Chapter Text
In May 1988, the trees at Musgrave still looked innocent.
That was an error of observation.
Sherlock already knew that. A tree was never merely a green, amiable shape planted in a garden to reassure adults. It was a structure. A stack of physical variables: trunk, bark, angles, supports, weight, resistance, traps. Some trees invited you up. Others lied. Some had low branches that seemed solid because they were thick, but the wood had already begun to rot underneath. Others, on the contrary, looked too thin and held perfectly well because the angle distributed the weight correctly.
Victor, for his part, sorted trees into two categories: the ones you could climb, and the ones Sherlock had not yet worked out how to climb.
It was a crude classification.
But an effective one.
That day, they had chosen the great beech at the far end of the estate.
Not the tallest one. The best one.
It grew near the edge of the grounds, where the garden stopped being polite and became interesting.
Its roots came out of the ground like ancient knees. The trunk rose straight for a few feet, then opened into three large branches, low enough for an agile child to haul himself up, high enough for an adult to shout get down from there the moment they saw them.
Victor had arrived after lunch with his red hair almost orange in the sun, his shirt badly buttoned, his knees already green with grass, and the English setter who, that day, was called Jupiter.
“He can’t be called Jupiter,” Sherlock had said.
“Why not?”
“It’s a planet.”
“And a god.”
“That’s worse.”
Victor had looked at the dog, who had just put his head into a flower bed with the conviction of an animal searching for a lost civilisation.
“He likes it.”
“He doesn’t understand.”
“That’s why he accepts it better.”
Sherlock had not answered, because Victor often used apparently stupid sentences that became harder to contradict if examined for too long.
The two of them set off towards the beech.
Eurus followed them after a moment.
She had been in the grass near the terrace, sitting too straight, busy lining up small stones by size, colour, or suspected crime. Sherlock did not know. Eurus did not always say what her classifications were for. Sometimes because she did not have the words. Sometimes because she did not want anyone touching the order before it was finished.
When she saw them move away, she stood up.
Without asking.
She was almost six, or perhaps already six; he was no longer sure. Sherlock sometimes mixed up ages when they had not yet produced a useful event. She was wearing a pale dress, already stained at the hem, grey socks, and shoes unsuited to anything involving a garden. Her brown hair fell in badly contained strands over her shoulders, too heavy, too tangled under the ribbon Margaret had attempted to impose that morning.
“Is she coming?” Victor asked.
Sherlock looked behind him.
Eurus was walking at a distance, as though following an invisible line that was not exactly their path.
“Yes.”
“Can she climb?”
“No.”
“Should we teach her?”
Sherlock hesitated.
He could have said no. Perhaps he should have. But Victor already had that open, obvious face, where the world seemed expected to widen itself in good faith. He did not yet understand that Eurus did not simply add herself to a day. She changed its rules.
“She can try,” Sherlock said.
Victor smiled.
“Brilliant.”
Jupiter ran ahead.
He reached the beech first, sniffed the roots, barked at something invisible, then lifted his head towards the branches in utter confusion. The dog knew how to run, dig, jump, fetch sticks, and ruin clean trousers. He did not know how to climb. This limitation struck him as profoundly unjust for roughly four seconds, then he found an interesting smell near a root and forgot verticality.
Victor put his hands on the trunk.
“Today, I’m going higher.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“You fell last time.”
“I hardly bled.”
“That is not a measure of success.”
“It is for me.”
Sherlock moved closer to the trunk and looked up.
The branches formed a path.
Not simple, but legible. Left foot in the hollow of the root. Right hand on the split bark. Knee on the first protrusion. Then pull. After that, avoid the dead branch on the left, take the one on the right, shift the weight against the trunk, and do not look down before sitting.
Sherlock climbed first.
He liked that first climb, precisely because it was no longer difficult. His body already knew certain holds. His hands knew where the bark caught. His knees found their place before his mind did. For a few seconds, he did not need to argue with the world. He only had to use the shape of things correctly.
Victor followed him.
Less cleanly.
More noisily.
With a mixture of enthusiasm, trust in Sherlock, and an absolute lack of respect for his own elbows.
“Not there,” Sherlock said.
“Where?”
