The Sphere

by Martha Faë

  Sherlock’s slow footsteps are in stark contrast with the speed of the thoughts rushing through his head.

  “Do you think he was delirious?” I ask suddenly, breaking the silence.

  “Ambrosio?”

  I nod and smile. Yes, I did mean Ambrosio. I realize that I really do love the way Sherlock can follow my thoughts.

  “No, he wasn’t. Something tells me he was in full control of his faculties. Ambrosio knew what he was saying. What I find unsettling is the question of who he could be calling master if not the Creator. He is a religious man, in spite of everything. In his way he is just as religious as Beatrice. For him there should be no one but the Creator.”

  “I have a theory...”

  “I thought as much,” says Sherlock with a smile.

  He stops walking and turns to look at me, his gaze lingering. An intense melancholy rushes through me. I miss Axel, I miss him more than I ever thought possible. I miss his eyes, the way his eyes made me feel like I was safe, like I was home. I move toward Sherlock, drawn by the power of what I’m feeling, unable to think clearly. I lift my hand to stroke his dark hair. He stares at me. It’s no longer Sherlock’s eyes that I see before me, but Axel’s eyes. The pain is intolerable. I lean in and kiss Sherlock the way I’d like to kiss Axel. With the absurd hope that somehow this kiss will lay down the bridge that finally leads me back home.

  10

  Kissing Sherlock was kind of weird. It made me feel even more melancholy than I already did, but that’s not even the worst part. The worst part is that I’m not sure what the kiss meant to him. I walk toward Sherlock’s house, forcing my feet to keep moving. It’s taken me a whole day to gather up the courage, but I am going to talk to him.

  I see a woman striding fiercely toward me. Her figure is familiar, but I can’t quite place her. Her hair blowing loose in the wind doesn’t match up with the person she looks like... No, it can’t be...

  “Beatrice!” I exclaim, once she reaches me.

  I’m too shocked to speak. Her hair is loose, without its usual veil, and the wind is tossing it elegantly from side to side. Her clothing is unrecognizable.

  “You’ve got makeup on!” I say, once I can finally speak again.

  “That’s right,” she says, pleased. “You like it?” She does a little pirouette so I can see her outfit.

  “Where are you going in that tight dress? Shouldn’t you be keeping watch at Wuthering Heights?”

  “Yes, but I got tired of waiting. Nothing changes if you don’t change yourself. I decided to borrow some things from Morgan, to change my image. When Heathcliff comes back—and I’m sure he will be back—I’ll be waiting. He’ll forget all about Cathy, just wait and see.”

  It’s bizarre to see Beatrice dressed this way, with this brazen attitude. Now I understand why the Sphereans are so scandalized by the thought of people acting outside their roles. It’s just... disconcerting. Disappointing.

  “You’re not headed over to the detective’s house, are you?” she asks me, wiggling her hips. “Don’t waste your time. Go find a real man.”

  “Beatrice!”

  “I know what I’m talking about. William’s no good for anything. Besides, he’s only interested in you because you have more information than anyone else. No Sphereans know what you do. Without you he’ll never be able to solve the case.”

  “You’re jealous...”

  “Me? Please! I’m about to start the best part of my role. The most alive and vibrant part.”

  “But—but—the Great Script, Beatrice. Your Creator. Where is the Creator in all this?”

  “You’ve been warned. A real man.”

  Beatrice strokes my cheek and sashays off. I have to tell Sherlock. We’ve got to do something right away to keep her from losing her role, or panic really will spread throughout the Sphere. We have to stop her before someone sees her like this.

  I run the rest of the way to the police station and screech to a halt right outside. A heated argument is coming from Sherlock’s house. One of the voices is Morgan, but who’s the other one? I go inside and pause for a moment in the hall. It’s coming from the living room.

  “Holmes, say—say—say something!”

