Archive of Our Own ^beta

Warning! This story does NOT contain any explicit sex or slash. So, if that is the kind of story you are looking for, this is not it. The story, which takes place after Series 3, has two themes. One is that some people are young no matter what their chronological age. It is not that they have never grown up; they just refuse to grow old. The title of the story is derived from the second theme. Psychiatrist Carl Jung used the term synchronicity to describe events as "meaningful coincidences" if they occur with no causal relationship, yet seem to be meaningfully related. Sherlock and a woman named Sarah Dunkirk are brought together because of something that occurred 45 years ago. The story is complete. I won't be adding any new material.

Even after several years of working with Sherlock Holmes, I still find it amazing how he is able to pull together all the separate threads of an investigation and weave them as skillfully as any cloth maker until an unmistakable pattern emerges and he solves the case. Of course he loves those moments of his big “reveal” as the faces of those around him register wonder at the way he was able to deduce his conclusions from the tiniest bits of evidence. I think he especially relishes the look on my face since I would have been with him the whole time and saw the same things he did and yet did not arrive at the same conclusion. But as he has told me on numerous occasions, I see but do not observe.

One case, however, stands out because the threads were stretched over three continents and over 45 years but they converged in a flat at 221B Baker Street. Part of the following narrative, I witnessed and am able to write about it that way. The rest, I had to piece together from what Sherlock told me and from what I learned from a woman named Sarah Dunkirk, with maybe just a little embellishment on my part. I’ll begin the story with Sarah who was awakened near dawn by the sound of a helicopter that she thought was going to land on her roof.

It was the beginning of the third day of a major ice storm in southwest Missouri in the United States. Power had gone out when the first wave hit two nights ago and with two more ice storms following that, the situation had only grown worse. The ice had accumulated to the thickness of soda cans on the power lines, pulling them down and snapping the poles like twigs. It would take days, maybe weeks, to repair the damage and restore power to everyone. As the ice coating on the trees grew thicker, huge limbs and entire trees snapped with the sound of gun shots. After the third wave, the snow began in earnest, blanketing most of the county with as much as sixteen inches of wet snow.

By the time Sarah crawled out of her makeshift tent in front of her fireplace and went to her back window and pulled back the blanket covering it to see what was making the noise, the helicopter was flying out over Lake Pomme de Terre. The snow had stopped and the moon was out, but nothing seemed to be amiss. “Maybe it was the Red Cross, dropping us some supplies, you think, Scout?” Scout, Sarah’s Shiba Inu, pawed at the glass door. “No, you’re not going out. You can wait till morning. Come on, girl, let’s go back to bed.” Scout sniffed at the door jam and pawed some more. “OK, but I’m not waiting up to let you back in. You get cold, that’s too bad.” Sarah pulled back the blanket, covering the door and opened it just enough to let the dog through, then shut it quickly. After the first day with no electricity, she had covered the doors and windows to try to conserve heat. Her furnace ran on propane, but it needed electricity. Fortunately, she had a wood-burning fireplace and plenty of wood stacked on her deck just outside the back door. But with a 17-foot- high ceiling in the living room, the heat did not stay downstairs but rose to the loft. She was able to keep the temperature in the house about 45-50 degrees, which was cold, but tolerable. Yesterday she had come up with the idea of using quilts to make a tent in front of the fireplace with the idea of holding some of the warm air inside. The house was also warm enough, hopefully, to keep the pipes from freezing, but unfortunately, the pump was electric, also, so there was no water, other than what was in the big pots that she had filled in the hours before the first wave hit. The covered pans of water filled one of her kitchen counters.

Sarah watched in the moonlight as Scout make a bee line across the backyard, running toward the edge of the cliff that overlooked the lake, but the dog was soon lost in the shadows, so Sarah let the quilt fall back over the door and crawled back into her tent and fell fast asleep. It was almost two hours later that she awoke with a start, realizing that Scout was still out in the cold.

With the doors and windows covered and from inside her tent, it was dark even after the sun came up. But when Sarah uncovered the glass door, the sunrise on the ice-covered trees almost blinded her for a moment. She never ceased to marvel at the beauty of her surroundings with her house perched above the lake, but today she was truly in a crystalline snow palace. She saw Scout lying in the snow at the edge of the cliff. She opened the door and called, but Scout only raised her head and looked at her. “Dumb dog,” she whispered aloud. “You know your name but you never come except if there’s food. I’m too old for this, Scout. You need to come when I call you.”

Sarah threw on a coat that lay over one of the dining table chairs and sat down and pulled on her boots. She grabbed a stocking cap and slipped on her gloves as she opened one of the glass doors and stepped out onto the deck. She had cleared a narrow ice-free path across the deck the day before, but the new snow blanketed it. She gingerly picked her way to the steps and held tightly to the railing as she made her way slowly to the ground. She certainly did not want to risk a fall and broken bones in this weather. She had no landline to call for an ambulance, and evidently the cell tower had suffered damage in the ice storm because her cell phone had stopped getting any kind of signal after the second wave of the ice storm. From the few minutes that she had listened to her battery radio the past two days, it sounded as if the roads were so bad that an ambulance probably would not be able to reach her anyway. The authorities were warning people not to travel on the main roads and Sarah’s cabin was about 15 miles from a highway. Since the storm began, she had not hiked her long driveway out to the county road that ran by her property. But even in normal snow events, it seemed as if it was always the last to be plowed, and now with a layer of ice underneath the snow, she doubted if it would be passable for a few days.

The snow came up halfway to her knees as she waded through it down towards the edge of the cliff to where Scout lay. She had a fleeting image of sliding off the hillside into the lake below. It was not a straight drop down to the water fifty yards below, and protruding rocks or trees probably would have stopped her slide, but the experience still could be deadly. And even if she survived, the climb back up in the ice and snow might prove to be impossible.

As she drew closer to Scout, the dog refused to move and Sarah worried that it might be injured. It was not until she was almost next to the dog that she saw what Scout was guarding. Sarah caught her breath. “That’s no Red Cross bundle.” She knelt down. “Oh, my God.” Scout was lying on top of a man who was almost concealed under the snow and the dog. The man was curled on his side in a fetal position. Scout moved from her protective posture and stood in the snow, whimpering. With the dog out of the way, Sarah saw that the man was completely nude. She took off one of her gloves and hesitantly touched him. He felt warm where Scout had covered him. She brushed the snow from his hair. His face was cold but she now noticed the smallest wisp of frosted air coming from his nostrils. “You’re alive.” Sarah did not realize she had been holding her breath. “Oh, my gosh, you’re alive. But not for long, if I don’t get you inside.”

“Ok. What to do.” Sarah turned and gauged the distance to the house. She whipped off her heavy coat and threw it over the man and put her stocking cap on his head, pulling it down over his ears and face as far as it would go. “I’m going to go get a blanket or something to get you to the house. I’ll be right back.” Scout curled up next to the man and Sarah took off for the cabin, returning with a quilt. She spread the quilt on the ground and struggled to roll the man onto it. He moaned softly—the first sound he had made. “I’m sorry,” Sarah said. “I’m on my own here. I’m just doing the best I can. There’s still no cell phone signal. No help is coming. So it’s just you and me.”

She was oblivious to the cold as she pulled the quilt with the unconscious man through the deep snow, slipping more than once. Scout danced along beside her, nipping at the cover, as if the dog were trying to help. As Sarah tugged on the quilt corner, the thought that the cover might rip in two briefly dismayed her since the quilt was one that her mother had made. She quickly dismissed the memory of her mother sitting in her favorite chair, hand-stitching the pieces together. She knew her mother would agree that this man’s life was more valuable than a piece of material.

Sarah finally reached the bottom of the deck steps and paused to catch her breath and consider how she would get him up them. There were only four steps but they were coated with ice. She had been dragging him with his head away from her, but now she turned the quilt around so his head was near her. She slipped one of her arms under one of his and grasped the quilt with her other hand. She sat down on the icy steps and heaved him up one step at a time, hoping he had no internal damage that was being made worse by her rough treatment. After she had him on the deck she once again could pull the quilt across it and through the open door. After hauling him safely inside, she closed the door and sat down on the floor next to him to gather her strength. Only a few more feet to go and she would have him inside her makeshift tent in front of the fire. But the effort to get him this far had exhausted her. She could feel the sweat coating her back and trickling down her forehead, but at the same time she knew she must be freezing since her coat was still partially
covering the stranger.
Scout nosed the man’s face. “We’re almost there, Buddy,” Sarah said to the unconscious man through ragged breaths. “One more heave-ho!” The quilt glided more easily across the smooth wood floor than it had through the deep snow and it did not take her long to reach the tent and the sleeping mat inside that she had made near the hearth. She pulled back the covers and clumsily maneuvered the man off of the wet quilt, rolling him onto her bed which consisted of an several thick quilts and blankets. She removed her coat from him and wrapped the covers tightly about his still form. After poking the fire, she added more logs, then sat back beside him. Retrieving her phone from the stack of magazines next to the pallet, she checked for a signal. Still nothing. “And now, I guess we just have to wait,” she said softly.

The man Sarah Dunkirk found in the snow in her backyard was none other than my friend, Sherlock Holmes. By the time she found him he had been missing for four days but that was not unusual for him. He would often disappear for days, occasionally weeks, without a word to me as to his whereabouts. Sometimes he would tell me he was going to be gone on a case, but not always. I think he just forgot about me from time to time, forgot that I was there to help him, forgot that I worried about him when he was out on his own. I don’t know why I worried. Sherlock could take care of himself better than any man I know, but I worried, nevertheless. On this occasion, I did not know he was gone until the second day. I had gone round to his flat at 221B Baker Street and Mrs. Hudson told me he had left early on the previous morning in the company of two men. As I said, this was not unusual in his case, but on the third day, I contacted Detective Inspector Lestrade with Scotland Yard to find out if he had a clue as to where Sherlock might be. He did not so I called Mycroft, Sherlock’s brother. Normally Mycroft would be the last person that Sherlock would confide in, but Mycroft himself might have sent Sherlock on a mission. I got no information from him, either, so I sat at home with Mary and waited for a text or a call. He was not responding to either of mine.

Back in Missouri, Sarah kept busy the rest of the day while Sherlock remained unconscious. He lay so motionless that almost hourly she checked to see whether he was still breathing. Other than keeping the fire blazing a little hotter, she spent the day as she had done the past two— napping and crocheting and reading and writing (it was the first time in years she had written on one of her books in longhand; she was used to doing everything on her computer). She sat near the man under the blanket tent because it was the warmest place in the house. Scout kept a vigil snuggled as close to the man as she could, only moving when she reluctantly went outdoors to relieve herself. Even in the coldest weather, Scout would often stay outside for a while, but not today. For some reason, the dog had developed a protective attachment to the stranger which was unusual for her because she usually hid under the bed whenever a man came to the house.

It was almost four o’clock in the afternoon when Sherlock finally stirred. Sarah shrank back a little from him. It was one thing sitting next to a strange man when he was unconscious, but it was quite another when he awakened. She knew nothing about him and was all alone in her little cabin in the woods. Her left hand closed around the iron fireplace poker that was lying on the hearth. Sherlock suddenly sat upright, flinging his arms wildly. Sarah had earlier pulled a wool sock over each of his hands to try to warm them and he tore off the socks. “Where am I?” he roared.

“Whoa, Cowboy!” Sarah got to her knees, dropped the poker and grabbed his wrists. She was afraid he would hurl himself into the fireplace. “It’s OK. Calm down. You’re safe.”

“Why is it so dark?” He stopped fighting against her and sat rigid, his back straight..

“The windows are covered to keep out the cold. Your eyes will adjust in a few minutes. It’s not really that dark.”

“No.” Sherlock pulled his hands out of her grip and felt his face. He pulled off the stocking cap that she had kept on his head all day. She had put a different one on him after she had got him settled in the bed since the earlier one had become damp from his wet hair. He ran his hands over his eyes. “I can’t see anything.”

“What? Let me see.” He had stopped thrashing about and Sarah leaned in close. She touched his head to tilt it to the firelight and he jerked away, but then let her hands rest on his face. “Your eyes look OK. There’s a tiny red mark here on the side of your neck, though. If it were summer, I’d say it was a bug bite, but you couldn’t have gotten bitten outside last night.”

Sherlock clapped one hand over the place she had indicated. “Who are you?” he asked.

“My name’s Sarah Dunkirk. Who are you?”

“I’m… I…” He cocked his head. “I …don’t know,” he said slowly. “I…I can’t remember.” He turned his head toward her and his tone brightened. “But first things first and then we’ll try to sort things out. I need to use the loo.”

“Oh, right. Come on. Can you stand?” She parted the covers that formed the door of the tent, and helped him crawl out and get to his feet. “And please keep this blanket around you. You might be blind but I’m not and you don’t have anything on.”

“I seem to have on socks on my feet.”

“Well, yeah, I thought they might help warm you up this morning.” She took his hand, and led him around the eat bar that separated the living room and kitchen.

“Why is it so cold in here?”

“We had an ice storm,” she explained. “There’s no electricity, no water in the pipes—just what I ran up ahead of time. No phone service. It’s like camping, only not so fun.”

Sarah led him to the bathroom that opened off the kitchen. “There are plenty of grab bars in here—just feel along the wall for them. Watch out for the cabinet door here at your knees. I need to leave it open to let what heat there is get to the pipes. And don’t flush. There’s no electricity for the pump. I filled the bathtub with water the night the ice storm hit and I’ll use a bucket from there later to flush. Here’s the sink when you’re finished. There’s a pan of water here on your right. Use this dipper to get some water out of it to wash your hands. It’ll be ice cold, of course. I’ll heat some up later in the fireplace, so you can wash properly.” She guided his hand to feel the things she was pointing out to him. “And here on the counter are some clothes for you. There are some sweatpants and a thermal underwear top and a sweatshirt. They probably won’t fit too well, but I like those kinds of clothes big and baggy. They’re actually men’s clothes, so they might be all right. Oh, and there’s some underwear on top. My brother was here last summer and after he left I found a couple of his in the wash. I really have no idea at all if they’ll fit you.” Sarah stopped. She felt like she was rambling. “Well, I will leave you to your business.” She backed out into the kitchen and closed the door.

Scout tried to follow him in, but Sarah held back the dog who then lay down by the closed door. “You might trip him, Scout. He’ll be out in a few minutes.”

While Sarah waited for him, she opened a can of chicken noodle soup and dipped some water from one of the large pans on the kitchen counter. She put this is a pot and set it on the grill in the fireplace. She already had a kettle of water on the grill. She had bought the grill after the last major ice storm eight years ago. That time when the power was out for four days, she had cooked on a small charcoal grill on her covered front porch. Having a grill inside in the fireplace was much more convenient. Rummaging in one of the lower kitchen cabinets, she found the food tray that her mother had used when she was no longer able to come to the table. Sarah had a matching one that she used all the time since she often ate her meals in the living room while she watched television, but this was the first time in three years that she needed the tray that had been her mother’s.

Sherlock opened the bathroom door. “Do I look presentable?”

Not for the first time, Sarah saw that he was a striking young man. “Well, you have everything on right side out and not backwards, so you did pretty good. I see you found the comb I laid on the counter. I forgot to point it out to you.” His dark curls were less tangled now, but still unruly. If only he had dropped out of the sky into her life thirty years ago, she thought—someone that good-looking with an accent to match.

“I found the comb when I ran my hand over the counter. I also found a toothbrush, but wasn’t sure whether or not it was yours. The bristles felt new and it still smelled of the plastic packaging it must have come in, but I was hesitant to use it.”

“No, I got that out for you. It’s new. My stuff is in the upstairs bathroom. I’m fixing some soup, if you think you can eat something. I’m sure it’s been a while since your last meal.” She walked behind him and picked up the quilt from where he had left it on the bathroom floor. “Do you feel all right? I mean are you dizzy or nauseous or…anything?”

“Slight headache is all.”

“I examined your head for lumps or cuts while you were sleeping. I didn’t find anything. A concussion would be the simplest explanation for your memory loss, I guess.

“When I was dressing just now, I couldn’t find any sign of an injury either.”

“Come back over to the fire and I’ll finish getting supper ready. If you want something hot to drink, we have tea or coffee or I’ve got some powdered hot chocolate. It’s not too bad.”

“Coffee, I think,” he replied.

“It’s instant.”

“Tea, then.”

She got him settled in front of the fire and brought the tray to him. She poured water from the kettle into the cup on the tray. “It’s Earl Grey, hot.”

“What?”

“That’s from Star Trek. Captain Picard used to say that all the time. Do you know Star Trek?”

Sherlock cocked his head. “No, not really.”

“Maybe you’ll remember when you memory comes back. And it’s probably not tea like you’re used to, if you do come from England. You’re in America now. And also here on your tray is a little bowl of canned peaches. And here are some crackers. The soup should be ready in just a minute or two. I’ve lived on soup and hotdogs for the past three days—and cereal. I have a box of macaroni and cheese in the cabinet—I could try that tomorrow if the power is still out.” After Sarah divided the hot soup between them, she sat back cross-legged and balanced her tray across her knees. “All right. Let’s talk while we eat. What do you remember?”

“Absolutely nothing, until I woke up a few minutes ago. I don’t know my name or where I’m from or how I got here, what I do for a living. And since I can’t see, I don’t even know what I look like.

“Well, for starters, from your accent, I’d say you’re English. Do you know England?”

“Of course,” he said sharply.

“Well, you don’t know Star Trek . How am I supposed to know what you remember and what you don’t? Anyway, continuing...”

“No, wait,” Sherlock interrupted here. “Let me ask a question. Where exactly are we?”

“Southwest Missouri in the United States. My house sits on a high bluff above Lake Pomme de Terre.”

