Without saying a word, they both followed the structure round to the high wooden gates. Donna realised she was trepidatious. Why was there a church out here in the middle of nowhere? Or, she supposed, perhaps it was exactly where you were meant to put a church.
Anyway.
There was a huge metal bell pull encased in the walls, and the Doctor cheerfully pulled it. A clanging noise went through the air, momentarily disturbing the cicadas and the chuntering noises of the rainforest. There was just the echoing tolling of the bell. For a moment, everything hung still. And then . . . footsteps.
Chapter
Thirty-One
Donna had expected a monk. The Doctor had expected a warrior.
Both were surprised.
A Brazilian woman stood in front of them, white jacketed, heavily made-up and beaming with welcome.
‘Hello!’ she said, her face beaming. ‘Well, hello there! Come in! Most people take the road, but no matter! Everyone is welcome here.’ She looked at Donna. ‘Of course you look lovely,’ she said to Donna, who narrowed her eyes suspiciously. ‘But have you had a long day?’
The Doctor and Donna just stared at her.
‘I was just heating up some of our fresh soup,’ she said. ‘All ingredients sourced on the premises, of course. Would you like some?’
‘Um, sorry, where is this place?’ said the Doctor.
‘Welcome to the Far Hanging Center for Wellness and Spiritual Health!’ said the woman cheerily, pointing to the brass plate by the door. ‘Are you booked in?’
‘Are you kidding me?’ said Donna.
The Doctor and Donna looked at each other. Then they burst out laughing.
‘Don’t tell them your name, you might be barred,’ said the Doctor.
‘Ssh!’ said Donna. ‘Do you take credit cards?’
They started giggling again, and the woman smiled along politely.
‘We’re normally quite exclusive,’ she said. ‘A complete meditation and health retreat from the modern world. But we do have a couple of spaces free. Come in!’
Inside, what had obviously once been a missionary church, long vacated, had been extremely tastefully updated. There was quiet whale music playing and smart receptionists in white coats. Women – and it was mostly women – wandered about in dressing gowns and fuzzy slippers.
‘He’d like to start with a massage,’ said Donna.
‘Uh, no. I wouldn’t,’ said the Doctor, firmly.
Inside, there were fairy bulbs strung up around the body of the church – there was a mezzanine balcony inside, with perfectly placed rubber plants and seagrass matting, and a large wooden candleholder, obviously a relic from the original purpose of the building. Across it was a quad of perfectly groomed grass, completely incongruous out here in the middle of the jungle. There was even a tidy orchard to the back of that, on the other side of the wall.
Not for the first time it occurred to Donna how strange it was that she could travel the universe but there were the strangest sights on her own planet, all around. The stone walls were ancient, with ivy and other clustering plants climbing up the outside. The entire edifice looked like it belonged on top of a mountain in Cathar France.
The woman, whose name was Janet, apologised that they only had the smaller rooms left. In fact, the small cells – obviously once belonging to real monks – were comfortable, with single beds and a small side table. Donna gratefully accepted the bowl of vegetable soup and homemade corn bread offered to her – both were delicious – then took an incredibly welcome solar shower, and put on the clean plain cotton nightshirt Janet passed over.
‘Ooh,’ she said, happily. ‘I might have another shot at a massage in the morning.’
‘I’ll alert the authorities,’ said the Doctor.
Suddenly a narrow bed and a clean blanket were the most luxuriously comfortable surroundings she could possibly imagine, and the second Donna crawled into bed, she was fast asleep.
The Doctor walked back into the main area. It was slightly quieter now. Groups of women sat chatting to one another. They glanced up as he passed. He found Janet tidying a sheaf of magazines by the entrance.
‘She did look tired,’ said Janet. ‘I hope I didn’t insult her.’
‘No,’ said the Doctor. ‘Not at all.’
‘So, why don’t you come over and we’ll talk through your wellness programme . . .’
The Doctor looked around distractedly. ‘You don’t have a local atlas, by any chance?’
‘Should do!’ she smiled. ‘We have a very nicely stocked little library.’
