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I've heard the Song all my life; or, at least, for as long as I can remember. To be honest, it was a long time before I realised that most other people couldn't hear it.
Usually it's just there, in the background. Occasionally, it's discordant, jangling. Often, for a few moments, or even a whole day or two, it's heartbreakingly beautiful.
It gets weaker, the further away I am from Cardiff - perhaps that's why I've never moved. But it never goes away completely.
But sometimes ... Sometimes it's like a roaring wind and the brightest sunshine and silently drifting snow, all at once.
Those are the times that I remember most clearly.
* * *
1963
It was a Saturday afternoon. The day before I'd just been paid for the very first time, my £6 6s for doing a lot of typing and a little bit of filing down at the council feeling like a fortune. Still living with my parents, not having to worry about rent or bills, I was determined to get myself something nice with it.
As I turned the corner at the end of the road, past the police box, I almost ran into the most oddly dressed woman I'd ever seen. She had trousers that only came three-quarters of the way down her legs, held up by multi-coloured braces.
The Swinging Sixties hadn't really reached Cardiff at that point. But somehow, despite what she was wearing, despite the fact that she was grinning at me as though I was someone she'd known for years, the woman herself didn't seem odd to me at all. Perhaps it was because I could hear the Song, loud and clear, stronger than I ever had before. It wasn't coming from her, but it was as though she was ... connected to it.
"Hello, love," she said.
"Hello?" I said tentatively.
Suddenly, she reached into a pocket and pulled out some sort of high-tech device. "Oh, don't worry, this won't hurt," she said. She made some adjustments on its base and then waved it in my general direction.
The Song had changed, settled into a gentler rhythm. It was still loud, though, and still somehow swirling around her.
"What did you just do?" I asked her.
"I just adjusted the resonance a bit," she said. "Nothing to worry about, I promise!"
Suddenly I felt a little cold. I pulled up my collar and headed to the bus stop.
I wondered if they had anything at the shops with pockets.
* * *
1972
"Hello, ma'am," said the man who came to sit beside me at the bar.
"No one calls me 'ma'am'," I said. At the office, I was still "Siân" as far as everyone was concerned, even if I was their supervisor now. It was the people above me in the food chain who'd taken to calling me "Miss Morgan".
"Well, then, I'm the first." He smiled -- an easy, confident smile. The sort of smile I felt as though I could very easily be taken in by. I think I would have been, too -- it was obvious that he was turning on the charm, but there was no harm in that in and of itself -- if it weren't for the Song. Somehow, it had gone off-key around him. But it still seemed linked to him, as it had with the woman almost a decade ago. It was as though he was a note that didn't quite fit.
We made some small talk. As these things do, the conversation turned to the world of work.
"So, you work for the government," he said.
"Just local government," I demurred. "And you ...?"
"Beyond the government," he said.
"Oh, really?" I said, doing my best to sound unimpressed.
"You've heard of Torchwood?"
I had, of course; though what I knew about it was because of what was elided from official reports. If anything strange happened and UNIT weren't involved, you could guarantee that Torchwood were. "If I haven't, should you be telling me about it?"
He seemed to be glancing down at something in the pocket of his coat. Whatever it was seemed to interest him a great deal.
"I've been looking for someone," he said, putting his hand over mine. "For a long time."
Despite everything, it was obvious he wasn't talking about me. Not really. "Well, I hope you find them," I said. Then I finished my drink, and left.
I saw Jack again a few times, over the next few years. He would appear where I was, not quite by magic but definitely disconcerting. Sometimes he wanted information from me -- to be honest, I could never see the relevance of his questions, and it was hardly as though I knew anything that was properly secret, even if a lot of it was the sort of obscure stuff that no one else really cared about -- but more often he gave me information. Or advice.
Eventually, I worked up the courage to ask him about the Song, but he didn't seem to know what I was talking about. I never saw him again after that, though.
* * *
1987
I was on my way home from work. It was supposed to be a day off, but there'd been a crisis and they'd called me in. With the immediate problems dealt with, I was heading home again.
I was half-running for the bus -- not the most dignified I'd ever been in my life -- when I ran into the girl. Or perhaps she ran into me; given what happened next, I do wonder.
"Oh my god, I'm so sorry!" the girl said. "Er, hi, by the way. I'm Bill."
"Nice to meet you, Bill."
"Are you all right?" she asked.
"I'm fine," I said, though as I recovered myself I could tell that it was happening again; the Song was building in intensity. It had been a long time since it had been this powerful.
"Are you sure? I think I should take you to my friend--"
"No, honestly, I'm fine."
"I insist," Bill said. "He's in the café down the road, I can buy you a cup of tea or something to apologise."
I was about to say, "There's no need, honestly" but the words died on my lips at the look in her eyes.
