The Sphere

by Martha Faë

  William walks with a straight back, his head held high, puzzling it over. Suddenly he’s letting me see his thoughts again, even though I’m not trying to. I don’t understand why he’s stopped being so secretive if he isn’t going to trust me. I can’t get the scent of blood out of my nose, and mixed up with that I have all these feelings, questions... what the hell just happened in the monastery? I mean what happened between the two of us. I can tell that he has no confidence in me as an investigator. It seemed like he did. He wanted me to think he did when he praised my supposed special sense, but then later... I look at his feet walking next to mine, his hands swinging rhythmically. He looks more and more real, less wooden, more... more hateful. That’s it, that’s the word. He’s just as hateful as any other human I’ve ever met. Instinctively I draw my hands up to my chest and brush off my clothing, as if I could somehow go back and erase the times when he held me tightly. Which was totally unnecessary, every time. William Holmes. He’s in love with Beatrice. He goes on and on insufferably about his “lovely lady” all the time. He looks at me and then away again. I should be more discreet. I don’t need to look at him; I already know what he’s like. My gaze passes quickly over his profile. He doesn’t look like the sort of guy who wants to play the field. I’d swear he’s the type to fall in love with a single woman forever and ever. I would even bet that he’ll end up getting married his dearest Beatrice. Getting married, my God! There’s something I’ll never do. He isn’t the type to have a wandering eye, so he can’t like me... does he think I’m attractive? Attractive, me! I feel something piercing the palms of my hands. I’ve been walking with my fists clenched so tightly that my nails are cutting into my hands. I rub my hands and the pain goes away. They’re fine. The thorns from the rose must not have pricked me after all.

  Now we’re in Castle Street, back in front of the roof with the clay animals. Holmes knocks on the door with a metal knocker shaped like a hand. We hear soft, uncertain steps approach and then stop on the other side of the door. A long time passes.

  “Why doesn’t she open it?” I ask, feeling surly.

  “Beautiful lady!” William calls a little louder. “She must be frightened.”

  Finally the door opens.

  “I could not be sure it was you,” whispers Beatrice, her face tight with fear.

  William and I glance quickly at each other, eyebrows raised in disbelief. I’m surprised—I would have expected him to find Beatrice’s obviously pointless caution charming. This woman is killing me. If it had been the kidnappers listening to the gentle pitter-pat of her footsteps it’s not like they would have changed their minds just because there was a door in the way.

  We go into Mister Gray’s house, and what we see there takes William’s breath away.

  11

  “But—but—what have you done?” Holmes is on the verge of collapse. The way his hands are shaking makes me fear for Beatrice.

  “I’ve been praying to our Creator to enlighten us, and, if possible, to pardon us, and grant us his perfection again.”

  “Praying? You’ve tidied the whole room!” William’s voice is a howl of rage.

  “Oh, that,” Beatrice waves her hand dismissively. She doesn’t appear to be at all alarmed by his fury. “That was nothing. I simply can’t stand seeing a mess. I cleaned it up after I was done praying.”

  “But...”

  William twists his hands into his hair and walks back and forth, looking at everything. The hollows of his eyes are open so wide that they take up half of his face. He stops next to the fireplace and rubs his forehead. “Where are the ripped paintings?”

  The fire is burning brightly. I hesitate—it’s probably better not to make things even more tense—but then, unable to stop myself, I point at the flames.

  “What? They were... they were evidence, my lovely lady.”

  The way William just said it, lovely is the worst insult in the world. He’s gone totally out of his mind.

  “Which books were on the floor?” he asks.

  “I don’t know,” Beatrice answers with total innocence. “I put them all back in the bookcase. I truly couldn’t tell you now which ones were out of place.”