“Further right.”
“There?”
“No, that’s moss.”
“I like moss.”
“You shouldn’t. It slips.”
Victor laughed, shifted his foot.
“There?”
“Yes.”
“You see, I do know.”
“I just told you.”
“Yes, but I listened.”
Sherlock held out a hand.
Victor took it without arguing.
Always.
He never made a ceremony out of those gestures. Hand, wrist, shoulder, knee, balance. To Victor, Sherlock’s body was part of the landscape when something had to be crossed. A branch more intelligent than the others. A foothold with a voice.
Sherlock pulled.
Victor hauled himself up in one breath, almost slipped, burst out laughing, then settled beside him on the large central branch.
“We can see the house!”
“We could already see the house from the ground.”
“Not like this.”
That was true.
Up here, Musgrave seemed lower. The roof broke into pieces between the leaves. The windows shone in fragments. They could see the top of the wall, the beginning of the orchard, the white patch of a tablecloth drying in the sun, the old bench near the apple tree. At tree height, the world lost its adult proportions.
Victor leaned back against the trunk, very close to Sherlock.
Too close, if one measured.
Correct, if one allowed for the width of the branch.
Sherlock did not move.
Below, Eurus had arrived.
She stopped at the foot of the beech.
Then looked up.
Her face was in shadow.
“It’s high,” Victor said.
“No,” Sherlock replied.
“Yes.”
“Not very.”
“For her.”
Sherlock looked at Eurus.
She placed one hand on the bark.
Very gently.
“It isn’t high,” she said.
Victor answered kindly:
“A bit, though.”
She did not look at him.
She was looking at the tree.
Or Sherlock.
Hard to tell.
“Where do I put my foot?” she asked.
Sherlock slid along the branch to see better.
“Left root. Your other left.”
Eurus looked at her feet and corrected herself.
She did not really confuse left and right. But sometimes words arrived in her body like orders translated too late.
“Right hand on the split bark. Higher.”
She set her fingers in the crack.
Her shoulder set wrong.
Sherlock saw it immediately.
“Not like that. You have to push with your leg.”
“I am pushing.”
“No. You’re pulling with your arm.”
“It’s the same.”
“No.”
Victor tilted his head.
“Do you want me to come down?”
“No,” Sherlock said.
“No,” Eurus said.
At the same time.
Victor fell silent.
Eurus bent her knee, tried to pull herself up, lost her footing, and dropped back to the ground.
The fall was not violent, but enough for the dirt to mark her dress. Sherlock went stiller.
Jupiter lifted his head, very interested in this fall that might perhaps be a game.
Eurus stayed motionless for a second.
Then she tried again.
In exactly the same way.
“No,” Sherlock said. “You have to change.”
“I’m doing the same because the same should work.”
“Not if the same is wrong.”
She stopped and looked up at him.
“The tree works for you.”
“Because I put my weight in the right place.”
“And for Victor.”
“Because he listens.”
Victor, who had been picking a piece of bark off his sleeve, looked up.
“I don’t always listen.”
“In trees, you do.”
Victor smiled, delighted to have been defended.
Eurus saw the smile.
Sherlock saw that she saw it.
Something changed in her face, very slightly. A closing. Like an inner door sliding shut without a sound.
“Tell me,” she said.
“I am telling you.”
“No. Like him.”
Sherlock frowned.
“It’s the same.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“With him, you wait.”
Beneath Sherlock, the bark suddenly seemed harder.
Victor looked at Sherlock.
Sherlock looked at Eurus.
“I wait too.”
“No.”
She took up the starting position again.
Foot on root. Hand on bark. Shoulder too high. Weight badly distributed.
Sherlock climbed down one branch, not all the way to the ground. He crouched on the first fork, closer to her.
“Look.”
“I’m looking.”
“No. Your foot has to push there.”
He showed her.
“Why?”
“Because the bark grips better.”
“Why does it grip better for you?”
“It doesn’t choose.”
“Yes, it does.”
“Eurus.”
“Things always choose other people.”
Victor said, softly:
“Maybe the tree is just difficult.”
Eurus turned her head towards him.
“I wasn’t talking to you.”
Victor froze, surprised.
