I opened my eyes. It was early morning and I was lying in bed. There was the soft crackle of a fire in the tiny grate beneath a crowded mantle piece. It could have been my room, but it wasn't. I was in another's room, in another's bed, and everything was very far from fine.

I sat up slowly; I was cold despite my still being dressed beneath the blankets. I hugged them round me like a talisman and looked around the room. It was cluttered - not with furniture or ornaments but with paper, pens, several pipes and jars, a revolver, a violin case and many pieces of chemical apparatus. There were stacks of manuscripts and books all over the room - on shelves, desk and floor. (I'd like to say there was method in the madness, but if there was I couldn't see it.)

There was something else too. From an armchair opposite the bed, someone watched me. He was tall and lean, with his long legs stretched out towards the fire. His elbows rested on the arms of the chair, his thin fingers were steepled together and his eyes were half closed, giving an impression of meditation. He had a refined face with a narrow, hawk-ish nose and deep-set eyes; he couldn't have been older than thirty five, maybe not even that. There was something both familiar and unsettling about seeing him there. His appearance and his posture reminded me of someone from a film - possibly a character played by Peter Cushing or some other laudable old-school British actor.

"Miss Morris, I am glad to see you awake at last." The voice was quietly sonorous with a precise pronunciation that could have cut glass. (Gorgeous – a sort of further matured essence of Christopher Lee.)

The name he used was wrong, but I let it pass. The first story I ever wrote was about Catherine Morris, heroine of a war-torn future. I had a pair of dog-tags made with her name, rank and number on them and used them as a key-fob; my own particular charm to remind me dreams are worth having.

I swallowed, wanting to be sure of my voice before I used it. "How long have I been here?"

"It was late last night when you called and you have been unconscious since then."

"Where is this?" (I couldn't bring myself to utter the clichéd, 'Where am I?')

He looked a little disappointed at the question. "Ah, so your visit was not intentional? Pity. You are at 221b Baker Street..."

I scowled. As far as I could remember, there was no 221b Baker Street, just a bank or some such building occupying 221 to 223. I realised the speaker had given his name and I had not been paying attention. "I'm sorry?"

"I am Mr Sherlock Holmes, at your service."

I looked at him incredulously. There were several retorts that came to mind, none of them polite. I began to worry that I was in the company of a truly delusional individual (or at least eccentric actor), when I remembered the events of the previous night.

I struggled out of bed (the madman's bed, oh yey) and walked to the window. Being at the front of the house I had a perfect view of the street. And I didn't like it. Cobble stones and bad roads. Horse-drawn carts, carriages and cabs replaced the familiar mass of lorries, cars and motorbikes. Just as last night, the men in the street wore frock coats and the women wore fitted dresses with full skirts. Hats were on every head and walking canes in nearly every hand.

"Oh, Gods," I moaned quietly. "What is this? What the Kebb is going on?" I whispered, resorting to one of my own neologisms since it was the worst word I had the power to summon. Besides, it's not polite to say 'fuck' in front of strangers, especially when they're so obviously crazy and impeccably dressed.

"Is there something troubling you?" he asked mildly.

Yes there bloody well is! I screamed silently. "Yes, there is." I sat down on the bed once more, but my gaze was forced back towards the window. "This is not funny. This is not good. I don't understand..." My words were sour and uncomfortable on my tongue. Something about the room (or perhaps the man) made me wish I'd been to a Swiss finishing school – I felt small, grubby and ill-spoken.

The man had stood up and opened the door. "Would you care to come into the sitting room, Miss Morris? We can discuss your situation. I can also introduce you to my colleague, Dr Watson."

I wanted to laugh - it was all so ridiculous. Was it a joke - was I dreaming? I stood my ground for a second or so, fruitlessly scrabbling for an explanation or the courage to demand one.

He looked at me enquiringly, one dark eyebrow raised.

