The dripping tap.
You could always hear it somewhere in the House. It was never clear exactly where it was coming from, but it was constant. When Dorothy Ravensdale had first moved into the House she had spent nights driven mad by it, roaming the House and tightening all the spigots with a wrench. In time, however, it became almost a comfort to her. As with the other unusual workings of the Ravensdale mansion, it was at first unnerving, but soon became, well, part of the character of the place.
As long as one left well alone.
Tonight it was the footsteps. Dorothy sat at her dressing table and murmured the banishing chants that Marion had taught her. It had been a long time since the footsteps had kept her up at night, but things had been particularly unsettled since the arrival of the detective and his companions.
She stopped her quiet chanting and lifted her chin, listening. A second set of footsteps was coming from downstairs, growing closer. They were almost silent, and steady. Dorothy looked up at the stained glass sidelight of the bedroom door as a shadow passed. That profile... It was him. The detective. He was heading towards the sound of the footsteps on the fourth floor landing.
Dorothy made a movement to leap from her seat and warn him, but she stopped. Let the cynic discover what he wants, she thought. Maybe then he would understand just exactly what he'd gotten himself into.
With only a slight stirring of guilt, Dorothy sat back down and began to comb her hair. The detective's footsteps faded into the distance.
Godspeed, Sherlock Holmes, she thought.
777
Sherlock crept along the third floor landing until he reached the stairs to the fourth. He paused at the bottom to take stock.
Hands, shaking. Mouth dry. Headache.
He blinked.
Blurred vision. Nausea.
The symptoms had been growing the further he made his way up the floors of the House. At first he had suspected the low buzzing that seemed to permeate the lower levels was some sort of psychoacoustic vibration designed specifically to unnerve, but as he climbed higher the grey noise had faded and yet the symptoms increased.
The airborne drug they were breathing must rise like heat. Sherlock hovered at the bottom of the stairs for a while longer, toying with the idea of finding a dust mask or something to tie around his mouth and nose to lessen the effect of the drug when he heard the footsteps run across the floor right above his head.
Forget about respiratory health. This was the game.
He silently mounted the first step. The footsteps above him ceased abruptly. Sherlock cursed inwardly, presuming his presence known. No use for subtlety now. He bounded up the stairs, taking them three at a time, until a tightness in his chest overcame him. He reeled against the banister, grasping it with whitened knuckles. Blood thrummed loudly in his ears and spots of light swam into his vision. For a moment he thought he was going to be sick. His head spun and he lost balance, pitching forward onto all fours.
The floorboards creaked on the fourth landing. The footsteps moved towards the top of the stairs. Sherlock raised his head. The effort to move was unbelievable.
There was a figure standing at the top of the staircase.
"Who's there?" he croaked. The figure moved abruptly out of view.
"Stop!"
Sherlock threw his weakening body into action, clawing his way up the stairs on his hands and knees. He reached the top and dragged himself upright against the balustrade. He scanned the landing, eyes shifting in and out of focus.
"There you are."
The figure stood in a patch of shadow ten meters away. Sherlock's brow furrowed. Smaller than he expected, the figure was... It was a girl. A young girl. She was wearing a long, white nightdress.
"Molly?" Sherlock muttered, confused. The girl's face was too dark to make out. Sherlock took a shaky step forward.
Help. Me.
The words arrived in his disorientated mind without bypassing his ears, yet it was clear that the source was the girl. How the hell...?
Sherlock shook his head in an attempt to clear it, but the movement only increased the dizziness that threatened to overwhelm him. He pressed one hand to his eyes and breathed in deeply.
When he opened his eyes, the girl was standing right in front of him. Sherlock recoiled, his back hitting the balustrade.
"Who are you?" A hint of panic entered the detective's voice. The girl was less than three feet away from him now, yet her face still appeared too dark and blurred to see. Sherlock's breath caught in his throat. Everything else was in focus but her face.
"I'm hallucinating," Sherlock said out loud, his speech slurring. "I can't... I can't see your face." His mind was filling up with mist. Static crawled into the edges of his vision and his legs buckled beneath him. He fell against the wall and groaned. There was something very wrong. His last functional synapses sparked, every nerve screaming at him to get out of there, fast.
No longer an option.
Sherlock made one last effort to rise. He pushed himself up onto his elbows, and suddenly the girl's face was an inch from his own.
Oh God. Her face. The pure twisted horror of it. Her eyes were dark, screaming holes in her skin, her jaw hung low and slack, every inch of her grey and dead like something rotted in water-
Sherlock lost consciousness.
777
Molly woke with a start. Her heart was beating fast, but whatever dream had woken her was already fading from her mind. She lay still, working on controlling her breathing. It was another minute or two before she realised there was a presence standing in the doorway. Molly gasped, scrambling to gather the bedclothes around her before laughing with relief as she recognised the silhouette.
"Sherlock! You frightened me. What are you doing?"
He didn't answer, but stepped forwards into the room towards the bed. Molly squinted up at him.
"You alright?"
He sat on the bed beside her. The springs shifted under his weight.
"Did you have a dream? Like me and John did?"
