Snow fell in clumps the night the Doctor rode into town, carpeting the cobblestone streets. It was as though God himself had poured clouds out of the sky to welcome him. Lit by a full moon, snowflakes gilded every surface and our stricken community glowed with hope.
He had come to save us.
No-one had visited since the plague had hit. And we were forbidden to leave, succumbing to the sickness one by one.
‘I am The Doctor!’ he said, tipping his hat to the gathering crowd.
We cheered, but snow softened our voices to a muffled hum. I scanned the faces for Oscar. Was he still alive? Might our pledge to be married soon become a reality?
Our eyes locked across the town square and my heart soared.
‘Lily!’
‘Oscar!’ My tears blurred his face, merging it with his red scarf. A glowing heart amongst the sea of black. I reached out, my fingers grasping uselessly at the cold night air. But he disappeared into the crowd. His parents, like mine, weren’t here. I hoped that it wasn’t for the same reason, even as the certainty that it was lodged itself in my throat.
The Doctor took up residence in the hilltop mansion, where the late Mayor Chambers had once lived. No-one objected.
My brother, John, now the man of the house, answered the door the next morning. Anne, Martha and I waited in line, fluttering and giggling.
The Doctor’s footsteps shook the ornaments as he entered our parlour. Standing before me, his large frame blocked the window, casting me in shadow.
‘Lily…’ He rolled my name around his mouth, savouring the taste. When he lifted my hand to kiss it, his lips burned with heat. I melted under his crystalline gaze.
‘Is this the medicine?’ said John, eyeing the spoon with suspicion but opening his mouth nonetheless.
The Doctor didn’t answer. He continued to administer the medicine to everyone.
Everyone, that is, except me.
‘You forgot me,’ I said, my voice shaking.
He tucked the bottle back into his case, then flashed me a wink before turning on his heel, coat-tails swishing behind him.
Whispers began to blow over garden walls, that the medicine was making people ill. But no-one dared refuse it.
My family grew weaker. Smaller. Paler.
Yet still they took the medicine.
And still he gave me none.
The day that Martha didn’t wake up, John’s wails ripped through the house. The Doctor arrived with two men and a stretcher this time.
And again the following week for Anne. John was too weak to wail by then. As The Doctor marched out of the house, he turned to me.
‘Soon, my pretty one, it’ll be just you and me.’
His molten breath scorched my neck, branding me.
I watched, dazed, as he conducted his death procession from house to house, his men wheeling stretchers out. I didn’t let myself register the red scarf trailing from the one across the road. I could see only black.
