Note: Forgot to write on the first chapter that this story will eventually be prancing off into the world of AU (alternate universe) so if you can't bear to stray from the Canon, I suggest you turn away! (Not like anyone's reading this in the first place, sniff. Review please?) Speaking of Canon, I'm not following it very carefully because, well, I'm just a lazy butt.
HEADLIGHTS
By Hallospacegirl
Chapter Two
"The woman wants your autograph, my poet." It is Tony's voice shouting over the opening chords of the rock band that has just stepped onto the stage, and I know that I'm dreaming of a past that is somehow the future.
"What woman?" my dream self questions. My body is writhing among the throng of undulating figures on the dance floor, a nearly empty wine glass in hand and Tony pressed against me.
He says something that is drowned out in the music, and I tap my ear, shaking my head. I detach myself from his lustful, sweaty embrace and stalk away through the ribbons of dancers, but I know that he is close at my heel. He is always at my heel.
When I reach the cluster of tables in the back I spin around to face him, and see that the colorful hypnotic disco lights are making a canvas of his wasted features. "And don't call me your poet. I'm no longer yours. I never was."
"You only say that because you're drunk, Ada."
"But isn't this the way you want me though? Drunk and under your spell?" I giggle loudly, my ribs aching against the masochistic corset and my throat hoarse from the howling lyrics that I belted out only a quarter of an hour ago. "I know you still want me to share the night with you, but face it Tony, I can't live the undead life with you anymore. I'm a human. And so are you, only you're too immature to admit it."
"God, Ada, I know you hate me. But you dance so well when you're angry."
I sip up what's left of the spicy red wine. "I'm going to leave Durvasula."
"You said that last month and the month before."
"This time I mean it. I don't want your bullshit of pleasure through pain. The scars on my arm haven't given me anything more than a hell of a time disguising them when I go to work in the morning, so fuck you, Tony, I'm fed up with this."
"Ada, not now." He traps my wrist in his bulldog grip. "The autograph?" His other hand rustles a crinkled piece of paper in my face, and he smiles teasingly at me with his crooked smile.
"Yes, that. Who wants it again?"
He cocks his head to the table half hidden in shadows at the farthest end of the club. I follow his gesture and can barely distinguish the outline of a lone, slim woman, smoking a thin cigarette that sends a thread of smoke into the thick fog machine haze. "Why would she want my signature?"
"She says you speak to her with your deadly but beautiful words."
"My 'deadly but beautiful words' are all written by you. I only sing them," I slur out softly.
"No, she doesn't mean our songs. She means your short stories, the ones you write and submit to those monthly online literary magazines."
"Barely anyone knows about those. I'm a horrible writer."
"Apparently she doesn't think so. Here, she wants you to sign a copy of your work." He offers me the sheet of paper, which is filled with paragraphs of dizzying text so small I can't make them out in the dark lighting. He then draws out from his back pocket an ink pen, which he places between my trembling fingers. "Sign. Sign or she'll be disappointed, Ada."
I smooth the paper on the nearest table, uncap the pen, and complete the task. The song being butchered onstage wails to an end as I thrust the autographed paper back to Tony with a lilting, "Here you go."
"I guess you'll be leaving now?" he asks in the ensuing relative quiet.
I respond by laughing crassly into his face. The alcohol has made me too reckless to care about my actions. "Yes, of course, Tony," I declare triumphantly. "Yes, of course." And just to show him I mean it I stumble away from him with hardly a glance back.
..........
I wake to the sounds of a muted conversation sifting from the other side of the wall, and the events of the past twenty-four hours come rushing back to me. I don't open my eyes. I know that the tattered poster of Marilyn Manson is no longer above my bed to greet me, and I know that the radio alarm clock is no longer going to push me into my day with a tinny musical track and a glowing red 7:00 AM.
I am in a strange room on a strange bed, huddled under a strange wool blanket that is soft enough, but oddly comfortless. My nose tingles as I detect the smell of fresh coffee, sausage and eggs mixing with the pervading scent of musky tobacco that seems to permeate through every pore of this house.
November ninth, eighteen eighty-eight, I think. I'm smelling the smells of a hundred years ago.
A snatch of an exclamation rises above the lulling murmur of the conversation in the next room: "But my dear Holmes, surely you don't believe everything she says!" and I'm instantly alert. They're talking about me. I scramble to a sitting position on the narrow wooden bed and press my ear to the moss green wallpaper.