Sherlock did not respond to this information. Sarah was not sure whether he understood what she had just told him. “Anyway, continuing, from the way you act, I don’t think you’ve been blind for very long, so possibly your blindness and your memory loss are related or both occurred at the same time, or were done to you at the same time.”

“What do you mean ‘done to’ me?”

Sarah told him about the pre-dawn helicopter and how she discovered him and brought him inside. “So, it was really Scout here who saved your life.” She laid her hand on the dog who was sitting between them. “If she hadn’t kept you warm until I found you, you might have frozen to death or gotten horrible frostbite, at least. In fact, I can’t believe you didn’t get some frostbite. You were out there a long time.”

Sherlock rested his hand on Scout’s head. “And completely nude?”

“Not a stitch.”

“Who would do that?

“Not a clue. The helicopter was already flying away when I looked out the door, and it was still dark. I couldn’t see any markings on it. But there’s no doubt they are the ones who left you there. When I went out there a few hours ago you could still see not where they landed, but where the snow was swirled around. So, I think they got really close to the ground, pushed you out, and took out over the lake.”

“But if they wanted to kill me, why didn’t they just drop me in the lake or shoot me first and then push me out or any of a number of other scenarios?”

“I don’t know. But maybe they didn’t want you dead. But how could they have known I would find you? In fact since I have most of the windows and doors covered with blankets, how did they even know someone was home? Or you could have woken up and fallen off the cliff. I don’t know—the whole thing just doesn’t make sense.” Sarah sipped some spoonfuls of soup. “Well, back to you. Let’s go with you being English. I’d say from your speech you’re educated.”

“Would you? I’d say the same about you.”

“Thank you,” replied Sarah. “I have a master’s in education. Taught history until I had to stop and take care of my mother.”

“And your mother is dead?”

She took the tea bag from Sherlock’s cup. “Do you want sugar?”

He took a sip. “Yes, I think I do. Two, maybe”

“Here.” She had some packets on her tray and stirred two of them into his cup. “Yeah, she died three years ago.”

“Why did you not go back to teaching?”

“While I was caring for Mom, I started writing and I got lucky. I sold some children’s books and now I have a fairly steady income from a series I write—not a big income, but it pays the bills.”

“And the series is about?”

“They’re called the “Things You Find” books for little kids. They’re like “Things You Find at the Sea Shore” and “Things You Find in the Woods” and “Things You Find at the Airport” and “…In Caves,” and “…at the Grocery Store.” The list goes on and on. As long as they keep selling, I just have to come up with more places and the things you find there.

Sherlock did not respond to that information, but instead said, “These crackers are unlike any I’ve ever had.”

“How would you know if you can’t remember?”

“I know soup and peaches and tea and sugar—and what you put in my tea was not sugar, by the way.”

“I’m sorry. It’s sweetener. I’ll get you some real sugar the next time. Or I use local honey in mine. You might want to try that. But the thing about the crackers proves that you’re English or somewhere where they speak with your accent. Because everybody I know grew up on saltine crackers.”

Sherlock took a small bite of cracker and chewed it before he spoke again and then it was on a different subject. “I take it from your description of the lake and the lack of noise from outside that you are fairly isolated here. I’ve not heard any cars or horns or sirens or the voices of other people.”

“It’s pretty quiet here. That’s why I like it. My house sits about a fourth of a mile off the road—or, if you’re English, I don’t know how far that is in kilometers.”

“Miles will do.”

“Oh, good. I do have a neighbor across the road but his house sits pretty far back, too. He went to Florida for the winter. And there’s an old couple not too far on this side. Oh, darn!”

“What is it?”

“I should have checked on them. Neither one is in good health. Maybe I should hike over there tomorrow. Or maybe they left before the ice hit. They have a daughter in Springfield—she probably came up and got them. But back to you. We keep getting off subject. What do we know so far? You’re English, you’re blindness is a recent thing, you can remember some things but not others, you live in a place that’s noisier, probably a city… but the most important thing…”

“Is what?”

“You could tell it was a new toothbrush because you could smell the plastic from the packaging? That’s the craziest thing I ever heard!”

“I felt the bristles, too,” Sherlock said defensively.

Sarah almost tipped over her tray when she leaned forward laughing. “I’m sorry, Cowboy. That is just so funny.” She sat upright again. “Oh, and if you can get clues from the smell of toothbrushes, I can find them, too. For instance, I’m not an expert on how fast men’s beards grow, but I’d say you’re normally clean-shaven and that’s about a three or four days’ growth you have there on your face.”

Sherlock ran one hand over his face. “And I don’t like it at all. It’s annoying.”

“Well, here at the end of the third day without electricity, no lights, no running water, no furnace, no phone or Internet and I can’t get my car out until the snow melts a little, I can honestly say that beard stubble is way down on my list of what’s annoying. I know, there are a lot of people in this world who don’t have all those conveniences, but I’m used to them and do not like it when I have to do without.

“Oh, I understand that all that is annoying, but this…” He rubbed his chin. “This is not right. It has to go.”

“All right,” agreed Sarah, softening her tone. “Tomorrow morning I will heat some water so you can wash up properly and you can shave. I have some shaving crème but I hope you won’t mind using a Lady Schick razor.”

“I look forward to it,” said Sherlock.

“And maybe, just maybe, if we’re really, really, really lucky, the power will be back on tomorrow and civilization will be restored to this cabin on the lake.”

It was already dark outside when Sarah took the trays back to the kitchen and cleaned up the remains of their supper. She fixed Sherlock another cup of tea, this time with honey, and it seemed to meet with his approval. With the two of them sitting in front of the fire, Sarah turned on the radio for a few minutes, but the news was not good, but not all bad either. Six thousand customers in the county were still without power but the roads were improving and the temperatures the next day were supposed to be above freezing for the first time in a week.

She switched off the radio to conserve the batteries. “We usually say, ‘if you don’t like the weather in Missouri, stick around for a few days—it’ll change.’ It will probably be 50 or 60 degrees by the end of the week. That’s happened lots of times. Of course, that’s Fahrenheit, not Celsius. ”

“What day is it?” Sherlock asked.

It’s Monday. The first wave of the ice storm hit Friday night and that’s when the power went out.” Sarah leaned back against the stack of pillows. “It’s only five thirty. It always seems later when it gets dark so early in the winter. Too early to go to sleep. I could read to you, but that would be boring. I could play some fiddle music.”

“Fiddle?”

“You know—violin. Nothing fancy. I play a little Ozarks mountain music.” Sarah crawled out of the tent and retrieved the instrument case from the couch. After tuning the fiddle, she started off with the rousing tune of Arkansas Traveler followed by the Eighth of January and the Ozark Moon Waltz. But halfway through the last one, she stopped abruptly.

“What’s wrong?” asked Sherlock.

“You were air fingering just now and you were bowing. You were playing along with me. You play the violin!”

“I…I don’t know,” Sherlock said hesitantly. “May I see it?” Sarah relinquished the fiddle and he positioned it under his chin and drew the bow across the strings. He tweaked the tuning job that Sarah had done and then followed that with an exquisite rendition of Bach’s Violin Concerto in A minor.

“Oh, my gosh,” said Sarah when he had finished, “I can’t believe you sat there and let me play those fiddle tunes. That was absolutely beautiful.”

“Thank you, John.”

“John?” She laughed aloud. “Who’s John?”

“I…I’ve no idea,” said Sherlock.

“He must be someone you know. A friend? Maybe a co-worker, a business partner? Maybe, well, you know, a …partner?”

“I don’t know,” said Sherlock. “It just came out.”

Sarah reached for her notebook on the stack of magazines next to her. “Well, I’m writing it down. I’m keeping track of every little clue about you. Maybe when we put them all together, they will help us figure out who you are and who we can contact. I’m sure somebody’s missing you by now, somebody’s probably worried sick about you. Maybe John, whoever he is. So,” she said, writing, “plays the violin beautifully and knows someone named John.” She closed the notebook.”Unfortunately, there are lots of people named John in this world. Maybe you’ll blurt out his last name. And now, would you play another piece?”

Sherlock held out the violin. “I’d much rather hear you play.”

“No way. Not after hearing you.”

“Please. That piece rather wore me out. I think after you play a few more songs I will be ready to curl up and go to sleep.”

“OK. One more.”

“Three more.”

“Two more.” She played Soldiers Joy and Big Sandy and then put the fiddle and bow back in the case.

“Did you ever play on… stage?” Sherlock asked.

“Oh, no. My family just… played. My Dad was on bass mostly and Mom liked the dulcimer. My two older brothers played guitar or banjo or mandolin—whatever was needed at the time. Some of my best childhood memories are Saturday nights when we’d all get together. Sometimes relatives or neighbors would come over and the living room or front porch, depending on the weather, would be full of music—picking and strumming and singing and dancing—for hours.” Sarah was quiet for a moment. “Whenever I play, I can still hear them. And the laughter and the stories. It was a great time to be a kid. They’re all gone now…or scattered.”

“I hope,” said Sherlock, “that when my memories return, that I, too, can recall such a pleasant childhood. So, you just play mostly for your own enjoyment now?”

“I’m actually involved in a mountain music preservation program at the local university. There were recordings made of some of the old-timers back in the ‘40’s and 50’s, but the sound quality is not too good much of the time. They were made on just personal tape recorders and the tapes have deteriorated and they’re…scratchy. Some of the time they recorded them along with several instruments or people singing along and it’s hard to pick out the tune for people now who are trying to transcribe the music. Many of the old songs have never been written down and some of the ones that have been transcribed are not always accurate. Of course dialect and local variations also come into play. I’m not much use on the transcribing part, because I grew up playing by ear so I can’t even tell you what key something is in. But I can listen to those old recordings and then make a recording with just me on the fiddle and that helps the people who are trying to write the music. That’s probably more than you wanted to know.”

“No, I find that fascinating. You are providing a service that will be appreciated years from now.”

“Yeah, that’s how I look at it. It doesn’t pay anything, but there’s a personal satisfaction in knowing that I’m helping to preserve a part of our Ozark cultural history.”

Sarah brought in more wood for the night and made Scout go out for one last trip before bedtime. While Sherlock was in the bathroom she straightened the covers that made up the sleeping pallet. There was not enough space in her blanket tent in front of the fire for two beds and she did not have enough covers anyway since she was using several blankets and quilts over the doors and windows to keep out the drafts. She figured she would just try to sleep in a sitting positon next to the pillows where she had sat all day.

She heard Sherlock coming through the kitchen and she crawled out and helped him find his way to the tent and got him settled.

“And where are you going to sleep?” he asked.

“Oh, I’ll just sit here and doze.”

“Nonsense. You can sleep here with me. It will be warmer for both of us.”

“I don’t think so. I don’t mind. I’ll be fine.”

“I insist.”

“No. Listen. I really don’t know you. And you don’t even know you. I think I’d better just stay over here, keep the fire going, listen for more helicopters…”

“Desperate times call for desperate measures,” said Sherlock. “Come here under the covers with me. I promise, I won’t try anything if you’ll promise the same. Besides, Scout will protect you, won’t she?” Sherlock was lying on his right side, facing the fire and Scout was snuggled up against his back.

“Promise?” asked Sarah.

“Promise. And you?”

“Promise.” She crawled under the covers and put her back to him.”

He put his left arm over her.

“You said no hanky-panky,” she reminded him.

“I have to put my arm somewhere,” he said. “And it will keep you warm.”

They were both quiet for a few moments and then Sarah chuckled. “I can’t believe it. This is the most ridiculous thing I have ever done.”

“And you invaded Afghanistan.”

Sarah bolted upright. “What? Why did you say that?”

“I don’t know,” said Sherlock. “It just came out.”

“I need to write that down before I forget,” said Sarah, reaching for her notebook. “What in the world could have prompted you to talk about invading Afghanistan?” After making another entry in the notebook, she lay back down. “Put your arm back over me, Cowboy, and let’s go to sleep.”

The Second Day

After a breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast that Sarah fixed over the fire she heated two pots of water that they could each use to wash and which Sherlock could use to shave.

"Aaagh,” Sarah growled after they were once more seated in front of the fire. “I’m so tired of this! It’s the fourth day of being stuck in here and smelling like wood smoke and not being able to take a shower and having to flush the toilet with a bucket. I don’t know what we’ll do when the water runs out. I mean there’s a whole lake full out there, but it’s 150 feet down to it. And I’m tired of being cold—I just want to turn up the heat. But if it gets much above freezing today outside, the food from my refrigerator that I have out on the deck won’t make it. And I’m tired of no cell phone signal!” She threw her phone against the pillow next to her. “Why can’t they get the darn towers fixed?”

She stopped her tirade over the unfairness of her situation and looked over at Sherlock who was sitting cross-legged with his elbows on his knees, his palms together, his long fingers steepled against his chin and lower lip. His eyes were closed. “Are you praying?” she asked quietly.

“Thinking.”

“Remembering?”

“Unfortunately, no.”

A gunshot split the stillness from somewhere outside, startling both of them. “It’s nothing probably,” said Sarah. “It’s not like gunshots in the city. People hunt out here a lot.” They both listened intently. “But they don’t scream!” Piercing cries for help, far off, but loud enough to be heard plainly inside the cabin caused Sherlock and Sarah to scramble out of the tent. Sarah threw open the front door and stepped outside. Sherlock tried to follow her, but she stopped him since he was just wearing socks on his feet and the porch, though covered, had a coating of snow that had blown in. The cries stopped. “It’s coming from the Gordon’s. That’s the old couple next door.” She stepped back inside and closed the door. “I’ve got to go over there.” She took Sherlock’s arm and tried to propel him back towards the fire. “I think…I think you should stay here.”

“No! I want to come.”

“You don’t even have any shoes!” she yelled.

“Don’t you have an extra pair?” he yelled back.

“Yes, but they won’t fit you!” she hollered. “Wait! I have a pair of cowboy boots.” She left him standing in the middle of the living room while she rushed to the closet in the adjacent guest bedroom. “I bought them at a thrift store for Halloween—they’re red,” she continued while she rummaged through the closet. “They’re way big on me. Ah-ha!” She found the boots and hastily pulled a long, fur coat off of a hanger and from under the plastic that covered it. She ran back to the living room and sat Sherlock down on the couch. “Here, put these on. Now stand up. Here’s a coat. It belonged to my mother. I don’t think it’s real fur.” She shoved his arms into the sleeves. “Here, let me help you button it.” She stepped back and shook her head. “It’s probably a good thing you can’t see yourself in a mirror right now. OK. Come over here.”

She led him over to the kitchen door that led out to the garage and pulled on her own coat and scarf and hat that hung on hooks by the door. She pulled another cap over Sherlock’s head. “Here’s a stocking cap and here are some gloves for you.” She slipped on her own gloves and grabbed two walking sticks that stood in the corner. “I’m afraid that if I try to get the car out we’ll only end up getting stuck. So we’re going to go along the cliff—it’s shorter that way. The Corps keeps a path cleared there. So when we get outside, hang onto the edge of my sleeve like this and let me lead the way, got that? Wait. I need to make sure the screen is in front of the fireplace.” She crawled into the tent, adjusted the screen, and grabbed her cell phone and plunged it into her coat pocket. The Gordon’s property sat higher than hers. Maybe there was a chance of getting a signal there.

With the two of them slogging through the deep snow along the edge of the bluff, it seemed to take forever to reach the Gordon’s house, although in reality it took less than fifteen minutes. Scout ran ahead of them and reached the older, ranch style home first. All was quiet outside. The only tracks Sarah saw were footprints near the back porch. She led Sherlock around to the front porch. The one step leading up to the small porch was icy but they were careful and made it to the door and knocked. Sarah could hear footsteps shuffling inside. “Mrs. Gordon!” It had been a woman’s scream that they had heard earlier. “Mrs. Gordon! It’s Sarah Dunkirk from next door. Are you all right?”

There were more footsteps then finally the door opened and an older woman stood there. She had on a long bath robe and slippers. She stared at them for a moment before speaking. Her voice trembled. “Sarah Dunkirk? From next door?”

“Yes, Mrs. Gordon. We heard a gunshot and someone screaming. Thought we should come check on you. Are you and Mr. Gordon all right?”

“Yes, we’re fine. You should come in out of the cold.” She held the door opened.

Sarah stamped her boots to get off the excess snow and whispered to Sherlock to do the same. They both stepped into the living room. “Are you sure you’re all right, Mrs. Gordon—Anna, isn’t it?” The woman stood in the middle of the living room, looking helpless. “It’s freezing in here. What have you been using for heat?”

“There’s a kerosene heater in the bedroom. It’s all right.” The woman looked at Sherlock like she was noticing him for the first time. “Who are you?”

Sarah quickly answered. “This is uh…this is my cousin, uh, David…David Easton,” she said as she moved toward the closed door of the bedroom.

“No, don’t go in there,” said Mrs. Gordon. “Tom’s sleeping.”

“I think I should just check on him,” said Sarah.

“No, he had a bad night. He’s not been well, you know, but he’s asleep now.”

“I’ll be quiet.” Sarah slowly opened the bedroom door. It was as cold in there as in the rest of the house. The window was opened about an inch, probably for ventilation for the kerosene heater which sat on the floor. Its flame was out. Mr. Gordon lay on the bed, motionless under several blankets. Sarah took off her gloves and reached out a hand to touch his face, but Anna Gordon grabbed her arm.

“Please, don’t,” she sobbed. “You’ll wake him.”

Sherlock had been shadowing Sarah. Sarah pried her arm from Mrs. Gordon’s grasp and guided Sherlock’s hand to close on the older woman’s arm and keep her back from the bed. Sherlock gripped her other arm, also, and held her.

Sarah touched Tom Gordon’s face. It was as cold as the room. She quickly drew back her hand. “Mrs. Gordon, I don’t think your husband is sleeping.”

