PART ONE: A Fan

April Carlisle was born with a copy of The Strand in her hands - or so her father always said. She was an avid reader of anything and everything, from Poe and Dickens to her father's newspapers and her mother's copies of Ladies Home Journal. But her favorite stories were the ones written by Dr. John Watson, about his adventures with the famously brilliant detective Mr. Holmes. April knew everything there was to know about their mishaps and triumphs. She could quote the doctor on everything from tea cups to revolvers, and it was inevitable that as soon as the latest episode of their intrigues came out she would be found with her nose buried in The Strand. She would share these delights with her brother Tommy, younger by two years but just as captivated a listener as she was a reader. They would read together late into the night until their mother came down the hall to scold them for still being awake. After lessons they would go into the yard and play at solving mysteries - where was the robin that occupied that birds' nest? Who had left the muddy footprints on the garden path?

When April was sixteen Tommy caught a cold. Before the month was out it burgeoned into influenza. April, ever the faithful sister, sat beside her brother day after day and read to him. They loved to imagine what it would be like to be caught up in a grand adventure as Sherlock Holmes always was, and Tommy never tired of hearing about the detective's faithful Boswell.

"I'm going to be just like him, April," he boasted proudly. "I'll see the world and fight for the queen! And then I'll come right back here and protect you. We'll go on adventures."

April laughed then. But as time wore on and Tommy did not recover, this daydream became her link to hope and the future. She knelt by his bed as he was sleeping and swore that they would go on adventures. She swore it every day, thought it every time she looked in his shining eyes, crossed her fingers and prayed every time he laughed. It was destined, after all. They would be together.

That was what she told herself as Tommy grew paler and weaker.

She was still telling it to herself four days after Christmas when he died.

They buried him with a copy of his favorite story. April put a white rose on his grave and told herself she would never again wish for adventure.

All she wanted now was oblivion.

PART TWO: Limbo

The world was empty without him. April knew it somehow, deep in her heart. Without Tommy there was nothing left for her.

They said time would heal her wounds. They said life had more to offer than tragedy. They said she ought to move on. But April could not. When she donned her black mourning clothes it was as though her whole world had donned black with her. No light could brighten her mood, no heat could warm the lump that was frozen in her chest.

It was the stories that were worst of all. She sought comfort from them, solace, words of wisdom and advice. Instead she found only memories, sharp as knives, cutting at her heart until her eyes stung with tears. Tommy in his last breaths had taken even reading from her. After all, what use were imaginary adventures when she had no Boswell at her side?

And so April existed as if in a dream. She did not speak of her grief to anyone - not her father, who threw himself into work to avoid facing his son's death. Not her mother, who sat all day in her sewing room rocking and weeping. Not her friends, whose eyes could not see the world as she did no matter how hard they strained. Reality was torturous; imagination was unbearable. It was limbo, with no escape and no mercy. April Carlisle was not raised to be a coward. Her life had taught her patience and fortitude, her books courage and resourcefulness. But nothing taught her how to deal with this vast emptiness that had suddenly opened a chasm in her life.

She sought relief, and eventually she found it.

PART THREE: Addicted

In the end, she got the idea from the detective stories she used to love so much. The doctor was always talking about Holmes's "seven-per-cent solution". He used it to sink into a reality outside this world; why shouldn't she? Perhaps it would be her solution, too.

The first time she tried, April's hands were shaking almost too hard to push the needle into her skin. Her arm was numb where she had tied a makeshift tourniquet, and the way her blue veins stood out made the whole thing seem ludicrous and surreal. She was the respectable daughter of a respectable family. What was she doing?

The answer came a moment later, when she was blissfully free of all the pain that had burdened her for so long.

Eventually her father, even blinded by his own grief as he was, noticed something was wrong with his daughter. She was listless, unresponsive. She did not eat and she stayed in her room most all the time. April would not speak to him about it, no matter how he pleaded with or entreated her. In despair, Mr. Carlisle sent a telegram to the one person he knew who might be able to help.

There was no soul in April's blue eyes when a maid showed the doctor in to see her. No life in her voice or actions. She breathed and had a pulse, but Dr. Watson could tell she was already gone. Only when he rose to leave did the girl so much as stir from her armchair.

"Won't this be a grand adventure," she whispered.

FIN