“What do you mean? There’s another story too!?!?” Camille looked at Katelynne.
“Haha! Yeah, you’re not the only one who had an adventure! The Who dolls did too! And it all revolved around that card….
At first, they didn’t even know what it was. It began with Rose. As soon as she put up the Christmas lights outside her house, she kept hearing one line from one song over and over and over again in hear head. She didn’t even know where it came from. She was certain she’d never heard it before;
“Hark what mean those holy voices…..” It sounded like some kind of Christmas carol. Over and over again in her head. This lasted for days. Twenty four days to be exact, because she always put her Christmas decorations up December 1st. It was now Christmas Eve.
‘blong/bing!’
Rose checked her phone. A text: ‘Wear blue. Outside.’ -The Doctor. The Doctor! She hadn’t had any contact from him in quite a while. She couldn’t help smiling and feeling a crazy thrill fill her body. Wear blue. Why? But that didn’t matter. She only had one blue outfit and that would be the one she’d have to wear. She threw it on as fast as she could, her hands trembling a bit at the thought of meeting the Doctor again and going through time and space unknown to save the world. She ran down the stairs and stepped outside her door.
“Hi!!!” she cried, throwing her arms around him.
He tensed a little, surprised, as if he hadn’t been around people for a long time, but then relaxed.
She looked at him expectantly, not sure if she should start a conversation or wait for him to say something. He looked out into the air and narrowed his eyes. Was he seeing stuff already?
“Have you been hearing things?” he asked, “Or seeing things? Anything unusual?”
“Not….exactly….except. I hear this little ditty in my head…”
Now it was her turn to narrow her eyes….what was the blue flash in the corner? Or..no, it was just the lights reflecting off her sparkly skirt, “A weird song about voices. I’ve never heard it before, I don’t think.”
“You’re hearing a Christmas carol you’ve never heard before inside your head,” the Doctor summarized, he continued his deducting speech but Rose had stopped listening. She had heard the same phrase, “Hark what mean those holy voices….voices/voices/voices” echoing in her head so loudly she wanted to close her ears. She shook her head and stepped back, but she stepped back too far, and found herself falling two floors down, landing in the bushes!
She shrieked as she fell and watched as a fuzzy sort of bush opened up its branches like a mouth as though to swallow her whole. Just out of the corner of her eye she noticed the Doctor had fallen with her. She blinked and found herself surrounded by little white lights.
And the lights were singing! They were singing her song! The song that had been in her head for weeks!
That flash of blue streaked through the corner of her eye into the center of her vision.
Not wanting it to get away this time, she grabbed it – and disappeared.
“Rose? Rose! ROSE!”
The Doctor stood up, looked over at the bush Rose had fallen in and narrowed his eyes when he saw she was gone. He got out of the bush and walked back to the Tardis.
Martha Jones was out in her backyard, tending her garden of lights. They were strange, different lights. Not your normal Christmas lights. They were more like a vine of lights, a living vine. They grew and spread and Martha was the caretaker of them. She’d gotten them from her good friend Jack Harkness who gave them to her as a practical joke Christmas present. He hadn’t told her they were living lights. Or maybe he didn’t know. But he did know that they sang. The joke part was they sang the same silly little phrase from some obscure Christmas carol over and over and over again:
“Hark what mean these holy voices,
Sweetly sounding through the night!”
She didn’t even know why she spent as much time in her garden as she did tending them. Her husband Mickey, thought she was completely nuts and would laugh and tease her about them. But there was something about them, something good, that reminded her of someone she used to care and still cared very deeply for. So she tended them in his memory. She was trying to get them to spread onto her evergreen tree so that at Christmas time Mickey wouldn’t have to get the ladder and string Christmas lights on it himself. But anytime she guided and pointed the lights toward it, they turned in on themselves and went backwards. She had no idea why. Her lights had become a tower of stringed lights because of her futile effort.
“Are you giving yourself a little ‘light music?'” a voice behind her asked.
She whirled around, “Doctor!!!”
She gave him a hug.
“Where did you get these?” he asked.
