Phoebe looked around the TARDIS console room. She felt she would never get to used to this amazing place. Moreover, she wondered what her mother would say. Here she was, going off with the Doctor after nearly being caught in the middle of a war between the United States and the Silurians. At only sixteen, she was certain her mother would never give her permission. "Doctor," she said, "don't you think my mom will be just a little upset if I disappear for a few months?"

The Doctor absently worked his controls as he said, "There's no need to worry, my dear. This ship not only travels through space, it also travels through time. I can bring you back to this exact moment." He looked up, suddenly excited. "Just think of the places we can go: anywhere in the universe, any time! Isn't that worth the risk? I know where I'll take you, to the edge of the universe."

Phoebe smiled. This mentality was so callous. This could only be the ultimate power of the ultimate power, and here the Doctor was talking like it was nothing more than his plaything. Maybe it was, at that. Who was she to judge such things? Here was the Doctor; this extraordinary man who dressed in a brilliant suit, red high tops, and knew almost everything...well, he knew everything, period. This versus Phoebe; goth princess of Miami, dressed in her sheer black lace Material Girl short sleeve jacket, and underneath, clearly visible, a shirt bearing the image of Marilyn Manson and the album title, "High End of a Low", knee high black boots from Hot Topic, and could barely make it through high school algebra.

The Doctor pulled a lever here, banged a buzzer there, spun a dial, and the TARDIS bounced like a children's party house. Not for the first time, she compared it to Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. "Oh, please," cried the Doctor, "Thaddeus Toad has nothing on my girl!" Then she came to a stop. "Now let's see where we are." The Doctor's excitement waned considerably. "Hmm, the edge of the universe is closer than I thought."

Phoebe looked at the Doctor's display and saw a little map with labels in English. "We haven't even left Florida!"

"Well, technically that depends on who you ask. If you ask the government in the Keys, they believe they are an independent nation called the Conch Republic."

"Really?"

"Yes, in 1984, the Reagan administration set up a border patrol outpost on South Dixie Highway at the border of Dade and Monroe County. Florida residents were being forced to produce passports just to go to Miami. The U. S. government refused to acknowledge the Monroe County mayor's grievances, so the county seceded, named itself the Conch Republic, declared war on the United States, surrendered, and sued for one billion dollars in war restitution. For some reason, the United States doesn't acknowledge the incident."

Phoebe was having giggle fits. "Is that true?"

"Cross my heart...both of them."

Phoebe shrugged. "I've never been to the edge of the universe, but I've never been to Key West, either. Let's look around."

They stepped out of the TARDIS and onto concrete sidewalks framing brick roads. A wooden sign said "Duval St." and numerous shops in Victorian style buildings lined the walk. Phoebe had to look twice. This couldn't be right. Old fashioned cars, such as Ford Model Ts and As, were few and far between. There was one large Buick from the 1920s, but the road was populated mostly with horses, some of them drawing carriages, and people on foot.

"What year is it?" she asked, not quite believing her eyes.

"I believe the TARDIS said something about 1933. Are you hungry? I'm hungry."

Some helpful pedestrians directed them to a new establishment called Sloppy Joe's on Greene Street. As they walked, the Doctor began to talk. It seemed like endless rambling, but Phoebe was always compelled to listen. Even if the Doctor didn't think what he said was important, Phoebe suspected it always was.

"The original settlers of Key West were Spaniards, of course, like much of Florida. They found the island covered with bones. It still is, even in your day. The Spanish settlers believed that the local natives used this entire island as a burial ground. This island has always had a macabre reputation, more so than most other places in the world. Why, where we're going now is the very saloon that will soon be known as Captain Tony's. It used to be a morgue that was destroyed by a hurricane. Growing right through the middle of the building is a tree where numerous lynchings occurred and as such, the owner refused to cut it down."

Phoebe wasn't so certain about going to a saloon, but in the 1930s in Key West, she was sure there wasn't much else. When they arrived, they found the place relatively quiet, though there were plenty of clientele. Most people were simply enjoying a meal while some were having drinks, and sure enough, there was a tree growing from the floor right through the roof. It was surrounded by bottles of water. "Holy water," the Doctor said. Indeed, there were bottles of holy water all over the place; on tables, on shelves, on window sills.