By the time we reached the café, I was at least feeling better enough to refuse the cup of tea. The offer of meeting Bill's friend, though, I could hardly pass up.
The Song was strange around him; it seemed to take on a rock 'n' roll tinge, in a hypnotic sort of way. He was an older man, with white hair that made him look permanently startled, and--
"Why is he wearing sunglasses indoors?" I asked Bill, in a stage whisper.
"It's his thing," Bill said, sounding rather disgruntled about it.
"Sit down," the man said. "Please," he added at a glare from Bill. "Please sit down."
He tapped the side of the glasses and the same thing happened that I'd experienced with the woman all those years ago: the Song changed, becoming more subtle.
"So, is it her?" Bill asked.
"Oh," the man said, turning to her. "No, actually it's not."
Shades of what Jack had said.
"But I thought--"
I stood up. "Well, I hope you find whoever it is you're really looking for."
As I was leaving, I heard Bill say, "So what was that all about then?"
"Just a loose end, from long ago in the future," the man told her.
* * *
1994
The next time I'm pretty sure being knocked over was an accident. The man and the young woman he was with did seem to be in a desperate hurry.
He stopped, though, to check that I was all right. A huge hat and a long scarf looped round multiple times framed a face that really needed no framing at all, between the extravagantly curly hair and toothy smile. He was like the ones I'd seen before, but unlike too -- around him, the Song turned into something like a jazz improvisation.
"I'm terribly sorry," he said. "You see, my friend and I are rather in a rush--"
"You're another one, aren't you?" I said.
The man looked startled, his eyes bulging. "Am I?" he said. "Am I indeed? How very interesting."
"Are you going to--"
"Doctor!" the girl said, tugging on his sleeve. Her bob of black hair was. "Ice Warriors, remember?"
"Ah, yes," the man said. He held out a hand to pull me to my feet, somehow doffing his hat to me at the same time. "I am afraid I must be elsewhere."
"Ice Warriors?" I said, sounding rather stupid, I thought.
"And not the friendly kind, as it turns out," the girl said.
"Just a couple of chaps who've defrosted a few millennia early," the man said. "Nothing for you to worry to worry about."
And then they were gone.
* * *
2006
It was one of the more tedious meetings I'd sat in in the course of my career, and by this stage that was saying something.
The planning process for the new power station had been tortuous, and the objections numerous, not least to demolishing the castle. The fact that the mayor had been able to drive it through so quickly -- in retrospect, I should have smelt a rat.
But then, the new mayor had a strange version of the Song about her as well. I wasn't involved in that many meetings with her, but whenever I was I got the oddest prickling sensation on my skin.
"We need a new name," the mayor said. "The public opposition--"
"With all due respect, ma'am," Matthew said, "the extra paperwork that would be occasioned--"
Matthew always said 'with all due respect' before disagreeing with someone, it was only by the tone of voice he did it in that you could tell whether he actually respected you or not.
"That's what you're for, isn't it? Paperwork and all that nonsense? Leave the important stuff to me and you can take care of the little details," she said, as though almost everything was a 'little detail' as far as she was concerned. "Come on, let's workshop this. That's what we do, isn't it?"
Matthew gave me a look, as though to say 'Is it?', before suggesting "Castle Power Station?"
"That might remind people--" I began.
But the mayor cut me off. "There are no wrong answers!" she said gleefully. Then changed her mind, "No, wait, there are, lots of them. But I'll decide, you all just give me names. Now!"
"New Dawn Power Station," said one of the others.
Half a dozen other suggestions, in English and in Welsh, followed. I was barely listening, though, as the Song was filling my head now, more than it ever had before. Not the same strange notes as tended to sound around the mayor, something much more primal.
"Blaidd Dwrg," I said -- almost shouted, I think, though it was hard to tell, the Song was so loud, so insistent. It had a drumbeat to it now, and for the first time there was -- it wasn't an image in my mind, not exactly. But an impression, a strong impression, of something living, a mind. The player of the Song obvious for the first time.
Almost immediately, Matthew's "With all due respect" came out, though at least I think I could tell he meant it in my case. "I think that's going to be a hard sell to the public."
"No, I think I like it," the mayor said. "We'll have that."
The Song was fading again, the moment over. I slumped back in my chair, but no one seemed to notice.
* * *
2006
I'd been out for the evening -- dinner with a few colleagues -- when the earthquake started. We came out into the Plass to see what was going on. Belatedly, someone remembered that you were supposed to stand inside a doorway, and so they tried to do so in the entrance to the restaurant, but the stream of people running away made it almost impossble.
There was a police box; even in the panic, I walked over to it. Not because you saw them so rarely these days -- and there certainly hadn't been one last time I'd been here -- but because it was inextricably linked to the Song. I had the same sense as I'd had, months earlier at the meeting, that I was hearing it as it was played.
I put my hand against its side and felt it throbbing, gently, in time to the bassline to the Song.
