I always enjoy a good ghost story! Well written. Thank you.

I'm loving this series! I especially live for all the Sherlock whump

Lestrade is getting married!
OK so i read about the Borley Rectory when i was a kid, i love haunted houses and the paranormal so i really, really enjoyed this episode- I'm calling them episodes because they're just as good as the show and it's a whole season AU. I, once again, enjoy how you take the real life happenings and make them your own.
Also, need to take a moment to give props to Molly, she's a braver woman then i could be and i loved her big expose on the hospital too. Everything fit together so well... Moving along!

Awesome story! Harry Price was a complete psycho starting a fire when little Charlie might be in the rectory, not to mention the adults. And then there is "Dr. Frankenstein" stealing babies organs without the parents' consent. Molly is right! What a psycho! As far as Sherlock is concerned, I still think the who "high functioning sociopath" thing is all an act. Yes, he hides his emotions & has learned not to let them rule his head. But he's a good man in his heart. And Charlie seems to like him. Babies sense things & if he didn't truly care for her, she'd be crying whenever he's held her. It's been just the opposite. ;) He loves little Charlie, even if he won't admit it out loud. Actions speak louder tha words. BRAVO! Moving on to the next sequel.

For once I can say I'm familiar and actually a fan of the canon. What a bizarre yet refreshing feeling... anyway moving on.

First, the quality of your writing is exquisite. It is very polished and precise which made reading a breeze and a pleasure. I loved the way you portray a scene/mood/motivation with concise descriptions that perfectly illustrate the 'show don't tell' rule done right. I'd pick out some examples but honestly it is so consistent and well done that I'd be quote darn near every line back to you. Which is another thing, you managed (managed sounds underwhelming here, perhaps accomplished? Eh I hope it makes sense either way) to keep a tension through this piece and yet as it reads it has an almost laid back tone to it? It reminds me of listening to ambient music where, unless you're really keyed into what your listening to, you might miss some of the shifts.

Characters: For a good portion of this, I didn't see why/how it was au and I'm pretty sure it's because of how you portray all the characters. Sherlock is on point from the get go which was brilliant in its own right seeing as he sounds vulnerable and far from his comfort zone. Showing things from inside his head was a risk but you nailed it quite well. I did kind of want to see how he knew all those things about the defense attorney but in retrospect it would probably be window dressing in a scene that doesn't necessarily need it, so I am not sure whether I would suggest adding it or not.

Anyway back to the characters.
I do love John here, how we get to witness some interplay that gives us a glimpse of why Sherlock and John work so well together. Other Sherlock fan works I've read have a tendency to dumb John down for the sake of making Sherlock seem more intelligent and I was relieved to find no such treatment here. Your Sherlock sounds intelligent because he is, and it isn't at the expense of John's own kind of emotional intelligence. The bit where he's sizing up Mr. Price being a prime example of this along with that line concerning how well he took notice of Sherlock's agitation well before the outburst.

And as a side note: Wow what a treat that scene was. Strong imagery, perfectly ic Sherlock, nice crisp tension. My compliments to the chef as that saying goes.
Also as a side note, the choice of name for Lestrade's son made me chuckle as it is the name of my roommate who also is a writer.

Speaking of Mr. Price, what a way to characterize someone quickly and efficiently. The play between John and he is wonderful and a great way to show John's oft correct instincts. He seems cultured yet slimy, possessing an air of earned authority and yet also in keeping with a devious mind. Is it odd that the face I imagined for him was actually the late Vincent Price? Not sure if the last name edged me in that direction or if it was your masterful description and characterization of him. I love the way he disregards John's protests but at the same time it doesn't seem to stem from a place of intended or unintended rudeness and simply from an almost cocky sense of demand and self assurance.

Ah but look at me blabbing endlessly about characters, let us move on to other things. The scenery was impeccable, easing me into the scene quickly despite my mind initially stumbling over the differences between British proceedings and american ones. Same goes for nonverbal mannerisms. John talking to his chest before actually looking at the person he's speaking to, the implied image of Sherlock tensely smoking with his right hand despite the phantom pains he seemed to be experiencing only moments before while discussing any topic beyond what has just occurred inside the courtroom, Lestrade acting casual despite the fact that no one is buying it because they know that's how he deals with showing concern for people unlikely to appreciate it in the first place.
They all hit the mark and were a joy to read.

