So this is my first venture into the world of Sherlock Holmes. Unfortunately I've only seen the movie, though I have gone out to buy the first book and I've gotten a few chapters in. I'm not entirely sure where I plan on going with this (romance, adventure, whatever) but I do hope to see it through till the end, though I'm not sure you should expect frequent updates. We'll see. Anyways, hope you enjoy. Please review! :)
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In a terrible turn of fate Fay Warvel was the only senior in her college who was not assigned all the classes she needed to graduate. As an architectural major Fay was required to complete four calculus courses in four years; something that she had dismissed as easy enough until this year. The night before Fay was supposed to log onto the school's website and sign up for the courses she needed there was a vicious snow storm. Over three feet of snow fell in less than twelve hours and by the time Fay woke the next morning both her phone and internet were out. Driving was not an option either and as such Fay had to resign herself to ending up with only the left over classes and calculus, of course, was not included.
This brought Fay to the present in which, unlike the rest of her graduating class, she was in the library on campus with a graphing calculator, notebook and text book open on the table in front of her in the middle of June. She sat impatiently at the table, jiggling one foot which was on the ground while the other was tucked underneath her. She tapped her pencil on the lined paper in agitation, distracted by the immensely irritating text of the book which was in something called Viner Hand. Each time she looked down at the page Fay couldn't help but immaturely thing that whoever created the font was definitely a real Veener. With a long suffering sigh, that even Fay could admit was unnecessary, she snapped shut the text book and lay her head on her arms, wishing for coffee.
Despite Fay's current attitude she loved calculus. It was easy for her. Simply inserting numbers into formulas and plugging and chugging had never been too significant of a challenge and so she normally did calculus work to relax. The mind numbing process was far better at taking her mind off of other classes and problems than doing most other things and so she, humiliatingly enough, took to keeping her old calculus text books next to her bedside so that when she was having trouble falling to sleep she could open it and find derivatives and integrals until she drifted off. But even more than calculus Fay loved architecture.
She loved to borrow books from the library on Rome or France or England and admire the churches and towers and buildings and homes. More than anything Fay wanted to move to Europe and discover the architectural treasures of those countries herself. She could imagine sitting at a distance from L'Arc de Triomphe and sketching and designing her own monuments. She could see herself walking the Thames in London and taking pictures of the fantastic skyline and the Tower Bridge. She could see it in her mind. But that appeared to be, at least for the near future, as close as she could get. Moving would cost her far more money than she could even pretend to have, especially due to the fact that she had not technically graduated yet.
Fay sighed again, sat up and began packing up her things to go back to her apartment. As she snapped shut her messenger bag and slung it over her shoulder, while mean while thrusting on a baseball cap with her other hand Fay felt resigned to her continued, uninteresting existence.
Fay unlocked the door to her apartment and walked in, dropping purse, keys and bag by the door. Green flip flops thunked against the wall as she chucked them off with vehemence. With now bare feet Fay padded on linoleum floor past the brightly lit living room into the kitchen and grabbed a water bottle from her refrigerator. From the next room the voice of her best, but superficial, friend and roommate Rush called over the sound of a blow dryer, "Fay?"
Fay leaned her forehead against the cool fridge door; blond bangs flattened and impressed themselves into her skin, "Yeah?" There was no response.
Louder now Rush yelled, "Fay!?"
"Yeah!?" The blow-dryer stopped.
"You're home?"
Fay tilted her head backwards slowly and then quickly brought it forward again with a satisfying thunk, "Yep."
"Oh, okay!" The blow-dryer turned back on and Fay rolled her eyes and stood up straight and backed away from the fridge. Going to a cabinet close by she grabbed a personal-size bag of salt and vinegar chips and went into the living room. She jumped onto the couch and stretched out. She opened her water bottle, took a sip, opened the bag of chips and took a handful and lay back against the cushions with relief. After staying still for several minutes in silence aside from the muffled sound of the blow-dryer and munching of chips, Fay reached onto the coffee table and grabbed a slim, hard covered book which lay there. From many years use the words on the cover had worn away and only a sprinkling of gold was left embedded into the brown cover: A Study in Scarlett.
With the simple and cheerful anticipation Fay always had when reading an old favorite, she leaned back with the novella and opened to the first page.
