently shaking her shoulder. She opened her eyes and looked at the creation in front of her.
Her hands had worked independently from her brain, and had moulded an abstract version of a head: elongated skull, deep set eyes, long neck. It strikingly resembled a painting Beth had seen once, called The Scream (she wondered if it had been an inspiration of her unconscious mind), but now she was confronted with this contorted face, clay twisting over the features unnaturally, and the memories flooded back to her and Zoe.
“You did it,” Zoe cheered. As she looked down at the head, she saw another one behind it, almost exactly the same. But this one was real, and towering over her with an excruciatingly noisy rattle. “We gotta stop meeting like this.”
Another one appeared behind its comrade. Beth gasped and took a step back from the desk, while Zoe wielded a nearby paintbrush like a sword.
“What do you want?” she demanded.
“Melody Pond,” one of the Silents rasped. “We want Melody Pond.”
Pond?Beth thought fleetingly as she searched for an escape route.
“Tough,” Zoe said confidently. “She’s not here anymore.”
“You will take us to her,” said a Silent as it approached them. Zoe and Beth slowly stepped backwards, manoeuvring around the desk.
“Why should we?”
“You have no choice,” the creature boomed loudly. Beth turned to run, but the second Silent blocked her path, hissing violently at her.
“Why can’t you lot leave her alone?” Zoe asked desperately, panic settling in the more she looked at the grotesque creature. Her eyes darted desperately around the area. “She’s just a kid!”
The Silents leered over her, emitting an awful noise. Beth got the feeling that they were laughing.
Zoe stopped fidgeting, and looked at the Silent defiantly. “What’s so funny?”
“You know little, Zoe Smith.”
“You know my name?” Zoe considered. “To be fair, you freaks were stalking me for ages. Never heard of Childline?”
“The little girl who’s always so scared, laughing at the things for which she is unprepared, knowing she won’t be spared,” The Silent recited. “Know that you will take us to Melody Pond, and prepare yourself for the fate that awaits you after that.”
Zoe grasped a chair, seemingly for support, and then she stared coldly into the Silent’s eyes. “Beth.”
“Yeah?” Beth said timidly.
“Duck.”
Beth barely processed the order before Zoe brought the chair swinging at the Silent’s head. It reeled at the blow, crashing directly into the desk. Zoe whacked it again for good measure, and then spun around. Beth finally ducked, and Zoe used the new space to kick the second Silent’s leg to bring it down to eye level, and then smacked it twice over the head as well. She turned once more, and sent the chair flying into the window. Beth flinched as the glass shattered loudly.
“Come on!” Zoe grabbed her friend and dragged her over to the window. They clambered out, mindful of the jagged shards, and ran as the recovering Silents roared at them.
“Where are we going?” Beth cried as they ran.
“Dan and Melody!” Zoe said as she brought out her phone. “We gotta get to Sarah Jane!”
“The Doctor is a dangerous man,” Kovarian said as she paced around the room. Sarah Jane eyed her suspiciously, watching her every step.
“Go on…”
“He holds a lot of secrets. Secrets that must never be told, because the consequences would be disastrous. If he speaks the wrong word, then this universe will be plunged into darkness. And that’s where Melody comes in.”
Sarah Jane bristled. She objected to anyone using weapons, but even more so when they wanted to use an innocent child.
“Melody Pond is a unique child,” Kovarian continued.
“All children are unique.”
“Not like her. She was conceived in the Time Vortex — she was born with the universe in her blood. She is the perfect warrior. So we took her in —”
“You kidnapped her,” Sarah Jane interjected.
“— and we raised her to fulfil the most important mission of the universe. To stop the Doctor.”
“Why her?”
Kovarian chose her words carefully. “Melody is a child of significance to the Doctor. She was born more than human, yes, but their lives are closely intertwined. She is the closest thing to him, and it is vital that she is the one to kill him.”
Sarah Jane scoffed. “You’d turn the closest thing to the Doctor into a weapon to be used against him? You’re cruel.”
“Why are you questioning the will of the universe, Miss Smith? This has to happen. Time decrees it to be so.”
“Then Time has to be stopped. I will never just stand by and let you turn an innocent girl into a weapon.”
“She’s already a weapon,” Kovarian sneered. “She just doesn’t know it yet.”
