The Haunter of the Shore (audio story)
The Haunter of the Shore was the first story in the audio anthology The Doctor and Carnacki, produced by Big Finish Productions. It was written by AK Benedict and featured Sylvester McCoy as the Seventh Doctor and both Joe Jameson and Dan Starkey as Thomas Carnacki.
Publisher's summary[[edit] | [edit source]]
1897. Young Carnacki investigates a case at Edgemere Manor where the skeletons of tourists are left on the shore of the lake. Carnacki must discard everything he knows when he discovers that the estate's hermit is the Doctor, and that time is being manipulated by an unseen force.
The Doctor and Carnacki must work together if the mystery of Edgemere Manor is to be solved, the house saved, and the haunted residents find peace.
Plot[[edit] | [edit source]]
Part one[[edit] | [edit source]]
In 1897, Carnacki is summoned by Lady Rebecca Firle to investigate a supposed haunting at Edgemere Manor and is welcomed by the housekeeper, Imogen Park, who warns him that people do not always manage to leave. Lady Firle provides him with her late husband Lord Mark Firle's log of the supernatural phenomena that has been occurring in and around the house, including the discovery of the bodies of a tourist and John, a servant, beside the lake after two separate stormy nights and strange whispers which Carnacki hears. She takes him to the folly where the archimandrite and witness to the phenomena Lionel lives, on the way to which they meet Jerome, a barrister trespassing on Lady Firle's land to have a picnic by the lake, and find the Doctor.
The Doctor explains that he detected an unparalleled temporal event whilst on a walking holiday and that he asked Lionel about it, but Lionel ran away. He takes Carnacki, whose work he is familiar with, and Lady Firle into the cave he has been staying in when the rain starts and rushes out when he hears Jerome screaming. Mist prevents the three of them from moving and they hear the whispers as Jerome is swallowed by a tower of water from the lake and a skeleton spat out, after which the storm stops and the ground is inexplicably dry. Carnacki attempts to dismiss the Doctor and take charge of the case, which he believes a ghost to be responsible for, but the Doctor tastes chronon radiation and deduces that somebody is tweaking time.
Lady Firle decides to send Carnacki to check on Imogen in the remains of the boathouse whilst she and the Doctor head back to the manor, the history of which she recounts; it was built by the Davenports, given to Lord Robertsbridge when they fell out of favour with the King, lost in a card game to the supposed alchemist Lord Wittins and purchased cheaply by Lord and Lady Firle many years after Lord Wittins's death. She has the Doctor fetch the memoirs of Lord Wittins which nobody has been able to read as the book keeps slamming itself shut and he manages to get it open by reading out a message on the front written in South Credacian, an alien language. He confirms that Lord Wittins was researching chronon energy and finds the deeds to the house inside despite Lady Firle having placed them in the safe.
Carnacki attempts to protect himself and Imogen using sigils, but his writings are reformed into sigils which he copies even as another storm rolls in and Imogen disappears in the mist. He becomes stuck in the mist and hears himself saying things. The Doctor too hears his own voice as well as that of Lady Firle and her husband, which he recognises as echoes of the past and future, sometimes spoken normally and sometimes in reverse. He notices that the deeds have the house's future owners on them as well, the next being Carnacki, and that the house will be renamed Stillwall Manor. Hearing Carnacki's voice, he deduces that he is or will be trapped in time and he and Lady Firle hurry out to try to save him from the tower of water. They hear his cries.
Part two[[edit] | [edit source]]
A voice inside the tower of water speaks in one of the dimension dialects and the Doctor is able to communicate with it, learning that a creature is trapped and asking it to free Carnacki in return for their help. It does so and the Doctor revives Carnacki with CPR, after which he explains that Wittins must have attempted to harness the creature's energy and that Carnacki's future self is attempting to communicate with them. Imogen looks after Carnacki whilst the Doctor and Lady Firle find books in the library placed there by Carnacki's future self, including his diary. The Doctor has Carnacki translate the sigils with which his future self marked the books, identifying them as part of a protective incantation, and Lord Firle speaks when Carnacki uses his electric planchette in an attempt to communicate with himself.
Realising that the future Carnacki must have been trapped between times midway through the incantation and remembering that he will change the house's name to Stillwall, the Doctor leads Carnacki and Imogen to the distillery to check the walls for clues whilst Lady Firle continues to try to communicate with her husband. Sigils beneath the tiles complete the incantation and frees the future Carnacki, who warns them that the dimension creature, the name of which the Doctor learns is Eutexina, is now free and inside the house. Sarclad, who once went by Lord Wittins and has been in disguise as Lionel since bankrupting himself, joins the group and confirms that he was attempting to harness the dimension creature's power to make the spaceship he crashed at the folly operational again. Time begins to constrict and Imogen helps Sarclad and the Carnackis as the Doctor offers to connect Eutexina to the ship to return it to its dimension before using the remaining energy to get Sarclad to his planet.
Eutexina forgives Sarclad for attempting to exploit it to return home to his husband and the pair depart. Edgemere Manor is left badly damaged and the Doctor takes Lady Firle to the library where she is able to say goodbye to her husband before time is restored and he and the older Carnacki both disappear. Carnacki waives Lady Firle his fee and gives the Doctor a basket of gingerbread made by Imogen as a token of his appreciation. The Doctor advises Lady Firle not to continue to lock herself away and returns to the TARDIS, accompanied on the walk by Carnacki. After telling Carnacki not to try to avoid the future, the Doctor bids him a good day.
Cast[[edit] | [edit source]]
- The Doctor - Sylvester McCoy
- Young Carnacki - Joe Jameson
- Rebecca Firle - Caitlin Joseph
- Imogen / Dimension Creature - Janet Amsden
- Wittins / Mark Firle - Shogo Miyakita
- Jerome - Ewan Thomson
Uncredited cast[[edit] | [edit source]]
- Thomas Carnacki - Dan Starkey (BFX: The Haunter of the Shore)
Worldbuilding[[edit] | [edit source]]
- Carnacki was distracted by an eidolon in Kettering.
- Imogen offers to make tea. The Doctor makes some for himself and Carnacki.
- Lady Firle suggests that Carnacki reads Descartes.
- Carnacki invokes the name of John Locke.
- Jerome Armstrong is a barrister.
- Jerome wears a watch.
- Death is a series of fixed points.
- Edgemere Manor was built by the Davenports, a feudal family, and given to Lord Robertsbridge when they fell out of favour with the King. It was lost by his great-grandson, Horace, in a card game with Lord Wittins. After his death, the house was empty until Lord and Lady Firle purchased it.
- Lord Wittins is depicted with an ostentatious hat in his portrait.
- South Credacian is a language from Credacia, a planet in the Jessilou wing of Turlane.
- Lord Firle was always talking about Freud.
- Imogen gives Carnacki warmed-up gingerbread with butter and cheese.
- Carnacki has an electric planchette.
- Lionel powered a generator with a water mill.
- Time Lords are forbidden from socialising with the Ten Credecian Mages.
- Sarclad wants to return to his husband.
Notes[[edit] | [edit source]]
- The Haunter of the Shore was recorded remotely and at the Soundhouse in the spring of 2024.
- Matt Fitton had been thinking of bringing the Seventh Doctor and Thomas Carnacki together for a Halloween release since becoming script editor for The Seventh Doctor Adventures. (BFX: The Haunter of the Shore)
Continuity[[edit] | [edit source]]
to be added
External links[[edit] | [edit source]]
- Official The Haunter of the Shore page at bigfinish.com
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