But then the Song began turning into a scream. Something was very wrong.
Just like everyone else, I ran.
* * *
2007
The doorbell rang. I finished pouring my tea, and then went to answer it.
Before I did, though, I heard the people outside talking, so I stopped in the hallway to listen.
"Are you sure this isn't some sort of hazing thing?" one was saying. "Every new recruit gets--"
"I promise you, Gwen, this is a genuine assignment," came the reply. "Sometimes they're quite pleasant. Miss Morgan makes a very nice cup of tea."
I harrumphed to myself before finally going to answer the door.
"Miss Morgan," the second voice said said, now attached to its owner. She flashed her ID. "It's me, Toshiko Sato from Torchwood, and this is my new colleague, Gwen Cooper. Do you remember me?"
"Oh yes, dear, of course I remember you," I said. "I might be getting a little old, but I'm not daft."
"Oh, no, that's not what I meant," she said hurriedly. "Just that you're so busy, you might not remember--"
"There are some things that are hard to forget," I said. "Do you want me to take your coats?" My mother had always set great store by hospitality. "The kettle's only just boiled, if you'd like a cup ..." I fought back a smile, not wanting them to know how much of their conversation I'd heard.
"That would be lovely, thank you," Toshiko said. "Milk, no sugar for me."
"One sugar," the other woman -- Gwen -- said.
A few minutes later we were all sat in the living room with refreshments.
"You know, it's funny," said Gwen after taking her first sip of tea. "One of my grandmothers was a Morgan, before she got married."
"Well, it's not all that uncommon a surname," I said, even though I could tell from the way that Toshiko was looking from me to her, and back again, as though we were playing tennis, that she was trying to size up the possibility that we might be related. It didn't seem impossible, as far as I was concerned.
"So, you've come from Torchwood," I said. "How's Jack these days? I imagine he's getting on a bit, like me."
"Oh, I don't know--" Gwen began.
"Oh, yes," Toshiko said, cutting across her. "He's definitely the sort of age you'd expect him to be now, given that you met him in the seventies." A strange way to phrase it, and the Gwen girl seemed to be giving her a very puzzled look.
"Still causing trouble, though, I hope?"
"Definitely," Toshiko said.
"So, what is it you do, Miss Morgan?" Gwen asked.
"I'm a civil servant," I said. "Local. Worked for the council all my life."
"She fixes things," Toshiko said. "Knows everything about everything in Cardiff, and can usually stop a problem before it starts."
"You're flattering me," I said, though I was secretly pleased. "Though, speaking of stopping problems before they start ..."
Gwen raised an eyebrow. Toshiko said, "Anything in particular you were thinking of?"
"That whole power station business last year," I said. "I rather expected my career to end in a decade of public inquiries and court cases and who knows what else. But it's all gone away. Torchwood's doing?"
Gwen looked at Toshiko; she really was very new, if she didn't even realise that was the sort of thing Torchwood could do. "Well, it did seem as though everyone would prefer that most things related to the Blaine administration were just quietly buried," Toshiko said. "I may have helped that process along a little."
"She's good with computers," Gwen affirmed.
"Like the one in her pocket?" I said.
"Oh," Gwen said. "You're onto us. That's--"
"--to be expected," I put in. "The real wonder is that there aren't more of us who are onto you. But a lot of people don't really pay attention."
Toshiko gave up the subterfuge and retrieved the device from her pocket. It was bulkier than the device the woman had used, all those years ago, or whatever the old man had had built into his sunglasses back in that café. I almost wondered if it was the same thing Jack had been using, that time he met me in a bar.
"What is that thing, anyway?" Gwen said.
"Jack called it a Residual Artron Energy Detector," Toshiko said.
"Well, I don't know anything about any artron energy," I told her. "But if it will make you happy to fail to detect it on me, go ahead."
Toshiko looked a little embarrassed as she rose from the chair and waved it around my body. I held still for her until she seemed to be finished.
"Are you all right, dear?"
"Yes, fine," Toshiko said, in a slightly strangled voice. "Absolutely fine." She sat back down next to Gwen, showing her the readings; her eyebrows shot up in response.
"Rift energy?" Gwen whispered.
"No," Toshiko said. "Something ... different." She added, dropping her voice even lower, "Very different to the readings Jack took, back then. Or even the ones I took last year."
"I've got better hearing than you think, you know," I said, before taking another sip of my tea. "You're different too, you know. From the others, I mean." Quite apart from their more primitive-seeming equipment, the Song didn't swirl around these two.
"Oh?" Toshiko said, at the same time as Gwen said, "Others?"
"I imagine it's about what happened during the earthquake," I said.
"And what did happen during the earthquake?" Gwen asked slowly, trying to make it sound casual.
"Since you clearly have your secrets, I think you should let me have mine," I said. I held out the plate. "Another biscuit?"
