Voodoo in Louisiana
A Doctor Who Anniversary Fanfiction
By Rachel Beth Ahrens
Featuring the Twelfth Doctor, Clara Oswald, Danny Pink (Louis), and the Eleventh Doctor as performed by Peter Capaldi, Jenna Coleman, Samuel Anderson, and Matt Smith in the Doctor Who series for BBC One and BBC America.
Night One:
The Fitz and Dizzyspells
The first night when it started, the humid Gulf air grew heavier and thicker with a dense fog, like a single drop of milk passing through the watery atmosphere before resting on the lowest dew point outside the Bayou. Many Crescent City visitors and residents heeded the warnings of their elders when the fog settled in, right around the Mardi Gras. Grandparents, officers, the mayor, the sheriff, even the voodoo wizards in darker areas of the town all gave the most important piece of advice: When Heaven's haze settles neath the sky, do not go a day's night outside/ In the low cloud the spirits come alive/ Breathe them in, they nab you to the Other Side.
No matter how many times she heard that poem, young Claire Oscar refused to believe its superstition. I don't believe in ghosts, she convinced herself. I never did, I don't intend to. Therefore, she chalked up the warning to be complete rubbish.
Early that morning when she arrived at work at the local school on the French Quarter's outskirts, her recurring nightmare returned to haunt her consciousness. Though it was not the dream she had last night, this was a constant living nightmare of hers only within her classroom where she taught English and Math. She originally wanted to teach languages like French and authors such as Jane Austen and Doyle, but the principal at the worn and run down southern school never allowed her, mainly because the literature was too advanced for the students. She respected this gentleman, but truly resented him in the silent manner when he explained why he prohibited the suggested curriculum, clenching her hand into a fist on his exact words, "Our academia is just fine where it's at; we don't want the kids to get the wrong impression, especially for some of them who are children of color."
That discussion the day he said this made her mind so overheated, she walked into her class, books and pencils in hand, dropped them on her desk to which all of her students quieted immediately, and looked up at them, saying, "What are you doing here?"
The eleven and twelve year old children stared at her, some glancing back at each other in puzzlement. Claire spoke again, "Do you really have to sit in those assigned seats every day?"
Their faces remained vacant. The majority of the students were light skinned and sitting up in front of the room, while the darker skinned students with much more tattered textbooks than the white kids' sat in the back. One of the children, a girl in the front row named Caroline, looked at her and said, "You assigned the seating chart, Miss Oscar."
"Well, that's going to change right now," Claire said with a dark tone of voice. "Everyone, switch seats, sit wherever you like."
Kids remained at their desks like they had frozen solid into statues.
"That's an order," she repeated. "Move to another seat, now."
A boy in the second row stood with his arms crossed and said, "What if I don't wanna sit in the back?"
She gave him a contemptive look and said, "Didn't I say sit wherever you like? Do it." She scanned at the two rows in the back and pointed at the students sitting there. "You lot, sit up here, closer to the front of the room, right now."
"I ain't sittin' next to no black boy!" another girl barked.
Claire's face became hot as she lowered her voice. "Do as you're told."
Nobody moved.
Claire stood with her back straight and said in a brighter resolving tone, "All right, if you won't move to another seat, I'd like everyone to turn their desks around and sit in a circle, now please."
Caroline asked again, "Why should we do that when we've been doing this all year?"
Claire took a breath and said, "You can think of this as an adventure, more of an experiment, if you will. I want all of you to turn your chairs and form a circle, and this is how we will conduct the class for the remainder of the semester, understand?"
The whispering ensued. Most of the students' questions they externalized knocked back and forth over, "What happened to Miss Oscar? Is she drunk? She been goin' to too many rot gut rooms, or she been dating some black guy? Naw, she's havin heat stroke. She'll pass out in a second. But it's January! Mardi Gras's comin! She couldn't have heat stroke, less it's Crawfish and Jumbalaya Festival. Maybe she ate too much gumbo and scalded herself with Tabasco..."
That was enough gossip talk. "Everyone up and move, or no Magic Show Friday! Move your desks or I will cancel James the Magician's show tomorrow and you'll have a surprise test, forty percent of your grade."
That made everyone shut up.
"Forward march," she commanded.
With that, the whole classroom body stood up and the squeaking sounds of moving tables and chairs were music to her ears.
That wasn't her nightmare, however. The kids used to be careless, the rowdiest bunch of students with their paper planes and pencil throwing chaos plummeting the room into complete anarchy. Angering her more was watching students getting bullied and tormented by their peers, and the bullies were always the white kids who never got the just punishment from the principal no matter how many times she sent them to the office. The white kids got a slap on the wrist, but a slap so light they remained ignorant and broke the same school rules over and over. Since the day she changed the seating arrangements, the kids got nicer.
