Chapter Text
Apprehension was like a hand of iron that had closed around Sherlock’s stomach and held it in a painful grip. If he had tried to eat, he would surely have regurgitated the food. James’ presence by his side helped, though it brought at the same time its own host of worries. They had been so close to being caught by Mycroft, and Sherlock rather thought that his brother, while he might be willing to ignore Sherlock’s deviant tendencies, would probably not abide the idea of him and James having sex right after digging up their sister’s grave. Sherlock would have found it infinitely hard to explain to his brother that this hadn’t just been about satisfying base lust, at least not on his part. The connection he felt to James, whose physical component continued to amaze him, had reached a paroxysm of feelings last night that Sherlock had hardly thought himself capable of. He had needed this outlet so he could overcome the shock of what he had uncovered about Beatrice.
They found Cordelia and Mycroft in the parlour, just as expected. Cordelia was in an armchair by the fireplace, face buried in her hands, while Mycroft stood next to her in stern guardianship. The look he gave Sherlock and James as they entered was polar cold.
Cordelia jerked in her seat, her hands sliding from her face. “There you are, darling!” Her eyes were rimmed with red, and Sherlock’s stomach contracted even tighter with guilt. “Mycroft said you have something to tell us, but he won’t reveal anything else. Do you know anything about—I can hardly bear to say it—about what was done to Beatrice’s grave?”
“I do, mother. I will explain everything, but this will be a harrowing tale, and my answers will raise more questions. May I sit down while I tell it? I still feel somewhat fatigued.”
“Of course,” Mycroft said, his severe air unthawing a little.
“You look terrible,” Cordelia said worriedly. “You said this was just a cold, and I know Dr Maltby pronounced you healthy enough, but are you sure that—”
“My nerves have been sorely tested, but I will be all right. We will need to talk to Dr Maltby, though. I have questions I must ask him. But I’m getting ahead of myself.” Sherlock and James sat down, but Mycroft remained standing. “Mycroft, for the love of God, take a seat. I assure you that you will need it.”
Mycroft complied with marked reluctance. “Get on with it, Sherlock. What happened to Beatrice’s grave?”
“The important question isn’t what happened to her grave, but what happened to her body.”
While he was getting dressed, he had thought about how much he should tell his mother. At first, he had decided he would only tell her about last night’s dream and the subsequent grave digging, for he did not want to alarm her with the details of his murder investigation and his experimentation with laudanum. However, though she knew something of his abilities, she needed to understand how much he had progressed in his communion with the dead, so she could grasp the impact of Sherlock visions and dream from yesterday. Without the full picture, Sherlock’s actions very much sounded like those of a lunatic.
So he unravelled the whole story, from the moment he had first dreamt of Professor Thompson and the Four Apostles, to his visions of the woman in pink and the dream he had of Beatrice last night, leading to his decision to check his sister’s body for himself. He spoke for so long that his voice was hoarse by the end of it, and he would have liked to ask for a glass of water, but his mother and brother were in such a state of stupefaction that he didn’t dare interrupt their thought process.
His predicament hadn’t escaped James. “I’ll get you a glass of water,” he said, standing up and heading for the kitchen.
While he was gone, the silence in the parlour only thickened. Mycroft was the first to break it.
“Sherlock,” he said, then paused, his head bowed as if he were contemplating what his following words should be. “I know that I have expressed some undeserved scepticism on the truthfulness of those visions of yours, and I hate to be doing this again, but someone should point out—”
Cordelia startled, her head whipping toward her older son. “You knew this was going on? Your brother experimenting with laudanum and visions, at the risk of losing his mind—”
“Mycroft only learnt about it after the fact,” Sherlock said. “Rest assured, mother, that he expressed sufficient disapproval of my recklessness.”
“You must be careful, darling,” Cordelia said with a haggard look on her face, leaning forward intently, “or they will send you to that place too, they will lock you up, and I couldn’t stand the thought of you there, no, I couldn’t—”
“Mother, calm yourself,” Mycroft said, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Maybe you need your medication—”
“I don’t need medication,” Cordelia said snappishly, shrugging off his hand. “What I need is to know what happened to my daughter!”
“We don’t know for sure that it isn’t her in the grave,” Mycroft said.
“Of course we know, Sherlock saw it! It’s a girl from the poorhouse. It isn’t Beatrice.”
“Sherlock’s visions have proven reliable to some degree, but we still can’t be certain—”
“Why do you doubt your brother so!” Cordelia exclaimed. “You also didn’t believe me when I talked of the man with the bird claw—”
“What about Beatrice’s arm?” James said, coming back with a glass of water for Sherlock, who drank it gratefully. “Did she have a broken arm or not?”
