In the Fog
The TARDIS shook for a long moment, knocking Joyce off her feet. Romana managed to hang onto the console but it was a close thing.
"What was that?" Joyce said, looking up at Romana.
"We appear to have gone off course," Romana said. She pushed a few buttons, flipped a switch, and stared at a monitor on the console.
"So, no Starbucks this morning?" Joyce said, pouting. "I bet it was Missy doing something in her lab."
"No," Romana said. "Idris said Missy does not appear to be aboard at the moment."
"Where'd she go?" Joyce said.
"Unknown," Romana said, frowning. "She must have slipped out earlier when we stopped in London."
"She's good at that," Joyce said, grumbling. "Right, K-9? Disappearing right before something happens."
"Yes, Miss," K-9 said, poking her with his nose.
"Where are we?" Joyce asked, getting back on her feet. The console room view screen was dark with faint darker objects scattered around.
"Riverton, Indiana?" Romana said, doubtfully. "It appears to be 1975."
"Did Idris say why we're here?" Joyce asked.
Romana frowned, and concentrated for a moment. "She doesn't know, just that we need to be here. Something about a friend needing help."
"Riverton?" Joyce said. "One of those kids? Won't they be all grown up now? Or is it someone else? Like that Mr. Link."
"She didn't say," Romana said. "It's something outside of her allowed parameters. Something she referred to as magic."
"Magic isn't real," Joyce said, dismissing the idea. "What's she really mean?"
"Psychic manipulations of ambient energy?" Romana said, shrugging. "That's what humans normally refer to as magic, in my experience. Some would call your ability to change forms to be magic."
"That's science," Joyce said, rolling her eyes. "I don't understand how it works but it's science. Alien science."
"Whatever you want to call it," Romana said. "Apparently Idris is not configured for understanding or manipulating it except at the most basic level. I'll have to fix that if we're going to encounter this kind of energy again."
"Are we going to call it magic, even though real, wand waving, chanting, spell causing magic doesn't exist?" Joyce asked.
"We don't have to," Romana said, "We can live in denial until we run into 'real' magic."
"Which we won't," Joyce said firmly. "Should we go outside and check things out? Or wait until daylight?"
"If Idris had needed us to be here during the daylight, that's when we'd be," Romana said.
"I'll go take a look," Joyce said, leaving the console room. Cautiously opening the outer doors she looked out on a fog filled landscape, covered in short stone monuments. "I think it's a cemetery," she shouted back. Feeling something brushing against her legs she looked down to see Chewie, Missy's pet flerken, going through the opened door.
"A cemetery?" Romana said, joining her. "Humans in this era don't worship the dead. What would they be doing in a cemetery at night?"
"Chewie just went outside," Joyce said. "We can't let him wander around out there on his own."
"He can take care of himself. What's out there should be more concerned," Romana said. "But we can go look for him if you wish."
"What should we wear for a cold, damp cemetery?" Joyce said. "It looks like something out of an old horror movie."
"We'll be quick," Romana said. "If he isn't just outside we'll wait until morning."
Nodding, Joyce went out into the fog, followed by Romana and K-9. They wandered the rows of tombstones for what felt like hours to Joyce.
"Mistress?" K-9 said, stopping in front of a fresh grave.
"Yes, K-9?" Romana said. She looked at the writing on the stone. It read
Wilfred Shoemaker
1955 - 1975
"Isn't that Shoie? I wonder what happened," Joyce said, staring at the inscription in shock. "They were all so much alive when we were here last. And what about Alvin and his sister?"
"Traveling in time teaches you about the inherent shortness of life," Romana said, patting her on the shoulder.
"Yes, we all die, eventually, but he was only twenty," Joyce said.
There was a yowling from a cat, and they turned around to see a girl, approximately Joyce's current age, dressed in jeans and a leather jacket and holding a sharpened wooden stick, and a man, just barely out of his teens, carrying a strange looking object. Wandering around their feet was Chewie.
"Shoie had no idea," the man said. "We had no idea. When we did, it was too late."
"Alvin? Daphne?" Joyce said. "What happened to him. And you?"
"Something right out of a horror movie," Alvin said. "It's not safe out here at night. You should go back into your blue box."
"Come inside with us," Joyce said. "Tell us what happened."
"It's still early," Alvin said. "If you're still here we'll come by when we're done."
"Okay," Joyce said. They stood there by Shoie's grave, watching Romana, Joyce, and K-9 head back to the TARDIS. Chewie stayed with them.
"There must be a story there," Joyce said, closing the TARDIS behind her. She shivered, trying to shake off the damp air. "Riverton doesn't seem like the place for a horror movie, of any kind."
"No, Miss," K-9 said.