* * *
2019
I am old, now. Retirement has treated me well, though I'm acutely conscious that my pension is a lot more generous that my younger colleagues can expect in years to come. I'm not decrepit, not yet, and I keep myself busy.
Every once in a while, I hear the Song more strongly than usual, and usually it turns out that when I see the news there's been some sort of incident, either in Cardiff or more widely. I used to see the sort of briefings that acknowledged there was something to hide while giving the official line, at least. But now I have to read between those lines. Something definitely happened on New Year's Day, for instance, but I'm not sure I believe the version they put out about an electrical fault at GCHQ. Surely there of all places they have backup generators?
It does take me a little while to get to the door, these days, though, even if I didn't deliberately want to listen in to the conversations people were having on my doorstep.
"Why are we here again, Doctor?"
"Since we've ended up in Cardiff, I thought I'd just tie up some loose ends, Rose." He's trying to sound light, but failing.
"Why are there loose ends to tie up in Cardiff?"
I open the door, and see the girl. The man's there too, all wiry and bespectacled, but it's the girl who commands my attention most. I get the same sense from her as I had from the police box thirteen years ago. The name the man used for her -- Rose -- seems too small, somehow. There's another name at the back of my mind: one that I now think has always been there: Blaidd Dwrg. "We're a little late, to be honest," the man goes on. "But you know how the TARDIS is." TARDIS: somehow that word feels familiar too, linked to it all. I hear the Song of the police box again, a motif underlying whatever the new harmony is that these two are playing.
"Would you like to come in, dears?" I say, smiling. "Cup of tea, perhaps?"
I lead them into the front room; once I'm in the kitchen, they resume their discussion.
"What sort of loose ends, anyway?"
"Satellite Five," he says darkly.
"What about Satellite Five?" She sounds sullen, as though he's reminding her of something she'd rather forget, or doesn't really remember properly.
"Sending yourself a message through time and space," the man called the Doctor says. "I mean, you know, it was a very neat trick. But how exactly did you think it worked?"
"I-- The-- I don't know," she says, finally, slightly sullen. "I just ... did it."
"The TARDIS's telepathic circuits," the Doctor said. "Reaching back along our timeline, to plant the words in the minds of people so that they appear at just the right moments in history, from our point of view."
"People like me?" I say as I come back in with the tray.
"Ah--" the Doctor says. Then, with a defeated look, "Yes."
"Thanks," Rose says, awkwardly, as she picks up a mug of tea.
"What are you going to do?" I ask, as I hand another mug to the Doctor. "Wipe my memory?"
"It's not quite like that," he says, sounding defensive. "But ... you have something in your head that shouldn't be there. I can make it go away."
I put my hand out, touch the sleeve of his overlarge coat. Should have offered him a place to hang it up, my mother's voice from long ago says. But somehow I think he would have refused if I had.
He looks surprised, but doesn't recoil; instead, he puts down the device and looks right into my eyes, and it feels as though I could fall into his. Looking into them is like seeing the Song. "Why would I want it to go away?" I smile. "It's beautiful. It's like an old friend by now."
"You ... you know?" He takes out a device -- like the woman's, but bigger. He waves it around my face, without asking first. "Ahhhh," he says. "Should have known." He turns to Rose. "Sonic screwdriver says she's slightly psychic."
"Ohhh," Rose says. "Like Gwyneth. Do you think they might be related?"
"Who's Gwyneth?" I ask, but get no answer.
"And with the Rift--"
The Torchwood women had talked about the Rift, I remember.
"Where were you during the earthquake?" the Doctor asks.
"Which earthquake?" I say innocently.
"There aren't many earthquakes in Cardiff," Rose points out.
"No, I suppose not," I say. "I was there, that night. I saw ... well, no, it's not what I saw, is it? It's what I felt. From the police box." The word they said earlier comes back to my mind, forces itself onto my lips. "The TARDIS."
"I think you'd have felt something anyway," the Doctor says. "But with what happened afterwards -- afterwards, from our point of view, at least -- it reverberated backwards along your timeline ..."
"Naturally," I say.
"There is something in your head," the Doctor says. "And it could be dangerous. But, if you want, I can just ... adjust the resonance."
"And after you have, will I see you again?" I ask. "Or any of the others?"
"Others?" Rose says. "Doctor, is she--"
He laughs. "I don't know," he says, answering both of our questions at once. "Even I can't always tell what the future holds." He looked stern, suddenly, adding directly to me, "And you shouldn't tell me."
The Song takes on some extra embellishments as he says it, and even though the words -- like so much of what he said earlier -- don't really make sense, even after all this time, the sense of it is clear enough.
I laugh, and the tension breaks. "I promise," I say.
"Right then," the Doctor says, holding his device -- the 'sonic screwdriver' -- out once more. "This will only take a moment."