I'll admit, part of why I wanted to read this one in particular was because the premise sounds wickedly interesting. Sherlock and company off in a haunted house, likely having to maneuver around the manipulations and dangers of a cultured madman who wears his societal mask with skill while also hiding some dark unfathomable unknown beneath said mask? Sign me up! It's a mashup of some of my guiltiest pleasures, (That line about John and Molly watching Price's show hit a tad close to home I must admit.) and this chapter is so well done that I'm sitting here trying to rush my own fingers just so I can get you a decent review quickly in order to go read the next chapter.

I did stumble a bit over the Molly and John bit, then I remembered, oh right au. As a decided nonshipper this didn't bother me in the least, it doesn't seem forced into the narrative in any capacity and I do look forward to seeing how this change effects things as a whole latter on. I do wonder if her history with Sherlock is still a thing in his universe or if it has been tweaked. I honestly don't have much in the way of critique to offer you unfortunately, all questions I have as to what has occurred and what is occurring are liable to be answered in later chapters. I'm curious to see how Molly will be given the au, and to how Sherlock/ John will end up agreeing to Price's offer.

I will say John seems rather mother hen-ish here but given that he's a father now and has settled down I'm assuming it is intentional and part of his character development here. I also wonder how they got Sherlock to agree to see someone after the 'as of yet unknown to audience' thing that has occurred which this courtroom scene centers around.

Perhaps this is the only constructive thing I can say. I may have missed it, but did John marry Molly? Or did he marry Mary and was merely around Molly because Molly and Sherlock are a thing? I know this likely seems like a silly question, but as this is the first chapter and we haven't seen any play between Molly and the others I couldn't be sure. Again, I feel like this will make sense to me once I read the other chapters. So for now I can't say if their relationships need a tad more defining or not. Though, I'd lean towards not, it doesn't appear as if the 'who is snogging who' question is going to be all that relevant plot wise and I'd hate to come off like someone who only seems to care about the answer to that question.

Oh, I love this! No sale..lol.

So we never get an explanation as to why Ashleigh got locked in the room, what started the first (small) fire, and who the "red woman" was. My impression is that you intended all along to leave us with some ambiguity and I admire that so much. And I suppose our characters will never learn the answers either, since the Rectory's now just a pile of brick and ash. (And, one thing I would have liked to see in this final chapter was an image in the papers or on TV, or even a mention in passing, about the burned-out remains of the house. We spent most of the story in there unraveling its mysteries, so some sort of closure like that would be appropriate.)

Sherlock's newfound love of babies! :D I really enjoyed that exchange between him and John about the child safety locks. Seriously, Sherlock's a total weirdo but he cares about his friends SO much, and he shows it by doing things like this. Again, you get this character so deeply and I love it.

"Molly full understand." Ooh, ooh, I found a typo. In your work, that's a bit like finding a unicorn. :)

Harding's outburst at Molly was annoying (that stuff about the greater good-what an a-hole!), but what a relief that he didn't try something malicious and underhanded instead.

Melissa and Greg: awww. I forgot to mention in my last review how much I loved the scene where she rushes into the hospital bedraggled and without makeup. I knew they'd make it. :)

So there's some stuff about shoe shopping and then... SHOCK AND HORROR. LOL LOL LOL. Is there some kind of meta meaning to the title of this chapter, because that's exactly what you did to me here. "Barriers down" with the shoes and then... pow! Are you actually going to kill off Ms. Hudson?!

Sorry it's taken me so long to get back to this. RL's been busy (in a good way)! I actually read this chapter a couple of days ago, but it's taken me that long to get my thoughts together... because the details of this plot are so well executed, I have a lot of things to say about it, and I don't want to miss anything. :P

So, argh, where do I start? There's the fire itself, which is terrifyingly described. John's ominous musings about "four minutes"-I assume that's the amount of time a person could reman conscious in a smoke-filled house?