Sarah Jane shook her head in disgust. “It’s sadistic.”
“It’s necessary. We tried to trap him, but he refused to be caught. Now we are simply striking him where it hurts the most. But you always did object to this sort of thing, didn’t you?” Kovarian glanced at a burnt photograph on the desk, of a young man with his arms wrapped lovingly around a teenage girl. “Your son and your daughter. Both were created by alien species for their own purposes. Both were weapons.”
“And both times I stopped them being weapons and helped them become better,” Sarah Jane protested. “Kind. People who weren’t cruel or spiteful and bent on revenge. Beautiful, well rounded human beings who saw the good in the universe.”
“We are doing good for the universe as well.”
“But you’re not doing good by Melody,” Sarah Jane snapped. “She deserves a better life.”
“You’re too sentimental, old woman.”
“I wish you wouldn’t keep calling me old,” Sarah Jane muttered, “because I know how to handle myself. Age means nothing to me, Kovarian. I’m just as strong now as I was thirty years ago. And I’m just as intolerant of people who stand in my way. So here’s a word of advice: don’t stand in my way.”
Dan watched Melody as she sat silently on a creaky old stool by the window. He wasn’t quite sure why, but he was certain that she was growing angrier with each passing second. Her dark expression made him nervous, so he decided to busy himself by scoping out the area. He wandered aimlessly around the little cottage, searching every nook and cranny, before coming to a stop by the front window.
When he peered out, his blood ran cold.
Stalking across the deserted street was a Silent.
Dan froze, far too worried over whether it would notice if he moved. He stared dumbly — goosebumps prickling his skin — as it skulked along like a wolf after its prey. He hoped for it to walk past and disappear around the corner, just so he could breath properly again. It seemed to work. The creature was almost at the bend. Dan ogled its back, hopeful that his wishes would actually come true.
And then his phone rang.
Dan jumped back from the curtain, but not fast enough. The Silent had spotted him. He quickly silenced his phone and hurried into the rusty old kitchen, eyes wide and panicked. Melody stared up at him, anger replaced by confusion.
“Melody! There’s —” Dan sharply trailed off, and quickly skidded to a halt. Melody was off the stool instantly, staring at him in concern.
“What?” she asked.
He frowned. “What?”
“You were saying something.”
Dan furrowed his brow. “Was I?”
Before Melody could question him further, the agonising sound of breaking wood jarred them both out of the discussion and prompted them to focus on the hallway with bated breath, waiting for something to happen. They didn’t have to wait long. The grotesque figure crept quietly into the dingy kitchen with a hiss.
“Oh yeah, I was,” Dan said shakenly, simply staring at the approaching Silent. He knew he should have been reacting, thinking of an escape route, to protect himself and his friend, but he was rooted to the spot in terror.
The Silents took no notice, and kept striding noiselessly towards him.
“Move!”
Dan turned, and had barely any time before he instinctively ducked. A rusty saucepan went flying across the room and landed on the Silent’s face with a clang. The utensil had barely left Melody’s hands before she had leapt over Dan’s crouched body and onto the fallen Silent. Dan watched in horror as the young girl punched the Silent square in the face, then stood up. She ran to the old mouldy fridge that was standing against the wall, and with a grunt, pulled it away. It toppled like a domino, crushing the Silent beneath with a thud.
And that was that.
Melody jolted out of her thoughts, as she suddenly registered what she had done. She turned to Dan, but he was staring at the crushed creature, transfixed by its oozing white blood.
“You…” He gulped, unable to finish the sentence.
Melody dropped to the floor, unable to hold herself up any longer, and curled into a ball.
“Melody…?” Dan said slowly.
Melody couldn’t find it in herself to respond. She couldn’t do anything other than stare at her fallen enemy, rocking back and forth in despair. She recalled Kaagh’s words during her kidnapping, and whimpered. The mark of a general had been branded upon her, and now she wasn’t sure if she could ever escape it. But the worst thing for Melody was that she looked down at the creature, and she felt nothing for it.
The shrill wail of Dan’s mobile phone cut through the silence. With shaky hands, Dan glanced at the caller ID. “It’s Zoe,” he said, sounding relieved. He accepted the call and answered the frantic questions. Melody tuned them — and everything else — out, until there was nothing but herself and the Silent.