“No.” The word was a drawn out moan.

“David,” said Sarah, “let’s help Mrs. Gordon into the living room. Do you have a coat, Anna? We need to get you on something warm.” After leading Sherlock and the woman to the couch and having Mrs. Gordon sit down, Sarah opened the closet by the front door to look for a coat. When she turned around she saw that Sherlock was taking off the fur coat that she had found for him and putting it around the older woman. Sarah turned back to the closet and pulled a long black western duster from a hanger. “Mrs. Gordon, do you mind if my friend... my cousin, borrows your husband’s duster?” She didn’t wait for an answer from the distraught woman but slipped it on Sherlock. “And here’s a scarf,” she said, draping it around his neck.

“What’s a duster?” he whispered.

“It’s a cowboy trench coat,” she whispered back. “Mrs. Gordon,” she said, raising her voice a little, “don’t you have a land line? Where’s your phone?”

“It’s there on the end table, dear,” the woman said, waving an arm to the right side of the couch. “But it doesn’t work. The storm must have taken down the lines.”

“Rats,” said Sarah. During the ice storm four years ago, the land lines had worked. She picked up the receiver to be sure, but there was only silence. She pulled her cell phone out of her pocket “I need to go outside and see if I can get a signal. Stay in here with her,” she told Sherlock. She headed toward the front door and Sherlock banged one leg into the coffee table as he tried to reach her before she got there.

“No,” Sherlock said, whispering. “First, you need to go back into the bedroom.”

“Why?”

“Look at the man’s face and tell me what color it is.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I believe he might have died from carbon monoxide poisoning from the heater. That might also explain her confusion.”

“I already know what color his face was when we were in there. It was blue, a pale blue.”

“I see,” said Sherlock. “I wish I could see. Things would be easier. How about his eyes?”

“His eyes? They were closed,” she said, still keeping her voice down.

“You need to look at them and see if they are bloodshot.”

“I’m not going to pry open a dead man’s eyes,” Sarah hissed. “I need to see if I can call 911 and get somebody out here. Let go of me and stay inside.” Sherlock had clamped a hand on her forearm while he was talking.

“Something’s not right,” insisted Sherlock. “Why did she fire that shot we heard? And where is the gun?”

“The shotgun is leaning against the kitchen table,” said Sarah. “I can see it from here. She obviously was trying to get someone’s attention with the shot. And it worked, because we’re here. Now let me go outside and see if I can get a signal.”

“But in her confused state, how did she know to do that? Go in there and look at his eyes,” he ordered.

Sarah glanced at Mrs. Gordon who sat on the couch, huddled in Sarah’s mother’s fur coat, and whimpering softly. “All right. Stay here by the door.” Sarah crept to the bedroom door. It creaked when she opened it and Mrs. Gordon looked up and moaned. Sarah ducked inside and came out a few moments later. She crossed the room to where Sherlock was still standing by the front door. “Come outside with me,” she said.

She ushered him onto the front porch and closed the door behind them. “If I never have to do that for the rest of my life, it will be too soon.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“It wasn’t supposed to.”

“Well?” he asked. “His eyes?”

“They were bloodshot, both of them. And his face was still bluish.”

They were both still keeping their voices down for fear they could be overheard by Mrs. Gordon inside. “Your Mrs. Gordon murdered her husband,” announced Sherlock.

“What?” Sarah was horrified at the thought. “Why would you say that?”

“If his cheeks had been rosy, even in death, it would be an effect of carbon monoxide poisoning. Bloodshot eyes are a clear sign of suffocation. She suffocated him, probably with a pillow.”

Sarah was speechless for a moment. “Nothing could make me believe that. And how do you know that—rosy cheeks and bloodshot eyes?”

“Everyone knows that.”

“No, they don’t.”

“Then maybe it’s my business to know what other people don't know.”1

“How can you stand there and possibly believe that that sweet old lady killed her husband?”

“Someone did. Do you see any tracks besides ours in the snow?”

Sarah looked at the front yard. “No. There were some footprints at the back door when we came but they didn’t go anywhere. They were just as if someone stepped out of the house and fired the gun.”

Just then a shotgun blast blew out the picture window next to where they were standing. They both instinctively fell to their knees and covered their heads in a protective position, but there was no other sound. “Mrs. Gordon!” Sarah leapt to her feet and threw open the front door.

The old woman was standing in the kitchen doorway. “I came in here to get some coffee and knocked over that awful old gun,” she said.

Sarah rushed to her. “Are you all right?” She ushered her back to the couch. “I’m sorry, Anna, there’s no coffee and no way to make some unless I can find some kerosene and fire up your heater again. Just sit here and I’m trying to call for some help.” Sherlock had followed Sarah back into the house and stood just inside the doorway. “Stay inside with her,” she told him as she headed outside again. “I thought she had tried to kill herself.”

“Not easy to do with a shotgun,” whispered Sherlock. “Long barrel, short arms.”

Sarah came back into the house several minutes later and announced that paramedics and someone from the sheriff’s officer were on their way. “One bar! I only had one bar but it was enough.” She sat down next to Mrs. Gordon. Sherlock was standing off to one side. “Anna,” she said gently, “don’t you have a daughter in Springfield? Don’t you want me to try to call her for you?”

“No, no,” the woman said sadly, shaking her head. “She’d only worry. She doesn’t want her Dad and me living up here by ourselves, you know.”

“Well, I think I should call her. Do you have her number written down somewhere?”

The old woman tapped her forehead. “It’s up here somewhere.”

Sherlock spoke up. “She’s dehydrated. Perhaps you can find her some water.”

Sarah looked up at him. “How do you know that?”

“Let me have your hand.” Sherlock pinched the skin on the back of Sarah’s left hand. It quickly sprang back. “Hers doesn’t do that. I noticed when I was putting the coat on her.”

Sarah went into the kitchen, wondering how he could possibly have noticed the condition of Mrs. Gordon’s skin when he couldn’t see. The old woman had evidently run some water up in one pan before the ice storm hit on Friday night, but it was empty. She opened the pantry door. A twelve-pack of bottled water sat on one of the shelves. The plastic wrapping was torn and one of the bottles sat by itself on the shelf. She opened it and carried it in to Mrs. Gordon. “There’s bottled water in your pantry. Why haven’t you been drinking it?”

“We bought that for emergencies,” she replied, holding the bottle to her lips with shaking hands.

“I think this qualifies as an emergency,” said Sarah.

“I tried,” said Mrs. Gordon. “I couldn’t get the cap off. And Tom was so thirsty.”

“Oh, you poor dear,” said Sarah, tearing up. “I’m so sorry. I should have come on Saturday to check on you. But help’s on the way. The roads are still bad, though, so it’s just going to take a while. Why don’t you drink just a little more and then lie down here on the couch while we wait. I’ll get a blanket for you.”

“Oh, no,” said the old woman, struggling to stand. “I have to check on Tom. He needs me.”

“Stay here, Anna,” Sarah said, holding her to the couch. “I’ll check on him. You rest while we wait for the paramedics.”

“You don’t need to call the paramedics. We’re fine,” the woman insisted. She leaned her head against the back of the couch and closed her eyes.

Sarah stood and went to one of the other bedrooms and brought back two quilts and put them over Mrs. Gordon. Her own hands were almost numb with cold. She pulled her gloves back on and went over to where Sherlock stood. “Listen,” she whispered. “When they get here, don’t say anything about bloodshot eyes or your suspicions. In fact, don’t say anything.”

“But surely the coroner will discover the cause of death.”

“Not necessarily. Tom was an old man, he’s been sick. I’m sure he was under a doctor’s care. He died in the aftermath of a terrible ice storm. There’s nothing suspicious about his death. It’ll probably just be listed as congestive heart failure or something without too much of an examination. This is a rural county. Things might be a little more lax than in a big city.”

It was more than forty minutes before a sheriff’s SUV came up the driveway. Sarah met the two officers at the door and discovered that one was the county sheriff himself who said he was a friend of Tom Gordon. Sarah briefly explained the situation while the two men stood just inside the door. Anna Gordon woke up when they came in, but was even more incoherent. Sherlock stood back out of the way with Scout at his side. The dog had sneaked in when Sarah came back in after phoning for help.

The paramedics arrived about 10 minutes later. It took about an hour to sort everything and load the body and Mrs. Gordon into the ambulance. Just as Sarah had predicted, neither the law officers nor the paramedics acted as if Tom Gordon’s death was anything but “natural causes,” perhaps aggravated or hastened by the circumstances of the ice storm. There was not even a hint of mention of foul play.

The sheriff’s deputy found some plywood in a shed and covered the window that had been accidently shot out when the shotgun discharged. The sheriff offered to take Sarah and her “cousin” and Scout back to Sarah’s and she agreed. The big SUV would lay down some tracks in her driveway and make it easier when she tried to get her own vehicle out. On the way over to her cabin the road was snow packed but drivable and the sheriff relayed how the repairs to the cell towers and electric lines were progressing. With the temperatures this afternoon creeping up to nearly forty degrees and the sun shining there would be some melting.

The sheriff dropped them off in front of Sarah’s garage, then backed up and turned around. Sarah watched them drive back down the driveway until they disappeared around a curve. She felt drained. She tugged on Sherlock’s sleeve. “Come on. The fire’s probably out so it’ll be colder than…than…I don’t know. She stumbled through the snow to the garage door and then realized that Sherlock was not following. She turned to face him. He stood there in the snow with his red cowboy boots and long dark coat with the collar turned up and the wool scarf around his neck. His stocking cap stuck out of one of the coat pockets. “What?” she asked.

“Why didn’t you tell the sheriff about me? Why didn’t you turn me in?”

“I dunno,” she answered quietly. “Why didn’t you turn yourself in? They probably have access to all kinds of missing persons reports. They might be able to figure out who you are and how you got here.”

“I might be on a most wanted list.”

Sarah gave a tired chuckle. “You’re not a criminal.”

“But you can’t know that, John.”

“John! There’s John again. Who is John?”

Sherlock stood there silently.

“Come on. I’m cold.” She went back and took his sleeve in her hand and guided him to the door.

A few minutes later she was kneeling in front of the fireplace, trying to coax the few remaining embers back to life. It was not long before the fire was blazing again. She sat back and without warning, the pent-up emotions she had held back all morning released in uncontrollable sobs. Sherlock put an arm around her shoulders and drew her against him.”

“That was terrible over there,” she said. “It was horrible and it’s all my fault. I should have checked on them.”

“You are alone and isolated here. Has anyone bothered to check on you in the past few days?”

When Sarah did not answer, Sherlock continued. “None of what happened was your fault. And you were there today when you needed to be. You took charge. You were strong.”

“I’m tired of being strong. And it brought back memories of the night my Mom died. She went so quietly. I couldn’t even tell for sure when she actually died.” She was silent for a few moments, her head resting in the hollow of Sherlock’s shoulder, his arm still around her. “Do you really think she killed him?”

“Yes, but I don’t believe she did it out of malice.”

“She did it out of love?” asked Sarah.

“She rambled a little while you were outside using your mobile. I think she thought she was dying, and she knew there would be no one to take care of him if he survived.”

“I wonder how she managed to fire the shot that we heard when she didn’t have the strength to open a bottle of water.”

“Maybe some inner reserve of strength propelled her to make a desperate attempt at getting help. She might not remember what she did to him.”

They were both quiet for a few moments. “I’m going to be like that someday,” Sarah said softly. “There’s not going to be anyone to take care of me.”

“Do you want me to come back and put a pillow over your face?”

“No, I don’t want to die with bloodshot eyes. I think rosy cheeks would be better. I wonder how you know those things. Maybe you’re a doctor.”

“Or a murderer. Or both. When a doctor does go wrong, he is the first of criminals. He has the nerve and he has the knowledge.”2

“Well now you’re scaring me,” said Sarah.

“Sorry. I don’t mean to. I don’t even know why I say things like that. Sometimes, it’s as if someone else is speaking—like the Afghanistan comment I made last night.”

“They’re probably all little bits and pieces of you. If only you could remember who you are. I wish I knew who John was. I’d call him up and tell him to come collect you.”

“I’m glad you didn’t turn me over to the sheriff.”

“Yeah, but they might have gotten you some medical help, you know, for your amnesia and your blindness.” Sarah pulled away from him and wiped her face with the back of her hands. “You must be starved. I’ll fix us some soup or something.”

John here. Lest the reader think that I was serious when I said earlier that I spent the days that Sherlock was missing merely waiting for the phone to ring or enjoying some time with my family, let me assure you that I tracked down every lead I could possibly find to try and locate Sherlock or the two men that Mrs. Hudson had last seen him with. Her description of them left much to be desired. They were wearing business suits and were “swarthy” in appearance, perhaps “Middle Eastern,” according to her. She had heard voices coming from his upstairs flat and they did have accents, but she could not identify their country of origin.

I checked his laptops for clues, but it appeared that the last thing Sherlock had been working on was analyzing the types of plastic used in different brands of bottled water. We had three open cases, all of them in London or nearby, and I visited with each of those clients and others involved to find out if any of them had seen him in the past few days.

Growing more frustrated with each passing hour, on the sixth day of his disappearance, I let my worry win over my better judgment. That morning I wrote on my blog that he was missing. If he were undercover, I would never hear the end of this as this disclosure could perhaps impact some covert operation. But, on the other hand, my blog attracts lots of followers and if he were in trouble, perhaps one of them might step forward with vital information. I really have never understood how he gets in touch with his underground homeless network or I would have turned to them also.

Back in Missouri, after returning from the tragedy at the neighbors, Sarah spent the rest of the afternoon cocooned on one side of the tent in a pile of pillows, stirring only to put more logs on the fire. She would have to bring in more wood before nightfall, but the events of the morning and the stress of the last four days had sapped her energy. She was thankful that her mysterious stranger let her be and did not ply her with questions. He only disturbed her once when he asked if he might play her violin. She did not mind. The house was too quiet and he filled it with soft music. She fell asleep during a particularly sad song that was in a minor key. When she awoke it was almost dark and the music had stopped. Sherlock was sitting on the pallet with his fingers steepled against his chin, Scout lying as close to him as possible.

Sherlock must have sensed she was awake because he spoke for the first time in a couple of hours. “I’ve started seeing flashes of light.”

“Do you think your vision might be returning?”

“Don’t know. But it is a new development.”

“Why didn’t you wake me? The fire is down again.” She stretched and yawned. “I have to get some more wood.” Scout popped up at the chance to go outside. “Should I try the macaroni and cheese for supper? I could cut up some hot dogs in it. I think they’re still good.”

The nap and the supper revived Sarah. Sherlock’s mood had brightened, too, and they spent the evening playing word games and alternating mountain fiddle tunes and classical violin music. When both were ready to turn in, they repeated the sleeping arrangement from the previous night.

The sound of a motor humming awoke Sarah just before dawn. She didn’t move for a moment. The man was warm against her back and his hand rested on her shoulder. “Cowboy,” she whispered, “are you awake?”

“I thought you named me David,” he said in that wonderful, accented voice. It did not sound as he had just woken from a deep slumber.

“I just made that up,” she said smiling, but still not moving. “Do you know what that sound is?”

“I have been listening to it for a few minutes. I believe it’s your refrigerator.”

There was a mechanical clang in a nearby room and a whoosh as air escaped from heating vents. “And that’s the furnace coming on!” Sarah whooped. “We have power, Houston!” She extricated herself from his arm and sat up, throwing off the covers. “The kitchen lights are on! Civilization has returned to the little house on the cliff.” Sarah crawled out of the tent and stood up in her living room. “Oh, strange man, do you what this means? Assuming the pipes aren’t frozen, I can take a shower and wash my hair. I can use the microwave. I can even brew you a proper cup of coffee. How about that?”

Sherlock and Scout emerged from the tent also. “I must admit I share your enthusiasm.”

Sarah reached into her jeans pocket and brought out her phone and turned it on. “And,” she continued, “if the DSL is up I can use my computer which means I can try and discover your identity. But…lest we get too carried away, I remember what happened the last ice storm. The electricity came on for two days and then it went off for two more days.” Sarah raised her arms. “Oh, do you feel that? Warmth returns to this house.” She glanced down at her phone. “Oh, look at those glorious bars. The elves were certainly busy overnight working on those cell towers. I hope they got the land lines working, too. Listen, while we wait for the hot water tank to do its job—I know you’re a guest and I should let you shower first, but I’m not going to—I’ll fix us some breakfast and we can eat at the table and not squatting on the floor in front of the fire.”

Two hours later, breakfast was over and the dishes washed, both had taken showers and had on clean clothes (she had found Sherlock additional sweatpants and a sweatshirt so she could wash the ones he had been wearing), and she had taken down the blankets that had formed the tent in front of the fireplace and folded the quilts that had formed the pallet. “Because if everything stays on, we can sleep in real beds tonight,” she said, “with real mattresses. But just in case, I’m going to refill all of these pots and the bathtub with water.”

When she was finished, she sat up her laptop on the dining room table, prayed silently for a connection and let out a small cry of joy when her homepage opened. “Now, I’m going to put in everything I know about you and see what comes up.” She looked at the notes that she had kept since he arrived. “Let’s see. There’s John…oh my gosh!”

Sherlock was standing next to her chair. “What is it?”

“I just remembered. Last night you were having a dream, well, it was more like a nightmare. You kept yelling John’s name and ‘fire’ and ‘he’s in the fire.’ But by the time I got awake enough, you had quieted down again. Do you think John might have died in a fire?”

“No idea. I don’t remember the dream. Baker.”

“What?”

“Put down Baker, too.”

“You think that’s a name or occupation?”

“I don’t know. It just popped into my head.”

“Ok,” said Sarah. “John, Baker, fire, British, missing, dark hair, curls…”

“What was that last?”

