Stalls set up around the closed street, the smell of food wafted through the air. People gathered around the stalls while waiting for their orders. So many people, Matt barely heard himself think as he walked around chewing on a pretzel he bought from a stall.

There were a couple of stalls set up where people could play games and win prizes. One of them had overstuffed animals and one had various toys, some of which were popular children's cartoons, and as Matt walked down the street, he noticed a stall with standout prizes. The prizes for getting the most points looked like jewelry and even the prizes for the least points looked fascinating.

For only a pound sterling for three tries, Matt opted to try it.

Finishing his pretzel, Matt walked over to the stall while the stall owner handed off a prize to a young woman. The young woman won a Indian elephant statue, painted white with gold stripes and she looked ecstatic as she held it in her petite hands. She didn't pay attention before bumping into Matt as she walked away.

Curious, Matt walked up to the stall and the stall owner looked at him. "Want a try?" the stall owner, a tiny woman, asked him. He nodded. He put down the pound sterling onto the wooden counter and she took it. Glimpsing around, Matt noticed he didn't see any ring tosses or balloons, he asked her how he played at this particular stall.

"Are you good at riddles?" the tiny woman asked him. He blinked as he gestured, "I've played them, yeah."

"You get three tries, answer my riddle correctly on the first try and you'll get one of the better prizes," the tiny woman told him.

Blinking, Matt agreed to it and the tiny woman began.

"For why did the bell stop chiming?" she cryptically asked.

Matt listened and paused. He'd never heard anything like it before and wasn't sure if it was a real riddle or not. Baffled, he stood there with a quizzical look as he processed the riddle.

He pondered on it and as he did, he glimpsed around the stall at the prizes. Hanging on the hooks were different jewelry and the like, those were the top prizes, he glimpsed around to the opposite side to see the low prizes. Most were statues. The middle, the middle prizes, was books and the like. Utterly bizarre and rather intriguing set of prizes for answering questionable riddles, but as Matt glimpsed around, he saw a necklace dangling from one of the hooks. It was silver and the centerpiece was a jade.

Despite their arguments and differences, Ripley was good a friend as any, and she did help him out of his slump. He decided if he won on the first try, he'd get the necklace and give it to Ripley as a present.

"Okay," Matt began as he pondered the answer. "Is it because it's past noon?"

The tiny woman made no indication if his answer was correct and he decided to try it again.

"Uh, the bell broke?" he gestured. The tiny woman once again didn't make any indication if it was the right answer. He tried it a third time and guessed, "I don't know, because service ended?"

The tiny woman shook her head. He didn't get it right. Flabbergasted he asked where the riddle came from and if it even was a riddle to begin with. She didn't say but turned around and went through the least extravagant prizes before handing Matt a small box. It was wooden, old, had some markings on it, and a bronze lock. Matt stared at the box and blinked, when he tried to open it, he found he couldn't.

"Uh, miss, this doesn't seem to open," Matt pointed at it. The tiny woman laughed and said that if he wanted to try to get the key for it, assuming she didn't give that away, he could always play the game again. He decided not to and thought he could just jimmy the lock himself; after all, it was just a small box. It would've fetched little in the shop, anyway.

Walking away from his prize, Matt glimpsed around the festival more and tried to find other stalls with similar prizes. He never did. As he walked around, he overheard a woman complain about her prize. "I don't know what I'm going to do with it," she bemoaned as she held up the key. "I don't know where it even goes to."

"Hang it up," shrugged her male companion. "It could go well on the wall."

The red headed woman held up the key that strung around a twine. She shook her head. "Can't believe I didn't get that riddle," she frowned. The man shrugged, "I never even heard of it."

"Oh, excuse me," Matt mustered as he went over to them. "I couldn't help but overhear you got a prize from that stall, too."

"Yeah, I wanted one of those necklaces but I didn't get the riddle," the woman frowned. The man besides her shrugged, "I didn't play. I was never for riddles."

"She mentioned she had a key for this, but truthfully I didn't want to keep playing the game, could I try your key on this?" Matt raised the box to the woman. The woman looked at it and shrugged. She handed Matt the key and he tried to open it, assuming that it was the key for it, but the key didn't work. He apologized for taking up the two's time as he handed back the key to the woman.

The man stopped and pointed at Matt. "Aren't you that footballer?" he asked. Matt blinked as he shrugged, "I was at some point."

"Yeah, you're Matt… something… but I've seen your games, you were pretty good," the man complimented Matt. Matt smiled as he said, "I'm surprised anyone would recognize me, to be honest."

"Oh, you're Matt!" the woman raised her finger at him. "Oh yeah, I've seen your games whenever I'm working."