“Jack,” she answered, “I’ve been trying to entice them onto the evergreen tree but they won’t have any of it.”
“What do you mean, entice them?”
“Well, they’re creepers. They grow, but every time I try to get them to inch toward the evergreen they turn in on themselves which is why I end up having these light towers.”
“Yes, I see. They don’t seem to want to go there then. Look at that, they’re making three pronged towers. I’ve never seen that with Living Lights before.”
“Living Lights! That’s what these are?”
“Yes! They are cousins of will-o-the-wips and can either be tricksy or good. But I’ve never seen them do this before.”
“They sort of sing too,” Martha said, “But it’s always the same thing over and over again. I’ve never heard it before…a funny song about voices. I have a hunch it might be a Christmas carol but I haven’t gotten the time to – ”
Martha stopped mid-sentence. A blue flash caught her eye. A message, maybe? She reached out while at the same time the Doctor dove for her and caught the bow on her dress. They both disappeared.
Donna Noble was bored. She was bored with her entire life. She had just missed her wedding, lost her job, and became a widow on the same day. Not to mention helping to defeat the Empress of Racnoss and saving the Doctor’s life. And she had walked away from it. The Doctor terrified her, there was a dark side to him that made her uneasy. But she found she couldn’t resume her old life. She was bored out of her mind doing day to day tasks. She found herself watching, always on the lookout for paranormal activity, or unexplained events.
And she found them, or maybe, they found her. She had just come from a dinner dance and was walking through the park when she saw strange lights igniting the trees.
They were so strange. Moving, darting lights like they were alive.
She walked closer to them.
She found it hard to tell whether the trees were being lit up, or if the trees were lighting themselves up.
It seemed to be coming from the roots,
and no wonder, because the water they drank wasn’t water at all.
They were lightdrops!
Lancing lightdrops that whizzed to the ground like shooting stars!
They made no noise but they changed colors and it seemed the trees were drinking them greedily because they were alight themselves.
Alight, and alive!
They shimmered and changed so much it was as if they were moving.
Dancing! But in a very exotically wild way.
A chill ran down Donna’s spine. She wasn’t sure if these trees were good or bad, or even if they were sentient. But they seemed to be.
They seemed to be enjoying the light. Their branches moved in a hypnotic pattern.
They would touch each other and show a similar color. Like they were talking to each other.
As Donna got closer the trees erupted in light!
A volcanic display of reds, pinks, and oranges!
Donna gasped and shielded her eyes.
But just as quickly the light died from red, to pink, to orange, to yellow and green,
And finally blue. Exactly matching her dress. They stayed blue for a long while and then so slowly, Donna almost didn’t even notice at first, the trees got darker and darker until they were black. All were black except for two sentinel trees standing guard at the far end of the forest.
They waved their branches and closed in on themselves. In a blink, the trees were gone and in their place were two diamonds made of wood, colored in yellow and purple.
Those look like pods, Donna thought, like an alien is going to come out. She searched wildly for the Doctor but saw no sign of him. She waited for the pods to open up. She waited for a long time and at last they did. Strange colored balls, all lit up burst out of the pods like balloons and float/bounced to the ground.
They pulsed and glowed.
And changed color in synchronicity.
They quivered and suddenly they burst into song!
Hark What Means Those Holy Voices
Sweetly sounding through the skies?
Lo, th’ angelic host rejoices,
Heavenly hallelujahs rise.
And with that verse, the balls glowed gold and started floating up into the sky! Donna tried to think what that verse could possibly have to do with these balls of light. The verse sounded like something she used to sing in church with the Hallelujahs and everything. Donna shook her head. All of this screamed of extraterrestrial outer space, paranormal activity. Trees of light were not found on earth, neither were wooden diamond pods spewing lighted balloons. So where the heck was the Doctor!!!
She found herself walking, certain that her feet would carry her towards the person she’d been looking for for almost a year. But instead they led her to something else bizarre. These weren’t trees because they had no branches.
They were lit sticks.
Unlike the trees who swished and swayed in one spot, these sticks moved around on the ground.