  Morgan is flustered, stuttering with rage. I can hear the wandering pizzicato coming from Sherlock’s violin. He must be sitting in his old armchair with his eyes shut.

  “I’d also like to hear your opinion,” says the other person—from his voice it sounds like a young man.

  “You can’t just come and go whenever you feel like it,” yells Morgan. “If you thought at the time that it was more important to go off and get married than to work with Holmes, then... Well, that’s how it is. Deal with the consequences of your actions. Don’t expect to come back and still have your job as if you’d never left. I’ve worked a lot, and I’m not just going to walk away.”

  “If it’s about the work, I’ve worked with Sherlock for longer than you have. Surely all the cases we solved together carry more weight than whatever you might be about to solve.”

  “If you didn’t want to lose your job, you shouldn’t have left.”

  “I left to get married—how many times do I have to tell you? And I haven’t come back on a whim; it’s because I’ve been made a widower for the second time. You should have a little compassion.”

  “Compassion? But this always happens to you! It’s your role: accept it and stop whining like a little baby. You should be used to it by now. You get married, you get widowed, you get married, you get widowed, and you do it all over again. What’s new about that? Great Script—does that mean anything to you?”

  “I think that Sherlock is the one who should decide if I can come back or not,” says the young man, quite calmly. “Sherlock, doesn’t it seem to you that all our years together should carry some weight?”

  “Holmes! Say something,” Morgan demands, infuriated. “Watson or me. There’s not room here for both of us.”

  So it’s Watson, Sherlock’s assistant—he’s come back! I can still hear Sherlock picking his way through his music. He hasn’t said a single word.

  “Neither Watson nor you,” he says, finally.

  In the heavy silence that follows I can picture Morgan’s face perfectly, and Watson’s shock, even though I’ve never seen him and have no idea what he looks like.

  “Pardon me, Sherlock. I don’t think I heard you right.”

  “I believe I spoke quite clearly. Neither Morgan nor you.”

  “So who will stay with you? Your two lovely ladies?” Morgan says with a snort.

  “Sherlock, I beg you to reconsider. It would be really important to me to be able to come back. I miss investigating terribly. And you, Morgan, since you mentioned roles—my role is to work with Sherlock. We belong to the same group. You ought to be learning magic with Merlin.”

  “I’ve already learned everything I had to learn! And don’t distract me; I want an answer from Holmes. Who’s going to stay with you, hmm? Tell me! Do I have to remind you of how useless Beatrice is?”

  “Not at all,” Sherlock answers tersely.

  “So?” Morgan groans.

  “I shall keep only Eurydice.”

  Sherlock’s words hit me like a fist to the stomach. There’s the answer I came here looking for. I think it’s perfectly clear what the kiss meant to Sherlock.

  “As for me, dear Sherlock, I am willing to wait. Unlike Morgan, I know that rushing you is not a good idea. Take your time. Think about it. When the time is right, call me. I’ll be happy to come back.”

  “What is it you don’t understand, you dimwit? He’s throwing us both out. It’s not a question of time,” says Morgan. “Or is it, Holmes?”

  “No,” Sherlock answers simply.

  “It’s not fair!” snaps Morgan. “It’s not fair!” A slight mournful noise escapes her throat.

  “Morgan,” says Watson. “A little control, please. Don’t lose your role.”

  “Lose my role! Tell it to your deares
t boss—he’s abandoned his entirely. See, he’s gotten himself involved with an outsider—she hasn’t even been published.”

  I’m about to burst in, but I manage to control myself.

  “My heart is no concern of yours,” Sherlock answers drily.

  “Forgive me,” says Watson, “but indeed it is. If you lose your role, what will become of the Sphere? What will become of all of us?”

  “Eurydice has a sixth sense,” explains Sherlock, “something I’ve never seen before. She throws herself fully into the investigation. She does things with a passion that no Spherean can match.”

