Recapitulation: The Third of the Three Spirits
Just when Sherlock was finally sure he was drowning, a strong bony hand seized his wrist and dragged him out of the water. His head broke the surface, then his body, followed by his feet. Somehow, instantly he was dry and floating above the surface of the water, still with his wrist captured in the skeletal grip of a caped and hooded black figure.
After a few gulps and gasps of air, Sherlock finally managed to croak through the dread clotting in his throat, "Am I in the presence of the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come?"
The shrouded phantom did not speak but continued to draw him along as they skimmed across the dark water of the Thames. They touched down on the cobblestones outside 221 Baker Street, and Sherlock's hand was released. The figure turned to face him, and Sherlock finally managed to get a good look.
The hooded cape was made of black feathers, and underneath the woman was wearing a long dress of darkest forest green velvet. It was caught in a gold chain link belt at her waist, and there was also a flash of gold around her bare upper arm. Cascading from under the hood was mass of dark red curls which fell almost to her narrow hips. She was very tall, nearly as tall as Sherlock himself, and he found his gaze captured by her glass green eyes. Her skin was milk pale, and Sherlock would have said she was beautiful, in an eerie way, but for the rather distracting tattoo of the crescent moon on her forehead and what appeared to be black lipstick darkening her mouth.
"You are dressed as The Morrígan, the Phantom Queen of Celtic mythology, are you a future adversary of mine?"
The Spirit did not answer his question, only turned and continued to drift towards the centre of Baker Street. Stopping in the middle of the road, regardless of the traffic passing through her, she raised her hands and pointed to a congregation of journalists and passers-by on the footpath.
"You are supposed to show me the shadows of the future - things which have not happened yet, isn't that so? Spirit, speak to me!"
The Morrígan appeared to shrug. Sherlock wondered if she could not speak, or chose not to. She extended one long pale hand, and pointed imperiously to the gathering of people. Then, as if it did not matter to her whether he followed her instructions or not, she turned her back on him and stood contemplating the building.
"Ghost of the Future, you are fearsome in your appearance, but I know you were sent by Mycroft to do me good, so I will listen and try to understand." Without further speech, Sherlock moved towards the knot of people on the street opposite his own flat.
A journalist with a pencil microphone tucked behind his ear was speaking, "I don't know that much about it, really. I just heard about death last night, so my editor sent me down here to see if I could get a glimpse inside."
A female news anchor answered with a laugh, "And to find out the destiny of the Baker Street building, I'm sure! It's a valuable property and no-one knows what the will might say about it."
"I just know it wasn't left to me!" joked the first journalist. "They never liked The Sun much in that house, not even after Kitty Riley was fired."
"Isn't there supposed to be heaps of money hidden in there?" asked a passing teenager, "Or at least valuables of another kind, maybe drugs?"
An elderly woman, who Sherlock eventually realised was a much older Mrs Turner, frowned repressively, "No, I don't think that was true. I never observed any drug use going on in there."
A street beggar stopped by just in time to hear the last few words and rolled her eyes, "You never saw it, huh? You think you would have anyways? So what about… you know who?"
"Voldemort?" joked the first journalist, to blank stares all around. "Ah, never mind. None of you read the classics as kids, obviously."
"Hasn't been seen for weeks," interrupted the news anchor. "Too bloody cold to go out, I expect."
"That's true," admitted Mrs Turner, "I can't remember such a cold December for years."
"Good for skating, though" observed the beggar, "Speaking of, if any of you want to join us the lake in the park has frozen over."
There were several demurring comments, at which the beggar shrugged and moved away and the knot of conversation broke up by mutual consent.
"Spirit," asked Sherlock, hesitantly, "Why are you wasting my… I mean, our time on such trivia? So someone died and people are wondering about the will. This happens multiple times every day all over London. Even those journalists were not sorry or concerned, and why should I be? If the person wasn't murdered it's no concern of mine."
The Spirit's black lips widened into a mirthless grimace, and she pointed towards 221 Baker Street.
"Should I go in and see myself? Very well, if you think that would be of use. I admit I am curious to see what I shall look like in the future. My father lost his hair as he aged, I hope that hasn't happened to me. Mycroft had the same receding hairline…" Sherlock decided not to waste further breath talking at a Spirit who did not appear inclined to reply. Without further comment he floated towards the well known door of 221B.