Beaten and empty-handed, I followed him into a simply furnished, comfortable sitting room with hideous William Morris style wallpaper. A slightly rumpled man in grey tweeds was at the table reading the morning paper and eating toast. He looked surprised to see me and tried very hard not to stare in a manner that suggested he felt polite embarrassment on my behalf but was too chivalrous to make a fuss. (He was a little shorter and stockier than my black-coated eccentric and had an impressive moustache.)

"Ah yes, Watson, you were asleep when our visitor called late last night. She was somewhat exhausted, but has recovered now, I think."

He stood up and extended his hand. "It is a pleasure, Miss..."

"Morris," I supplied helpfully. (It still is my habit to give a false name to questionable strangers even now – it's caution, not malice.)

"Would you care to join us..."

Holmes shook his head. "I've eaten." For no good reason I wondered if he was lying.

"Well then, me, for some breakfast?"

"Uh, no. No thank you." All hunger or desire to eat had completely vanished. My stomach was busy tying itself into knots as I continued to try to comprehend the impossible.

As a practical joke this didn't surpass the imagination but it certainly surpassed the budget of my friends. Likewise neither jobbing actors nor lunatics had the resources to rent, dress and populate a back-lot of Pinewood so that they might live out a Victoriana fantasy. This meant either I was hallucinating wildly; or I was truly in the 1800s, conversing with Mr Sherlock Holmes.

Neither option was very reassuring.

I sat down a little shakily on the sofa because my legs had lost all interest in holding me up. I considered what I could do; crying hysterically and demanding everything be set right was traditional – and I could certainly see the appeal. Tears were already itching at the back of my eyes as I strove not to panic. It was all rather funny really – or at least sharply ironic.

I'm a girl who'd rather curl up with a book than watch TV. I adore all the trappings of my parent's Victorian house: wooden floors, high ceilings, wooden shutters, sash windows and real log fires. I love corsets and bustle skirts – although I love top hats and morning coats more. I detest mobile phones, cars and microwaves (although have a weakness for Mac computers, hot showers and neurofen, so admit modern progress not to be utterly abhorrent.)

Given all of that I should have been ecstatic – not desperately plotting how to return to all the rubbish I'd somehow left behind. But I was. Sheltered though it may be in Mr Holmes' sitting room, I would not be able to rely upon his hospitality forever. And the outside world was unlikely to treat me well when I was friendless, penniless and utterly clueless concerning the realities of Victorian life.

I hid my face in my hands for a moment and took a breath, mentally willing myself to get it together.

Right. First thing's first.

"Mr Holmes, I have heard something of your powers of observation and deduction. Pray, what do you deduce from me?" Damn, I sounded like the character in a second-rate Ibsen play.

He settled himself in the chair to my right and smiled a small smile, as if acknowledging his prowess. "You live with your family and study literature. Your memory is poor. You are an artist, and bohemian in nature. Your temperament is unstable and you have suffered tragedy in your recent past – although I confess being unable to tell if it was personal illness or the death of a relative... One preceded the other perhaps. You care nothing for social convention. The archaic and occult interest you. Your family has money, but you do not."

I nodded. He was mostly correct. I had always wondered how well the great detective's methods would hold up to the modern way of living. I still doubted he'd be so flawless in the present-day world as he was in a time where the criminal element tended not to bathe and only owned one set of clothes, but at the end of the day I accept that a pair of unwashed hands could tell him a lot.

"But how, Holmes?" Watson asked.

"It was a simple matter..."

Before he could explain, I said, "Wait. I think I know – if I may? I live with my family because I'm young but obviously unmarried." I waved my left hand, decked as it was with silver rings but no band of gold. "There's a faded note," I pointed near my knuckles, "reminding me to bring my text of Hamlet, hence literature and lack of memory." I paused, looking at my hands, picking nervously at the side of my nail and catching sight of a small smudge of purple. "Paint stain. 'Purple Lake', an oil paint, so - artist. I dress..." My voice caught as I suddenly wondered what sort of a figure I cut by their standards – I was wearing a pair of trousers for the love of all the gods. (Relatively smart narrow black jeans to be precise, but still, no wonder Watson had stared.) Add to that the faded black shirt and waistcoat and I probably looked like a runaway who'd stolen her brother's mourning dress. "I dress unconventionally – hence bohemian," I managed, feeling embarrassed by my unintentional impropriety.