“Yes, she did,” Cordelia said firmly. “She fell off a tree looking for bird nests. Dr Maltby took care of her arm.”
“That’s also what I remember,” Mycroft said.
“Then the girl in the grave isn’t Beatrice. There was no broken bone on that body.”
A heavy silence fell over the room as Cordelia and Mycroft digested this. Sherlock could see on their faces the same excruciating process he had gone through last night: incomprehension, denial, and finally, horror at everything it implied.
“How?” Mycroft said. “When was the body of that poor girl substituted to Beatrice’s?”
“That’s why I need to ask you some questions, mother. I’m sorry, I know how painful it is for you to remember that night.”
Cordelia’s elegant artist hands clutched the arm of her seat. “I’m ready,” she said, pale but determined. “What do you want to know?”
“Beatrice’s body. Did you ever see it?”
“I— I— of course I saw her, her pretty dress was all torn and muddy, and she was so still—”
“How close did you get to her? Did you see her face? Was it damaged?”
“Damaged? Cuts and bruises, you mean? No, I don’t think so. It didn’t look that way.”
“You don’t think so? How well did you see her, if you’re not sure?”
“Sherlock,” Mycroft said, warning in his voice—and Sherlock felt terrible, knowing how much he was hurting his mother with this line of questioning, but he needed to press further.
“Mother, I really do need to know what you saw of her. We’re trying to determine when the bodies were switched, or if this could just be a case of mistaken identity.”
Sherlock didn’t believe this could be a simple mistake anymore, but he could see his mother rallying as she clung to the idea.
“I saw your father lie her down on her— on her bed, and then he covered her with a sheet, and I— I don’t think I saw her after that. I was in such a state, you understand, and your father gave me something to sleep, so those days are a blur.”
Sherlock gave her a slow nod, adding the information to his mental tally. James was standing next to his chair, leaning against the arm, and they exchanged a glance.
“That’s what I thought,” he said. “We need to talk to Dr Maltby, he would have been the one to—”
“Oh, no, Dr Maltby wasn’t the one who recorded the death.”
“What?” Sherlock looked over to Mycroft, to check if his brother had known this, but Mycroft shook his head. “Who did, then?”
“I don’t know, someone from Oxford. I didn’t know the man. Your father called him.”
“Why wouldn’t father call for our family doctor in the village? Oxford is an hour away.”
“I don’t know. I think at the time I supposed that Dr Maltby wasn’t available.”
Ice dropped down Sherlock’s stomach. A man who had never seen Beatrice in his life had recorded the death. The only people who had seen the body close enough to identify it were the groundskeeper, and—
“But your father was there,” Cordelia said. “He would have been able to tell whether this was Beatrice—” She looked from Sherlock to Mycroft, whose face was sombre, his mind probably walking along the same lines as Sherlock’s. “Surely you don’t think that your father has something to do with this?”
“Father said something to Beatrice on that day,” Sherlock said, eschewing the question. “After I’d refused to play with her. She went to him, he said something to her, and then she headed for the woods. Do you know what he said?”
“No, I’m sorry, I wasn’t anywhere near them—”
“Mycroft? You weren’t too far, were you? You were fishing with father.”
“I—” Mycroft’s brow pleated as he frowned in remembrance. “I didn’t hear all of it. I think he said something about ducklings? I can’t be sure.”
“She had fallen off a tree looking for bird nests,” Sherlock murmured, before standing up. “I need to go.”
“Where are you going?” Cordelia asked, alarmed.
“I need to talk to Nathan Burford,” Sherlock said. “He’s the one who found her, and the only other person who saw the body close enough to identify her. I’ll be back soon. James, are you coming?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”
As they walked to the front door, grabbing their hats and jackets, Mycroft followed them, leaving their mother sitting in the parlour with a dazed look on her face. He leaned close to Sherlock, whispering to him, “How much chance do you think there is that our father— that he did something to Beatrice?”
“We shouldn’t jump to conclusions,” Sherlock said, but nausea hadn’t left him since he’d awakened this morning. “We don’t even know that she did die.”
Mycroft’s eyes widened. “Do you think she might still be alive?”
Sherlock thought of the woman in pink, possibly an older version of his sister—but also possibly a dead soul, reaching out to him. If she had lived, it might be that fate had caught up to her anyway.
“I don’t know,” he said. “We don’t know anything, which is why we’re still looking for information."
“Does your father keep documentation here?” James asked.
“In his study, yes,” Mycroft said. “He comes back here from time to time.”
“Maybe you should look at it while we’re gone,” James said. “His financial records in particular. What a man does with his money says a lot about him.”
