The heat was well and truly beating
against the cellar door as the Doctor spoke, revealing the truth he was trying
to get through to his shocked companion.
She had always hated the thought of being trapped in a building that was
on fire, ever since she had watched the film The Towering Inferno, one night when she’d had the prison TV room
to herself after Trish the Snitch got everyone in trouble on C wing for helping
themselves to extra potatoes at dinner, leaving them all confined to their
cells for the night. Lady C, as it was well known, was very allergic to
potatoes and hadn’t had so much of a crisp since she was 5 years old and had blown
up like an air balloon during one of daddy’s parties which ended abruptly with
the sound of ambulance sirens and mummy crying into her wine glass as her baby
girl looked like the Sloth from the goonies.
Now here she was, living her nightmares and once again in a life and
death situation courtesy of the Doctor.
“That’s it! I’m leaving right now and going home! You can stay if you like Doctor but I will not
become part of the fire and rescue service for an empty house! I took that pendant knowing the lady of the manor
had died and there was no one, not one living member of her family left and it
was all due to be sold at auction. I just got there first and saved myself some
serious money. Its my retirement fund and you can’t have it. I won’t let you!”
She was almost in tears at this point. Scared of the fire raging against
the door knowing that was all that was standing between her and death, and
angry that her beautiful pendant might be taken from her when she had gone to
great lengths to protect it and keep it hidden.
The doctor shook his head in confusion
and shouted at Christina who nearly dropped the phone she was holding as she
was about to text herself in the past.
“You don’t understand, do you? Is it because you have smoke in your ears
or have I not explained it properly? That pendant is the reason Mayhurst Manor
is on fire! This house, the Mayhurst family, they weren’t just a load of posh
people who had some money. They were witches! Well, Lady Jane was and from a
very noble family line too. Lord Harry took her name and title when they
married, albeit it for the money but he had no idea who she really was, but
they had a daughter. Harriet-Jane Mayhurst, or as you and I know her, Harri the
witch? That pendant had a protection spell on it to keep Harri safe after her
mother had died because she knew that once her husband discovered her magical
heritage and in turn his daughters, he might not be too pleased to know he’d
married a witch, and as it happened, he wasn’t! He killed Lady Jane himself and locked Harri
in the cellar, this cellar for 5 years when she was 7 years old so that she
could never receive the gifts her mother would bestow upon her when she became
of age. Lord Harry’s death was the only reason Harri was found by the staff who
had ventured into the cellar in search of his will. You taking the pendant from
here after her mother had died, made her vulnerable and she became tortured,
twisted into her magical beliefs, believing her father’s rantings that she was
as evil and as vile as her mother, until she became cursed by her magic, not
gifted.”
Lady C listened in silence, her fury and impatience growing more each
second as the Doctor’s tale of the one person in the world that gave her more hassle
than Hugo ever did, was Harri the useless witch. She had worked at the manor
around 10 years ago, turning up on her doorstep days after Lady C had returned
from the planet San Helios, claiming the Doctor had sent her to help out. She was to cook, clean and protect the manor
with her magic and although Lady C had never really believed in that sort of
thing before, having just returned from an alien planet and arrived home by
flying bus, she had resigned herself to every possibility in the hope that
nothing would shock her anymore. Unfortunately, the only thing Harri helped
with was herself to lady C’s vodka supplies and spent most of her time in the
stables with Hugo showing him how to turn knackered ponies into dead ponies
with the flick of her magic wand. Harri was the bane of Lady C’s life but the Doctor
insisted she stay there because as he told her repeatedly whenever she
complained…
“One day, you’ll thank me” …. So far, she had not!
“Oh, so what you’re saying is that the reason Harri is so bad at magic,
so unbelievably lazy, useless and rude is my fault? That stealing the pendant
made her the way she is? That if somehow I could go back in time and leave the
pendant for her in this very cellar when she was trapped down here that it
would enable her to receive her magic properly and then she’d become the good
wonderful witch she was always meant to be?”
Lady C scoffed at the idea and muttered under her breath about how
ridiculous all this was, but then, suddenly had an amazing idea! Take the
Tardis back in time to when Harri was here and leave her the pendant. They
could literally drop it off 10 minutes after her father had left her here and
she would never go through 5 years of hell meaning she would never turn up on
her doorstep years later in the mood she was in and give her 5 years of hell.
It was an ingenious plan. Before she could open her mouth and tell the doctor
just how clever she was, he grabbed her hand and pulled her back towards the
portal, shouting behind him over the roar of the fire.
“We’ll go back to the Tardis and take the pendant back in time to the
moment Harri was put here by her father. That way she’ll get the protection her
mother left for her and she’ll get the magic in the way she was supposed to get
it, not all backward and twisted. Maybe she’ll turn out to be a better person
and the two of you might actually get along. Might save all that nasty business
with the ponies too.”
Before she knew it, she was back in her own vault stepping in spilt gin,
and the Doctor picked up the pendant case and opened it carefully, his eyes
full of admiration as he looked at it.
Lady C however was full of annoyance at having her plan and pension plan
stolen. Deciding to let it go, she slipped her mobile phone back in her pocket
after pressing send seconds before she was dragged through the portal, her look
of annoyance now turning to one of quiet smugness.
“Didn’t you ever wonder why it glowed the way it does or why it vibrated
as you held it Christina?”
The Doctor asked softly as his eyes lit up with the magical light the pendant
omitted.
“It’s full of magic, literally bursting at the seams waiting to be set
free to its rightful owner. You keeping it here for so long could potentially
have caused a catastrophic explosion of immense power that the world would
never be able to cope with. It’s a wonder you don’t get yourself killed from
time to time.”
He was as furious as he was concerned
for her, but that was how it was with lady C, she would never learn her lesson.
“Yes whatever.”
she said airily pretending she didn’t care anymore and made her way over to the
Tardis waiting to be let in where her mood became a lot darker.
“But I swear to god Doctor, if we succeed and we get back here and she’s
miss magical bloody mega witch with a billionaires fortune living the high
life, famously flouting her magical talents all over the news for all to see
whilst I have to scrape by on what I can steal, you will feel my wrath until
your never ending dying days!”
It would be just her luck to return to
an alternate universe where Harri was loved the whole world over and she
wasn’t.
The Doctor looked confused once more and glared at her thoughtfully as
he opened the Tardis door and let her saunter in, wondering how women managed
to change their moods and their minds so quickly. He dashed in after her and
placed the pendant on the console and tapped in some coordinates.
“Right! I’ll land, you go in, give Harri the Pendant and then leave
again. No talking, no helping, no remarking on the smell or mess or giving her
any indication who you are or where you’ve come from. In and out, do you hear?”
Lady C nodded and shrugged and sat herself down impatiently waiting to
do as she was told and hoped that by the time she got back, if all was well and
Nelson’s column hadn’t been turned into Harri’s Column, she would be walking
back into a world where she would never have to go begging to the Queen again,
in fact…..she might even be the Queen!
Seven years in the past, in the year 2012, the notorious cat burglar
known as the Lucky cat was about to leave her house the deSouza Manor and go on
one of the biggest diamond heists of her life when she received a text from an
unknown number. It read….
“GN 2013/14 Auroras Encore. Pineau De Re. £1000,000 on each. Stash the
winnings in Hugo’s clean sock drawer.”
She then gave her past self a name with
instructions on what to do with it.
“Take the Koh I noor you’re about to steal to the Queen and tell her if
she wants it back, she’ll have to give you the throne or you’ll tell the world
who your real mother is.”
To be continued…….
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