Author's Notes: This was originally titled: "WA Halloween Challenge." I've edited it with help from the wonderful reviews I've received. I would like to thank everyone who was kind enough to encourage and assist.
Thursday, October 31, 2019
1
Waking amidst a bizarre dream, and remembering it, wasn't unusual. Not since his return in June. Or so Ianto Jones thought until he opened the building door to the car park. A soggy furball eyed him. Under other circumstances, he would have walked around the cat. Maybe he'd have felt guilty and purchased some dry food. It was the same kitten from his dream.
"Who are you?" A woman's voice echoed in his mind.
With no reasonable explanation, he grabbed a nearby rag from cleaning supplies and wrapped the soaked cat. It purred as Ianto returned to the building.
"What do I do with you?"
Half-an-hour later, the kitten was dry and content nibbling on left over fish from the fridge.
Queen's Princes of the Universe suddenly filled the room. It took a moment to realize Anwen reprogrammed his mobile's ring tone again. "Jones."
"Everything okay?" Jack asked.
"Yep."
"The conference was rescheduled. I'm on the M4 heading home."
"Would you stop at the store?" Ianto had no idea how to explain the dream and the cat. "We have a kitten."
Ianto texted a list of supplies. When Jack arrived with bags, the newest addition to the household was curled up next to Ianto's laptop on the table.
"Why do we have a cat?" Jack sounded amused.
"A dream." Ianto felt stupid explaining.
"A good omen."
"Or we have mice."
Jack laughed. "Think positive. The cat meant you were still here when I called." Jack reached out and grabbed him, pulling him in for a kiss.
"Date night?"
"Afternoon. Someone will call us about something on Halloween by sunset."
2
Jack Harkness and Ianto were finishing a late lunch at a small coffee shop between Hughes Flats and Torchwood. The expected phone call came after four. "Harkness."
"Hey." Cory Lynch sounded like he needed a favor. "One of the events I helped plan today has a problem."
"What happened?"
"Nothing, yet." Cory exhaled. "I was hired to plan a ghost hunt in Wales. It had to be in Wales. I found a private cemetery, security, gadgets. Everything needed to keep a group of rich students entertained and out of trouble." He hesitated. "The event planner's eccentric mother went to a tarot reader yesterday. She's now convinced something horrible with happen. The participants are not happy with the idea of canceling their event. The planner is trying to appease her mother and keep her pampered son safe."
"What are you asking?"
"If Torchwood were to make a showing, check the cemetery, and make sure there are no aliens, ghosts or crazies lurking in the trees, it would resolve the problem."
"Text me the information," Jack said. "When is it starting?"
"7 PM."
"I will call you if there is a problem. I need to change vehicle at the office before we head out."
"Tell Ianto I'm sorry."
"How bad?" Ianto asked as Jack set he set his mobile on the table.
"A tarot reader has predicted a disaster." Jack chuckled.
"I missed the joke."
"That was Cory." Jack explained the pending ghost hunt.
"A cemetery with a white barn owl and a tree."
"The dream?"
Ianto nodded.
The amusement faded. Halloween always had strange events. The kitten was simply an oddity. Jack had a bad feeling.
Ianto kept his thoughts to himself until they were in the car. "Samhain, the original Halloween, was a festival involving the dead. It was believed the veil between the living and the dead was thinner."
Jack wondered where Ianto was going with the history lesson.
"I came back from the dead."
"It's nothing." Jack drove toward Torchwood thinking. Ianto returned indirectly by time manipulation. It was different from Owen and the Resurrection Glove, but he couldn't help but remember what followed Owen from the other side.
3
The dream was forefront in Ianto Jone's mind as Jack parked the van inside the cemetery. It looked very much like his dream the night before with only one noticeable difference. Oddly, the anxiety that had become such a big part of his life didn't flare. Ianto wondered if that should worry him.
Jack removed the keys from the ignition. "Do you want to wait?"
"No." Ianto unfastened his seatbelt.
Who are you? the same voice from earlier repeated.
Confused, Ianto thought, stepping out of the van. The hairs on his arms stood up from a static charge in the air. Colors and contrasts were more vivid as if the entire area was more alive.
"Jack," Ianto moved around the van. "Something is happening."
"Does it look like your dream?"
"Everything but that mausoleum." Ianto motioned across the cemetery. "A large tree should be there."
Words he would remember hours later.
Cory Lynch arrived at 6:30 PM minutes before his client Addiena Wharton and her mother Meredydd Lewis. Cory made introductions.
The elderly woman reacted to something also, Ianto realized, but was visibly afraid. "We shouldn't be here," Mrs. Lewis insisted.
"Mother, please." Mrs. Wharton looked apologetic. "It looks fantastic, Mr. Lynch. I checked it out a couple weeks ago. The place was a mess."
"We walked through," Jack said.
"Are we keeping you from a Halloween party, Captain Harkness?" Mrs. Lewis demanded.
"Mother." Mrs. Wharton looked around at the group a moment. "Excuse us. We're going to look around."
Ianto waited until they were alone. "There is something here."
"Dangerous?"
"I don't know."
"Ideas?"
Ianto shrugged.
"We need to stay."
By seven, the party-goers arrived in a variety of costumes. One young women arrived in an unfortunate nurse costume oblivious to the location and temperature. She changed in the back of one of the cars. The twenty-somethings had cameras and equipment and moved among the tombstones mimicking a ghost hunting show in pairs. As expected, especially after the nurse costume, the organized "hunt" turned into a joke. They ran and laughed and took pictures.