"I wear jewellery - sterling, not tin - but have no purse, so must be living on my family's good graces. And I... I..." I worried at the side of my thumbnail wondering how best to skip over the most delicate yet least accurate part of Holmes' reasoning. I looked up to find his slate-grey eyes observing me with an acute and quiet interest.

He was either feeling cheated of his success or had pity in his famously unemotional heart after all. He shifted in his chair suddenly as if bored with the whole affair. "Clean and well spoken," he gestured to me, "but out of the house - unaccompanied - and in such a get up? Of course she doesn't care a fig for social convention, Watson." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a silver cigarette case and box of lucifers. "One of her rings is inscribed with letters from the Fulthark, an ancient and supposedly magical script. Add to that, she swears by gods, plural, in a most heathen manner and one of her earrings is an Eye of Horus – there's the link to the occult and antiquity." He lit a cigarette and sighed in displeasure. "It seems even my powers are to become common-place, if this young lady is anything to judge by."

"Oh believe me, Mr Holmes, I'm not anything to be judged by. But, if you would, I have a problem desperately in need of solving."

Holmes at once looked up - depression banished, grey eyes sparkling. "I am listening," he said.

"I'm lost," I explained. As an opening I admit it wasn't up to all the young ladies with their troubles Doyle wrote about. They usually had people trying to kill them or some sweetheart behaving in a 'singular' manner. Then again Watson got to describe them as 'modestly dressed' 'shining' and 'lovely' – I dreaded to think what adjectives he'd have to pen for me.

"But you live in London," Holmes corrected with apparent annoyance.

I couldn't be bothered to think how he'd worked that out. "You'll think I'm mad."

Holmes opened his thin lips to tell me – no doubt – that in my strange attire and shoeless state it was a notion he'd already given some credence to. Watson frowned across at him from the other chair and Holmes said nothing, returning instead to his cigarette.

Having caught this little exchange, I laughed - I couldn't help it. When presented with the Gordian Knot in their sitting room, Holmes would dissect it with the sword of reason; Dr Watson would attempt to untie it – so long as that didn't distress the knot.

Without Holmes, Watson would solve little, without Watson, Holmes would alienate or confound all he sought to help. No wonder they worked so well together – they balanced one another perfectly.

"Sir..." I'd never called anyone 'sir' I my life – what was wrong with me? "You were right when you said I came from here, yet in another sense you were equally wrong." Well done, that cleared everything up perfectly, I snarked to myself.

He watched me lazily through half-closed eyes.

"But, you see... I..." There was no good way to start this. "Before I continue, would you be so kind as to tell me the exact date?"

"Watson?"

"It's Saturday the ninth of February." He gestured with the newspaper.

I closed my eyes briefly, schooling myself not to wince. "The year?" I prompted.

"1888, of course."

I bit my lip. The day was right, but the rest was over a century off. "I do live in London – Kew - opposite the Botanical Gardens. But the year..." My voice was beginning to shake and I wondered if I would actually be able to say it. "T-the year I live in, is - is 2009."

There was a strained silence, eventually broken by Watson's exclamation of, "Good God! Do you truly believe that you come from the future?"

I nodded, wretchedly and then shrugged feeling twitchy and unhappy. "Yes – well, no. Believe? I don't believe – I don't believe anything! Belief implies a fiction, something disputable that requires faith to sustain it. And it's not – or at least it wasn't yesterday – because it's true - I live in London in the year two thousand and nine... That's all there is to it."

