XIV
An appearance of angels
Manchester
1775
The skies are cast with dark grey clouds that looms over the roofs of the buildings and many chimneys from the factories. The clouds are low and blow heavy gusts of wind through the streets, making fences wobble and making people feel uneasy on their feet as they try to rush to work in the early hours of the day. A dark gloom hangs over the city making each shadowed corner seem more ghostly than ever. The air is damp and everyone expects that it will rain soon.
Max wakes up at seven o'clock in the morning only having a couple of hours sleep. The sharp stabbing pain runs through his chest and for a moment he feels like he might be sick. It is an odd sensation. He has not felt this stabbing feeling for a few days, but for a brief moment he is rather pleased to have the feeling back, just because he knows that April has slept for the night. It is just when the pain starts to subside and that Max falls back asleep again when he hears the front door close. The sound suddenly seems louder than usual and Max wakes up with a start. This time he climbs out of bed and gets dressed.
The house is rather cold and Max walks along the floorboards and hallway tiles in bare feet as he eagerly tries to look for his shoes. The house is still a mess from last night's party but he feels no rush to clean up. It was only a few hours ago that everyone had retired back to bed and he doesn't expect to see anyone awake any time soon. But as he reaches the bottom of the staircase he can hear the sound of scrubbing.
Slowly doing up the buttons to his shirt, Max turns the corner and to his surprise he finds Edina on her hands and knees scrubbing the black and white tiles. There is an iron bucket to her side filled with warm soapy water.
"Edina?" Max calls softly.
Edina stops what she is doing and looks up at Max. "Mornin', sir," She says tiredly as she sits back on her heels and wipes away the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. "Lovely mornin', sir, isn't it?"
"What are you doing up?" Max asks sternly.
Edina pauses for a moment. "I just wanted to start with the cleaning process. There is a lot that needs to be done, sir."
"Edina," Max presses on, knowing that she is trying to cover up the truth. "Did my sister leave this morning?"
Edina looks guilty for a moment before she stands up. "She left for a morning stroll. I was not sleeping well last night and when I caught her walking around the house in a panic, I went to help. I promised her I would not say anything but I cannot lie to my masters," Edina pauses for a long time before she continues. "She seemed to be really shaken up about something."
Max breathes out heavily. "Well it's lucky I know where she would have gone," Max says as he picks up his coat from the coat stand by the front door. "Go back to bed, Edina. And if Master Franklin wakes up, just tell him that I am giving my sister a tour of the city." Max does not look back as he leaves the house, leaving Edina standing in the hallway on her own.
The air is cool and crisp and Max can see his breath in the air around him. The sun sits low in the sky but the houses down the street where Max lives only creates shadows over him. He starts to take a light jog down the streets.
The city seems rather quieter than usual but not many people roam around the roads this early in the morning. They are either still in bed or already at work.
Max makes his way to the church north of the city where he last found April on her walks. He doesn't know what exactly struck her to go to that church as no one ever goes to visit it. Nor were they brought up in a religious family. But he wonders if the church has somehow become a safe haven for her. But that thought seems rather odd to him and he wonders why she never goes back to the Tardis as much as Rose does. It then quickly comes to him that he has not heard April speak of the Doctor much since they've been together. He only listened to her argument with Rose and by the sounds of it, her friendship with the Doctor isn't exactly going well.
Max pushes open the rusty gate and walks up the pathway to the front door to the church. He cannot help but notice that the grass is starting to overgrow quite a bit.
The front doors open with a loud, echoing creak and Max is instantly met with the gloom illuminating inside the church. The sun has not touched the stone walls so everything seems much colder.
April is sitting more or less in the exact same bench as she was before and Max does exactly what he did last time. He walks up the aisle silently before sitting on the bench behind April. His sister sniffs and he catches her quickly wiping away the tears that are running down her face. She tries to hide behind her long black hair but Max reaches forwards and pulls her hair back.
"It's okay," He says softly. "You don't have to be ashamed to cry in front of me."
April sniffs one last time before looking over to the stained glass windows by the altar. "I don't like people seeing me cry," She admits. "I don't want people to think of me as a weak person."
Max half smiles knowing that it is something he knows she would have said even when they were younger. She was stubborn then and evidently has never grown out of it.
"Crying doesn't make you weak." Max says.
"Yeah but it makes you look weak. I just wouldn't want the Doctor, Terry, Rose or anyone else to see me cry as much as I do."
Max bows his head for a moment before looking up at his sister again. "You cry a lot on your own?" He pauses for a moment before nodding. "So do I."
For a moment as Max pauses one more time, April's thoughts directs to Max's dialect. He has picked up a bit of a northern accent while living here in Manchester and his choice of words sometimes fluctuate between eighteenth century speech to twenty first century speech.
