Ellie's still getting over the death of her brother, and has enlisted the help of a psychic lady named Mrs Vanguard. Out of concern for their friend, Jago and Litefoot agree to come along to a session and expose the old woman as a charlatan.
Soon enough, Litefoot is woken up in the middle of the night by a friend (Toby) whose wife has disappeared. After having acted very strangely for a few days, the women turns out to have burned to death, and Litefoot rules the death a spontaneous human combustion.
When Ellie goes missing and Jago finds her employed by Mrs Vanguard with a brand new personality, he decides to investigate, but is soon lifted out of his body and stuffed in a sort of spirit closet. His body's new occupant, a person from the far future, is sent out by Mrs Vanguard to exert influence over Litefoot's upper-class social circle. This way, Mrs Vanguard hopes to eventually reach the Queen of England herself — who's mourning the death of Albert — and have her taken over during a séance as well. The spontaneous combustion problem has led to a few problems, but Mrs Vanguard is convinced she's stabilised the procedure.
Litefoot and Toby don't fall for any of it, and soon find themselves communicating with Jago and Ellie through a makeshift séance and an ouija board. Mrs Vanguard turns out to be a genuinely sweet woman who honestly thought she was rescuing people from hell itself. She makes it out not only alive, but with Easy Amnesia as well, and heads home.
Tropes:
- Body Horror: Burned corpses. Tons of them.
- Continuity Nod: An attempt by time travelling humans from the far future to take over the bodies of their ancestors with the intention of altering their own history also occurred in the Fifth Doctor audio "Singularity". Notably, on that occasion, the Doctor told Turlough that he had witnessed World War V in the 49th century, suggesting that this may have been the conflict from which these refugees were fleeing.
- Friendship Moment: Ellie starts calling Jago by his first name when they're in the spirit trap together.
- Make Wrong What Once Went Right: Replace people in the past with people from the future.
- Out-of-Character Alert: Jago soon realises that Ellie isn't herself, and Litefoot likewise soon realises Jago is acting very strangely.
