Mythical Creatures Scene 4: Green Light
“Are you sure about this?” Forest asked after the show. He had sent the percussion section home right away, allowing him a private conversation with his sister.
“No, I’m not sure,” Tansy sighed. “All I have to go on are Mom’s drawings. But whoever it was… there was definitely something strange about him.”
“This is a nightclub. Everyone who comes in is strange.”
She snickered and shook her head. “I know it’s a long shot,” she admitted, “but I have to find out. If that was him, if that was the Doctor… Forest, I have to meet him. I have to know…”
They were interrupted by a commotion from the stage door.
“I’m from Seven Days,” a man with an English accent was saying. “See? Here’s my press pass.”
“I don’t care who you think you are,” a bouncer retorted. “No guests in the dressing room.”
“I don’t think you understand…”
“No, I don’t think you understand.”
Tansy leapt up and dashed down the corridor. There he was, arguing with the bouncer; the same man she’d seen in the audience, at least, if not the one she was looking for.
“Let him through,” she ordered. “He’s invited.”
The guard gave her a look, and then obeyed. The Doctor stepped past him, and she motioned him into the lounge. Forest moved in behind her, the protective older brother. “If this is him, he hasn’t aged,” he murmured. “Twenty years and he hasn’t aged.” She waved him into silence.
“Before you say anything,” she said, turning to the Doctor, “I have to know if you really are who I think you are.” Laying a hand on his chest, she ducked down and listened, first to one side, and then the other. Then she barked a laugh and clapped her hand over her mouth.
“Forest, it’s true!” she gasped. “It’s all true!”
“There are easier ways to get in contact with alien life, than writing songs and books,” the Doctor grinned.
“You didn’t leave Mom your phone number,” Forest accused. “All you left her was that pendant, and it didn’t even mean anything.”
“It meant everything,” the Doctor began, but a sharp look cut him short.
Tansy, still giggling, found a cushion and sat down. By the time she calmed down enough to speak, there were tears in her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she breathed. “I just can’t quite believe this is real.”
“It’s real, all right,” he smiled, leaning in close and tracing a finger down her cheek. “Here I am, in the flesh.”
“Don’t you dare start flirting with my sister!” Forest snapped. “It’s disgusting! Do you forget she was inside our mother when you slept with her?”
“When I what?” the Doctor demanded, whirling to face him.
“You heard me.”
“She didn’t tell you that?” he not-quite-asked. “She couldn’t have told you that. She wouldn’t have lied. All right, we slept together literally, but not the way you mean. We never even kissed.”
“Yeah, right.”
“Don’t think you’re the first overprotective young male I’ve met.” He pointed a finger at Forest, made a little circle in the air, then poked him in the chest. “I don’t have to listen to your accusations. I don’t even know why I’m bothering to defend myself.”
Forest opened his mouth to reply, then stopped and began to laugh. “You’re drunk,” he decided.
“No, no, I’ve only had one drink,” the Doctor insisted. “Lost a bit of blood, though. Do you know there was a vampire stalking this club?” His hand went to the two small puncture wounds over his jugular vein. “Don’t worry, I took care of it. But a bite does strange things to a body.”
“Yeah? Stranger than what you did to my mom’s?”
“Hey!” cried Tansy, shoving her way in between them. She laid her hand on the Doctor’s arm. “Mom never claimed anything happened between you. He just can’t believe that, lively as she is, she would be capable of sharing a bed with a man and keeping her hands to herself.”
“If he is a man,” Forest muttered.
“You should give you Mum more credit,” the Doctor sighed, shaking his head. “She was very kind to me. A perfect gentlewoman.”
Forest snorted, but Tansy smiled. She was beginning to understand.
“All our lives, she told us about you,” she said, returning to her seat. “Like a bedtime story. After a while I stopped believing, the way children do when they get older, and she stopped telling the story. But then the accident happened…”
“What accident?” he asked, sitting beside her.
“It was a car crash,” she explained. “Six years ago. Our father died, and Mom was in the hospital for a while. The nurses said she kept asking for the doctor only to send him away. They thought she was confused because of the pain medication. It was only when I saw it happen that I understood. I don’t remember exactly what she said, just that I realized that ‘Doctor’ wasn’t a title; it was a name. She meant you.” She grabbed his hands and looked in his eyes. “Newly widowed, seriously injured, and she wanted you, an alleged alien she’d known for less than a day. I don’t know if I started believing again at that point, but I was certain that she did. I had to find you, whatever you might be, if you even existed at all. I’m the one who encouraged her to publish those stories, and I wrote the song. I couldn’t think of any other way to reach you, to bring you back to her.”
“That is why you’re here, isn’t it?” asked Forest, grudgingly, refusing to even look at him. “You came to see her again?”
The Doctor considered. He hadn’t come to Vermont with that intention, or with any conscious intention at all, but certainly it was why he’d come to the club.
“Yes,” he said.
“I’ll set up a date,” Tansy offered. “Lunch tomorrow, 12:30. Her favorite restaurant is right on Church Street. In the morning, you should take a ride on the ferry, because if anyone can see the lake monster, it’s you.”
* * * * *
Passing off his psychic paper as a season ticket, he did as she suggested. Very briefly, at the deepest part of the lake, he saw something large and sinuous swimming by. No one else seemed to notice it, and even his eyes could not make out the details.
Scene Selection
1. The Earth Line 6. Three Days 2. Based on a True Story 7. Cassiopeia 3. Tempus Vivat 8. Connection 4. Green Light 9. No Happy Endings 5. Reunion Commentary