He passed through the door and stopped immediately, recoiling in horror. At the bottom of the stairs, lying face down, was a body. A murder, in his very own house? Was it…? But even as the thought crossed his mind, he could see it wasn't himself. It was a woman, in the first instance. It also was clearly not a murder - a death, yes, but not a murder. Everything about the angle of the body, the line of the neck in particular, suggested an accident. A fall down the stairs most likely. The woman, clearly elderly and living alone, had fallen and broken her neck. The body had probably lain undiscovered for some time, as marked by the fumes of decomposition filling the hallway.
Sherlock wondered if it might be someone he knew, a client possibly? She looked far too elderly to be living alone safely, and a woman that overweight should have been more careful on the stairs. A fall at that BMI was always going to be a disaster. He slid past her, intent on going upstairs to his own flat. Would he be there? The smell might have driven him out.
He glanced at the face of the body as he sidled around. Could it be…? He leaned down closer, suddenly oblivious to the odour of decay. Yes. The features were distorted by the double chin and the layers of fat, but it was clearly Mrs Hudson.
Sherlock sat down suddenly on a step, seeing it all. Her hip getting worse over the years, leading to less and less exercise and eventually less movement of any kind. Spending all her spare time cooking and eating logically would lead to her gaining more and more weight each year until this end - a fall down the stairs and a broken neck. Apparently Sherlock must have been away on a case, or he would have heard her. Perhaps she was even attempting the stairs to look for him or to clean the upper flat. He sunk his head in his hands, his interest in his own residence waning. His hair, or lack thereof, seemed suddenly immaterial. Was everyone he once knew dead? Surely not. Lestrade, Molly and John were not old enough to have died of natural causes.
What about unnatural causes? John was alone after the death of Mary and had a family history of both depression and alcoholism… Fear seized his throat and choked off his breath. The Phantom approached him through the door, drifting closer and closer, grinning as if feeding off his turmoil. She seemed to bring with her the sound of rats scratching in the walls and worms feasting on dead flesh.
"John." Sherlock finally managed to gasp out, "If he's alive, show me John."
The Morrígan's unholy grin widened, as if he had asked for the very thing she wished to show him. She held out her bony white hand, demanding his compliance. He shuddered, but placed his hand in her cold grip.
This time there was no sensation of movement. It was as if the scene at 221 Baker Street was suddenly blown away and he was left standing in John's living room at Upminster. It was completely bare of decorations. There was no sign of its being Christmas at all. The room was spartan, functional furniture only. There were no pictures on the walls, no tablecloth on the table, only an empty vase on the sideboard.
Sherlock was just wondering if John were here, when he suddenly heard an unmistakable cry of orgasm from the bedroom. John, certainly. Sherlock felt the heat rising in his cheeks before remembering he was a ghost in this time and place. He darted another glance around the flat. There were no photographs to indicate a second wedding, but John was partnered and happy, so that was a good thing, surely? Sherlock ignored the unaccountable tightness in his chest, and rechecked the details of the room. It did not look like the living room of a happy couple. There was no sign of a woman's touch, no sign of a second inhabitant at all, even to Sherlock's eye for detail. One mug in the sink, only John's books and medical texts on the shelf and coffee table, only one set of keys in the bowl by the door.
Sherlock was just preparing himself to go into the bedroom to actually see John, when the door opened and a young man came out. Sherlock blinked to double check his vision. The man was tall, with a messy mop of dark curly hair. He had brown eyes and had somewhat more tanned skin than Sherlock's laboratory-grown pallor but he was a very passable double for Sherlock as a young man. And he looked about twenty-five years old.
"See you next week?" he called out as he was slipping on his shoes.
"Yeah, sure. Pull the door shut on your way out, thanks." John voice from the bedroom was tired, resigned. It did not sound like that of someone giddily in love with a toy boy.
Sherlock shifted his weight from foot to foot, debating with himself how long he should wait for John to make himself decent. He had to see John, but was afraid of what he would read in John's face and body. If his weary voice was any indication, the years had not been kind to John.