"She was sincere, Watson."
"Did it occur to you that she was suffering from delusions, my good man? A cranial collision with a wheel of a hansom – and she admitted herself that she had been knocked unconscious – can create a jolly good amount of false memory."
An impatient sigh. "Watson, my fine tuned observation would not have missed the sight of a bruised or bleeding skull. Other than a scattering of superficial scrapes on her person and the dreadful smearing of womanly products on her face, she was unharmed." A pause. "Do you mean to say you mistrust my judgment?"
"Good God, Holmes, out of respect for our long standing friendship, I will choose not to reply to that."
"And besides, what do you make of this?" I hear a thick rustle of fabric, and an audible gasp that undoubtedly came from the man whom Holmes described as his colleague, Watson.
"Look here," Holmes continues without a pause, "at this metal contraption in the back. See?" I hear the sound of a zipper being pulled. "Her dress is held together by mechanical teeth that fit together like gears! It is like nothing I have ever seen before!"
"Holmes, you are indecent," Watson snaps. "You stole the young woman's dress. You can be sued and jailed for such acts of obscenity, you know."
"I had not removed it directly from her person, which is, as I recall, the only situation in which I can be sued and jailed. Last night, after she bathed and fell into sleep, I simply removed it from the back of her chair for my observations. But Watson, do pay attention to what I am showing you. Miniature metal teeth holding the fabric together! It is simply an invention beyond our – "
"Yes, yes, I see what you're saying. But your alternative methods of detection, however accurate and ingenious they may be, sorely needs – "
"She will not be offended, Watson," Holmes interrupts moodily. "She is not an Englishwoman."
I raise an eyebrow at that. I peek down at my body beneath the covers, naked except for the scant lace thong that Tony orders me to wear for concerts, and tightly draw the covers up to my chin.
"You have made exactly my point," Watson is saying. "She is not an Englishwoman. She hails from San Francisco, which at this time, I believe, is thriving after the discovery of gold in the eighteen forties. It is not out of the realm of possibility that one ingenious prospector may have invented these 'mechanical teeth' to fasten clothing."
I imagine Holmes shaking his head in frustration. "No, Watson, no. I pray you listen to my line of reasoning for a moment, and you will soon acknowledge that you are in the wrong. You know that rather than gathering my deductions from large, obvious statements, I gather the most revealing facts from the smallest of objects. In this case, the mechanical teeth. If you examine through my lens the stitching along the sides, you will see that they have been hastily made by a sort of advanced sewing machine, perhaps mechanical. This shows that these contraptions are not being made as novelties, but are being mass-produced in great amounts. Furthermore, the wear in the gears show that when Miss Cooper fastens up her dress, she evidently does not give great consideration to the state of the mechanical teeth. Why? Because they are commonplace and she can easily purchase another one if they are broken. Now, if these are so commonplace, then why do we not have knowledge of the invention in England? And why, if they are indeed being produced in foreign countries, has the knowledge not traveled to Her Majesty's great empire by now? Watson, if you eliminate the impossible, whatever theory is left, however improbable, must be the truth!"
There is a long pause.
Then, "Holmes. Holmes, do you honestly believe in your heart that Miss Ada Cooper is from the future? Think with your heart, not with your brain."
Another long pause.
"Watson, I do think you are trying to put me in the wrong!"
"I will say this bluntly, my dear Holmes. Time travel is entirely in the realm of fiction, and not particularly inspired fiction, at that. Miss Cooper's claim that she has come from the future is impossible, and no small metallic contraption will convince me otherwise. I may not have as brilliant a mind as you, my friend, but I know where to draw the boundary."
"But the evidence, Watson!"
"She is mentally unstable, and she needs a doctor to help her! I personally know a few accomplished surgeons who can easily correct this mental imbalance, and I will send notice to them as soon as you wish."
A surge of anger has risen in me at Watson's stubbornness, but mostly at the detective Holmes when I realize that he has given up on his argument. They are discussing local surgeons and workhouses when I jump off of the bed, hastily wrap the blanket around me like a bath towel, and fling open the door.
In the study, a suited, mustached man freezes mid-sentence and stares at me with widening eyes. His face flushes to his hairline as he hastily lifts his head and diverts his attention to an invisible spot on the ceiling. "You, you, you must be..."