"The owner of this place sure is afraid of ghosts."

"In Key West, there's good reason to be."

"You believe in ghosts?" Of course, Phoebe believed, but she had always considered the Doctor too rational for such things.

"'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than you've even dreamed of.' Ghosts, demons, vampires, I promise you, they're real."

A handsome and dashing man was sitting at one of the tables, a beer in one hand, observing them with an investigator's eye. It was hard to tell while he sat, but from his well formed, muscular bulk, he was probably fairly tall. He had close cut black hair and a perfect mustache. "I see new faces," he said, in a rich orator's voice. "What brings you to this dive?" He wore a white, short sleeve shirt with a collar that buttoned at the top.

The Doctor said, "Oh, a bite to eat and perhaps a tale or two."

The man smiled and said, "You've come to the right place for both my friend from across the pond. The name's Ernest, but you can call me Ernie." Ernie stood, at least as tall as the Doctor, and offered his hand. Now that he stood, he revealed the brown khaki shorts he wore and the black, lace down boots with the white tube socks.

The Doctor accepted. "I'm the Doctor, and this is my traveling companion, Phoebe."

Phoebe took his hand and found that he took it as a nobleman would accept a lady's hand. He sat back down, with some difficulty. Phoebe asked, "Is your leg okay?" She sneezed.

"Bless you. I got this bum leg in the war. It always acts up. It'll be fine tomorrow."

Phoebe sneezed again. "You were a soldier."

"Bless you. No, I was a reporter. Are you alright?"

"Just a tickle in my nose. I must be allergic to something here. The only thing I can think of are cats."

Ernie looked mortified. "Oh, I'm sorry, I keep Maine coons on my estate. I'm probably covered in cat hair."

"Oh, it's fine. Just a mild allergy. I don't break out into a rash like some people do." She sneezed again.

"Let me apologize by paying for your meal. You look a bit young for the regular drinks around here, so what do you say to a ginger ale or a Coke?"

"Coke!" Phoebe looked forward to drinking a real vintage Coca-Cola.

Ernie flagged the bartender down, an elderly, black Bahamian with a stately look to him. "Wat ahl it be, Mistah Hemingway, Sah?"

"Whatever the gentleman and lady will have and give her a Coke."

"You da boss."

Phoebe, assimilating what she just heard, nearly fell out of her chair. "You're Ernest-Doctor, this man is Ernest Hemingway."

The Doctor nodded. "Yes, I know."

"The Ernest Hemingway."

"Yes, he is."

The old Bahamian laughed and said, "I don tink you can be having him, litta lady, so you bes be havin' sumptin from ow ki'chen."

Phoebe was completely flustered. "Oh, I-that is-sorry, what's good?"

"De fish is de bes dat you kin find til up dere in Key Lah-go. De chicken, she be tendah an fresh. De steak not so good, toe. Real tough like. De squid...depend on who cookin'. Es good when Tony back dere, but he ain't back dere, so you might not be wantin' de squid."

"Fish and chips?"

"De bes. You got it. You wanna splash ah cherry in dat Coke?"

"Sure."

The old Bahamian turned to the Doctor. "An what wouldjou like, dis fine day?"

"I think I can go for the fish and chips, too. I'll have a hot tea with milk and sugar."

"Comin' right up." He rushed with his order pad to the kitchen.

Ernie watched Phoebe shrewdly. "You're familiar with my work, then?"

Phoebe knew she had to be careful. She didn't know what books he had written yet, but she figured she'd be safe with his first one. "'A Farewell to Arms' was required reading in my English class this year."

Ernie's eyes widened in surprise, and he got a distant look on his face. "My book is required reading in a high school...I think I'm even more surprised than when they made a movie of it last year." He snapped back into his alert, attentive demeanor and asked, "Where are you from?"

Phoebe grinned. "Miami Beach, born and raised."

