Chapter 21.
It Is Definitely a Nightmare.
Deep into the night, when most of the townspeople had managed to get back to sleep after the last rumbling – and confirmation from the patrolling men that the dome of mist was not actually closing in on them –, and Grace was sleeping soundly with her head in his lap, the Doctor was wide awake and thinking. Others refused to sleep as well. Sentries stood by the doors, popping them open every now and then to reassured themselves that the mist was not on the other side. Children had the most trouble, and their parents stayed up with them. And despite the unusual situation and the fact that everyone was most certainly in the same boat, the slaves stayed awake and catered to their owners, braving the outside to fetch things from their homes.
When he could sit still no longer, the Doctor slid out from under Grace and bundled up his duster, offering it as a pillow when she grumbled something at him. He walked the aisles, assuring himself that the sleeping people were out of harm's way for the moment. They were shaken, but humans were very resilient. It took much more to break them.
He found a family awake near the front. It was a young woman with her parents. He gave a little bow as he approached, smiling and sitting in a nearby pew. "Can I get you anything?"
The old woman, perhaps deep into her sixties – which was an accomplishment for this time period – smiled at him. "No, darling, I have everything I need. Sal told me about you. You came on behalf of the President, right?"
"That's right. You can call me the Doctor."
"I'm Mary Pitcher, my husband is Don – he doesn't hear well. And Susan is our daughter."
He looked at each of them, nodding, giving a friendly smile despite the disinterested looks he got in return. "Mrs. Pitcher, how long have you lived in New Fountain?"
"I was born here."
"Ahh. Quite a history." He enjoyed her confidence. He reasoned it came from her age. Older women, particularly in the south, were seen as matriarchs, even when a patriarch existed. It was a lot like England in that way. There was just something about a grandmother that evoked respect.
"What about you, Mr. Doctor. Where are you from?"
"Oh, it's just the Doctor, and I come from very far away." He leaned in a little, quieting their conversation as to not disturb the others around them. "Let me ask you, Mrs. Pitcher, if I may, have you seen anything odd in town in the last few days?"
"Other than you?"
"Yes, other than me."
"No. Not a thing."
The Doctor sat back, biting his lip. A perfectly normal town, and a perfectly abnormal phenomenon. If it was a plague of microorganisms, what had attracted it?
"You're asking because of the smoke, right? Do you know what it is?"
"I don't know. I thought maybe if something had changed… are you sure nothing strange happened in the last few days? Doesn't have to be too big. Burn any witches at the stake? Lynch anyone? Discover a meteor? Whole town gets purple spots?"
Thankfully, she didn't follow most of his question. "No. Everything's normal."
He took a knee in front of her, took her hand, and kissed the back of it. "Thank you, Mrs. Pitcher. You've been very helpful. I appreciate it."
"Aren't you a classy young man!"
"I try to be."
He left Mrs. Pitcher and moved across the front of the hall, catching the eyes of everyone who was awake and gauging candidates for conversation. Some looked absolutely hostile.
The mayor was sitting on the corner of the stage. He was a good choice.
"Mr. Mayor, if I might have a word." He sat nearby, nodding respectfully.
"Who are you?" The man turned toward him, frowning, and gave his beard a nervous flattening.
"Uh, you can call me the Doctor. I was here surveying for the President." He flashed his psychic paper, and a very convincing smile. "Do you know what's going on here?"
"No idea." The mayor relaxed, shaking his head.
"Has anything strange happened lately?"
The conversation went almost the same as it had with Mrs. Pitcher. No, nothing strange. Yes, he was sure. Yes, he would notice if anyone was acting strangely. No, he had never see the mist before. It was a decidedly unhelpful situation.
His next course of investigation was a little riskier.
He went to the sentries and cracked the door, slipping outside. It was eerily quiet, and perfectly dark. He produced his flashlight and walked out into the town square, shining it up through the roiling layers of mist up above. What a strange thing it was.
One street at a time, he went to the edge, right up to the mist, and tried to get a sense for it. It smelled of nothing. His screwdriver identified it as nothing more than regular mist – water vapor suspended in the air, dark gray in color, for whatever reason. He tossed a brick into it and caught the distinct sound of it being pulverized inside.