Matt smiled. He then heard, "Kinda surprised you turned down that FIFA contract."

His smile left as he shrugged. He explained, "I just didn't think it'd be a good fit for me."

"So, what're you doing now?" the woman asked him. "I mean, what's more exciting than being a footballer?"

"I work at a thrift shop, now," Matt replied. He received looks from the two. Shrugging he responded with, "I like it a whole lot. No back injuries to worry about."

"So what's it like?" the woman asked. Matt smiled as he replied, "I assess, repair, and sell antiques, clothing, anything really. We get some goodies in here and there. Not too long ago we got some Laserdiscs in, they're not too expensive, but they're sealed in their original cellophane. "

"Sounds fun!" the woman gleamed. The man beside her asked Matt, "Doesn't it get boring after a while though, can't be too fun sorting through records all day."

Matt pondered before shaking his head. "I like learning about old stuff, it's fun poking around in the shop."

He handed them a card to the Odds & End Shop, west of Bleaker Street, and the two left into the crowd to grab some fairy floss.

Matt continued his trek around the festival before he eventually grew tired from the excitement and went home with his prize. When he showered and ready for bed, he grabbed his wooden box and with a kit he gotten from Ripley, he pried it open. Inside, nothing, but the green cloth lining the interior, smelled like his nan's perfume, it was nothing special, and he ended up tossing it in the closet before heading to bed.

When he got up the next morning, he readied for work and ventured to the shop where Ripley sorted through albums from popular bands. She knew most of them but stopped when she came across albums from the band, Queen. Most of them she knew but some she didn't.

She raised one of the newer albums to look at it more and seemed surprised.

"Finding something to listen to, Rip?" Matt asked her when he got to the boxes of albums Ripley got from a haul. Ripley blinked as she looked at the newer Queen album intently before shaking her head and put the album back in its place.

They found albums from Roxette, a band that was relatively popular in Europe, but had a slow start in other countries that by the time the albums were popular, the group dissolved. No talks were ever made of a reunion tour.

Some albums from Genesis, Peter Gabriel's plans to branch out and start his career solo never went through and despite the bands popularity, problems arose and the band dissolved sometime after 2002.

Unfamiliar bands such as AC/DC mixed in with the rest and the two sorted them through until they had every stack separated and marked. Matt ended up keeping some of the albums, as did Ripley who looked at the back of a compilation album for Queen and noticed "Bohemian Rhapsody" had a longer time stamp.

It looked she wanted to ask Matt something, but she refrained and cleaned up the boxes before having Matt set out the stickers for the albums.

Within hour of opening, they've had customers come in and awe at the sight of the albums.

An Australian expat was elated at finding the AC/DC albums he once had before but had to sell them to fund his plane ticket when he moved to the United Kingdom. He was like a child who bought his favorite comic book as he nearly ran out of the shop with his bag of albums.

Matt had the idea to put one of the albums' discs in and have it play overhead. He put in an extra Queen CD and noticed Ripley had a small smile on her face when one of Queen's famous songs started to play.

It never left and it made Matt smile, he hardly seen Ripley smile. He jammed out to the song while handling items on the shelf as customers came in and out, all wanted to find something that they never found anywhere else.

Eventually, "Bohemian Rhapsody" started up and Ripley seemed elated to hear it. However, as the song continued, slowly her smile disappeared from her face until it went away completely and didn't return afterwards. She continued to help customers until a pair walked in and Matt recognized them instantly as the pair he encountered at the festival.

"You'd miss this if you weren't looking hard enough," the red headed woman said as her male friend glimpsed around the shop. Ripley shrugged and told her, "Best I could do."

The red headed woman turned to see Matt and smiled. "I thought we'd stop by and see the shop," she told him. "Arthur's been looking for stuff and we'd figured what the hell, we're already in the neighborhood."

Arthur smiled lightly as he went to check the albums and picked some of them up. He heard Ripley asking, "What're you looking for?"

"Oh, I'm looking for replacement parts for typewriters. Mine needs a new ribbon and one of the keys isn't working correctly," Arthur told her. "I know how to fix it, just need the parts."

"I might be of help, what's the model?" Ripley asked him as he stepped over to her as she knelt down to grab boxes under the counter.

"I didn't seem to catch your name," Matt raised a finger at the red headed woman. She blinked before realizing. "Oh, right, sorry, I'm Karen," she smiled. Matt nodded as he asked her, "What are you looking for?"

"Oh, I don't know," she lamented. "I have a million ideas as to what I'm looking for, but I don't know where to start."

