Chapter 19: The Beginning of the End

"We leave something of ourselves behind when we leave a place, we stay there, even though we go away. And there are things in us that we can find again only by going back there."
― Pascal Mercier, Night Train to Lisbon

"I have crossed oceans of time to find you."
— Count Dracula to Mina Murray, Bram Stoker's Dracula(1992)

Golden-white sand sunk under the weight of hurried steps.

Pale green reeds and brown vegetation were scattered haphazardly all along the path, slowly drying up under the ever constant attack of sea salt and under the relentless onslaught of the winter wind. The faint cries of seagulls, circling hungrily over the grey sea, traveled in the chilly air and served to mask any sounds of his quiet approach.

Just ahead of him in the distance he could see it, a single house against the back-frame of the indigo blue waters of the Great Ocean.

The aged building was modest at best and yet strangely welcoming, painted in comforting shades of pearl white with bright blue windows and a small garden growing close towards the borders to the rocky shore.

It was not the spacious city apartment he had once known, there was no urban finesse or synthetic elegance here. And yet, even in this place that was so close and yet so far from anything he had previously known, there were still some familiar remnants of the past shinning through for those who cared to notice them. He could see them in the carefully chosen white roses adorning the windows, or in the cream and pastel colors of the thin curtains rustling silently in the breeze.

The windows were fully open, and as the smooth curtain fabric was parted by the resilient force of the wind, he caught glimpses of the interior of the quaint little cottage. As he neared, he noticed that the back door was also open, his eyes immediately drawn to the lone figure moving through the open doorway with a plastic silver tray in hand. Green-blue eyes followed the figure, tracking its movements towards the patio. He watched as the figure set the tray and its contents on the nearby lawn table and then carefully proceeded to pour a good amount of what could only be deduced as tea, into a lilac-purple mug.

He started moving faster then, his eager steps quickly diminishing the distance separating him from her. The last rays of the setting sun were on his pale face now, their warm light rendering the gold flecks in the ocean of his irises more pronounced, until the cold blue was chased away, leaving in its stead a vibrant green-gold.

She was exactly as he remembered, the image of her forever burned into his mind and occupying some of the most private rooms of his Mind Palace. Rooms that he hand't allowed himself to visit in a very long time. The sun caught in the dark shine of her hair, tied as always in its customary ponytail and kept well away from her delicate face. It was always thus and one of the very first things he had come to observe about her as she, ever so practical in her nature, could never allow anything to get in the way when she was working.

The closer he got the clearer he could see her, and today it seemed that a few stubborn strands of brown hair had escaped the confines of her ponytail, stirring slightly in the restless breeze. If he had been closer he would have reached out, his long fingers softly brushing the strands away from her soft skin.

He had gone back for her.

Standing in front of the gold and black door to her apartment, to their apartment, he had retrieved his spare key. Always with him and always secured safely somewhere on his person, it had been the one trivial object he had taken with him in his many travels, even when he could take nothing else.

Standing there, on the proverbial threshold to his past, his hands had trembled uncharacteristically with a mixture of anticipation and suffocating need, but he had finally managed to unlock the door and step inside the once familiar space.

She was not there, she had not been there for a long time and that much he could tell almost instantly.

A pile of unopened letters was scattered pitifully on the dark hardwood floors, the white of the expensive paper turned grey from mingling too long with the dust dancing on the air. There was no need for him to open the letters, he knew all too well what their contents pertained to. They were addressed from all over, a small wonder in their own in that so many of them had made it here, in the heart of modern civilization, from even the most remote and isolated corners of the planet.

It would have been so easy to leave right there and then, to turn back and to cease his pursuit of what was clearly not meant to be. The unopened letters told him all that he needed to know, but still in that moment it seemed not to be enough to quench his new found need for self-torture and despite knowing that little good would be gained from it, he forced himself to move past the painful reminder of his long absence and further into the apartment.

The furniture was still there, dusty white sheets draped over the cream couch and the leather armchairs in an effort to protect them from the relentless passage of time. There were still roses on the window ledges but they were dead, the color and scent leached out of them long ago. He wondered why she had left them there, why she had tidied and packed away everything else but had chosen to leave the roses there to wilt and decay in her absence. Logically, it did not make any sense and it was not like her to leave things unfinished.

That was something that he always seemed to do.

