Chapter Text
Manhattan, New York, 1947
Howard sighed and shrugged his jacket on. Another long day, and another painful meeting. Some of those board members really needed to loosen up. It was Christmas Eve, for crying out loud. Looked like it’d be a quiet day at home tomorrow though. The only way they’d been discouraged from pulling some men in for work was the fact that no workers would show up for religious reasons.
Well, Peg was working on some case with the SSR so they’d declined his invitation to drop by for a Christmas dinner. Thompson was still in hospital – hadn’t woken up – so they were running all over the place trying to work out who shot him. That was okay, though.
Howard pulled up in front of his gates and waited as Jarvis rushed out of the garage to open the gates for him. It looked like he’d just finished shovelling snow from the driveway for the billionth time. Howard pulled in and drove into his garage. Getting out, he glanced back at Jarvis. The butler had just finished closing the gates again and was heading back to the house. By now, he’d want to turn in.
That was fine with Howard.
Howard went for the door from the garage. As he reached for the handle, though, something strange happened. Movement made him lift his eyes. The door had circular patterns in the wood. One of them had appeared to shift and resemble and extremely familiar face.
‘…Ma?’
The visage seemed to smile and then it vanished. The wood was suddenly just a circular pattern again. Howard reached up and touched it. Normal wood. He must’ve been overtired. Howard shook it off and continued into the house. Heading upstairs, Howard decided he didn’t even have the energy to go down and tinker in his workshop.
Stepping into his bedroom, he shrugged off his jacket and plopped down in the armchair he had in the room. Sometimes he liked to sit up and tinker and the armchair was good for that. Right now, though, it was good for collapsing and falling asleep. The next thing he knew, a clock tolled. For a moment, he completely ignored it.
Wait…I don’t have any clocks that toll.
Howard’s eyes snapped open and he rolled to his feet. There was a distinct chill in the air. He grabbed his jacket and shrugged it on. What the hell was going on? Howard looked around the room. Apart from the fact that the clock seemed to have stopped, nothing was really out of place. His eyes were suddenly drawn to the bedroom door and he watched as…someone very familiar stepped through.
‘Sorry about the chill,’ she said. ‘It’s a little side effect. Nothing to be done about it.’
‘Ma?’ Howard stumbled back. ‘But…y-you…’
‘I died in 1943,’ Ainsley Stark said, smiling lightly. ‘I know, dear.’ She walked over and sat in his armchair. ‘And, yes, we’re a bit too logically-minded for this to make any kind of sense. Yet, here we are.’
Howard shook his head, trying to make the elusive sense of this. ‘What the hell is going on?’
‘You haven’t worked it out?’ Ainsley cracked a smile. ‘It was your favourite Christmas story as a child.’
That pulled Howard up short. ‘A Christmas Carol?’
‘Precisely.’
‘But I’m not a bitter old miser!’ Howard knew that for sure. ‘Rich, sure, but I don’t keep my money to myself.’
Ainsley’s smile turned kind, like when he’d had trouble understanding something as a child. ‘Mr. Dickens’ basic theory was right, but he was mistaken with a few factors. For starters, this sort of thing isn’t done after a person has gone bad. It’s done when the process begins.’
‘Process begins?’ Howard asked, all kinds of worry beginning to churn in his gut.
‘The hope is that the process can stop you following the path you’re on,’ Ainsley said. She leaned forward and steepled her fingers. ‘It is generally done at Christmas because it’s in the dead of winter. And this is when the magnetic fields that make up the barrier between the living and dead worlds are weakest.’
Okay, magnetism. Scientific explanation. He could work with that. ‘Er…what about the past, present, and future thing?’
‘Projections,’ Ainsley said. ‘Lots and lots of projections. And a hell of a lot of energy funnelling. The first spirit shows you simple replays of the past; events that you may have overlooked or that have slipped to the back of your mind. The spirit for the present simply lifts your consciousness from your body, so the outside world only perceives you to be sleeping. I believe it’s otherwise called astral projection.’
‘And the future?’
‘The same principle an accurate seer uses: a combination of cause and effect, and the balance of probability. It shows you what your life is most likely to become if you continue as you are.’
Howard nodded. ‘So it is somewhat scientific?’
‘Somewhat, yes.’
‘And the spirits themselves?’
‘Another misconception on the part of Mr. Dickens.’ Ainsley smiled. ‘They are not three random spirits of Christmas past, present, and future. Why should such beings be interested in a single mortal man?’
Howard nodded his head in acquiescence.
‘No, these spirits are the souls of the most perceptive of your forebears. In this case, the Holmes brothers: my father, your grandfather, Sherrinford, Uncle Mycroft, and Uncle Sherlock.’
Howard sighed and dropped his hands into his head. ‘When the bell tolls one?’
‘No, actually,’ Ainsley said. ‘My father will come in here practically as soon as I leave.’ She stood up.
Howard heaved a sigh. ‘Is it true?’
‘Is what true?’
Did HYDRA really poison you?’ He remembered when that British doctor, apparently sent by his cousin in England, had knocked on his door and told him that he’d found arsenic in his mother’s stomach. He hadn’t wanted to believe it, but it couldn’t be denied that she had died damn young considering that nearly all of her forebears had hit at least 90. She’d been 65.
‘It is,’ Ainsley said. ‘Just don’t ask me how they got it into the food. Tomorrow morning, contact our relatives in England. You’ll see what I mean.’ That said, she turned and walked out of the room.
Howard let out a deep breath. He walked over as the room temperature returned to normal, and sat on his armchair. He flicked on the lamp and lifted a hand to his neck. If nothing else, his own pulse would tell him whether he was asleep or awake. 75. I’m awake. Which meant his mother’s…ghost had just been in here.
The temperature dropped again.
Howard looked around. ‘I suppose you’re my grandfather?’
‘Correct.’ A man’s voice spoke in the same British accent that his mother had spoken with. Howard watched as a man in a waistcoat and black suede shoes stepped out of the fireplace. He had trimmed whiskers running down the side of his face. Howard squinted. Sherrinford Holmes chuckled. ‘The law of primogeniture.’
Okay. That explained why this clearly rich man could be his grandfather when he’d grown up dirt poor. ‘And…why didn’t you marry ma to money, then?’ Because that was what rich people did with their daughters back then – they married them into the same social class.
‘Excellent question,’ Sherrinford said, folding his arms behind his back. ‘Here is the excellent answer: upper class men did not appreciate having wives that were more intelligent than them. In fact, they had a tendency to beat their wives if they were too clever. Coming from this family, would you expect anything less?’
‘No.’ In fact, his ma would’ve been far too clever.
‘Of course not. It was far more preferable to marry her to somebody who was perhaps of a lower social class, but who would not mistreat her. The same was true for her sister, your Aunt Avalon.’
‘Right. Thanks for clearing that up.’ Howard stood up. ‘I suppose we’re going somewhere?’
‘In a manner of speaking.’ Sherrinford clapped.