The other teachers and the principal, consequently, were far less pleased to that regard. Principal Durst finding out that she integrated her own classroom and thus breaking Louisiana's segregation laws- that was her nightmare. Louis told her not to worry about it, for it was a very brave thing to do. Revenge is pretty sweet, she thought to herself.
That morning when she arrived at the faculty lounge, the two secretaries and seven other teachers, the entire teaching faculty, had taken up the whole room in a frenzy. The phones made a din of ringing amidst the great deal of talking and abrupt shouts of commotion.
Don't tell me I'm fired, her mind crossed.
Secretary Lisa approached Claire and said, "Miss Oscar, thank God you're here, it's really bad news."
"Bad news?" Claire repeated, heart quickening. Bugger, I'm getting the sack.
"James's family called in," Lisa said in a tizzy. "He's been missing since Sunday."
Friday, she remembered. It's Magic Show Friday and the magician is a no-show. Typical Friday morning for Saint Daniel Elementary, for the magicians showing up at the school every second week of the month ended up disappearing with their families filing missing person reports with the police. At last, Claire could take a deep resolving breath.
"That's terrible," Claire said, relieved but covering it with her remorse.
"What in the world are we going to do?" Lisa said, still panicked. "We can't just cancel Magic Friday again, the kids will start blousin' like they've been sippin' someone else's noodle juice."
Looking over her shoulder out the window towards the playground, she could have sworn she saw someone. The gray began to fold over the New Orleans horizon in a hazy southern blanket and blocking the sunlight. All that time, there seemed to be a bright flash of light slamming the ground inches from the window, the gray light accompanied with a face. A face she knew. The long blue dreadlocks almost resembled tentacles as they stretched inside. Her face blanched, her eyes peering in at Claire like stabbing daggers. The ghost woman wore old goose feathers under a black beaten bowler hat. Her gauzy dress snaking to the ground and slithering through the wall, the ghost woman widened her mouth in a howl. She almost had a grasp on Claire until she vanished in a second... and Claire forgot.
The face from her dream, it kidnapped the poor soul who rescued her.
The dark haze dispersed in an instant, the sun returning, and Claire turned her attention to the immediate dilemma at hand. "Don't be a wurp, Lisa, I'll handle this," Claire said and walked off, keeping her shuddering heart and mind steady. All the while, all she could only think of where she would find such a lazy bum who knew magic, out of all the fellas left in town from all the disappearances.
Outside on the playground behind the building, the clouds steadily came billowing in, rolling their wheels of humidity and condensation from the Gulf. Even for a February winter, the Gulf Coast of Louisiana, Florida, and all the South states in between carried that same warm, misty atmosphere that cooled only by a small amount. That same climate always significantly increased in hot, humid pressure by the start of April. In the past year alone, Claire thought, she had never seen so much rainfall with so many hurricanes and storms feeling like monsoons, but not one drop of rainfall cooled the temperature around her.
Though she often missed the wintery snowy weather of her home country Mother England, Claire did enjoy the flourishing plant life of her city, as long as they didn't attack her in her dreams. Daisies and wildflowers grew in patches everywhere amongst the dirt roads bustling with the Model A Ford. No matter what the weather, London always had that cold, dark and gray stuffiness New Orleans never had. England's charcoal sullen sky never let in the sun, billowing smoke stacks from factories, and the soot covered every brick and building of what so many of her American chums called it old and merry. The more she thought of her last home, especially after the Great War, she felt less cheery in calling her nation's capitol "merry ol'". In fact, she remembered, it wasn't where I was born to begin with.
But at least England never had as many storms as Louisiana did, nor were the temperatures incredibly warm and an almost pleasant summer in the dead of the January winter.
Leaning against the quaint French style gate by the garden, Claire crossed her arms, her gaze falling on a row of sweet little townhouses, the sidings and doors painted in vibrant pastel colors. The revving of the big Fords with their chiming honks were not loud enough to conceal the waft of music from the old men sitting on a porch playing a slow blues on banjo and clarinet, nor the smell of beignets from the bakery around the corner.
But the smell... it changed quite apparently. Somehow, she could once again smell the soot, the smoke, and a distinctive cold and terse smell she couldn't put her finger on. It couldn't have been the Bayou swamp smell she was used to smelling. It wasn't London either, even though some parts of the city had a similar aroma. It also surely didn't smell of someone smoking a cigarette next to her, more like a speakeasy or night club she frequented with her mates, or even when she'd sneak in to find Dipper, her secret lover. That smell reeked of sausages, smoke, soot, and something else altogether... what was it?
...Refuse.
Slowly turning around and attempting to hold her breath for as long as possible, Claire found herself staring into the face of an old, haggard looking man, his short gray hair slightly curly and coarse, and piercing green eyes behind fearsome wrinkles and even sharper eyebrows. He frowned at her, as if his face only showed a vacant expression, almost like he never learned to smile. His clothes were tatters, unusual for a hobo to be lounging around on a kids' playground in 1921.