And every time he backed away from it instead of turning and walking off. He got the strange sense that he should keep facing it. It was predatory, after all. It might reach out and catch him.
"You are very strange." The Doctor stood at the barrier near the lake, talking to the mist and hoping it would talk back. At least that would give him a clue as to what it was. "What are you doing here? What do you want? Why are you just hovering there? You could gobble everyone up nice and easy – you could have done it earlier. You had me and Grace. You were right on top of us. So how did we get out?"
It was silent and lifeless.
It was a very strange predator.
The Doctor went back inside after a while, satisfied that the barrier of mist would shred anything that tried to pass through it, but that it wasn't steadily moving toward them. It was also plain old mist, not a lifeform, or an entity. If it was a lifeform, it was something his screwdriver had never scanned before, and that was an unnerving idea all by itself.
Grace was still asleep. He hovered over her for a little while, making sure she was warm and that no one had bothered her, and then he got to wandering again. He hit the other side of the hall this time, chatting with a family in the corner, getting a cold shoulder from the sentries, and trying to convince the uppity men sitting in the center rows to talk to him. It was laborious. He put on his best, proper English accent and convinced them he was a very important person. It was the only way they would speak, and they still turned their noses up at him.
He finished his loop with the slaves at the back, finding willing taking partners who knew nothing of what was going on. Even though they were the easiest to talk to, they would not look up to meet his eyes. He wished they would sleep, because every one of them looked exhausted.
The man on the end, who had a seven-year-old girl in his lap, was the same one the Doctor had stopped from going into the mist after the horse. He watched his procession through the room and brightened when the Doctor got to him. He wanted to talk.
"Can I get you anything?" The Doctor sat in front of him, winking at the little girl. Her cheek pulled in a cautious half-smile.
The man stroked his daughter's hair flat. "Thank you for stopping me."
The Doctor noted his speech patterns, very detached from the jumpy drawl of his compatriots. "You seem upset. Do you have someone on the other side of the wall?"
"My son. He's on the plantation. Polly and me came out here to meet the wagon, get some seeds. But then everything happened. Do you think…? What happened to them?"
"I don't know. I hope nothing. I hope this is isolated." The Doctor noted the sheepish expression on the little girl and dug in his pockets. "Is she allowed candy?"
"She's never had it."
He found a penny candy and held it out to the child. "Here. It's got caramel on the inside. It might make you feel better."
She stared at him, making no move for the treat. The Doctor offered it to the father instead. He took it, handed it to the girl, and they both watched her chew cautiously.
"There she is." The Doctor smiled. "I'm the Doctor by the way, and you are?"
"Henry." He nodded. "I didn't want to ask, but-"
"I'm from far away." The Doctor went through his pockets again, happily locating another candy. He popped it into his mouth. "So, tell me, Henry, do you know anything about this?"
"No. It seems like a nightmare."
"It is. Oh, it is definitely a nightmare." The Doctor looked around, nodding to himself. "It's a nightmare for all these different people to get shoved into a building together. Those ones in the middle, who are they?"
Henry looked around him, at the well-dressed family in the center of the room. "Plantation owners."
"Oh. Big money, then, if they own all that."
Henry nodded.
The Doctor sat with them for a while, keeping an eye on Grace and listening for the rumbling. He wondered if the family could have anything to do with the mist, and then decided against it, since they seemed appalled to be sharing a room with the normal townsfolk. In fact, nobody looked particularly suspicious. His theories began to center on alien interference.
"Shh, shh. You have to be quiet." Henry tried to keep Polly from crying. The little girl started whimpering, and she hugged his neck. It reminded the Doctor of how Grace had responded to the panic earlier.
He sat up on his knees. "Polly. Can you talk to me, Polly?"
She peeked at him from her father's shoulder, big brown eyes full of tears.
"Hello, sweetheart."
Polly stared at him, and then whispered in a raspy voice, "Hello."
"I'm going to do everything I can to make sure everybody is alright. You don't have to be scared." He dug through his pockets for something that might amuse a child, and came up with another candy. Close enough. "Here. If you eat this, you have to promise me that you'll be brave. You have to help your daddy so he won't be scared, okay?"
Polly took the candy, shifting to sit on Henry's knee. She chewed thoughtfully, and then smiled at him. It was a wonderful sight.
He only hoped he could keep his promises to her.