Angels don't die

by AOB

"Sherlock lifted the girl and her weight was like a breeze in his arms. He saw John looking at her long, straight, amazing hair swinging gently in the bitter night air. It was like an angel had fallen from the sky, deep down into the shady back streets of their vast London city." Is Sherlock Holmes able to love? If so, what kind of woman is needed? Read and find out!

35. Epilogue

Epilogue

It was under an ancient appletree, on the Sussex Downs, her final resting place. A somewhat lonely and bleak scene, yet it was beautiful, as she had been herself. Her ashes fertilized the ground around the blooming tree and, as time passed, fragments of her being would blend with the pure taste of its fruits. And, through the swaying branches, heavy with flowers and buzzing bees, an observant wayfarer could see a single word carved on the tree trunk: Angel

He was there, too, standing under the tree, staring nowhere. How many days or weeks had he been there, he didn't know. The world around him was dark and deserted and he had long since past caring about counting the days of his passionate despair.

Since the bright shimmer of golden hair no longer illuminated his path, he had gone blind and become completely lost in the night of his eyes. And beneath every faltering step he tried to take, he could hear, and feel, the excruciating sound of shattered glass.

A piece of paper in his pale hand was slowly burning to ash. A gentle breeze picked up the grey flakes and carried them away, down the hill-side, past the meadows, over the stream into the distance, where huge, gray masses of dolorous cloud poured down. Had poured ever since and would pour, forever. And, under that continuous rain of tears, drowned the only poem that Sherlock Holmes had ever written, and would ever write.

To Angel,

My path is lost; my stumbling steps do stray;

I cannot safely go, nor safely stay;

Whom should I seek but thee, my path, my way?

Mine eyes are blind and dark; I cannot see;

To whom, or whither should my darkness feel,

but to the light? And who is that but thee?

Without thine light, what light remains in me?

Painfully, beautifully, the melody of Paganini's Violin Sonata echoed through his being. Her Song. The song of an angel. He lifted his eyes, darkened by an endless night, to the sky. Enormous and deep-blue, as the deepest sea, the sky met his tormented gaze. And all of a sudden, Angel's words sounded in his mind: "Until the very end, I'll be there for you."

Startled, awakened by her clear voice, he then understood that, somewhere behind that vastness, she was looking at him. Loving him. And wherever he went, whatever he did, she would be there, waiting for him. Her love would guide his way,

Like a distant star.