"My dearest Watson," breathed Holmes in the half-darkness of our rooms, the fading sunlight setting his sharp eyes ablaze with a fire I had never before seen, not even in the presence of his greatest mystery. "If we are never to clap eyes on one another past this night, then you must know that I love you, more dearly and more ardently than any puzzle or game ever presented to me. No matter the pain, no matter the humiliation before us, I will never regret a moment of my adventurous life with you."
Despite myself, I felt a lump rise in my throat and tears sting my eyes. Was this our final adventure? Would I ever again see those keen eyes, that elegant brow, those sharp cheekbones? Would I ever again hold this glorious man in my arms? I knew not what else to do but to clasp his hand in my own, nodding fervently to his every word, just as though he were walking me through a new case, lost for words for the first in a long while.
Together, we waited for the police to arrive. Lestrade, pale and shaken by the discovery of my true relationship with Holmes, seemed most reluctant to clap the irons around my wrists, while Inspector Jones was almost giddy to have Holmes in chains. My regal friend, reduced to the disgrace of a sodomite, stumbled slightly but did not lower his head. He held my gaze for as long as was possible, before we were raised up into separate police cabs and carried to our fates.
Even as Holmes' cab took him in another direction from me entirely I pressed my nose to the window, keeping our Baker Street lodgings in sight for as long as possible. Mrs. Hudson, our dear landlady, stood weeping on the stoop, waving her kerchief after Holmes, for whom she had always had a peculiar attachment. Perhaps that was why she had sheltered our secret for so many long years.
We would return from this, I vowed silently to the bravest and wisest man I had ever known, praying that my thoughts could somehow transcend space and time and find their way to my dearest Holmes. We would serve our time and find one another again; the hand of Fate would-
"Margaret! What on earth are you doing up there? Get downstairs to the parlour this instant!"
Cheeks aflame and very nearly shaking out of her skin with surprise at being interrupted, Margaret's fountain pen went flying halfway across the room. She ignored the writing instrument for the time being, and instead settled for gathering together her papers with a hair ribbon and stowing them in the loose floorboard under her bed, breathing heavily all the while as she struggled against the confines of her corset. Once her stories were safely hidden away she stood, straightening her skirts, washed the ink from her hands in the basin by the window, and carefully trotted downstairs, dearly hoping her mother wouldn't notice she wasn't wearing shoes or stockings.
"Yes, mother?" she asked politely as she entered, then noticed young Jonathan Thomas nearly leaping to his feet from the settee and bowing with a flourish, pulling off his hat. Feeling disappointment pooling in her gut she curtseyed as her mother wrapped an arm around her.
"Darling," purred her mother, "you remember John Thomas?"
Margaret nodded, blushing and stifling a giggle. Her mother's fingers dug painfully into her shoulder and she composed herself.
Overcoming his embarrassment, John stepped forward and took her hand, bowing to kiss it. "Miss Moss."
She curtseyed again, fighting a sigh. "Mister Thomas." Her skirts rose a bit too high, exposing one toe, and she quickly covered it up before her mother saw.
"Mister Thomas was hoping to take your for a walk through Hyde Park, darling," explained her mother tersely.
Of course he was. John Thomas had been ruthlessly pursuing her since she was fourteen and he eighteen. He'd writ her many pretty - though thoroughly nonsensical - verses over the past three years, and they'd walked probably several hundred collective miles besides. He was stiff and boring and had absolutely no sense of adventure, nor any appreciation for Sherlock Holmes.
Margaret could not abide a moment of his company, and yet she was forced into it at least once a week. Therefore she excused herself to fetch her parasol, hat, and shoes, sighing all the way up to her room. She was already bored, and she'd only spent a few minutes in the insufferable boy's company! At least he was more tolerable than some of the middle-aged men who used to come to call on her father and made very pointed observations about what a wonderful wife she could be to them.
At least Thomas was near her own age.
Despite everything her mother had ever taught her about proper etiquette, Margaret found her mind wandering as she and Thomas ambled toward the park - forced to go at a sluggish pace because if they went any faster Margaret's corset would probably choke her. She looked skyward, watching the clouds drift lazily across their blue backdrop, and smiled at a sudden fanciful notion.
