"Love . . . love is the worst affliction of all. It clouds one's mind and obfuscates the path of clearest reasoning. Love is a frailty and a failure-"

"I am not marrying you for you to love me, Hooper. Do not ever love me, understand? I forbid it."


Sherlock Holmes had never taken an interest in the wider known universe and the endless specter of the cosmos, yet suddenly he had a keen attraction to the concept of a solar system with a great, blistering sun at its center to which all nearby bodies were hopelessly drawn. It seemed the only phenomenon that might adequately describe the experience of glimpsing his betrothed across the expanse of his parent's ball room.

Molly.

At that instant, she was the bright heart of a gaggle of satellites, or rather, cloying guests who wanted to bathe in her rays which included his irritating younger brother Sherrinford. Yet, Sherlock also found himself hopelessly compelled forward by her gravity.

"Hooper," he chastised himself, "it is just Hooper!"

He inhaled a sharp breath. Shakespearean logic traipsed through his thoughts, "A rose by any other name-?"

Molly. Hooper. Soon to be Molly Holmes. His heart beat faster as he approached her diminutive form perfectly encapsulated in a purple gown fit for royalty. He swallowed against an odd restriction in his throat as he recognized her jewelry - a set of amethyst earrings and necklace that he knew belonged to his mother. On her left hand, his mother's engagement ring sparkled like a purple flame. Heat infused his cheeks. He should have purchased her something new, something no one else had ever worn, something that might deign to compliment her splendor. His gaze flicked to her hair that was swirled up in intricate braids and decorated with silver threads as if she wore a crown. His throat clogged with a deluge of tender endearments. At the same time, irritation bubbled as he witnessed his brother dip his head and whisper something in her ear.

A phantom voice mocked him. "Love, Sherlock Holmes, you are in love-"

"Shut up, Watson!" he grumbled under his breath.

His sentimental thoughts dissipated as soon as her chin moved in his direction. He only managed a breath when their eyes met. Her smile faltered and pain stole across her brow. His chest hollowed out. Something was different . . . something was terribly wrong. Holmes thought his lungs might implode when she dipped her head and excused herself from the group. She stole an anxious glance at him but continued her retreat.

"Oh, there he is, the man of the h-"

Sherlock barely registered the titter of one of his mother's associates. He was much too focused on Molly. Sherrinford grinned. He was about to open his mouth as well but Sherlock flipped up his hand.

"Excuse me." He drifted past the group.

Molly was quick though and Sherlock had to step around the indulgent bustle of a gown then elbow past a chortling belly before he fully broke decorum and skipped to catch up to his quarry.

"Hooper," he whispered raggedly as he caught her elbow, "Molly-?"

She whirled to face him. Her large, bird-like eyes and quivering, practiced smile nearly broke him. She nodded curtly.

"Holmes," she rasped and cleared her throat, "ahem, good evening, Sir."

His fingers danced on her elbow. She surreptitiously tugged her arm as if he was an impediment to her flight. With a painful sigh, he reluctantly released his tremulous hold and she stepped back. He fought the urge to sweep her into his arms and whisk her to privacy. Instinctively, he knew that very moment was as fragile as one-hundred year old lace. It stretched as they squared off and with it, his composure. Molly practically vibrated with emotion, he could see it shaking her apart. Eventually, her eyes filmed over and something within him fractured. Suddenly, the lights were too bright, the atmosphere oppressively warm and the squeal of the out-of-tune violin in the small orchestra as painful as an ice pick jammed through his skull. Holmes registered the first refrains of a familiar chord and in a desperate measure to comport himself again, impulsively reached for Molly, spun her into his arms and spirited her away to the dance floor. His heart thudded in his chest as she trembled but subsequently leaned into him. He could almost taste his relief on his palette like he had just taken a sip of sweet tea. She was in his arms. That was something.

"What are we doing?" Molly whispered.

"Dancing," Holmes returned stiffly as he concentrated on the waltz.

"No, I mean-"

"I know what you mean," he ground out, "what I do not understand is why you exude such fresh injury."

Her face blanched and she looked away. Holmes cursed himself and stared down at the curve of her cheek and the slim column of her throat. However, something inside her hardened. Her jaw set.

"Forgive me," she replied flatly as she stared off over his shoulder, "for being so . . . frail."

"Love is a frailty and a failure..." Holmes' own words clapped in his ears. "Do not ever love me, Hooper. I forbid it..."

Out of the corner of his eye, the room streaked as if he were spinning on a merry-go-round. His mind raced. In the next moment, the truth of her feelings slammed into his chest as if he was jousted from a mount and he almost stumbled in his steps. Her injury wasn't fresh at all, it was a wound he had carelessly inflicted and left to fester during a week of neglect.