Mycroft cast James a somewhat peeved look, maybe because of the casual way James had given him instructions, but he nodded anyway, seeing the sense in James’ suggestion.
Sherlock and James made their way to the village under a mackerel sky. It was warm enough, despite the little breeze that cooled Sherlock’s feverish forehead. His skull was buzzing with thoughts and theories, like the heart of a beehive. He didn’t know how much more of it he could bear. He could feel himself fall apart at the seams, like an old garment that had been stretched over an ill-fitting body, and he couldn’t reach the detachment he needed to make sense of this matter, each detail so overwhelming that the whole picture kept eluding him. His sister, his father. His mother, his brother. Was what had befallen their family simple misfortune, or something more sinister?
They had been walking in silence, but of course James had to break it. “You understand,” he said, “that you need to prepare yourself for the idea that your father might have done—”
“Why must you accuse every member of my family of the foulest deeds?” Sherlock snapped, the extreme agitation he had done his best to contain boiling over. “First, my brother, now my father? What’s next? Are you going to accuse my mother of drowning her daughter herself?”
James’s expression cooled, his face becoming a mask of clay. “I’m merely trying to help. You’ve said so yourself—none of this is my problem. The only reason I’m here is because you need someone to get the shit out of your eyes—”
Sherlock scoffed. “Oh, thank you so much for taking that dirty job upon yourself. Where would I be without you?”
“I’ve told you before: you let your emotions blind you when it comes to your family. I can see why, now, what sort of emotional mess you’ve been mired in for years—”
“You’re one to speak about emotional messes, oh rational one. You talk so freely of my family. Shall we talk about yours? What happened to you, James Moriarty, that you’d see everything as a zero-sum game?”
He had been hankering for a reaction, some ugly part of him wanting to see James lose his calm, but he was still startled when James whirled around on him and shoved him against the nearest tree. Rough bark scraped the back of his jacket. A strange thrill came over him, though at the same time there was a flicker of fear, because he had never seen such a look of fury on James’ face as he grabbed Sherlock’s collar and yanked it out of shape. He had never thought that James could truly hurt him until this moment.
“Anyone else and I would have given them a thrashing already,” James said in a voice laced with quiet threat, his accent thicker than it had ever been, “but I’ll let it slide this once for the sake of our friendship. Do not mention my family ever again.”
Sherlock had no doubt that James would hit him, and it would have probably been better to nod and let it go. He had never been very good at shutting up, though, and it wasn’t the first time he had been similarly threatened, which had made him somewhat inured to it. He was no use in a fight, as James was fond of saying, but he could take a beating. The anger and turmoil were still singing in his blood, begging to lash out.
“‘Friendship’, huh?” he said sarcastically. “Is that what we are? Good friends? I am no expert in friendship, but I didn’t think it involved touching each other’s cocks so much. But this, too, is a game to you, isn’t it? You take nothing seriously. The professors’ murders, my family’s predicament, our—” He stumbled there, unsure what word to use. If ‘friendship’ wasn’t right, then what were they? “Is it a game that you’re losing or one that you’re winning?”
James’ mouth twisted into a vicious grimace, and he pulled harder at Sherlock’s collar, until his grip was so tight that breathing became uncomfortable. This also brought him closer, and despite Sherlock’s anger, it was hard not to remember that the last time their faces had been so close, they had been passionately kissing—Sherlock’s first kiss, seared in his memory. His stupid body had learnt to associate James’ nearness with opportunity for physical pleasure, and he could feel himself heat up all over, something stirring in his lower belly.
It must have shown on his face, because James’ grimace morphed into a cruel smile. “You’d like for me to touch you, wouldn’t you? If I touched your cock right now, I’m sure I could make you come in minutes. I could make you beg for it.”
Sherlock swallowed thickly, and it was an effort to keep his voice from wavering. “Oh, don’t you pretend you’re not hungry for it too,” he said, trying to match James’ venom. “I have made you beg, remember?”
James’ smile twisted down, becoming a scowl. His grip tightened again, then relaxed suddenly as he stepped away. It was a good thing that the tree trunk against Sherlock’s back was there, because the loss of support threw him off balance, and his legs felt shaky.
“I’ve had better,” James said coldly, not looking at Sherlock anymore. “And your issues are too much trouble.”
“If that’s too much for you to handle, then nothing is forcing you—”
“I’m no one’s servant, not even yours. I’m out.”
He was already walking away, back to where they’d come from, but Sherlock still shouted at his back, “I guess you were losing, then!”
