Suddenly the room felt grey and grizzled, covered in fog. I felt as if I were spiraling and tumbling down a slippery slope of slimy mud.
He withdrew his hands from mine and reached into a rucksack. He retrieved a leather-bound journal.
“I have been waiting for the right time to give you this. Effie gave it to me just before she died and told me to give it to you only when I felt sure you had the strength to read it. I’m still reluctant. I know that it has been well over a year, but you were devastated by her untimely death and still mourn her. But you need to have it. It is her journal and contains happy memories... and predictions, of course.”
I took the journal from him and ran my thumb over the beautiful tan leather binding. It had the O’Flahertie coat of arms emblazoned on the cover, marbled edges, five raised bands and gilt lettering on the spine. I looked up but Oscar’s face had disappeared into the fog my mind created. Instead I saw a translucent figure, buried in shadow, like a nymph who lives in the fairy wood. A beautiful woman with golden hair and billowing sleeves slipping down her soft shoulders and acres of fabric drifting behind her. I blinked and she was gone.
I thanked Oscar, then rose to leave. He touched my hand and repeated, “Poppy, be wise. Get out of Sherlock’s shadow.”
I hurried away as my eyes welled up, and I kept trying not to lose control, trying to act as if my grief belonged to someone else.
As I made my way to St. Bart’s, I was reminded of the many long walks I’d taken recently with Sherlock since that tutorial in ash. He was determined to build a mental grid of every inch of London.
Occasionally, during these long walks, he would take hold of my hand. When he did this, my heart would abruptly beat so fast I feared he could actually see it swelling in my chest.
I would find myself day-dreaming about how wonderful it would be if I were truly a part of Sherlock’s life, not just an assistant, not just the woman he almost gave his heart to. I was reminded again that “almost” is harder and that I should take Oscar’s advice... simply walk away, not allow myself to settle for this. But I still wanted to be with Sherlock, to make sure he ate properly, to fill those voids when he had no urgent problem to solve and feared stagnation, so was tempted to resort to cocaine and chain smoking and too much claret or port. I truly was not greedy for the kind of happiness my parents or my aunt and uncle shared. At least, I told myself that I would gladly ask no more from life than those moments when Sherlock acknowledged me as something more than a colleague, for no more than days and nights by his side. Each of our afternoon promenades was a succession of victories for me as I attempted to plant the seeds of a lasting relationship, the kind to which he had alluded just before Victor found us in an embrace.
The region of sadness I entered after these walks was distinct from that in which I had lived constantly in my long absence from his presence. Now the episodes were sporadic, and I hurled myself with great joy into the walks, the visits to the lab when he would display ashes, some black as soot, some green ones, some brown... and the occasions when he joined me, my uncle and aunt for dinner. The desires and goals and dreams I had nurtured - to be a medical doctor, to be a wife and mother - seemed very far behind me whenever I was in Sherlock’s company. I believe I would have given it all up in order to be able to fall asleep each night in his arms. But his control over his emotions was not just an exterior layer of granite; it was embedded deeply now, necessary to his existence. He could be charming and reserved in the space of a breath. He could be happy as a young bird taking flight one moment and crabby as a hansom coachman the next, sensitive and antisocial in the space of a heartbeat.
Yet there were tender moments between us. One afternoon - it was late and the pink ribbons of sunlight danced off the glass plate windows like the moon bouncing off the ripples of a river in The Broads - I stumbled on the cobblestone and fell into him. I saw our silhouette in a window, the two of us pressed against each other. I wanted to stay that way, clamped in his embrace until the sun slipped beneath the horizon, until twilight faded into night, until the globe rose again and the lark’s song heralded morning. In such moments, I saw not the Sherlock that other people knew but the one I wished he would return to someday, the one that had surfaced in the idle hours we had spent by the river in The Broads, the one who tutored me in vintage wines, the one who asked me to dance in Victor’s ballroom, a memory now so brief and vague yet so sweet a residue.
Sherlock needed to make only one concession - to be what he wanted to be with everyone except me. But I feared that moment would never arrive. And to see him vexed would destroy all the calm he had brought me the moment before. But those times, however short, when he brought me into the game, into the riddle, were still sweet compared to those when, because he was resolute in never again succumbing to his emotions or physical needs, he - seemingly effortlessly - withdrew from me completely for days on end.
One afternoon, sitting near the fountain at St. Bart’s, I’d tried to