His steps had had a will of their own, gradually pulling him down the path of the long corridor and coming to rest just outside the spare bedroom. His fingers curled around the silver handle, pushing until the door gave away with a lonely creak and then he was inside the room in which he had left a part of himself all those years ago. Her books were gone, the mahogany shelves strangely empty as if the very soul of the room had disappeared away with her.

His hand traced the soft gold coverlet of the bed. Remembering. Reliving.

It was too much. Too much.

He had left, closing the door firmly behind him, but he hadn't given up. Standing in the shadow of the life he had left behind, he had made a vow, he would not stop looking.

His brother had been uncharacteristically eager to aid him in his search, providing him with a single paper displaying a few short lines of scribbled writing. An address, somewhere far away from where he had first seen her almost a decade and a half ago. And now he was here and she was standing less than a few feet away from him.

He moved from the shadows of the withering trees behind him and into the purple red light of the fast approaching sunset.

The lilac mug slipped from her fingers, shuttering on impact with the patio floor and expelling shards of glass and rivulets of honey-shaded liquid everywhere in its destructive wake. He watched her eyes, always so unreadable to him in the past, flash with a series of disorienting emotions. Her hands clutched desperately on the back of the nearest chair, her strength completely abandoning her body.

He started moving faster, and then he froze.

Out of the open doorway exited another figure. His eyes snapped violently away from her, his heart beating viciously in his chest as if the oxygen in his lungs was no longer sufficient for him to keep breathing.

His mind struggled to make sense of the image before him as he watched the boy, no more than three or four years of age, come slowly out of the house.

The boy turned his head, searching out for whatever it was that had so captured his mother's attention and his eyes eventually landed on the tall form of a man standing completely still a few feet away from them. Inquisitive by nature, his curiosity overshadowed his shyness and he approached the man, albeit very cautiously.

"Hello sir." His mother had taught him the necessity of good manners and even at his young age, he understood the importance of being polite and behaving in a way that would make his mother proud.

The man regarded him for a few quiet moments, and then slowly moved down on his knee, so that he was almost at a height with him.

"Hello." The man's voice was deep and resonant, but there was a slight tremor in his words as if he was just barely holding back something. "And what is your name?"

The boy smiled, studying the man closely with childish curiosity. "I'm William." Then he paused for a moment, intrigued by the green-blue color of the stranger's eyes. He could see flecks of gold dispersed in the green-blue and that pleased him. Other than looking at his own eyes in the large living room mirror, he had never seen another person with the same pattern of golden flecks in their irises."William Sherlock Scot Jr."

The boy waited expectantly for the man to introduce himself, that was the proper way to go about it. William had told him his name and now the stranger was supposed to tell him his. Instead the man looked at him with something akin to wonder.

Eventually the man seemed to find his voice and he smiled back, his fathomless eyes shinning brightly with some small new-found traces of moisture.

"That's quite a name."

But William was not wholly paying attention. He was distracted by how pale the stranger's skin was, almost identical in shade to his. In fact he was sure than if it hadn't been for the man's darker shade of brown curls, they would have looked even more eerily similar.

Belatedly he remembered the man had told him something and he hurried to reply.

"Thank you." Then with an afterthought he added. "I'm named after my father."

There was another long pause and then the man was standing up and looking down at him with such a strange expression.

"Yes." He said. "You are."

Molly watched them coming back towards the house, her eyes taking in their pale skin, their blue-green eyes and their shiny curls. One with chocolate brown and the other with her own lighter honey brown. She already knew that someday her son would be just as tall, with the same delicate cheekbones and elegant hands as his father.

Then William reached her, his eyes bright with amusement and barely suppressible glee.

"Mum, you won't believe it. His name is Sherlock too!"

Molly could see the tell tale signs of curiosity and fascination in her son's eyes, and beneath that she could see something else, something that made the tears in her eyes flow freely down her already damp cheeks. Recognition. This might have been the first time William saw him but a part of him knew who he was. He had always been so perceptive for his age.

"Mum can Sherlock stay for dinner?"

Molly turned her gaze from her son, her eyes locking with Sherlock's and speaking her next words directly to him.

"He can stay as long as he wants."

Apologies for the long absence. Writer's Block has been awful!

As always, I greatly appreciate your comments and thoughts on the story.