Chapter Text
Petri finds Missy in the cloister, sitting on the sole stone bench at the edge of the first array of plants, sipping delicately on an ornate teacup.
''Summer is coming to an end,'' Missy says without even turning to her. Petri was certain she didn't make any noise. ''I shall be leaving soon.''
''To where?''
Missy moves, in a shuffling of fabric and her shoes slide along across the ground – she's the only one who doesn't wear sandals, and Petri notices that just now, when the heels of her boots criss through the gravel. She pats the spot next to her.
''Sit.''
Petri sits.
Missy isn't looking at her. Her eyes are following the rise and fall of the water in the fountain that stands in the center of the cloister, and she sits still, more than Petri has ever seen her do.
''Do you like it here?''
It's fair to say Petri wasn't expecting that sort of question.
''Why are you asking?''
Missy sighs and waves a hand around. ''Head Mistress, have to make sure everyone's happy, improve thingies if not, and all that jazz. So, are you?''
Petri tugs on her ear.
''It's nice,'' she offers.
''Oh grand.'' Missy bites out the word like it's an insult, tongue catching on the ''g'' and making it click and pop out. ''Just marvelous. It's nice . People are singing and the sun is shining and there are rainbows in the sky. What am I supposed to do with that, tell me?''
Petri taps a finger against her lips, worrying them, thinking.
(She thinks about the warmth of O's arms, the bending of his lips below hers, the gentle press of his forehead against her temple as she held him)
(She thinks about her name leaving his lips like a prayer, and how wrong it had felt)
''I miss my memories,'' she says eventually. Missy's constant tapping of her heels on the gravel stops. ''I miss not knowing my name.''
''How can you miss something you don't remember having?'' Missy asks. And her voice tilts curiously, taking on a tone that sets Petri's alarms off, but she can't quite pinpoint why.
It happens a lot with Missy, it seems.
''I do,'' she answers simply.
''So if you were given the chance to get those memories back, you would take it?''
Petri doesn't even have to think about it.
''Yes.''
And it – it makes Missy sigh, in a way that Petri would call defeated, if it were a word that she'd think to associate with the woman. She closes her eyes, for the briefest of a second, before fixing them on the fountain, again.
''Let's say,'' Missy starts, and she puts the teacup on the bench, between them, and folds her hands on her legs. ''You live a perfectly happy life. You have friends, you have food and a bed in a lovely place, people you love, or whatever a happy life entails for you.''
''Ok,'' Petri says. There's a crease between Missy's eyebrows and she's taken with the – absurd – wish to soothe it with her thumb.
She puts her hands under her thighs, in case they decide to have a life of their own.
''Then let's say someone comes in, in this perfect little life you're having, and tells you you could lose it all. That'd be rude, wouldn't it?''
''Yes,'' Petri says. She isn't sure where Missy is going.
''But,'' Missy says, and she still isn't looking at Petri, the focus of her blue eyes entirely on the bird drinking in the fountain. ''In exchange you could learn a secret. The biggest secret of them all. It would change your life, but you don't know how. You just know you would lose the little perfect one you built. What would you do?''
Petri licks her lips, nervous. Missy's hands are in her lap and she is wrapping a loose thread from her skirt around a nail, slowly unraveling the edge of the cloth.
''I feel like you tried to make a metaphor about my situation,'' Petri says eventually, ''but I don't think it's very accurate.''
The thread snaps.
''It is,'' Missy says. ''But I'm not expecting you to understand why.'' She picks the thread between two fingers and tosses it on the ground. ''Or maybe it isn't, and I just made a metaphor for my own situation. Or my future one. Who's to say.''
''You said you were going to leave,'' Petri says, because she feels wrongfooted in this conversation, doesn't quite understand what Missy is trying to say, and she doesn't like that. ''Why?''
''As some would say,'' Missy says, ''my job here is almost done.''
''Which job?''
Missy smiles. It's a small, terrifying smile. ''Clever girl,'' she says. ''It must be so frustrating for you to be here.''
''Not frustrating, exactly. Lots of things to do around here.''
''Oh yes.'' Missy picks at a nail. ''O told me all about your little ghost hunt. I don't think you had any luck.''
O told her. Sure. Petri bites her lip. ''I don't think they are ghosts,'' she says, and for the first time since the beginning of the conversation Missy looks at her.
''Really?'' she asks, and her eyes are too blue, a washed-out blue, like the light that surrounds the ghosts, and was Petri complaining when she wasn't the focus of those eyes? She's sure she wasn't. She would very much like not to be right now. ''What do you think they are then?''
''I don't know.'' Missy raises an eyebrow. ''Does that mean you believe it? Did you see them?''
''I don't know,'' Missy parrots, and winks at Petri. ''I wouldn't want to spoil your fun. Especially if it's the only thing keeping you around here.''
''I didn't say it was,'' Petri protests, because it isn't. Missy rolls her eyes.
''Right. You think there's a murderer in those walls.''
Petri's fists clench at her sides.
''Did O tell you that too?''
''I don't need O to tell me everything. I'm a perfectly capable woman. And you're not half as subtle as you think you are with all your questions.''
Petri's cheeks burn. ''Right,'' she huffs. ''And what are you going to do about it?''
Missy shrugs. It's delicate, like all her movements, and careless at the same time. Not for the first time, Petri wonders how much of it is Missy and how much is an act.
Then, maybe all of Missy is an act.
''Nothing,'' she answers, and turns a sharp smile to Petri. ''It's your investigation, after all. As long as you don't disturb the convent's life, I won't stop you.''
Petri's throat closes. ''So you think it was a murder?''
''I think that an important member of our community died tragically before his time and that his memory is best respected when not constantly questioned.'' Missy's tone is sharp like her smile and Petri swallows around the knot in her throat. ''Is that clear?''