Taking a small step back, slightly startled by the tired, scary old hermit in a blue robe and patched up baggy pants, Claire let out another breath and sucked in another, only to politely cough on his pungent odor.
"Been looking for me?" he asked.
Claire thought it strange this question, as well as his deep voice. Clearly, he wasn't from the Crescent City, not even the United States. The accent had a British or more likely a Celtic root.
"Oi, I had no recollection of meeting you before, Johnny boy," Claire said. "Possibly would have taken me a great deal longer to recognize the smell."
The old hermit stood there, staring at her in thought. "Well, you did get my name half right for once," he continued. "Now, I need you to come closer and stay on my side with me. It's very dangerous here, though we may have to vacate the area so I can show you..."
"What in Heaven's name is eating you, dewdropper?" Claire exclaimed, whipping her hand away when he seized it.
The hermit recoiled in disgust to the way she spat at him. "Since when did you start talking like that? What's gone wrong with your accent? You sound all American! You're not even Engl-"
"You better make like a spruce or I'll scream for the coppers, got that?!"
Turning on her heel and quick stepping her march back to the school building for class, he charged after her and grabbed her arm again. "No, no, no! You don't understand! Listen to me!" he pleaded.
Claire pulled her arm to freedom again, but this time his grip fought hers. "Unhand me, you lout!" she said, but in a harsh quiet manner as to draw very little attention. The students would arrive any minute, she thought of saying, but the response got caught in her chest.
"Clara, Clara, it's me!" he finally confessed. He stared, practically screaming at her whole body for some hint or response acknowledging that she remembered him. But she only stared at him in shock, confused and horrified as watching a ghost revealing its ugly fangs and blood curdling screams.
That whole moment, Claire froze in the terror of him searching her. She had heard that maybe he had been beyond madness that the heat got to his brainpan and made him see things like Don Quixote and the wind mill beast. Others said he would only look upon the females, searching for his lost love, or maybe he really was just sink in the head, "from one too many dizzyspells."
At last, he let her wrist fall to her side. He beckoned one last time, "Clara?"
"Who's Clara?" Claire said, still puzzled, relaxing after he finally released her. Then she remembered, the name from the dream. "How do you know that name? Who is she?"
It looked like it still didn't register for the hermit across from her. "Clara, my Clara! Clara Oswald, schoolteacher at Coal Hill School in London! Impossible Girl!" He grasped her shoulders and bore his eyes into hers. "Clara, it's me, your Doctor! Last of the Time Lords! We met Robin Hood! Robbed the most impregnable bank in the universe! We stopped The Mistress with your boyfriend PE teacher's help..."
All of his babbling made no sense to her. He trailed off when he saw the fear written across her face.
"You don't..." he said quietly. "You can't remember..."
Releasing her again, he stood back frowning again. It sounded like he was in awe about her, until the next thing he said almost came off cynical, but above all rude and indifferent.
"Look at you, seriously, with the eyes again," the hermit spoke again at the sight of her thwarted look on her face. "How are you doing that, anyway? And they're not inflating with tears, no, they inflate like you see a stranger robbing you! I can't believe after all these months and all these years travelling, you can't… you can't just see me."
Claire felt her mouth going dry again, for she left her jaw open a little too long and nearly forgot to breathe. She got the nerve to ask again, "How do you know that name? Clara?"
The old man with the Celtic accent shook his head and said, "Never mind. You can't see me. I doubt you have even met me… not yet, anyway."
But as he backed away and sauntered off into the dirty road like the disillusioned men of the War, all she could think of was the possibility that he knew the woman in her dream. A woman who quite possibly looked just like her, for Claire never got a chance to see, or remember, what this Clara person looked like.
As to his last statement, she echoed it, feeling the words on her lips. 'I doubt you have even met me…"
Well, I already have just now, Claire thought as she walked back into the building for the bell ringing in the new session.
But out the corner of her eye when she hadn't made a single toe into the doorway, the same hermit fell to his knees and clutched his chest. Claire at first assumed it was all a rouse until she heard the old man yelp in a state of panic and pain. Fearing the first sign of a heart attack, she flew to his side to help him up slowly. As she clutched his arms and asked how he was feeling, he said, "No, I'm fine, this is all perfectly normal…"
"Doesn't look normal to me at all," said Claire, still holding him by his arms. Then she saw his hand was on the wrong side of his chest. He wasn't having a heart attack at all; his heart was on the left side and he was clinging to the right. That was the moment she knew to perhaps leave him be, though it perplexed her of the question of why the right side of the chest. Was there another heart there, or just one of his lungs?
"Are you sure you're all right, sir?" she said again.