“I have to describe you. I don’t even know how old you are. Thirtyish...thirty-five. I’m not very good at guessing ages. I need to see how tall you are. Come over here and stand against the door.” She led him by his sleeve and put his back against the door frame and got a measuring tape from a kitchen drawer. “Six one. I thought you were taller. Probably because you’re so thin.”

“How tall are you?” asked Sherlock, and then answered the question himself. “Five eight.”

“How could you know that?” Sarah did not wait for an answer. “Ok. Come back over to the table.”

She typed more words into the search engine and pressed enter. The results were instantaneous. “Oh, my gosh! You’re Dr. Who!”

“Who?”

“Dr. Who. You know—Time Lord?” Sarah glanced up from the search results to see the look of confusion on Sherlock’s face and laughed. “Take my word for it, you’re not Dr. Who. Well, you could be, I guess. Hmmm. I could be your next companion. Just kidding. You’re not Dr. Who.”

“How do you know?”

“Well, for one thing, he’s not real. It’s a British television show that started back in the early 60’s. It’s been running for years. It’s still on, in fact. I think it’s funny that it came up first in the search. But I don’t know about you. You don’t know Dr. Who or Star Trek, but you know how to tell if someone’s been suffocated and you know how to play the violin—beautifully. And I’ll never forget that you can tell a new toothbrush by its smell. I’m anxious to see what you’re really like when you get your memory back. Hey, how about those flashes of light you were seeing yesterday?”

“They’ve changed a little in intensity, but they are still just flashes.”

“Continuing on our quest…” Sarah turned back to the laptop and read down the list of search results. “Dr. Who, Dr. Who, Dr. Who, Dr. Who, some movie review from 2011, oh, here’s a different one. The Blog of Dr. John H. Watson. Ring a bell?”

“Not at all.”

“Johnwatsonblog.co.uk. At least it’s in the right country. Let’s see what he has to say.” Sarah opened the web page. “Oh, my gosh…”

“I wish you wouldn’t keep saying that.”

“Oh, my gosh,” Sarah repeated. “It’s you!”

“I’m Dr. John Watson?”

“No,” said Sarah, drawing out the word. “No, no, no. You’re…” She enlarged one of the pictures on the page. “You’re Sherlock Holmes.”

“How can you tell?”

“Because I’m looking at a picture…of you. You look just like him.”

“Lots of people resemble other people.”

“Let me find some more pictures.” Sarah was quiet while she searched the site. “He doesn’t seem to have a lot of photos of you on here. But I’ve heard that name before. Something in the news a few years ago. You were dead for a couple of years and then reappeared—something about terrorists maybe. I don’t really know. This is America. Our media doesn’t even report important things going on in this country—they certainly don’t spend a lot of time on foreign news. Give me a few moments. Let me read a little of what he says.”

Sherlock gripped the back of her chair. “This is just so frustrating not being able to see.”

“I know,” Sarah said, distractedly. “Oh my gosh…”

“I asked you to stop saying that.”

“Sorry, it just comes out. This is from his blog from today.” Sarah read excerpts as she scanned the lines. “You’ve been missing for six days. You disappeared on Friday. He says that’s not unusual, but he’s ‘concerned’.”

“How could I have been dead for a couple of years and then come back to life?”

Sarah continued to scan portions of various blog entries as she talked. “I don’t remember the details. I just remember the name. I guess you faked your death. Hey, wait a minute!” She looked up at him. “Are you faking now?” She waved a hand in front of his face. “Can you really see? I’ll bet there’s nothing wrong with your memory either.”

Sherlock did not respond.

Sarah turned her attention back to the blog, but said, “I didn’t hear an answer.”

“Uh, sorry, no. No, I’m not faking. I was just thinking. Two years is a long time. What did that do to my friends, my family, thinking I was dead all that time and then suddenly reappearing?”

“They were probably a little ticked off at the deception, but glad to have you back, no doubt. What kind of a name is Sherlock, anyway?” asked Sarah. “Do you think your friends really call you that?”

Sherlock did not answer and Sarah looked up at him. He was staring blindly straight ahead and the muscles in his lower jaw were spasming. “Sherlock?” She said the name quietly.

“I don’t know!” he shouted and slammed a fist into his open palm. “I don’t know and I can’t remember!”

“You’ve called me ‘John’ twice in the past three days and you shouted that name in your sleep last night. From what I’ve read on here so far, I think this Dr. Watson might be your John. He seems to alternate between idolizing you and wanting to wring your neck but he calls you brilliant more than once and it sounds as if he’s really in awe of your powers of deduction. His number is here on the website. I think we should call him.”

“No. It could be a trick, a trap. After all, I was left here under very suspicious circumstances.”

“If it’s a trap, it’s a very good one. This blog of his dates back...oh, gosh, six years. It’s mostly cases that the two of you have worked on. He says you’re a ‘consulting detective,’ whatever that is. I think we should call him. Besides, why would someone drop you off here and then try to get you back? Let’s call him. Except I’ve never actually made an overseas call. Give me a minute to look up how to do it. I think you have to punch in some codes.”

I was at my house when I answered the phone. The first words I heard were, “This is Sarah Dunkirk, calling from Missouri in the US. You don’t know me, but I think I might have your Sherlock Holmes.” I had already received a few calls after I posted on my blog that Sherlock was missing. A couple were legitimate inquiries for more information, two wanted money for his return. I knew those were fake. Anyone who really was holding my friend for ransom, after six days would have been offering me money to take him off their hands. This was the first call I’d had from the states.

“What do you mean that you think you might have him?” I asked cautiously.

“Let me put you on speaker, so he can hear,” the woman’s voice on the other end said. “Because we’re not sure who he is. He looks like the guy on your blog pages and a few things match, but we’re not a hundred percent sure.”

My curiosity was aroused. “I don’t understand. How can you not know whether or not he’s Sherlock?”

“Because he can’t remember who he is and…and he’s blind. But he’s all right.”

“My God, how can you say he’s all right if he doesn’t know who he is and he’s blind?”

“I mean, physically he’s not injured or anything,” Sarah said. “He’s standing right here next to me.”

“We can video chat so I can see him.”

“Oh, I’m not really set up for that. This is an older laptop. I’d probably have to download something. And I don’t have a data plan on my phone, either. I know, technologically, I’m kind of in the dark ages, but I’ve never needed it before.”

“Let me hear him talk. Sherlock, can you hear me?”

“I can hear you perfectly, Dr. Watson. Do I sound like the man you know?”

“You sound exactly like him.” I tried to go down a mental list of any identifying features that might confirm his identity. “Ms. Dunkirk—Sarah—look at his lower lip. There should be a small scar. On which side is it?”

Sarah stood halfway up off the chair and peered at Sherlock’s lip. “Yes, there is. On the right.”

“That's where I punched him.” I would have felt better if I had been able to see it to know for sure I wasn’t being duped. I quickly thought of another scar, but wanted to test her. “On his abdomen, there should be about a ten centimeter scar. On which side is it?”

I heard her say, “Cowboy, raise your shirt so I can see. I don’t remember seeing anything like that.” And then she replied to me, “I don’t see any scar like that. There’s just a small round one, about the size of a shirt button, a few inches above his navel and slightly off center. Looks almost like a smallpox vaccination, but in the wrong place, of course.”

“Are you sure?” I asked. It was almost too good to believe.

“Does that mean it’s not him?”

“No, it means it is. It absolutely is. That’s where my wife shot him.”

There was a pause on the other end of the line. “Wait a minute. You punched him in the face and your wife put a bullet in him? And you say on your blog that he’s your best friend? I think I’ve change my mind. I don’t think I want to send him back to you.”

“No, wait.” I was afraid she was going to end the call. “It’s complicated. I mean, they were all part of a case, well, different cases, we were working on. Sherlock, are you still there?”

“Yes, Dr. Watson.”

“You don’t remember me at all?”

“No, but the evidence would seem to indicate that I am indeed your Sherlock Holmes.”

“How did you end up in Missouri?”

Sarah briefly explained how she had discovered him two days earlier.

“OK.” My mind was racing with what I needed to do. “Listen, I’ve got to make some arrangements. Tell me exactly where you are and I can be there in what…however many hours it takes to fly there.”

My mind was already racing to how I might get help from Mycroft, Sherlock’s brother. Surely he would be able to procure a private jet. Sarah gave me her exact location so I could pass that on to Mycroft.

“And wait…before you hang up,” said Sarah. “You need to bring him some clothes…you know pants, shirt, a coat, and shoes—don’t forget shoes.”

“We’re not going on holiday. I’m just bringing him directly back to London.”

“Yeah, but he arrived au naturel, if you know what I mean.

“I…I’m not sure what you mean,” I stammered.

“He wasn’t wearing anything when I found him. I got him some of my clothes, but I think he would much prefer his own.”

“Right then.” This whole scenario seemed surreal. As a friend, I just wanted to be there and bring him home safely. As a doctor, I wanted to examine him and find what was causing his amnesia and blindness. Sherlock Holmes blind. I couldn’t even imagine that. Visual cues played such a huge role in his brilliant powers of deduction. And not knowing who he was, were those powers of his even still there?

Mycroft was wonderful when I told him the news. His position in the British government was such that even before I could get over to Baker Street and pack a bag for Sherlock, his brother already had a plane waiting for me at Heathrow. I rang Sarah back and told her it would probably be ten hours or more before I would get there. We would only need to refuel once and then the closest the jet could get me was the small airport at Bolivar, Missouri. There was going to be a helicopter and pilot waiting for me there to take me to her house. She informed me that they were expecting a little snow late that night. It was already almost five o’clock in the evening London time, although eleven in the morning where Sherlock was. It would be a long night.

Back in Missouri, Sarah still sat at the computer reading more of my blog. “He seems genuinely concerned about you. Didn’t it sound that way to you?”

“I don’t know,” Sherlock said sullenly, still standing beside her. “I don’t like the bit about his wife shooting me and him punching me in the face.” He reached up to feel the small scar on his lip.

“Yeah, he didn’t even sound very apologetic about that. But, on the other hand, he didn’t have to tell us that either.” Sarah looked up from the laptop as Sherlock turned his back to her and took a few halting steps toward the living room and stopped in the middle of it. “Sherlock. Wonder why your parents named you that? Am I supposed to call you that now?” He didn’t answer. “You know, we might be related. My great great grandmother was a Holmes. But I think that branch came to America in the early 1700’s so any relationship would probably be pretty far back—8th or 9th cousins maybe. Still, it’s interesting to think about…that you just happened to wind up in the backyard of a distant relative.” He still made no response.

Sarah worked a while longer on the computer. When she finally looked up, Sherlock was still standing stiffly in the middle of the living room. “Hey, Sherlock, what say we try to get the car out and go to town? I’m getting a little low on some basic stuff like milk and bread, eggs. And batteries. I should have had more batteries on hand so I wouldn’t have had to worry about playing the radio for any length of time.” Still no response. “Sherlock?”

“Perhaps I should stay here. I don’t imagine I am dressed appropriately”

Sarah chuckled. “Are you kidding? Those sweatpants and shirt are OK. And with Mr. Gordon’s duster and my red cowboy boots, you’ll blend in with the natives just fine.” She closed her laptop and walked over to him and touched his shoulder. He flinched and stepped away. “Careful,” she cautioned. “You’ll run into the coffee table. Come on. We need to get out of the house for a while and we have lots of time before your Dr. Watson gets here.”

“All right. But I drive.” He turned toward her and flashed the widest smile she had seen since he arrived.

“I don’t think so, Cowboy.”

The trip to Bolivar and back was without incident. The roads were not in the best shape, but Sarah was careful. The grocery store and big box store were packed. The rest of the county evidently had been suffering from cabin fever, also. By the time the two of them returned to Sarah’s house and she had put away the groceries and other supplies, it was almost dark and had begun to spit snow.

“The weatherman said we were to only get one to three inches. That won’t be too bad, although, sometimes when we aren’t expecting much is when we get a lot. I hope it doesn’t interfere with the flight into Bolivar or the helicopter to here. I think I’ll bring in some wood and make a fire before supper. Does spaghetti sound OK?” Sarah often felt like she was talking to herself. Sherlock had the habit of not responding to much of what she said. Just now he was slumped in her recliner. She went ahead with her chores and then fixed dinner. He did come to the table to eat but said very little. She realized after only a few minutes that spaghetti was probably not a good choice for a man who had recently lost his sight.

After supper, Sherlock returned to the recliner and took off the cowboy boots that Sarah had loaned him. She had bought him a pair of men’s white athletic socks that he now wore. After opening a favorite website that played 60’s music, she lay back on the couch listening to a series of tunes from the Beatles and the Mamas and Papas and the Stones and others. When Don’t Worry, Baby by the Beach Boys started, Sherlock suddenly came to life. “Do you dance?” he asked.

“I used to. Haven’t had anyone to dance with for a long time.”

“Would you dance with me?’

“Now? Here?”

“Sure.” Sherlock stood and held out his left hand. Sarah shrugged her shoulders then stood up and took his hand in her own.

“Here,” she said, “Let’s move over here. There’s plenty of space between the coffee table and the hearth. It’ll be hard enough to keep from tripping over my own feet—don’t want to trip over the furniture, too. Oh, let me take off my boots first. I’ll probably be stepping on your toes quite a bit.”

Sarah placed her left hand on his shoulder and he rested his right hand lightly on her waist, just above her left hip and they danced to the rest of Don’t Worry, Baby. Sarah mouthed the words to the song as they danced and she noticed that Sherlock did the same. They followed that dance with the Hollies’ The Air that I Breathe, My Girl by the Mamas and the Papas, She’s a Rainbow by the Rolling Stones, and finished with Somebody to Love by Jefferson Airplane.

“Got to stop,” said Sarah, catching her breath. “I haven’t done this in a long time.”

Do You Believe in Magic by the Lovin’ Spoonful was starting. “But this is a good one,” said Sherlock.

“It’s the ‘60’s. They’re all good,” said Sarah, taking his hand again and dancing. “A dancing detective who also plays a mean violin. I ought to write a children’s book about you.”

“You have not written anything since I’ve been here.”

“I did the first day while you were sleeping. I forget sometimes how much I rely on the Internet for research. So, I’ve just put things on hold for a couple of days. I’ll get back to it when you’ve gone.”

Cecilia by Simon & Garfunkel started and Sherlock and Sarah continued dancing. “Molly,” Sherlock said softly.

“I thought I was John,” said Sarah. “Now, who’s Molly?”

Sherlock shook his head.

“‘Making love in the afternoon… up in my bedroom’,” said Sarah, quoting a line from Cecilia.* “Must have a triggered a memory.”

Sherlock shrugged and smiled. “Don’t know.”

“OK,” said Sarah when the song ended, “I need to sit down for a few minutes.” The songs continued coming from the laptop. She laid her head against the back of the couch. After a few minutes she said, “Oh, now I remember Molly from John Watson’s blog this morning. She works in a morgue. Gives you access to the lab there. But John says that you are married to your work and have no time for love. So… so much for Molly.”

“Married to my work? That seems rather sad.”

“You don’t have to be. All work, I mean. ‘Cause one day you’ll regret it.”

Just then A Summer Song by Chad and Jeremy came on. “One last dance,” said Sherlock, standing and holding out his hand.

“Oh, yeah, ‘trees swaying in the summer breeze’ while the snow is falling outside.” Sarah obliged but Turn! Turn! Turn! by the Byrds immediately followed A Summer Song and they continued dancing. When it was over, Sarah announced that she was turning off the music. “You’re going to wear me out. I won’t even be able to stay awake until John Watson comes.”

Sarah poked the fire and added more wood. “It’s so nice to be warm again and not worry about the fire going out.” She went into the kitchen and fixed them both a cup of tea. Then they sat on the couch together, with Scout between them, and waited for the arrival of Dr. John Watson.

It was ten minutes till eleven local time that I called Sarah to tell her we had just left the Bolivar airport and were heading her way by helicopter. It was almost five in the morning by my time, and although I had tried to sleep on the long flight, it was not a restful sleep. The ‘copter pilot had studied the satellite maps and ascertained that there would be ample room to set down in the front yard of Sarah’s house. In almost no time we arrived at our destination. Light snow was falling and it swirled around us as the helicopter sat down. I climbed out and headed toward the house with not a little trepidation. I really did not know what to expect. Just as I reached the porch, my phone buzzed. There was a cryptic text from Mycroft (I don’t know why neither of the Holmes brothers can ever say anything outright). The message said, “Careful of Sarah. She might be dangerous. MH.” I shoved the phone back in my coat pocket and marched towards the door.

Sarah stood at the bay window in her living room and watched the lights of the helicopter descend. “They’re here,” she announced to Sherlock who was still on the couch.

“I hear it,” he said. He leaned over by the recliner where he had been sitting earlier and retrieved the cowboy boots and pulled them on.

Scout perked up her ears at the noise of the helicopter, jumped off the couch and quickly exited the room, heading toward her safe spot under the bed in the guest room. “Some watch dog,” admitted Sarah. She opened the front door. Sherlock stood but stayed by the couch.

I extended my hand to the woman in the doorway and, clearing my throat, introduced myself. “I’m John Watson.”

“I’m Sarah Dunkirk, Dr. Watson. Come in out of the cold. Doesn’t your pilot want to come in?”

“Please call me John. And, uh, no, he’s actually not even shutting down. I just want to…uh…get Sherlock and go home.” Despite Mycroft’s warning, the woman before me did not look dangerous at all. She looked to be in her late 50’s, maybe early 60’s, with short, light brown hair. Tall and slender, she was wearing jeans and a gray turtleneck with an open chambray shirt over it. No shoes. Just socks. I looked over at Sherlock who was standing there, rigid. He had on black sweatpants and a gray sweatshirt. And red cowboy boots. I crossed over to him. “Sherlock. It’s me. John.”