"What is it, my flower?" asked Thomas, noticing her amusement. Instantly she sobered, shaking her head, but he gave her hand settled in the crook of his elbow a squeeze. "No, tell me. I'd like to know the thoughts that make you smile so."
He smiled, meaning every word, and Margaret felt herself soften a bit toward him. He certainly did fancy her, didn't he? "Well," she began thoughtfully, "I was merely wondering what it would be like, if one attached wings to bicycles and made them fly."
As expected, Thomas jerked to a halt, mouth agape with shock. "Why would anyone want to do something so dangerous?" he asked nervously, eyes darting as though to make sure no one had heard her. She sighed.
"Haven't you ever dreamed of flight, John? Or...or of anything exciting at all?"
Her companion blinked, then smiled indulgently. "I sometimes entertain the notion that I may take over the bank from my father, instead of my brother!" he told her with the air of a great secret.
Margaret sighed subtly. "That sounds very exciting, John," she replied, to appease him.
They continued on their way, though in a more subdued mood on her end and a more fanciful one on his. As they drew closer to the park, she thought she heard some strange noises, like a bang, or a great wheezing coming from the holes that led to the sewers. She was very careful to keep her hand from tightening around Thomas' elbow, or alerting him in any way of her trepidation, until she thought she saw something moving in the gutter for only a moment.
"Did you see something down there, John?" she asked, ashamed for the gasp in her voice.
Thomas dutifully looked where she indicated with the handle of her parasol. "No, I don't see anything, my dear. It must be a trick of the light."
She nodded, uncertain. "Right."
Just outside the gates to the park, Margaret was feeling jumpy and irritable, still in the belief that there had been something in the gutter. Then, right beneath the kerb of the street, "There!" she cried out, jerking her hand free from Thomas' elbow to point down into the gutter. "See? See how it resembles a great arm, or something oceanic, like a tentacle!"
"Miss Moss, people are staring, please lower your voice!" hissed Thomas, yanking her hand back into the crook of his arm. "There is nothing in that gutter, I promise you!"
She took a deep breath - or as deep as was possible - and shook her head, fighting her desire to kick and shout that she had seen it. But that would hardly be acceptable, so she held her tongue and followed Thomas into the park no matter how loathe she was to step over the gutter onto the kerb. Thomas had brought a blanket with him, and despite her difficulty getting up and down they hunkered down onto it to sunbathe. Under her parasol. Would wonders never cease?
They'd been sat there under her parasol for a good ten minutes before the screams started. They were far off and faint, but recognizable at least. Margaret brushed a few strands of dark hair from her eyes, peered in the direction of the shouts, and could have sworn she saw...
"A tentacle?"
Thomas looked at her as though she were mad, then spotted something over her shoulder and let out a shout of horror.
Spinning as best she could in place, Margaret gasped at the sight of hundreds of gray-blue tentacles rising not only from the duck pond, but from the sewers and, off in the distance, the Thames itself. People were being snatched from the ground by the enormous undulating limbs, pulled under the water and vanishing into the murky depths.
"We need to get away from the water," she said quickly, reaching up so Thomas could pull her to her feet. They abandoned the blanket and ran, clutching one another until it proved that Margaret was slowing them down with her many skirts, corset, and uncomfortable shoes. Then Thomas let go and bolted for his own safety, leaving Margaret.
She couldn't quite blame him. It wasn't as though he had had the imagination to deal with something like this.
As she ran through the street, trying to shoulder past the panicked masses without knocking anyone over, Margaret thought she could hear the strange wheezing noise coming from the sewers again, but was unable to distinguish it from the squelching of tentacles as they wrapped around innocent men and women and dragged them down into the water. Her breath came in short gasps, her face flushed with fear and exertion, and she was almost certain that she came close to being snatched many a time.
In the pandemonium, it took over an hour to find her way home, nearly dragging herself over the threshold.
Within two hours more, London was a disaster zone.