Max jumps up on his feet. His sudden movement makes April curious.
"I think it is about time you and I get out of here," Max says rather cheerfully. "Let's go for a walk. Just the two of us. Let us walk somewhere where we can forget we have a life."
April looks up at her brother, remembering those exact words Declan often used to say when he desperately wanted to get out of the house. Max looks down at April expectantly, and then with a sniff and a quick wipe at her cheeks, April stands up. She takes Max's offered arm and they leave the church to go for a walk.
The air is still cool outside but April and Max is met with the brightness from the grey sky above them. The wind blows steadily but every so often there is a strong gust. April holds onto Max's arm tightly as they make their way around the graveyard.
They climb the hill and listen to the birds singing in the trees. When they are at the top, they look out over the city, the majority of it being taken over by the factories letting off fumes into the air.
"What a view." Max whistles. "I don't suppose Manchester is like this back in the twenty first century? I never got to see it."
April shrugs. "I'm not sure myself." She remembers the view she had when she stepped out of the Tardis and onto planet Zorlon. She longs to be back somewhere she knows she felt more content.
After seeing that shadow in her bedroom that she still isn't sure whether or not it was a figure of her imagination, makes her feel uneasy about the Tardis. Although the hum and the console room seems like a home to her, that experience has thrown her off. And now that the Doctor has been parted from the Tardis once again, the ship does not seem like itself.
But April really longs to be back in the parallel world, sitting in the UNIT base as it buzzes alive while everyone continues with their work. But since the battle in Antarctica, April isn't too sure if the company would be able to continue standing.
The wind is a little harsher at the top of the hill as Max and April look out over the city.
"Before the Doctor vanished," April starts. "Do you know what he was after? Was there anything chasing after him? Did he say anything to you?"
Max shifts on the grass. "There is not much I know about how the Doctor and Terry vanished, maybe only Rose knows that but even she looks clueless at times. The Doctor was just asking me about the Bellingham family. I looked after them and treated them while they were sick. But after they died the father, Horace, put the blame on me and warned me away from him and his children."
April frowns and looks up at her brother. "Horace Bellingham?"
"The same man that died in that shipwreck the other day," Max bows his head and closes his eyes for a moment as if he is saying something in prayer. "There is something fishy about this city, April, and it's all happened since that family died and I've been cursed with this disease."
"And I suppose matters only got worse when we arrived."
Max sighs before turning to look back at the empty church at the bottom of the hill. "I am curious. Did you ever meet the vicar of this church?"
"No," April replies thoughtfully. "I thought the church was abandoned."
"I suppose it is but the trusty vicar of this church has suddenly vanished from view since the shipwreck," Max then breathes out heavily. "April, why do I feel like this is one massive set up?"
"Yeah I've felt the same way since I met the Doctor. Our lives are a set up for us."
April's words hits Max's heart harshly but he says nothing upon that. "But I still feel like our situation now is a set up. I feel like this is all planned."
April tugs on Max's arm and they start to walk down the hill towards the other side of the graveyard. They pass rows upon rows of gravestones for hundreds of different people that have died in the city over the years. They stop at the end of one row and look down at a rather dirty and moss covered gravestone that is for a young girl that died of tuberculosis twenty years ago at the age of six. Max looks down at the gravestone with tears in his eyes, only fearing that that is where he is going to end up when his disease finally starts taking over his health.
April, still holding onto Max's arm, looks around the graveyard, but her eyes fixes on a stone statue that is a few rows away from them.
It is a statue of an angel that covers its face with its hands. April wonders to herself if the angel is crying or hiding from something, but it makes her rather curious and she wants to take a closer look.
"Take a look at this." April says, drawing Max's attention away from the child's gravestone.
Max looks up and follows the line of April's pointed arm, and there he sees the statue. He doesn't seem too bothered by it as it is rather common to have many statues of angels around a churchyard. But he does not protest as he follows his sister who seems so keen to see it.
"I don't think I've ever seen a statue like this!" April exclaims as she passes the many rows to reach it. The statue is standing at the far end of the row just beside one of the new gravestones.
"It's nothing special, April," Max says as he reluctantly follows her. "There are a lot of these statues around this church. Have you not seen them in the walls?"
But April ignores him as she stands right up close to the angel, examining its exquisite features. Every single detail in the stone seems so real, April quickly wonders if it is one of those street performers that pretend to be statues but move every so often to make their spectators jump. But as she runs her fingers along the angel's slim arm, the coldness and rough surface is enough to prove that it is real stone and not a human being.
"No I think this must be new," April murmurs. "I'm sure this wasn't here last time I walked around." April then turns her attention to the gravestone the angel stands by and she is surprised to see the name Beatrice Bellingham engraved in the stone. Max's face turns pale as he kneels down to the grave and runs his fingertips along the words.