Their color changes and movement drew Donna in until she found herself walking toward them. The sticks drew in on themselves, forming a trunk. Hollow trunks, with glowing lights inside.
Donna started hallucinating, certain she was just outside the Tardis and she had to get in to rescue the Doctor! Because of course, if he wasn’t here, then something terrible had happened to him. It had been her fear this whole time. All along. She remembered what she had told him just before she’d left:
“Just promise me one thing. Find someone.”
“I don’t need anyone,” said the Doctor.
“Yes, you do. Because sometimes, I think you need someone to stop you.”
“Yeah, thanks then, Donna. Good luck. And just be magnificent!”
She had tried to bury that fear so deeply because if the Doctor wasn’t here….if he hadn’t heeded her advice just after she’d left him….She felt herself choking as she realized only too late, how much she wanted him, and how the world was in grave danger without him.
“Let me in!” She cried out loud trying to shake the sticks, “Let me IN!!!”
She blinked. She didn’t have her arms around sticks anymore. She had her arms around a tree wrapped up in a blanket with a sign that said ‘HUG ME’. She found she was hugging it and it felt like she was hugging the Doctor. He was too skinny for words.
She slid the rest of the way down the tree and continued walking through the trees of lights.
Tardis blue trees.
Tardis blue singing pods.
Surely, surely the Doctor was nearby! These had to all be clues! Clues even from him maybe! Maybe he was setting all this up just for her!
She sat down by a lit tree, trying to think. The wind had steadily and slowly been getting stronger and now, snowflakes filled the air. She started to get up and walked and shook her head and laughed at what she was seeing.
Of course, these weren’t normal snowflakes. They were lighted ones.
A snowflake caught her in her tracks.
A brilliant bright flash streaked from the sky shining like a spot light on her.
It glowed blue and she disappeared.
The spaceship Riversong had been put on, dropped to the ground with a WHOOSH and River stepped out and looked around.
She was headed toward a city of lights, a cold, polar bear place.
And she knew what she was looking for.
She sauntered down the subway tunnel and took a 20 minute train ride into town,
She stared out the window as the presents passed her by.
She was in search of the furies. She had grown up with that legend. And Madam Kovarian was hearing voices in her head which mean the furies were close. And she herself was hearing voices in her head. They always sang the same thing,
“Hasten mortals to adore him;
Learn His name to magnify.”
Hasten mortals….she was a mortal now. Not that she had been truly immortal to begin with either, just maybe a little more immortal than most people. But because of the verse, she felt that urgent need to hurry….the other parts of the verse she already did. She already adored him and she was perhaps the one and only person to have already learned the name of the Doctor whom she loved.
According to Madam Kovarian, she was searching for furies, but really, she was looking for the Doctor. That was why she was here.
Riversong skirted around a snowmen conglomeration and made her way towards some swans. She loved swans. They are highly intelligent birds and have an incredible memory. As she got closer, she was surprised to hear them singing;
“Peace on earth, goodwill from heaven,
Reaching far as man is found…”
It’s the same tune! she gasped. Could it be part of the same song? How did they know it? How could they even sing it? Weren’t they mute swans?
“What is that song you are singing?” River interrupted, “I’m trying to find the man the song is talking about! I need to find him!”
A blue swan came up and answered her cryptically, “‘By wisdom a house is built, and through understanding it is established; through knowledge it’s rooms are filled with rare and beautiful treasures.”‘
The swan sailed past her making way for a road that led to a house.
And it wasn’t just a house, it was a candy cane house. So I’m supposed to find wisdom and understanding in this house? she wondered as she walked in.
There was nothing inside of the house. It was just one large empty room….Or almost empty. By one wall, there was a little slip of paper. Riversong took and read, “The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until he to whom it belongs shall come and the obedience of the nations shall be his.”
Wait. This didn’t seem to be about the Doctor. The Doctor was not of Judah, he was a Time Lord. She looked up trying to think what this could mean and gasped because the back door of the house had suddenly opened, leading her out to another house…
An igloo. She went inside.
Again, nothing was there except for a blue card of paper on the floor in the middle of the room.