"Miss Ada Cooper," Holmes finishes. He's dressed in a green tweed suit, and his brown hair is considerably more subdued than it was last night. He nods to me, gesturing to his companion. "I trust you haven't met Dr. John Watson, of whom I informed you yesterday. You may speak candidly before him, for he has been my most trusted friend for years."
"For God's sake, Holmes!"
"Yes, Watson?"
"Her peculiar state is hardly appropriate for our meeting, don't you think!"
Holmes looks confused. "She appears well rested and eager to talk to the both of us."
"Oh, go to the deuce. Does your logical mind find it slightly strange that as of now her dress is not on her person, but on the back of the wicker armchair, and that she is clad in but a blanket? Holmes, you must wake that dormant region of your mind that is supposed to respond to the weaker sex, before you throw yourself into – "
I grab the sleeve of Holmes's pea green jacket and stare hard into his gray gaze. "Please, Mr. Holmes," I say. I know I'm begging but now is not the time for pride. "Please believe me. You're the only one who actually does."
"Miss Cooper, if I can be of any assistance..."
I furiously shake my head. "I just want your faith, Holmes. Your friend Watson doesn't believe me and neither does Lestrade. You think it's easy for me to wake up and find that everything around me just got pushed back a hundred odd years?"
From the corner of my vision I see Watson rubbing the bridge of his nose with two fingers.
"But I'm certain you find our skepticism justifiable, Miss Cooper, in light of your rather fantastic claim. Your case is like nothing we have ever come across before," Holmes says to me.
"Look, I can prove it to you. I'll give you the proof you want that I'm from the year 2003."
"Then please, I insist." He lightly takes me by the arm and leads me to the armchairs around the fireplace. We both sit as Watson walks to Holmes's side with his brows still knitted together in an expression of conflicting emotions. "Holmes, perhaps we should – "
"Let us both strive to seek the truth, shall we, Watson?" the detective demurs, his inquisitive, unassuming gray eyes not leaving me. "Let the lady speak. Miss Cooper, talk about the time that you are from."
So I inhale deeply and begin. At first I trip and stutter over my words as I try to describe the modern world, but soon the descriptions are pouring from me like a waterfall as I ramble on about the new inventions of the twentieth century. Toasters, colored contact lenses, stereos, nuclear weapons, plastic surgery, computers, television. Holmes soaks in my rushed sentences with nods and small hums of affirmation, and his dilated pupils shine with a hungry light. It's only when the clock on the mantelpiece begins striking ten o'clock that I hurriedly clamp my mouth shut in the middle of my summary on rock music. "Well... I went on and on, didn't I?" I mutter.
"But this is all so fascinating, Miss Cooper." Holmes sounds as if he's light years away. "Imagine, a machine that may play moving images and sound. So incredible... so incredible..." Abruptly he raises his head to Watson. "These are not the delusions of a madwoman, good doctor," he states.
Watson releases his breath through thinned lips. "Yes, Holmes, this is all good and well, but how are we to know that the objects she described are indeed real? How will we ever find the truth? We will surely be good and dead by the time the 'computer' is invented." He turns to me with an almost apologetic smile. "Miss Cooper, you must understand that I want real evidence that will prove to me now your claim. I am first and foremost a doctor, unlike my friend who spends his days with theories, conjectures, and shag tobacco."
Exasperated, I throw my hands up into the air. The blanket around me loosely slips down an inch, and I quickly bring my arms back around me.
Watson begins examining the ceiling once again, and Holmes is still lost within his thoughts as he stares unfocused into the distance.
"You want something closer to this era? Well, I know that in thirty years the Titanic will sink," I say in irritation to the both of them. "I know a world war is going to break out around then. I know... listen, I don't know what else to tell you. History class was a long time ago and it was never my strongest point, and I don't think I even learned about nineteenth century England. The only thing I remember from the top of my head is Jack the Ripper and the fact that he killed five prostitutes."
"Ah." Watson regards me grimly. "Yes, we know about the terrible murders of the unfortunates in Whitechapel as well, my dear girl. This string of events began only recently, the latest murder, the fourth I believe, occurring only several days ago."
I feel a frown creasing my forehead. "No... I remember there were five, Dr. Watson. No, I'm certain there were five. Five murders. You see, my boyfriend – my former boyfriend – used to read books on Jack the Ripper, and one day I was flipping through one of them, and in there was a photograph of the fifth victim that was so gruesome that it scared me for months." A shiver is starting to course up and down my bare arms as I bring to mind the picture of the bloodied mass that can barely be called human. Holmes has darted forward in his seat and now moves so close to me that I hear his shallow breathing and see the fine sheen of perspiration on his forehead.