Just then, John himself appeared in the doorway, shrugging on his dressing gown. His hair was completely grey now, his posture stooped, his bearing no longer that of the soldier of Sherlock's memory. He was stuffing his wallet back into the dressing gown pocket as he limped across the kitchen to boil the kettle. His wallet? Why would he need his wallet in his bedroom…
It all clicked into place. John had given up on love, on relationships completely and was paying a prostitute to visit him at home. John was a broken down, hopeless old man, who was uninterested in making more of his own life. His success in his medical practice was not enough to interest him in living, so he had opted for a slow death by alcohol. Even now he was pouring a generous slug of something into his tea, and his nose and cheeks were flushed with the broken veins of someone to whom this is not a rare occurrence.
John took the tea and the bottle into the living room, kicked his feet up on the coffee table and switched on the telly. He started and seemed surprised to hear the tinny Christmas carols that came on, and double checked his watch for the date.
"Huh, Christmas," he murmured to himself. "Comes around faster every fucking year. Ah well," he raised the bottle, "Merry Christmas to any of you who have anything to be merry about."
He took a drink, then raised the bottle again, "And to Mrs Hudson, and to Sherlock, you won't be merry I suppose, but I'll drink to your health anyway."
Sherlock realised with a cold chill that John did not know Mrs Hudson was dead.
John took another, longer gulp of his drink, then slowly raised the bottle one last time, "And to me, may it be my last Christmas, merry or otherwise."
He polished off the rest of the bottle and resumed staring, glaze-eyed and unseeing, at the telly.
"No, Spirit, no!" groaned Sherlock. "John is a good man, a good doctor! He deserves so much better than this! He could get married again, he could build a good life, a family. He shouldn't be drinking himself to death, alone with only hookers for company on Christmas Day!"
The Phantom Queen curled her lip at him, and held out her hand once more. Sherlock reluctantly took it and once again the scene abruptly changed.
Sherlock squinted in the sudden harsh light of the morgue at St Bartholomew's. The fluorescent lights overhead were flickering unpleasantly, giving him an almost instant headache. Who did he know here? Did Molly still work here?
The unasked question was answered when Lestrade walked in, followed by a young doctor and an even younger sergeant. He was talking, apparently about a recent murder victim.
"…the body like that. It would never have happened in my day. I never hauled the Superintendent out on Christmas Day, and Dr Hooper would never have let…" he was interrupted by his phone ringing.
"Lestrade," he snapped into it. "No, I can't. This is a complete balls-up and… I know, I know. Go ahead without me and… Yes, yes I will. All right. Sorry, love. See you tonight." He stabbed a button on his phone much harder than necessary and slid it back into his shirt pocket before rounding on the young doctor with a vicious snarl. "I still rue the day Molly Hooper resigned and they appointed you to this position! Get the body out and double check, and I'll be in the staff room wrapping my wife's apology present. You had better not be the ruin of my third marriage or I'll kill you myself!" Still fuming, he exited the room abruptly, leaving the other two to stare at each other in dismay.
Sherlock drifted down the hall following the muttering Lestrade. He gathered from the flow of the one-sided conversation that Lestrade's third marriage was on the rocks, he suspected his wife was cheating on him but was afraid to look at the evidence. He was drowning in work, as usual, but apparently finding it less satisfying than before. Sherlock noted uneasily that his own name was not mentioned, despite this apparently difficult case. Was he still working for the MET at all?
"Morrígan!" demanded Sherlock, "Where is Molly? If she resigned, where did she go? Show me Molly." He held out his hand but the spirit declined to take it. She merely raised her arms and flicked her cloak of raven feathers until it swirled around them both. When she unwrapped them, they were standing in a tiny shoebox of a flat.
Sherlock peered around the main room which comprised both kitchen and living room. He noted the padding on the corners of the kitchen table and coffee table. Did Molly have another baby? Her son must be at least thirteen by now, judging by the amount of time elapsed. There were no baby toys on the floor, and the house was quiet except for the murmur of a television behind a closed door.
