Callahuanca (short story)

Callahuanca was the twentieth short story in the Short Trips anthology Short Trips: The History of Christmas. It was written by Richard Salter. It featured the Fourth Doctor.

Summary
Every Christmas morning, Ana sneaks out with her donkey to visit her father's grave. She prefers to spend this time alone with him. One Christmas, she encounters an elderly woman and a man with a scarf. She thinks the woman might be her grandmother. The two watch her for a bit, then enter a blue tomb which then disappears.

For the next several years, Ana encounters the two while she visits her father's grave. Even after she has left home for university, she comes back at Christmas and sees them. One Christmas in 1958, however, only the man is there. He introduces himself as the Doctor, and doesn't seem to recognise Ana or know who the elderly woman is.

Suddenly there is an earthquake, and the cemetery falls into a hole. The Doctor has fallen, and Ana uses her donkey to help pull him out of the hole. They head off to help out the townspeople, and then the Doctor joins Ana's family for Christmas dinner.

Ana is distressed that she won't be able to visit her father's grave any more, so the Doctor makes her a promise. When she's older, in about forty years, he will come back to take her to her father's grave. Suddenly Ana realises the real identity of the elderly woman that she saw with him.

Characters

 * Fourth Doctor
 * Ana Maria Carla Perez de Calixtro

Continuity
to be added