And Missy -- Missy is frightening, really. Friars move around the hallways to avoid her when she crosses their path, and she has a look in her eyes that tells of a hunter perpetually chasing their prey. But Petri found, in the few days since she was first awake, that she isn’t one to be frightened easily. There’s a rush of blood in her veins when she’s faced with a threat and the urge to bare her teeth and growl louder than whatever thinks it can best her.
Petri tilts her head back, tries not to squint against the rays of sunshine and the blue of the sky, and smiles too. “Not really, no,’’ she says, and her smile grows bigger, uncovering her teeth, at the way Missy’s face closes. “What is clear, though, is that you know more than you say. I think you knew about these ghosts all along, and I think you know things about O and I that you refuse to tell us, and I don’t know how all of this is linked but I’ll find out. And then you’ll regret not telling me sooner, because I won’t have any mercy if you’re the one who took our memories,’’ if you’re the one who hurt me, who hurt O , she doesn’t say, but her look is harsh and her tone low and menacing.
And Missy -
Missy laughs, throwing her head back, with a high-pitched laugh, that she ends on a snap of her teeth, like she's biting on some invisible fruit. ''I certainly won't, darling. You're having so much fun, I would be a very bad girl if I spoiled that.'' She sits up and – her hand brushes against Petri's cheek, tucking a strand of blonde hair behind her ear, and it’s – Petri – doesn't like touches, has been shielding away from them since she woke up, only letting O get past her barriers, because O she can trust , but here.
Here, she lets Missy brush the tip of her fingers across her cheekbones and leave, and doesn't feel the urge to rub at her face to make the phantom sensation disappear.
** **
''Missy did it.''
Even from where she is – half a dozen feet away from O – she can see all the lines of his back tense and his head shrink between his shoulders.
''Hello to you too, love.'' O turns from the plants he was gathering. He's smiling, but it seems forced. ''What brings you here in this delicious morning?''
''It's almost afternoon.'' Petri takes a few more steps towards him. He's holding stems and leaves in one hand, and a small knife in the other, that he slips in a pocket. ''And I told you. Missy did it.''
''Now,'' O says, ''what are your grounds on this?''
Petri holds up one finger. ''She's suspicious as heck.''
O sighs. ''I'm afraid this isn't the kind of accusation that will hold up in front of a jury.''
''Oh, because you're so well-versed in trials now?''
''It's not hard to be better versed in this than you, at least.'' O snaps. Petri flinches. ''Flinging accusations all around isn't really the way to do it.''
''Well at least I'm trying to do something. You just sit here and wait for me to do all the work.''
There's a sneer sitting on O's face when he answers, ''I wouldn't want to take all the fun away from you, not when you seem to be enjoying yourself so much.''
( You're having so much fun, darling , Missy whispers in her ear.)
Petri takes a step towards O, so she's hovering right in front of him. ''This. Is. Not a game,'' she says. ''A man died. Maybe more than one, if these ghosts really are ghosts. I don't see how you can say this is fun .''
''Because fun,'' O throws back at her, ''is what you're having. And it's all right! It's better than having you sulking all day long and going all on over your head about your memories. But you don't have to bring me in it, or start accusing people of murder.''
O knows where to hit so it hurts – and Petri takes a shaky breath, before snarling, ''But murder there has been, sorry to break it to you. And, you know what, it's fine, do whatever you want. Go back to your little plants and your pulled muscles. I don't need you to solve this.'' She takes a step back and turns away. ''See you.''
She doesn't even have the time to cross the yard before a hand closes around her wrist. ''Wait,'' O pleads, and he bites his lip when she stops, closes his eyes for the fraction of a second. ''Let's try to... talk it out, ok?'' he says, voice calm, but there's still that edge of pleading creeping into his tone. ''I heard people did that.''
Petri lets him stand here for a couple of seconds, before saying, ''Are we people now?''
The grip around her wrist loosens and a thumb strokes slowly across her wrist bone. O lets out a tentative smile. ''Sometimes they have good ideas. I was thinking we could borrow some of them.''
''Yeah?'' The lines around O's eyes loosen too, at the easiness of the word, and Petri takes the time to watch him – watch the hair falling on his forehead, the shadow of a stubble around his mouth, the taut lines of his neck as he leans towards her, as if his entire being was focused on this single thing, on putting as little distance between them as possible.
She swallows. She feels – tired, suddenly. Not the same kind of tired that she was last night – and it seems so far now, the deep content in her bones as she was swaying in O's arms, laughing silently and brushing kisses all over his face. Now, she feels like -
Like it's too much, and it'd be nice if the world could stop spinning so she could take a nap.
''Tell me why you trust Missy so much,'' she orders.
O takes a breath and stands straighter. His hand falls at his side. Petri finds she misses its warmth.
''You'll have to promise you won't get mad,'' he says slowly.
''I'm not making any promise.''
She holds O's gaze and he breaks first. ''Fine.'' He runs a hand through his hair, exhales through his nose. ''She's... I think she's like us.''
And –
Oh.
Of course .
It all makes so much sense now – the dress, it feels off, because it is, because the cut and the colors are just a little bit off, and belong to a few decades in the future – the organ, the plays, no one will know them because they haven't been written yet – the accent...
''She speaks English sometimes,'' O says, and Petri realizes she's been saying it all out loud, but of course . English . ''I didn't pick it up the first times either.'' He huffs a laugh. ''I think she's Scottish.''
They've been speaking italian the whole time, Petri knows. Had known when O had slipped and said Fuck , a good, proper, english Fuck , on the third day after dropping a bowl and all of its contents on the ground. They talked about languages after that, tried to understand how many they knew, wondered why they wouldn’t remember their mothers but know how to swear in German. Since then, Petri had been watching herself more closely, careful not to slip up in front of the friars.
