Chapter Five: Haunted By the Past

It was the middle of the night and Lisa was fast asleep in the guestroom of Doc’s house. Einstein was curled up at the foot of the bed, snoring in the way dogs do. All was quiet, save for the breathing of the inhabitants of the house, so Lisa wasn’t quite sure what woke her.

She sat upright in bed, confused and disoriented. Einstein looked up, concerned. He woofed softly, speaking to her, asking if she was all right.

Looking around, she said, “I don’t know…something’s not right.”

“Bad dream?” Einstein asked.

“No…” In fact, it had been quite pleasant. She’d been reliving memories of her past, back when she was with another, very different, time traveler.

So what had woken her?

Then she felt it. Around her neck, where she kept her ankh, her other necklace tingled. Reaching beneath the t-shirt she was wearing, she pulled out a key. It was glowing; weakly, yes, but it was glowing.

She stared at it in disbelief. This couldn’t be. What that key went to was light-years away, sitting beside her house on Alnilam. It only glowed when the machine was materializing somewhere nearby.

But, it couldn’t. The owner of that machine was dead.

“What’s that?” Einstein asked.

“The key to my friend’s time machine…not Doc’s.”

“I figured that.”

“Yeah…it only glows when it’s materializing. But, it can’t. It’s on Alnilam and he’s dead.”

“But if it’s a time machine, isn’t it possible that he could have time traveled to now?”

Lisa smiled. He was always very smart. Doc had a knack for picking out intelligent animals.

“He could’ve, but he didn’t. I would’ve remembered.”

“Were you constantly with him?”

She shut her eyes, remembering.

“You can’t rewrite history, not one line!”

“Logic merely enables one to be wrong with authority.”

“I’ve reversed the polarity of the neutron flow.”

“Would you like a jelly baby?”

“The regeneration is failing…”

“I am the Doctor…whether you like it or not.”

“There are worlds out there where the sky’s burning…where the sea’s asleep and the rivers dream…people made of smoke and cities made of song…somewhere there’s danger, somewhere there’s injustice, somewhere else the tea is getting cold…”

“Right! Where to next?”

“I’m fine, really. You worry too much.”

“Ready to go! All powered up!”

“Lisa?”

“Lisa.”

“Lisa…please…look after the universe for me…I’ve put a lot of work into it…”

“Yes,” she said finally, opening her eyes and closing her fist around the key, which had stopped glowing but was still faintly tingling. “Well, mostly. But he would’ve told me. If we’d come back to Hill Valley, I’d remember.”

End chapter five.

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