Arcadia's Love (Book TWO)

Fury of the Night

And still going. "I will not have my work stolen, then be fobbed off with a pat on the back and a letter from the Queen. Never again. This is my house, Doctor, Lady Lake, and it belongs to me."

"This is actually your house?" Clara asked, looking at him in surprise. It was a nice house, apart from the haunting ghost type thing.

Palmer nodded. "It is."

She was still having trouble understanding that. "Sorry. You went to the bank and said, you know that gigantic old haunted house on the moors? The one the dossers are too scared to doss in? The one the birds are too scared to fly over? And then you said, I'd like to buy it, please, with my money." I loved the way she spoke, it was brilliant. She enjoyed just speaking her mind.

"Yes, I did, actually."

Clara gave him him a big smile. "That's incredibly brave."

Something creaked, making me freeze for a moment and the Doctor held my wait tight, turning me towards Palmer. "Listen, Major, we just need to know what's going on here."

"For the Ministry." He added slyly, looking at  how we were stood. I didn't care, he was my gorgeous man.

"You know er can't answer that."

The man nodded a little bit. "Very well, follow me." 

He lead the way into the living room that was warmly furnished, and the Doctor bent down to my level and took a selfie of the pair of us. My cutie. And then Clara turned to Emma. "So, what's an empathic psychic? I thought a psychic was like Lady Sarah, who could see, write or draw the future."

"Sometimes I sense feelings, the way a telepath can sense thoughts, or like you said, a psychic can sense the future. Sometimes, though. Not always."

The Doctor smiled a little sadly. "The most compassionate people you'll ever meet, empathics. And the loneliest along with the psychics. I mean, exposing themselves to all those hidden feelings, all that guilt, pain and sorrow and then knowing the future, seeing people you care about dying before you even meet them, stops you wanting a relationship with anyone-"

Oh, my God... All of that, I could go through all of that? All I did was draw things, this couldn't be right, I couldn't go through that! Clara saw how panicky I was and interrupted. "Doctor?"

"Yes?"

"Shush. You're scaring her."

The Doctor realised his mistake and held me close, muttering apologies in my ear as Palmer came back over with the board of photo's. "Would you care to have a look? Caliburn House is over four hundred years old, but she has been here much longer. The Caliburn Ghast." Classic Edwardian ghost and ghouls. "She's mentioned in local Saxon poetry and parish folk tales. The Wraith of the Lady, the Maiden in the Dark, the Witch of the Well."

Clara stared at the images in the photos. "Is she real? As in, actually real?"

"Oh, she's real. In the seventeenth century, a local clergyman saw her. He wrote that her presence was accompanied by a dreadful knocking, as if the Devil himself demanded entry." Palmer explained, pointing to each picture. "During the war, American airmen stationed here left offerings of tinned Spam. The tins were found in 1965, bricked up in the servants' pantry, along with a number of handwritten notes. Appeals to the Ghast. For the love of God, stop screaming."

This was amazing, she was only in this house. "She never changes. The angle's different, the framing, but she's always in exactly the same position. Why is that?"

"We don't know." Palmer admitted. "She's an objective phenomenon, but objective recording equipment can't detect her-"

"Without the presence of a powerful psychic." The Doctor finished, nodding a little.