"John threw himself down onto the path out of instinct." Yes. John is a war veteran, and you write the TRUTH.

"...Her red dress blossomed out from her hips like petals on a frangipani." Oh, how beautiful!

I honestly wasn't afraid for Sherlock. I assume he knows about the "four minutes" too, and he's leapt from buildings and lived, and anyways I hear you've done much worse to him, so I knew he and Lestrade would get out in time.

It's quite a big leap from "shameless hoaxster" to "aspiring murderer," but Price fits the bill and that's how these stories tend to go. You know exactly how to write for this genre and fandom. It all fits and it's just perfect.

I LOVE watching Sherlock go off on Price here, especially his rage about Price endangering Charlie's life. "You miserable fucking prick!" is right. A perfect f-bomb. Icing on the cake for a perfect chapter. I love it. :D

By the way, I went back and looked at my comments on previous chapters and boy were some of my predictions WAY off! IMO what makes a great mystery story is that "aha!" moment that comes when all is revealed: there's an element of surprise, but in retrospect it all makes perfect sense. That's *exactly* the feeling I got from this chapter. Major props to you as a storyteller.

What I've enjoyed most about this story, increasingly so as I get through these later chapters, is the slow revealing of the multiple layers of the haunting hoax at the Rectory. There's Price trying to hoax Sherlock, Sherlock and Marianne hoaxing Price, Price double-hoaxing everyone, the past shenanigans of Eric Smith, and then the kicker: the crinoline-wearing, black-haired woman as drawn by little Ashleigh is REAL. Unsettling, but then again I have to take Ashleigh at her word that she's a "nice lady."

I love Marianne's journey throughout this story. Dressing in white and posing as a beautiful ghost nun probably isn't how most bored rural pastor's wives would spend their free time, but then again it *does* sound like great fun. Obviously she meant no real harm to anyone, and now, in retrospect, I feel bad for the confusion and fear she must have experienced as things began to spiral out of her control.

The fact that folks have been playing pranks at the Rectory for centuries doesn't *necessarily* mean there aren't any ghosts there. Marianne's willing participation in the hoax doesn't *necessarily* mean she has no psychic abilities (and if she *does* have them, it seems Ashleigh has inherited them from her). In the end, you leave the impression that while most paranormal phenomena can be explained by science, there are still a few things that just defy explanation. Now that I think of it, that's the only conclusion that would satisfy me. Well done.

The beginning of this chapter raises so many questions. Why do the "demons" have the names of pagan gods? Why do they write their answers in Latin? What was Price going to say just before the glass was flung from his hand? If I had to make a guess about what's going on here, I'd say someone was playing a horrible prank on Marianne, who knows her Bible (and presumably believes in it) and would be most suceptible to this kind of fright. The Latin would serve to make it more... "authentic," I guess? If I remember correctly, in the original Bible story Christ commanded the "Legion" of demons to possess a herd of pigs, who then threw themselves off a cliff.

I'm curious why Sherlock called an early end to the seance. He seemed awfully confident and... his behavior is a tad suspicious.

"It's a better investigative technique to simply observe than to expect a particular outcome and inadvertently create it." I can't help but think this line of Sherlock's has some kind of double or meta meaning to it.

The fire... This part is really fast and frantic and it was obviously intentional. :) What gives?... Greg disappears, John falls asleep listening to Sherlock fiddling with his digital recorder, and the next thing you know the building's freaking ON FIRE. You do a great job here showing John's confusion: I have no idea how long he was asleep or what transpired before he woke up, but dang it, you are making my brain work hard and it hurts. :P

Then again, they were warned about the fire, weren't they?

It's very much like Sherlock to go running back into the rectory to look for Greg, and I thought it was a nice callback to the earlier chapter in which he fearlessly bounded up the stairs after the mysterious noise. And good for John making himself useful.

Hope Greg's okay.