The Doctor smiled ruefully at the thought of libraries as the whale music played on in the background. They found a small quiet corner with odd ergonomic chairs to sit on. Janet brought over a book of maps of Brazil, as well as a glass of foul-smelling herbal tea.
‘This is totally detox,’ she said. ‘Will clean your insides right out. Total detox.’
‘I’m actually surprisingly untoxed,’ said the Doctor, looking at it suspiciously.
‘Everyone thinks that,’ said Janet. ‘You haven’t spent much time in spas, have you?’
‘Nooo,’ said the Doctor, flipping over the pages, confirming exactly where they were.
‘Everyone needs wellness,’ she said. ‘Everyone needs to feel looked after. To take a little respite from their daily toil. Even you, perhaps?’
The Doctor glanced up from the atlas for a second. They shared a look.
Then Janet smiled guiltily as her phone buzzed in her pocket, and he took the proffered cup as she fished for it.
‘Sorry, sorry,’ she said, looking at it for a long moment.
‘Everything all right?’ said the Doctor.
‘Oh, I know!’ she laughed, a tinkling sound. ‘Sorry. We spend all our time here telling people to get off their phones and relax, and here I am.’
‘Here you are,’ said the Doctor. He sipped the tea – it wasn’t actually notably worse than Donna’s – and traced his finger up the map.
‘So, we have a full holistic programme,’ said Janet, pulling out a large clipboard.
The Doctor couldn’t bear a clipboard. He looked up to tell her this. But something was odd.
Now, there were two Janets. She was wobbling hazily in and out of focus. He went to put on his glasses, but for some reason couldn’t get them over his noses . . . they wobbled and fell off and then he went to pick them up . . . and found himself keeling straight onto the floor.
‘Inform the Ice Palace. We have the pair they requested,’ said Janet to a white-coated assistant who had suddenly materialised behind her.
The softness in her voice was completely eradicated; as if she had taken off a mask, to reveal the true likeness beneath. The phone in her pocket bleeped once more.
Chapter
Thirty-Two
Donna woke up from the loveliest, deepest sleep, completely groggy, happily coming round. The morning sun was coming through the window, bouncing onto the pale white sheets. It was lovely.
She stretched luxuriously like a cat, basking in the sun and the sheer rejuvenating powers of a good night’s sleep. And now they were in a lovely place where she could have a good breakfast and check in on Wilf, before they set off again to do whatever the Doctor was so sure it was they had to do . . .
There was a banging noise. At first, Donna assumed it was the door. She got up to open it. That was odd. It was locked. Someone must have made a mistake. She banged on it. ‘Hello! Hello! You’ve locked me in! Ha!’
The knocking noise came again. She looked around. There was absolutely nothing in the little bare cell at all, just a bed. The walls were heavy ancient stone; it couldn’t be from there.
She moved back towards the window.
‘Hello?’ she whispered.
‘I’ve been knocking for twenty-seven and a half minutes,’ came a familiar, modulated voice. ‘At as loud a volume as worked without disturbing anybody else. You sleep too heavily.’
She had to twis
t her body to see the figure out of the window; he was hiding behind a shutter. Blinking in the sunlight she finally saw him: a pair of yellow eyes glinting back at her.
‘Fief,’ she said. ‘You can just come in the main door at the front.’
‘You’ve been captured,’ said Fief simply.
‘By a spa? Don’t think so.’
Donna paused for several seconds. Then she slowly looked round and regarded the locked door. There was, she realised, absolutely nothing in the room that could be used as a weapon or to escape; there was no chair, no sink, no books; nothing.
‘Spas! I hate them! They’re so evil!’
‘This one is,’ agreed Fief.
‘Why?’
Fief shrugged. ‘Money. Lots of it. They’ve been told to look out for you. Everyone has. Every gas station, every rest point, every station, every village.’
‘It was a set-up,’ said Donna, miserably. ‘Oh, and the Doctor so wanted me just to walk on.’ She glanced down. ‘Well at least I’m going to die in a clean nightie. Where’s the Doctor?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Well, can you get me out of this window?’