Missy, it seemed, was more careless.
''Does she have...''
''Her memories?'' O inhales. His nostrils flare a little. ''Yeah, I think so.''
''And does she,'' Petri swallows, think of all the times she's talked with Missy. Of the way Missy took her hand in hers, patted her on the cheek. Tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. ''Does she know us?''
O is looking away. Averting his gaze. He speaks quietly, and Petri has to strain her ears to hear this. ''I think.''
It's like the wind has been knocked out of her guts.
Petri stumbles backwards, and it's like there's a burn, across her cheek, where Missy touched her earlier. I think , says O, but what does that mean – she thinks of Missy greeting her on that morning, of Missy finding them wherever they are, of her questions –
Are you happy, here?
''Then why,'' she says, stammers, ''why wouldn't she say anything?'' O shrugs. Petri – and her name isn't Petri, it's something else, something that would feel better in her brains, that wouldn't taste wrong whenever she says and thinks it – Petri digs the heel of her hands into her eyes, and wants to scream.
''Why would she lie,'' she rasps, ugly, ''why wouldn't she help?''
''She helped.'' O's voice is calm, and quiet. He's probably aiming for soothing. Too bad Petri's not in the mood to be soothed. ''She showed us around, protected us from rumours, watched over us.''
''She killed a man,'' Petri grits out. ''Because she wants that- that Gift, whatever it is,'' and it's so fucking obvious, she should have understood it sooner – makes even more sense now that she knows – ''She knows how to use knives, O,'' she has a small, ornated knife, that she carries around in the creases of her skirt, Petri can still see the sun glinting off it behind her eyelids, ''she's the only outsider, the only one who wouldn't be trusted with the secret, and she had to kill to have it.''
O laughs, and it's hollow, and frightened. ''Don't – don't say that, Petri, come on. You know it's not her. It's probably no one. That guy just slipped and died, it happens.''
''You believed me,'' Petri points a finger at him, accusing. ''You went with me, to the library, you saw the blood, you saw the stab wound. Why are you denying it now? Unless you were with her the whole time, you killed him together-''
O surges forward, grabs her shoulders, shaking his head. ''I didn't kill anyone, Petri, I swear,'' he says, urgently, and she. She doesn't know if she trusts him anymore.
''Then why are you saying this,'' she pleads, takes a step back. O doesn't follow her. ''Why are you refusing to solve all this?''
O breathes. ''Because,'' he says, and bites his lip until they become white, runs a hand through his hair, tugs. ''I'm afraid. I'm afraid you'll find something you're not meant to find and this, all of this,'' he makes a gesture with his hand that encompasses the garden, the convent, the distance between he and Petri, ''it'll all be gone.''
Petri whispers, ''I want my memories back.''
''I know,'' O whispers back. ''But I don't want to lose you.''
''Who said you were going to?''
He lifts one shoulder up. ''I don't want to take the risk.''
And she knows what he means. They've talked about it, too, when the night was dark and they were in his office, Petri sitting at the feet of the mattress, O laying on his back with one arm thrown over his eyes. ''Sometimes,'' he had said, ''I feel so light. Like I was born yesterday and I don't – I don't have to worry about anything, 'cause I didn't do anything yet. And it's so good but also... It frightens me. A bit.'' And Petri had nodded, even though he couldn't see her, and told him, Me too , because she was afraid too – afraid of all these holes in her brains and of how they made everything look so easy and light. Like her memories had been a burden.
She has no idea what kind of burden it'd been, but she knows she can't spend the rest of her life avoiding it – there's this visceral need to know , that keeps her awake at night, looking around the convent to find ghosts, a murderer, an answer to something.
''I need to know,'' she tells O, simply.
He sighs. His shoulders slump, and his hand falls from his hair. The silence stretches, an infinity of outcomes spreading in front of Petri, most of them terrifying - but she’ll do what she has to do, with or without him, and she knows that he knows that.
“Well,” O says, eventually, ''I thought you'd say that.”
He raises his eyes, meets hers, and smiles -- a little smile, a bit tentative, a bit sad, and Petri feels something in her chest surge with affection for this man. She has to smile too, to clamp back on the urge to kiss him, to tell him everything's going to be alright.
''So,'' O asks, ''where do you want to start?''
** **
Petri has only been in the forest once.
She tried to go, many times, in the past days. Somehow, there was always something or someone stopping her before she got past the walls. Aldo, appearing at her elbow to ask about a plant, or a tincture; O, coming up to talk; Missy, appearing out of nowhere and steering her towards the main building with a hand on her arm.
Now that she's back in it, that she can hear again the same humming that turns into something of an insistent calling at the back of her head, and that there is a blue light spilling from between the trees, Petri's starting to get why she wasn't allowed outside.
''Did you know about that?'' she asks O in a whisper, as they walk towards the trees to get a better view.
O shakes his head no, and Petri can't help a twinge of annoyance at that – does he not know like he didn't know Missy wasn't from Earth? Maybe O senses it, or just feels the need to fill up the silence between them.
''I swear I didn't,'' he says.
Petri bites the inside of her mouth, not quite knowing what to think.
The biting becomes worse when they reach the edge of the treeline and get a better look at the apparition.
There's a woman, surrounded by the light, sitting in the middle of the clearing, her chair atop a small stage. Like a statue meant to be worshipped, is the absurd thought that crosses Petri's head, before she can even take a proper look at the woman's face.
In front of her, a piano, as ghostly as the rest of her. Her hands are running across it, light and speedy, and the music comes – faint, distorted – to Petri's ears.
She knows it.
It's the same one Missy played the day before, on the organ.
And it's – Petri has to look once, then twice, not quite believing what her eyes are trying to tell her. Because the ghost has Missy's face, and Missy's posture, and Missy's hands, and Petri has to look away, and look at O.