Dr Watson had stood as I started to rant; now he took out his pocket watch and timed my pulse. I stayed quiet not wanting ammonia or laudanum forced on me – although a brandy might have been nice. He felt my forehead - I knew I had no temperature.

Holmes raised his eyebrows in a look of ironic enquiry.

"She's not delirious," the doctor confirmed. "There's no fever..." His tone was grave and I knew what he was thinking.

"I am not mad," I said softly and with some feeling. "Although I have no idea how to convince you of the fact. I doubt you'll simply take my word for it."

Watson was pacing the room now, a trait he had obviously borrowed from Holmes. "My dear young lady, do you have any notion of what you're saying? Asking us to accept you have come from the future – as if it were a country to be travelled from? It's impossible. It is against all natural laws of physics and science..."

"You think I don't know that?" I growled. "Wait a moment! Dr Watson, have you published any of Holmes' cases yet?"

He looked at me, slightly puzzled. "Yes. In last year's Beeton's Annual. The first case I attended. A Study in Scarlet."

"I can tell you!" I exclaimed. "I can tell you - I can tell you things about cases I shouldn't know - words you haven't written - things that haven't happened yet. Mr Holmes, you take a seven per-cent solution of cocaine because your mind rebels at stagnation. Morphine too, although I don't know the dosage. You keep the syringe in a Morocco case, tobacco in a Persian slipper. You suffer black moods when bored and when working will cheerfully wear yourself down to nothing. There are seventeen stairs from the hall to here and Mrs Hudson is the landlady who puts up with you both – although she never took kindly to Holmes' revolver practice even if it does spell 'VR'. The first case you ever solved was about the 'Gloria Scott' and a college friend's father. It amuses you to work on crimes and then hand credit to slow policemen of Scotland Yard - namely Lestrade, Gregson, Hopkins and Jones..."

I was struggling now; although I had read all of the stories it had been at least a year back and my neurons had moved on from being entertained by such callous melodrama in The Dying Detective to reading Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell and fancying Doc Holliday of gunfighting fame. (I never claimed any of my obsessions were related or rational.) All in all this meant the finer points of the detective's past and cases had quite left my memory.

"You have an elder brother, Mycroft, who lunches at the Diogenes Club and works at the Foreign Office. His mind is even more amazing than yours..."

Holmes' face was impassive; his eyes held a cool indifference as if he was simply waiting for my outpouring of easily gleaned fact and utter delusion to end.

"Moriarty! And Colonel Sebastian Moran! Professor Moriarty, he..."

Holmes had sat up straight and, possibly for the first time ever, looked surprised. "What do you know of him?" he enquired, his voice low and taut.

"Very little," I confessed. "But there is a matter of some importance which I must speak to you about. Alone."

Dr Watson obediently got up to go, although I could read from his expression that he had serious misgivings about my sanity. Wonderful.

"Whatever you have to say, you may speak in confidence to myself and Dr Watson." Holmes motioned to his friend.

I shook my head stubbornly. "Not this time."

"Miss Morris, you may speak to us both," he informed me irascibly, "or none at all."

"Dr Watson deserves your every confidence," I agreed, "but I can't speak with him present. If I tell him it may ruin everything – it'll certainly change events – and if all that's happening to me here and now is real, then I'm damned if I'll have such recklessness on my head!" Watson's eyebrows shot up; I'd forgotten that 'damn' was still considered strong language. Arse.

"I have some information which may save your life, Mr Holmes, but - I, I can't..." What was I doing? Trying to control the fate of a fictional character? That was wrong on so many levels I didn't know where to begin – but what else was there to do? "Please, this is important! I don't care what you think of me..." (that was a lie and a half) "...please, I just need you to listen."

Perhaps it was something in my voice, but this time Watson left and Holmes did not object.

As the door closed to the sitting room and Watson's tread could be heard retreating to his own room, the detective unfolded himself from his chair, selected a pipe from the mantelpiece and filled the bowl with pinches of shag tobacco. His thin fingers knew their business and he didn't bother to attend them, looking instead at me all the while.

