It was like a hard slap across the face, those words… "Eurus is alive."
"Can you please repeat what you just said."
"Your daughter, Eurus Holmes is alive."
Dark hair, pale skin, eyes bright with intelligence, my little girl. My biggest regret.
"How?"
"She didn't die in the fire. Uncle Rudy thought..."
"Uncle Rudy thought what? That it would be better for me to think my child dead? Where is she?"
"In a secure facility, Sherrinford."
"And how long have you known? Mycroft? How long?"
"When I came into command of the ..."
"Years, you mean. You've known that your sister was alive for years, and you didn't tell me."
"Mother, I..."
"Take me to Sherrinford, NOW!"
The helicopter ride takes a long time, too long. There is too much time to think. My husband smiles at me and squeezes my hand, but it doesn't stop the images from crashing through my brain like tidal waves.
There is a grave inscribed with the name, Eurus Holmes. There had been a body, a burnt little thing, bones of black. Where did they get that body? Whose child had been burned to back up this lie? We planted violets on her grave.
The stone walls are stark. The air full of harsh echoes. This is a prison. My child has been raised in a prison! All of the time lost. All of those Christmases and summers, puberty, the ring that I had planned to give her on her sixteenth birthday. All of those moments must be placed within the set of things that never were and never will be.
A door with guards, and a wall of thick glass. She has long dark hair, and a face without smile lines. I lift my hand to the glass, but she only watches me.
"Can I touch her?"
"I'm afraid not."
"But she's my daughter!"
"She's also a mass murderer."
I look into her eyes. She's a stranger, but I can still recognize the features of my child in her face.
"Eurus?"
She frowns at me, then she turns away. She walks over to her violin and begins playing. She never looks our way again.
I try to engage her, but she won't hear me, won't listen to me. Why should she? As far as she is concerned I abandoned her as a child. She is a straight line, an asymptote. I curve toward her, but I fear that I will never touch her, no matter how hard I try.
We sit in a room and listen to Mycroft's excuses. We listen to the horrible things that she has done. I can't get past the fact that they took her away from home. That I let them take her away. That was the way things were done then. There were institutions for everything. But that is no excuse. I knew in my heart that it was wrong.
"You couldn't have controlled her. You couldn't have stopped her. It was for the best."
"You think that this is best?"
"She's dangerous, wild and chaotic."
"Chaotic?"
I stare down at the list of things that she has done. The things they say that she can do, and I weigh that against all that she can not do, like breathe fresh air, or make a home, or have a family. Her mind is powerful, but so is Sherlock's, so is Mycroft's, and I found ways to contain them. My mind shuffles through algorithms and techniques searching for a solution.
This is no kind of life for a woman, to live within a glass cage like a hamster. This is no decent fate for my daughter. To be hidden away, her light never to shine. Mycroft says that she is chaotic but even chaos has bounds. I need only to define them, find a way for her to grow naturally within limits. She is like the Julia set, unpredictable, but beautiful. She is unknowable on the small scale, but firmly held within a fixed geometry.
I look down at my hands, and the edges of the solution form within my mind. My husband turns to me and smiles. He knows me so well. I open my eyes and stare at my oldest son. He sees me, and finally shuts his mouth. I say to him…
"Let me tell you what you're going to do about my daughter."