O doesn’t look back. His face is unreadable. Petri goes back to the apparition.
She whispers, ''What do you think that means? Is she dead? Has she been a ghost this whole time?'', and he shakes his head, eyes not leaving Missy's figure. Petri's brain is going a hundred miles a second. She's never felt more awake.
''She can't be,'' he says, voice thin, like it's on the edge of breaking, and Petri considers putting a hand on his shoulder. ''I've seen her, just this morning. She was perfectly fine.''
''Something might've happened,'' Petri suggests, and at the dark look O sends her, she shrugs. ''If you have any other explanation, I'm all ears.''
''Well,'' O says, and this time his voice breaks on the last sound. He licks his lips, and points to something behind Petri with his chin. ''I don't have any, but she might have.''
When Petri turns to see Missy, standing on the other side of the clearing, the real Missy, without any other light than the sun's surrounding her, looking at her image playing the piano, she feels like she should be more surprised to find her here.
(She isn't; not really.)
Missy hasn't seen them, not yet. She's entirely focused on the apparition, immobile if not for her eyes following every movement of the woman's hands on the piano. Petri would like to know if Missy knew about the ghosts, has the answers for them, who they are and why one of them looks like her, but nothing in her posture – in her straight back, in the clench of her fingers around the handle of her umbrella – speaks to Petri.
They stay like this -- Petri and O, standing still and quiet, Missy looking at her double with a carefully blank face -- until another ghost appears. He doesn’t exactly materialize out of thin air; it looks rather like he passed an invisible door and is now in the same room as all of them, walking towards Missy’s image with tentative steps.
His hair is grey and he has lines all over his face. He stops a few steps behind Missy, heads tilted to the side, eyes closed, and listens to the music. Missy - the ghost, the apparition, whatever - doesn’t react to it. Missy - the tangible, real one - moves for the first time since Petri noticed her. Petri sees her chest heaving, her eyes widening, and her gaze tears apart from the vision -- only to land directly on Petri and O, on the other side of the clearing.
For a second, no one moves.
Then Missy speaks.
''What did you do?''
It's very unfair, Petri thinks. She's supposed to be the one asking that.
''What is this?'' O asks, the first to recover from the shock. ''Why,'' he gesticulates to the center of the clearing, where the apparitions are still playing softly and listening to the music, respectively, “how can you be a ghost?’’
''A ghost,'' Missy repeats, and she's sneering, but it lacks her usual bite. ''Still haven't found a better name for these?''
''Excuse us for doing our best with what we have,'' Petri snaps back immediately. ''Maybe it would have helped if you had given us clues. Like who we are, for instance.''
''You don't need to know that.'' Missy's tone is sharp like a razor. ''You don't want to.''
''You have no right to decide that for us.''
Missy's eyes dart to the center of the clearing, where the man is now leaning against the piano, absently drumming at a guitar that Petri didn't see appear. The woman – Missy – is still playing. But she looks more relaxed now, and Petri can see the ghost of a smile floating at the edges of her lips.
Missy’s sneer only grows at the vision.
''I have every right to decide that,'' she says. ''More than you could imagine.''
''Then humour us,'' Petri suggests, and she's smiling, but it's the smile that O told her made him want to crawl into a hole rather than face it. ''What rights do you have?''
Missy doesn’t answer immediately, but it doesn’t matter. Petri is angry. At the world, for making her lose her memories. At O, for not telling her everything he knew. At Missy, for all the deceiving and lying and probably murdering she did.
She's also tired, and sad, because she has memories now, of her time in the convent, and Missy and O are in most of them, and now she has to twist them all, to put them under the new light of everything she's discovering. She's not a fan of that. It doesn't help that O brushes a finger down her blanched knuckles, where her hands are balked into a fist, and slides his hand into hers. It doesn’t help either when Missy raises a hand to her face, shielding her eyes from them, before letting it fall back with a sigh.
''I hate that,'' she says, and Petri wholeheartedly agrees with the feeling, if not the person. ''How can you always do that?''
''Do what?'' O asks and Missy glares at him.
''Shush, you. Can't a woman have an internal crisis over a choice in peace?''
Petri's throat constricts, and she has trouble pushing the words out. ''What choice?''
''I have two options,'' Missy sighs. ''And they are both good options,'' and her face contorts around the word, like it physically hurts her to say it. ''Options that will do good. Never had that problem before. It's disgusting.''
''You could tell us what they are,'' Petri says, as nonchalant as she can. ''We can help. Maybe.''
''I heard we give good advice,'' O adds, and Petri squeezes his hand. He squeezes back.
Missy pulls a face.
''This is the worst,'' she says. ''I would leave this place and go kill a Pope if that wasn't one of the good options.''
O sounds as confused as Petri when he says, ''Killing a Pope would help us?''. Missy groans like their confusion is a curse she has to endure. She looks a lot like O when Petri barges into his office to announce that mixing marigold and ginger together would make a good tincture. (It didn’t).
''Me leaving would help,'' she says, and she's looking at the apparitions again – still playing, both leaning over the piano now, the guitar lying at the man's feet as he brushes his hands over the keys.
''You telling us what these are,'' Petri gestures to the apparitions, ''and why Salvatore was killed would help.''
''Would it,'' Missy mutters, and she's still looking at the ghosts. Sunrays filter through the leaves over their heads, and it must be a play of the light when Petri thinks something like longing crosses her eyes.
''Did you kill him?''
''If I said yes,'' Missy's focus snaps back to her, ''what would you do?''
A dozen answers immediately come to Petri, but O speaks before she has the chance to say any of them. Telling O I said so , probably wasn't a good one anyway.
''Ask how you did it,'' O says. ''And why, of course,'' he adds after a beat.
Missy smiles, and it's weirdly proud. Of O. Like she wants to go over to him and pat him on the head.