He did not answer, but stared straight ahead. “Sherlock? Can you hear me?”

“Of course, I can hear you. I believe that Sarah informed you that I was blind, not deaf.” That tone of voice was the Sherlock I knew. But did he know me? “Sherlock, I’ve come to take you back to London. We need to leave. The pilot just got an updated weather report a few minutes ago. The snow’s getting worse. Sherlock?”

He just stood there.

“Sherlock?”

“No,” he said.

“What do you mean ‘no’?” Patience has never been one of my virtues and I had just come off an eleven-hour flight to the middle of nowhere.

“I have no intention of going with you.”

I looked at Sarah who still stood by the door. She shrugged her shoulders. “Sherlock,” I said, “we worked this all out this afternoon—maybe it was morning here. Remember? I was on the phone with you and…and…and this woman.”

“This woman’s name is Sarah. And she and you made the arrangements. I never agreed to them.”

“Sherlock!” I growled, frustrated.

“I don’t know you,” said Sherlock. “I don’t know if you are who you say you are. I don’t know that I won’t get in that helicopter with you and be dropped off someplace worse than this. Although, quite frankly, I can’t imagine a place much worse than this. Maybe it’s a game you’re playing with my life."

I stood there a moment and fumed, but Sarah stepped forward and said, “Hey, Cowboy, I saved your life. I think there are a lot of places worse than this, thank you.”

“Sherlock,” I said, trying to hold my temper, “we have to leave now. I’ve got a bag with a change of clothes and your coat in the helicopter, unless you want to go with what you’re wearing. But we have to go—now.”

“No. And from the physical description of you that Sarah gave me off your blog, I don’t think you can make me. Even blind, I think you would come out the loser if you even so much as lay a hand on me.”

“Oh, I think I can take you. Right here. Right now. We are getting on that helicopter.”

Fortunately, Sarah stepped between us before it came to a physical altercation. “Boys. Calm down. John, I’m sorry. I didn’t know he wasn’t planning on leaving with you. But I think you should go for tonight. Take your helicopter back to Bolivar. Get a motel…"

“Oh, I’m not leaving him here.”

“OK, then you and the pilot can spend the night here. We’re all tired. Maybe tomorrow you both can sit down and talk through this like rational human beings.”

“Sherlock,” I pleaded one more time, “you’ve got people back home who are worried about you. Mary and Mrs. Hudson and…and your brother…and Molly and Detective Inspector Lestrade. You might not remember me or them, but we just want you back safe…and whole.”

“Not tonight,” he said adamantly. “Go tell your helicopter friend that plans have changed.”

I honestly did not know what to do at that point, short of hog-tying him and dragging him to the helicopter. I fumed for a few moments and then stormed outside.

Sarah warily laid a hand on Sherlock’s arm. “Are you all right?”

“No…I’m not, Molly…I mean, Sarah. I don’t know. I just need to lie down.”

“Come on, then. I’m putting you in the guest room tonight. It’s right off the living room here and opens onto the downstairs bathroom that you’ve been using. You’ve just been getting to it through the kitchen door. Scout’s in the bedroom. She’ll probably sleep with you tonight.”

The beating of the helicopter rotor blades brought them both to attention. “It’s taking off,” said Sarah, watching through the window as the helicopter lifted off the front lawn.

“With John Watson?”

“Apparently not,” Sarah said, as the front door opened and I came in and dropped the bag I was carrying.

“Here are your clothes, Sherlock. Meanwhile my change of clothes and my razor and my toothbrush are back in the bloody jet at the bloody airport.”

“Hey,” said Sarah. “Calm down. I have an extra toothbrush.”

“He’s not using mine,” said Sherlock.

Sarah threw her hands in the air. “I have extras! I buy multi-packs. They’re cheaper that way. And I just never know when company’s going to drop in…and I mean drop in. Now, John, I’m going to get Sherlock settled in the bedroom and then I’m coming back in here. I’ll make you a cup of tea if you want and I’ll fix you some covers on the couch here…”

“I want to examine him first,” I said.

“Why?” asked Sherlock.

“Because I’m a doctor!” I shouted.

“John, John,” said Sarah. “On your blog, you call him your best friend. Do you ever talk to each other without yelling?”

I took a couple of breaths. “Sometimes.”

“Then let’s try to keep our conversation civil. Sherlock, maybe I missed something when I felt your head for bumps. And, John, there was a little red dot on his neck—pretty noticeable when I first found him. It’s almost gone now but I saw it earlier this evening when we were dancing.”

I didn’t even hear what she said after that. I was too focused on the word “dancing.” Sherlock, dancing? Of course, I knew he could dance. He tutored me for my wedding reception. But I had never actually seen him dance…with a woman.

“…and there’s a lamp with a daylight bulb next to the chair in here, if you need more light.” Sarah was leading Sherlock into the bedroom. I followed and she seated him in a stuffed chair next to a table in front of the large bedroom window. “I’ll be in the kitchen,” she said softly to him.

“I think you should stay,” said Sherlock.

“No, I don’t think so. Listen, Cowboy.” She knelt down beside the chair and lowered her voice, but I could still hear. “He’s the real deal. I’m absolutely sure of it. Nobody but your best friend is going to yell at you like that. Let him examine you and maybe he can find out what happened to you. Here he is.” To me, she said, “He’s been seeing flashes of light since yesterday. And sometimes, he says people’s names or other things.”

Sarah stepped back out of the way and closed the bedroom door as she left. Unfortunately, she was right about there being no obvious physical injury to him. I examined the small puncture wound on his neck and found another at his temple that had been concealed by his hair. There was no doubt he had been injected with something, more than one thing probably. But whether his condition was permanent or not, I just could not say. I mentally ran through a list of drugs that might have caused his blindness and/or his amnesia, but without a blood test, I could not determine which, if any, of them was in his system. Actually Sherlock was the chemist and his knowledge of nefarious use of drugs far surpassed mine. But he stubbornly refused to elaborate further than a grunt on any of his answers to my questions.”

I finished my cursory examination, no closer to discovering what had happened to him than when I walked into the room. “I’m sorry, Sherlock. I don’t know what to do for you. We’ll have to wait and get to hospital when we get back to London. Here’s your bag by the chair here with a change of clothes for tomorrow. I’ll just hang up your coat.” I unzipped the bag and drew out one of the long coats he preferred and hung it over a coat that was hanging on a hook on the outside of the closet door. I was used to his extended periods of silence in the apartment back on Baker Street, but that was usually when he was thinking through some problem. He did not appear to be thinking about anything now. He was just slumped in the chair, staring blindly straight ahead, his long fingers wrapped around the arms of the chair. “Do you want me to help you get ready for bed?”

“Sarah’s bringing tea,” he replied tersely.

“Sherlock, I’m your friend. Whether or not you can remember me, you have to believe me. I am your friend. I would never do anything to hurt you.”

“Good night, John Watson. Please close the door as you leave.”

I could only sigh in frustration as I left him sitting there and went back into the living room. I just stood there in front of the fireplace.

Sarah came from the kitchen with two cups in her hand. “I don’t know if you have jet lag, but your internal clock is most certainly off. Here.” She handed me one of the cups. “Sleep might elude you, but there’s no caffeine in it if you want to try. I fixed you some covers on the couch. Hope you don’t mind sleeping there tonight.

She knocked softly on Sherlock’s door then pushed it open and closed it behind her. I could still hear their voices plainly through the closed door. “Hey, Cowboy, here’s some chamomile tea with honey. It’s what Peter Rabbit's mother gave him.”

“Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cotton-tail had bread and milk and blackberries.”

“Well, we’re fresh out of blackberries,” said Sarah, laughing. “And Peter Rabbit was not feeling well. And you’re not well. I still don’t understand how you can recall things like Peter Rabbit and not remember your best friend. Oh, here.” She took his right hand and placed a small, polished stone about the size of a quarter in his palm. “It’s a worry stone. You’re…a little agitated tonight. Maybe rubbing it will help you calm down.”

Sherlock rubbed the stone between his thumb and fingers. “What color is it?”

“Mostly brown with a few black streaks.”

“Not green with flecks of gold that sparkle in the firelight?”

“No. Why?”

“I don’t know. It just seems familiar. Where are you sleeping tonight, Sarah?”

When I heard Sherlock ask that, I stepped closer to the door.

“Upstairs in my own bed…for the first time in almost a week.”

“I will miss your company.”

“Scout’s under the bed. I’m sure she’ll snuggle up with you tonight. Do you need anything? The bathroom door’s just opposite of where you’re sitting now. But you’ll have to veer around the end of the bed first.”

That was the first I’d heard of Scout. I had been in that room with Sherlock for twenty minutes and was aware of nothing under the bed.

“I’ll be fine,” Sherlock said. “Goodnight, Sarah.”

I quickly withdrew from the door and sat down next to the pillow that she had put for me at one end of the couch. I could not quite wrap my head around the interaction that I had observed between Sherlock and this woman in the time since I had arrived. Sherlock’s lack of social skills was legendary with literally everyone with whom he had ever come in contact. He was incapable of carrying on a normal conversation with anyone. The only time I had ever witnessed it was when he was romancing Janine only as a ruse to break into Magnusen’s office. Maybe the emotional barrier that was so much a part of who he was had been breached by whatever had stolen his memories. Maybe it was an artificial construct of his own design and this different Sherlock was the real deal.

Sarah stirred the fire and added some logs. “Maybe watching the flames will put you to sleep,” she said. “I hope the tea was all right. I read on your blog that you don’t like sugar in your tea or coffee. And I know it’s not made the way you drink it in England—I’ve already heard that from Sherlock.” She stood by the fireplace, holding the poker.

Mycroft’s warning that she might be dangerous buzzed around inside by jet-fogged brain ever since I read it. “How did you find my blog?”

“I just searched. Put in everything I had learned about him in the last two days, which wasn’t much, but I picked the right things. Actually, Dr. Who came up first in the results, but I figured that wasn’t him."

“He could be.”

“Yeah,” she said, smiling. “That’s what I said. How about you? How’d you arrange all this so quickly…a private jet, a helicopter waiting for you at a little place like Bolivar?’

“Sherlock’s brother, Mycroft, is…uh…well-placed in the British government. Just one phone call to him and it was done.”

“Wow, Sherlock’s pretty important, then?”

“To some people. To his brother. To me. But where do you fit into all this?”

“Me?” Sarah stood the poker in its holder on the hearth and walked to the bar that separated the kitchen from the small dining area. She picked up a cup of tea and crossed the room to the recliner and sat down. “I’m just an innocent bystander.”

“But why you?” I probed. “Why would someone drop Sherlock Holmes into your back yard?”

“Don’t you think I’ve asked that question more than a few times over the past three days? Even before I knew who he was. I mean the number one question was who would do that? And, then, why me? Was this place just a random choice? Or was I being targeted?”

“And what were your answers to those questions?” I leaned toward her. “Do you have a past, Sarah Dunkirk?”

She leaned toward me and looked me square in the eye. “None that I am aware of.” Sitting back in the recliner, she added, “I taught high school history for 30 years, John. I’ve been retired for 11 years. Now, admittedly, I probably pissed off more than a few students, but to my knowledge, none of them grew up to become international terrorists. Some did get pretty deep into drugs, some have gone to prison for violent crimes. But I can’t think of any of them who would drop a naked man onto their old teacher’s house because she flunked them in World History decades ago. And now, I’m going to bed, Dr. Watson. I know it’s morning where you come from, but here it’s past my bedtime. Goodnight.”

“Who’s Scout?” I asked as she headed toward the kitchen.

“My dog. You don’t have to worry about her. She’s scared of people, particularly men, although for some strange reason, she really likes your Sherlock. She’ll probably get all depressed when he leaves.” Sarah set her cup in the kitchen sink then crossed back through the living room, turning off lights as she went, and then disappeared up the stairs.

Despite Mycroft’s warning, I liked her. She seemed strong and independent and she had saved Sherlock’s life. And she seemed genuinely concerned about him. I wondered what had aroused Mycroft’s suspicion of her.

I looked around the living room in the dim light from the fireplace and the one lamp that she had left on by the couch. I had not even noticed the lamp before but now I saw that it had been fashioned from a violin. You could learn a great deal about a person just by observing the things they valued, the possessions they kept close at hand. Sherlock had taught me that. Sarah’s living room looked like a cluttered museum. There was an old school desk and old textbooks, a coal scuttle, several large crocks, a tall wooden butter churn, a large copper kettle, and numerous smaller antiques on the shelves and fireplace mantel. Old hand tools hung on the wall beneath the stairs, and arrowheads in frames marched up the wall of the open staircase. The fireplace hearth was covered with different kinds of large rocks. There were rocks on the coffee table, too. And everywhere there were dragon statues and even a small dragon table. There were lots of candles, too. Most of them were burned down, presumably in the past few days with no electricity. A quilt covered the wall behind me where I sat on the couch and a couple of watercolor paintings hung on the other walls. Nothing in this eclectic collection screamed “Danger.”

But she was right about the flames. The events of the day had worn me out. The next thing I knew the kitchen light was on and Sarah was fixing breakfast.

The early morning light cast a pale pink glow on the snow in the front yard of the cabin as I looked out the large bay window. The new coating of snow did not completely obscure the tracks where the helicopter had landed the night before. I hoped that Sherlock was more cooperative this morning and we could head home.

“It’s so quiet here,” I said as I passed through the kitchen to the bathroom. “I slept like a baby. Well, not like my baby. She’s up every few hours.”

“You have a little girl?” asked Sarah.

“Yeah,” I said, closing the bathroom door, “and I want to get back to her—and my wife—today.”

It was just a few minutes before Sarah had breakfast on the table—eggs, bacon, biscuits, a couple of slices of orange for garnishment. The cabin was compact and a table would not fit in the kitchen, but an eat bar separated the kitchen from the small dining area. A pine table with green inlaid tiles on the top and four chairs almost filled the space along with a hutch filled with dishes and more antiques and collectibles. She told me to sit so that I could look out the glass doors and the windows which made up the back wall. The view of the lake was spectacular with the sunlight glistening on the surface and the snow sparkling with a million glints of light.

“Oh, don’t sit down yet,” she said excitedly. “Look there.” She stood at the doors and pointed at something. “There. Just to the right of that largest tree, there on that limb that has part of it broken off. Do you see it?”

And I did. A bald eagle sat in a tree about sixty feet away.

“Here. Use these.” She handed me some binoculars. “There’s a pair that stay here year round. That’s the male, I think.”

“My god, it’s beautiful,” I said. “Do they ever come closer?”

“Not often, but I have seen them in that tree there at the edge of the yard.”

I looked a few seconds more and then handed her the binoculars and sat down. “Have you heard anything this morning from…” and inclined my head toward the bedroom door.

“No. When I came downstairs, I opened his door just enough to let Scout out. She scurried outside and did her business and came right back in and made a beeline to get right back in there. She didn’t even come in here for breakfast. I didn’t know whether to wake him or not.”

“If the smell of this bacon doesn’t wake him, I don’t know what would,” I told her. “This is a wonderful breakfast. You shouldn’t have gone to so much trouble.”

We spent the next fifteen or twenty minutes talking mostly about what all had happened here in the past few days—the ice storm and the power outage, the events next door and Sherlock’s speculation that the old woman had suffocated her husband. Our voices must have awakened Sherlock because he finally emerged from the bedroom. He still wore the sweatpants and sweatshirt from the night before.

“I thought I heard voices,” he said. “John and Mary, I wasn’t expecting you this morning.” He stopped abruptly in the middle of the living room and looked at Sarah at the breakfast table. “Not Mary.” The words came out slowly. He glanced around the living room and I could see the look of confusion on his face.

Sarah and I both stood up from the table. “Sherlock,” I said, “you can see?”

His eyes came back to focus on Sarah. “Not Mary,” he said again. “Sarah?”

“Yeah, I’m Sarah.” She took a step toward him, but he held up his hand, palm facing outward, and she stopped.

He continued to stare at her for a few moments, before saying, “But you can’t be.”

“Sherlock.” I walked over to him. “You need to talk to me. Your sight has returned? What else?”

He suddenly gripped my upper arms. “John! Where’s Mary?”

“She’s home in London, with the baby. You’re here, in Missouri, here at Sarah’s house, where you’ve been for four days now. Do you remember?”

“Of course, I remember.” He let go of me and laid a palm on either side of his head. “Too much…too much information. Too many clues. It’s like a flood and now…now it’s all…it’s all in here…jumbled together. It…I…I need to sort it…” He stumbled back toward the bedroom and I followed.

I closed the door behind us and sat him in the chair.

“Just leave me alone, John. I need…I need to think.”

“Sherlock, we need to get back to London.”

“No! Not until everything’s straight…in here.” He pointed at his head. “John? Sarah…she’s… old.”

“Yeah, I suppose she is. She’s not as old as Mrs. Hudson. She’s probably sixty, maybe a little older...it’s hard to say. Why? Wait a minute.” It just occurred to me. “You didn’t know she was that old, did you? Not until you saw her just now.”

It was Sherlock’s bane in life to ever admit he was wrong about anything. “I thought she was contemporary to us. But I should have known. Of course. The clues…the clues were all there, all the time… and I ignored them.”

It always gave me a certain satisfaction whenever Sherlock missed something—he was always so certain that he was right about everything. But he was in turmoil right now, with his sight returning and his memories flooding back, so I wasn’t quite as gleeful as I would have been if we were back on Baker Street. “Sherlock, you were going through a terrible ordeal and…”

“My ‘ordeal’ didn’t stop me from solving the crime next door—do you know about that?”

“Yeah, Sarah told me. Dreadful story.”

“But I missed every single piece of evidence about her. Although she doesn’t really act like an old person, does she? Anyway, you need to leave me alone for a while, John. I’ll be all right. I just need some time…some time to put everything in its proper place.”