"Yes?" he presses. "What else do you remember about this, Ada? Tell me more!" He takes my hands fiercely and burns into me with those feverish gray eyes.
"She's lying on a bed," I blurt out. I find that I'm suddenly just as frightened and excited as he is, as though he has transferred his energy to me through his strong, shapely hands. "She's lying on a bed and her face is completely hacked off. And her body is a mess. It's disgusting. It's so disgusting. Blood is everywhere on the walls and pieces of her breasts are lying on the nightstand. Oh, God, it's so horrible!"
"What else do you remember? Quickly, continue!"
Watson takes Holmes roughly by the shoulder and shakes him. "You're putting her delicate mind in distress, Holmes! Her feminine composure is not made for such luridness!"
The detective ignores him. "Ada, tell me more, I beg of you. The bloody bastards of Scotland Yard have forbidden me to take this case for fear I might stir up a sensation in the East End, and assigned that mediocre at best Frederick Abberline instead. But he doesn't know, like you and I know, that there will be five and only five. Don't you see the significance, Ada? It is the last foot of the pentagon, and thus, the cycle of the murders are complete! My unerring intuition has told me this, but the Scotland Yarders have chosen to overlook me as is their wont, and now they are poking under stones and searching for dead ends and dispatching scores of men where none is needed. They have practically barred me from Whitechapel, but still from this little room on Baker Street I could use my deduction and see beyond their shortsightedness! And you, Ada, you have confirmed my theory to be truth. Now quickly, my girl, tell me more!"
"For the love of God, Holmes," Watson interjects, "you swore an oath upon your grave that you would not meddle with the Whitechapel case. I pray you do not drag such a harmless young stranger into your web."
"It is for our mutual benefit, my dear Watson. This will prove both her and my claims."
I run my tongue over my chapped lips. "I remember her name," I say. "It's Maddy – no, Mary Jane Kelly. The book said that she was twenty six years old when she died."
"Do you remember at what date this happened?"
"I – no. I don't. I'm bad at dates."
"Think, Ada, think!"
It still doesn't come to me. "I'm sorry, I really don't remember!"
"Think harder!"
"Holmes!" Watson shouts. He strides to me in two steps and brusquely detaches the detective's hands from mine. Blood rushes back into my fingertips and I fall back into the coolness of the armchair, exhausted. Now Watson's concerned face is hovering over me, studying my features with a doctor's precision. "You must excuse my friend. When he is confronted with cases that perk his interest, he can become quite unreasonable in his obsession."
"It's all right," I whisper. The moment with Holmes was like a vacuum that sucked all the energy out of me, but strangely I feel lighter and less burdened. "Doctor Watson, do you believe me now? Do you still think I'm crazy?"
"Oh heavens no, you are not crazy, Miss Cooper."
At this moment there comes a rapid knocking from the door, and a small boy's soprano voice calls, "I've got the morning papers for you, sir!"
Watson excuses himself with a small "pardon me." As he walks off, I glance at Holmes, and find that he looks as drained as I feel, his tall and lanky body stretched limply out upon the enormous red armchair. "Ada," he sighs. "Ada, I..."
"Holmes." It is Watson. He is standing a few paces behind us, a fresh newspaper unfolded in front of him. I note with a shock that his pale face is now as white as a newly bleached sheet, as he slowly rotates the paper around so that we can clearly read the bold black headlines spanning across the front of the page:
"FOUL FIEND
Resumes His Ghastly Work in London
Another in the Dread Whitechapel Series
This Time the Deed Is Done Indoors
And the Victim is Mutilated Worse
Than All Her Four Predecessors."
..........
To be continued...
Note: I twiddled around with the headline a bit. The real one, from the Boston Daily Globe on Friday, November 9, 1888 says, "... Than All Her Seven Predecessors." But that was because the police back then counted in victims that were not the Ripper's. Right now, it's agreed that the Ripper has five "canon" victims. So Sherlock and Ada are right and those Scotland Yarders don't know what they're sending to the newspapers! (Shakes head.) But then I thought it would be too weird to keep in the seven because it would make you confused, and you'd be like, hey didn't they say five? And besides this way it adds more of a punch, blah blah blah blah blah you're probably not reading this anymore anyway so I'll just shut up. Go to www.casebook.org for all your Ripper needs.
