Part Seven:  Departures

Holding the picnic hamper balanced on his head, Phillip toboggans down the slime flooded chute on the seat of his pants.  Whatever fear he experienced earlier is lost to a noisy delight in motion.  The excitement ends with Phillip sitting in a shallow puddle of oily ooze, his shoes dripping splodges of slime onto a dry stone surface.  Placing the basket on firm ground, he stands and surveys the considerable damage to his clothes.
"Mum will give me a proper skinning for this."   He looks back the way he came, but the tunnel is curved and the spot of light which indicated the TARDIS corridor cannot be seen.  The serpentine channel which carried him to this point is steep and slick with slime.  A scrap of glowing mist drifts up along the slope, lighting it well enough for Phillip to see that there is no returning the way he came.
"If she ever finds me, that is.  Where is this place?"  There is concern mixed with curiosity on his face as he turns away and investigates the cavern he is in.
A bright cloud of fog hovers over him, blue glimmers moving through the green light.  It coalesces, thickening where he wanders, fading to nothing in a short distance.  In one direction, it is less dark.  Phillip's path takes him around rocks shaped like trees drawn by a young child, past benches of stone and circles of crystalline formations like mineral flowerbeds, but his feet are drawn to the lighter place in the darkness.
There is music; weird hollow piping.  At times Phillip hears it clearly, then it becomes an eerie echo fading into the shadows before it swells into audibility once more.  He crawls up on a flat topped boulder with the hamper and opens it, deciding on another sandwich.  His focus is on the food as he unwraps it and begins to eat.
"What is that, dearie?"  The voice beside him comes from a woman, aged beyond aging.  Desiccated and bone thin, she is an animate mummy with scraps of thin white hair clinging to her mottled scalp.  Age weights her, curling her spine to the point that she requires a knobby stick to maintain her balance.  Phillip yelps and drops his sandwich.  The old woman snatches pieces of bread and cheese from the air as they fall and brings them to her nose, which is extravagantly large and crooked, curving down at the end.
"It has the right aminos, but not in the proper chains." She crumbles the food and throws it to the ground.  "Useless."  She turns an appraising eye to Phillip,  "But what about you, my sweet?"
Shocked by the suddenness of her presence, Phillip shrinks away, holding the basket as a shield, eyes following the remnants of his meal as they fall through the green dusk.
"What do you have in the container?"  Fingers, twisted with age, reach for the hamper as Phillip scrambles backward behind it.  Hunger burning in her ancient eyes, the old woman's arm seems to stretch beyond its natural length until the crabbed fingers seize a strap.  Phillip clutches the hamper tightly to him.
"If you please, Mum, it's - it's my lunch."  She slacks her grip a bit.  "If - if you don't mind, Mum, I'd - I'd appreciate it if - if you'd save what you don't want, for me to eat, instead of throwing it on the floor.  There doesn't seem to be much food here and I - I think it's a long way home."  He releases the basket sufficiently to open it.  "May - may I show you what I've got?"
"A well spoken lad.  Brought up the old way, no doubt, with a mother's strong hand.  Show me then."  The grimace on her face might be a smile; she has a few teeth but they meet, after a fashion, and look quite sharp.  There is a feral quality in her movements, her eyes glint quick and cunning.
"I've only one cheese sandwich left.  It's one of Sarah's, with brown bread and cucumbers."  His hand trembles as he sorts the packages inside the hamper.  "And there's still a slice of filbert cake, Mother makes it with honey, so it's quite damp and rich."  He pulls a bottle from the basket and looks at it regretfully, "The ginger beer got shaken up a bit on the ride down and I wouldn't open it just yet."  The bottle has raspberry pulp on it.  Phillip licks berry bits and juice from his fingers, looking for a napkin to wipe off the mess before meeting the old woman's eyes.
"What is the red?  Blood?"  She shifts, poised as if to pounce, her nostrils flaring.
"No, Mum, it's raspberry.  I think the berry basket spilled and the bottle crushed them.  If you like, I'll try to find you a good one."
"What is this - cake."
Phillip unwraps a slightly squashed wedge of cake and breaks off a fair half.  "Here.  It's good cake, please don't waste it."  He offers it reluctantly.  Her nose twitches and seems to grow toward the cake in Phillip's extended hand.
"A few aminos, nearly right and rich in lipids, but too much carbo.  Not yet, not yet."  Her eyes glitter as she appraises Phillip.  "Keep the cake.  Who is Sarah?"  Phillip smiles with relief and eats a bit of cake to celebrate.
"My sister.  We were going to picnic at the Well and the door was open to the time machine...She'll be after me, somehow, she always catches up with me.  I can't get away with anything."  A second bite of cake is paused enroute to his mouth as he considers, "She'll call me a twit and worse for this."  He looks at the cake in his hand and rewraps it ruefully.  "How do I get back out of here, Mum?"
"I have the way."  She makes a gasping sound that might be taken for laughter,  "A TT Capsule, eh?  I have the way out.  Now we go find that sister of yours, if she's here."   Grabbing Phillip's leg, she throws him from his perch.  The picnic hamper remains above as Phillip lands on the ground at the Hag's feet.
"Up, boy.  We must find your sister before she is lost; food is precious here."  When Phillip stands, she leans firmly on his shoulder with one hand and on her stick with the other.  Phillip winces under her grip as she steers him along the path he has recently come, taking him away from the distant light.  The glowing cloud drifts over their heads, providing illumination.
"My lunch!  It's still up on the rock."  He tries to turn back.
"It doesn't matter."  Her stick taps a sharp counterpoint to her shuffling feet and her clawed fingers dig deeper into his shoulder,  "You won't go hungry."
Small blue flickers within the green mist above draw the Hag and Phillip to Sarah.  Her voice is soon heard humming the waltz for beginners that Phillip had been practicing the night before.  It is a tremulous voice, small and unsteady in a place very strange and unimaginably large.  Occasionally the tune stops and there is a quiet quavering call, "Phillip?".  The Hag cocks her head, listening.
"That is your sister?"
Phillip nods, pulling away from the painful pinch of her hand on his shoulder.
"Does she always do that?"  She gives Phillip a small shake.
"Do what?  Ow."
"Sing.  Make Music."  The Hag is eager, the craving on her face is not hunger.
"Sometimes.  You're hurting me."  Her claws retract slightly and Phillip continues, his voice edging on a whine.  "She actually likes to practice the piano and joined the choir at the church this summer."