She was startled by a hand on her shoulder, and Dan flinched back.
“Sorry,” he apologised when Melody’s face fell.
“Are you scared of me?” she asked mournfully.
“No,” Dan hastily replied. “I’m not! I was just a little surprised. It’s okay, Melody.”
“It’s not. I killed it.”
“It was going to kill us,” Dan said soothingly. “You saved me.”
“I’m a murderer,” Melody whispered. “Everybody’s going to know. They’re going to know.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do. They’re going to be watching me. They’re going to know what I did, and they’ll know I didn’t care.”
“Look, I get that,” Dan sighed. “Like everyone’s gonna be watching you? I feel that!”
“Then how come you keep smiling?” Melody hiccuped.
“Cos then nobody knows what I’m feeling,” Dan said simply, mustering a weak smile for her. “Nothing to it.”
“Nothing to it…” “Dan?” Zoe called out from the hallway. She sounded breathless. “You guys here?”
“Give us a sec,” Dan called back. “Come on, let’s get away from this.”
“If we go, I’m going to forget I did this,” Melody pointed out solemnly.
“Maybe that’s a good thing.”
“But you can’t forget about your stuff,” she said sadly.
Dan grinned as he helped her up. “I’ll deal with it.”
“Dan?” Zoe called out again.
“On our way,” Dan said back. He and Melody both edged towards the door, pausing for a moment to regard the dead alien once more. “Count of three?”
Melody nodded tentatively.
“Okay,” Dan took a breath to steady himself. He didn’t quite know why he was so nervous. “One… two… three.”
He and Melody left the kitchen, and promptly forgot about their encounter.
“There is one question I want an answer to.”
“Must you always have an insufferable thirst for knowledge?” Madame Kovarian sounded strangely exasperated.
“That film reel,” — Sarah Jane gestured towards it — “you keep saying you’ll tell me about it, and then you never do. I want to know why it’s so special.”
“The disc itself is unimportant,” Kovarian said. “It’s the contents that we were after.”
“The moon landing footage?” Sarah Jane spread out her hands in open confusion. “But why? There’s nothing there. I’ve checked dozens of times.”
“Oh, we’re well aware of that,” Kovarian smirked. “You may have resisted the internal message, but even you have missed the obvious.”
Sarah Jane straightened defensively. “And what do you mean by that?”
“Shall I show you?” Kovarian tapped the computer screen. Her finger danced along the surface, but never quite made contact. It was easy to forget that she wasn’t actually in the room.
Sarah Jane narrowed her eyes. “By all means. Sentinel.”
Without a flicker of protest, Sentinel opened up a file of the moon landing on the computer. Sarah Jane watched Kovarian as she stared intently at the screen.
“Stop,” Kovarian said abruptly. Sentinel obliged, pausing the footage on a specific image. Sarah Jane gasped as memories came flooding back to her the longer she stared at the grotesque figure.
“But that’s impossible,” she breathed. “How could I forget that… awful thing?”
“You wanted to know what the Silence were. There’s your answer.” Kovarian sounded smug. “They have the ability to edit themselves out of the conscious mind. If you’ve seen them enough times, you’ll occasionally be aware that you’ve had an encounter.”
“But you found it without any trouble,” Sarah Jane pointed out.
“This is an eye drive.” Kovarian pointed at the black eyepatch in a manner of explanation. “It allows me to retain information on the creatures. A very useful gadget.”
“And Rutledge?” Sarah Jane pressed. “Why did you go after him?”
“Professor Rutledge was in a unique position of power,” Kovarian explained. “He had the ability to derail our entire operation before it even left the ground.”
“How?”
“He’d found a way to isolate the clip. We dealt with him before he could distribute his findings.” Kovarian sneered. “See a Silent enough times and your brain fries from the constant memory wipes. Like Kaagh, we conditioned him to wait for you. He was to kill you, and then himself.”
“But that didn’t work out, did it?”
“No,” Kovarian said sourly. “We didn’t expect the child to be present.”
Sarah Jane shook her head in disgust. “You say you’re protecting the universe from the Doctor, but it sounds like you’re doing more harm than good. You know, for all the terrible things you’ve claimed that he has done, and I’m not saying they are untrue — the Doctor is amazing, but even he has his flaws — you refuse to acknowledge that you’ve been just as bad. You are on a vengeful crusade, and you don’t care who gets hurt in the process. Rutledge, Melody, even a teenage boy. You allowed him to hold his own life hostage just to get at me.”