‘I don’t know if this is a weight-loss spa,’ said the man.
Donna gave him a sharp look. ‘Fief? Did you just make a joke?’
‘Cadmians do not recognise jokes. It is an—’
‘Emotional response. Yeah, I know.’ She looked at him thoughtfully.
‘I have a weapon, but it cannot be deployed without arousing attention.’
Donna ran her fingers round the wooden frame of the heavy window. ‘Maybe attention is what we need,’ she said.
Fief raised the gun he’d retrieved from the jungle floor and used the flat of it to smash in the window. Donna smiled and covered her hands with the duvet, quickly climbing up to the window. She stood in the frame and wavered slightly. It was a long drop to the ground.
Fief looked at his hand as if figuring out what to do. Then, he held it out to her. His palm was enormous.
Donna suddenly stumbled, catching her heel on her nightshirt, and fell on top of him. He was an enormous cliff face of a man. Not muscular, not exactly; rather as if there were something else under there. It felt more like a carapace than a body, through the thin skin of the clothes he was wearing.
He misjudged her landing, and she inadvertently knocked him hard on the head, dislodging his earpiece, which dropped to the floor. She swung round and landed on the soft grass, her head jerking up as she waited to hear the inevitable alarms sound. Then she glanced up.
Fief was darting around, on his hands and knees, searching for something.
‘What are you doing?’ she said.
Fief merely grunted a response. She saw, then, his earpiece sitting just next to her and picked it up herself. Fief continued to scrabble even more madly on the ground.
Donna started to run towards the fence. Nobody had noticed them yet. Fief looked up. His imperturbable face had turned terrified, all of a sudden.
‘Come on!’ hissed Donna.
‘I . . . I can’t!’ said Fief. There was something in his voice. Something that sounded like . . . like panic.
Donna held up the earpiece. ‘Is this what you’re looking for?’
‘Give it to me!’ He didn’t look angry, or pitiless. He looked very, very frightened. ‘Please. It’s home.’ He held out his hand. His face for once had an expression. It was contorted with misery.
Donna was backing towards the trees, checking to see if they’d been spotted yet.
‘Please give it back. Please.’
‘But what does it do?’
Fief looked around. He was patently scared and ill-at-ease.
‘What happens if you don’t have it?’
Fief stood back and glanced around, panicked. ‘I . . . just . . . I mean . . . I don’t know.’
There was a noise, as someone unlocked the door behind them. A cry went up as Donna’s absence was discovered.
‘Oh no! Oh no, they’re coming for us!’ said Fief.
Donna looked at him. ‘Is this what you’re like without . . . this thing?’
Ahead of them was a beautiful orchard, carefully cultivated. It had obviously been planted by the missionaries who had first moved here, hundreds of years ago. They ran towards it, slipped between the trees.
‘Oh this is . . . this is . . .’ said Fief, his golden eyes now wide-open. ‘Those trees . . . they smell so beautiful. Those oranges. And the colours.’
Donna looked at him.
‘We have to . . . run away,’ said Fief, twisting his head. ‘We have to get away now! They want to do bad things to us! Come on, let’s go . . . Oh, isn’t it a beautiful day. I hadn’t noticed.’ His yellow eyes filled with tears.
‘Oh, Fief,’ said Donna stopping, filled with pity. ‘Oh. Look at you. Look at you.’
Fief stood stock still, his head everywhere, and Donna had to drag him into the trees before anyone jumped out of the window and chased them.
‘Come on,’ said Fief. ‘Let’s just go . . . into this world. Look at it! Look!’ He raised his arms up.
They were deep among the orchard trees now; the bright citrus colours, their overwhelming scents mingling in the warm air.
‘It’s so, so lovely’ said Fief. He looked at Donna. ‘I’m so frightened. Quick. Let’s get out of here. You and me. Can I touch you? Your hair is very, very beautiful’
‘No chance!’ said Donna, scampering backwards. She looked at the earpiece in her hands. It looked so innocent; just a tiny thing, like a deaf aid.