In the year 1878 I took my degree of Doctor of Medicine of the University of London, and proceeded to Netley to go through…
When Fay woke the next morning she didn't open her eyes right away. The smells of fried eggs and the clinking sounds of cutlery and bustling in the kitchen invaded Fay's consciousness with so little ado that her brain didn't even process them as a surprise, though the last time she had awoken to such things she was probably fifteen and staying at her grandmother's house. Soon her eyes fluttered open and it was upon doing so that Fay way initially startled. Instead of the high, white, bumped ceiling of her apartment with Rush, she was met with a smooth ceiling of a cream color. She sat up immediately and was taken aback to hear the small squeal of stretched leather. She looked down to the couch and saw brown leather and then up and around and back and down and in every corner of the room and quite quickly came to the assumption that this was not her living room at all.
Seized with the adrenaline of panic Fay turned to the wall she had seen with a door and made her way towards it, still noticing minute details as she scrambled around furniture. The clock on the wall read nine o'clock. The carpet was burgundy and worn in places. A string instrument's bow and resin sat on the seat of a green chair but there wasn't an instrument in sight. The wood of the door had several small cracks expanding out from the center. There were two empty tea cups on a silver tray. The painting on the right was slightly tilted to the left. There was a dark smudge of oily fingers on the patterned wallpaper. Small details came to Fay so quickly that behind her eyes thrummed with pain similar to that she sometimes had if she read tiny print without a good light. The table next to the door was covered with open books and yellowed newspapers. The print though averagely sized and across the room, seemed to magnify itself and phrases and she could make out sentences and words without conscious effort. Mr. and Mrs. Smith welcome their first daughter—Newton's first law has been accepted as—It's possible that Mr. Andrews was imagining things but— Somehow Fay had stopped moving. She stood in the center of the room, eyes closed with hands at her temples massaging the pressure that had suddenly mounted there.
Through the pain that radiated in her skull Fay could hear the creaking of wood floors beyond the door and anticipated the opening of the door into the room, likely to be followed by a scream and a call to the police. Her heartbeat increased exponentially and yet Fay could do nothing but not move. The sound of rusted hinges altered Fay to the person's entrance and a split second later a male spoke, "Mary? What are you doing here? Where—What—What are you wearing?"
Normally Fay admired the nasal tones of a British accent, but not today. She moved her hands from her temples, where they were shading her face, to her ears, in an effort to block out the man's voice. Though Fay kept her eyes sealed she heard him take in a rapid breath, and she knew he'd come to the realization that she, in fact, was not Mary. Momentarily the sound of the creaking floor boards snuck between her fingers to her ear drums and she knew the man had left. With hope that the man had left, Fay lowered her hands and opened her eyes.
As she did so, the pounding in her head increased marginally, but she did not reverse her actions. Fay focused her mind to just the feel of the roughness of carpet on her feet and the cool air on her skin and the head ache faded enough for her to exhale a huge breath in relief. She began thinking hard.
Images of the bric-a-brac objects and oddly Victorian furniture and styles of the room played in her mind's eye in addition to the ringing questions of the obviously English man. Not daring to theorize Fay avoided these thoughts. Must leave quickly. He'll be back. Same door? No, he'll be outside it. Other options? The fire place? Her train of thought paused for a moment. Ineffective. So, door?
Swiftly she strode across the room, avoiding stepping on a bear rug, and opened the door quietly, hoping the hinges' noise wouldn't alert the man who had left, or anyone else for that matter. Fay stuck her head into the hallway, noting a Maplewood floor, bare walls and several similar looking doors going in both directions. To her left there was a stairwell. Fay was wary of the creaking wood, but without any means of avoiding it she stepped fully out into the hallway, simply hoping for the best. Fay shuffled her feet instead of taking long strides, hoping that it would muffle any noise that her body weight would make, but in doing so her Capri's rubbed together and the sound of the jean seemed to echo in the low ceilinged highway. Ignoring this she continued to the stairwell.
Slowly she placed on foot on the first step of the stairs and when she found it did not make a noise she quickly began descending without further hesitation. The room the stairs led to appeared to be a sort of rear entry room and from her stance she couldn't perceive anyone about. Nonetheless she moved stealthily to the door and reached for the gold door handle. Unfortunately when her shaking fingers finally grasped the cool metal the crisp voice from earlier rang out from behind her, "Freeze."