Ianto sat with Jack on the bonnet of the Torchwood van waiting. Jack wrapped an arm around his waist and a hand on his upper thigh. Ianto's hand rested on Jack's knee.
"It's like a drive-in."
"For a low-budget horror film."
Jack laughed. "We should find a drive-in."
Ianto shook his head. "We can ignore a film anywhere."
"It would be fun."
Before Ianto could respond, the energy he felt earlier increased. "Jack."
A white barn owl illuminated by more than moonlight landed on the mausoleum.
"We need to get everyone out of here." Ianto slid off the edge of the van.
Jack stood on the bonnet. "I need everyone to return to their cars." No one moved. "Now!"
A fog rolled in as the young people reluctantly trudged through the grass.
Mrs. Wharton walked up to Jack after he jumped down. "What's happening?"
"I don't know. It would best to go back to your car."
"Ma'am, you need to go now."
The fog wound around their ankles heading for the mausoleum. Suddenly, the owl spread its wings, and filled the night with a brief scream. It disappeared as the mausoleum started glowed. Then an explosion rocked the cemetery. Jack caught Ianto as he lost his balance. Rather than project debris, the stone disappeared inward, replaced by a swirling vortex. The fog rushed passed them, drawn into the vortex.
The energy increased, feeling like a wind storm. Ianto looked over. Jack was unaffected. A scream rose behind them. He followed the noise and saw Mrs. Lewis on the ground near her car, pummeled by the wind. It affected no one but them.
4
As suddenly as it started, the vortex and the invisible wind stopped. An unnatural quiet settled over the cemetery. Ianto kept watching the mist where the mausoleum had been, waiting.
Mrs. Wharton ran to her mother. The reluctant party-goers climbed into their cars without a word. Engines started and wheels rolled. Until they were the only ones left.
"Is it over?" Jack asked
"No. It's just starting." From the dream, Ianto knew the veil had been pierced. The woman whose voice he'd heard would arrive soon.
A cracking sound filled the air and the ground rumbled again. A beam of moonlight focus on the mist. It swirled and faded, revealing a small sapling. They watched branch after branch, leaf after leaf, form an ancient oak tree.
"Is this the same as the dream?"
"Yes. A mix of Welsh mythology." Ianto reached out and took Jack's hand, entwining their fingers. "An ancient yew tree is said to appear in Llangernyw on Halloween. An ancient oak is associated with Merlin."
The season around the growing oak changed. Night became day. Spring flowers burst from the ground and into bloom around the trunk. Birds fluttered and chirped. Squirrels raced over the branches. For a moment, it smelled like spring. The tree shimmered like a mirage in the desert, shifting into summer and then autumn. Leaves changed color and slowly fell, forming piles beneath the massive tree.
Jack squeezed his hand. "You're not afraid?"
"No."
As the last leaf settled onto the ground, the massive trunk shimmered like surface of a pond. A woman wearing a cloak stepped barefoot from the tree into a pile of leaves. She reached up and removed her hood.
5
"Who are you?"
"Captain Jack Harkness."
The woman laughed. "You know who you are. Both the name you took and the name your mother gave you are superficial."
She turned to Ianto. "Who are you?"
"I don't know." He had no idea what she wanted him to say.
The woman walked toward them, the grass reviving beneath her feet.
"Ianto Jones." She stopped several feet away from them. "Who are you?"
"I don't know."
"You offer no labels? No name? No occupation?"
"No. Do you have a name?"
"Lewella, if you must."
"Who are you?"
She laughed. "The heart of a world long forgotten."
"Why me?"
"While the world has forgotten me, I have not forgotten the world. Few people cross the veil and return." Lewella held out her hand and a flower appeared. "Owen Harper was angry. Returning made him angrier. He lashed out at those around him." She tossed the flower in the air and it shifted into an owl and flew away. "But not you. Lost and broken, you seek peace. You're content with those around you being happy."
"I am angry."
"No, Ianto, you're not. You're afraid. Of living. Of dying. Of others expectations."
"Yes."
Lewella's accent deepened as she spoke in Welsh. "You walk the lands of your ancestors connecting you the past while you protect the present with a man from the future. As long as you remain on this wondrous island, I will protect you. From the evil found in hearts both accidental and intentional. I give you a mark of the cat as you navigate the many worlds. If you need me, call my name in the language of our ancestors." She walked backwards as she spoke until she stepped through the shimmering surface of the tree and disappeared. Day returned to night. Piles of leaves swirled upwards, returning the branches. The ancient oak tree remained.
As she mentioned the mark, an energy spread over his chest above his heart. Ianto didn't need to see it to picture symbolic cat etched in his skin.
Hours later, as Jack and Gwen reviewed the night's reports from the hub, Ianto checked cemetery records. A memory from his childhood just out of his grasp.
When he found what he was looking for, he sat back and stared at the screen. The mausoleum held the remains of a distant relative. She'd been accused of witchcraft. When the church authorities came for her, and attempted to burn her alive, the flames did no damage. A white owl landed on the stake and the flames disappeared. They said it was a sign. She was untied and left alone for the rest of her life. Ianto suspected the locals were to afraid to torment her further.
Meredydd Lewis had family in the area, including a man involved in the attempted witch-burning. Without more information, he could only guess that Lewella didn't care for Mrs. Lewis's ancestors. It made as much sense as anything else.
"Find anything?" Jack walked up behind.
Ianto motioned toward the screen. "I know why we have a cat."