  William is panting, breathing hard, barely keeping himself under control. Just when I think he’s about to pounce on Beatrice there’s a knock at the garden window. I hurry over to open the curtains and come face to face with a bulky, furry shape. I shout and jump back. The shape is dripping something like spurting blood, and the memory of the odor of blood in the monk’s cell comes back to me in a rush. What I see dribbling down in front of me doesn’t smell, but my thoughts whirl like a hurricane. Rattled, I look over at William. I’m convinced they’ve hanged someone in the garden. He goes over solemnly, Beatrice following behind with light steps.

  “Hello, Morgan,” says Beatrice, opening the garden door. “Come in.”

  Morgan appears from behind the hanging object.

  “Disgusting!” she exclaims. “What is it?”

  “The bearskin rug from next to the piano. It was a lot of trouble to get the wine out, but I managed in the end.”

  Morgan shakes out the sleeves of her dress and smooths down her hair.

  “I loathe Heathcliff with all my heart...” her empty sockets sweep the room quickly and then land on Holmes. “And the evidence?”

  “Don’t ask,” I say.

  Morgan spins and points at Beatrice like an arrow.

  “It was you, wasn’t it? How can you be so dense? We could have gotten all kinds of information from what was left! There was so much to analyze. The way they cut the canvases, the prints left on the books, we could even have seen which titles they took off the shelf... All of that could have helped us learn something about whoever is behind the disappearances.” Morgan stares angrily at the floor. “And I guess we might as well forget about footprints on the rugs, too, from what I can see. See, Holmes,” she screeches, “now do you see why I didn’t want your foolish lady involved in this investigation?”

  “Enough, Morgan. Enough. There’s nothing to be done now,” William stops her.

  Beatrice remains impassive, unable to understand what her cleaning has cost us.

  “What do we do now?” asks Morgan.

  “Take Mister Gray to the hospital,” William answers calmly, after a moment.

  “Take Gray to the hospital?” I ask, surprised. “But what about the monastery?”

  Morgan is chewing on her lower lip and staring at Beatrice.

  “Did you clean the attic, too?”

  “The whole house,” answers Beatrice mechanically.

  “There’s nothing for us to do but take Dorian to the hospital and go on investigating blindly,” William says.

  “The hospital can wait!” I yell, loudly enough to attract their attention.

  I explain what happened. I beg them, first with reasons and then with emotion, to understand the urgency of the situation.

  “There’s no time,” I murmur. It’s only then that I realize I’m not quite sure whether the life hanging by a thread belongs to the person in the cell, or to me. I have the strangest feeling that I’m the one running out of time. The warm smell of blood still throbs in my nose.

  “But why is it so urgent?” asks Beatrice innocently, which pushes me over the edge.

  “Someone could die!”

  “Let’s see if we can do things properly for once,” says Morgan, turning her back on me and addressing Holmes. “You and I should be the ones to take Dorian to the hospital. The last thing we need is for someone to discover us because we let Beatrice take care of it.”

  Why are they ignoring me? I look at William with desperation in my face; I know my eyes are begging him. But he’s closed off again. His face is impenetrable.

  “I had thought that Beatrice and you would take charge of Gray,” he answers.

  “Unbelievable!” snorts Morgan.

  “I’m afraid he’s too heavy,” protests Beatrice.

  “Holmes, yo
u know that you and I should go,” Morgan insists fiercely, but he’s lost in his thoughts again.

  I watch him with all my concentration. I would like to know if his thoughts include anything about going back to the monastery as soon as possible.

  “We need some kind of vehicle to transport Gray,” William says. “If I remember correctly, my lovely lady, you have a cart in your garden.”

  “That’s right,” answers Beatrice.

  “Then say no more. Morgan and Beatrice shall go fetch the cart.”

  “And Eurydice?” asks Morgan, like a child complaining about her punishment. “Is she going to stay here with you? You two will be alone together again? What are you going to do?”

  “You two go look for the cart. That’s all you need to concern yourself with, Morgan.”

  Morgan looks at me with resentment, as if William’s decisions were somehow my fault. She hesitates briefly and then goes out the garden door in a huff. I’m still thinking about how we have to get back to the monastery, but I have to admit that Morgan’s words bothered me. Why am I staying here with Holmes?