"Call her."  Phillip hesitates and the Hag snaps, "Call her!  I want to meet someone who likes to practice the piano."
"Sarah?"  His voice is uncertain, "Over here; I've been found."
"Phillip?"  She turns her head in his direction, replacing the rock she is inspecting before she stands and follows the flowing green light as it joins the cloud above the Hag.  "Phillip!  Are you all right?  I've got some things to say to you..."  Her voice fades when she sees the ancient woman leaning on her brother.  "Excuse me, Mum."
"Come, come, child.  Walk with us and I will show you my home."  The Hag releases Phillip and wobbles toward Sarah, "Your brother tells me that you like music.  I play a flute, myself, perhaps we could play a duet before Dinner."
Sarah shoots Phillip a glare as the Hag's arm goes around her shoulders and secures a grip.  He shrugs the look off and takes his sister's hand possessively.
"I am glad to see you, Sarah."
The Hag wheezes and chokes, her face contorting, as she guides her prizes through the flickering green gloom to a distant glow.
 
 

Listen...
...hear birds carry on afternoon business in sun dappled woods along a winding path that meets the country lane.  Only those nearest the trail pause briefly in their discourses while a pair of featherless bipeds pass beneath.  The smaller one is speaking.

"Did you know there is a cave up this way?"  There is no verbal response, although the birds have enough to say.  "Evidence has been found that the caves in this area were used by the pre-Roman Druids, and it is said that women took refuge in them during the witch hunts of the middle ages.  The one here was sealed with a boulder almost a thousand years ago, trapping a harridan inside."
Hannah Lacey quickens her steps to keep up with her companion, who does not slow his stride or pause for breath as he follows the track twisting up the hill.  He spares her a look, pleasant, although perhaps condescending, and says nothing.  For a moment, irritation shows on her face.  She suppresses it, using her story to fill the gap between them.
"That's what they called her at the time.  During the reign of Edward the Confessor, the parish priest recorded all the legends and ghost stories local villagers had to tell.  Most of his chronicle is gossip about infidelities, generations past, but the tale of the Witch's Well stands out.  Father Oswyn wrote that the oldest man in town told the story as he heard it from his grandfather, who had witnessed the events as a child."  Hannah is becoming winded keeping up with the Doctor's long legged gait.  She scrambles up the hill, cutting a corner and takes the lead above the Doctor, setting an easier pace.  He changes his grip on the shovel he carries but remains silent.
"There is little said about the harridan herself except that she was a changeling or a child of the Earth."  Hannah talks over her shoulder.
"Her crime was described only as 'mischief of the basest sort', but the community was sufficiently angered to drive her from town to live in the cave.  The mischief did not stop, so late one night a large rock was rolled over the cliff to seal the cave entrance.  After, the stone face above the cave began to seep bitter water, which collects in a pool at the bottom of the rock, draining into the cave.  Father Oswyn concluded that the water comes from the harridan's bitter tears of regret for her sins, but there are other theories and the old folks believe that it's a cure for neuralgia."
Hannah stops at the crest of the hill, looking across the circle of dancing oaks, beyond the TARDIS to the holly trees standing sentinel beside the path.  She cocks her head and stops the Doctor's forward motion with her outthrust hand.  After a moment, she speaks again.
"The children aren't here, unless they're hiding."  Concern paints her face, annoyance colours his.
He sides past her into the oak grove.
"Is there any way Phillip and Sarah could have gotten into your TARDIS?"  Her head turns, eyes flicking from tree to tree, looking for child shadows in the sun bright haze.
"It's been locked since I left it."  He starts toward the TARDIS, feeling at pockets with his free hand, searching for a key.
Hannah calls her children and gets no response.  Calling again, she follows the Doctor to the TARDIS and looks around anxiously for them as he fumbles with a long keychain, untangling it from the key before he can fit the lock and open the door.  Once open, an urgent beeping is heard inside the control room of the TARDIS.  The Doctor exclaims something that might be "Fratz!" and rushes inside to inspect the console that dominates the room.
"Yes.  Escape."  The beeping stops at this spoken command.  The Doctor pushes buttons and studies a readout with evident relief.
"I've found your children.  They haven't done any damage, although they may have had a fright."  He looks up to find Hannah staring in astonishment at the size of the control room.  She walks out and then back in, shaking her head, unable to disbelieve her senses or accept the reality around her.  The Doctor waits, giving her a moment to adjust and ask the obvious questions.
"How...?  I mean, what makes it seem larger?  It's not a trick with mirrors and I know I'm not dreaming - am I?"  She looks to him for an answer but he remains silent until she offers one, "Are we - are we in a place, I don't know the words..."
"You're doing fine, keep going."  He rewards her with a smile, wide, with too many teeth.
"Is this a place without time?  No, that's not right."
"Close enough.  The TARDIS is between Time and Space, but it's not something one can discuss without a firm background in transdimensional physics.  Time passes for us only because we perceive our existence as a series of separate moments, strung together like beads on a string, but Time itself experiences a very different shape."  For an instant there is a spark of passion in the Doctor's eyes as he warms to the subject.   Hannah's face shows polite interest but not comprehension.  He sighs and closes the outer door from the console; then turns to the inner door, resigned.
"A TARDIS does not dwell in Time the way we do.  If you want to find your children, come with me."
The Doctor enters the corridor and turns left.  Hannah follows more slowly, each step uncertain, unbelieving, curious.  Once in the corridor, she looks both directions and finds the Doctor at the collection of equipment beside the undulating oval door.
A rope leads from the pile into the pink room and part of a coil remains on the floor there.  From the coil it leads across the room, fading into nothing half way to the far wall.
"There's danger here."  Hannah is looking at the door, repelled by its glossy lips.  "Sarah made this pile - I believe it's an anchor.  Phillip dropped...".  She looks around and finds parts of the sandwich, "this.  Doctor, what is in that room?"
The Doctor is suddenly attentive.
"How do you know this?"
"My family tradition maintains that its women took refuge in the caves during the Burning Times.  The survivors passed on their Gifts through the generations."  Hannah is impatient, "What is in that room?"
"I don't know.  It's not part of this TARDIS."  The Doctor is untangling the green can with clear tubes at the top from the rest of Sarah's anchor.  The flat can of benzene appears out of the Doctor's pocket and is emptied into an opening at the top of the apparatus.  "Theoretically, this entrance should not exist."  Another bottle, small and round, is tipped over the opening until  a long drip of grey emerges, hanging down.  The Doctor shakes it off into the green can and caps the bottle.
