Dear readers,
It will have become apparent to you all by now that this is not a straightforward detective story. I feel that I should explain myself:
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who I respect so deeply, held a longtime interest in the occult and paranormal. It was this fact that led me to consider what might occur if the great detective was faced with a case involving something that appears to be not of this world.
Let's find out. Shall we?
A x
Molly floated along the corridor like a ghost. She wasn't sure where she was going exactly, or why. Something was pulling her inexorably towards the West wing of the House.
She had lain still and confused for a few minutes after her strange dream about Sherlock, before getting up to go to the bathroom. The House scared her in its watching gloom. She peed nervously with one eye on the door, avoided glancing in the mirror while washing her hands. When she left the bathroom her only thought was to scamper back to her room as fast as she could, but instead she wandered across the mezzanine and towards the West wing.
Why?
She felt dreamy, unreal. She wasn't frightened anymore.
Molly reached the bottom of the staircase that led to the fourth floor.
This is where I'm going, she thought. The House felt like home. She knew it like it was her own.
She moved fluidly up the stairs then stopped. Coming back into herself, she gasped. In the semi-darkness she could just make out a dark figure lying slumped against the wall. She took another step and realised who it was.
"Sherlock!"
Molly gathered her nightdress in one hand and rushed up the remaining steps, half tripping, and fell to her knees beside the unconscious detective. With a doctor's impetus she took his wrist, feeling for a pulse. It was there, slow, but present. Molly sighed in relief and sat back on her heels.
Sherlock's face was pale, seeming almost to glow in its whiteness. His lips were blue. Molly reached out and pressed a gentle hand against Sherlock's forehead. His eyes moved beneath the lids and he took a deep, shuddering breath.
"Sherlock, thank goodness!" Molly cupped his face in both hands. "What happened? Can you tell me?"
Sherlock's eyes snapped open with a focused ferocity that made Molly flinch and pull her hands away. He stared at her, his breath quickening.
"What are you?" he muttered. "What is this? You're not real. This isn't real. What have you done to me?"
He was hyperventilating now, trying to get up. Molly grasped his shoulders.
"It's me, Sherlock, it's Molly Hooper. We work together? Please try to calm down, breathe a little slower.."
A flash of recognition changed Sherlock's expression. He swallowed hard.
"Molly. You must leave. I saw something up here, something... That I can't explain. Her face was missing, but then I saw it and it was... There was something very wrong with her face-"
Sherlock pulled himself up, leaning on the balustrade, his eyes wildly scanning the hallway. He towered over Molly as she tried fruitlessly to support him. He swayed, still breathing too fast.
"Sherlock, try to just sit down for me will you? You're going to-"
Before Molly even completed her prediction, Sherlock fulfilled it. His eyes rolled back and he fell, his head hitting the carpet hard as Molly's ineffective attempt to catch him failed miserably.
"Shit."
Molly looked down at him. At least he was breathing normally now. He was going to have one hell of a headache when he came round.
Molly turned at the sound of fast approaching footsteps.
"Sherlock! Molly! Where are you?"
It was John, sounding panicked.
"Up here!" Molly met him at the bottom of the stairs. He was out of breath and white as a sheet.
"Molly, have you seen Sherlock? Is he in the house?"
"Yes, um... He's been taken ill I think. I was just about to come find you."
She led the shaking doctor upstairs.
"Oh god.." John looked terrified at the sight of Sherlock's prone form. He knelt to take his pulse.
"Don't worry, I've already done that," Molly said. "He woke up when I got here, actually. He said he saw someone. A girl without a... Face. Then he got up too quickly and fainted again."
John looked over his shoulder at her. There was something pleading in his expression.
"Molly," he said carefully, "How long has he been up here?"
"I don't know how long. I found him ten minutes ago."
"That's it," John stood up and ruffled his hair vigorously. "I'm going mad."
"How do you mean?"
"It's getting to me. I knew it would."
Sherlock groaned, and John and Molly darted to help him.
"My head. Hurts." he said as they helped him sit up. "What happened to my head?"
"You fainted. I tried to catch you," said Molly apologetically. "But the floor caught you instead."
"How long were you unconscious for, Sherlock?" John asked, trying to disguise the note of panic in his voice.
"What? I don't know. Doesn't matter now. I'm fine."
John and Molly exchanged a glance as Sherlock struggled to his feet. John grabbed his arm as Sherlock swayed again.
"Come on. Let's get you to bed."