"Beatrice," he says aloud. "This was Horace's wife," he then points to the four names that are engraved underneath. "And these are Horace's parents, Thomas and Mary Bellingham. And his siblings Robert and Katherine Bellingham. Their ashes have been put together!" Max smiles broadly and for a moment it looks like that he is going to cry with joy.
April looks up at the angel with curiosity. "Well I suppose the family had a fan," she ponders aloud. "The angel is clearly weeping."
April bends down in the grass and studies the stone carving of what is the hem of the angel's dress. She then runs her fingers through the grass and is surprised to see that the angel is standing on its own accord rather than being built upon an extra slab of stone. It balances well in the slightly damp grass. She is also surprised to find that there is no plaque to say who built the angel and when, or a reason why it is there.
"It's strange." April mutters more to herself but Max overhears.
"Why?" Max queries. "It's just a statue."
April continues to look at the grass. "Yes but everything has a reason." April then bends lower and places the side of her head on the grass as she tries to look underneath the hem of the skirt to see if there is anything. But it is just dark underneath.
April gets back onto her feet and wipes the mud off the palm of her hands and onto her jeans as she studies the angel's face and its intricately carved hair. She peers between the small gap between the angel's face and its hands and she is surprised to see that the artist of the angel was even determined enough to carve a face under the hands.
"April, let's move on." Max urges as the wind blows a little stronger.
April takes one step away from the statue and examines it as a whole. She looks over its posture, its closed wings and its creased dress. She cannot help but feel rather impressed by its artwork.
"It's really, rather very beautiful," April says and after a moment, she takes out her mobile phone from her back jean pocket and snaps a photo of the angel weeping over the Bellingham family's gravestone. She then lets out a sigh before turning to her brother and taking hold of his arm.
They continue to walk through the graveyard. They head towards the end until they find a swing that is tied to one of the branches to the tree that stands in the corner. The wind blows harshly again and the image of the swing reminds both Max and April of the days when their parents used to take them to the local park at the weekend. Also they both used to play games with the other children living in the cul-de-sac on the grass area in the bend of the road.
"April, we have a time machine," Max says. "If we get the Doctor back, we could go back in time and bring mum and dad back. Stop the big battle from ever happening."
April sighs heavily. "I know. I have often thought about that since the Doctor first taught me how to fly the Tardis. But the Doctor keeps saying that the time around the battle is fixed that any small changes would bring destruction to the universe. From what I've seen, I know that the Doctor isn't lying."
They turn away from the tree and start heading back towards the church. April asks Max what he knows of Master Franklin's profession and Max tries the best he can at explaining what very little he really knows. But Max then turns the subject around on April, asking her why she, the Doctor, Rose and Terry all act as if they have met his Butler before. April knows she cannot lie and confesses that the Butler also works for Jack Gruntler. Jack sent the Butler over to look after Max and she assumes to see what the Doctor is getting up to. Max smirks at the thought and April feels somewhat relieved that Jack Gruntler is no stranger to him.
"I wondered why his attitude isn't very eighteenth century."
April looks at her brother. "You're getting there."
They walk on for a while longer until April stops mid step as she looks over to where the Bellingham family's grave stands.
The statue of the angel is no longer there.
"It's moved!" April exclaims as she looks at the bare space where the statue once stood. She takes one sweeping look around the graveyard before rushing towards the gravestone.
Max sighs and reluctantly follows her. "Surely someone must have come along to collect it or something, April."
"But there's no one here!" April stops by the Bellingham's gravestone. There isn't even a dent in the grass to show that the statue has been there all along. April's scowl deepens. "I don't understand."
"Well someone definitely has taken it," Max says as he stands by April's side. "Statues cannot move on their own accord."
"I wouldn't bet on it." April mutters as bends down in the grass. She runs her fingers through the grass but there is nothing to prove that the angel has been there before.
Max lets out another sigh as he takes a look around the scenery. But then he suddenly notices that standing by the front doors to the church is another statue of an angel. Only this time it isn't covering its face with its stone hands. Its left arm is raised and it covers it eyes in the crook of its arm. Max frowns and turns to April.
"April look," He points back to the church but the moment he looks up at where the statue is standing, it is no longer there.
There is nothing standing by the church.
"What?" April says as she looks at the church.
Max shakes his head. "Let us walk back home."
April takes one last look at the gravestone before following Max who is walking at a quick pace out of the churchyard. They are both silent on the walk back.
April cannot shake off the feeling that these statues can move on their own accord. She is sure of it. But she cannot be more pleased to get away of the church, knowing about the many statues inside.