"A solvent ought to do the trick.   This mix should be about as slick as S.H.I.T.  Who says you can't improvise?"
"I beg your pardon, Doctor."  Hannah is shocked, he looks up at her tone.
"The reference was not scatological, madam.  S. H. I. T. is a trade name for a superior universal lubricant.  The letters are an acronym for Supra Hexagonally Integrated Tetracarbons.  Made by the PoTihmoth Corporation of Ladrane."  He fixes, adjusts and tightens seals before pressurizing the can.  "I didn't have any handy.  It's some time since I've been in that neighborhood, but last time I went through there, I learned the process used to make it.  Quite simple, really."  He shakes the can vigorously.
"Su-pra Hex-oganally Integrated Tetra-carbons?  What does it do?"
"About what flies wish they could do to flypaper.  We're wasting time, your children may be in danger."  He passes her the shovel, takes up his green can and goes through the undulating door.  "Grab the rope, we'll go through the barrier together."
"Wait!"  Hannah looks down the corridor in both directions, draws a slow breath and nods.  "I'm ready."  She takes up the rope and follows the Doctor through a flicker of light into a slime filled tunnel.  There, ankle deep in ooze, the Doctor adjusts the nozzle at the end of a hose attached to the green can.
"Let's see what this does."  He sprays a thin foam on the glossy goo that lines the walls and floor of the tunnel.  Distant howling rolls upward, filling the tunnel with the sound of pain and indignation.  Hannah cannot be heard over it as she shouts to the Doctor to stop spraying.  Continuing through the noise, the Doctor advances down the tunnel throwing wide arcs of spray from his green can.  Behind him, slime dissolves and flows down the slope of the tunnel onto unsprayed goo ahead of him.  Seeing this, he stops.
The howl subsides into whimpering sobs, receding down the tunnel.
"Where is the shovel?"  The Doctor turns to Hannah, still at the mouth of the tunnel above him, shovel clutched in one hand, rope in the other.  Her face is pale, she looks shaken, her voice cracks when she speaks.
"What was that?"
"I imagine the noise came from the source of this slime.  My guess is that it is an appendage, not an extrusion."  The Doctor checks the green can and is satisfied with what he finds,  "It doesn't seem to like having S.H.I.T. sprayed on it.  Use the shovel to clear your way.  I don't think we'll be needing the rope for now."
Dropping the rope, Hannah applies the shovel to the residue remaining on the floor in front of her.  It moves easily, pushing thin greasy mud away from the porous surface that serves as a floor, beneath.  When the slime deepens, Hannah shovels it away from the path, dumping slightly thicker, heavier sludge to the side.  The Doctor sprays briefly between them and the howling rises again from the tunnel.  Hannah pauses until it stops and then shovels the last few feet with ease.
"It would seem that this muck is alive and screaming."
"Apparently, yes."  He takes the shovel and hands her the spray can.
"How can you inflict pain on anything that feels so acutely?"
"Do you feel the same pity for a leech on your skin or a mouse in the trap?"  He bends to shovel the remains of slime and spray down the slope.  "Thrips on your roses or snails in the lettuce?"
"They're vermin, pests."  Hannah looks at the tunnel walls, dripping with a mixture of ooze and the Doctor's sprayed formula.
"Nevertheless, they are capable of feeling pain to some extent and make objections to your attempts to exterminate them.  This particular pest is a bit larger, more vocal, perhaps, but the principle is the same."  Her resistance to the idea shows on her face.  He gestures down the tunnel.  "Your children are down there."
"Doctor, will it hurt the children while we're hurting it?"
"I don't think so.  In fact we may be distracting it from whatever it was doing when we arrived."  He smiles, playful and full of mischief.  "Care to find out how much noise we can get from it?"
Hannah shakes her head and hesitantly smiles back.  "What shall I do?"
"Press this to release the spray in wide sweeps across and up the sides.  Then stand back and I'll shovel the mess away."
Hannah sprays.  She clenches her teeth against the howling and continues moving down into the tunnel.  Working alternately, they spiral away from the lighted door of the TARDIS, their labours illuminated by a glow rising from the walls.  The ooze thickens and concentrates, becoming more difficult to shovel.  The spray sputters out and the howls fade away.  Hannah sighs with limp relief.  The Doctor leans on the shovel to rest.
"We don't have much further.  This slime is nearly dense enough to walk on."  The Doctor kicks at the edge where he's been working.  It shimmies like a grey green jelly, but does not stick to his shoe.
"Ugh.  Do you want to try it?"
"It's getting steeper, and the arc is tighter."  The Doctor's voice is calculating, his fingers counting each other in an arcane mathematical dance as he turns to study the geometry of the situation.  "Given the distance we've come..."  He kicks the jelly once more.  "Yes."
"What?"  Hannah's attention is on the rope winding the tunnel from the TARDIS above to the green dimness below.
"I'll try walking on this slime aspic, just down around the corner.  If I'm right, we're nearly at the bottom."
"Use the rope."  Hannah picks it out of the slime and passes it to him.  "It may get steep around there, or dark."
"Are you 'Seeing' something?"
"Not specifically, but I do think someone's waiting for us."
"I'll keep that in mind.  Will you be all right here?"
She nods.  Rope in hand, he tests the congealed goo, finds it takes his weight, and carefully skates away around the corner, leaving Hannah alone, holding the lifeline.  After a few moments, it jerks.  Grabbing it with both hands to secure the line, Hannah puts her weight into keeping it taut.
 

Regaining his balance after the goo underfoot goes suddenly steep, the Doctor uses the rope to control his speed as he slides down the chute on the seat of his pants.  He is smiling as he coasts to a stop in a puddle of oily slime.
"Ahha!  A visitor come calling without an invitation.  Rude and hurtful to make the Companion cry."  Green glowing mist hovers over the Hag, blue flashes dancing around her head like a crown of lightning.  Thin wisps of grayed hair stand out and seem to writhe, snake like, in the flickering gloom.  "The Companion does not like you.  Stand up."
The Doctor obliges and stands in a posture of respectful obedience, towering nearly twice her height, a smile still lurking on his face.  He gives the rope two small tugs and drops it.
"What's that?"  She leans closer to inspect the fallen rope.
"Just a rope I used to help with the descent.  It gets steep here, at the end."  The Hag's nostrils are flaring, she sniffs and looks again at the Doctor.