“All right,” I agreed. “But we have to get back, Sherlock. Just call for me if you need anything.”

Sarah was listening to the entire conversation outside the bedroom door. The exchange about her age tickled her and she almost laughed out loud. When Sherlock had stared at her so strangely a few minutes ago, she had assumed it was because his memories had returned and wiped out most of the past four days. The idea that it was the sudden realization that she was twenty-five or thirty years older than him never occurred to her. She hurried over to the table and began clearing it, still chuckling quietly, as John came back into the living room. “Will he be all right?” she asked as she carried dishes to the kitchen.

“Oh, sure,” I said. “He just has to sort things out in his mind. He’s not like other people, you know.”

“He’s not like anyone I’ve ever met, that’s for sure.”

“So I guess we’re going to be here a while longer. Is there anything I can do while I wait?” I asked. “Anything you need?”

“Well,” she said thinking, “You could chop some kindling for me. I went through a lot of wood the past few days.”

“I don’t think that’s something I’ve ever done, but I’m game.”

“Oh, it’s not too hard. Get your coat. I’ll show you how it’s done.”

About an hour later, Sarah knocked softly on the bedroom door, and asked if she could come in. There was no reply, so she quietly opened the door and peeked in. Sherlock was sitting cross-legged in the middle of the unmade bed, his back straight, his eyes closed, elbows resting on his knees and his fingers steepled beneath his chin. Scout was curled between the pillows behind him. “I’ve brought you a cup of coffee.” Her voice was almost a whisper. “You haven’t had anything all morning. I’ll fix you something to eat, if you want.”

His eyes opened wide, but he stared straight ahead and did not look at her. “No. Coffee’s fine. I think better on an empty stomach.” His voice sounded hoarse.

She crossed the room to the bedside table. “I’ll just set it here for you.”

“What’s that sound?” Sherlock asked. An irregular knocking sound could be heard coming from the back of the house.

“That’s just John. He’s chopping me some kindling. In fact, I need to go stop him or he’ll have the rest of my winter’s wood supply reduced to splinters.”

“Why is he doing that?”

“He just needed something to do…you know, while he’s waiting for you. Sherlock, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to deceive you. I just didn’t think about you being blind and not knowing what I looked like. I’m sorry you didn’t know. I’m sorry I’m old.”

“You were listening at the door. You were not meant to hear that.”

“Hollow core doors. Sound passes right through.”

“And you’re not so old.”

Sarah hesitated before replying. “It’s just something that happens and you don’t even realize it. One minute I’m a teenager and it’s 1966 and I’m at a Beatles concert and…and I blink and suddenly it’s 50 years later and my teaching career is over and I’m on a pension and…and my students don’t just have kids, they have grandkids. I don’t even know where the years have gone. They’ve just…gone. The bad news is—it’ll happen to you one day.”

“No, it will never happen to me.”

“And why will you be the exception?”

“With the life I have, I don’t expect to live that long.”

“I suppose not,” said Sarah. “Especially if you keep getting dropped out of helicopters in the snow. Scout won’t always be around to keep you warm until help arrives.” She was glad to see a slight smile return to Sherlock’s features.

“I’m still trying to remember certain things,” said Sherlock. “Don’t you have a violin?”

“Sure. You played it. You want me to bring it in?”

“If you don’t mind. It will help me think.”

Sarah took him her fiddle case. She had not even made it to the back door to call for me before she heard the first notes coming from the bedroom.

After I came in I shaved and showered. I had worked up a sweat outside even in the freezing temperatures, and although I didn’t have a change of clothes, at lease I felt clean. I did not intrude on Sherlock’s solitude all morning. The violin music would often be interrupted by long minutes of silence and then resume. About eleven o’clock local time, Sarah announced to me that she was starting lunch, a big Southern one, she said, in case it was our last meal together. It had to be big, she explained, because she had stored her food from the freezer outside until the electricity had come back on and she was not too sure that some of it had not partially thawed when the temperatures briefly climbed above freezing. So she did not want to refreeze it. She had already put a ham in the oven and was busy cooking corn on the cob, fried okra, fried apples, and broccoli and cheese. She had bought some salad mix when she and Sherlock had gone to the store the day before, and threw some strawberries in it. I sat at the bar and watched her. We both looked at each other when we heard the shower in the bathroom off of the kitchen. It might mean that Sherlock was hopefully recovered enough to finally leave.

At a quarter to twelve, Sherlock emerged from his room, wearing the pants and shirt and jacket and shoes that I had brought for him. His hair was still damp from the shower, the dark curls plastered against his head. “John, you may call whomever you need to and tell them we are ready to depart for London.”

“No!” yelled Sarah. “We have to eat all this food first. It’s going to be ready in a few minutes. John, tell them not to come until at least one o’clock.”

I went over to the bay window and made my phone calls and Sherlock went over to the bar where Sarah’s laptop was open. I had been using it earlier. After contacting the pilots who had both stayed in Bolivar overnight, I went back over to the bar. Sherlock had opened a 60’s music website and was searching for something.

“Sarah,” he said, “I’m still trying to assimilate some things from the past few days. “Did we dance?”

Sarah was at the stove, stirring the fried apples. “Yeah, last night while we were waiting for John to get here.”

“Will you dance one last time with me?”

“What? Now? No, I’m finishing fixing dinner.”

“Oh, John can do that. Come on. John, go stir or whisk or whatever.”

I just looked at him then cleared my throat. “Uh, right.” I moved over to Sarah at the stove.

She looked a little confused and whispered in my ear as she handed me a wooden spoon. “Do you always do what he says?”

“Pretty much,” I confessed. “Saves a lot of time arguing.”

“Don’t let the okra burn. Although I prefer mine well done.” She walked over to Sherlock and he led her to the center of the living room as the music began. It was Different Drum by Stone Poneys. “You clean up real good, Cowboy,” she said to him and he smiled.

You know how when you are watching a horror film and you really do not want to see what is on the screen but you keep your eyes opened just a little because you would not want to miss anything? That’s how I felt watching them dance. It was just so out of character for Sherlock. The music played on, Linda Ronstadt singing:

“Message, Sherlock?” asked Sarah, as they continued to dance.

“None that I am aware of,” he answered. “Perhaps these next words contain a message.”

“I don’t think there were messages in all the sixties songs. Some were just songs,” she replied.

“Perhaps,” he said.

“And now changing the subject…I think. You are such a good dancer, Cowboy. I am so surprised that someone hasn’t snatched you right out of the sky by now.”

“I don’t let them get close enough.”

“Well, maybe you should try flying a little lower so some poor girl can catch you.”

“No. I know myself too well. It would only end in disaster. Sarah, I’m sorry what I said last night about not being able to imagine a place worse than this. I think that came out wrong. It wasn’t anything to do with you. I just meant that your place here is a long ways from anywhere. I’m not comfortable in the country and even though I wasn’t…myself yet last night, that part of me…”

“No need to apologize. I am a long ways from anywhere. I mean, to get here, you have to go to the middle of nowhere and turn left. But I like it like that.”

The song finished and Sarah abruptly broke away from him and returned to the kitchen, grabbing a spatula from my hand. “Oh, John, good job. Now, if you will set the table, I will finish up in here and we’ll be ready to eat.

I was so full after the meal that I commented that I hoped the helicopter would be able to lift off. I helped Sarah put away the leftovers and wash dishes while Sherlock worked on Sarah’s laptop. Neither of us bothered him. I knew that he was not fully recovered from whatever drugs had been given him.

At last the throbbing sound of the helicopter rotor could be heard and the black machine descended onto the front lawn. We pulled on our coats and I grabbed Sherlock’s now almost empty bag that I had brought and went to the door. Sarah and Sherlock followed. “Sarah,” I said, turning back toward her. “Thank you for everything you’ve done…for him… and for hosting me overnight. I’m sorry for this…intrusion into your life. I hope you can get back to normal now.”

“Oh, I always look on everything as an adventure.” She leaned closer to me and whispered, “I’m glad he has such a friend as you, John Watson.”

I went on out to the helicopter while she and Sherlock said their good-byes.

Sherlock had on his long coat and scarf. “I suppose I have to leave the dead man’s duster here.”

“Yeah, I guess I’ll take it back over there if I see any activity around the place,” Sarah said. “I need to get back my Mom’s fur coat that Mrs. Gordon was wearing when she left. Sherlock, I…”

“Sarah,” he interrupted. “Will you come visit London someday?”

“Sure.”

“Will you really?”

“Probably not. You know, it’s a pretty big city. Lots of noise, traffic.”

“I personally extend an invitation to you. I will show you all the interesting places.”

“Like Buckingham Palace and the Tower of London and Westminster Abbey?”

“Oh, no, those are boring. I’ll show you my London, where all the delicious crimes have been committed. I know where all the bodies are buried.”

Sarah laughed. “Well, yeah, I might come to see all that.” She became serious again. “Sherlock, I wish…I wish I wasn’t old enough to be your…”

“Mother?”

“Aunt! I was going to say aunt.”

“Oh. Auntie Sarah,” said Sherlock. “Yep. That’s good. And, Auntie Sarah, I have said this rarely to anyone in my whole life, perhaps never, but I would be honored to call you my friend.”

“Oh, no. Can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because of your history. I mean, look at you. Your best friend slugged you and left that scar on your lip. Your best friend’s wife put a bullet in you. If I were your friend, I’d probably have to stab you or shoot you or something.”

“Yes, but in all fairness, I probably would have provoked you into doing it.”

“Oh. Then we’d still be good?”

“Of course.”

“All right. Friends.” She held out her hand and Sherlock shook it as she drew him closer into a hug. “Safe journey, Cowboy.”

“Stay strong, Auntie Sarah.” Scout had come out of hiding after John left and now pawed at Sherlock’s leg to get his attention. He reached down to the dog. “Good-bye, Scout. Thank you for keeping me warm when I needed it.” He focused his attention on Sarah once more. “Good-bye, Auntie Sarah.” And then he was gone.

Sarah stood on the porch and watched the helicopter until it disappeared in the sky then went back inside. Her little cabin on the lake seemed as empty now as it had in the days after her mother had died.

I was visiting Sherlock in his flat one Monday morning, sitting in my favorite old chair, reading the newspaper. Sherlock was at his desk, working at the computer, well, actually, working at three laptops simultaneously. He had not spoken to me in nearly an hour and I was about to return home, when he suddenly broke his silence. Not looking up from whatever had his attention on one of the screens, he said, “John, you need to call Sarah Dunkirk in the states and tell her to come here immediately.”

I had not heard her name mentioned in the two months since we last saw her in Missouri. “Why? And why don’t you call her?”

“I have tried. I’ve called. I’ve texted. She won’t come. She’ll come for you.”

“Sherlock, it’s March—the weather’s unpredictable. Why don’t you wait a couple of months and invite her.”

“You don’t understand, John. Something is happening two days from now, and she needs to be here for it.”

“What could possibly be happening that she needs to be here?”

“I can’t explain it now. Just call her.”

“Why do you think she’d come if I call her, if she won’t come for you?”

He finally looked away from the laptop screen and focused on me. “Tell her I’m dying. Tell her I’ve contracted, oh, I don’t know, some sort of viral hemorrhagic fever. Probably only have days to live. And I’ve been asking for her. Tell her that.”

“You want me to lie to get her to come to London? Why?”

“Tell her my brother will arrange transportation. She needs to get to the airport immediately.”

“No, Sherlock. I’m not going to do it. You want her here so badly, you call her.”

“Weren’t you listening? I’ve tried. Oh, John, just tell her whatever you like, but get her here.”

I remembered Sarah’s whispered words to me in the kitchen on that day we left when she asked me if I always did what Sherlock told me to do. I told her I did because it saved time arguing. The real reason is because he’s usually right. Not always. But usually. I made the call before I realized it was four in the morning her time. Maybe it was because she was half asleep that she agreed to come. Sherlock was on the phone with Mycroft at the same time, relaying me transportation information for her. By midnight our time, one of Mycroft’s drivers had dropped her off at 221B Baker Street and she was knocking on our door.

Sherlock was watching out the window. “Go down and let here in, John.”

I hated it when Sherlock gave me orders in front of Mary. I looked at her. She had brought the baby over to Sherlock’s flat to wait with me, and was sitting on the couch. Our baby was asleep downstairs with Mrs. Hudson who had bought a baby bed for just such occasions. Mary smiled and shrugged her shoulders in a “what can you do—he’s Sherlock” silent message to me. It would have helped if he had been even a little more forthcoming in why it was so important that Sarah be here, but neither Mary nor I had been able to pry any information out of him all day.

When I unlocked the downstairs door, Sarah stood there with a bag slug over one shoulder and holding a suitcase in her hand. “John!” she exclaimed before I barely got off a greeting to her. “How is he?”

“Oh, he’s fine,” I said.

“Can I go to the hospital to see him? Oh, but I guess they don’t allow visitors this time of night, do they?”

“He’s not in hospital. He’s upstairs,” I told her.

“Why isn’t he in a hospital?”

“Because he’s…because he’s fine. Come on.” I took her suitcase and led the way up the stairs.

“I don’t understand,” she said twice while we were climbing the steps.

“Welcome to my world,” I said with a sigh.

I opened the door to the flat and ushered her in ahead of me. I could see her make a sweep of the room with her eyes. “This is Mary, my wife.” Mary stood and extended her hand.

Sarah shook Mary’s hand, then turned her attention on Sherlock, seated at his desk. He had not even looked up so far. “I’m glad to see you’ve recovered from whatever that fever was, the one with about seven syllables that John told me had a what, John? Ninety percent death rate? It must have run its course very quickly.”

“Well, those things happen sometimes,” said Sherlock, still focusing on a computer screen, which from my vantage point, appeared to be just the screen saver. “You know, good constitution. A healthy immune system. But enough pleasantries. I’ve researched you, Sarah.”

“What? You Googled me?”

“Oh, I went deeper than that. Government databases. MI6, Home Security, Scotland Yard, US State Department, CIA. The usual.”

I looked at Sarah and the blood had drained from her face, but she kept her composure. “And what did you find?”

Sherlock turned toward her, but stayed seated. “You lied to me. And you lied to John.”

Sarah caught the tip of her lower lip in her teeth and carefully considered her next words. “I might have lied to John. But I don’t believe I ever lied to you.”

“Lies by omission.”

“Well, everyone does some of that, don’t they?” she said defensively. “It’s the way we exist together in a society.”

“I suppose,” said Sherlock. “John does it all the time.”

“What?” I said.

“I believe my brother texted you just before you arrived at Sarah’s, did he not? Told you she was dangerous, and you never told me.”

“Dangerous?” asked Sarah.

I don’t know how Sherlock found out about that text. He could have seen it on my phone (since he does borrow it from time to time) or Mycroft himself might have told him. “He said she might be dangerous.” I pointed out to him. “You weren’t yourself at the time; I didn’t see any reason to bother you over it.”

Sherlock turned his attention back to Sarah. “When did you know?”

Sarah cocked her head to one side. “It was the sound of the helicopter on the morning that you arrived that brought back the memories at first. And then that first night when we were sleeping in front of the fire, and you said something about me invading Afghanistan. It was about two hours after that when I woke up to put some wood on the fire. And suddenly, it all came back to me. Not Afghanistan. Iran. I hadn’t thought about it for years. It was like I had just blocked out that whole affair in my mind. But I didn’t know for certain until the power came back on that third day you were at my house. After I found out who you were and we were able to contact John, I did some research on my own. Nothing like what you’ve done, obviously, but there’s quite a bit available just on the web. Sherlock, I’ve live in absolute fear for the past two months. I don’t even know who they are but now that I know that they know where I live and what I did, I don’t know when or what is going to happen, but I am afraid that next time it won’t be a naked man in my back yard. Next time it will be a fire bomb dropped on my house or a knock on the door and I when I open it, there will be a gun blast in my face. And I blame you for that, Sherlock. I don’t know what you did, but you awoke a sleeping giant, and I…I was unwillingly mixed up in that giant’s affairs a long time ago, and now it’s come back to haunt me. And…and…and now may I sit down? I’ve just come off a very long plane ride, although it was nice flying in a private jet. But I’m afraid I’m going to fall over any minute.”

Mary caught her as she stumbled and led her to the couch, while I got her some water from the kitchen. “Sherlock,” I said, “there are four people in this room, and two of us don’t have the faintest idea what the other two are talking about.”

“I think I know a little bit, John,” said Mary and I shot her a sharp look. “But not much,” she added, “so, I would appreciate hearing the story, too.”

“From 1979 to 1985,” Sherlock began, “Sarah Dunkirk, although she went by the name of Sarah Ward then, was involved in at least twelve successful clandestine negotiations in Iran to free foreign nationals, mostly American but some British. A total of thirty-two people, twenty-eight men and four women, owe their freedom, if not their lives, to her.”

That was hard for me to believe. The woman in front of me did not bear any resemblance to someone who could have done what Sherlock just said. And all I could think to say was, “So when you told me you were a history teacher, that was a lie?”

“Oh, no,” she quickly replied, a little too glibly. “Like I told you, I taught history for 30 years. The whole hostage/prisoner negotiation bit was just a sideline. In fact, I didn’t even get paid for it. By the way, Sherlock, I did receive a nice check from your brother for taking care of you. That was thoughtful of him.”

“Sarah,” Sherlock said, “in my research, I was unable to uncover the beginning of your tale. How and why did you become involved in this dangerous game?”