Ernie laughed. "Ah-ha, six hours away on the weekly bus; four hours if you drive yourself. Just coming to visit your southerly neighbors, I guess. I'll admit, I know the girls in Miami wear some strange things, but I've never seen anything quite like that." He gestured to Phoebe's Marilyn Manson shirt. "And you Doctor, whereabouts in England do you hail from?"

The Doctor laughed and said, "Oh, I only sound like I'm from England. I'm from quite a bit further away than that. I'm from a place called Gallifrey."

"Well, how do you like that? I've never heard of the place. It must be quite remote."

"You could not imagine."

Their food arrived about then, and the old Bahamian pulled up a chair. "Da name's Maurice, but ever'one round here jes call me Moe."

Ernie said, "Moe came here from Bimini when he was just a kid back in the 1840s."

"Yeah, my fam'ly, we was all de property of ole' man Otto. He go to Africa, he go to de islands round here. He bring some slaves home ev'ry once in awhile. Den came da big fight up nort. Fort Taylor got real busy down here. Den one day, dat colonel up from Clearwater, Colonel McMullen come down and he say, 'Ev'ryone, we lost de war.' Next ting we know, we free." He shrugged as if what he had just said had meant nothing. "Okay, den. Since I was old nuff to hold a shovel, I kept de Otto's yard nice an' pretty. I did it as a slave an' when I was free, I went on doin' it. I didn't have nuttin else an' I liked doin' it."

Ernie looked at Moe suspiciously, but said nothing. Phoebe was completely drawn in. Perhaps it was the musical way that Moe spoke in his deep, soothing voice, or perhaps it was truly the retelling of the momentous events that so directly influenced what Moe clearly considered a mundane life, but Phoebe was enraptured. Ernie, though, kept glancing over at Moe.

The Doctor said, "Slavery continued well after the Civil War throughout a large portion of the South, especially remote areas like Key West, where the government paid little attention. Many slave owners down here kept slaves well into this century. The Otto's must have continued the tradition."

Phoebe said, "Wait, I thought Fort Taylor was a naval base."

"It was. The thing was, like Moe said, much of slavery was a willing arrangement. It wasn't like people wanted to be slaves; they just didn't think they had a choice. Another point was that Florida was still a territory until after the Civil War, not a state."

Moe continued. "A damned strange ting 'bout dat Otto fam'ly. Dey had it comin', toe."

Ernie said, "I thought that's what you were getting at. I enjoy a good ghost story as much as the next man, but the Otto's are extremely influential people."

Moe shrugged again. "Es cause you don b'lieve it but es true."

Ernie said, "Moe thinks the Otto family is cursed."

"Not jes any curse. De Lwas have dat fam'ly marked. I seen it afore."

Phoebe shook her head in confusion. "I'm sorry, the el...the what?"

The Doctor said, "An Lwa is a demon in Bahamian folklore, specifically Vodou. When the Cubans first encountered Vodou, they adopted many of its practices, forming a faith called-"

"Santeria," said Phoebe. "Just about everyone in school has some sort of Santeria ritual they do. I've heard of it."

The Doctor said, "I figured you had. I just wasn't sure if you knew it was a form of Vodou." The Doctor turned to Moe. "Tell me about this curse." Ernie looked down into his beer, smiled, and shook his head.

"It's dat damned doll."

Phoebe almost squealed with glee. This really was getting interested. She tried not to let her excitement show. "A Voodoo doll!"

"Bah!" Moe waved his hand dismissively. "Dat be superstitious garbage! T'ain't no such ting. Dis doll be an avatar."

"An avatar?"

The Doctor said, "An inanimate object possessed by a spirit."

Moe nodded in confirmation. "Ole' Doc Tom Otto back in de day, he bring a Haitian lady home to take care of his baby boy, Robert. When he was five, she made 'im a doll, big as he was. He named it Robert, and from den on, he insisted ev'ryone call 'im by his middle name, what be Gene."

Phoebe asked, "What happened to him?"

Ernie said, "He's married now. In his house, he built a room scaled to Robert, full of furniture, a regular bedroom. If his wife, Anne were sitting here, she'd probably take Moe's side. She never liked that doll."