She turned it over and read, “Weep no more; behold; the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, had conquered.”
She pocketed the blue slip and stepped out of the igloo. The Lion and the Root, this person had many names….
“Learn His name to magnify…” The Doctor had only one name…Something seemed to snap inside of her. She gasped as the music seemed to get louder. It wasn’t the furies who were singing this song! It have never been the furies singing this song! It was the lights themselves!
She found herself facing yet another house. A white one with the same thing.
A slip of paper with the writing, “He has raised up a Horn of Salvation for us in the house of his servant David.”
Riversong was just starting to get an inkling of who this person really was when she came upon the last house. A gingerbread house.
She didn’t even have to go inside this time, as shiny blue slip of paper rested on the bench. She picked it up and disappeared.
Amy looked at the little Christmas lights she had strung above her bed. She was going to be married in a few hours. It was still dark out, and she had just returned from a most amazing adventure with the Doctor. Her first real adventure. She had so many mixed emotions about that and the wedding, she wanted to just turn her brain off. She let her eyes go in and out of focus, blurring the lights and making them look like stars. A song entered her head,
“Til in Heaven ye sing before Him,
Glory be to God most high!”
When her eyes re-focused, she gasped, because she wasn’t in the same room anymore.
She was outside, dangling, holding on to a rope of Christmas tree lights, just like the ones in her bedroom. Something moved out of the corner of her eye.
She screamed! She was caught in a giant spider web and a giant spider was heading straight at her!
She let go, just as the spider leaped after her.
She ran, shouting “Doctor! Doctor!”
She knew this had to be the Doctor’s doing. How he had gotten her here without the use of the Tardis she didn’t know, but she was certain he had to be nearby.
“Doctor!”
She shrieked again, startled by the sound of thunder and lightening.
A lightstorm! Wow!
It’s raining lights! she thought, spinning around with a look of wonder on her face. She wasn’t even getting wet! The blue raindrops just made her blue dress sparkle even more.
It was quite the wonderland of a world. The rain stopped and a beautiful rainbow appeared in the sky. Amy continued walking past a little Dutch windmill,
She was still certain the Doctor would show up any minute. There was so much to see that she almost didn’t even realize there was music going on too.
All throughout the city, as it changed colors, music played inside of her head, coming from the lights themselves.
And it was always that same tune that had been in her head when she had been in her bedroom.
She stopped suddenly, because she realized she had just walked past the city but had met no one inside of it besides the spider and no Doctor had shown up either.
She turned around and watched the storm clouds and the spider web and the Christmas trees again. Everything seemed to be playing over again. Just like it was the same song, being played over and over again. What kind of place was this?
She didn’t want to meet the spider again, so she decided to keep on walking. The world got even stranger….she came face to face with a dragon half submerged in the middle of a pond.
The dragon spoke before Amy could ask anything, “Gather the light!”
“What?” she asked.
“Gather the light and send it to the messengers! The time of our world is come, you must gather the light and bring it to the messengers. It is our gift to the Newborn King.”
The Newborn King…she thought of the song that was being sung over and over again here. It was a Christmas carol, and what was it about? The whole meaning of Christmas, the birth of Jesus. But wait. She was supposed to gather the light? ALL this light? And bring it to the messengers who must be the angels?
“I think the person you’re looking for to do that should be somewhere very very near by. His name is the Doctor.”
“He was already sent,” the dragon replied, “It is up to you now. Gather the light.”
How was she supposed to gather the light? Hmm, maybe it wouldn’t be so hard, lights usually came in strings….she went to the lights closest to her, marveling at their beauty. Like little snowflake flowers of light.
She pulled and the lights came right with her. She started pulling some more but then stopped. This was silly, why was she doing this when she had no clue where she was supposed to go or how she was going to go back in time without the Doctor and his Tardis. It was impossible. The dragon had said gather the lights. She still hadn’t done that, so maybe if she did that she’d be shown the next step and would just have to have faith for the ultimate goal. Determined again, she pulled once more. A great bang almost made her drop the string of lights as a whole bunch of fireworks exploded directly above her.