I'd had my fill of being scrutinised like mould on a microscope. "I'm not deluded," I muttered tartly. "Delusion is gabbling about half-crowns and oysters. 'Shall the world, then, be overrun with oysters? Horrible!'" I quoted with some derision, rolling my eyes.

"I wouldn't know," he commented.

Quoting words at him he'd not yet said wasn't going to get me anywhere other than in a straight jacket. I changed tack slightly. "I haven't escaped from an asylum," I told him.

"And what makes you think, my dear young lady, that I should believe you have?" His dulcet tones edged towards the sardonic – I think I was wearing on his patience.

I offered him an empty smile in return to show that he was wearing just a little on mine. Don't slate me for being a bitch; I adore Hamlet but if I met him I'm sure I'd want to slap him. What I mean is that being constantly studied by Mr Holmes was a novel but not wholly pleasant experience. "Because I have no coat, hat or shoes, like most straying mental patients. Because I'm wearing trousers, have too many earrings and hair that looks like a recently clipped privet hedge! Because I'm insisting on things that no one would rightly credit..." I picked at the edge of my thumbs, still not wanting to say it, the one thing about me that I wished had passed his notice but I knew damn well had not.

The grey eyes had the grace to leave me and focus on the match that lit the pipe. "And because of the numerous scars upon your wrists," he finished around the stem of the rosewood.

"...Yes."

"Well?" he enquired.

"Well what?" I bit back, fed up with finding myself so lost and harassed. "Am I supposed to give you some suitable explanation for my behaviour so you don't naturally assign it to the weakness of the female character? If I told you I'd suffered from a bout of brain fever would that give the facts the proper grounding? Well bollocks to that and bollocks to you – I get depressed and I carve bloody big gashes in my arms – that's all the explanation there is! Were cocaine or opium legal I'd have a field of poppies in my back garden instead and an addict's rash on my veins," I hissed, feeling spiteful enough to bring up his habit. "My dealing with the world gives me scars that are stripes instead of spots – so what? I'd gladly fall into the arms of Morpheus in an instant if I didn't risk copious retching and then being locked up for ten years."

"Vulgar and poetic in the same breath. Fascinating," he said blandly. Holmes regarded me impassively but there was a hint of something turning the slate of his eyes to silver; I think it was amusement. "But you suppose too much. I wasn't after a reason for your martyr's habit. I was hoping you'd tell me more about Moriarty."

I blinked, feeling very relieved and very stupid. Not to mention rather embarrassed yet again. I bit my lip. "Do you know Baritsu?"

The shine in his eyes grew stronger – apparently now I was more entertaining than vexing. "Anyone else must surely find your conversational style lamentable: you jump in at the close leaving others to map your course unaided." He shrugged, as if to say, just as well I possess the second finest mental compass in England! "I assume you speak of Barton-Wright's fighting stance? Queer mess of boxing and brawling he picked up in the Orient – Barton's Jujitsu indeed!" A slight mercurial smile and a shift of mood to accompany it. "I learnt the basics. I find in my line of work it pays to exploit whatever advantage one can – although," he added, "Queensbury would be apoplectic. It's hardly the sport for a gentleman."

"It will save your life," I told him bluntly.

"Oh?"

"Three or four years from now you're close to destroying not only the Professor's gang but the man himself – you set a trap to bring them all to justice. Moriarty visits you in person, here, and demands you leave off your investigations..."

Holmes' angular face set into a foreboding scowl.

"Naturally you refuse. He tries to kill you – run away coaches, falling bricks, street gangs, that sort of thing. You and Dr Watson draw the Professor out to Switzerland of all places, to a village by the Riechenbach Falls..."

He glanced up to the print that hung above the mantelpiece showing a majestic waterfall amidst snowy mountains.