Looking down at the right side of his chest, he said, "Bi-coronary malfunction, cosmic angst. It happens, mostly when the time-space continuum is in flux, and definitely when my time stream has been altered…"
He stood and took another daunting glance at Claire. "Basically means the other one is here, somewhere…"
"What 'other one'?" Claire asked. "What does that mean?"
"He must've come with you," the old hermit said, stepping back. "What did he look like? Big scarf? Leather jacket? Sand shoes… oh no, please don't say it's the bow tie man."
His evading all of her questions heated her blood to near boiling. "What are you playing at, boy-o? You're not gonna answer any of my questions, aren't ya?" she said hotly.
"Clara, I promise you, I'm not lying!" the old man returned.
Her face grew hotter. "Stop calling me Clara! The name is Miss Oscar!"
"Oh, well, pardon me, Miss Oscar, but I can see it right now you're in danger."
"I'll be sure to tell you, Johnny boy, who's really in danger, when I call the police!"
"Sure thing, Clara, I'm sure the fuzz will listen to you now," he said, backing down a little more but still angered. "After all, you'd be too stupid to do a thing like that, and even then, not even the police will be there to save you, if you remember-"
"I said stop calling me CLARA!" her voice boomed, echoing almost throughout the entire town. But because no one really cared plus the fact that the town had been silent for several minutes, no one could hear her shouts at the old hermit. Taking a breath and lowering her voice back to a calmer tone, she said, "I do not want to hear another word from your mouth, is that understood? My name is Claire. Claire Melissa Oscar, and I'm a teacher at this school, of which you are not welcome here. So, dearest trespasser, I must ask you to leave presently. Now if you'll excuse me…"
And sharply turning around, she could see the mist darkening the road ahead of her. This time, the low cloud became thicker, rolling closer towards her like huge multi-layered waves of stratus and nimbostratus. Those types of clouds generally produced fog and a steady warm drizzle in the South, but the curious thing about this fog was it contained firing mini-shocks of electricity. She had never seen such tiny bolts and strikes of lightning. They rolled in like an approaching thunderstorm, coming for both of them, and as Claire swerved around, she found the place where she stood to be completely deserted. There were no more new cars chugging along down the dirt path and everyone had at least gone inside and out of harm's way. The clouds howled, much like the woman did in her dream. It gave the same low, whistling sound of winds coming straight for them… straight for Claire and her stranger.
Stunned, Claire kept her eyes on it, curious as to how phenomenal or how dangerous it might be. "What is that?" she said at last.
She felt the hermit's voice and breath against her ear. "Something I tried to warn you about, but I best not tell you."
"Why?" she said, turning to him.
He crouched to her eye level. "Because it's time to run from it," he breathed in a haunting low tone.
They turned toward it. The winds increased speed. The foggy mist thundered. The howl became a shriek that of a woman's voice. And out of that darkness, Claire made out a face… the same face she saw in the window. The mouth widened enough to swallow her.
So the old man pulled at her arm and shouted, "Run!"
The pair of them took off, screaming as the cloud mouth chased them down the street. Claire's blurred vision was instantaneous. As she ran with the smelly and mysterious psychopath, she found herself lost in the town she'd spent years living in. Every time and every corner they dodged, she could never tell which street they were on so she could find a way back to Saint Daniel, or all the way back home. At that point, she really had no choice but to follow the man running with her. She lost track of her thoughts of I can't trust him, he's a nobody. Now all she could think of was how in the blazes did I get in this mess? How do I get out?
In the midst of it all, something hit her square on the forehead, causing Claire to fall backwards. Losing his grip on her, the stranger caught her in time and pulled her to her feet. "Claire! Come on, get up, we can still make it!" he said.
She heaved, out of breath. "I can't," she sighed. "I'm bushed."
"There isn't enough time," he said. "You're wasting it! That's not the Clara Oswald I know!"
Hyperventilating, her head grew heavier and it was now too difficult to see. "That's because I'm not her," she replied, the faintness and shock taking effect.
He peered into her slightly closed eyes again before placing his hands on her head. Immediately, Claire felt a whirlpool sensation inside her head as if the man who saved her had just hacked her brain. He saw everything: all the parties, her boyfriends, the terrible war, her childhood, everything. But she could still hear him echoing that there was something missing, that it was all implanted for a reason. He wanted, no, it was a matter of life and death for him to find out. Just as he pulled out, he left her with one last thought.
"I know who you are," his voice echoed through the chambers of her mind. "But it'll be our little secret."
When she regained her vision one last time, the man parted with one last statement.
"Whatever it takes, Clara, I will get you better," he said. "And this time, I swear to you, I will never let you out of my sight."
"Who are you?" Claire said in a tired whisper. "Why are you saving me again?"
"Because I'm the Doctor," was his answer.
It still didn't prove a good enough answer to either question as she blacked out. And as she plunged into another nightmare, the only thought that crossed her mind was, Doctor who?