Moe shook his head sadly. "It be real strange. Gene, he spend as much time wit dat doll as his wife. Anne, she beside 'erself. She say da doll, it move round da house by itself, when dey not home or nuttin. She locks it in es room when she leave and dey come back and de door be unlocked an' Robert in da living room. Es real strange."

The Doctor asked, "What does Robert look like?"

"He have a wooden face wit two button eyes and mouth carved in. He wear a sailor jacket, pants, and cap, an' ev'ryting."

Ernie offered them a place to stay that night, which the Doctor accepted. As they walked, Phoebe was certain they were being followed. Ernie's limp didn't seem to bother him, and he said that he always insisted on walking since everything was so close by. They stopped by the TARDIS so Phoebe could get a change of clothes. Ernie expressed some curiosity about the blue box, but didn't pursue it. He was the type that held his piece until he had more information. Phoebe began looking nervously around side streets as the sun dropped below the horizon. She could certainly believe that this island was haunted. She could almost feel the spirits watching her. If she could know what the Doctor was thinking, she would have realized his psychic abilities told him everything he needed to know about the island. There were were ancient and powerful creatures here, and one of them, an extremely old and powerful demon, was interested in them.

The house was a beautifully decorated colonial style home, most of its contents a fabulous-and expensive-collection of antiques. Cats; large, fluffy, mountain lion sized cats populated the house. They ran under foot-a remarkable feat considering their tremendous girth-several laid on a very expensive looking chaise lounger. They met his wife Pauline, and to Phoebe's horror, found that Pauline did the exact same thing her mother did. Terrified, Phoebe whispered to the Doctor, "She works for Vogue magazine!" The Doctor simply laughed at Phoebe's discomfort. Pauline was, if anything, even more obsessive about fashion than Phoebe's mother. Pauline was carrying on about her friends in Paris when she heard a name that made her cringe.

Pauline was talking about someone in Paris named Coco that had given a her a thorough education in millinery, the art of hat making. Phoebe, now completely mortified, asked, "By 'Coco', you wouldn't happen to mean 'Coco Chanel'?"

Pauline wore a serious expression as she said, "Hmm...I do mean Coco Chanel. By your style of dress, you are what we in the industry would regard as something of a dissident."

"A dissident."

"Of course. Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, Elle: we all tell people what is normal and how they're expected to act and dress, and not everyone appreciates that. There's a small clique that fancies itself free thinkers. They dress in dark colors, in cuts of clothing that recall the older Victorian styles of nobility, wearing kohl to darken their eyes, not as Egyptians, but in a parody of living death, and this is done to protest the status quo, and they never realize that by doing so in such a uniform fashion, they have created their own status quo to which they have become slaves, just as we are slaves to ours. I must say, you do wear it very well. There really is an art to it. So, what has inspired your particular protest?" As she talked, a particularly large cat, at least the size of a medium dog, and orange with white stripes, jumped onto Phoebe's lap. She resisted the urge to sneeze and petted the extremely furry tomcat. In truth, her eyes had been stinging and watering since she entered the house, but as a cat lover, and a girl raised on etiquette and manners, she endured the discomfort.

Phoebe smiled humorlessly. "My mom is a freelance fashion photographer that sells her work to every magazine you just named. She is absolutely obsessed with appearance, and she cringes when she has company and I dress like this so I make it a point to be dressed like this at all times. She always tells me how I'm supposed to look and how I'll never achieve anything if I don't look the way she tells me to, so one day, I started making myself look like death warmed over and I never stopped."

"Well, it's important that you be comfortable with yourself."

"I may reject the Dior and the Versace, but I won't say no to Chanel five."

"And nor should you. That would be too much for any self-respecting girl to bear."

Phoebe looked down on her lap. "This is like having a shag carpet on my lap."

Pauline laughed. "He likes you."

"What kind of cat is this?"

The Doctor said, "It's a Maine coon, the largest of the domesticated house cats. They get up to 35 pounds, are generally long hair and extra-long hair, and are polydactyl, meaning they have extra toes."

