Trigger Warning

He almost had it, now. Amy opened the TARDIS door. She looked inside. ‘Doctor . . . it’s the same size on the inside.’

He beamed, and took her on an extensive tour of his new office, which consisted of standing inside the doorway and making a waving gesture with his right arm. Most of the space was taken up with a desk, with an old-fashioned telephone, and a typewriter on it. There was a back wall. Amy experimentally pushed her hands through the wall (it was hard to do with her eyes open, easy when she closed them), then she closed her eyes and pushed her head through the wall. Now she could see the TARDIS control room, all copper and glass. She took a step backwards, into the tiny office.

‘Is it a hologram?’

‘Sort of.’

There was a hesitant rap at the door of the TARDIS. The Doctor opened it.

‘Excuse me. The sign on the door.’ The man appeared harassed. His hair was thinning. He looked at the tiny room, mostly filled by a desk, and he made no move to come inside.

‘Yes! Hello! Come in!’ said the Doctor. ‘No problem too small!’

‘Um. My name’s Reg Browning. It’s my daughter. Polly. She was meant to be waiting for us, back in the hotel room. She’s not there.’

‘I’m the Doctor. This is Amy. Have you spoken to the police?’

‘Aren’t you police? I thought perhaps you were.’

‘Why?’ asked Amy.

‘This is a police call box. I didn’t even know they were bringing them back.’

‘For some of us,’ said the tall young man with the bow tie, ‘they never went away. What happened when you spoke to the police?’

‘They said they’d keep an eye out for her. But honestly, they seemed a bit preoccupied. The desk sergeant said the lease had run out on the police station, rather unexpectedly, and they’re looking for somewhere to go. The desk sergeant said the whole lease thing came as a bit of a blow to them.’

‘What’s Polly like?’ asked Amy. ‘Could she be staying with friends?’

‘I’ve checked with her friends. Nobody’s seen her. We’re living in the Rose Hotel, on Wednesbury Street, right now.’

‘Are you visiting?’

Mr Browning told them about the man in the rabbit mask who had come to the door last week to buy their house for so much more than it was worth, and paid cash. He told them about the woman in the cat mask who had taken possession of the house . . .

‘Oh. Right. Well, that makes sense of everything,’ said the Doctor, as if it actually did.

‘It does?’ said Mr Browning. ‘Do you know where Polly is?’

The Doctor shook his head. ‘Mister Browning. Reg. Is there any chance she might have gone back to your house?’

The man shrugged. ‘Might have done. Do you think—?’

But the tall young man and the red-haired Scottish girl pushed past him, slammed the door of their police box, and sprinted away across the green.

VI

Amy kept pace with the Doctor, and panted out questions as they ran.

‘You think she’s in the house?’

‘I’m afraid she is. Yes. I’ve got a sort of an idea. Look, Amy, don’t let anyone persuade you to ask them the time. And if they do, don’t answer them. Safer that way.’

‘You mean it?’

‘I’m afraid so. And watch out for masks.’

‘Right. So these are dangerous aliens we’re dealing with? They wear masks and ask you what time it is?’

‘It sounds like them. Yes. But my people dealt with them, so long ago. It’s almost inconceivable . . .’

They stopped running as they reached Claversham Row.

‘And if it is who I think it is, what I think it – they – it – are . . . there is only one sensible thing we should be doing.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Running away,’ said the Doctor, as he rang the doorbell.

A moment’s silence, then the door opened and a girl looked up at them. She could not have been more than eleven, and her hair was in pigtails. ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘My name is Polly Browning. What’s your names?’

‘Polly!’ said Amy. ‘Your parents are worried sick about you.’

‘I just came to get my diary back,’ said the girl. ‘It was under a loose floorboard in my old bedroom.’

‘Your parents have been looking for you all day!’ said Amy. She wondered why the Doctor didn’t say anything.

The little girl – Polly – looked at her wristwatch. ‘That’s weird. It says I’ve only been here for five minutes. I got here at ten this morning.’

Amy knew it was somewhere late in the afternoon. She said, ‘What time is it now?’

Polly looked up, delighted. This time Amy thought there was something strange about the girl’s face. Something flat. Something almost mask-like . . .

‘Time for you to come into my house,’ said the girl.

Amy blinked. It seemed to her that, without having moved, she and the Doctor were now standing in the entry hall. The girl was standing on the stairs facing them. Her face was level with theirs.

‘What are you?’ asked Amy.

‘We are the Kin,’ said the girl, who was not a girl. Her voice was deeper, darker, and more guttural. She seemed to Amy like something crouching, something huge that wore a paper mask with the face of a girl crudely scrawled on it. Amy could not understand how she could ever have been fooled into thinking it was a real face.