"You, I recognise.  Yes.  I know you.  An obnoxious child."  She sniffs again and laughs with a dry choking sound, a few crooked teeth remain in her smile.  "Come.  You will be in the place of Honor at Dinner tonight."  She takes his arm with one crabbed crooked hand and her cane in the other, pulling him along with surprising strength.  "But we have time to talk before that.  Tell me, when were you last on Gallifrey?  How goes the Revolution?"
"Ahh, yes.  Things do change, don't they.  I had just entered the Academy when you were Isolated.  This is where the Council sent you?"   He slows to admire a garden bed of crystals.
"No.  This is where I escaped to.  An improvement over what the Time Lords meted out.  No doubt they celebrated after the sentencing, congratulating each other on their Famous Justice."
"I seem to remember talk at the time."  The Doctor sets the pace at a casual stroll, the Hag tapping her bony cane impatiently.  "There are those who held that the sentence was quite lenient."
"Lenient?  Trapped in comfortless dark until my regeneration cycle stopped!  Unlike some, I never killed any body."
"No, your crime was more intimate and you never asked for what you took.  I've always been curious about the logic behind your actions."
"Not that you cared much for Logic as a student at Primary!  Always knew more than your elders, you did.  A walking mouth full of facts without regard or consideration...  And now you want to know about Logic."  She looks at him, peering this way and that, like a bird about to peck.
"I suppose it's never too late to learn something."  She attends to her walking for several steps and then looks at him sideways.  "My research indicated that the body utilised existing protein chains over single aminos, even in the production of genetic structures.  Experimentally, I found that the availability of appropriate full length protein chains increased the longevity of test subjects."
"Has it worked for you in practical application?"  The Doctor shows polite curiosity.
"One volunteer hardly constitutes a field trial, nor was I given sufficient time to apply the theory."  Anger, old and dry flakes from her voice as the flickering of blue lightning increases.  "But that's past.  How's your mother?"
"Madam, I haven't communicated with my mother recently."  He turns into the path, facing her, his voice buttered, his manner obsequious.  "Last time I asked after her, she was in a voluntary regenerative coma and made it quite clear, previously, that she would prefer to forget past indiscretions.  I have learned enough tact to oblige her.  Did you hear about the Greater Coup?"  He turns and takes her arm again, courtly and gallant.
"Pity I missed your mother while she was in coma.  Voluntary, you say?  What did she do, lose some of the family funds?"  Again the choking laugh.  "So what was the Greater Coup, your Great Revolting of the Oppressed Masses?"
"No.  It was the Technicians, mostly, taking control of the Management.  Peaceful, for the most part, but Mother got taken out of the Hierarchy."  The Hag nods and hisses.
"No better than she deserved.  Look what I've come to, with no one but the Companion."
"Actually, I've seen worse."  He pauses again, this time to admire a crude tree shape, "Is this your design?  Fascinating."
They wander on into the green gloom, blue lightning flickering in a cloud above them.  It illuminates, casts changing shadows for a furtive figure to freeze in, waiting, before slipping to the next one.
 

Look...
...down a corkscrew tunnel, turning steeper into silent green gloom, Hannah Lacey stands braced against an oozing wall holding a rope taut.  The line slacks slightly and moments later pulls twice before going loose below her.  She looks back over her shoulder, eyes following the rope up the tunnel, back to the TARDIS.  There is slime on the back of her dress and she grimaces as she pulls it away from her skin.
"I've no doubt you enjoyed this part, Phillip me boyo."  Her face turns to the unknown.  "But where are you now, and what trouble have you gotten your sister into, this time?"  Hand on rope, Hannah looks intensely into the shadows below her before shrugging.
"Nowhere to go but down, so I might as well get on with it."  Stepping onto the gel, she smooths carefully around the corner and sits suddenly when the tunnel becomes a steep chute.  Using the rope and her heels to control her speed, she rounds the final curve, hears the Doctor's voice, and stops, spread eagle to grip at slime coated walls just out of view.  The Hag replies, promising the Doctor a place of honor at dinner.  As the voices fade, she relaxes, completing her ride to the puddle of slime at the bottom.
For a moment, she sits assimilating her surroundings, then sees the retreating figures and seeks the shelter of a rock.  Wringing her skirts does little to remove the oily ooze so she tucks them up under her belt with a look of disgust and quietly follows the Doctor, flitting from boulder to rock.  The cloud of light above the Hag has a tail that trails behind, as if waiting for Hannah to catch up.  She stays in the shadows it casts, listening to bits of the conversation floating back to her in the flickering twilight.
"How did you penetrate a TARDIS?  I wouldn't have thought it possible, locating anything outside the Space Time Continuum without advanced instrumentation."  Their path takes them around a small knoll with short stone trees shaped like mushrooms.  On top of one is a wicker picnic hamper.  The Doctor makes no notice of it, intent on feeding the Hag with charm and graciousness.
"Time Lords!  Lazy, they are, and you along with them.  Have you forgotten the First Dynamic of Space and Time?  I worked hard enough to teach it to you."  Her voice is a rasp of chronic bitterness.
"The First Dynamic?"  The Doctor is thinking quickly, "That in order to be Utilised, it must be Defined."  He looks pleased with himself.
"Close enough.  The applications of that Dynamic are not solely mechanical.  The Fifth and Seventh Dynamics are actually subjuncts of the First."  The Hag is choking with triumph.
"The Fifth and Seventh Dynamics?  They describe the effect of Consciousness on Space and Time..."  A momentary silence.  "You changed your definition of Space and Time.  And applied it!"  An enormous smile on his face, "Very well done, indeed.  Tell me, does one need to start by changing the basics?  You know, elemental structure and physics and such?"
"It's location specific.  Like opening a door."
"AAAh!  That makes it a bit simpler.  But why my TARDIS and not back to Gallifrey?"
"A matter of power.  I do not have the resources of Rassilon at my disposal."  The path winds across a small rise toward a brighter glow in the near distance.  "All I have is the Companion.  Yours was the nearest disruption in the Continuum, it's nothing personal."
The Hag leads the way down the hill, forcing the Doctor to keep pace.  Behind them, Hannah finds the basket, hastily repacks the items remaining and brings it along as she follows the Doctor.
 

The ceiling curves down, becomes a wall lit up and glowing greenly in an intricate veined pattern. It is brighter here, with fewer shadows.  There are several roofless chambers formed of rocks and boulders arranged along the wall.  Across the front of one chamber, there is a flickering blue curtain, crackling on occasion as though in response to the whimpering beyond it.  Leading the Doctor, the Hag taps her way to a stone bench against the wall of an open chamber.  The light above her flows to the wall and joins the veining there as the flickering around her head subsides.