"Wh-Why are you upset?" he asked, his fingers curled on her back.

Molly's eyes snapped back to his like a lash and her brow furrowed. She blinked several times in disbelief.

"You know why."

Holmes swallowed. He felt the truth rolling towards him and even though he was terrified, he was greedy to hear it anyway.

"Confirm it then."

She huffed, averted her eyes and glowered over his shoulder. "Bastard."

"Confirm it."

Molly wasn't having it. She shoved away from him, grabbed a handful of her skirts and stalked by him with a pointed glare. Several people gasped in shock. He cursed and followed on her heels.

"Hooper," he hissed.

She went straight for the nearest set of doors and threw them open. She stomped out of the ball and part way down the hall.

"M-Molly, please," he begged, his voice cracked.

Finally she whirled in the corridor with her forehead bunched and her eyes narrowed in anger.

"You are just-" she panted "-you are just not content unless you succeed in the total denigration of my feelings, Sherlock Holmes. Why must you claim them here? Why now?"

He was speechless for a tick until she began to stalk in an arc akin to a predator circling prey. He found himself countering her moves and they fell into a different sort of dance.

"What is your affliction, Holmes? Have you no pithy rejoinder?" Molly bristled, her voice high and thready.

He gritted his teeth. As bitter as her words might sound to others, she only sounded scared and anxious to him, like a bird flailing with a lame wing. Her emotional torment turned his stomach and he lost any appetite to respond in kind. People had begun to mill near the doors and without his rejoinder, Molly tromped up to him with newfound aggression.

"Well, you cannot have this," she thumped a hand to her clavicle with a hoarse rasp. "My heart is not a prize or a plaything for you to possess, through marriage or otherwise. I-I thought I made that very clear."

Holmes straightened. He flinched as her words settled in.

"I . . . I do not wish to marry you t-to . . . possess you," he stammered.

Her lips parted. "You do not want to marry me at all-"

Holmes stepped forward deliberately. He could barely hear anything above the exasperated beating of his heart.

"That is not . . . true, Hooper," he bit out over the rush of blood in his ears, "I wish to marry you because I love you."

Around them came murmurs of shock. Of course, such emotional outbursts would be considered scandalous by his spectators but Holmes barely registered any of it as Molly stared at him with her mouth agape. He groaned inwardly. She deserved better, so much better. Before he could say anything more, he heard a fizzing, then a pop, and they were plunged into darkness. The mewling violin from the orchestra screeched to a stop. Several people cried out.

"Blast," Holmes muttered under his breath as he strained to see through the dark, "blast! Not now! Molly-"

"H-Holmes-?"

A dreadful, mourning wail rent the air. Even though Holmes had been expecting it, the sound sent a shiver up his spine.

"Blast!" he huffed.

An unearthly cackle echoed from somewhere high above in the ballroom. A woman began to sing.

"Do not forget meeee . . ."

Blue flames jumped from candles all around them. Molly looked at him and then turned her anxious attention towards the expansive ballroom. A frightened murmur coursed through the guests and they began to clamor to the back of the room.

"Wh-What's going on?" Molly whispered as she drifted back into the room in to see what was happening.

"Molly-!" Sherlock leapt after her.

"Oh, do not forget me-e," the voice cried.

Sherlock almost stumbled over Molly when she stopped just inside the doors. She stared upwards in horror. He reluctantly glanced up knowing it was far too late to defer anything. Near the ceiling, the ghoulish, glowing specter of Sally Donovan hovered. She was dressed as her alter ego, the Abominable Bride.

"Think sometime of me still," she sang with brackish, putrid blood dribbling from her lips.

Her eyes were bright whites against sunken hollows. Her neck had several parallel ligature marks. Her limbs were black in decay. Her visage was so disturbing, in fact, that most of the guests had fallen mute in terror. Holmes had to remind himself several times that she was not what she appeared, even as her hair and veil undulated in a phantom breeze.

"Remember the maid, the maid of the mill," she continued to sing.

"It cannot be!" someone finally screamed.

A determined figure elbowed their way through the cowering throng. Mrs. Clairmont pushed out and hovered just a step in front of the rest of the stunned guests. She appeared very agitated as she gripped a fan with white knuckles.

"She is supposed to be dead-" her eyes snapped to the detective "-you told me she was dead, Sherlock Holmes."

Sherlock gritted his teeth. His best laid plans were a muck. He glanced once more at Molly. He wished he would have included her in his machinations. Why hadn't he done so, he wondered? He cursed himself.

"Well? What sort of trickery is this, Mr. Holmes?" Mrs. Clairmont demanded in a quivering vibrato.