''Not my best work, I'll admit,'' she says instead, and looks at her nails as Petri elbows O in the gut and mutters I told you so . To his credit, O doesn't react.
“Does it have anything to do with the Gift legend?''
Missy sighs, again, and looks up at the sky.
''I hate it,'' she says, barely a whisper. Then she turns, and disappears into the wood.
Petri and O exchange one glance and run after her, leaving the duo and their music behind.
** **
''I have to say,'' Missy shoots over her shoulder, ''I really thought you would have figured it all out sooner.''
Petri looks at O, who looks back.
''I knew you were the killer from day one,'' Petri retorts. ''And I was that close to cracking the ghost thing.''
Missy laughs. ''No you didn't, love.''
''Not from the first day, but she did think you were the killer,'' O says. It's a half-hearted defense, if Petri ever saw one.
Ha. She knew the guy would be a sore loser.
Missy snorts derisively. ''Only because I let her know. And you weren't any close to 'cracking the ghost thing', dear''.
Petri can hear the quotation marks in her voice. She pulls a face at her back.
''No need to look at me like that,'' Missy says, without turning to her. O actually giggles.
Petri hates it there.
''You know you're not supposed to laugh at a murderer's joke,'' she tells him, and ducks under a low tree branch. O follows.
''I can if it's a good joke.''
''No you can't. Where are you taking us?''
Missy doesn't answer. They've been walking for almost ten minutes now, and the humming in the back of Petri's head is only growing stronger and stronger. She wonders if Missy can hear it too.
When Missy comes to a stop, in front of a wall – another one – covered in ivy, stones cracked by decades of sun and tempests, guarding nothing but the wild plants growing behind it, Petri is split between the bitter taste of betrayal and the foolish hope that Missy will somehow activate a secret mecanism that'll open some door behind which lies the key to this entire mystery, and not murder them.
''My money's on the murder,'' O whispers in her ear. Petri runs a thumb along the back of his hand. Apparently she's been holding it for the entire walk. Apparently it's something they do now.
In front of them, Missy's facing the wall with a supremely bored look. She raises a hand, and Petri tenses, ready to fight or run away if needed.
Missy presses a few stones in quick succession, and then wipes her hand on her skirt.
Under their feet, the ground rumbles, and the earth and dried leaves give way to a flight of stairs, descending into darkness.
''Tadaa,'' Missy says, in a blank voice.
Petri swallows. If she’s being honest with herself, it’s more out of excitement than fear. The hole opens dark and inviting below them, with only the first few steps visible under the sunlight. The wind rushed in it with a hiss as soon as it opened, and brought up the musty smell of a place that hasn’t seen the open air for far too long. There may be a manic grin on Petri’s face, one that isn’t mirrored by Missy nor by O. The latter seems even worried, with creases between his eyes and an anxious turn of his mouth. He’s still the first one to speak.
''Well,'' he sighs, and slides his hand out of Petri's grip to run it through his hair. ''Down the rabbit hole we go.''
''We should really try to keep the anachronisms on the low.'' At Petri's side, her hands are steady. The humming is now a song, beckoning her, talking of home and stars.
Missy goes first.
They follow.
** **
The descent is long. Longer than Petri expected. The stairs don't go straight downwards; they curve and turn and the walls turn with it, rough with dry earth and what Petri assumes is chalk. (She didn't have the time to lick them. Yet.) The light from the trap in the ground filters thinner and thinner as they walk down.
Missy doesn't talk. O does. After two minutes of listening to his running commentary of This is such a bad idea , We're so gonna die , I hate the dark so much, and others Remind me why we thought this was a good idea, so I can get mad at you and never listen to you again , Petri considers pushing him down the stairs.
(Maybe he could even take Missy with him in his fall and then she'd have killed two birds with one stone.
Quite literally.)
But O has big doe eyes and a rare laugh that makes Petri smiles, and soft hands that tend to the friars' injuries, so Petri shoves her own hands in her pockets and keeps herself occupied with other things. Like questioning Missy.
''Why did you kill Salvatore?''
Missy makes a vague motion with her hand. ''The man wouldn't tell me how to activate the door. It was starting to get annoying.''
There's a sour taste at the back of Petri's mouth. ''So you didn't even kill him to get his secrets. You knew where to find it already.''
''I told you,'' Missy chirps – honest to god chirps , with her high pitched voice and a casual spring in her steps as she hops down from one step to another, ''he was being annoying. And I hate annoying humans even more than fake knives. Also, I was bored.''
They're almost entirely in the dark now. Petri's eyes have adjusted to it, but she has trouble seeing the steps, and has to put a hand against the wall to steady herself. It also helps not focusing too much on Missy saying that she killed a man for fun .
''But you know how to open the trap now,'' O points out. He's been eerily silent since they started talking, and Petri thinks about laying a reassuring hand on his shoulder. She doesn't do it; tells herself she doesn't want to startle him.
''I'm a competent girl. I can figure stuff out by myself.'' Missy then does something weird with her tongue, a series of clicks and ticks, and jumps from the step she was standing on.
She falls on her feet not even two feet below.
''Behold,'' she exclaims, and extends her arms, her umbrella in one hand, encompassing the whole of the obscurity stretching in front of her. ''The Treasure of the Templars!''
Her voice booms and bounces off invisible walls, dying in some far corners of the... cave? cavern? chamber they are in, and something buzzes – Petri's hand flies to her pocket, the one where her metal stick is, because it's the exact same sound, but it doesn't come from the object --
and all around the chamber, torches lit up, shooting grotesque, gigantic shadows dancing on the walls.
Petri's tongue sticks to her palate.
''Wow,'' O whispers next to her, and Petri can't say much more.
