Mae and The Doctor

13 - Voices in France

I've gotten back onto the TARDIS and changed my clothes. When I walk into the console room from a different direction, I'm confused.

"Shouldn't I have come down the stairs...?"

The Doctor glances up to the stairs, then behind himself at me. "No," he says simply. I hear the keyboard typing away and get curious.

"What," I say, jumping up the small flight of stairs, "are you typing?"

"It's not me," the Doctor mutters. My brows furrow, and I walk around the console beside the Doctor, who's staring down at the screen just above the keyboard. Words read:

Meet me here, xx.

The message is paired with coordinates, a date, and a time; the date is July of 1830. Why would we go there?

I look up to the Doctor to ask when I see he's got a mischievous smile on his face.

"If my geography is correct, we're going to... France?" he says, looking to me as if I could confirm his hypothesis. Before I can respond with an encouraging "yes", he runs around the console pressing buttons. To not get in his way, I take a step back, and let him do his thing.

~*~*~*~*~

We arrive in France. I turned down the Doctor's offer to change to match the clothes of the era. So, I'm wearing my skinny jeans, blazer, cami, and some sneakers. The most I'm going to get out of anybody is an appalled gasp at the fact a lady's wearing pants.

The Doctor took us to the coordinates, and when I step from the TARDIS, I realize we're in the woods. He comes out after me and stares around in as much confusion as I do.

"Oh," I hear him say from behind the TARDIS. I walk around the big police box and stare through a few trees to a large castle. A garden with a fountain stands between us and it. Then I start to look around.

"Weren't we supposed to meet someone here?" I ask. Nobody is to be seen. "Maybe they got the coordinates wrong and meant the castle," I say, staring out past the flower bushes and fruit trees.

"Maybe," the Doctor concludes before taking my hand and leading me to the castle.

Walking through the garden feels like a dream. There aren't even that many flies or bugs around, and the flowers look so well kept. I highly doubt the gardener is being paid as much as he should be.

Once we've arrived at the door, the Doctor knocks a bunch of times very quickly. Luckily, he stops just seconds before the door opens. A young maid with black curls peeking from her bonnet opens the door, trying not to look angry.

"Who are you?" Her voice is light and sounds younger than she probably is.

"I am the Doctor, and this is Mae. We were told to meet someone here," the Doctor says politely.

"Oh! Thank goodness. We thought you'd never come, doctor," she says, grinning brightly. "I'm Rhiannon, by the way. Come in!"

Rhiannon moves out of the way for us to enter. When we do, I realize we're in a kitchen. It's not as luxurious and big as I thought it would be.

"This way, please," the maid mutters, sending us up a flight of creaky stairs. Through a door as creaky as the stairway, we enter another kitchen looking room. There wasn't a stove, just a fridge and counters, and that confused me. We continued through a dining room, 2 living rooms, a lot of hallways and staircases, before we finally stopped at the end of a narrow hallway. A single door was at the end of it. I heard coughing from inside.

"And whose room is this?" the Doctor asks, hands on his hips.

"This is Adelaide's room," she says a bit nervously.

"Adelaide who?" I blurt. My knowledge of French history is very limited.

The maid stares at me with a mixture of confusion and disgust. "Adelaide, the sister of the soon-to-be king of France."

"Right, of course," I say, doing my best impression of someone who just realized the answer to their very dumb question.

She opens the door. The three of us file inside. What I notice first is a wardrobe beside the wide four poster bed; the wardrobe is locked shut with chains. On the bed is a young woman with pale skin, and when we enter, she goes into a great coughing fit. Rhiannon rushes to her side with a handkerchief and a bag for her to breath in. I keep my eyes fixed on the wardrobe as I walk around the bed.

The Doctor comes up from behind me, asking, "Why's this wardrobe chained shut?" He glances over to the maid, waiting for an answer.

"The princess asked for it to be done, sir," she replies, looking warily to the chains. Slowly, the Doctor walks over to it. He waves me over to follow him, and I do. We carefully lean our ears against the door of the wardrobe.

There are voices - no, one voice. I can't make out what it's saying, though. After a moment, it stops. Then, there's a high pitched hiss, and I jump back. The Doctor does the same, and while doing so, pulls out his sonic screwdriver. He buzzes it at the door, moving it in a circular motion. Quickly, he brings it up to his face and inspects it.

"Right," he says, as if the screwdriver were lying.