Oh, thank you, John! Sherlock is NOT a sociopath, high functioning or otherwise. Like, AT ALL. He empathizes and he experiences remorse. As in the first scene of this chapter, he feels bad that his (rather mild) "mind-blindness" puts people out. A real sociopath wouldn't notice and/or wouldn't care. I've had a beef with the show's writers over that for some time now, and it was great to see you-I mean, John, undermine that. :) Whew, I feel better now that I've gotten that out.

"There was no way that Marianne was going to..." But if Marianne's lied to her spouse about some pretty major stuff, like being "psychic" (and did she lie to Lionel too about going to London?), I'd wonder about her too. On the other hand, I have to trust Sherlock's judgment here. At this point I suspect Price.

"Instead of fertilising the roses with yet more cigarette ash..." What a great line.

"A chorus of frogs were croaking dolefully." This phrase made me pause. Though I get that we're in Greg's perspective here and that he's in kind of a funk at the moment, it's just hard for me to imagine frogs sounding "doleful."

In the following conversation between Greg and Melissa, I noticed that Melissa didn't ask Greg what had happened to his coat: she just immediately offered to buy him a new one. "Have I buggered this up for good?" "If you came home and proposed, and it was just to shut me up..." Wow. They're both such good, open communicators! I'm no expert on relationshps, but my gut feeling is that they're going to be okay.

I LOVE the exchange between Sherlock and Molly. "I sometimes don't notice when I... do something wrong..." is a glaring contrast to Sherlock's conclusion that everyone MUST bring any potential cases to his attention immediately, nevermind the awkwardness or danger they might feel doing so. LOL. This is spot on characterization! Wonderful job.

So Price has decided to use a makeshift Ouija board? There's something grin-inducing about the phase "in case of any automatic writing."

Really like the description of John's visualization turning "grey and menacing." Nice foreshadowing, there.

Okay, so who is moving the dang glass? Love those last couple of paragraphs as things get weird and frantic. Instead of a nun, it looks like we've got an army of demons on our hands. Well, great.

Nooo! What a horrible ending! How very devious of you to give us a perfectly lovely happy ending with everyone contented and happy, and then drop this bomb on us! I can't tell you how much I admire you for this!

I enjoyed this story so much-the atmosphere was so well described and the characters so vivid. The only thing that could have made this more perfect would be if someone had managed to clock that Harry Price just once! I love that Sherlock, while understandably upset by his own and his friends' near murder, was most livid over the idea that Charlie's life and welfare had been so cavalierly dismissed by this mad man! Great writing!

Well, the penny has finally dropped.

This chapter is where I have to part ways with Lionel: all the goodwill I felt toward him has been quashed by his utter uselessness while Ashleigh is locked in that smoke-filled room. Minister or not, what kind of father literally turns his back while his child is in danger? Eric too. What the hell is wrong with these people? "He was still on the landing, praying thanks for the deliverance of Ashleigh Foyster." Why not thank Sherlock instead, the only one around who actually... you know... did something to help?

And obviously, Lionel's marriage to Marianne is not nearly as stable and healthy as he appears to believe.

It's brilliant how you've raised the stakes here. Sherlock's revelation that he and Marianne have been in cahoots, and that things have spun way out of their control, is gripping. This story is no longer about a hunt for fake "ghosts" but the fate of a child in peril. I have no idea what's going to happen next, but I don't trust Price, Lionel, Marianne, OR the Smiths, and I'm even a bit paranoid now about Molly handing Charlie over to Mrs. Smith to watch her during the seance.

This is all just... so messed up, and I love it. :D

I felt vindicated by the beginning of this chapter, because I just knew cute little Ashleigh had drawn something from the deepest pit of hell and I was right. :D Hollow circles for eyes and a slit for a mouth is about the extend of what a 3 year old is capable of, and I wouldn't make too much of this except for the red/black color scheme which is obviously NOT what Marianne had in mind. My attempt at a logical explanation: Ashleigh is colorblind and the pink pig and yellow sun were lucky guesses?