Sherlock felt a dry irritation rise in his throat.
“Don’t speak to him like that.”
Eurus looked up at him.
“You speak to him all the time.”
“He is here.”
“So am I.”
“Then climb.”
It was the wrong sentence; he knew it at once.
Too simple. Too close to humiliation.
Eurus placed both hands on the trunk.
This time, she tried to force it.
Her foot slipped almost at once. Her knee struck the bark. She let out a small sound, more a break in her breathing than a cry. She clung on harder, scraped at the wood with her nails, found a hold, hauled herself up a few inches, then fell back.
Jupiter sprang towards her.
She pushed him away before he could touch her.
“No.”
The dog stepped back, offended by the failure of his emotional assistance.
Victor climbed down one branch.
“I can—”
“No!”
The word came out too loud.
The birds in the beech went silent.
Sherlock stayed motionless.
Eurus had dirty hands, a scraped knee, hair in front of her face. She was breathing fast. From pain, humiliation, overload. When the world refused a shape, Eurus did not always know whether she was supposed to change her body, the rule, or the world.
“I can tell you differently,” Sherlock said.
She shook her head.
“You’re already telling me.”
“Then what?”
“Come down.”
“Why?”
“So it can be over.”
Victor looked at Sherlock.
There was sadness on his face now. A simple sadness, almost irritating. Victor wanted things to be repairable by a gesture: coming down, helping, holding out a hand, making room.
Sherlock did not come down.
He did not know why, later.
Or he knew too well.
Because he was fine on the branch.
Because Victor was there.
Because coming down would have meant that Eurus’s failure decided the game for all of them.
Because that day, for once, he did not want the world to rearrange itself around his sister.
“No,” he said.
Eurus looked up.
The sun came through the leaves, dappling her face with light and shadow. She looked very small from above. Smaller than she did in the house. Younger, too.
“No?”
“You can try again. Or do something else.”
“I want to be there.”
“Then you have to climb.”
She stared at him.
“You could pull me up.”
“You don’t want to be touched.”
“By you, I do.”
Sherlock stayed silent.
Victor looked at Eurus, then at Sherlock.
This time, something like fear crossed his eyes, very quickly, without form.
“Do you want my hand?” Sherlock asked.
She did not answer.
He reached down from the lower branch.
Not close enough.
Of course.
She had to manage part of the climb first.
Eurus looked at his hand.
Then at the branch.
Then at Victor, sitting higher up, still within Sherlock’s reach, in the world where hands came at the right moment.
“You gave it to him before,” she said.
“He was higher.”
“He was already inside.”
“Yes.”
“I’m outside.”
Sherlock wanted to say that was not true.
But it was true.
Eurus was below.
They were in the tree.
That was all.
And it was not all.
Jupiter circled the trunk, worried now because the humans were making sounds that no longer resembled a game. He pressed his muzzle against Eurus’s hand.
This time, she did not push him away.
She did not stroke him either.
She let him exist.
Victor said:
“We could make another den. On the ground.”
It was kind.
It made everything worse.
Eurus looked at him.
“I don’t want it on the ground.”
“All right.”
“I want there.”
She pointed to the place where Victor was sitting.
Not just any branch.
That one.
Victor’s branch.
Sherlock said:
“There’s room beside him.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Not the same.”
“A branch isn’t a named place.”
“It is if someone is on it.”
Mycroft would have appreciated the structure of the sentence.
Sherlock did not; it unsettled him.
Very slowly, Victor moved over.
“You can have this spot,” he said.
Sherlock turned his head towards him.
“Don’t move.”
“But—”
“Don’t move.”
Victor stopped.
Eurus watched the scene.
The place offered. Sherlock’s order. Victor stopping.
She saw everything.
Sherlock felt it with unpleasant precision.
He had just chosen Victor’s place on Victor’s behalf.
And therefore against her.
Even though he had not meant to.
Even though the branch was safer with the weight already distributed. Even though making Victor move on a narrow branch was a bad idea. Even though Eurus could not have climbed that high anyway.
The reasons did not matter.
She had seen the direction of the gesture.
Sherlock said, lower:
“Victor might fall if he changes places.”