‘What an amazing world . . . with so much pain in it . . . and so much wonder . . .’ Fief looked at Donna. ‘And you try and help. That’s amazing. That’s amazing. Please. Let’s go and discover it. Together? Can we? Please. Together. Let’s . . . I want to eat . . . I want to do everything . . . I want to dance . . . I don’t know what dancing is, but I know I want to do it.’
‘No!’ said Donna, shaking her head. ‘No, we can’t. The Doctor’s still in there. And the amount of time we’d last without him is about four minutes.’
Fief turned mutinous, like a child. ‘But I’m scared!’
A bird of paradise alighted by his head and he looked at it in joy and wonder.
‘Whoa,’ he said. ‘I mean, whoa!’ His face split open in a huge grin.
Donna looked at him, full of sadness. ‘Fief,’ she said. ‘Oh, Fief. If we’re going to get away . . . you have to put it back in.’
Fief shook his head, backing away. ‘No’ he said. ‘Don’t make me. Please.’ His voice choked to a whisper. ‘It’s not living.’
Chapter
Thirty-Three
The crypts beneath the structure were damp and dripping, even when it had to be daylight outside. The Doctor woke, rubbing his head.
‘Still alive, then,’ he said cheerfully into the dank gloom. ‘That’s a plus point.’
Janet moved forward, still with the fixed grin on her face, her heavy make-up perfect, her eyebrows tattooed on. ‘Oh good,’ she said. ‘Up bright and early.’ She looked at him. ‘You know, you don’t look dangerous.’
‘I’m not at all dangerous. The people who’re paying you are, though.’
He shook his head and whistled through his teeth.
He looked at her.
‘You know those people who’ve been dying? All over the world?’
Janet forced a laugh. ‘That’s why they need to come to a rest and relaxation retreat! Get away from the terrible pressures of the modern age!’
The Doctor shook his head. ‘Oh, Janet,’ he said. ‘If only that would do it.’
‘Well,’ she said sulkily. ‘It’s done now. They’re coming for you.’
‘Who wants to pay you large amounts of money to get me?’ asked the Doctor.
‘You don’t know?’
‘I am having some trouble narrowing it down, to be frank,’ said the Doctor, rubbing the back of his head. It hurt.
‘Well, it is not
your business and not ours. I just need to deliver you.’
‘I don’t think you even know what you’re doing, do you?’ said the Doctor.
‘What, and you do?’
The Doctor winced as he touched a sore spot. ‘Fair point,’ he said. He looked around the room and jumped up in sprightly fashion. ‘Let’s go then!’ he said, smiling.
Janet narrowed her eyes at him.
‘What? I’m patently completely unarmed. You can down me with an unguent whenever you fancy!’
He glanced briefly to the side and wondered if Donna was awake. If only she would create a distraction that would give him everything he needed . . .
Precisely on cue, there was a crashing noise upstairs. Donna’s window breaking.
Janet jumped, startled, and moved towards the locked door at the top of the stairs.
The Doctor grinned. There was his girl.
There was a knock on the door of the cellar.
‘Janet . . .’ A voice came from behind it. ‘Janet, I think the girl’s—’
‘Don’t come in!’ shouted Janet in a warning voice. ‘Don’t—’
But it was far too late, of course. The door creaked open, just the tiniest bit, and there was a rush of wind and a flash, and suddenly Janet and a young beautician were looking at one other, and the space where the Doctor had been, and the cup of herbal elixir the assistant had been bringing to knock him out again was lying on the floor, landing, perfectly without breaking, spinning on its axis, round and round, gradually getting louder as it puddled to a stop on the stone ground.
‘I’m beginning to understand why the ransom’s so high,’ Janet said. ‘Come on, after him.’
The Doctor headed upwards. There was an open staircase around the middle of the main atrium, and he charged up it until he reached the wooden balcony that ran around the old centre of the church; a place for the choir.
White-coated assistants emerged out of several doors. He glanced around the ancient building. Up in the middle, several metres from the balcony, was an old wooden chandelier with the stubs of ancient candles on it. It hung on an ancient chain from the room, heavy with dust; out of place in such a spotless environment.
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