Another note: Your geeky fact for the day is that the zipper was invented in 1893! Wow!
Now review.
HEADLIGHTS
By Hallospacegirl
Chapter Two
"The woman wants your autograph, my poet." It is Tony's voice shouting over the opening chords of the rock band that has just stepped onto the stage, and I know that I'm dreaming of a past that is somehow the future.
"What woman?" my dream self questions. My body is writhing among the throng of undulating figures on the dance floor, a nearly empty wine glass in hand and Tony pressed against me.
He says something that is drowned out in the music, and I tap my ear, shaking my head. I detach myself from his lustful, sweaty embrace and stalk away through the ribbons of dancers, but I know that he is close at my heel. He is always at my heel.
When I reach the cluster of tables in the back I spin around to face him, and see that the colorful hypnotic disco lights are making a canvas of his wasted features. "And don't call me your poet. I'm no longer yours. I never was."
"You only say that because you're drunk, Ada."
"But isn't this the way you want me though? Drunk and under your spell?" I giggle loudly, my ribs aching against the masochistic corset and my throat hoarse from the howling lyrics that I belted out only a quarter of an hour ago. "I know you still want me to share the night with you, but face it Tony, I can't live the undead life with you anymore. I'm a human. And so are you, only you're too immature to admit it."
"God, Ada, I know you hate me. But you dance so well when you're angry."
I sip up what's left of the spicy red wine. "I'm going to leave Durvasula."
"You said that last month and the month before."
"This time I mean it. I don't want your bullshit of pleasure through pain. The scars on my arm haven't given me anything more than a hell of a time disguising them when I go to work in the morning, so fuck you, Tony, I'm fed up with this."
"Ada, not now." He traps my wrist in his bulldog grip. "The autograph?" His other hand rustles a crinkled piece of paper in my face, and he smiles teasingly at me with his crooked smile.
"Yes, that. Who wants it again?"
He cocks his head to the table half hidden in shadows at the farthest end of the club. I follow his gesture and can barely distinguish the outline of a lone, slim woman, smoking a thin cigarette that sends a thread of smoke into the thick fog machine haze. "Why would she want my signature?"
"She says you speak to her with your deadly but beautiful words."
"My 'deadly but beautiful words' are all written by you. I only sing them," I slur out softly.
"No, she doesn't mean our songs. She means your short stories, the ones you write and submit to those monthly online literary magazines."
"Barely anyone knows about those. I'm a horrible writer."
"Apparently she doesn't think so. Here, she wants you to sign a copy of your work." He offers me the sheet of paper, which is filled with paragraphs of dizzying text so small I can't make them out in the dark lighting. He then draws out from his back pocket an ink pen, which he places between my trembling fingers. "Sign. Sign or she'll be disappointed, Ada."
I smooth the paper on the nearest table, uncap the pen, and complete the task. The song being butchered onstage wails to an end as I thrust the autographed paper back to Tony with a lilting, "Here you go."
"I guess you'll be leaving now?" he asks in the ensuing relative quiet.
I respond by laughing crassly into his face. The alcohol has made me too reckless to care about my actions. "Yes, of course, Tony," I declare triumphantly. "Yes, of course." And just to show him I mean it I stumble away from him with hardly a glance back.
..........
I wake to the sounds of a muted conversation sifting from the other side of the wall, and the events of the past twenty-four hours come rushing back to me. I don't open my eyes. I know that the tattered poster of Marilyn Manson is no longer above my bed to greet me, and I know that the radio alarm clock is no longer going to push me into my day with a tinny musical track and a glowing red 7:00 AM.
I am in a strange room on a strange bed, huddled under a strange wool blanket that is soft enough, but oddly comfortless. My nose tingles as I detect the smell of fresh coffee, sausage and eggs mixing with the pervading scent of musky tobacco that seems to permeate through every pore of this house.
November ninth, eighteen eighty-eight, I think. I'm smelling the smells of a hundred years ago.
A snatch of an exclamation rises above the lulling murmur of the conversation in the next room: "But my dear Holmes, surely you don't believe everything she says!" and I'm instantly alert. They're talking about me. I scramble to a sitting position on the narrow wooden bed and press my ear to the moss green wallpaper.
"She was sincere, Watson."
"Did it occur to you that she was suffering from delusions, my good man? A cranial collision with a wheel of a hansom – and she admitted herself that she had been knocked unconscious – can create a jolly good amount of false memory."