“Yes,” Eurus said.
Then she stepped back.
One step.
Two.
She sat down at the foot of the tree, among the roots.
Not like a child giving up. Like someone moving the problem elsewhere.
She picked up a stick.
Sherlock felt almost relieved.
That was a mistake.
Eurus began to draw in the dirt.
Lines.
The trunk.
The branches.
The positions.
Sherlock watched her.
Victor did too.
“What is she doing?” Victor whispered.
“A map.”
“Of the tree?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Sherlock did not answer.
Because he did not know yet.
Or perhaps because he did not want to know.
Eurus drew with cold concentration. Her right hand tracing. Her left resting on her knee. She marked the branches as lines, the footholds as dots. She added a circle where Victor had been sitting. Another where Sherlock had been crouching.
Then she made a cross on the dead branch Sherlock had avoided earlier.
“That one breaks,” she said.
“Yes.”
“You knew.”
“Yes.”
“You told him.”
“Yes.”
“Not me.”
“You hadn’t climbed that far.”
She accepted the information.
Too quickly.
She drew another line.
“If he takes that one, he comes down.”
Victor looked at the branch she had drawn.
“Which one?”
“Don’t move,” Sherlock said.
Victor did not move.
Eurus looked up.
There was something almost calm in her face.
“He listens to you.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I know where the branches would hold.”
“No.”
Sherlock felt the back of his neck stiffen.
“Why, then?”
Eurus laid the stick across her knees.
“Because he likes it when you tell him.”
Victor blushed at once.
“That’s not—”
“Yes.”
“I don’t want to fall,” Victor said.
“Also.”
Eurus looked at him without hatred.
Perhaps that was worse.
She looked at him like a phenomenon.
A red-haired, living, dirty, loving child, sitting in the tree with Sherlock, capable of being corrected without breaking, capable of laughing when Sherlock gave orders, capable of receiving a hand without turning it into a debt, a place without turning it into proof.
Victor did not know what he represented.
Nor did Sherlock.
Eurus, perhaps, was beginning to see it.
Not clearly yet, but enough for it to make noise somewhere behind her eyes.
“You can climb up the other side,” Sherlock said.
She shook her head.
“No.”
“Yes. There’s a low branch at the back.”
“I don’t want to anymore.”
“Why?”
“Because now it’s after.”
Sherlock hated that answer.
It was logical in the way Eurus was logical.
Which meant it could become dangerous later.
Victor finally climbed down.
Despite the order.
But carefully.
He climbed down because he could not bear, for very long, to see someone below. He found the holds, let himself slide, almost fell, caught himself, then landed near Eurus with a small breath.
“I can help you now,” he said.
Eurus looked up at him.
“I don’t want you.”
Victor stopped.
Sherlock immediately climbed down one branch.
“Eurus.”
She did not shout.
She did not move.
She simply said:
“I want him.”
The word was small.
Sherlock felt something close up inside his stomach.
“I’m here,” he said.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“You’re with him.”
Victor looked at the ground.
Sherlock climbed down entirely.
He dropped the last few feet, landed near the roots, and straightened too quickly.
“I can be with both of you.”
Eurus looked at him.
Then Victor.
Then the dog.
Then the branches.
“Not the same.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
She took her stick and added a line between the two circles drawn in the dirt: Sherlock and Victor in the tree. Then she drew a third circle below.
Hers.
Separate.
“There,” she said.
Sherlock looked at the drawing.
He wanted to erase it.
It was not wrong.
It was too legible.
So he held out his hand.
“Come. We can go to the brook.”
Victor looked up.
“Yes. The brook.”
Eurus did not take the hand.
“With him?”
Sherlock forced himself not to sigh.
“Yes.”
“And me behind?”
“No. With us.”
She examined the proposal like a suspect equation.
“Where, with us?”
Victor said, too quickly:
“In the middle.”
Eurus turned her head towards him.
He went a little pale, but continued:
“If you want. I can walk in front with Jupiter. Or behind. Or fall into the brook, it depends.”
The joke did not quite reach Eurus.
But it slowed her down.
Sherlock saw her face shift by one degree. Not visible joy. Only a tiny displacement of tension.