777
Molly had done some babysitting for her sister, but that had been a walk in the park compared to putting Sherlock to bed. Eventually, after a threat from John to call Mycroft, he sulkily complied. Once they were certain that he wouldn't get up again Molly and John crept down to the empty kitchen and made tea with shaking hands. Before long the conversation meandered away from their escapist chats about work, films and friends towards something weighing heavily on both their minds.
"I dreamed again," Molly said quietly, staring into her cup.
"The same dream?"
"No. It was... Strange. It was Sherlock. He came into my room."
John's hands spasmed sending a splash of tea onto the tabletop. Molly stared at him.
"What was that?"
John had turned pale again.
"Never mind. You first."
"Oh. Nothing more than that really." Molly kept her eyes downcast. "He came into my room and didn't say anything. Then... Then he left."
"God." John took a fortifying swallow of tea. "I think I dreamed something similar. But it wasn't, I mean it couldn't have been a dream. I followed him, Sherlock, down to the basement. I watched him, and I followed him. He was absolutely, irrevocably there. But when I looked away just for a second then looked back... He was gone."
"Why did he bring you to the basement?" Molly asked, her voice hushed.
"He wanted to show me-"
"Show you what?"
Molly and John started and turned, John upsetting his tea all over the table. Sherlock was leaning against the door frame. He sauntered into the room.
"What did 'I' want to show you?"
"How long were you standing there?" John muttered, mopping up the spilled tea with a dishtowel.
"Long enough to hear about my apparent visitations. Goodness I've been busy tonight."
Sherlock pulled up a chair opposite them. Molly shrank away.
"Is it..?"
"Yes it's really me," Sherlock said derisively. "Now, have you both gone completely mad or have you truly begun to believe in your nightmares?"
John and Molly stayed silent. Sherlock sat back.
"I was on the fourth floor, I was... Indisposed. Yet both of you claim to have seen me at roughly the same time."
Sherlock steepled his fingers under his chin and stared evenly at them.
"How do you explain it, Molly?"
Molly met his gaze for a minute before turning her attention back to her teacup.
"I... I dreamed it." She said quietly.
"John?"
John returned his look.
"I certainly didn't dream were THERE, right in front of me. I looked at you, I talked to you. It was real."
"Nonsense," Sherlock muttered contemptuously. "You were sleepwalking. Don't you know how many ghost stories begin with 'I was in bed when' or 'I woke up and'..? Well, here's the big secret. You didn't wake up. You were sleepwalking. That's the end of this very long and boring story."
"Very well, alright." John's good natured grin had a hint of malice in it. "How do you explain what happened to you, then? Sleepwalking, were you?"
"What do you mean?" Sherlock snapped.
"Molly told me what you said when you woke up. About a girl without a face."
Sherlock's mouth hung open for a second too long before he shook himself and waved a dismissive hand.
"I was... Hallucinating. Something in the air at night. Testing process has already begun."
John narrowed his eyes.
"I know your past," he said. "Your brother told me."
"Quiet." Sherlock was glaring at him.
"No no, let me finish. I'm going somewhere with this. Throughout all the years of you abusing coke, speed, heroin..."
"Shut. Up."
"Mycroft said that there was one curious thing about your 'case', if you will. Yes, you got sick, you got thin, but your mind... Your mind stayed clear as a bell. Isn't that interesting?"
"Interesting, no. Irrelevant, yes."
John shrugged.
"I don't think so. You see, Molly here... She came up just a little while after you. Look at her. Can't be more than five foot tall-"
"Five foot four inches," Molly interjected, then clapped a hand over her mouth when the two men turned their glares on her.
John continued his concentrated assault.
"She can't weigh more than a hundred and ten pounds. Doesn't take drugs. Doesn't drink much, I'd wager. She walked through those same halls, and she didn't see, or feel a damned thing. Yet you, who has a tolerance for narcotics far beyond anyone here, saw screaming horrors and fainted dead away. How do you explain that?"
Sherlock broke eye contact and looked distantly over John's right shoulder.
"Localised... It's-"
"I've never seen you grasp at straws before, Sherlock," John murmured. "You can't explain it. Can you?"
"Not until testing is complete."
John sighed.
"Look. I'm scared, I'll admit it. I was scared at Baskerville but this is worse. I just want to know what we're dealing with."
Sherlock stood up so fast that his chair skidded across the flagstones.
"Patience." he growled, and left.