All around them, the walls of the cave – the cave the size of a chapel, with a ceiling that disappears in shadows – are shining with embedded crystals, reflecting the flames of the torches with red, orange and yellow sparkles that run over the floor. The floor itself is – Petri follows Missy's lead and jumps from the stairs, so she can kneel on it. It resonates strangely under her feet, the sound of hollowed out marble filling the empty space. It's covered in dust and dirt, and flowers – violet and pink and lilac alike – are growing in the cracks, but Petri can just about discern the motives etched onto it, the tree with a trunk made of several pieces of wood interwoven together, its autumn-colored leaves stretching to the far ends of the cave, in the motive of a cross, and at its extremities, where the leaves would turn into spirals, stand –
Missy's voice cuts through the air. ''Take your time,'' she says, tone filled with sarcasm. ''This is the main attraction of the tour.''
Petri swallows. Right.
In her head, the humming is a thrumming now. It would be a scream, but it's pleasant – a whisper projected with the full force of a train into Petri's head, calling to her, begging her to come back, to just –
Open the doors.
On the far right, a blue police box stands proudly, doors closed.
It’s beautiful, is the first thing Petri thinks; it’s beautiful and it has nothing to do here, the blue of it standing out starkly against the brown of the earth, the light at the top bathing the whole cavern in a yellow-white hue, the power emanating from it calling to her, beckoning, whispering words in her head that she can’t understand, not yet - but sound like a promise, a soon that her whole being clings to desperately.
Then O strolls past Petri and snaps her out of her trance once again.
''So.'' he asks, coming to a stop in front of Missy. ''What are these?''
''Am I giving the grand tour now?'' Missy raises a hand to her mouth, covering a yawn. ''Amazing. Just what I dreaded. Here,'' she gestures to her left, Petri's right, “is the box that allows you to travel across time and space. A right bother , this one is,'' she adds with a glare towards the blue box. ''And here,'' she waves her hand towards the other end of the tree, where a simple, nondescript square box stands. It's brown, with trails of blue over it, spiralling into abstract circles and motives. ''Is the box that allows you to lose your memories. Or regain them, depends on where you stand.''
Petri's breath catches in her throat.
O's eyes dart to the brown box, then come back to Missy. ''And which one is supposed to be the devil's gift?'' he asks, and there's a smile on his lips that mirrors perfectly the one on Missy's face.
''Depends on the century. But if you ask me,'' Missy twirls her umbrella and skits towards the brown box, ''I’d say both.''
Petri's voice is rough when she manages to work it past her throat. ''How does it work?''
Missy raises an eyebrow. ''The memories,'' Petri tries to clarify. ''How do we get them back?''
Missy sighs. She's standing near the memory box now, O a few steps behind her, and she – she could do anything, if she wanted. Petri knows neither of them are close enough to stop her if she were to raise her umbrella and smash it down on the box.
She takes a step forward.
Missy points her umbrella at her. ''Tut tut. No moving. I'm thinking.''
''About what?''
''I said no moving.'' O stops where he was walking towards her and Missy flashes white teeth at them. ''I need this box.''
''Why?''
Missy waves her hand dismissively. ''Long story. Killed some people, a few planets, and now I've got a whole bunch of angry prosecutors chasing me. They say they know how to kill a Time Lady, whereas I, for one, love being alive.''
''Time Lady,'' O echoes, as the name seems to take up all the space in Petri's head. ''Is that what...''
''What we are? Oh, yeah. Did I not mention it before? I can be so forgetful, sometimes. Anyway,'' she says, and goes back to staring at the box, as if Petri wasn't bursting with questions, ''I would quite like for these people to forget about me. Which is where this precious little thing comes into play.''
''You can't take it.''
The words leave Petri's mouth of their own volition. Missy turns to her, as does O. ''And what will you do to stop me?''
''I –'' Petri trails off, the cogs in her brains turning furiously. She hazards a glance at the box. The motives carved in the wood are still glowing their calm blue, but Petri has the distinct feeling that the light is stronger now.
It’s not a stretch to decide that she’d like to see where that would go, and hence determine that the best course of action is to buy time.
''Who was that man?'' Petri asks, and watches as the corner of Missy's lips twitches. ''The one, in the clearing, with that ghost that looked like you. Who was he?''
''There is no such thing as ghosts ,'' Missy retorts coolly. ''What you see is fragments of memories – thoughts, that leaked out of Tuyin's box.''
''Tuyin,'' Petri repeats. ''Means 'gift' in ancient Stratonese.''
Missy looks at her. It’s almost like she’s impressed.
''You could say that. It means ''gift of everything''. Derived from the human's myth of Pandora's Box, if I recall this boring museum guide correctly.''
''So,'' O says slowly. ''If the ghosts were memories, who... whose memories are they? And why are you in them?''
Missy tilts her head and looks directly at O. ''Isn't that just the question, dear?''
In the corner of her eyes, Petri can see tendrils of light spilling out of the box. She takes another step.
''How many people have used Tuyin's box?''
''It's difficult to count, really. It's been used to throw down empires as well as to wipe petty things, like debts, from people's memories.” Missy takes on a mock educative tone, only to drop it immediately. “The legend of Tuyin's been passed down for generations.''
''How come it arrived here, then? And – and what does it wipe, exactly? And why would it leak? How many people's memories have we seen?''
''As talkative as ever, I see,'' Missy says, with a sneer, but it lacks heat. ''You would know all of that if I let you open it, but...'' she trails off, a pensive look etched on her features. ''I still haven't decided what I want to do with you two.''
O slowly puts a hand in his pocket. He's shaking, Petri sees. But his voice is steady when he talks.
''At least tell us who forgot about you.''
Petri isn't sure why O fixates on this -- granted, she’s the one who started that line of questions, but it was only one between a hundred of others -- but it seems to work. Missy's lip trembles, again, and she passes a hand in front of her forehead. Behind her, the ground is bathed in a blue light that almost reaches the heel of her boots.