"Watson is called away to attend a young lady dying of tuberculosis back in the village – a fiction to get you alone at the falls. There you meet the Professor. He allows you to leave a death-note. You fight on a ledge and he almost succeeds in forcing you to your death; but you get the better of him because of your knowledge of Baritsu." As a summery I suppose that was almost on par with saying of Ben Hur, 'there's a chariot race. Ben Hur wins' but then Holmes claimed never to appreciate a story for the story's sake so I thought he wouldn't mind.

I was speaking softly now even though I felt sure Watson would never do anything so gauche as eavesdrop. "Sebastian Moran tries to kill you on the slopes of the waterfall with his airgun; he fails and both you and he go to ground. The world believes you're dead – and you tell no one but Mycroft otherwise. Watson writes your obituary." I looked at my hands as I spoke; if Holmes felt no remorse at this then I didn't want to know; and if he did feel remorse then I wasn't rude enough to intrude. "You travel, spending time in Vienna and Tibet, I think, amongst other places. You return to London three years later when you hear of a murder Moran commits."

"So you say," Holmes noted dryly. "Most of your tale is pure fancy and conjecture. As for what scant facts you present... I can account for no favourable way in which you got your information, nor why you should make up this ridiculous story." He turned from me and stared again at the print above the mantelpiece, a saturnine and silently brooding presence in black.

I was enchanted and infuriated in equal measure. Not being able to explain my predicament in terms of flawless logic was beginning to become a major hindrance. Inspiration struck: something of a cheap shot but I took it. "Remember the old axiom: when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains - however improbable - must be the truth."

He turned swiftly at that and glared at me intently.

"That is what you say, or at least think, isn't it? I swear to you this is real - not a joke, nor a lie nor a 'singular coincidence'."

Mr Sherlock Holmes stalked back to his armchair and settled in it once more, taking a pinch of tobacco from the slipper in passing to refill his pipe. "Assuming, for the moment, that you are from the future, how do you know so much about me and my work?"

"Dr Watson's books, whether you appreciate them or not, become very popular..."

"Romanticism," muttered Holmes.

"They're regarded as classics and are still in print. I read them. I have, as you observed, a poor memory for the educational or everyday; but poetry... literature and... the unusual..." I slowed to a stop, shivering, overcome with a sudden and vicious nausea.

Holmes did not at first appear to notice as he re-lit his pipe and asked, "Hm. So what scientific discoveries are made in the future?"

I didn't answer - I couldn't answer. I sunk back on the sofa, curling up with a sob.

Holmes approached, concerned, and seeing my condition called, "Watson! Watson - come here quickly - bring some brandy..." and as the doctor entered the room, "We are in need of your excellent medical opinion."

Watson once more felt my pulse and temperature. "I cannot understand it, Holmes, her pulse is rapid, yet she is damnably cold!"

I closed my eyes. I couldn't think - something was pounding in my head - I was so cold it hurt.

"We'll move her closer by the fire. Watson, send Mrs Hudson up with some blankets and fresh coffee."

Although the blankets were for me, the coffee must have been for Holmes, for I was in no state to drink it. An attempt was made to give me brandy but I was shivering too hard to swallow and the fumes made me want to retch. The sofa and I were drawn close to the fire as gooseflesh danced across my back beneath the blankets and I faded in and out of my own personal hell of darkness and ice.

There was conversation in hushed tones and the sound of shoes pacing tirelessly around the room – inexplicably making me feel ten times worse. I made some small and pathetic sound of pain. A voice gave a command, a few words only but I couldn't grasp their meaning; and then the room was silent save for the energetic crackling of the fire in the grate. A few minutes more, and Holmes began to play his violin.

I eventually fell asleep - or passed out - as he continued to play a low melodious tune, soulful and melancholic, probably of his own devising. It was the most beautiful thing I think I've ever heard; and I would have gladly committed any felony you care to name (up to and possibly including GBH) if it meant I could have a recording of it.