This was a pathetic rejoinder, and James didn’t dignify it with a word or a gesture. Sherlock stared at his retreating back until he had disappeared behind a thicket of trees, following the bend of the path. James did not turn around, and Sherlock wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or disappointed. He felt like his insides had been scooped out by a giant hand, leaving him hollow and aching. He felt even worse than he had earlier, and now he had only himself to blame for it, but he couldn’t keep leaning against this tree indefinitely, feeling sorry for himself. He still had a matter to take care of, so he rubbed a hand down his face and shoved himself off the tree, mechanically resuming his walk toward the village.
There were black-feathered hens pecking in the courtyard when Sherlock reached the Burford farm, and a man Sherlock didn’t know was grooming a draft horse. Sherlock went directly for the stables, where he would be the most likely to find Nathan Burford. Instead of the bulky man he remembered, there was only a young woman, blond-haired and blue-eyed, looking at him quizzically from over her armful of hay.
“This is private land,” she said, not quite hostile but clearly wary.
“I apologise for the intrusion,” Sherlock said, belatedly remembering to take off his hat. “I’m looking for Nathan Burford?”
“Well, you’d have a job,” the young woman said with a snort, putting down the hay in a hayrack. “Unless you can talk to ghosts, I suppose.”
“Oh. I’m sorry, I didn’t know— My condolences. May I know where his ghost is bound?”
The young woman pushed a stray strand of hair off her forehead, giving him a bewildered look. “And who might you be, sir?”
“My apologies, I should have—” He felt out of sort, but this was no excuse for his lapse in manners. “I’m Sherlock Holmes.”
The young woman relaxed at his name, smiling in recognition. “Sherlock Holmes, dear me. Aren’t you all grown up?” she said with startling familiarity.
“Oh, uh, I suppose—”
“You don’t recognise me, do you? I’m Nathan’s daughter, Mary. Don’t you remember how you, me and Bea used to play ‘squeak, piggy, squeak’?”
“I can’t say that—”
“Oh, me and Bea would tease you something rotten! And your dad would throw us tea parties.” Her gaze softened, her smile turning wistful for a moment, before she shook herself. “Why did you want to talk to me dad?”
“I had some questions to ask him about the night he found Beatrice’s body.”
Mary’s face darkened. “Right, that anniversary is coming up. I don’t know why you’d want to see his ghost, though. It’s not like he can tell you anything in his state.”
“I’d still like to see him, please. Where is he?”
Mary’s eyes searched his face, maybe looking for signs that he was pulling her leg, then she shrugged. “There’s no hurt in it, I guess,” she said. “You always were something of an odd duck. Follow me.”
They exited the stable and walked around the farmyard buildings to the meadow at the back. Mary led him to a twisted apple tree. Lavender had been planted around it, but it was only when they were right next to it that Sherlock could make out the eerie outline of Nathan Burford’s ghost. The man was muttering, but Sherlock couldn’t quite parse his words.
“It’s not even where he died,” Mary said. “He fell off the ladder while fixing the roof after a storm—had a few too many, as was his habit. But old Maggy said this happens sometimes, that they stay in their favourite spot. Me dad liked to have a smoke here, sitting against that tree and looking over at the farm.”
“It’s a lovely spot.”
“Well, I’ve work to do, so I’ll leave you to it. Hope that you find whatever you’re looking for.”
Once Mary was far away enough, Sherlock approached the ghost of Nathan Burford, tilting his head to listen.
“A brace of pheasants. Four rabbits. A hare. The Tilcotts in Highgate. A brace of pheasants, four rabbits, a hare. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. A brace of pheasants, four rabbits—”
Sherlock frowned, trying to make sense of Burford’s ramblings. When he was a child, his father had hunted game on the estate, and Nathan Burford used to sell what the family didn’t eat. But why would Burford’s dead spirit obsess over what sounded like a specific delivery? Were the ‘Tilcotts in Highgate’ whom Burford had made that delivery to? That was almost 60 miles from Appleton; a great distance to travel for a game delivery. Surely there would have been closer places interested in a few pheasants, rabbits, and a hare.
“Mr Burford?” Sherlock called. “This is Sherlock Holmes.”
Of course, the ghost didn’t react, his craggy face still angled away from Sherlock. He was now stuck in a litany of apologies, which was baffling when said right after listing pheasants and rabbits. What had Burford done that was so awful he clung to the guilt even in death? Had he hurt Beatrice?