Matt smiled and tried to help her come up with an idea of what she wanted while Ripley further assisted Arthur who wanted to collect some vinyl.

Karen found a dresser she liked, it dated around the early 1900s, made of red oak, the lacquer redone, and had two separated drawer at the top for socks and underwear. She liked it that she bought it and had Matt write out the papers for delivery.

"I needed to replace my old one, anyway," Karen, admitted. "I didn't want to buy one from a furniture store, they don't last very long, the ones I seen, and the prices!"

"Ah, well, you can't beat the classics," Matt smiled. He finalized the papers and gave Karen a copy so she could have it for reference. He placed a large yellow sticker on the dresser with the bold words "SOLD" on it afterward.

"Huh, what do you keep in the back?" Arthur stood near the door to the back room. Ripley told him, "Just some stuff we haven't put out yet, why?"

"What's that noise?" he questioned. Ripley walked over to the door and heard a low rumbling noise. She told Arthur to stay put and Matt to come with her as they investigated the noise.

Entering the back room, the low rumbling noise sounded like metal pieces scratching together, but they didn't see a source until Matt heard it get louder as he went to towards the police box. Ripley took notice and went towards it, too.

"I don't bloody understand it," Matt shook his head in confusion as they heard the low rumbling noise coming from the police box. Worried, Ripley told him to shoo away Karen and Arthur, and to put up the closed sign. She was going to call the junkyard and have them take the police box tonight, it may eat into the profits for the next couple of weeks but it was becoming apparent that something was wrong with the police box and Ripley did not want it around them.

Nodding, Matt cautiously turned around and was about to leave the back room to inform Karen and Arthur that the shop was closed. He was going to tell them a pipe had come loose and started leaking in the back, that the shop will remain close until they get it fixed. Until he noticed two heads peeking into the back room.

"What's going on?" Karen asked. Arthur tilted his head as he asked another question, "What's that?"

Ripley flinched as she awkwardly turned around quickly to face the two who noticed the police box. They stared at it as she tried to get their attention away from it. "Nothing, we're getting rid of it, it's too costly and taking up space," she tried to tell them. Matt raised his hand as he tried to say, "We'll have to close the shop, I'm afraid, a pipe gotten loose, that's what you were hearing."

Arthur pointed towards the police box and said, "But, the sound's coming from there. Is that a police box?"

"Er, good guess, but it's rubbish and it has to go. The pipe leaking is behind the rubbish," Ripley told him. "Now, come on, off you go, we don't want your shoes getting wet."

"What about the light?" Arthur asked. Ripley blinked as she tilted her head in confusion until she followed his finger to see light coming on from inside the police box.

Matt and Ripley frowned as they stared at the police box that continued to emit the low rumbling noise and lit up windows. They didn't know what to say and for Ripley it was disastrous that they had to not only deal with it but that their customers who weren't supposed to see it, did. Now they were growing naturally curious about the police box and neither of them knew what to do.

"Uh, it's a prop," Matt piped up. "We weren't going to say anything because, well, it's already spoken for!"

Ripley looked at him, perturbed, but decided to work with him on their ruse. She nodded as she explained, "We didn't want any fights over it. It was hard as it was keeping it a secret."

"Is it supposed to do that?" Karen asked. Ripley nods. "It must've turned on accidentally, we've been in an out of the back room a lot today, one of us must've accidently set it off," she explained.

"What kind of prop is it?" Arthur questioned. Matt waved his hand as he responded, "Oh, it's just a little something for the theater."

Matt and Ripley managed to shoot the pair out of the back room. Ripley locked it behind them while Matt led them out of the shop. When they were gone, he put up the closed sign and turned around to face Ripley.

"I wanted proof that I'm not crazy, but this is more then what I bargained for!" Matt flung up his hands as they panicked. Not only did the seemingly innocuous police box slowly animate right before their very eyes, they had witnesses see the bizarre occurrence, and they knew it was only a matter of time before word got out.

Ripley went to the phone book and located the junkyard's number. She dialed it in and asked when they could come out and take the police box, to her displeasure, she was told the next available appointment was next Sunday, a week. She then asked how much would it be if she just took it out for them to junk tonight, but told that the demolishment of old buildings caused an uptick of rubbish in the junkyard. Unless she wanted to take it elsewhere, they had no room until the following week for any more junk until they gone through the rubbish they already had.

"Oh bloody hell," Ripley rubbed her face as she hung up. "They won't take it until next week. Who the hell schedules twelve demolish parties in a week?"

"What are we going to do until then?" Matt worried. He was told, "We'll move what we can out of the back room and keep it locked. No one goes in or out."