  “William, are we going back to the monastery now?”

  “Why do we need to go back?”

  “The smell! I’ve told you a million times!”

  William begins walking around the living room. He goes over to the fireplace and looks at the flames, stirring the coals with a rake. Maybe no one in this world notices smells. I take a deep breath. The fire should be giving off some kind of scent, but I definitely can’t smell a thing. On the other hand, Beatrice did seem ecstatic about the aroma of the tea in the little wooden box, but I couldn’t smell it at all. Maybe it’s only Holmes who lacks a sense of smell. It could be—after all, he doesn’t seem to have particularly sharp senses. Just a special sense for unraveling mysteries, obviously. I have to admit, even though I haven’t seen him solve a case yet, that he has something no one else does. He’s unflappable; he stays silent and thoughtful, not letting a single detail escape him. But why didn’t he realize there was somebody in the trunk?

  “Take this,” he says suddenly, handing me a magnifying glass. “I’ve been thinking about your instinct for investigation.” My heart leaps—finally, we’re going back to the monastery! “Probably we won’t find anything, but I’d like to see how you do it. Observe carefully and report anything out of the ordinary that you find, anything that catches your eye. I shall examine the top floor.”

  “But—here?”

  “Of course! Where else?”

  I hear William’s footsteps on the old staircase and then walking across the upper floor. The only thing for me to do is go back to the monastery on my own, but I have to find the right moment. If I went now and ran into the monk... I have to be careful. Maybe Beatrice can tell me what times they have mass, that would be best, I could come back when everyone is in the chapel. Although...

  I lean on the piano with the magnifying glass in one hand. There’s a little scrap of black fabric caught in between two of the keys. I grab it just as William comes back downstairs, looking discouraged.

  “Nothing. Beatrice tidied away every last clue. I suppose you haven’t found anything here, either.”

  “Well, I’ve got this,” I say, showing him the piece of cloth.

  A smile spreads across the detective’s thin wooden face. He takes a pair of tweezers out from one of his pockets and picks up the scrap of cloth with them, lifting it up to look at it in the light.

  “What do you think, Holmes?” I ask, more to entertain myself than because I really think the shred of cloth has any value.

  “I knew you had a nose for this... By the way, do call me Sherlock. Yes, you may call me Sherlock.”

  Sherlock Holmes? What is going on here? That’s why Morgan said he was the best detective... Focus, Dissie. These are just people who are as weird as your parents. They like taking their names from books. That’s all. Anyway, it seems like I’ve done something right.

  “You really think it’s important?” I ask, surprised.

  “Certainly.”

  For a moment I’m free of the anguish I’ve felt ever since our visit to the cell. I’ve discovered something important, and William—or Sherlock, that’s what he wants me to call him—is sure that this scrap of fabric will tell us something. I want to savor this moment, to clarify my ideas, to distance myself from the awkward feeling that this wooden man is attracted to me. When he’s like this, so interested in my contributions to the investigation, it really seems like he’s only interested in my mind, but then later... This is ridiculous! I shouldn’t let Morgan’s suggestions affect me. We hear the wheels of the cart and I go over to the garden door. Sherlock hides my discovery away in his pocket.

  “What are you so happy about?” Morgan asks, scrutinizing him suspiciously.

  Sherlock doesn’t answer, so Morgan’s empty eye sockets turn and bore into me instead.

  “Dear William, we’ve brought the cart.”

  “Ah, yes...” he answers, finally emerging from his reverie. “Come on then, let’s all go upstairs. It will be difficult to bring Mister Gray down. Even though he’s not a stout man, you all saw how hard it was to get him out of the attic.”

  We go up to Dorian’s room and between the four of us carry him downstairs and out to the garden, where Morgan and Beatrice have left the cart.

  “Shall we go, Holmes?” Morgan’s question sounds more like an order.