“It was necessary.”
“So you keep saying,” Sarah Jane retorted. “I will never let you use Melody to kill the Doctor. “
“Then the fate of the universe rests in your hands, Miss Smith,” Kovarian said coolly. “I hope you can live with that.”
“I’ve heard enough.” Sarah Jane produced her sonic lipstick and zapped at the hologram, trying not to let the stinging words get to her. Kovarian started to flicker and fade. “Don’t bother coming back.”
“Oh, but I will come back,” Kovarian vowed. “Mark my words, Miss Smith, we will be back. One way or another, silence will fall.”
Finally, the hologram disappeared permanently. Sarah Jane sighed deeply, allowing herself a moment to compose herself and her chaotic thoughts. She crossed the attic and plucked the film reel off the desk thoughtfully.
“It’s safe to come out now,” she called out, expecting to hear an immediate response. When she didn’t, she looked around, half-expecting to find the girl by her side. “Melody?”
Concerned, Sarah Jane opened up the trapdoor and hurried downstairs. She turned to Melody’s closed bedroom door, ready to open it, when a low rattling noise caught her attention. Spinning around, a chill ran up her spine as she spotted a hideous looking creature by the staircase — the same creature that had wiped itself from her memory multiple times over the past month.
The Silence.
“Hurry up!” Zoe cried out as she and her friends sprinted though the forest, struggling to navigate themselves in the dark. It felt like they were all spending a lot of time in the forest after-hours ever since they’d stepped into Sarah Jane’s life.
“I think we’ve lost them,” Beth said hopefully.
“Who’s them?” Dan panted.
Beth held up her miniature sculpture as she ran, and it bobbed up and down in her hand. “These things!”
Melody, who had been running ahead of the rest, suddenly came to a stop and screamed. The trio screeched to a halt behind her, and watched as multiple Silents approached them from all sides. Zoe scrambled for a weapon, but one of the creatures yanked Beth towards them, who struggled for breath as an elongated hand began to smother her.
“Let her go!” Zoe demanded, trying to pry its grasp off her friend, but the creature’s vice grip wouldn’t budge,
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Melody wailed, dropping to the ground in fear as more and more monsters surged out from the shadows.
Dan looked around desperately for an escape route, but there wasn’t a single one to be seen.
They were trapped.
Once Sarah Jane got over her initial shock, she wasted no time in opening the lid of her wristwatch scanner and pointing it at the figure in the black suit. It seemed to blend into the darkness, lighting up with every burst of lightning, watching her movements with its tiny, sunken eyes.
“If I’m right, I forget I ever saw you if I turn my back. Is that how it works?” Sarah Jane asked conversationally.
“Correct,” the Silent rasped. Its booming whisper set off every nerve in Sarah Jane’s body, urging her to run the other way, but she firmly stood her ground.
“My scan indicates you’re not armed.”
“We have no need of weapons,” the Silent said boastfully. “We have been here long before you were born, Sarah Jane Smith.”
“Yes, well, you’re looking remarkably sprightly for it,” Sarah Jane said flippantly. “I see you know of me.”
“We have been watching you since birth. We have watched you grow, and mature, and fight.”
“Flattery will get you nowhere,” Sarah Jane said sharply. “What have you done to Melody?”
“She was taken from our grasp by children. They will all be captured.”
“You leave them alone,” Sarah Jane said warningly. “If you harm any of them, I will destroy you.”
“You are weak,” the Silent said dismissively, stalking closer towards her. “You do not defend yourself with weapons."
“If you continue to push me, I’ll show you just what I’m capable of.” Sarah Jane stood at her full height in defiance. “Let Melody, and my friends, go.”
“They are ours.”
“They belong to no one.” Sarah Jane regarded the Silent. “I remember the footage now. You were condemning your own species to death.”
“We were tricked,” the Silent rattled in fury. “Hunted through time by humanity. It took centuries to undo the call to war.”
“I can’t say I pity you,” Sarah Jane mused. “Now release my friends.”