“You fall often,” she said.
Victor shrugged.
“Yes.”
“Why does Sherlock love you?”
The question arrived without a visible knife; it cut anyway.
Victor went red.
Sherlock said at once:
“Eurus.”
“What?”
“You don’t ask people that.”
“Why?”
Because people did not ask that.
Because Victor was there.
Because Sherlock did not know how to answer.
Because the answer was truer when it was not said aloud.
“Because it’s stupid,” Sherlock said.
Eurus watched him.
“No.”
She was right.
He knew it, and hated her a little for it.
Victor bent down, picked up a leaf, and tore it nervously.
“It’s all right,” he said.
Sherlock turned towards him.
“She didn’t mean—”
“I know.”
“No.”
“Yes. I know.”
Victor smiled.
Very badly.
Then he gave the leaf to the dog, who ate it with perfectly misplaced enthusiasm.
Eurus watched that attempt at peace being swallowed.
A small movement passed over her mouth.
Almost curiosity.
“He eats the answers,” she said.
Victor laughed despite himself.
So did Sherlock.
The laughter did something worse than silence.
Eurus watched them laugh together.
The same moment. The same place. The same absurdity.
She did not laugh.
She lowered her eyes to her drawing.
With the stick, she erased Victor’s circle.
Sherlock stopped laughing.
“Eurus.”
“What?”
Then she erased the line between Victor and Sherlock.
Very carefully. Like correcting a mistake.
Victor said nothing.
Jupiter wagged his tail, unaware of the dramatic importance of ground cartography.
Sherlock crouched in front of Eurus.
“Stop.”
“It’s just dirt.”
“No.”
She looked up at him.
He almost regretted the word.
“Then what?”
He did not have the answer.
He was almost seven. He knew how to read tracks in the mud, climb trees, choose the branches that would hold, correct Victor, hear when Mycroft was lying, see when his mother simplified an equation, understand that hornets attacked movement.
He did not know what to do with his sister erasing Victor from a map.
So he took the stick.
She let him.
That was unexpected.
Sherlock drew three circles.
Not in a column.
Not separated, the way hers had been.
Three circles around the trunk.
Then he drew a line towards the brook.
“Now we go there.”
Eurus looked.
“That’s false. Victor was in the tree.”
“Now he’s on the ground.”
“Before, he was there.”
“Now, we move.”
She stared at him for a long time.
A very long time.
Then she asked:
“If we move, does before disappear?”
Sherlock answered:
“No.”
“Then.”
She took the stick back.
He did not stop her.
She added a small mark to Victor’s circle.
“To remember that he was up high.”
Then another to Sherlock’s.
“To remember that you helped him.”
Then she looked at her own circle.
She marked nothing.
Victor said softly:
“You could put that you found the map.”
Eurus did not look up.
“That is not the same.”
“No,” Victor said. “But it’s true.”
She stayed motionless.
Then she made a dot beside her circle.
Very small.
Sherlock did not know what the dot meant.
Perhaps: here.
Perhaps: didn’t climb.
Perhaps: map.
Perhaps: later.
She put the stick down.
“We’re going to the brook.”
Victor seemed to breathe again.
“All right.”
“Not behind.”
“No,” Sherlock said.
“Not on the ground.”
“The brook is on the ground.”
“You know what I mean.”
He did.
That was the whole problem.
They set off.
Victor went ahead with the dog for a few steps, then came back because he did not know how to stay ahead without checking that the others still existed. Sherlock walked beside Eurus, not too close. He did not take her hand. She did not ask for it. Sometimes her shoulder brushed his and she moved away at once, as if contact were an unnecessary disturbance.
Behind them, under the beech, the drawing remained in the dirt.
Three circles.
One line.
Two marks.
One small dot.
Then Jupiter, who knew nothing of the dignity of maps and the history of families, came running back, chasing a smell, planted an entire paw on Victor’s circle, and blurred the edge.
Eurus turned at the sound.
She saw the trace.
Her face barely changed.
Almost.
Sherlock said:
“It’s only a dog.”
She replied:
“Yes.”
But she kept looking at the dirt for several more seconds.
As though she had just learned that someone could be erased without anyone even meaning to.