"And a crinoline... very much in the style of the 1860's." But a dress drawn by a child Ashleigh's age would probably be just a triangle, nothing more. Trust me, I know. ;)

"In my room. Everywhere." Holy crap. Either Ashleigh has an imaginary friend or she's being HAUNTED. I really love the contrast between her innocent, nonchalant answer and the unsettling effect it has on her mother.

I adore the imagery of the leaves "casting trembling shadows on the walls" in the bedroom. Precisely the type of creepy atmosphere I'd expect to see in a house reputed to be haunted. Love too how this imagery leads abruptly to the discovery of the new message on the wall.

I like the ensuing conversation about "pest" vs. "rest..." and whether the "ghost's" intentions are evil or benign... Sounds a bit like a Rorschach test to me!

The way Lestrade changed the subject to Lionel's and Marianne's age difference was so natural... and I felt he'd been itching to ask Lionel about it ever since they first met. "I've seen many a relationship ruined by one person trying to force things along on principles that don't seem to apply." What great advice! I totally agree.

Eric's and Lionel's reminiscences about making "spooky noises" in the rectory as children were unsettling... because they don't AT ALL explain what Sherlock, Lestrade, and John have witnessed since being in that house. The coin, the writing on the wall, the apparition, the "attack" on Sherlock...

"But she remained standing, lit by a stream of sunshine..." More wonderful sunlight light imagery.

All I can say about the end of this chapter is that I love John SO much. :D

Hi again! I like how Price's approach to the "haunting" is a mixture of the scientific and the superstitious. Didn't know what a St. Benedict medal was before reading this chapter, but I Wiki'd it. :)

Oh, yes, finally Sherlocks's research into infrasound is coming into play now! It's funny that this has come up: just last night DH was telling me about how Gaspar Noe used infrasound in his films (Irreversble and, I think, Enter the Void too) to heighten feelings of anxiety in his audience. As if those films aren't unpleasant enough to watch anyway. :P I enjoyed how you modified the Vic Tandy story so that a similar version of events happened to Ms. Hudson. Had to go and Google that, of course, not to mention the infamous "brick pic." :D

By the way, I happened to notice that, in the original "brick pic" photo which shows the entire house, there appears to be a shadowy figure on the floor above that blends in pretty well with the blackness of the exposed hallway behind it. It *could* indeed be someone dressed all in black who dropped the brick for the photo, which is similar to Lestrade's theory.

I had a debate with myself whether to nitpick over what I perceived as a lot of adverbs in this chapter. I tend to be anti-adverb, especially when used to describe emotion (as I think it's better to let dialogue and body language convey that), but you use them so expertly here that I'm just going to shut up and let you do what you want. :) I especially like "Price splayed his fingers toward it vaguely" and "Lestrade said longsufferingly."

I loved, loved Sherlock's awkward body language while he was talking to Ashleigh. "Having no idea what to do with his long legs he crossed them, palms covering the toes of his shoes boyishly." What a wonderful image; I can really see that! Love also the contrast between Sherlock's obvious discomfort and Ashleigh's "frank unconcern." Lol, don't worry, Sherlock, you're not going to break her if you say something wrong. :D "Sherlock felt uncomfortably that he was not only expected to ignore her horrid grammar, he was also expected to praise her picture." Oh, lol. Great scene.

I'm totally gobsmacked by John's theory that Sherlock is withholding something about the "ghost" attack. If he is, then why? I can't imagine the reason, other than that he's been threatened by Price or someone else.

Lestrade signs his name "GL" in his message to the ghost, and that sticks out in John's mind. Again, why? Dang it, I'm going to have to go back and read through the previous chapter for clues now.

LOL the Nutella incident. "Hayley wants to know where hers is." I love how it never even occurs to them to share it. :D Okay, so Melissa has already proven she can handle conflict and can put it all on the table, and now we get another glimpse of her awesomeness... If Greg doesn't marry her, he's an idiot.

Molly's made her decision. Unilaterally. She's intended to tell John before going to the authorities, but that doesn't mean poor Jess won't beat her to the punch- a fact which Molly is certainly aware of. I am so afraid for her now. Hope Mycroft can help.