Matt assisted in grabbing what he could from the back, the police box quieted and the light one again, but Matt didn't take time to look as he grabbed boxes and took them out front. They ended up storing most of it in Ripley's flat while making room for the remainder on the shelves. With the back room off limits, they hoped to curtail their woes.

Weary, the two looked at each other as they stacked boxes of porcelain dolls on top of each other. "Are you going to be okay tonight after I'm gone?" Matt asked. Ripley shrugged, "I'll be fine."

"Are you sure?" he gestured. "That police box just made noises."

"I don't think it'll catch fire twice, Matt," Ripley pointed out. She heard, "We don't know what it's capable of."

Matt insisted that he stay at the flat for the night, he had nowhere else to be. Ripley didn't want him to do it initially, but he had a way of changing her mind. She ended up agreeing and made up a bed on the sofa for him.

Her flat was arranged in a way that no matter where anyone sat, they'd always had a view of the rooms. There was an old mirror, around 1800s, mounted on the wall near the front door. Four large bookshelves stuffed with books, majority history, lined the den. Books stack high on the coffee table, more history, before Ripley moved the books off the table so Matt could use it. She stuffed them back on the shelves while he sat on the sofa. He noticed stacks of paper near the books that had writings on them, he assumed they were business related, but saw scribblings with the word "Wrong!" on them, just before Ripley grabbed them and stuffed them in a filing cabinet near the mantle.

Matt ended up glimpsing around and noticed Ripley had no pictures of herself or anyone from her family, not even friends. None hung on the walls and none placed on top of the mantle. It was peculiar; to him at least, he had at least a dozen pictures on the wall at his flat with him, his friends, and his family, sometimes in the same picture. Ripley had none of that anywhere in her flat.

He heard the tapping of her cane as she came by and gave him a tray of tea and biscuits. He thanked her before he started eating the biscuits as he dunks them in his tea.

Ripley hardly talked to him much, she seemed preoccupied most of the time, when she wasn't she talked to him, only for a little bit. She only told him which way was the cold and hot water in the shower and to be mindful to step down from the platform into the bathroom. If he wanted anything from the kitchen, he might be disappointed as she wasn't much of a foodie as he was. She gave him the remote to the only television she had in the flat and didn't seem interested in watching anything.

He could never ask her about the lack of photos. Not that she'd answer him willingly.

Eventually, Ripley retired into her room and left Matt alone in the den.

He spent most of his time replying to text messages and talking to people. He watched some videos posted from the games' his old team played and cheered as they scored.

It became boring after a while. It became late and Ripley hadn't left her room, so Matt assumed she went to bed. He was still awake and ended up quietly walking around the living room. Everything had its place, everything sorted and organized, and since Ripley never mentioned anything about the history books, Matt took one off the shelf and opened it to a random page.

It was dark with barely light from the television, Matt didn't want to turn on any light or else Ripley would walk out and see what he was doing. He ended up narrowing his dark eyes and saw writings on the pages. Illegible in the limited light, he saw X's and O's drawn on the maps and barely anything beyond that.

Putting it back where he found it, he went back to the sofa and relaxed. Nothing was on tonight except reruns and nothing interested him that he ended up falling asleep on the sofa. His body sunk into the soft cushions as he began lightly snoring.

When he woke up to use the bathroom, he got up and shuffled towards it down the hall, and as he neared, he noticed the door to Ripley's room wide open. Conflicted, Matt shuffled towards the threshold and called out to Ripley, to see if she was okay. She didn't respond and wasn't in her room. He ended up having to shuffle quickly to the bathroom before he walked out and looked around the flat for her. She was nowhere in the flat and when he checked the time, he became worried.

He walked downstairs into the shop and heard indistinct voices coming from the back room. He carefully made his way towards the back room where he heard distinctly, "I've heard of stealing priceless jewels with a vacuum, but this takes the cake of being the worst heist in the world!"

"We weren't trying to steal it!" a voice protested. Another said, "I tried to stop her, I swear!"

"You're lucky I found you and not them!" the first voice shouted. "If it were them, you'd not be heard from again!"

Matt walked into the back room cautiously to find Ripley holding up the cane in front of the two would-be robbers. She turned her head slightly and said to him, "Look what the fiséné dragged in!"

It was Karen and Arthur, their customers from earlier. They broke into the shop and made their way into the back room. Ripley caught them after hearing something under her feet and went downstairs to check. She didn't wake Matt as he was sleeping heavily.

"Look, we don't want any trouble," Arthur tried to reason with the rightfully irate Ripley who scorned the two as she cornered them with her cane. She shook her head, "Looks like you found it."

