The girl has gone to brew tea. They act as though this imported delicacy were the most natural thing in the world. Then again, they're in a flying box which, now that it's been pointed out to her, Lizzie can't help but notice is very much larger than it looked from outside.
"Physician-" she begins.
"Ah. I'll stop you there." By gentle steps, he is leading her up the steps. On simple instinct, she recoils from the complexity of the machine at the centre of the cavernous room. But there are seats at the perimeter of it. Lizzie didn't know quite how weak her knees were until they are bumped against a soft edge. She sits down hard, grateful, barely listening to him. "I'm not a physician, I'm the Doctor."
"But what sort of doctor? Medicine, law, divinity?"
"Just The Doctor. Don't worry about it." No, well, it really shouldn't be the main thing occupying her thoughts. She would quite agree with that. Still, these petty little questions are easier. Lizzie reaches, as she always does in times of trial, to wind her fingers into her hair. But they tied it back in her prison cell, when they dressed her in the white robe, when they chained her neck. Rather than remember, she reaches behind and drags out the ribbon. "Ooh, ginger," he says brightly, "Like a ginger."
Lizzie could care less about the colour. She holds a hank down over her shoulder, mumbling, "And the girl, she's your daughter?"
"No. No-no-no, heavens no. No. Nothing so simple. Also no. Mostly just no."
"But what's wrong with her?"
The Doctor rears back. Looks over his shoulder, as though something much have happened. Like the girl might be standing there with an arm hanging off. Looking thoroughly perplexed, "Nothing, last time I checked. Unless the kettle's turned on her. Which is a distinct possibility, but then you wouldn't be referring to that."
"Is she feeble-minded?"
His confusion intensifies. "Quite the opposite. Too smart for her own bloody good, you ask me." She would explain herself, but the Doctor takes hold of her hands again. He crouches down level with her, looking her in the eye. "Now, I understand entirely why you don't want to talk about what just happened back at the village. But really, there are a few things I need to know."
Lizzie nods. He ought to know what he's talking about. After all, he's a physician. No, wait. He is, quite determinedly, no physician. He said so. And yet she trusts him. What he asks of her, she'll answer.
"Firstly, your name."
"Elizabeth Margaret Goode." That one was easy.
"Secondly," he adds, as the girl returns with a tray of china, "how do you take your tea?" This is more difficult. Lizzie isn't from a family that could afford India teas. She's never had much of a chance to figure out how she takes it. She flounders. "Never mind," the Doctor tells her, "we'll figure it out. And Jessica does so like to be Mother." Even as he speaks, a cup and saucer are brought wordlessly to his hand. "Thank you, dear."
After that, there are no more questions. Not until all the tea is served, and the biscuits have been passed round. They must be so very rich, with their sky-ship and their fine crystalline sugar they can dose out like brining salt. As it turns out, Lizzie likes her tea to have two of those careless spoonfuls in it. If the village zealots could see her now.
The Doctor has a seat, delicately sipping. They're all so very civilized, except that the girl sits cross-legged on the floor, humming happily.
But after a time, even this has to end. "Jessica," the Doctor says, "Something sweet for our guest. I need to ask a sour question or two." From a cupboard under the heaving central machine, she produces a white paper bag. "Oh, so that's where you're stashing those. Elizabeth, you don't know how privileged you are."
So Lizzie accepts the bag when it's offered. Pinches it open at the neck and peers inside. She removes one long, thin red string, jellyish, a little sticky. "What is it?"
"Not knows? Is being strawberry," Jessica says, in awe and disbelief.
"But it's not even summer."
"Is still being strawberry."
Lizzie bites off a half-inch and, while it's shaped and textured like no strawberry she's ever seen before, certainly that's how it tastes. While her tongue is delighted, while her mind struggles to match the pleasure with the strange sensation, the Doctor says, "So this nasty old burning business, then, how did that come about?"
That? That's his sour question? That's the one he thinks will be so hurtful and awkward?
Lizzie looks round, honest and clear, "They don't like witches. They think we're evil. Even when we go about healing their ills and delivering their children and granting a select few of their heart's desires."
Jessica gasps, "Her am being really proper hocus-pocus witchperson?"
"Jessica, a bit of respect please."
"But her am being witchy!"
He glares at her and Jessica sinks. Her excitement is still there, though, and she resents having to subdue it. The Doctor ignores the filthy looks she shoots him from time to time. Says softly, "Tell me a bit more about that."