An impatient sigh. "Watson, my fine tuned observation would not have missed the sight of a bruised or bleeding skull. Other than a scattering of superficial scrapes on her person and the dreadful smearing of womanly products on her face, she was unharmed." A pause. "Do you mean to say you mistrust my judgment?"
"Good God, Holmes, out of respect for our long standing friendship, I will choose not to reply to that."
"And besides, what do you make of this?" I hear a thick rustle of fabric, and an audible gasp that undoubtedly came from the man whom Holmes described as his colleague, Watson.
"Look here," Holmes continues without a pause, "at this metal contraption in the back. See?" I hear the sound of a zipper being pulled. "Her dress is held together by mechanical teeth that fit together like gears! It is like nothing I have ever seen before!"
"Holmes, you are indecent," Watson snaps. "You stole the young woman's dress. You can be sued and jailed for such acts of obscenity, you know."
"I had not removed it directly from her person, which is, as I recall, the only situation in which I can be sued and jailed. Last night, after she bathed and fell into sleep, I simply removed it from the back of her chair for my observations. But Watson, do pay attention to what I am showing you. Miniature metal teeth holding the fabric together! It is simply an invention beyond our – "
"Yes, yes, I see what you're saying. But your alternative methods of detection, however accurate and ingenious they may be, sorely needs – "
"She will not be offended, Watson," Holmes interrupts moodily. "She is not an Englishwoman."
I raise an eyebrow at that. I peek down at my body beneath the covers, naked except for the scant lace thong that Tony orders me to wear for concerts, and tightly draw the covers up to my chin.
"You have made exactly my point," Watson is saying. "She is not an Englishwoman. She hails from San Francisco, which at this time, I believe, is thriving after the discovery of gold in the eighteen forties. It is not out of the realm of possibility that one ingenious prospector may have invented these 'mechanical teeth' to fasten clothing."
I imagine Holmes shaking his head in frustration. "No, Watson, no. I pray you listen to my line of reasoning for a moment, and you will soon acknowledge that you are in the wrong. You know that rather than gathering my deductions from large, obvious statements, I gather the most revealing facts from the smallest of objects. In this case, the mechanical teeth. If you examine through my lens the stitching along the sides, you will see that they have been hastily made by a sort of advanced sewing machine, perhaps mechanical. This shows that these contraptions are not being made as novelties, but are being mass-produced in great amounts. Furthermore, the wear in the gears show that when Miss Cooper fastens up her dress, she evidently does not give great consideration to the state of the mechanical teeth. Why? Because they are commonplace and she can easily purchase another one if they are broken. Now, if these are so commonplace, then why do we not have knowledge of the invention in England? And why, if they are indeed being produced in foreign countries, has the knowledge not traveled to Her Majesty's great empire by now? Watson, if you eliminate the impossible, whatever theory is left, however improbable, must be the truth!"
There is a long pause.
Then, "Holmes. Holmes, do you honestly believe in your heart that Miss Ada Cooper is from the future? Think with your heart, not with your brain."
Another long pause.
"Watson, I do think you are trying to put me in the wrong!"
"I will say this bluntly, my dear Holmes. Time travel is entirely in the realm of fiction, and not particularly inspired fiction, at that. Miss Cooper's claim that she has come from the future is impossible, and no small metallic contraption will convince me otherwise. I may not have as brilliant a mind as you, my friend, but I know where to draw the boundary."
"But the evidence, Watson!"
"She is mentally unstable, and she needs a doctor to help her! I personally know a few accomplished surgeons who can easily correct this mental imbalance, and I will send notice to them as soon as you wish."
A surge of anger has risen in me at Watson's stubbornness, but mostly at the detective Holmes when I realize that he has given up on his argument. They are discussing local surgeons and workhouses when I jump off of the bed, hastily wrap the blanket around me like a bath towel, and fling open the door.
In the study, a suited, mustached man freezes mid-sentence and stares at me with widening eyes. His face flushes to his hairline as he hastily lifts his head and diverts his attention to an invisible spot on the ceiling. "You, you, you must be..."
"Miss Ada Cooper," Holmes finishes. He's dressed in a green tweed suit, and his brown hair is considerably more subdued than it was last night. He nods to me, gesturing to his companion. "I trust you haven't met Dr. John Watson, of whom I informed you yesterday. You may speak candidly before him, for he has been my most trusted friend for years."