"Sit beside me, here.  Let me tell you about the home I've made in this place."  The Hag breathes heavily, one clawed hand on her chest.  She puts her cane aside and begins a dance with the fingers of the other.
"Thank you, no.  I'd prefer to stand, I like the view."  The Doctor walks a few steps away to study the wall.  "But please tell me about your home.  This wall is magnificent - is it your creation as well?"
"That is the Companion.  I created her from the pathetic wretch I found starving here when I arrived."
"Using the Fifth and Seventh Dynamics?"  The Doctor rubs his chin contemplatively and turns his head to look at the Hag.
"That is her nervous system.  I pulled each tendril free from the living flesh and never broke a one.  Then I bonded it to the stone there.  It generates power for me, and light, such as it is."  Her dancing hand is joined by the other and the Doctor looks away quickly, intent on the structure of the nervous system.
"I suppose you ate the remaining pulp?"  The Doctor steps further away from the dancing fingers and toward the entrance of a chamber closed by flickering blue light.  He hears the whimpers and looks in to see Phillip curled around himself in a back corner, sobbing.
"Not all at once."  The Hag leans on her knobby curved cane and rises from the bench, moving toward the Doctor.  Her free hand is marking its pattern faster than before.  "Much of it has been useful elsewhere; the bones, particularly."
The Doctor glances again at Phillip and moves away from the advancing Hag.
"What are you going to do with that?"  He nods toward Phillip who is now sitting up, hope forming on his face.  The Hag's fingers are whirling as she hobbles forward.  Passing the door, she grabs a handful of the blue light and throws it at the Doctor. It spreads, forming a flickering bubble around him.  Phillip wails with dismay.
"Arragh!"  Sparks fly where the blue fire touches him and the Doctor pulls away from it.  "Is this necessary?"
"You are asking too many questions, as usual.  You will remain here, for now."  The Hag passes through the flickering blue curtain and closes in on Phillip, cowering again in the corner.
"What?  Detention again?  You know, in all my memory, you are the only person I ever knew who had neither humor or compassion.  I never understood why they trusted the minds of children to you."
"Quiet, pest, or I will show you the Power of the First Dynamic."  The Hag is intent on Phillip.  "Look, my pretty, at my fingers...see the patterns weaving...now, stand and give me your arm, boy."  Phillip relaxes and complies, offering his left arm with a sleepy yawn.  The Hag leans over, bracing it with one hand as she draws a long sharp fingernail along the forearm, inside his elbow.
"No!  Phillip!  Resist her control!"  The Doctor pushes against the flickering blue bubble around him until it lashes back with a jolt of lightning.  The Hag pulls Phillip's arm to her mouth and laps at the blood flowing from the jagged incision.  He whimpers faintly but offers no resistance.
The Doctor feels his pockets frantically, finding the insulated proton convection unit in his breast pocket by accident.  He smiles faintly, makes an adjustment and cautiously turns a tiny knob at the bottom of the shaft.  A small buzz, a flash of yellow around the Doctor and the flickering blue bubble fades away.  In his hand, the tool buzzes, a yellow light flashing on the handle until the Doctor turns it off.
Dropping Phillip's arm, the Hag turns toward the Doctor and howls as she hobbles through the flickering curtain at the chamber entrance.
"Squeeze that arm tight, Phillip.  Hold it up over your heart and press the cut to stop the bleeding."  The Doctor retreats from the Hag, looking over his shoulder as he hurries away.  The silent girl in his path says nothing when he stumbles into her, an aura of blue light sparkling along her skin.
"Excuse me - Sarah!"  He sees that her eyes are vacant and looks back at the approaching Hag.
"You've found my new Companion.  She has a lovely voice, I thought she would make a fine harp to sing for me."  The Hag grabs the Doctor's wrist and blue fire snakes up his arm, encircles his head, enfolds his body as his struggling stops.  His eyes remain alive and angry.
"Your energy is strong, Doctor.  I can use your anger, it will sustain me, generate power.  The Companion is weak and needs rest."  The Doctor closes his eyes and after a moment begins to recite.
"The First Dynamic of Space and Time is: In order to be Utilised, it must be Defined.  The Second Dynamic of Space and Time is: Balance is Motion, Motion does not exist alone.  The Third Dynamic of Space and Time is: A Circle is not a Whole, it is only a Beginning.  The Fourth Dynamic of Space...."
"Don't lecture me you fool!"  The Hag pulls his sagging body along, returning to Phillip's cell.
"A plus the quantity B plus C equals A plus B plus C.  This is the Additive Principle.  A plus zero equals A.  This is Additive Identity.  The Additive Inverse is A plus the quantity minus A equals zero."
The blue glow dims slightly, the Doctor continues his recitations over the Hag's objections,  "A plus B equals B plus A.  This is the Commutative Principle.  The Associative Principle is the quantity A times B times C equals A times the quantity B times C."  The blue fades further while the Hag leads the unresisting Doctor to the flickering curtain across the chamber door.  He twists away as she shoves him through the curtain and the blue fire surges around him once more.  Thrown into the chamber, he lands limp and helpless on the floor.  Phillip looks up, but does not move, he is pale and withdrawn.
"It doesn't work.  Don't waste your energy trying to escape.  I'll feed on you later.  Your generations are rich and may keep you alive and conscious longer than I originally planned."  The Hag laughs again.  No longer wheezing and weak, she seems vital, if aged.  She holds her cane rather than leaning on it, caressing the bony projections along its length with her thumb.
"Even at her strongest, the Companion never produced such potent emanations.  A fine aperitif.  Now, I believe there is time for some music before Dinner."  Leaving the Doctor and Phillip in the chamber, she returns to Sarah, talking, perhaps to the Companion.
"That was a pretty piece she was singing before.  Perhaps she will sing it again for us.  There now my sweet, let us have a bit of a song..."
 

In the chamber behind her, the Doctor is still reciting.  "Multiplicative Identity is A times 1 equals A, except when A equals zero.  The Multiplicative Inverse is A times 1 over A equals 1."   A flute sounds from the cave beyond.
"The Commutative Principle applied to multiplication is that A times B equals B times A.  The Distributive principle is A times the quantity B plus C equals A times B plus A times C."  The blue glow weakens and the Doctor continues his recitations as he cautiously stretches.  Realizing he is free, he becomes silent and smiles broadly as he crawls over to Phillip and sits up.  The piping changes key and cadence.  The piper is experimenting, looking for a tune.