''Is it one of us?'' O presses down. Missy licks her lips, leaving them redder than before.
''That's the funny thing,'' she says, and if Petri hadn't been looking for it she wouldn't have heard the slight shiver in her voice. ''You both did.''
Petri inhales. It's – it's a lot to take in, with everything else, even though she had her doubts about it – was starting to be pretty sure of it, even. But it means...
She thinks of the grey-haired man, and the look in his eyes, the naked awe when he thought Missy wasn't looking at him. She thinks of the music they played together, discordant in places, harmonious in others. She thinks of O, learning the organ with Missy.
It -- kind of hurts, Petri realizes, but doesn’t have the time to wonder why. Missy is looking directly at her, blue eyes piercing and, not for the first time since she met her, Petri thinks maybe Missy can read minds.
''It's not him.'' Missy says and -- someone takes a sharp breath, but Petri isn’t sure if it’s O or her . ''O is an idiot, but he has some semblance of a fashion sense.''
Petri's throat closes. ''Then...''
''Time Lords,'' Missy muses. ''Strange species. Some might call us immortal. See, we can regenerate our entire bodies when we're about to die.'' She levels her eyes with Petri's. ''Something in our genes. Makes us superior to every other species in the universe.''
Then --
It means --
Connecting the dots isn’t really hard. Petri’s quite good at that. She has them all spread out in her brains, clearly labelled, with a lot of question marks surrounding them. They form a shape already, quite approximative, but it’s all she needs to reorganize them into the correct picture, and maybe she’s getting her metaphors a bit jumbled but it doesn’t matter, because now she can see -- she can remember the way the man looked at Missy -- and it’s like someone ripped her hearts in half, when she realizes she can’t remember why he looked at her like that. It almost physically hurts, to not have the memories of something that he -- she -- must’ve felt so intensely, once.
It's a growl, low and animal, that escapes Petri's throat.
''Give me my memories back.''
Missy blinks.
''I can remember ancient Stratonese,'' she says, and the small press of the man's fingers to Missy's back flashes behind Petri's eyes, ''and not who I was. Who I am. My own face.'' She breathes, trying to work around the knot in her throat, in her chest. ''I need them back.''
Missy's face shifts, for the fraction of a second – the ghost of something like sadness passing through it, before disappearing, leaving nothing but her usual steely glare. ''You don't. You've seen them. You don't want them.''
Time Lords can change their faces, Missy said. Petri feels both young, and old. O was afraid of what could be so heavy he felt so much better without it.
She thinks about all the faces they saw, the children running, the old men with blood on their hands and tears in their eyes, and wonders, not for the first time, how old she is.
''That's my own call to make. You can't decide for me.''
''Maybe not for you. But I can for him.''
O blinks. ''Me?''
Missy smiles sweetly. ''You. And if you don't get your memories back, and she does, you'll lose each other. Is that what you want?''
''What –'' Petri's fists clench at her side, at the lost look O sends her, the silent plea in the curve of his lips and the knowing, smug smile on Missy's face that Petri wants nothing more than to erase. ''Why would you decide for him?''
''Oh, Doctor,'' Missy says, and Petri – Petri's mind stutters to a stop, because Missy is talking to her, but O is the doctor, he's the one healing and tending to the friars’ headaches, but Missy's tone is the same than the one the old man with a goatee used in the forest, to talk to the other man with blood on his cheeks, and it –
It feels right, somehow, and wrong at the same time.
''Don't you know it yet? I told you we can change faces. O knows what I mean.''
O's eyes are suspiciously shiny when Petri looks at him, and his hands are tightly-held fists at his sides. ''I'm,'' he says, and his hair is falling on his forehead but he doesn't push it away. ''I think I'm her.''
And Missy laughs, as if Petri's entire world hadn't come crashing around her. ''Good boy.''
O doesn’t react.
In the corner of Petri’s eyes, the glowing of the box is almost blinding. The light is spilling everywhere, creating a new web of thin blue cracks all over the box, and the air is sizzling with energy.
Missy doesn’t seem to have noticed it yet. Her laugh is echoing all over the cavern. O still isn’t moving.
Petri breathes, in, out, shuts off her brain, and dives for the box.
She realizes many things, while running, like the fact that the faces – all the faces they saw, from the children to Missy, are probably hers and O's. Past faces.
In her head, the blue box is calling, and singing of stars past and future and of a wide world, whispers echoing in her head as Missy’s laugh stops abruptly.
Petri stops caring. Her fingertips are almost grazing the edge of the box. There are only a few thoughts left in her head, circling insistently -- she wants to know her name, O’s name, she wants to remember O, and Missy, and each and every face of theirs.
She touches the box.
Missy screams. O too. Their voices mingle. Petri doesn't care. (She isn't called Petri).
The blue light fills the room.
Everything becomes dark.
** **
''What are you doing here?''
The Master smirks.
''Same as you, love.''
The Doctor dives for the box as the bombs go off.
–
''I heard about this myth,'' Jack is saying over the intercom. ''About an artefact that can wipe memory.''
''Had enough memory wiping, thanks.''
''But it doesn't only wipe,'' and Jack's voice is smug with his discovery, ''it also saves them. Stores them in its core. If you can use it...''
''Don't.''
''I'm just saying. You could reverse engineer it.'' When she doesn't answer, he presses. ''Everyone deserves to know their past, Doctor. You included.''
She hangs up.
–
''Why do you even need it?''
She screams. She's screaming. She has to scream. The Tardis is jolting and somersaulting, sparks running across the console, and the iron tang of blood fills the air. On the other side of the console, the Master is laughing, his head thrown back, red running down his chin from where she hit him in the mouth.