Her mood became more serious. “I was…an unwilling participant. I mean, look at me. Do I look like a hostage negotiator? I’m a jeans and t-shirt person—not a business suit and high heels…and…James Bond sophistication. The whole thing started before any of you were even born. 1970. I was a freshman in college and had an art class, a drawing class with a guy name Gameliani. I called him Gamel. We sat next to each other and shared an art locker. I suppose that part was just coincidence. It was alphabetical. I was a D and he was G. I guess there weren’t any E’s and F’s in the class. He seemed nice. We’d visit a little during class, even went out for coffee a couple of times afterwards, but we never went on a date or anything. And then, about three weeks before the end of the semester, Gamel disappeared. He stopped coming to class. I guess he dropped out which, at the time, I thought was strange with just three weeks left. On the last day of class, he still hadn’t shown back up, and we were supposed to clean out our lockers, so I took most of his stuff—there wasn’t much.

“Fast forward eight years. I’ve graduated, I’ve moved across state, I’m married, I’m teaching. And one afternoon, a black, unmarked helicopter—similar to the one you arrived in, John—lands on the playing field in front of the school and two men in suits march into my classroom in front of my students and inform me that I need to come with them. They escorted me out into the hall and down the stairs and out of the building and back to the helicopter. They didn’t even let me say good-bye to my husband, who was right across the hall. My principal was standing at the foot of the stairs and I had time to babble something to him that I didn’t know what was going on. I was scared to death.”

Mary, seated next to Sarah on the couch, took one of Sarah’s hands in her own.

“We changed planes a few times and they had clothes for me and everything. Dressed me up like some…diplomat. Told me I had been requested by a high-ranking official in Iran to negotiate a prisoner exchange. It was March, 1979. Iran to me was little more than a county on the map that I had my seventh graders learn. I knew that in January the Shah had been overthrown and that someone named Ayatollah Khomeini had taken power. The US State Department was evacuating thousands of Americans. Later that year our embassy would be overrun and hostages taken. But I got the idea that in March no one knew for sure what was going on, but whatever this thing was that involved me was top secret.”

She stopped to take a drink of water before continuing. “We landed in Tehran and I was handed off to a couple of Iranians and whisked by car to some huge compound of government buildings and ushered through lots of doors and down lots of corridors. And they left me standing outside these huge, wooden doors. I knocked and a voice in English said, ‘Come in’.” And guess who was sitting behind the most ornately carved desk I have ever seen. Gamel from my art class. He had beefed up a little since then, but I recognized him right off.

“To this day, I do not know why I was there on that trip or any of the other eleven missions that I was forced to take. I didn’t negotiate anything. Gamel already knew who he was going to release every time. Most of them were civilians—businessmen mostly and a couple of students and workers who had been arrested for seemingly minor infractions in the early days, but later just because they were foreigners who hadn’t been able to get out. I had the names of any Iranians that the US was willing to trade.”

“So what went on in the actual meetings?” asked Sherlock.

“Usually we were alone, just Gamel and me. And we just talked. He really liked the West. He was the son of a diplomat and had been raised in the US until his father had been recalled in 1970. But Gamel was really smart, and especially, in the spring and summer of 1979, when the government was in flux, he knew his position was precarious, but that the Ayatollah would need people like him in his new government…if he could keep his head down…and attached. Sometimes, especially in the later years there would be others in the room, and then we would have to talk shop, or sometimes he knew the meetings were being recorded, and then we’d play along. But all of this was totally under the table. The prisoners who were released on both sides were never to talk about it, there were no homecoming celebrations for any of them, nothing made it to the newspapers or television news. I think Gamel was just doing what little he could to help in any way he could. Obviously, he didn’t get much done, or maybe he did, when they held the US embassy for 444 days but I wasn’t involved in any of that. That was too public. Our dealings were all very secret.”

“And you were there to provide any government onlookers in Tehran some sort of legitimacy, the semblance that it was real,” said Sherlock.

“I think so. And then, in 1985, after the twelfth mission, it suddenly stopped. The first time was the only time I was dragged out of my classroom. The other times, it would be a knock on my door at home or a phone call. Of course, I didn’t know it was going to end in 1985. I waited in dread for the next time, because each time, it didn’t get any easier. In fact, my fear just grew worse. I really thought a few times that I was going to die. Especially, as women’s rights became more and more repressed under the Ayatollah’s regime. After all, I was a woman. And…and it took a toll…on my life, on my marriage.”

“You had to keep your activity secret from your husband,” said Mary.

“Yeah. The trips themselves weren’t long. We were in and out of there so fast. But what kind of cover story could I give him? Oh, I’m leaving for another weekend in St. Louis with the girls. I’ll be back in a couple of days. Secrets are not a good thing in a marriage. I guess you and John know that.”

I looked at Mary and she looked up at me. Tears filled her eyes and I knew that last part of Sarah’s story had dredged up painful memories for her, memories which I did not share. I smiled at her and wanted to say that some secrets are best kept secret.

“So, Cowboy,” said Sarah, “what did you do that brought me to someone’s attention after 30 years?”

“I think you unfairly place blame on me,” retorted Sherlock. “First of all, I must tell you that Gamel is dead.”

“After the missions ended, I thought maybe he had been discovered. I don’t think the life expectancy of government workers in some of those countries is very long, especially for those who are living a secret life.”

“No, but his death was recent, just a few months ago,” said Sherlock.

“Really? He survived all those years?”

“It would seem he stopped playing the game some time ago and just began to look out for himself—you know, follow the rules, obey commands, live a boring life. But memories in that part of the world are very long. Old grudges from decades, even centuries, ago, sometime surface. We have much shorter memories here in the West; America has the shortest of all. Last fall, I was working on a case my brother dragged me in to. I really don’t like the international cases as well. I prefer domestic crimes, the odd murder here and there, a really well-planned burglary.

“But thanks to Mycroft, I got involved with a group of irate Saudis who have been pushing hard against Iran ever since the nuclear deal that was made between the US and Iran. This group evidently has the power and the resources to hack into the Iranian data bases. It seems they were looking for files and information of historical secret deals between Iran and the US. They went back a few decades and uncovered Gamel’s negotiations with a certain Sarah Ward, Ward being your married name. I was unaware of that information at the time that I was with them, but I…uh…slipped up on something entirely unrelated to you. They are a well-funded organization, although not large, but they have managed in just a few months to worm their way into quite a few secret government files from various countries, not just Iran. They’ve managed to stay under the radar for the most part, but they’ve branched out from mere cyber espionage. There have been several cases of blackmail because of information they have uncovered and a few murders. Including mine. I was supposed to be dead when they dropped me into your backyard. Evidently the cocktail of drugs they injected into me failed in that regard.”

“But why me?”

“Oh, I think to them it was just a joke, really. A naked, dead man found in your yard? There might be a scandal, there might even be a murder investigation involving you. But, from what I’ve discovered since then, I am certain it was a warning of things to come. And you are right to be scared of further retaliation.”

“That’s not reassuring,” Sarah said. “I just wish I’d never gotten involved. That first time when they came for me, I should have refused to go, I should have fought them. I should have dug my fingernails into their faces and scratched out their eyes. They didn’t need me. Anyone could have gone in there and did what I did.” I could tell that she was forcing her tears to stay in check.

“No, I don’t think so. Gamel wanted someone, an American, he could trust. And that was you.”

“But I didn’t do anything.”

“You saved 32 lives. Thirty-two individuals made it home, people who might not have made it back without you. Thirty-two families were returned what was most precious to them. And you never received any credit for that.”

“I didn’t deserve credit because I didn’t do anything. And only 32. What difference did that make? Thirty-two’s nothing. What about the hundreds, the thousands of innocent people that didn’t get saved, that still aren’t being saved? Where are the Gamels today for them?”

“You were correct, Sarah, when you said that these negotiations were all classified. There must have been only a handful, yourself included, who knew of them. And, indeed, those who were liberated never spoke of their experiences. What kind of coercion forced them to stay silent, I do not know. It was only during the course of my investigation during the past two months that I uncovered some of what that Saudi cell had learned. Sarah, do you remember the names of any of those prisoners you rescued?”

She shook her head no and stared at her hands in her lap. “It was a long time ago. I think I blocked them all out.”

On your first mission in 1979, there were four men you rescued from an Iranian prison. Two of them had been sentenced to death. One of those two was a British national… named…Holmes.”

Mary and I both looked at Sherlock, our mouths opened. Sarah also looked up.

“He was my father,” continued Sherlock. “My mother had quit teaching at university to stay at home and become a fulltime mum. To make some extra money, my father had taken a contracting job in Iran for six months. When the Shah fled and the Ayatollah returned, my father was working in a remote area of the country and found himself arrested on a trumped-up murder charge. His execution was set for the very day that you arrived in Tehran.”

There was absolute silence in the room.

Sherlock’s next words came out slowly and deliberately. “Sarah, if you had not been there that day to arrange the release of my father, I would never have been born.”

It took a few moments for us to fully grasp the impact of that statement. And then Sarah smiled. And then Sherlock smiled.

“And Mycroft would have lived happily ever after as an only child.” Sherlock stood and walked over to Sarah and took her hands. “There are no coincidences, in this world. Every thought, every word, every action is inextricably linked to a thousand others. Two months ago, you and I met on a snow-covered bluff during an ice storm because of something that happened over thirty-five years ago half a world away. And we can trace it back even forty-five years to when you and Gamel just happened to be seated next to each other in an art class. Sarah, I am alive today twice over because you were there where you were meant to be.”

No one spoke for what seemed like ages. And then Sherlock said, “And now, Sarah Dunkirk, would you like to insure that those responsible for our meeting in the snow can never hurt you?

She did not hesitate. “Yeah, I think I would.”

I quickly jumped in. “Sherlock, what are you talking about now? What are you planning?”

“Oh, I’m not planning anything. There’s been a sting operation in the works for several months against this Saudi organization and it’s all coming to a head the day after tomorrow. We’re going to be there as…oh…uninvited guests.”

“No!” Mary and I shouted in unison. Mary continued with, “Sherlock, you can’t just barge in on something like that. You could blow the whole thing.”

“We’re just going as observers. We’ll stay out of the way,” Sherlock said. “Sarah, did you bring a gun with you? Oh, probably not. That’s all right. John and Mary have several. They’ll loan you one of theirs.”

“Sherlock!” I said. “You are mad! We can’t be there and we certainly can’t take Sarah into a situation like that.”

“Oh, John, you really have grown even more boring since you became a father.” And that was his way of dismissing any argument I had in the matter. “Now, Sarah,” he said, “Mary will show you to the room upstairs. After a good night’s sleep and a day of rest tomorrow, you should be all ready for an adventure. Oh, and John will bring you up some real tea is a few minutes, so you can see how it’s meant to taste.”

A few moments later, when the two were alone on the stairs, Mary said, “Sarah, Sherlock’s a dangerous man. He thrives on danger and he’ll put you in danger. You don’t have to do whatever this thing is that he has planned.”

“I think I do, Mary. I owe him.”

“You don’t owe him anything. You saved his life and you saved his father’s life. He owes you!

“But Sherlock doesn’t keep score quite the same way everyone else does, does he?”

“Oh, my dear,” said Mary, “he’s not even playing the same game.”

It did not go as Sherlock planned, if he even had a plan. Sherlock, Sarah and I took my car and parked it a few blocks from what had been a metal fabrication plant in Thamesmead in southeast London. We approached the abandoned suite of buildings from the opposite direction from where Sherlock said the government agents would be. A locked door that led down some stairs to the basement was easy for Sherlock to open. We wound around some dark corridors, with our torches, until we came to some stairs.

Sherlock whispered, “Lights out. These are back stairs. We’re going up them in the dark to the second floor landing. We should be able to see and hear everything from there. Sarah, are you sure you don’t want a gun, just in case? John probably has two on him.”

“No,” she whispered. “I’m OK. Probably shoot my foot off.”

“Sherlock,” I said, trying to keep my voice down. “For the last time, don’t do this. Let’s just go back the way we came and get out of here.”

“Follow me,” Sherlock said, starting up the stairs.

The stairs were concrete and we made very little noise as we ascended, holding onto the railing in the darkness. The steps made a turn before the first floor and then again two more turns to the landing. Sherlock opened a door which led out to the mezzanine. There was some light coming from one of several old offices or cubicles on the floor below us. Whatever it was had no ceiling. We crept along the back of the landing a few yards. There were several large pieces of machinery looming between us and the front railing of the landing. As our eyes adjusted to the dim light, I could see where another set of stairs led down from there to the first floor. We settled behind one of the old machines and listened, but in the cavernous plant the voices were muffled, indistinct.

We didn’t have long to wait, though. Less than twenty minutes after we arrived, shouts erupted from the lighted cubicle, followed by gunfire. Running footsteps echoed throughout the building and stray bullets flew in our direction, pinging off of the metal structures around us. “Sherlock,” I hissed. “We need to retreat.” I could see our escape door to the back stairs and there was sufficient cover until the last two yards or so, if we kept low. I was closest to it, but Sherlock scrambled around me.

“Something’s gone wrong,” whispered Sherlock. “Sarah, follow me and stay down. John, bring up the rear.”

Sherlock scuttled off with Sarah at his heels. I hung back slightly so as to not crowd them. They stopped when they came to the open space in front of the door which was closed now but would swing toward the stairs when opened. The gunfire raged unabated and now seemed to emanate from all parts of the first floor. I had my Sig Sauer L106A1drawn and ready to fire if necessary.

Sherlock, a gun in his right hand, seemed to be counting the firings, trying to detect a pattern so as to calculate an opportune time to sprint for the door. There was no pattern. The shots were coming from everywhere. I saw Sherlock motion something to Sarah behind him and then he sprang across the open area and hit the door, turning the knob. I could see what happened next to him. What I could not see because of where I was crouching was the man with an AK-47 who had appeared at the top of the front stairs.

“No!” It was a primordial scream that came from Sarah, as she dove toward Sherlock to knock him out of the way. The bullet that should have hit his spine instead caught her in her lower right back and exited through the left side of her abdomen. And what happened next caused me for an instant to flash back to firefights in Afghanistan because I had seen soldiers with serious and even mortal wounds do what she did. She did not even know she had been struck. The gun Sherlock had been holding went skidding across the floor as a result of her collision with him. Sarah hit the floor and went sliding after it, scooping it up in both hands and jumping to her feet, spinning to face the shooter. The assailant’s attention was on Sarah now and just as he sprayed more shots at her, I recovered, stood and fired at him, a single shot through the heart. He staggered for a few seconds and then collapsed.

Sarah stood pointing the gun where the Saudi had been standing. Her jacket was opened and I could see blood already spreading across the front of her shirt from the exit wound made by the first bullet.

“Sarah,” said Sherlock, approaching her cautiously. “Put down the gun. You’ve been shot.”

The adrenaline that had been pumping through her body suddenly drained. “What?” She looked down at the blood-drenched shirt. “Oh.” It was a long, drawn-out “oh,” and then she collapsed into Sherlock’s arms and he lowered her to the floor.

The last few minutes of the chase and the gun battle and the capture of the Saudis seemed to swirl around us as if we three were in a bubble by ourselves. My immediate concern was to stop the bleeding. She would be dead in a matter of minutes if I could not stem the flow or, at least, slow it down. Sherlock still cradled her head in his arms. I shrugged out of my coat and slipped it under her back where the first bullet had entered. A second bullet had grazed her cheek, but it appeared to be superficial. I pulled off my jumper and pressed it against the exit wound in her abdomen. Of course there was no way of telling how much damage had been done to any internal organs as the bullet passed through. She may very well have been far past any chance of survival, but I would use every ounce of my training and trauma field experience to try to save her. While I could still hear shouting and gunshots I did not want to call out that we desperately needed an ambulance, but I knew if she did not reach a hospital soon, my efforts would certainly be in vain.

Sherlock was speaking softly to her and her eyes were open. “Sherlock,” I ordered, “get out of your coat and warp it around her as tightly as you can.”

He gently let her head down against the floor and did as I said.

“I’m really cold,” she said aloud.

“Your body’s just trying to protect your really important organs like your brain and your kidneys.” I explained. “It draws blood from your extremities and…”

“And pours it out my stomach?” she asked weakly.

“I’m doing my best to keep it in,” I said. “Keep her talking, Sherlock.”

“Sarah,” said Sherlock, holding her head again in the crook of his left arm, while his right hand clasped hers under his coat that he had put over her. “Why did you do that? Why did you push me out of the way?”

“That’s what friends do,” she answered.

I had checked her airway and it was clear, but she was struggling to get the words out.

“No, they don’t.”

“Course they do. Oh, John, it’s…uh…it’s really starting to hurt.”

“I’m sorry, Sarah,” I said.

“I’m not going to make it, am I?” Her voice was growing weaker.

“Of course, you are,” said Sherlock. “Just hold on.”

“Keep her talking, Sherlock.”

“Think of a good memory, Sarah. Pleasant things. When I got shot, that’s what I did. Good thoughts. What was the best time in your life? Oh, I know! You told me you saw the Beatles, you went to a Beatles concert. Tell me about the Beatles, Sarah. That must have been something.”

There was no response from her.

“Sarah, tell me about the Beatles concert.”

“’It was…great,” she said, her voice trailing off. “But not now…”

“Sherlock,” I said.

“Tell me, Sarah. Tell me about the concert.”

She seemed to rally a little. “It was…it was 1966. Their last American tour, but…of course, we didn’t know that then. My best friend and I flew to Chicago to see them. Sherlock, I don’t want to die.”

“I’m not going to let you die. But you have to stay awake, Sarah. Keep talking. How old were you in 1966 when you saw the Beatles?”

“We were only 14. We stayed with her brother in his apartment. There were four other guys who lived there, too. Don’t think our parents knew that. And…and the Beatles stayed in a hotel just a few blocks away. So…uh…so we joined thousands of other fans outside the hotel. The police would try to keep us across the street. But sometimes someone would drop a piece of paper out…out of one of the windows on the upper floors, and…and we would all surge toward the hotel. And the police…the police would beat us back with their billy clubs. Oh, that day was so much fun.” She stopped talking and Sherlock leaned closer.