"How's that arm?"  The Doctor reaches for it.  Phillip pulls away with a small cry.  "Has the bleeding stopped?  Here,"  The Doctor digs through his pockets and finds a large striped handkerchief, clean and folded.  "Let's tie it up with this.  No sense losing what blood she left you."  He offers the kerchief and Phillip hesitantly offers his arm in turn.
"She left me here and took Sarah - she came back and was cutting me when the noise started."  The Doctor inspects and bandages the wound and raises it over Phillip's head.  "She said something about the Companion and ran out.  Where is Sarah, have you seen her?  The blue light in the door, is it electricity?  It hurts to touch it."
"It's as close to electricity as it is to radiation.  It's an amplification of her neural generations, or those of the Companion."
"That tool, was it the pro - something unit?  What did it do?  Could you use it to get us out of here?"
"Proton convection unit.  The low frequency she generates nearly overloaded it.  I need to discharge it before I use it again.  Here."  He takes Phillip's free hand, placing it over the bandage.  "Hold this.  With pressure, like that.  Good."   Searching his pockets again, he does not find the blue and red proton convection unit.
"Fratz!  I must have dropped it."  He stands next to the door and looks out.  "I don't see it."  The Doctor turns to face Phillip.  "Yes, I've seen Sarah.  The Hag fancies her, but what she plans isn't pretty.  We need to get out of here, how do you feel?"
"I think the bleeding stopped.  Shall I look?" Phillip lowers his arm.
"No!  Leave it up a while longer.  Rest a bit and let me think."  He paces and the flute changes again, this time approximating the beginner's waltz that Sarah had been singing.  A voice joins, humming some of the notes.
"Sarah!  Doctor, that's Sarah singing!"  Phillip stands and sits again suddenly, shaking his head.  "Doctor, why is she singing?"
"She may not have any more choice about it than you did."  The flute stops and the humming continues for a few notes before falling off.  The Hag is speaking, then the flute, followed by Sarah humming just behind, an eerie echo, as though being led through the song on a short leash.  The music stops and the Hag speaks again, her tones admonishing but the words indistinct.
"She can't do it, you know."  The Doctor calls,  "You'll have to restore her will before she'll sing for you.  Without it, she is merely an instrument.  Or an echo."
"She knows the melody.  Cells retain memory past the genetic levels.  With stimulus, she should discharge them."  Phillip cowers in the corner when the Hag appears at the chamber entrance to continue the discussion.
"That's my point."  The Doctor stands a discreet distance from the flickering blue curtain between them.  "It requires stimulus, will, to animate those cellular memories.  Preferably her own."
"She needs training, that's all.  She is sentient and intelligent."  The Hag is adamant.  "She will learn."
"Even a conscious harp needs someone to pluck the strings.  Who is being trained while you are doing that, the harp or the player?"  The Doctor steps away, as the Hag seems to swell slightly.  The blue lightning flickers faster and then fades back to normal as the Hag turns away without a word.
"I've got the old girl riled now."  The Doctor squats to look at Phillip's arm.  "She'll be back in a bit with an appropriate punishment for my insolence."
"You act like you know her, is that why you're not afraid of her?"
"She was my Primary School teacher.  She believed that repetition was the heart of learning and creativity was a form of disobedience.  As a child, I was very much afraid of her.  Now I know why."  Folding the ends of the handkerchief around Phillip's arm, the Doctor ties it and stands.  The walls of the chamber are just higher than his reach, built of unevenly shaped rocks and boulders.  With a jump, he catches the edge of the wall and begins to climb over the open top until a bolt of blue flickers from the door and knocks him loose.  He lands back inside the chamber with a thud.
"Doctor!"
"Well, that didn't work."  The Doctor sits up and studies the chamber.  Phillip begins to cry.  "Don't give up yet, my boy."
In the cave beyond the chamber, the music lesson continues as before.  It stops periodically and the Hag's voice is heard.  The Doctor begins to explore the resources in his pockets and Phillip is distracted from his despair as he watches the Doctor's inventory.  He soon begins to investigate the contents of his own pockets.
The music lesson changes slightly.  The Hag's voice takes up the melody and Sarah follows as before.  After several repetitions the Hag finds lyrics to sing.

"Hush a bye dearie, be quiet and sleep.
If you don't dearie, it's you I will eat.
You know that I'm hungry, you know I need meat,
And I know you're tender and juicy and sweet..."

She laughs a dry cackle and sings it over until Sarah begins to follow her words.  When the Hag stops singing, Sarah completes the line and stops.  The Hag spits angry sounds and the Doctor laughs quietly, shaking his head.  The process begins again, the Hag leading Sarah through the song.
"What have you got, Phillip?"  The Doctor looks at the pile and the Hag starts the song again.
"A couple bent nails, piece of wire, bit of string, a pocket mirror, marbles..."
"Not bad.  I've got this."  The Doctor produces an orange.  "Want it?"  Phillip's eyes light up and he catches it easily when the Doctor tosses it.  "Thought so.  Mind if I use these?"   Phillip shakes his head and tears at the orange.  He eats and watches while the Doctor takes the nails and wire, twisting a shape, binding nails and an assortment of items from his pocket.  Concentrating on the Doctor's progress, they do not notice a movement outside the chamber.
"Phillip!"  Hannah's voice is little more than a whisper.  Phillip looks around.
"Mother!"  His voice is loud with delight.  Hannah's figure slips away and the Doctor motions for silence.  They remain still, listening for changes in the monotony of the music lesson.  The verse ends and begins again, the Doctor returns to his puzzle with a sigh of relief and Hannah reappears beyond the flickering blue curtain.
"Shhh.  Phillip, are you all right?"  He nods.  "Good.  What has been done to Sarah?"
"Hypnosis or mesmerism."  The Doctor balances a small brass key on his invention as he speaks in low tones.  "An induced trance state.  She should recover if we can get her free.  It would help if I had the proton convection unit.  Do you see it lying about out there?"  The pocket mirror is inserted along the axis, a pencil behind it for support.
"It would help if I knew what you were talking about."  Hannah's whisper has a sharp edge as she looks around her.
"It's got a blue handle with red bars sticking out, Mother.  It's a bit longer than a fountain pen and as big around as a shilling."  Phillip's voice is closer to a whisper, this time.  The sound of the music lesson changes, the Hag stops singing and Sarah continues until the end of the song.  Hannah slips around a corner, out of sight.