"What're you two doing?" Matt crossed his arms. "Breaking into a thrift shop at night, what're you thinking?"

"I tried to stop her," Arthur cried out. Karen hushed him before saying, "What really is that thing?"

"You broke in a shop for a police box?" Matt summed. Karen crossed her arms, "No offense, but you two lie as well as Cabbage Patch kids!"

"Why did you break into the shop?" Matt asked her. "Why go through the efforts of breaking into a back room for a police box?"

"You're telling me this thing is going to a theater?" Karen pointed at him. "What theater?"

"As if we have legal obligations to tell," Ripley shook her head.

They argued until the metal sheet sound emitted from the police box once again and the windows lighting up. The room grew chillier and sent chills up the four's spines as they felt the change in the temperature.

Ripley turned around and frowned at the sight. Once again, it was making noise and it grew considerably louder than before.

Karen pointed at it and angrily asked, "What kind of prop is that?"

Before Matt could answer, Ripley slammed her cane onto the ground and sent a cracking noise throughout the back room.

"No excuses!" Ripley's voice echoed throughout the back room. "You two are leaving and banned from here henceforth. I will not call the police, but know that I will deal with you punishingly if I see you here again. You were warned, I give no further warnings from then on. Pray you do not see me again!"

Her anger poured through her dark eyes as she forced Karen and Arthur out of the back room. She had Matt relook the back door while she pushed Karen and Arthur out of the shop forcibly before locking the front door to the shop. She ended up having Matt put a cabinet in front of it to prop it close and another in front of the back door. Both heavy no one but him can reasonably move it.

Ripley fumed as she paced around the shop. "Should've known they'd the types to sneak," she muttered under her breath as she further paced around the room. Matt calmed her down and she shook her head angrily. She sat in her chair and took a deep breath; Matt asked her if she was okay. Ripley replied, "I've had worse days."

"I'm so sorry, Rip," Matt apologized. "I didn't mean for this to happen."

Ripley waved her hand as she said, "It's alright, you had no way of knowing, I can't hold that against you."

"What do you want to do, now?" Matt asked her. She pondered this before saying, "Tomorrow, you'll help me look for the man who sold us this and make him talk."

"Er, Rip, what did you mean back there," Matt pointed behind him towards the blocked back room. She stared at him confusingly before he said the word, "fiséné."

Ripley flinched before shaking her head. She only said to him, "I don't want to talk about it."

She turned off the lights in the shop and went upstairs to her flat, Matt followed her and fell back asleep as she disappeared into her bedroom and wasn't seen until morning.

When the two got up, Ripley made a light breakfast for Matt. She ate lightly while he nearly cleaned his plate completely. Cleaning up, the two set off to look for the elective man who sold them the strange police box.

It wasn't long until Matt found the elective man who was selling more wares to some tourists at a stall.

The elective man noticed them coming up and turned his head. "Come back for more?" he asked them. Ripley told him dryly, "I think we've had enough of your wares, miser. Where did you get that thing you sold us?"

"Like I told you before," he shrugged. Ripley sharply said, "You know what I meant. Where did you find it?"

Her dark eyes, like daggers, pointed at the elective man as she tensed up. Matt got in between them and asked the elective man, "Did they tell you anything about the storage unit it was in?"

The elective man pondered before explaining that the owner of the unpaid storage unit was an elective collector like him. Inside the unit he found many trinkets and the like that he never seen before, until he found the strange item he sold them. They tried contacting the owner several times about the missed payments but they went unanswered and the owner never came back. So to recoup the lost money, they annexed the storage unit and sold the items inside.

As for the owner, the elective man didn't know exactly their identity, but was told they were quote "odd" and extremely "weird". The owner of the storage unit place assumed it was a mentally inept man who since been locked up. He didn't seem to fond of him and was thankful he never came back for the items he sold.

"And the reason you gave the thing to us so cheaply is because of something else you're not telling us," Ripley narrowed her dark eyes at the elective man's light green eyes. "What are you hiding from us, miser?"

The elective man frowned and admitted he wanted to rid himself of the stuff he found in the storage unit because most of it was extremely odd and he had a bad feeling about the storage unit overall. "I just wanted to recoup the costs I paid and move to Hawaii," the elective man admitted.

He didn't want to speak about the matters more but warned them to get rid of what he sold them, he didn't say why exactly, but he was afraid of something. He ended up grabbing his bag and hurrying away from the stall and left whatever he had on the table, just some cheaply made necklaces.

The two stood next to each other, sharing the same look on their faces. "Why do I get the feeling this isn't going to end well?" Matt blinked. Ripley replied, "Because nothing ever does."