"I know what polydactyl means," said Phoebe with a smile. She kicked off one of her boots, trying not to disturb the cat, and reached down carefully to pull off her sock, and sure enough, she had six toes. The cat stared at the exposed foot with just as much interest as the Doctor. "Both feet. Dad says it sometimes happens on his side of the family, but he doesn't have it, and neither does my brother."

The Doctor looked at her thoughtfully. The deformity didn't come from inbreeding. Her father was Seminole and her mother was Cuban, though her light skin would fool most into believing she was Caucasian (her mother was white with hazel). Though she dyed her hair black, the Doctor knew she had red hair, also inherited from her father. This was getting more and more interesting. Though Phoebe would likely think that the deformity was a simple genetic anomaly, the Doctor was doing math on very different lines. On the Ocavri ship, she had displayed telepathic power as mighty as any Time Lord, and according to human superstition, extra digits usually indicated a person with great magical powers. The Doctor knew these were not coincidence. Phoebe was special. New Age theorists would say she was shining. The Doctor had wondered why the TARDIS had brought them to Key West, and now he knew. Phoebe was a conduit. She would attract the supernatural like a magnet. There was an important task for them here, one in which Phoebe would prove instrumental.

By the time the night was over, Phoebe had grown more comfortable around Pauline, who despite her profession and the fact that she was a socialite, was nothing like her mother. She and the Doctor each got their own guest room, luxuriously furnished, and Phoebe laid out her clothes for the morning, a black thigh length skirt with red trim that would likely make the Catholic Pauline cringe in spite of her fashion sense, black leggings that would more than make up for the length of the skirt, a black, low cut, short sleeve shirt in an elaborate corset style, complete with red ribbon serving as the lacing for the corset, tied in a bow, and a black derby. This was the most attention grabbing outfit she had, but she wanted to do Key West in style. She dusted off the derby, put it on, and looked in the mirror. The hat went with her bob cut quite nicely. She put it back on the vanity and dressed for bed.

As she slept, her dreams were wholly forgettable, but nevertheless, something woke her from a sound sleep. She didn't have to use the bathroom. There was no sound. Perhaps that was it. In the world she came from, there was always something making noise. Perhaps it was the unusual quiet of a realm unspoiled by a proliferation of machines that woke her. The silence was oppressive, intimidating, and that was her clue that it was unnatural. When she went to bed, this silence had been peaceful, inviting, and now there was something malevolent and smothering in it. She looked to the window, curtained with white lace curtains. Someone's shadow was behind it.

Her eyes widened in panic and she was about to scream when she remembered that she was on the second floor, and this person was definitely standing. Was he in the room, standing behind the curtain, the moonlight casting his shadow upon the room? With the moonlight to his back, he couldn't possibly see her. She stood up and looked down. The curtains didn't reach the floor. There were no feet. He couldn't be inside. Grabbing a candelabra from a pedestal and holding it up like a cudgel, she rushed over and drew back the curtain. He was outside, to be certain, and moonlight or not, he could see her the entire time, she was certain of it. She would have shrieked in terror had her fright not been so overwhelming that her voice left her. What she saw chilled her blood.

It was a man wearing the white uniform of a sailor, the only color in the red rank insignia upon his arm and a sailor's insignia on his cap, but though he could see her, he had no eyes, no nose, no mouth. His face was a blank piece of fabric. Finally, she found her voice. She opened her mouth, thinking she would call the Doctor, or perhaps thinking she might warn the mysterious...whatever-he-was...away. Her voice would not obey. It simply started, as if someone flipped a switch, a single, piercing, shrill note, that started soft and eventually grew to a blood-curdling shriek. It was the kind of shriek that makes a person drop what he's doing and immediately rush in, overriding the strongest of wills. That was exactly what happened.

The Doctor, Ernie, and Pauline all rushed into the room at once, the Doctor, inexplicably, fully dressed. Ernie lifted a Winchester twenty ought six and aimed it at the creature. The candelabra dropped from from Phoebe's hand and hit the floor with a loud thud. The thud was like a signal for as the candelabra hit the floor, the creature vanished as if never there. Still, nobody would think she was crazy. They all saw it.