  I steel myself for Morgan’s angry stare. I don’t even want to think about what she’ll say when she sees that Sherlock and I are going to be left alone together again. I guess he’ll send the other two to the hospital, and we’ll go back to the cell, or analyze the piece of cloth. I don’t know what the next step will be, but Morgan won’t be happy...

  “Yes, let’s go,” Sherlock answers.

  I stand stock-still.

  “My dear Beatrice, you may go back home to rest. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your invaluable services. If not for you I would have felt truly mortified knowing that Dorian Gray was—”

  “Come on!” Morgan bursts out. “We haven’t got all night.”

  “Let us go home,” Beatrice says, taking me by the arm.

  I stand there with my mouth hanging open. We go out the front door while Sherlock and Morgan leave through the garden. Where to begin? I’ve already explained how important it is to go back to the monk’s cell, but these people... I can’t see any option except to go back to the monastery on my own. Clearly Sherlock can’t be trusted. I’ll pretend to be tired at Beatrice’s house, and then when she goes to sleep I’ll go back to the monk’s cell.

  Beatrice stops mid-step, paralyzed.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Morgan,” she answers, as if in a trance.

  A few moments pass before she begins speaking again.

  “Dear Creator, forgive me, but why did you have to give her that ability? We cannot go home yet. William wants to review the events of today one more time before the evening rest, so we must go to his house in a little while.”

  “How... how do you know?” I can’t keep the surprise out of my voice.

  “Morgan just told me telepathically. It makes my hair stand on end. The Creator knows what he is doing, but it’s just chilling that she—she, out of all the Sphereans—can wander through our minds as if she were in her own home. Well, if you would care to we could take a walk over to the Old Course. That way they have enough time to finish up at the hospital.”

  I nod silently and begin walking along next to her, my eyes glued to the gray cobblestones. A wave of melancholy mixes with my desperation to get back to the monastery. Now that night has fallen, I see everything the way I did when I first arrived in this crazy world. I know it’s only been a day—at least I think that’s how much time has passed. I feel peculiar, like I can’t really tell how long I’ve been lost in the Sphere. The street lights give off the same sickly light they did the night I came. In front of the Old Course the hotel where
my aunt and uncle ought to be is still in ruins, and at the bandstand the gypsies are repeating their party. I search for a logical explanation for what’s happening to me. I rack my brains, trying to push the images of my parents, the twins, Axel right out of my head. I don’t want to hear my friends’ voices telling me about how great our lives are going to be from now on, how everything changes when you go to college... freedom, love, growing up, the destinies we’re about to write for ourselves. I’d just like my mind to be totally quiet so I can think clearly. So I can put the pieces of this puzzle in some kind of order.

  We double back the way we came, taking a series of dark and abandoned passages to get to North Street. We stop in front of the police station, though the Police sign is nowhere to be seen, and of course the police cars are conspicuously absent.

  “I think William must be here by now,” says Beatrice, her voice like the chiming of little bells.

  So Sherlock lives at the police station—or rather, what was the police station in my world. That doesn’t surprise me. It seems appropriate. When we walk inside we find the worst mess I’ve ever seen in my life. I would never have imagined that a man like him would live in such chaos. I didn’t have any particular idea of what his house would be like, but I definitely was not expecting complete disorder.

  “It’s unfortunate that William won’t let me clean up a little. He doesn’t let anyone touch his things.”

  This house is in urgent need of cleaning, but after seeing what Beatrice did to Dorian Gray’s house, I’m not surprised that Sherlock won’t let his lovely lady interfere.

  “According to him, there’s some order in this chaos,” Beatrice remarks.

  “Hard to believe.”

  A violin and its bow are resting on a threadbare armchair. There are old newspapers all over the floor, and even more of them stacked in piles on the tables and the window ledge. Everything is much more modern than in Beatrice’s house. I can’t say exactly what sort of time difference there is, but I bet there are about four centuries between the things in each house. Suddenly Morgan comes in through the living room window.