*peeks out* Uh....'ello all! Long time no see, eh?? I've really missed you guys too! For everyone who was aware of the whole job thing, I just want to say thank y'all SO VERY MUCH for all your prayers and encouragement. You're all so amazing, and I don't know what I'd have done without you! And now I'll move on with this little tale of ours as I plan on ranting more thanksfulness in my next little story which I hope to have up soon. This weekend if all goes as planned. :)
Anyway, welcome to our very first Holmes collaboration!! This is just a little taster of the story to come...consider it a preview! :) On behalf of myself and my dear co-author I hope you enjoy! Please R&R!
- VHunter
The Greater Boone
Written by Violet Hunter and Bowen Cates
All Canon characters are the property of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
All original characters are the property of both Violet Hunter and Bowen Cates.
Concealed below a foggy veil I've thought back through the years I'd hoped to write a better tale of fewer fruitless tears - Bowen Cates
Prologue
Willamina:
My mother has always insisted that I was a good girl. That before Father was discovered I washed my face without being asked and was always kind to my brother even when his offenses ranked far above my own. I do not remember much about my early childhood and so I can only hope that her words were the truth. And not clouded by parental affection or the strain of her condition.
Before she died she would often take me into her arms and rock me back and forth slowly. Her coughing interrupting the gentle rhythm every now and then with the reminder of a jolt or cringe within her ribcage. I remember likening it as to my younger sibling who would sometimes pinch me when he was not receiving the attention he desired. And then feeling thoroughly ashamed of myself for making such a connection.
Yet I could not bring myself to feel anger towards such an innocent thing as an illness. It meant no harm, nothing motivated it to such cruel means of survival that was not necessity or ignorance. No, the fault of the matter lay not with the consumption but with my father.
My mother would continue to rock me as she coughed, the disease now no longer of any danger to me, having outlived it's own ability to spread. She would stroke my hair away from my forehead and sing softly into the night. Or, if she did not have the energy to create music, she would tell me stories of the old days, with stuttering, pain-filled breaths.
Her wish to comfort me was a hollowing expectation. It ate away my insides with it's well meaning and sorrowful inspiration. However, I did not feel the loss of my own lungs until later at the funeral, when suddenly the air seemed as thick and suffocating as molasses. At the time I was conscious only of the rattling in hers.
However, not once in all our strangled moments, in which we were made claustrophobic by the racing hours that closed in upon us, did my mother, Ingrid Abigail St. Clair, mention that my father, the heroic figure of our early lives, had brought about our ruin, and that he had left us in the middle of a silent November night, never to return.