  “You can’t be falling in love!” says Morgan. “I’m warning you, Holmes, the only thing Eurydice cares about is finding a way back to her world. She’s an outsider—get that through your head! She’s going to go back and you’ll be left with nothing. She’s just using you.”

  The plucking of the violin stops abruptly.

  “Out!” orders Sherlock, “Both of you out!”

  “But, Sherlock...” begs Watson.

  “As long as Eurydice takes me to whomever is behind these disappearances I don’t care whether she leaves or not. We’ll see who’s using whom.”

  “So you only want your information,” says Morgan with relief.

  Sherlock answers with a grunt. Clearly that’s all he cares about.

  “She’s the only one to have been kidnapped and then to have come back. She has that instinct that we Sphereans lack. The theory of permanent death...”

  “And a particular magnetism, right?” adds Morgan.

  “She is the only one Dracula invites into his mansion time and time again, yes,” says Sherlock. He sounds annoyed.

  “If I’d known that you were going to take me off the case I never would have told you about Eurydice’s visits to the Count,” Morgan says bitterly.

  Now I can’t hold myself back any longer—I burst into the living room in a rage. The three Sphereans stare at me, wide-eyed. Watson, a well-dressed young man, looks me up and down. Sherlock looks solemn; his face has returned to that unreadable expression it had when I first met him. Why? I feel deeply hurt, and incredibly stupid. I really believed they thought of me as part of the team. I thought they valued me just as much as if I had been published.

  “You’ve been spying on me? Morgan—how could you!” My blood is boiling. “At times like this I really am capable of anything,” I warn, tightening my fists.

  Morgan comes closer. I meet her gaze in spite of her unsettling eyes. She raises her hand. It seems impossible for her to do what I think she’s about to do, but I prepare myself—I’m willing to fight back if she hits me. But to my surprise she only rests her hand gently on my forehead for a few seconds, and everything around me goes blurry, and I collapse, unconscious.

  11

  I didn’t know why, but in the end I sneaked out of the house to go to the party with Axel. I had already said that things were over between us. I’d told him the afternoon before, on the beach, but he didn’t pay any attention. He was used to me leaving and coming back right away. I hated myself for being so weak—well, for that and for a lot of other things. But my body had decided for me, yet again. There I was, walking toward the corner where we’d agreed to meet, with a thousand butterflies fluttering inside me. I’d never gotten butterflies in my stomach until Axel became part of my world. Before that if I ever had butterflies they were just the kind that flapped around in my head, and I knew how to get rid of those with paper and pencil.

  Maybe it was what he told me during our walk along the beach, when we sat on the rocks. I guess that was what made me go to the party. I turned off of my street and saw him on the corner, waiting for me next to the wall. How could he look so calm? How could he smile like that? As if he hadn’t just told me everything that had happened in his life that morning. Even half of it would have been enough to make me give up, just like his father had.

  “Hi,” I said in a small voice.

  Axel took one look at me and pulled me into his arms. He kissed me slowly.

  “Want to go?” he said after a moment.

  For the first time since we’d met I walked along next to him without forcing any kind of interior monologue. For the first time everything was fine, no complications. Not even a trace of fear lying in wait for me, the fear that always kept my temper on edge.

  “Was it hard to convince your parents to let you go out?”

  Axel’s gaze no longer hurt me; it was like a caress.

  “No, it was really easy.”

  “As easy as climbing out a window?”

  “I didn’t climb out!” I tried to muster up some indignation.

  “No, no, of course not—who would think something like that!”

  We shared a complicit glance as we walked along, arm in arm. Up above us the gulls sang in a summer sky that refused to turn dark.

  “Seriously, though,” Axel pressed, “Does anyone know you’re out?”

  I shook my head no.

  “But nothing’s going to happen, right?” I said.

  “No, of course not. You get a free pass your first time sneaking out. Nothing ever happens when you sneak out for the first time.”

  Axel winked, but for an instant sadness clouded his eyes. It was as if he somehow knew that a few minutes later everything was going to change.