“Even before the silent majority destroyed the hypnotic messages, you resisted the call to attack,” the Silent said mockingly. “There is nothing you can do.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.” Sarah Jane held up the film reel, smiling triumphantly when the creature flinched. “If you dare harm any of them, I will destroy all your hard work. It’s why you killed Professor Rutledge, isn’t it? He had the ability to send your plans crashing, and now I will do the same. Every person in the village will get a copy of this footage, and you will be hunted every time you dare step foot here.”
A gaping hole started to open where the Silent’s mouth should have been, and the lights in the hallway started to flicker sporadically. Beams of raw energy shot from the light fixtures, directly into the Silent, and it pointed a long digit at her.
Sarah Jane stared it down. “You can destroy me, but my AI will still distribute the footage, not just to the village but to UNIT and every other paramilitary service on the planet. Would you risk making an enemy of the Earth just to get me out of the way?”
Her gambit was successful. After a brief, thoughtful pause, the Silent slowly lowered its finger, and the electrical thrum in the air died down. Sarah Jane took great care in covering up how unsettled and relieved she truly felt.
“She will still fulfil her destiny,” the Silent stated as it turned and skulked away. “Silence will fall.”
“Not while I’m around,” Sarah Jane called after it.
Melody cowered in the mud and leaves, wishing she could just disappear. The Silence flanked them from all sides, and everybody was shouting over each other as Beth was slowly choked. Her need to kill and her need to protect her friends clashed, overridden by an urge to hide. The shouting rose to a crescendo, and Melody curled into a ball.
She wished they would all just leave her alone.
And then the shouting stopped.
She looked up, startled, as Beth fell to the ground beside her, gasping for breath. Zoe and Dan were stock-still, staring at the Silents as they slowly retreated into the darkness.
“What are they doing?” Zoe wondered.
“I think they’re leaving,” Dan said in disbelief.
Melody looked around hopefully. “Why?”
“Who cares, let’s go!” Zoe said, helping Beth to her feet. Dan did the same for Melody, and together, the four ran in the opposite direction of the creatures. The danger was averted. It was time to get back to Sarah Jane.
Sarah Jane anxiously paced the attic, glancing occasionally at the trapdoor, hopeful that her friends would clamber through at any moment. But as the seconds ticked by, her apprehension simply grew.
“Keep that up and you’ll put a hole in the floor,” Sentinel said sardonically. “I told you already they’re en route, so stop worrying.”
Sarah Jane sighed. He was right, she was getting nowhere with all her fretting. She collapsed in the swivel chair, tapping her fingers thoughtfully as she regarded the kaleidoscopic colours on her computer screen.
“I need you to do something for me, Sentinel.”
“What?” Sentinel sounded strangely sombre.
“That name Kovarian kept mentioning — Pond. I want you to run a search for it.”
“You think there’ll be a connection on Earth?” Sentinel questioned, his standard sarcasm replaced by doubt.
“You saw the readings, and Martha double-checked them,” Sarah Jane reminded him. “They both came up human. We have to try.”
After a hefty, anxious pause, Sentinel started to whir. “Scanning..”
“Thank you.” Sarah Jane picked up the film reel and leaned back in her chair, swivelling aimlessly as she examined it, the evening’s events playing out in her mind. The object was a purveyor of death, but it was the only thing keeping Kovarian and her band at bay. She had to keep it safe, not just for Melody’s sake, but for the Doctor’s as well.
Before she could dwell too deeply on her friend, the trapdoor swung open, and four sweaty, dishevelled youngsters crawled into the attic. Apprehensively, she scanned their mud-streaked faces for any signs of injury, terrified by whatever horrors Kovarian was capable of inflicting,
“Dan, you stink,” Zoe whined, immediately setting Sarah Jane’s mind at ease.
“I’ve just been running for ages, what d’you expect?” Dan retorted, and while the pair devolved into their usual bickering, Sarah Jane sought out Melody’s gaze, who perked up happily.
“I’m starting to get tired of worrying about you,” Sarah Jane said warily, crossing the room and sweeping Melody into a big hug. “But you’re clearly capable of handling yourself.”
Melody squeezed her tightly, before pulling away enough to look up at her. “Are you okay?”
“I should be asking you that!”
“I’m thirsty,” Zoe brashly spoke up.
“I know you’re alright,” Sarah Jane tutted, looking down at Melody with a grin. It slowly faded when she noticed her young friend’s troubled frown. “What’s wrong?”