"Need your will to sing?  Young fool thinks to tell ME how to teach!  Come along, my sweet, we'll show him what can be done."  The Hag appears outside the chamber, a bone flute in one hand.  Sarah follows with blue fire dancing on her skin and in her hair, her eyes still empty.  "Listen.  We shall have music before Dinner."  The Hag raises her flute and plays the monotonous waltz once more.  Sarah remains silent.
"You learned that piece quite well, teacher."  The Doctor bubbles with laughter and even Phillip is grinning.  "But I think your harp needs tuning.  Try this."  He thrusts his construction into the flickering curtain at the chamber door and it begins to spin.  There is a shrill whine and a flash in the cavern.  The Hag screams.  Grabbing Phillip, the Doctor dives out of the chamber, separates Sarah from the Hag and herds the children up the path to the tunnel and the TARDIS.
"Phillip!  Get your sister back to the TARDIS and wait there.  I'll hold off the Hag and bring up the rear with your mother."  The Hag is close behind them, Phillip gulps back a question and takes Sarah up the rise away from the green gloom and into the safety of darkness.
Turning to face the Hag, the Doctor sees Hannah beyond, holding the blue and red tool, watching her children stumble toward freedom.  Flashes of blue light strike the Doctor when he confronts the Hag and Hannah looks away.  She inspects the tool briefly; a knob on one end that might turn, a pair of small round beads inset near that end having no apparent function and three rods jutting out at angles from the other end.  Hannah seeks a hiding place as the Hag grabs the unresisting Doctor by his ear and begins to lead him back to her lair.
Raising her free hand, the Hag begins to weave a pattern with her fingers.  Above her, a green cloud coalesces.  "Find the children, secure them for me."  The cloud trails off, a phosphorescent ghost in search of the living.
 

Listen...
...in the shadowed rocky dark, it is easier to hear than see two children staggering blind into obstacles, one sobbing with fear, the other being led, unaware and without a will.  The darkness begins to glow green behind them and the boy pulls his older sister behind a cone shaped rock to hide.  He gulps his loud and ragged breath, crouching beside his sister as a green cloud appears above the path and follows it to the cone sheltering the children.  It hovers there beside them for a long moment, circles them and covers Sarah, surrounding her with luminescence.  Her face gains an expression, her eyes are no longer vacant.
"Sarah!"  Phillip takes her hand and tries to pull her from the cloud, but it remains with her.  She removes her hand from his.
"The Companion, I be, nae Sarah."  The voice is halting, the words flavored with an unfamiliar accent.  "And once a name had I, but gone it is, like I from the world into this eternity."
"What about Sarah?  I mean, if you're not Sarah, where is she?"
"Locked safe behind the blue fire, unharmed and waiting release.  She Who Commands hath given me to secure thee for Her."
"Do - do you always obey her?"  Unimaginable for Phillip.
"I think me no."  There is a ghost of a smile on Sarah's lips.  "For all that tha'art bonny, thy company and thy sister's wouldn'a make this Purgatory a fairer place.  This once, there is aught else I might choose to do."  The Companion stretches Sarah's arms and back, breathes and looks.  "Tis as I remembered it, sweet and whole.  Come, we must make haste."
The Companion, as Sarah, lights the way to the oily puddle at the bottom of the tunnel.  Finding the rope, they climb and shove and pull each other up the steep chute and around the corner, unimpeded by the slime.  They rest when they come to where the shovel and spray can were abandoned.  With Sarah's eyes, the Companion surveys the damage as Phillip inspects the hoses on the green can.
"Part of my body, this once was, although what part I canna tell."  Sarah the Companion strokes the wall lightly.  "She Who Creates removed me from it, changing my form, replacing my flesh with freedom and pain."  She joins Phillip beside the green can.  "Have a care with this strange cask, for poisons it contained, or Magic, to sear the flesh from bone.  He who bore it is like to She Who Appeared in the Darkness.  Kin, mayhap."
"The Doctor told me the Hag was his teacher."
"Learned well, did he, of Pain.  Let us go now before She Who Opens becomes She Who Closes, an' us still in the door."  The Companion within Sarah takes the rope again and leads Phillip on the upward climb.
 

Behind them, the Doctor is laid on a stone table by the Hag.  Blue fire sparkling over his skin, his hair flexes with the strength of the charge he carries, but his eyes are closed and he is still.  She paces around the table, depending again on her curved and bony cane for support.  Her free hand starts spiraling into a dance and stops as she mutters with dissatisfaction, to start another partial dance.
Tucked into a hollow between the rock supports of that table, Hannah sits curled, while the Hag's feet and legs circle her position.  Discovering a small black button on the end of the smooth enamel tool in her hand, she twists it.  At a quarter turn, a bead at the bottom begins to blink yellow.  Hannah stops and waits.  The blink is slow and nothing else seems to be happening, the red bead beside it remains inert.  After a moment, she cautiously feels the red rods, a quick, light touch that does not cause her alarm or discomfort.
"Where is the Life Force?  Where are you going?"  The Hag looks at the Companion's neural network, splayed on the wall above her.  As she watches, the light begins to fade.  She looks at the Doctor, unmoving and glistening blue under her control.
"Come back to me.  You are my Companion, I created and I control you."  The hand of the Hag begins a dance of summoning now and completes it as she starts away toward the path in pursuit of the Companion and the children.  There is no green glowing cloud above her, she lights the way with the blue fire around her head, leaning heavy on her crooked cane.
"You cannot leave me because you do not exist without me.  Where have you gone?"  Her voice, cracked and querulous is heard until she rounds the crest of the rise and hobbles into the darkness.
The light continues to decline and Hannah carefully emerges from her hiding place.  Standing, she sees the Doctor on the table and leans over him.
"Doctor?"  A touch of her hand to his shoulder gives her a shock, and she jumps, suppressing a yelp.  The tool drops from her hand and lands on the table, round end rolling slightly to touch the Doctor.
"Now what am I supposed to do?"  Hannah glances after the Hag, looks at the slowly fading green lacework mounted on the cave wall, the outer filaments turning grey.  She does not notice the Doctor open his eyes.
"Did you find the proton convection unit?"  His voice is a ragged whisper.
"Doctor!  I thought you'd been electrocuted."   Her whisper squeaks with panic.
"Close enough, did you find the tool?"  He sparkles, the blue fire glowing brighter with his efforts to move.
"Is this what you wanted?"  She offers it, handle first.  The bead is still blinking.
"The yellow light - did you turn it on?"  He cannot raise his hand to take it.