Sherlock finally inclined his head and feigned confusion. "I do not know what you mean, Madam."

He steeled himself as she searched his eyes. When she did not find what she sought, her orbs rounded. She swallowed and began to tremble. Sally Donovan cackled again and descended like a petal fluttering to earth.

"What do you want?!" Mrs Clairmont cried while scrambling away.

Sally never quite touched down to the ballroom floor. She drifted forward, footless, and with only a pool of a shadow beneath her skirts. She smiled and extended her arm dramatically. Then she slowly unfurled her index finger. She pointed at Mrs. Clairmont.

"You."

In a mesmerizing flip of her wrist, she beckoned Mrs. Clairmont with that same digit.

"Yoo-oou," Sally's voice became more shrill.

"No!" Mrs. Clairmont appeared as if she was going to faint dead away.

"Come, Regina, come, you are a bride, just like me. Always a bride. Always . . . always a bride. Never a wife," Sally bit off the last syllable so bitterly that jumped.

"You know nothing, you cursed fiend, nothing!"

Sally's laugh snapped through the rafters above. "Come, Regina, come now. The devil waits for you, eager to make you his own. There are no limits to the number of wives he can claim in hell."

Mrs. Clairmont's knees finally gave way and she collapsed. One of her daughters ran forward and fanned her face.

"Leave her alone, vile demon!"

Sally rose up, her dress billowed as if caught in an updraft and her eyes flashed. The sconces around the room flared and pulsed. Her diabolical laughter filled the room. Many of the guests were distraught and sobbing but no one dared move. Sherlock suspected morbid curiosity and self-protection kept them a frozen mass along the wall.

"Wh-What do I do, Mr. Holmes?" Mrs. Clairmont begged.

Holmes tugged at his waistcoat and shrugged. "It seems your sins have caught up to you, Mrs. Clairmont. I suggest you repent."

She shook her head. "I . . . I have done nothing wrong, nothing-"

"Adulturer!" Sally boomed. "Fornicator-"

"Not, not me! That was my husband!"

"Murderer," Sally's voice dropped an octave and rumbled throughout the ballroom.

"No! My mother would never kill our father, never!" her daughter shrieked. "Mother, tell her . . . the witch is mistaken . . ."

Sally again floated in their direction. She cocked her head to one side and spit.

"I do not speak on behalf of Mr. Clairmont . . . though his soul is in hell, to be sure."

Mrs. Clairmont's daughter turned a disbelieving eye to her mother. She shook her head but her mother's face was an ashen mask of guilt.

"Mother?"

The matriarch let out a strangled whine and began to bawl. She held up her hands in fervent prayer.

"Mother!?"

Mrs. Clairmont clutched at the folds of her daughter's gown. "The boy. The squire's son. What he knew could have torn our whole world down-"

"Y-You? You stabbed that boy in our house?" her daughter's voice quavered. "Oh, mother, what did he do to warrant such a sentence?"

"Nothing, nothing, my darling but I had to protect you and your sisters. I did what I had to do to protect us all from your father's wicked lies."

Her daughter's tears rolled unimpeded down her cheeks. "Lies? What lies?"

"His false vows," Regina replied bitterly, "the vows he made to me while still married to another."

Her daughter reeled from the revelation. Sally Donovan's eery laughter reverberated everywhere. Holmes' lips set as his conscience pricked. Were there any other way to tease a confession from Mrs. Clairmont for her crimes, he would seen it happen, but she had the upper hand as long as Sally could be used as a convenient scapegoat. This spectacle was unfortunate, but necessary. He heard a shuffling and glanced over his shoulder. Lestrade and several constables entered from the corridor. He nodded at them. Inspector Lestrade directed one of his men to leave.

As the not quite-Mrs. Clairmont sobbed loudly, her daughter gripped her shoulders and shook her mother in exasperation.

"Did you kill father too? Did you?"

At that same moment, the lights in the ball room sprang to life and suddenly, it was as if the room had returned to normal. Sally barked a laugh and clapped her hands. In the stronger lights, one could easily see the harness and black rope that had served to suspend Sally from the ceiling. Her dramatic appearance had transformed to something more comical when one looked closer at the layers of makeup. Sherlock just caught a faint exchange of grins between Sally and Lestrade.

"What? What is this?!" Regina blubbered.

"Never mind-" her daughter shook her again "-answer me! Did you kill my father?"

The older woman heaved up to her feet and raised her chin. "This is all a mistake, a farce! I was tricked! I take it all back. I have not killed anyone. I only confessed to save everyone from . . . from the ghost!"

Sherlock cleared his throat and nodded to the officers.

"Oh, I believe it is a little too late for that, Madam."