Molly sat up and tilted her head to one side. Sherlock's face was still silhouetted against the light from the doorway. Molly could make out one side, the sharp planes of his cheekbone.
"What's going on with you?" She took hold of his hand, fully expecting him to flinch and pull away. He didn't.
"Jesus. You're freezing-" Molly froze herself as Sherlock lifted his other hand and cupped her face. His thumb slid along her jaw and hooked his fingers around the back of her neck.
"What are you-" He cut her off again, this time by pressing his mouth to hers. His lips were dry and cold. Molly couldn't move. Her heart began to pound again. She had imagined this moment so many times before. Surprising to herself even, that she hadn't taken into account the fact that kissing Sherlock would more likely than not be something akin to kissing a statue.
Molly's eyes fluttered closed. The kiss seemed to leach the energy from her body. He opened his mouth. His breath was like ice. Molly gasped, and the kiss abruptly ceased.
Her eyes snapped open, and she was alone. Sherlock was gone.
Molly let herself fall back into her pillow, confused. A dream... She decided reluctantly, touching a finger to her lips. They were cold.
777
John woke up and wasn't certain why. He searched his brain for a half forgotten noise, or a nightmare fading like breath on a cold window. No reason for it. One moment he was sleeping blissfully for the first time since he arrived at Ravensdale, and now he was wide awake and alert. He sat up on the edge of his bed and scratched the back of his head, frowning. At home he would have gotten up, padded to the kitchen and made himself a cup of tea. Turned on the television maybe. John sighed. Home comforts. There was something about Ravensdale that made him want to stay safely in his room at night.
He stood and pulled on his dressing gown. Perhaps he'd go to check on Molly. He hoped secretly that she had woken too. As he made to leave a shadow in the doorway stopped him short. John let out a short bark of fright before recognising the apparition. Sherlock.
"Please don't do that," John muttered. "What are you doing up?"
Without a word, Sherlock beckoned John to follow him and turned to leave.
777
The lights were off, or dimmed. Light coming from somewhere but it wasn't clear from where. A strange, buzzing ambience. The warm gloom settled over the house like a cat on a sleeping infant. John followed Sherlock down the stretch of hallway towards the stairs. He wanted to ask Sherlock where he was taking him, but at the same time he was reluctant to open his mouth. The shadows seemed full, pregnant, swarming with silent beasts. John tried to make his footfalls as light as possible. Sherlock, as usual, moved without a sound.
The silence opened only for the dripping tap. Slow, and deliberate, the noise seemed to hang over them like a travelling storm. As they moved, it should have gotten closer, then further away. It should have become louder as they approached it and quieter as they moved on, and John tried to ignore the fact that it didn't. Consistently, steadily, the sound followed them to the end of the stairs and across the entrance hall to the basement stairwell. Without hesitation, Sherlock descended into the gloom.
"Sherlock?" John balked at the darkness in front of him. Halfway down and Sherlock had disappeared completely into the velvet dark.
"Isn't there a torch or something? Sherlock?"
John peered nervously into the gloom.
"You could break a leg on steps like that, without a light on."
No answer. With a sigh, John steeled himself and plunged downwards.
At the bottom of the stairs, John tried to let his eyes adjust to the dark. There was light coming from somewhere... Past the racks of wine built into the wall there was a corner. John groped his way towards it, half blind. The dim light was coming from beyond it.
Rounding the corner, John found the source of the light. Sherlock was standing silently in front of a doorway set in the cellar wall. A strange sort of light emanated from it, enough to seep into the corners of the basement and turn Sherlock into a thin silhouette.
"Is this what you brought me down here for?" John asked. While the rest of the house normally held a chill, the basement was oppressively warm. A furnace lurking somewhere, John suspected. That would explain some of the strange noises too.
"Something in this room, is it?"
John approached the doorway, wiping the sheen of sweat off his face with the sleeve of his dressing gown.
"What is it?"
John looked around the doorframe apprehensively.
"It's a... A little room. Maybe it was a maid's room? What am I supposed to be seeing here?"
John glanced back at Sherlock, who didn't answer. Didn't even shrug.
"People do eventually get sick of your crypticness you know," he muttered angrily, and stepped into the tiny room. Immediately, everything seemed to shudder, defocus, then right itself. John winced as a feeling of dread overwhelmed him.
"There's not enough air down here," he whispered to himself. "I feel..."
He scanned the room. Strange little room. A low bed. Dirt floor, like the rest of the basement. A child's cradle in the corner.
A cradle?
John, smothered and confused in the heat, approached the cradle. An old, old thing. Who would keep a child down here? He reached out to touch it, unsure why exactly, perhaps to cement it in his own reality, then stopped. He had a feeling – one that made the hair on his arms stand straight up and a lump form in his throat – that there was something in the cradle. A veil of muslin was draped over it with only darkness beyond. His years of logical thinking evading him, John withdrew his hand and backed out of the strange, silent room. Sherlock stood waiting for him outside.
"There's something not quite right with the air down here," John told him. "I feel ill. That room is..."
John looked back over his shoulder into the room, and saw the cradle rock violently forward with a nauseating creak.
Panic rose in his throat as he whirled around.
"Sherlock! Did you see -"
The basement was empty. He was alone.