Sherlock reached out to the ghost. He’d done it before as a child, when trying to get the spirits to answer him, and it was futile. It would feel like he was plunging his hand into freezing water, and his hand would go numb, and he’d have accomplished nothing of significance. Still, he had to try. Maybe he would get a flash of something, a vision, another piece to add to the puzzle. If he was right and communication was facilitated when he had known the person in life, then it could be that—
The shock of cold gave his heart a stutter. He could see his fingers go through the shadow of Burford’s arm, but it didn’t feel like touching nothing, for the freezing sensation that gripped his fingers was so strong it felt solid. That much he had expected, unpleasant as it was, but then Nathan Burford whipped his face toward him, locking eyes with him, and—
Sherlock fell backward into a void. Blackness wrapped itself around him. Nathan Burford’s voice echoed, source-less, as he continued falling, no up or down, no sky, no pleasant meadow. Hello, Beatrice. I think I saw one of those ducklings over here. There’s been a terrible accident. A fire at the house, so you’re gonna stay with Mrs Tilcott for a while.
Duckling over here—
Terrible accident—
Mrs Tilcott will take good care of you—
The fall went on indefinitely, until Sherlock had lost all sense of his own body and darkness engulfed him whole.
He woke up to annoying, ear-piercing bird chirping. His head was aching. He was cold, lying down on his stomach in the dewy grass, dirt in his mouth. His neck was sore. The grass tickled his face. With a groan, he rolled onto his back, blinking at a sky that was now almost free of clouds, a powder blue that hurt his eyes.
“A brace of pheasants. Four rabbits, and a hare—
Sherlock turned his head with some difficulty. Nathan Burford had resumed his former posture, hunched over and muttering, completely ignoring Sherlock’s presence once again. Sherlock would almost think that nothing had happened, if not for how wretched he was feeling. His mouth tasted like the ashes he had cleaned in so many fireplaces at Oxford.
“Dear me,” Sherlock murmured, the sound of his own voice foreign to his ears.
Getting himself upright was no easy task. All his joints ached and creaked, but the biggest issue was his balance. His head felt like it had doubled its size, and when he first tried to stand up, he tilted forward, feeling like his head was weighing him down. Then he was on his hands and knees, panting through a wave of nausea. His second attempt was more successful, but once he was on his feet, wavering, the distance separating him from the farm felt very daunting.
He had no other choice but to make it, though. Pushing aside what he’d learnt from the outpouring of Nathan Burford’s memories—a terrible accident—he tottered across the meadow like a man three sheets to the wind, head spinning, knees wobbling. At some point, he fell to his knees and puked in the grass—mostly bile, which burnt terribly on the way out, as he hadn’t eaten since his meagre dinner yesterday—and then laboriously hauled himself back up. By the time he had reached the farmyard, black spots were dancing in front of his eyes.
“Sherlock? Um, I mean, Mr Holmes?”
His ears were ringing like church bells at a wedding, but he recognised Mary Burford’s voice.
“I do apologise,” he said, his voice not as strong as he’d have wished. “I’m feeling a little—”
He was distracted by the sight of the green and brown stains on the knees of his trousers. By God, but he must be a sight. There might even be dirt and grass still clinging to his face. He couldn’t tell, because he couldn’t feel his face much.
“You look awful sick,” Mary said; at the corner of his eye, he could see she was getting closer. “Tom, go get Dr Maltby, quick as you can.”
“Oh, no, I don’t need—” Sherlock said, but Mary tutted at him, as if he were her child or her little brother.
“We gonna get you inside,” she cooed. “I’ll make you that elderflower cordial your father always swore by.”
She touched his arm; as if his body had only been waiting for this, he collapsed against her, and she swayed under his sudden weight.
“Lord, you aren’t gonna faint on me, are you?” She adjusted their positions, wrapping her arm around his waist to better support him. “Well, I hope that you can still walk, because I can’t carry you by myself. I’m strong, but not quite that strong.”
They made their lopsided way toward a building, and Mary deposed Sherlock on a chair, in front of a table. They were in a kitchen, as far as Sherlock could tell with his spotted vision. Although he was on the verge of passing out again, the thoughts that he had been burying to make himself walk to the farm were coming back with a vengeance.
“Mary,” he said.
“Yes?”
“Your father… and my father. Did anything happen between them after Beatrice died?”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know… I remember so little about that period. Did they— did they often meet privately? More often than usual? Not just after Beatrice died, but also right before.”
“Well, I was even younger than you back then, but there’s something I can’t ever forget: a few months after your poor sister died, your father paid off all of my father’s gambling debts. We’d have lost the farm if he hadn’t. So that’s why I’ll always be grateful to—”
The rest of Mary’s sentence was lost to the high-pitched whine in Sherlock’s ears. The black spots ate away his vision, and he was only dimly aware of his chin hitting the table as he pitched forward, and of Mary calling his name.