“I’ve… forgotten something again,” she responded quietly, her tone tinged with a deep sadness.
Sarah Jane’s heart ached. “Oh, Melody…”
Melody looked up hopefully. “Did she say anything?”
“Who?” Beth interjected.
“The woman from the ship — Madame Kovarian,” Sarah Jane explained, avoiding Melody’s earnestness. “You just missed her.”
Zoe deflated. “Could’ve finally chucked a water bucket at her,” she grumbled.
“What did she say?” Melody persisted, and Sarah Jane finally met her hopeful expression. Desperation for the truth shone in her young brown eyes, but Sarah Jane couldn’t bear to imagine how much the answers would hurt her. She’d been through enough as it was.
“Kovarian said a lot of things,” Sarah Jane said curtly, gently extricating herself from Melody’s grip. “She wants to kill a man.”
“Who?” Zoe asked curiously, but Sarah Jane shook her head.
“It doesn’t matter.” She could see how dissatisfied they all were with the answer, but she couldn’t bring herself to tell the truth. “Someone I’d never heard of. She’s not coming back.”
“How d’you know?”
“I have leverage,” Sarah Jane said, keeping her answer vague. “It’s a long story.”
“Did she say anything about me?” Melody said quietly.
“No,” Sarah Jane dragged the word out quickly, perhaps a little too quickly. The group of four glanced at each other sceptically, so Sarah Jane sought out the first distraction she could find: the lump of clay that Beth was clenching for dear life. “What on earth is that?”
Zoe followed her gaze, and rolled her eyes. “Oh, yeah. Basically…”
Laurel squinted. “I don't get it.” She screwed up her face, trying to work out what Beth’s latest sculpture could possibly resemble. “Is it...an egg?”
“Yeah, ‘cos all eggs look like that, don’t they?” Beth tutted. “Don't you reckon it looks like that 'Scream' thing?"
"The movie?"
"No, the painting Miss Chance talked about in art. You know, by that Norwegian guy. Eddie Munch."
“Does it? I thought it looked like Slender Man." Laurel peered at the sculpture for a while longer, but eventually gave up, flapped her hands and walked away. "It looks stupid, anyway."
Beth rolled her eyes, and moved her books off her desk. In the new space, she placed the abstract clay head right into the centre, stood back and looked at it. A permanent reminder of her new life. Constantly watching over her.
Beth thought about her friends, who had faced so much next to her. Dan, and Zoe, and Melody, and of course Sarah Jane.
Sarah Jane jerked her head towards the computer screen, wide-eyed and disbelieving. She’d set Sentinel his task a week ago, and had slowly given up hope on a breakthrough as the days wore by. “Where?” she asked, struggling to keep the warring excitement and caution from her voice.
“Three hours from here in another village. Are you up for the drive?” Sentinel said cryptically.
Sarah Jane turned to Melody, who was sat on the sofa with a tablet, the puzzlement scrawled across her youthful features. Was this how everything was destined to end? Was this goodbye?
“Grab your jacket, Melody.” This time, Sarah Jane struggled to keep her voice level. “I think we’ve found your home.”
The first thing Melody had commented on when they’d pulled into the village of Leadworth was how tiny it was. When compared to Foxgrove’s surprising breadth, and even Moreton Harwood — another Gloucestershire village she was well acquainted with — Sarah Jane couldn’t help but agree. Aside from a few odd shops, a shut post office, and a rather unappealing duck pond, the sleepy little village was remote.
“Melody,” Sarah Jane gestured for the girl to move away from the ducks, wrapping an arm around her shoulders as she steered them over a small bridge.
“Is this really my home?” Melody asked doubtfully.
“It’s a working theory,” Sarah Jane admitted, scanning the quaint houses as they passed. “One of the things Kovarian kept mentioning was your surname. A surprisingly limited surname, but it took us a while to be sure. At least, as sure as we could be. We isolated it to… here.”
They drew to a stop outside a majestic looking house, cosy and detached from the rest of the village. Almost picturesque. “You mean my family is in there?” Melody said quietly.
“With a little luck, yes.”
“... Is this goodbye?” Melody asked, after a considerate silence.
“Why would you say that?” she asked, aghast.
Melody shrugged meekly. “If we find my parents, I’ll have to live with them,” she said, with surprising perceptiveness.