"I turned the button at the end.  Shall I put this in your hand?"
"No, turn the knob until the red light blinks once or twice and put the red end of the tool against my skin."
Hannah slowly turns the knob until the red bead blinks and puts the rods to the Doctor's hand.  There is a small flash and the Doctor grabs the tool from her and turns it off before the red light blinks another time.
"Let it blink five times and it will be the last thing that happens to you.  Where is the Hag?"  The Doctor sits up.
"She went off after the children.  I think her companion may be escaping with them."  She helps him off the table.
"What happened to the light?"  He indicates the green tracery diminishing on the wall.
"It started fading just before she left."
"After you turned on the proton convection unit?"
She nods and he turns, contemplating the wall.  Proton convection unit raised, he turns the knob and presses it in.  The red light glows steady and there is a hum from the tool as a beam, a visible vibration shoots from the tip of the unit to the densest part of the green pattern on the cave wall.  The Companion glows more brightly, the color shifting from green to yellow.  Moments later the tool emits a buzz and the Doctor turns it off.  The red light remains on, to the Doctor's surprise.  The vibrating beam does not cease and the yellow light begins to blink again.
"Hannah, how fast can you run?"  He taps the knob and shakes the tool.
"As fast as I've needed to."
"You need to run fast right now.  Get as far away as you can."  Hannah hesitates.
"What about you?"
"I'll take care of myself.  You go!"
She runs up the rise, slowing occasionally to look over her shoulder.  The Doctor does not watch her retreat, intent on the tool in his hand.  The yellow bead blinks faster and the beam between the tip of the tool and the wall begins to appear as light.  When the yellow light in the handle becomes steady, the Doctor presses the button on the end, drops the proton convection unit on the table and runs after Hannah.
Clearing the top of the rise just behind her, he sweeps her around a sheltering boulder as a violet flash erupts from the wall.  Hannah struggles as he presses her face into his chest; the light burns white and illuminates the cavern clearly.  In the distance, the Hag can be seen at the bottom of the tunnel.  There is a circle of blue fire around it and a flat black centre, growing within.
"What was that?"  Hannah attempts to put a respectable distance between them.
"The first wave.  Keep down, the explosion should erupt about...now!"  He pulls her back as the cave rocks with concussive force.  The Companion's wall collapses with a roar and a cloud of dust.  There are screams and then silence and blackness.
Shadows form in dust, settling through a shaft of golden white light; the chuckle of running water is heard as Hannah and the Doctor sit up and brush away the gravel and dirt.  There is no sign of the Hag in the rubble where she was last seen.  A small stream of water trickles from the opening above them and vanishes in the scree at the bottom of the slope.
"What happened?"  Hannah looks back toward the collapsed wall and then at the rest of the cave.  "Where are we?  Where is the Hag?  Does that cut hurt?"  She brushes the hair from a gash above his ear.
"I think we killed the Companion, or at least destroyed what was left of its body."  He pulls his head out of Hannah's reach and walks over to study the path up to the hole.
"From the looks of it, the Hag was applying the First Dynamic of Space and Time to create another door.  The explosion may have blown her out of the Space Time Continuum."  He stirs the debris thoughtfully with the toe of his shoe.  "As to where we are - wherever it is, this is the way out."  He climbs the first boulder and offers her his hand.  "Shall we go?"
The pile of gravel and shattered rock at the cave entrance does not extend as far as a pair of holly trees, standing like sentinels beside a path leading into a circle of ancient oaks.  In the centre is a blue police box.  Hannah runs to throw her arms around the nearest oak tree, her words inaudible.  The Doctor hurries to the TARDIS and Hannah slips through the door just behind him.
"Where are Sarah and Phillip?"  She doesn't wait for an answer, going into the corridor and turning left while the Doctor checks the console in the control room.  He catches up with her outside the undulating door.  Phillip is pushing at a hazy barrier across the middle of the pink room.  He is shouting, but he cannot be heard.  Sarah has the aura of the Companion around her, she smiles and shakes her head.
Phillip stops struggling against the barrier when the Doctor appears and steps into the room far enough to touch and pierce the transparent wall.  Phillip grabs at the Doctor's hand and is pulled into the corridor to be fussed at by his mother.  The Doctor returns for Sarah and she evades his grasp before she is caught and hauled into the TARDIS.
"That's not Sarah, Mother!"  Hannah releases her son to embrace her silent daughter and notices the aura.
"Sarah?  Doctor, Phillip, what's happened to her?"
"Do'na fret.  Safe, she is and unharmed."
"It's the Companion, Mother, she helped us escape."  Phillip  begins the story when Sarah-the-Companion turns to speak to the Doctor.
"Pain have I known at the hands of She Who Binds.  Unbound, am I and living still, free beyond the freedom of the mists.  Tis pleasure you have given me for my pain, an the touch of the Savior beyond my Purgatory.  Wondrous be the Halls of Heaven!  I shall remain here until the end of Time."  The Companion looks around her, satisfaction showing on Sarah's face.  The Doctor does not look so pleased.
"Return the child's body.  You cannot remain in it."
"Free am I, beyond the flesh, retaining this only to speak my thanks.  T'was sweet to live this way, I would it were mine again.  How'er, this Heaven seemeth a suitable reward."  A pale green cloud forms around Sarah's head and rises, hovering like a halo until Sarah blinks her eyes and wakes.  She reaches out, lightly touches the cloud above her and laughs.
"The Companion says she thinks she will like you Doctor, and that your home seems large enough for both of you."  The cloud circles the Doctor before it flows away, exploring.  The Doctor's look of annoyance goes unnoticed as Sarah greets her mother and scolds her brother, everyone talking at once.
 

It is another midsummer twilight, indigo, violet and magenta, when Hannah and her children leave the TARDIS, wounds dressed and faces washed, ready for the short hike home.  Farewells and regrets are given at the door and Hannah escorts her children to the path through the woods and the graveled lane.  Phillip lags behind, looking back.
"Phillip, keep up.  It's getting dark and I don't want to lose you again.  As it is I've lost an excellent manure shovel and I suppose we'll need a new picnic hamper."  The screech and wail of the vanishing TARDIS cuts through the evening and Phillip breaks away, running back to watch the dematerialisation.
The TARDIS has vanished when Hannah catches up with Phillip.  The last light of dusk shows grass trampled up to the doorway of the absent TARDIS.  Past that point, the grass is undisturbed, as though nothing had been there, except for a slightly battered picnic hamper and a square blade manure shovel remaining in the meadow beyond.