  Everything got all twisted. At the party he stopped being himself, or maybe what happened was he finally started to be himself. I clutched my glass so hard that it was a miracle the crystal didn’t shatter. It took a colossal effort to start a conversation with Carl, the biggest idiot I’d ever met. Now, from a distance, I know that I always knew the truth about Axel. I knew it, but I refused to see it. More than once, when I hugged him, my hands felt a book in one of his pockets. It wasn’t just reading—for Axel, books were something more. The constant fear that he didn’t love me, that soon he would leave me, was all because of that insurmountable wall between us: books, which he loved and I hated in equal measure.

  At the party, Carl’s jumpy little eyes moved over me, fondling me like some kind of repulsive tentacle. The way he looked me up and down made me feel like a black slug was crawling across my skin. How could Axel not realize what that revolting creep was doing? How could he be so close to me and not sense that I was overcome with disgust? Carl was my desperate last-ditch effort to get Axel’s attention—a totally new kind of effort for me.

  “Will you please tell me what I did?” he asked as he followed me out onto the porch.

  Take me out of the center of your life, that’s what you did! I wished I could scream it right in his face, the way my heart wanted me to. When did I stop mattering to you? I asked you silently, Axel, you should have known. But no—he insisted on making me talk even though each word felt like it was ripping its way out of my throat. Could he really not understand why I was so angry? How could someone I loved be so obtuse?

  “I hate when you shut yourself up inside your shell...”

  Why hadn’t Axel dared to say it to my face? Why did he have to whisper it?

  “You hate it, huh?” I said, my eyes burning with helplessness.

  “Yes,” he answered, “I don’t like when I don’t know what’s going on inside your head.”

  “And you think I like not knowing what you do?”

  Axel looked at me, stunned.

  “What do you mean?” His question was just an attempt to delay the inevitable.

  “What were you talking about with David? Why didn’t you ever tell me what you were studying?”

  “You never asked.”

  “How convenient! It’s so nice for you that I never specifically asked, isn’t it?”

  “I write,” Axel said through clenched teeth.

  “I know.” My voice had a fog of disappointment. “Since when?”

  “What do you mean since when? Dissie, you make it sound like something bad.”

  I could have killed him with a look. My eyes were two chunks of ice about to smas
h into him.

  “Since always. I’ve always written, you know? I’m sorry for doing something so awful!” Axel lifted both arms up as he spoke. “I am sorry,” he said again, trying to meet my gaze. “Not for writing, but for not telling you sooner. Your hate for books is irrational—don’t think I don’t know it. But I didn’t hide my dream of writing from you just to keep things going smoothly. Maybe it was at first, but the more I get to know you the more I’m sure there’s real pain behind those little-girl tantrums. Dissie, please—talk to me. Tell me what it is about books that scares you so much.”

  I turned my back on him. The wind moved my dark hair.

  “Dissie...” he said again.

  There was no answer. I didn’t move an inch. Axel laid a hand on my shoulder, trying to calm me down.

  “You know what I think of literature,” I say, spinning back around in a flash. “You knew it perfectly well, from the moment you met me.”

  “Yes. And I also know that I shouldn’t have let your whims go this far.”

  “Whims?”

  “Yes. It’s ridiculous. If you don’t tell me what’s going on with you, I can’t help thinking it’s just a whim. To have such hatred for something you barely know... from what you’ve told me, you haven’t read a single book in your life. Your parents spend all day reading, sure, fine. They don’t pay attention to you, well—what a shame! Grow up already, Dissie. The world doesn’t revolve around you.”

  We both had tears in our eyes. We looked at each other in silence, our breath ragged.

  “Tell me exactly what you study,” I said.

  “Creative writing. Do you approve? Are you going to hate me for it? My Ph.D. is in creative writing—that’s what I was talking about with David, the novel I’m writing as part of my thesis. Is that enough information?”