"For God's sake, Holmes!"
"Yes, Watson?"
"Her peculiar state is hardly appropriate for our meeting, don't you think!"
Holmes looks confused. "She appears well rested and eager to talk to the both of us."
"Oh, go to the deuce. Does your logical mind find it slightly strange that as of now her dress is not on her person, but on the back of the wicker armchair, and that she is clad in but a blanket? Holmes, you must wake that dormant region of your mind that is supposed to respond to the weaker sex, before you throw yourself into – "
I grab the sleeve of Holmes's pea green jacket and stare hard into his gray gaze. "Please, Mr. Holmes," I say. I know I'm begging but now is not the time for pride. "Please believe me. You're the only one who actually does."
"Miss Cooper, if I can be of any assistance..."
I furiously shake my head. "I just want your faith, Holmes. Your friend Watson doesn't believe me and neither does Lestrade. You think it's easy for me to wake up and find that everything around me just got pushed back a hundred odd years?"
From the corner of my vision I see Watson rubbing the bridge of his nose with two fingers.
"But I'm certain you find our skepticism justifiable, Miss Cooper, in light of your rather fantastic claim. Your case is like nothing we have ever come across before," Holmes says to me.
"Look, I can prove it to you. I'll give you the proof you want that I'm from the year 2003."
"Then please, I insist." He lightly takes me by the arm and leads me to the armchairs around the fireplace. We both sit as Watson walks to Holmes's side with his brows still knitted together in an expression of conflicting emotions. "Holmes, perhaps we should – "
"Let us both strive to seek the truth, shall we, Watson?" the detective demurs, his inquisitive, unassuming gray eyes not leaving me. "Let the lady speak. Miss Cooper, talk about the time that you are from."
So I inhale deeply and begin. At first I trip and stutter over my words as I try to describe the modern world, but soon the descriptions are pouring from me like a waterfall as I ramble on about the new inventions of the twentieth century. Toasters, colored contact lenses, stereos, nuclear weapons, plastic surgery, computers, television. Holmes soaks in my rushed sentences with nods and small hums of affirmation, and his dilated pupils shine with a hungry light. It's only when the clock on the mantelpiece begins striking ten o'clock that I hurriedly clamp my mouth shut in the middle of my summary on rock music. "Well... I went on and on, didn't I?" I mutter.
"But this is all so fascinating, Miss Cooper." Holmes sounds as if he's light years away. "Imagine, a machine that may play moving images and sound. So incredible... so incredible..." Abruptly he raises his head to Watson. "These are not the delusions of a madwoman, good doctor," he states.
Watson releases his breath through thinned lips. "Yes, Holmes, this is all good and well, but how are we to know that the objects she described are indeed real? How will we ever find the truth? We will surely be good and dead by the time the 'computer' is invented." He turns to me with an almost apologetic smile. "Miss Cooper, you must understand that I want real evidence that will prove to me now your claim. I am first and foremost a doctor, unlike my friend who spends his days with theories, conjectures, and shag tobacco."
Exasperated, I throw my hands up into the air. The blanket around me loosely slips down an inch, and I quickly bring my arms back around me.
Watson begins examining the ceiling once again, and Holmes is still lost within his thoughts as he stares unfocused into the distance.
"You want something closer to this era? Well, I know that in thirty years the Titanic will sink," I say in irritation to the both of them. "I know a world war is going to break out around then. I know... listen, I don't know what else to tell you. History class was a long time ago and it was never my strongest point, and I don't think I even learned about nineteenth century England. The only thing I remember from the top of my head is Jack the Ripper and the fact that he killed five prostitutes."
"Ah." Watson regards me grimly. "Yes, we know about the terrible murders of the unfortunates in Whitechapel as well, my dear girl. This string of events began only recently, the latest murder, the fourth I believe, occurring only several days ago."
I feel a frown creasing my forehead. "No... I remember there were five, Dr. Watson. No, I'm certain there were five. Five murders. You see, my boyfriend – my former boyfriend – used to read books on Jack the Ripper, and one day I was flipping through one of them, and in there was a photograph of the fifth victim that was so gruesome that it scared me for months." A shiver is starting to course up and down my bare arms as I bring to mind the picture of the bloodied mass that can barely be called human. Holmes has darted forward in his seat and now moves so close to me that I hear his shallow breathing and see the fine sheen of perspiration on his forehead.