''Why do you think I do?'' he spits, and there's fire in his eyes, like the one quickly spreading in the Tardis. ''I don't want this anymore. You don't either. And you won't let me fucking die.''
There are flames all around her, but the Doctor's blood is ice in her veins. ''Don't you dare,'' she growls.
The Master smiles, terrible. ''You can't see it, but it's the best option. You'll understand, one day.''
It's maybe even worse that he says it in a soft voice.
The Tardis jolts, once again, and behind the Master her doors open on the spinning void of the time vortex. Tuyin's box starts sliding down from where it dropped on the floor. They see it at the same time.
''Oh no you don't,'' the Master says at the same time the Doctor lets go of her grip on the console to grab for the box.
He reaches it first.
There's a blue light, and the sensation of falling. Then nothing.
Petri opens her eyes.
** **
The Doctor breathes.
The scent of earth fills her nostrils – earth with a rich, crusty musk. The Doctor immediately recognizes it as underground. The air is heavy with dust and years without wind, but also a vibrant, thrumming energy that the Doctor can't parse.
She cracks one eye open.
In front of her, lying on the ground, O sleeps.
No, not sleeping. The Doctor gets on her hands and knees with a grunt and licks her lips. Her tongue catches on something other than the smell of the earth. It's a metallic taste she thought belonged to the crystals embedded in the walls, but comes from the rivulet of blood running down the side of O's head.
Next to him, Missy is passed out too, in a heap of fabric, her umbrella clenched in one hand. There's more blood on its end.
The Doctor blinks. It's harder that she thought it'd be. Her eyelids seem to be weighing a ton. Her head is heavy too, too heavy for her neck and it’s hard to keep it upwards, but something like a trickle of cool water insinuates itself in her brains, gently stroking her burning thoughts like sore muscles to be eased. It disappears, leaving only four words behind, that feel like a sip of hot cocoa or the slide of her favorite jumper over her skin.
Welcome back, my thief .
The Doctor smiles, and opens her mind back to her Tardis.
Missed you .
The answering wave of warmth that cocoons her gives her enough strength to get on one feet. She puts her head in her hands at the vertigo that ensues, pressing her palms to her eyes hard enough that fireworks explode behind her eyelids.
O is hurt. The Master is hurt, she corrects. O is hurt, a voice in her brains repeats, insistent. Her lips are dry when she licks them again. In the dark behind her eyelids, she can see the Master when she punched him, square in the mouth, to try to take Tuyin's box back from his grip. It's the same smell that fills her mouth now, from where the blood has started to pool around O's head.
He has his memories now, she knows. She opened Tuyin's box when she touched it, the artefact only needing the smallest incentive to let go of the memories it was holding – too full, it was, wasn't designed to hold Time Lords' memories, to hold timeless thoughts and images. No more ghosts, the Doctor thinks blithely, and her fingertips tingle from where she brushed the fabric of Missy's robes that one time in the Vault – the first time Missy had let him join her for a play.
Missy, who didn't want them to get their memories back.
Missy, who said she was being chased by people who knew how to execute Time Lords.
Missy, with her bloodied umbrella that the Doctor remembers seeing go down on her when she dove for that box -- but her head is intact, and O's is not.
She lets out a pained grunt and raises to her feet.
Every muscle in her body aches.
In her head, the Tardis rumbles.
''I know,'' she moans, hands still pressed to her eyes. ''Just... gimme a minute, ok?''
The Tardis hums again, but it's gentle, and the Doctor would smile if moving didn't hurt so much.
The Doctor . The name sounds right in her head – at least better than ''Petri'' did. It fits in all the right parts and doesn't leave a sour taste behind everytime she thinks it. But it's still... wrong, somehow.
'' Don't call me that '', the man with the bloodied hands had said in the forest, to the one with a goatee. He said that because he didn't feel like he deserved it. It wasn't a title a man who killed could claim.
Her eyes land on O – the Master – where he lies on the ground. His hands are far from his chest, extended towards the Doctor.
He's hurt, the voice says again.
She looks at Missy, who appointed O as the convent's doctor, and tucked stray strands of hair behind Petri's ears.
On her right, the Tardis hums invitingly. There's a key hidden behind the P, but the Doctor knows her ship would open her doors if she asked. She knows there's a medbay, first door on the left after the console room. She knows a whole lot of things, and remembers a whole lot of faces, and yet her name still feels -- off, somehow.
The Doctor. The doctor, when she was Petri, was O. O in his office, mixing tinctures and sitting friars down to talk about their nightmares and their sunburns. But she was healing people too, helping O, applying balms to strained hands, trying her own potions, and covering the burns on O's chest, the ones he got from their latest experiment, with bandages.
Still. It doesn't feel like it's enough.
(It's never enough.)
The Doctor throws her head back, and lets out a guttural noise – mixture of pain and relief, that bounces across the walls, resonates eerily in the silence of the room, but it helps, in a way, helps her brains readjust just enough so she can remember that her name was never one she fully owned, always one she had to earn -- and so she leans down. Has just enough force to reach around the limp body, and take O's – the Master's – arm and hook it over her shoulder.
She'll come back for Missy, she promises herself. Track down Rafando, and his Fatality Index. Make sure Missy can ask for her – him – as her executioner. Make sure her past - Missy’s future - get offered the chance that was the Vault, those seventy-and-some years of constant battle, bickering, and the softness of sharing the same space. At one point she'll sit the Master down and they'll talk about O and Petri, about the Timeless Child, about Missy, and try not to kill or drive each other mad during the process. (She has little hope they'll manage it, but it's still hope, and she'll make it work, she swears.)
For now, she lifts the Master to the Tardis and to the medbay.
Heal now. Talk later.
(On the Doctor’s shoulder, the Master's head rolls. He's smiling.)