She started pulling at the lights some more, and more fireworks exploded in the sky.
They started changing colors and multiplying so that there was so much noise and there were so many of them she couldn’t even see the night sky anymore.
The air was electric with all the energy in the sky. She couldn’t see it, but she could feel it sort of gather itself up in a ball and descend on her. The energy picked her up, along with all her lights.
It picked her up and carried her into a house! She landed right in front of the Christmas tree, and standing right in front of her was the Doctor! She leaped up to give him a hug, but he stopped her.
“Don’t touch me! You are full of light! You are completely charged!” he said laughing a little, “and you came just at the right time, Lightbringer!”
He backed up and Amy was able to see who else was in the room. She gasped because she recognized almost all of them. She had seen their faces on the screen in the Tardis.
“You were all summoned here so you could witness this. So you could see the Truth, the truth that sets you free. The Christmas lights all came together to guide you to it. Rose, you picked up the blue envelope and carried your lights here. Martha, your living lights shied away from the evergreen tree because once they attach to a tree, they become a part of that tree and cannot leave. These lights wanted to leave, and so they came here with you inside of that blue envelope so they could join with the lights Amy has.”
“Oy!” Donna was having a lightbulb moment, “So that’s why the lights on the trees in the forest I was in couldn’t come! They were already attached to trees, so they sent their children! Their seedpods!”
The Doctor nodded.
“And the lights from the city I visited came with me too!” Riversong exclaimed, “It was never the furies who sang, just as it was never you who the song was about! Wisdom and understanding indeed!”
The Doctor backed up to the Tardis and motioned for Amy and River and all the other companions to stand next to him, “There is a Doctor ever greater than I am. He has done wonders I could never do. The world needs to be told about Him! We will start at the beginning, with the angels and the shepherds. We must light up the sky for the angels so the shepherds can see! So they can go and see this Newborn King!
He is the ‘Lord of the Starfields, Ancient of Days, Universe Maker!'”
Amy continued, “He is the Wings of the Stormcloud! The Beginning and End!”
Donna said, “He is the Sower of life!”
“He is the Voice of the nova!” Riversong shouted, for now there was a great wind blasting them and blowing the branches of the Christmas tree.
“He is the smile of the Dew!” Martha also shouted.
“He is the Light of lights!” Rose almost had to scream.
The Doctor finished, “And He has come to earth to redeem the world from a disaster I could not defeat! The disaster of sin!”
Suddenly the house seemed to open up and a whole heavenly host hovered over them in the sky. “Release the lights!” The Doctor cried to them all.
Amy looked up and gasped again. She was back in her bedroom. Had she released the lights? She had no memory of it. She looked up at the lights in her bedroom again as they twinkled and cast a glow on a card on her desk that hadn’t been there before. It was one of her favorite paintings of all time, Starry Night, but it was different. It was…Silently Night.
She opened it and read:
“There is Light and figures dancing in the sky
Clothed in more colors than the world can contain
And all the silences of the night leap in song
Like that of a river cascading
from the wild mountain to the slow human plain
Gloria! Gloria in the highest!
A Child’s cry sounds from far away
It’s almost day.”
The end.
Behind the scenes.
Yes, I kind of ran out of time and lights to try and add Clara and Bill to this story, so I stopped with Amy. Thank you for being so patient waiting for this story to be written! It almost wasn’t! I want to thank my Lightbringer, my cousin, Aaron, who without his help, his sense of fun, and the inspiration he gave me, this story would never have been written.
-Heather
Cast
Dr. Who…………Lindsey Bergman
Rose Tyler………Chloe Sutton
Martha Jones……Ashleigh Salon
Donna Noble………Emily Bennett
Melody Pond……….Kennedy Sweeting
Amy Pond……………Maggie Claire Cullen
Quotes from
Hark What Mean Those Holy Voices, John Cawood
Runaway Bride, Santaran Stratagem
Proverbs 24:3-4
Genesis 49:10
Revelation 5:5
Luke 1:69
Lord of the Starfields, Bruce Cockburn
Shepherds, Bruce Cockburn