"Yes?" he presses. "What else do you remember about this, Ada? Tell me more!" He takes my hands fiercely and burns into me with those feverish gray eyes.
"She's lying on a bed," I blurt out. I find that I'm suddenly just as frightened and excited as he is, as though he has transferred his energy to me through his strong, shapely hands. "She's lying on a bed and her face is completely hacked off. And her body is a mess. It's disgusting. It's so disgusting. Blood is everywhere on the walls and pieces of her breasts are lying on the nightstand. Oh, God, it's so horrible!"
"What else do you remember? Quickly, continue!"
Watson takes Holmes roughly by the shoulder and shakes him. "You're putting her delicate mind in distress, Holmes! Her feminine composure is not made for such luridness!"
The detective ignores him. "Ada, tell me more, I beg of you. The bloody bastards of Scotland Yard have forbidden me to take this case for fear I might stir up a sensation in the East End, and assigned that mediocre at best Frederick Abberline instead. But he doesn't know, like you and I know, that there will be five and only five. Don't you see the significance, Ada? It is the last foot of the pentagon, and thus, the cycle of the murders are complete! My unerring intuition has told me this, but the Scotland Yarders have chosen to overlook me as is their wont, and now they are poking under stones and searching for dead ends and dispatching scores of men where none is needed. They have practically barred me from Whitechapel, but still from this little room on Baker Street I could use my deduction and see beyond their shortsightedness! And you, Ada, you have confirmed my theory to be truth. Now quickly, my girl, tell me more!"
"For the love of God, Holmes," Watson interjects, "you swore an oath upon your grave that you would not meddle with the Whitechapel case. I pray you do not drag such a harmless young stranger into your web."
"It is for our mutual benefit, my dear Watson. This will prove both her and my claims."
I run my tongue over my chapped lips. "I remember her name," I say. "It's Maddy – no, Mary Jane Kelly. The book said that she was twenty six years old when she died."
"Do you remember at what date this happened?"
"I – no. I don't. I'm bad at dates."
"Think, Ada, think!"
It still doesn't come to me. "I'm sorry, I really don't remember!"
"Think harder!"
"Holmes!" Watson shouts. He strides to me in two steps and brusquely detaches the detective's hands from mine. Blood rushes back into my fingertips and I fall back into the coolness of the armchair, exhausted. Now Watson's concerned face is hovering over me, studying my features with a doctor's precision. "You must excuse my friend. When he is confronted with cases that perk his interest, he can become quite unreasonable in his obsession."
"It's all right," I whisper. The moment with Holmes was like a vacuum that sucked all the energy out of me, but strangely I feel lighter and less burdened. "Doctor Watson, do you believe me now? Do you still think I'm crazy?"
"Oh heavens no, you are not crazy, Miss Cooper."
At this moment there comes a rapid knocking from the door, and a small boy's soprano voice calls, "I've got the morning papers for you, sir!"
Watson excuses himself with a small "pardon me." As he walks off, I glance at Holmes, and find that he looks as drained as I feel, his tall and lanky body stretched limply out upon the enormous red armchair. "Ada," he sighs. "Ada, I..."
"Holmes." It is Watson. He is standing a few paces behind us, a fresh newspaper unfolded in front of him. I note with a shock that his pale face is now as white as a newly bleached sheet, as he slowly rotates the paper around so that we can clearly read the bold black headlines spanning across the front of the page:
"FOUL FIEND
Resumes His Ghastly Work in London
Another in the Dread Whitechapel Series
This Time the Deed Is Done Indoors
And the Victim is Mutilated Worse
Than All Her Four Predecessors."
..........
To be continued...
Note: I twiddled around with the headline a bit. The real one, from the Boston Daily Globe on Friday, November 9, 1888 says, "... Than All Her Seven Predecessors." But that was because the police back then counted in victims that were not the Ripper's. Right now, it's agreed that the Ripper has five "canon" victims. So Sherlock and Ada are right and those Scotland Yarders don't know what they're sending to the newspapers! (Shakes head.) But then I thought it would be too weird to keep in the seven because it would make you confused, and you'd be like, hey didn't they say five? And besides this way it adds more of a punch, blah blah blah blah blah you're probably not reading this anymore anyway so I'll just shut up. Go to www.casebook.org for all your Ripper needs.
Another note: Your geeky fact for the day is that the zipper was invented in 1893! Wow!
Now review.