A/N: I really want to thank Medcat who betaed this for me! She helped make this so much better than this was before!

Like No Other night.

It was a night like no other. Even now, writing this, I can feel her gaze on my shoulder, the hairs on my neck stand straight up, and the air gets tense with excitement. It isn't altogether an unpleasant feeling, quite like reading a mystery novel on a cloudy evening, but when it first happened, we were more terrified than the most hideous demon from the blackest pits of Hell would have made us, and we have fought quite a few.

We had just finished a case, The Devil's Foot, about which you may have read in my published accounts. Our nerves were already quite on edge after our encounter with that dreadful root which had nearly been the death of us both.

We were on our way back home, when it began to grow dark, so rather then make the trip home in the pitch blackness of a Cornish night, we made the choice of staying in a small roadside inn. The small inn we had checked into was grungy and altogether unappealing. Holmes and I were forced to share quarters, and that would not have been bad had there been more than one bed. Thankfully Holmes insisted I take it, and despite my protestations, I was glad to have a comfortable place to rest my head.

It did not take long to fall into the arms of Morpheus.

"Sweet Polly Plunket

Lay in the grass

Turned her eyes heavenward

sighing..."

It was a sweet voice, with a peculiar wistful tenderness to it, very much like a young child singing while stroking the hair of a doll or a small pet.

"I am a lass,

Who alas loved a lad,

Who alas has a lass,

In Canterbury..."

"Holmes, do you hear that?"

"What?" Holmes growled, no doubt displeased that his sleep had been interrupted. I swear the man could sleep for days in the time between cases. I had hoped the fresh air would have a revitalizing effect on him, but it seemed to have had a more soporific one instead.

"That singing." My ears strained to hear it again, but it was gone.

Holmes was irritated. "I do not hear a thing." He rolled back over. "Good night."

How odd. It would be easy to explain the whole incident away by accepting the idea that the child had merely been put to bed, but for some reason, I could not, and did not believe it was that simple.

Tap

What was that?

Pound

This time, even Holmes was moved by the noise.

"Help me! Please!"

Here the pounding escalated, so much that even Holmes' face portrayed terror as he jumped out of the chair and rapidly strode to the door.

"This is enough." Holmes pounded on the adjacent door, but when I turned the knob, expecting it to be locked, I was surprised to find it was not.

But not nearly as surprised as I was when I found the room empty.

"Holmes," my voice was unsteady, "There's no one here."

"I realize that, Watson!" Holmes began to pace back and forth, "But how could that be?" Suddenly his attention was peaked. "Do you smell that?"

I did. We had been so wrapped up in the noise, we had not noticed the smell. It was a strong smell, like decomposing flesh. "It smells like something died."

"Yes," Holmes became the hound, sniffing out clues, "Yes!" He knelt to the floor and began knocking his fist against the floor boards. He did this for multiple moments before one knock produced a more hollow sound. "This is it Watson!" I would have thought him mad if the smell hadn't gotten stronger when he pulled the floor board away. "Help would be appreciated."

Where Holmes had gotten the gloves, I would never know, but I appreciated them. It didn't take long for my hand to come in contact with something. It was vaguely fleshy. Holmes jumped back in surprise for I had jerked my arm out. "There is something or someone in there." I was certain of it.

Holmes without any hesitation pulled the body out.

"Holmes." my voice had dropped to a hoarse whisper. We had been quite loud not two minutes ago, but for some reason I now felt an innate need to be quiet. It was the body of a little girl, maybe six or seven years of age. She had begun to decompose some time ago, but one could still tell she had had long blond hair and ice-blue eyes

"How did she die?" My companion's voice trembled with what I couldn't tell to be anger or sadness.

"Her neck was snapped." My own voice shook with disgust.

"She would have been beautiful." Whoever did this, if they were not already dead, would be brought to justice. Sherlock Holmes was not the kind of person to spare a man who could murder a child.

"We should contact the police."

"Yes, yes." He went down the hall to talk to the owner of the inn about fetching the police, whilst I examined the body more closely. Her neck had indeed broken, bruising mottled her pale, young skin. What was even more curious though, and what was also slowly taking over all my thoughts, was that of the sounds we had heard. There was no explanation for it. No logical one at least.

"My daughter!" A tall, burly man ran into the room with tears streaming down his face. "You found her!" He was the inn's owner.

"You're her father?"

"My lovely Patricia!" The man cradled her limp corpse in his arms, "Dear Lord," the man began to whisper a fervent prayer, "Punish the man who has done this to my lovely Patricia, and take care of my child. She was far too young to die." His head jerked up, causing me to startle. "How did she die?"

"They snapped her neck. I'm sorry." I turned away, wishing I could block out the ripping sobs and wails of the inn keeper. I had seen too many broken men in my lifetime.

The police arrived soon after, disrupting this scene. Questions were asked, and in the rush and blur of the moment, all the earlier noises were forgotten for the time being. It wasn't till much later, when we were well on our way back to Baker Street (for we could not bear to stay at the inn a moment longer), that Holmes mentioned it again.

"You don't think?"

"I don't know what to think Holmes, I really don't."

"There are many things about this world that I don't understand Watson. Life after death is the most confusing."

"You think it was a phantasmagoria then?"

"I think that the little girl wanted to be found."

I didn't know what to say to that, and settled for sitting back in my seat. I even managed to calm myself enough for a nap. The rest of the trip passed uneventfully.

The murderer was never found. The Yard and my companion searched high and low tirelessly for two months, Holmes searched even longer, before declaring the trail cold. The murderer was never found, but I didn't regret having walked into that room. I'm still not certain what happened that night. Either way, whether it was a specter or a figment of my imagination, I'm glad we brought that man some measure of peace.