Sherlock floated towards the sound, through the bedroom door into a boy's bedroom. He was sitting on the bed, watching the end of a Star Wars movie. Sherlock recognised the final scene of the award ceremony to the heroes of the Rebellion, and remembered with a half-smile how John would rant about one of the main characters missing out. There was something odd about the way the boy was sitting so very still and sucking his thumb. Sherlock glanced around the room to gather more clues as to how the boy's daily life proceeded.
Sherlock noted that the corners of the posters on the wall were all perfectly aligned, as were the edges of the books on the bedside table. Clearly the boy's Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder was far out of control - a common issue in those on the Spectrum. His reading was well advanced for his age though, as the books were as thick as the ones Sherlock had read himself at that age. He recognised some of them; A Brief History of Time, Darwin Awards, Guinness Book of Records. He frowned, noticing that none of the books were novels or fiction of any kind. Obsessions with facts might be a problem, more data needed. The corner of the desk in here was also padded - the boy must have fits of some kind, so perhaps the glaze-eyed stare at the television was a result of medications rather than teenage indolence.
The credits of the movie finished and Sherlock glanced across to see what the boy would do next. He blinked, then reached for the remote beside him and with a well-practised flick of his thumb, set another movie playing. Sherlock wondered with disapproval if Molly usually let him watch movies this often, or if this was just a holiday indulgence. Really, he should not be so isolated and occupied with telly, it would just feed the obsessions and make him more anti-social. He wished he could have told Molly sooner - early intervention would have helped before some of the more extreme behaviours became entrenched.
The opening credits rolled with the typical strident trumpet fanfare of the whole Star Wars series, but as the text scrolled past Sherlock realised with a jolt that the old-fashioned yellow lettering proclaimed this was "Episode IV". Wasn't this was the same movie playing again from the beginning? Sherlock had never been a particular fan, but John had watched the movies often enough that Sherlock was aware of the odd numbering of the "first" trilogy, despite the fact that the franchise had run to twelve in total before petering out. This was even worse than he had initially thought.
Where was Molly? Sherlock drifted through the wall of the boy's bedroom, deducing from the size and layout of the flat that this should take him directly to the master bedroom.
He was correct, in a manner of speaking. Molly's bedroom was slightly larger than her son's but appeared more crowded because of the desk and computer, in addition to the single bed. She obviously worked from home. That this was her office was evident in the reference disks piled on the table, the tiny microscope and slides crowded next to them.
Molly was not working at the moment, though. She was sitting on the bed, crying quietly. It was indisputable that she lived alone, worked alone and probably was, on a daily basis, completely alone in the responsibility for her son. If she was at home on Christmas Day, it was unlikely that she had any other significant connections at all.
"Oh, Molly," sighed Sherlock, "What happened to you? Could I, could anyone have helped you before it came to this?"
The dark figure of the Morrígan intruded on them through the wall. She held up her finger, then crooked it in an indisputable command to him to follow.
Sherlock scowled, "Spirit, no. I need to comfort her, help her. She needs to know that she isn't alone, that she has friends."
The Morrígan threw back her head and laughed, raucously. It was a harsh, cawing sound like a demented crow. In her open mouth, between her black lips, Sherlock caught sight of the stump of her tongue. So she could not speak to him even if she would.
She lifted one expressive eyebrow as her laughter died away, and Sherlock had no trouble recalling his own words: I don't have friends.
"Spirit!" he cried out, "Where am I? Those I cared for are all alone, isolated from me and from each other, either living in despair or dead. Where am I? Show me what has become of me - I demand it!"
The Morrígan laughed again, as if this was the best joke yet, and swirling her cloak around them both, whisked them off into the clouded London night sky.
They flew over London, not in the direction of Baker Street, but towards the Tilbury docks. The shady end of town - Sherlock could imagine himself pursuing a suspect or searching for information down this way, and he started to relax. For a minute he had been concerned…
The Ghost of Christmas Future took him swooping low over a building right on the edge of the dock complex, further from the busy water-side areas. It was not much more than a tin shed, a warehouse of some kind probably. They were hovering a good ten metres above the roof, when with a discordant shriek of laughter, the Morrígan wrenched her cloak away from his desperate grasp and Sherlock started to fall.