Sarah Jane carefully studied her. “Do you want to live with them?”
Again, Melody shrugged.
“Nothing will change immediately,” Sarah Jane said. “I promise you. But this could hold the answers you’re looking for, don’t you want to try?”
“I do,” Melody replied fervently. “But…”
Sarah Jane clasped her hands. “I’ll never leave you,” she vowed.
“I know,” Melody sighed. “I want to find out the truth.”
“Then let’s go find it, together.” Sarah Jane smiled warmly, leading her through the gate and up to the front door. Squashing the flutter of butterflies in her stomach, and hoping Melody didn’t catch onto her nervousness, she steadily rapped on the door.
It took a moment, but eventually a woman not much younger than Sarah Jane came to the door, dressed in a robe and looking for all intents and purposes like a very hassled individual. “Yes?” she snapped in a distinctive Scottish brogue.
Sarah Jane briefly peered over the woman’s shoulder, assessing the rather messy hallway, before offering the Scottish woman a smile. “I’m sorry to interrupt. My name is Sarah Jane Smith. I’m a journalist —”
“Ah, a vulture,” the woman snapped harshly, catching Sarah Jane by surprise. “Did Mrs Angelo send you? Goodwill towards poor old Tabetha, is it? Well, you tell her that a story in the paper won’t bring Augustus back.”
“I’m sorry, but I’m not here for that at all —”
“Then what do you want?” Tabetha snapped.
“Well, you see, it’s about this little girl.” Sarah Jane gently brought Melody forward. The girl met Tabetha’s assessing stare timidly, wanting nothing more than to hide behind Sarah Jane again. “This is Melody. She’s only recently come into my care, and I had reason to believe she was a relative of yours —”
“Mine?” Tabetha laughed hysterically. “This little girl? She looks nothing like me. She doesn’t even look Scottish!”
“Are you my mum?” Melody asked hopefully, flinching when Tabetha glared balefully down at her.
“No, sweetheart, I’ve never seen you before in my life,” she said bluntly, before refocusing her ire on Sarah Jane. “As for you, I don’t know where you get off coming to widow’s doorsteps and throwing charity cases at their feet, but you can go look for a scoop elsewhere. Try my sister, or my daughter — she has time to be a model, but she doesn’t have time for her own mam!”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were grieving —” Sarah Jane tried, but Tabetha wasn’t having it.
“Leave me alone!” Without another word, Tabetha slammed the door in their faces and left them stood on the doorstep, startled by the hostile reception. Sarah Jane looked down at Melody, and her heart started to ache when she realised that she was crying.
“Oh, Melody.” She pulled the girl into her arms, embracing her tightly to stem the flow of her own tears. “I’m so sorry.”
She couldn’t comprehend the sheer disappointment Melody must have been feeling. To have been given hope about her past and have it ripped away from her by an angry, grieving woman. She thought about her own parents, and of how long she’d spent knowing nothing at all about them, and realised that even that couldn’t compare to Melody’s plight.
“Listen to me,” Sarah Jane said sharply. “This isn’t the end, you hear me? We won’t stop looking, Sentinel and I. And you can stay with me until then. I promise you, Melody. We’ll find you the answers you’re looking for.”
Melody said nothing, simply burrowing herself further into Sarah Jane’s arms. Sarah Jane tightened her grip in response, pressing a soft kiss to Melody’s head before looking up at the overcast sky, hopelessly searching for meaning in the nondescript clouds.
The ship hummed quietly as it drifted through deep space. Kovarian watched the swirling black vortex through the glass window, her mouth a thin line but her single, unobscured eye captivated by the sight. A black hole. A magnificent phenomena that crushed anything and everything that had the misfortune of crossing paths with it.
Her lips curled into a sneer. Miss Smith thought she had defeated her, that she bested her, but she couldn’t have been more wrong. Kovarian had what she truly wanted from that visit. The woman’s efforts to sling them to the other side of the Universe was merely a minor setback. Kovarian still had the upper hand.
She turned on her heels, and admired her creation, her sneer morphing into a malicious grin. All the tests and experiments had come back positive. Everything was falling into place, she just needed a little more time.
And soon, Sarah Jane Smith and her dear little friends would understand the true consequences of standing in the way of Madame Kovarian and the Silence.