Would Be was quiet. The trees were like silent figures with snowy caps. Autumn had taken their leaves, but winter was bowing their black branches and trunks. Vesta’s solamp was beginning to flutter, its charge worn out, but it was getting lighter by the minute. The blue sky and the white snow were both tinged with pink from the sun-to-be.

As she walked along, in the quiet, she felt for one moment that someone was following her. But it was just the stillness, and her imagination.

The memory yard was in the centre of Would Be, a place chosen years ago as a quiet bit of earth. Patience was said to be the greatest virtue of all Morphans, and those who lay here were the most patient of all. Simple stones marked each burial spot, each one marked with a name, as clear as the labels above the pegs in the back hall of the Flurrish house.

There were Flurrishes here. Years of them, laid out and remembered, mixed up with all the other Morphan families. Vesta’s mum had gone away long ago, before Vesta was really old enough to know her. She lay here, and Vesta always said a friendly hello to her stone.

But Vesta had come for her dad, Tyler Flurrish, gone four years, taken by a fever. He’d seen the colder seasons coming, and fretted about it with his kin, but he hadn’t lived to see the actual snow and ice. Vesta wondered if he felt it there in the ground, across his grave like a numbing blanket. He would have worried too much, about his daughters Vesta and Bel, and about the future that awaited them.

Vesta crouched by the grave and brushed the snow off the stone so she could read the name there. She took out the flowers she had brought, and set them in the jar on his plot. It would have been his birthday, so she wished him a happy one, and then talked to him a little about the work and how things were.

Far away, down in Beside, Guide’s Bell chimed.

Vesta bowed her head and said a few words to Guide, and asked Guide to look after her dad. Then she got up to make her way back.

The stars were still out. Over in the west, behind the bare silhouettes of the trees, one seemed to be moving.

Vesta stopped to watch. There had been talk of stars moving. Even Bel said she had seen one do it. Many said it was a bad omen, signifying the coming danger of the cold, but it was a mystery too. Stars weren’t supposed to slide silently past in the darkness of a winter dawn.

Moving slowly, making no sound, it disappeared behind a stand of trees. Vesta hurried along to see if she could catch another glimpse of it.

That’s when she saw the tracks.

She almost walked across them. They were so deep in the snow, they held shadow and looked as black as pitch. They cut straight through the heart of Would Be from the north, running away towards Firmer Number Three.

They were the biggest footprints she’d ever seen, bigger than even Jack Duggat would make, with his work boots and his metal cleats on and everything.

And it wasn’t just the size of the prints - the stride length was also huge.

Vesta stared for a moment. She thought hard, trying to explain what she could see. She wondered if they were footprints that had begun to melt, thus exaggerating their size.

But they were fresh. The snow was only a few hours old, and there had not yet been enough day to start to thaw it. No one was out except her, not this far north of the town. The tracks were clean cut. She could see where the heel and the toe pads had cut.

A giant had walked through the silent woods, and not long ago. If she had left her dad’s grave just a few minutes earlier, she would have met it. It would have come right across her path.

Vesta Flurrish was really scared. Her hands were trembling, and it wasn’t from the cold. Beside seemed a long way away: too far to reach quickly, too far to run to, too far to call to. She didn’t even want to cross the tracks to run for home. That felt like the wrong thing to do, as if the giant might feel her path crossing his, and turn back for her.

She turned and began to run back towards the memory yard. At that moment, with the sun still not even risen, by her father’s side seemed the safest place to be.

But there was something waiting for her in the trees, something with a deep, gurgling growl like a dog being throttled, something with red eyes that caught the gleam of the early light.

Something bred to kill.

Chapter

1

In the Bleak Midwinter

‘That,’ said Amy, unable to disguise a slight note of surprise, ‘was a perfect landing.’

‘I thank you for noticing,’ replied the Doctor. He beamed, and flipped a row of console switches to their

‘off’ positions with the flourish of a maestro organist shutting down his Wurlitzer after a career-defining performance.

‘Then why are we leaning?’ asked Rory.

‘Leaning?’ asked the Doctor, polishing the glass in the console dials with a handkerchief.

‘Over,’ said Rory. ‘To one side.’

‘We’re not,’ said the Doctor.

‘Stand up straight,’ said Amy.

They all did. They all looked at themselves in relation to the guard rail uprights.

‘Ah,’ said the Doctor.

‘That is lean-y,’ he conceded.

‘Perhaps not as perfect as I first imagined,’ he added.

‘“Lean-y”?’ asked Amy.

‘Well, lean -ish at the very least,’ replied the Doctor, sliding down the handrail of the stairs to reach the TARDIS main deck.

‘We’re allowed to make up words now, are we?’

asked Rory.

‘I thought that was well established,’ said Amy.

‘Look, it doesn’t matter,’ said Rory, following Amy down the control room stairs. ‘It wasn’t a complaint, the leaning thing.’

‘Lean-ish,’ the Doctor and Amy corrected him together.

‘Whatever,’ said Rory. ‘It wasn’t a complaint. I wasn’t complaining. Lean all you like. I just want to check that we’re in the right place. We can be leaning in the right place. That’s fine. As long as we’re in the right place. Are we in the right place?’

The Doctor stopped at the TARDIS door, turned to face Rory, and placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder. He peered into Rory’s eyes.

‘Rory Williams Pond,’ said the Doctor.

‘Not my actual name.’ said Rory.

‘Rory Williams Pond, did I not promise to get you back home for Christmas?’

‘Yes.’

‘Back home to Earth for Christmas?’

‘Yes. Directly to Leadworth, near Gloucester f—’

‘Ub-bub-bub-bub!’ the Doctor chided. ‘Specifics, mere specifics. Home for Christmas, that was the deal, right?’

‘Yes.’ Rory agreed.

‘Doesn’t the margin for interpretation seem huge now?’ Amy asked him. She was pulling on wellies and a duffel coat. ‘I mean, he’s not even guaranteeing a street address, so which Christmas he’s talking about becomes a bit vague too.’

‘Oh, I hadn’t even considered that,’ groaned Rory.

‘Home for Christmas is what I promised,’ declared the Doctor. ‘Home for Christmas is what I will deliver, even if there has to be some leaning involved.’

He looked at Amy.

‘Duffel, Pond?’

She was buttoning the toggles.

‘Hello? Christmas? Leadworth? Chilly?’ she replied.

‘Good point,’ said the Doctor. He looked thoughtful and twiddled his bow tie, as though it doubled as a thermostatic control.

‘I had a fur coat somewhere,’ he reflected. ‘Big fur coat. Very warm. I wonder where that went?’

Amy glanced at Rory. ‘Just the cardy, then?’

‘Yes.’ he said, zipping it up.

‘That’s your level of confidence?’

‘You can’t be disappointed if you don’t get your hopes up.’ said Rory.

The Doctor opened the doors. A breath of cold air touched their faces, just a gentle gust as though someone had opened an upright freezer.