Are these the questions that were supposed to be so terrible?
Lizzie breathes deeply, tries to find a place to start. Her story goes back as far as she can remember. As a child, she walked through the woods with her mother. And she would look at what grew and knew, clear as something learned by rote, how to prepare it and what effect it would have on another human. Lizzie had only to set eyes on the sufferer of some unknown ailment, and she would know what had to be done.
Her teenage years made things stranger still. Her talents expanded beyond botany and medicine. Someone could tell her what thing they wanted most dearly, and she would know how to get it for them. The possibilities opened in front of her, forking pathways like tree branches, mapping all the right turns to come to the desired end.
What other word is there to describe one who can mould the world to her will? She has strange knowledge, inexplicable gifts. A witch.
"My mother was always able to protect me. She was respected. And she knew what to say and what to keep quiet."
"What happened to her?"
Ah. There it is. There's the sour question. Lizzie bites again at the strawberry string. Then she bites again. Then, finally, "She went out to gather mushrooms. Nothing fancy, just for dinner. And it seems she got in the way of the hunt. Got in the way of a musket shot. It didn't kill her right away, but she was dead before she could be brought to me. Since then they've been looking for any excuse to bring me to the stake."
And that excuse came just lately, in the form of the demons that have been haunting the woods. Just because Lizzie still lives in her mother's cabin among the trees and not in the village. Just because both she and the darkling monsters had been seen to emerge from the forest. That was all they needed.
"But you, Doctor," she concludes, "you started to say something about them. That they were gone, and that they hadn't been demons at all but… And you stopped."
Jessica nods fervently, grumbling, "Because stops him before three-all-us am being burned."
"Because it wasn't important," the Doctor corrects quickly. "Nothing to it. They're all gone now. Village safe, no more demons, no more burnings." He turns to Jessica, pointing. Lizzie flinches. She's seen too much finger-pointing. It never seems to end well. Thankfully, there's no accusation. They appear to be jesting. She sighs while the Doctor cries, "And you, don't think just because you did a bit of useful coughing down there that I'm letting you off. Pay up."
Out of a pocket on her long tunic, the girl starts to produce a bag of those same biscuits they've been fighting over. He reaches for them, and has them almost in his hand when she draws them back. "Waits. Jessica am not remembering to have been making any other bets."
"What did I tell you when we were getting rid of those… demons?"
"That would soontimes be meeting much special creature in between all the humany persons, but not meets any creatures, only meets witchperson."
She must be feeble-minded. It's not just her imperfect, idiot speech. But she looks so blank and honest even now. Even when she sees Lizzie look round, and set her hand upon the Doctor's arm, there's no flicker of understanding. "Creature?" Lizzie echoes. Begging for an explanation, and more than that for the explanation she wants.
"Oh, right-yes, Witch Elizabeth! Doctor am to have said that would be much powerful, lovely friend-alien, and-"
"Cough!" the Doctor barks desperately.
Jessica is silent, stunned. Then her eyes flick back and forth between them and she claps a hand to her too-loose lips. Mumbles vague syllables through it that might have started out as 'Sorry, Doctor'.
The Doctor pats Lizzie's hand. Lifts it up from his sleeve and returns it to her. "Everything will become very clear, I promise you that. But in good time. Can you have a little faith in me until then?"
He seems so honest, so deserving. And even as he speaks with her, his other hand is stuck out behind him, fingers grabbing and grabbing until Jessica places the bag of biscuits into his hand.
Lizzie looks at their sweet rituals, the jokes between them. It is no vast exercise of her abilities to know that she can be safe here, and happy.
Lizzie nods. "Yes."
"Now. I take it you're not keen on just going home."
Something of an understatement. The cabin among the trees has been her home since birth. But since her mother's death it was never the same, and since she was dragged from her bed by the torch-bearing villagers, bound in her half-sleep and buried under prayers, she has no desire ever to return.
"We can take you anywhere. Flying box, remember?"
"Any-any-anywhere," Jessica insists. "Places her am not even knows about."
"The New World." Lizzie doesn't even need to think. The words are out so quickly she's barely aware of speaking. "Virginia. Could you take me to Virginia? I know it's a long journey but your flying machine seems to manage uncommon speed."
"That's one way of putting it," he smiles, and tips another spoon of sugar into her tea. "I'll get us there, don't you worry. Meantime, Jessica will show you to a wardrobe. If you'll forgive my saying so, this sackcloth look is doing nothing for you."