He plunged down through the roof and smacked into the attic beams with what would have been bone-bruising force, if he hadn't been incorporeal. Still, his spirit was shocked with the suddenness of the relocation and he took a minute to catch his breath and look around. There wasn't much to see. Presumably he was in hiding, was this a stakeout? The attic appeared to be empty. Even the ghostly spirit was absent. It was completely silent apart from his own harsh panting. He forced himself to hold his breath, in order to listen better. He strained his supernatural hearing to the utmost, but it vain. It was utterly soundless in the attic.
Sherlock frowned. His future self could not possibly be present here. It was impossible even for him to be as silent as a ghost. He floated himself towards the other end of the attic, where the trapdoor to descend to the main building should be.
In the corner of the room he found the trapdoor, but it appeared to be locked. He pulled and pushed at it, with his hands and then his feet but was unable to force it open. Finally, he sat back on his heels to further consider this apparently insurmountable problem. His gaze drifted idly from directly in front of him into the darkest corner of the room and there, finally, he caught sight of his own face, waxy and pale and very obviously dead. The glassy stillness of the eyes, the hollow cheeks and the blood dried around the bullet hole in his temple all told the same story.
He could not suppress a groan of dismay. How could he be here? His body had clearly been undiscovered for some time, as it appeared almost desiccated. From the state of the skin, he observed dispassionately, he had most likely been there about a month, maybe three weeks if there had been warmer weather earlier in December. And yet, apparently John did not know he was dead, Lestrade did not appear to know - nobody appeared to have missed him at all.
And how did he come to die or rather, be killed, as the gunshot wound to the temple was both bloody and obvious, and then his body stashed away in this remote place? Was anyone investigating his death? His observations suggested that no-one knew or cared that he was gone.
Sherlock was disappointed with himself. He had plainly taken on a criminal who had outwitted him, or else he had grown slow and careless with age, and got himself shot in the head in the midst of a case. Now not only would the case be inconclusive, but his own death would be unnoticed, unsolved and - he bared his teeth with a deep emotion he had never known he could possess - unavenged.
He sat down next to his own earthly remains and finally spoke aloud. "Is this the end? Is this how my life's work, The Work into which I poured myself, finally reaches its termination? A common criminal, not even knowing what he destroys, puts a bullet in my brain and hides my body. And I'm never found, am I?"
Sherlock looked around for the Ghost of Christmas Future, but seeing no-one, shouted aloud in his agony, "Spirit! Are these the shadows of the things that WILL be, or just a prophecy of what MAY be, only? If I should change my actions, change my choices, then can I change this dismal future for all of us? It must be so, or else why torture me with visions of what is immutable? I have always been as I chose, but if I choose differently I can change! I will change!"
He looked around the attic again, wildly. "Spirit! Hear me! You have shown me one possible future, but I am not the man I was. Your chain of visions has been effective and now I know what my true Work is, the work of the rest of my life."
The Morrígan suddenly materialised right in front of him, so close he was forced to scramble backwards as he leapt to his feet.
"My Work now is not just to solve the puzzles, but to bring Justice. Not to use my gifts for my own entertainment and the belittling of others, but for the good of All. And most of all, at Christmas and all the rest of year, not to dwell in proud isolation but to climb down off my self-constructed pedestal and touch other people for good, especially those closest to me. I should have been there for Mrs Hudson, reached out and shared what I knew with Molly, stood by Lestrade. And John…"
Sherlock looked beseechingly, frantically, into the unsympathetic glittering eyes of the ghost. "Tell me it is not too late for me and John? Tell me it is not too late for the one great love of my life! Tell me," he reached out and grasped the hand of the Spirit, "Tell me!"
Sherlock was strong, but the Morrígan was stronger still. She wrenched herself from his clutches and quicker than he could see, before he knew it was happening, she threw her cloak over his head, shutting out all light. In the same instant as the cloak enveloped him, Sherlock felt his substance sinking through the floor and then falling through the air below. He braced himself to hit the ground, but disorientated and dizzy, he felt himself landing on his back on something soft, which bounced his falling body unexpectedly gently.
Panting desperately, almost crying with panic, Sherlock fought his way free of the imprisoning folds of the cloak and sat up, blinking in the bright sunlight of early morning, shrugging off his own covers in his own bed.