“And the concert itself. What about it? Tell me.”

“Oh, it was wonderful. Wasn’t quite like we’d seen on the news…with all the girls screaming and crying. You could scream, but if you stood up, the guards…the guards would shine a light in your eyes and you couldn’t see. We were on the mezzanine, way back from the stage, but some girl near us had binoculars and she passed them around so we could get a close-up view. And on …on the last song, our whole section got up…too many for the guards to stop. We moved along the railing toward the stage and stopped even with it. George…George Harrison was closest to us, and…and we all yelled his name at the same time and he looked up at us…and he smiled. You know, no cell phones in those days, we didn’t even have cameras with us, but that image…the image of George looking up and smiling is imprinted on my brain forever. Fifty years and I can still see him. Time…time really does stand still sometimes.” Her eyes had been open throughout the story, although she seemed to be focused on something high above us on the ceiling. But she closed her eyes and cried out softly, “Oh, John, it really hurts. It feels like my insides are on the outside. Am I still all there?”

The gunshots had stopped, but there was still shouting from different parts of the plant. Footsteps on the front stairs startled both Sherlock and me. He reached for his gun which lay on the floor near him. I could not release the pressure on her wound to grab mine. Fortunately, it was two British agents who came into view, guns drawn. They saw the dead Saudi and us and quickly accessed the situation. “We need an ambulance,” one of them turned and shouted to the men who were below on the ground floor.

It would still be several minutes before aid would come, several minutes too late, I thought. I shifted my pressure hold and found her left wrist with my right hand in order to take her pulse. It was weak and thready, just as I expected. If I had been able to take a blood pressure reading, I knew what I would find.

“Sarah,” said Sherlock, “Sarah, look at me. Help is coming. It’s going to be all right.”

“I just need to go to sleep,” she said.

“No, Sarah,” I said. “You have to stay awake. You have to stay with us.”

“Tell me another story,” said Sherlock.

“No, your turn, Sherlock,” she said. “You tell me a story.” Her voice was so small.

“All right, but it has to be interactive. You have to ask questions or make comments as I go along, so I know you’re paying attention. Understand? Here goes. Um…once upon a time…once upon a time there was a very brave princess…”

“She’s supposed to be beautiful,” said Sarah. Her eyes were closed, but at least she was talking.

“OK,” agreed Sherlock. “There was a beautiful, brave princess… named Sarah.”

“That’s my name.”

“I know. And the princess would often journey to the dragon’s lair to rescue those whom the dragon had imprisoned and was going to eat.”

“What… what was the dragon’s name?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I think maybe Khomeini.”

“Funny name for a dragon.”

“But he wasn’t a funny dragon,” said Sherlock. “He was a terrible beast. And on one of her missions into the dark den of the dragon, the beautiful, brave Princess Sarah saved a young man, snatched him from the jaws of the evil dragon just as the beast was about to devour him. And you know what?”

There was no response from Sarah. “You know what?” repeated Sherlock.

“What?”

“The man went home to his wife who had missed him for so very long. And their love manifested into a strange, little boy.”

“Why was he so strange?”

I glanced at Sherlock’s face as he answered. This story-telling bit was another side of him that I had not seen before.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Sherlock answered. “He was just different.” He paused. “But he loved to go on adventures and he himself became a dragon slayer and sometimes…sometimes he discovered the dragons were within him.”

“And did he slay them all?”

“No.” Sherlock’s voice was so soft, barely a whisper. “But he usually managed to keep them at bay.”

“And did he live happily ever after?”

“Happily? No. But he lived longer than he thought he might because he was always surrounded by people who protected him.”

“Were they his friends?”

I was amazed that Sarah was still talking coherently. She should have been dead by now. Where was that damn ambulance?

“The strange little boy had never had any friends, so he wasn’t quite sure, but, yeah, I think they were his friends.”

“What were their names?”

“There was John.”

“Dr. John,” she said.

“And Mary.”

“Have I met Mary?”

“Yes.”

“Did Mary shoot you?”

“Ssshh. That’s a secret.”

“Oh, sorry. Were there other friends?”

“There was a Detective Inspector. I don’t know his name. It was Graham or Gary or...”

“Greg,” I whispered.

“And there was Mrs. Hudson, the boy’s housekeeper.”

“Landlady,” I corrected.

“Mrs. Hudson used to bring the little boy tea and biscuits because she knew that he sometimes forgot to eat when he was busy fighting dragons.” Sherlock paused in his narrative. “And there was Molly.”

“Do I know Molly?”

“No, but you read about her, remember? Molly has the best job in the whole world. She works in a morgue.”

“Oh, then maybe I’ll meet her soon.” Sarah opened her eyes and looked at Sherlock and I’ll swear she winked.

“Not very soon,” continued Sherlock.

She closed her eyes again. “I don’t think working in a morgue would be a very good job.”

“Oh, but she has a wonderful laboratory there and sometimes she lets me…sometimes she lets the little boy play there.”

“Any more friends?”

“Oh, yes. The boy had a wonderful auntie named Sarah.”

“That was the name of the beautiful princess.”

“It was the very same Sarah. She had watched over the little boy since before he was born. She took care of him when…when he wasn’t quite himself. And she taught him to play the fiddle because he only knew how to play the violin.”

They’re the…the same thing.”

“But they don’t sound at all the same. And he’d been practicing, but he hadn’t gotten a chance to play the fiddle for her yet.”

“And was…was his Auntie Sarah so very old?”

“Oh, she was 120, at least.”

“Not that old, surely” said Sarah.

“Oh, but, you know, there’s something peculiar that happens with certain people. For some people like Sarah, age is just... pages on a calendar. She wouldn’t even have known how old she was if there were no calendars to remind her. Because inside she was still twelve years old and always would be and everything was an adventure.”

“Just like the strange, little boy.”

“Maybe that’s why he was different,” Sherlock said. “He never grew up.”

“Maybe…maybe Sarah and the little boy weren’t people at all. Maybe they were salamanders—Grotto Salamanders.”

Sarah had completely lost both of us with that last comment. “Sorry,” said Sherlock. “Salamanders?”

“Sometimes,” explained Sarah, “they choose not to grow up.” She moaned softly and then lay still.

An awful silence followed and I really thought she had left us. I grabbed her wrist again for a pulse but then she spoke again, her voice barely a whisper. “Cowboy, are you still there?”

“I’m right here.”

“Did we dance?”

“Yes, Sarah.” I had never see Sherlock cry before. He had such a total disregard for his own feelings or the feelings of others. I could only see the right side of his face and those wild curls of his covered part of that, but there was no mistaking the tear trickling down to the corner of his mouth.

Suddenly, the bubble that had surrounded us burst and the second floor exploded with activity as the paramedics arrived along with some obviously higher ranking agents than the two men who had stood there during Sherlock’s story time. Detective Inspector Lestrade was on their heels. No one was happy with us being there. I was allowed to go in the ambulance with Sarah and left Sherlock behind to talk himself out of this one.

A week later I climbed the stairs to the flat I had once shared with Sherlock before my marriage. I found myself counting the steps again. Seventeen. The door to the living room was open and I walked in. Sherlock was in the kitchen, squatting down by the table and peering intently at some beakers filled with colored liquid on

the table.

“John,” he said, without looking up, “do these two on the end look the same color to you?”

I walked over for a closer look at the clear blue substance in the two glasses he indicated. “No, the one on the left seems a bit lighter.”

He switched the two beakers. “How about now?”

“Well, the one that’s now on the left seems lighter now. It must be the way the light hits in here, don’t you think?”

“No, I don’t think that at all. Hhhmm.” Sherlock stood and scribbled something on a notepad.

“Sherlock. It’s been a week. She asks about you every day. I’m tired of making excuses for you, saying you’re busy.”

“I am busy.”

“With what? Playing with glasses of… Gatorade?”

“It’s not Gatorade. It’s not even water, so I wouldn’t advise drinking it.”

“Sherlock, go to hospital and see her.”

“Why?” He switched the positions of two other glasses.

“Because she took a bullet for you and almost died.”

“She did a foolish thing and it almost cost her her life.”

“No, you did a foolish thing by dragging her into that situation that almost cost her her life.”

“But it didn’t. You’ve told me every day for the past four days that she is out of immediate danger and recovering. So how would my going to hospital to see her change that?”

I was so angry with him for refusing to see Sarah all week, especially when she was in intensive care and we weren’t even sure if she would survive. But I chose my next words carefully and spoke slowly. “As a doctor, I believe that it would definitely help in her recovery if you would pay her a visit.”

“That’s not you as a doctor speaking. That’s you who has all these…funny little emotions that are always close to your surface.”

“When we were at her house, when I came to get you, I watched the way the two of you…interacted. The way you spoke to each other, the way you looked at each other. For God’s sake, you danced with her. And when she got shot, Sherlock, you held her in your arms and…and you kept her alive and you told her that…that story….that fairytale. And now you won’t even go see her! What’s wrong with you?”

Sherlock picked up one of the beakers and walked over to the microwave and put it in. After punching in the time, he spoke without turning around. “There’s nothing wrong with me, John.”

“I could name a whole lot of people that would argue that point. Anyway, what I came here to say is that Sarah’s leaving St. Barts tomorrow afternoon. They’re transferring her to Chiswick Nursing Centre since she can’t go home because she shouldn’t fly for a while yet and she does have some convalescing to do. She needs…um…care. She’s still very weak. She could stay with Mary and me, but with the baby we don’t have as much room and she probably wouldn’t get the rest that she needs. I just thought you’d like to know.”

He neither replied nor turned around.

“Well, I just dropped by to tell you that. I’ll be leaving now. Good luck with…whatever you’re working on here.” I left him standing there.

I found out that the next morning Sherlock did finally visit Sarah at St. Barts. As with the first part of this story when I was not present for the actual events, I have pieced together in a narrative the things that were spoken from what I later learned and, maybe, with just a few embellishments from what I imagined.

When Sherlock walked through the open door of Sarah’s hospital room, he found her in bed. The head portion was raised and she was reading on an electronic tablet. She was not attached to any tubes or wires such as John had described from his earlier visits to her.

She looked up and smiled. “Hi, Cowboy. Thought you had forgotten me.”

“Never.” It was a private room and he stood just inside the doorway. “I’m glad I didn’t bring you any flowers. You seem to have an abundance.”

The room was full of flowers, all kinds and colors. “Oh, yeah. Those on the table there on the right are from John and Mary—I think they’re about ready to be tossed. The rest are from your brother Mycroft. I get…like two vases every day from him. Plus he sent me this tablet, pre-loaded with hundreds of books. And this private room. I’ve yet to meet him, but this and all these flowers and a private jet, I think I like him.”

“Oh, he’s a peach.”

“But I don’t know why he’s doing all this. I get the idea from John that we kind of messed up the sting operation and he had something to do with that.”

“Well things didn’t go quite as they had planned, but that wasn’t our fault. And it was successful.”

“So, we got all the Saudis?”

“Oh, no. There are still probably 29 million of them.”

“Not the whole country, Sherlock, just the ones who were trying to kill you and me.”

“Oh, yes. The members of that little group are either dead or under restraint. You no longer need to fear any sort of reprisal for your actions of long ago.”

“That’s somewhat reassuring, I guess. But why is your brother being so generous?” As soon as the words were out, she made the connection. “Oh, wait. Same father.”

“And mother. Although if you ever do meet him, you wouldn’t believe it for a second. He was a young boy when you saved our father.”

“Oh.” Sarah was quiet for a moment. “Oh, and I forgot, those flowers nearest to you on the table, they’re from Molly. You called me Molly a couple of times at my house before you got your memory back. She’s been to see me. Told me a little about her work in the morgue here at the hospital. Sounds like a gruesome job.”

“Oh, not at all. And she has a nice laboratory that she lets me use.”

“Wait,” said Sarah. “It seems like you already told me that. Or maybe I read it on John’s blog. I think my memory’s a little messed up now. John said my brain probably wasn’t getting enough oxygen in the minutes after I got shot. And now parts of it are still all fuzzy. I think I know now what you were going through after you started remembering and you said you had to sort things out.”

“It’s probably good that you don’t remember everything in those critical moments after …after... John is very good and he did what he could but it was a long time before medical help arrived.”

Sarah moved slightly and her face grimaced in pain. “Oh, they took away my morphine drip yesterday. I really miss it. It’s funny, but John and Molly both said that if you knew I had morphine in the room that you would be sure to come visit. What did they mean by that?”

“Oh,” Sherlock snorted derisively. “Everyone thinks I’m an addict.”

“Are you?”

“I…have a few addictions, but not the kind that they think.”

“The dragons within you. Was that something you told me?”

Sherlock stepped over to the bed and put one hand on the left side of Sarah’s neck.

“What are you doing?” She slapped his hand away.

“Checking for gills,” he said, smiling.”

“I don’t even know what that’s supposed to mean.”

“Sarah, do you think I’m a salamander?” He asked it quite seriously.

Sarah leaned forward laughing, but immediately regretted it. “Oh, God, it hurts to laugh. Why on Earth would I think you’re a salamander?”

“Something your oxygen-starved brain told me while we were waiting for an ambulance.”

“I was bleeding to death and I was talking about salamanders?”

“No, we were talking about…it was just a story…about people who approach life in a childlike way, everything’s an adventure, and they refuse to become an adult. And you said maybe they were salamanders.”

“Oh, I know,” Sarah said. “Grotto Salamanders. I read about them for one of my books about caves.”

“I researched them this past week. Actually, there’s not much written about them. But I learned that some postpone metamorphoses and retain their gills and their eyes far longer than the rest.”

“And,” said Sarah, “it’s never been documented, but I like to think that some never change, never grow up, never become adults. So far, from the studies I’ve read, and as you said, there’s not been much research on them, no one knows why some delay metamorphosis. But, personally, I think it has to do with adversity. When their environment becomes less than ideal, when bad things happen, that’s when they have to stop being larvae, swimming around in the water, no cares, and become air breathers and…spend the rest of their lives in total darkness.”

“But you have suffered adversity in your life and it didn’t affect you like that. I think that’s why I did not realize your true age when I was blind. You didn’t act…”

“Old? Well, let me tell you, Cowboy. The adventure is wearing pretty thin. Right now I feel ancient. I can even hardly walk down the hallway here and I have to use a walker to do that. And this afternoon, they’re moving me to Chiswick, to a nursing home. To a nursing home! I’ve become an air breather and I’m afraid there’s no going back.”

No, not you” said Sherlock. “You still have gills… but I don’t think you’ll have them much longer if you go to Chiswick. You will grow old there. That’s why you’re coming home with me. I’ve already made arrangements.”

“What? I don’t think so.”

“Just until you’re well enough to fly and take care of yourself. And then you can go home, go back to Scout and your house on the lake and live happily ever after.”

“I can’t, Sherlock. I have to go to this Chiswick nursing place. For one thing, you have too many stairs. “

“We just have to get you up to the flat. You can have my bedroom. It’s right off the bathroom and the kitchen. Mrs. Hudson is always there. And John and Mary are there all the time. Please, Auntie Sarah, let me do this.”

“I just don’t…I just wouldn’t feel comfortable. I’m not very strong yet and I can’t do some things on my own…and you’re not a licensed caregiver.”

“But I’m Sherlock Holmes.”

Sarah leaned forward, laughing again, and grabbed her stomach in pain. “See? That’s why I can’t. I laugh too much when I’m with you and it hurts.”

“But it’s good for you.”

“Sherlock, you don’t owe me anything.”

“Of course I don’t. Please. Say you’ll come.”

Sarah hesitated. She turned her head away from him and looked out the window and then turned back. “OK.”

Sherlock smiled. “But I need to go back to the flat and tidy up first. The hospital is sending one of those official government inspector persons of some kind to make sure it’s suitable for you for convalescence. I’m afraid they might find it’s not even suitable for me and condemn the whole place.”

“John told me you sometimes keep body parts in your refrigerator.”

“Yeah, probably should shift those before the inspection. Good-bye, Sarah. I’ve got lots to do. I’ll see you this afternoon. Oh, let me have your tablet before I leave.” He took the tablet and after a few swipes and punches handed it back to her. “I downloaded a song for you. It’s not ‘60’s but pretty close. And there’s no message. I just like it.”

“Sherlock, may I ask you something?”

“No. See you in a few hours.” He backed out the door.

After he left, Sarah opened the music player. What Is Life by George Harrison began to play.

Sarah stayed at Sherlock’s flat for just over a week, before both her surgeon and I certified that she was well enough to return home to the states and take care of herself. The bullet had done some vascular damage and had penetrated her liver and nicked her spleen and the small intestine. There was always the risk of infection, even days or weeks after such an injury and I continued to carefully monitor her recovery which progressed remarkably well. Unfortunately, there was some damage which could not be repaired. I had had a long talk with her the day before she left the hospital about what her future would hold. When I was finished she politely thanked me and said, “We’ll see.”

At Sherlock’s her strength returned and, in just a few days, she no longer needed a walker. I made her go up and down the steps a few times each day after that to build back her strength. Her spirits were good. She continued to have a great deal of pain, though, but I almost had to force her to take any medication for it.

Despite all that we have been through in the past few years, I still do not know Sherlock, nor, I fear, will I ever understand him. When he told me that Sarah was going to convalesce at his place instead of the nursing centre, I did not know what to make of it. I had this fear that he simply might go off on some case and forget she was even there, so Mary or I were at his flat a lot during the day. But there is no denying that staying at Sherlock’s flat was good for her. And for him. I don’t know what kind of bond the two of them shared, but there was a definite link between them. Whenever they were in the same room, he was… I know no other way to say it. He was human, more human than I ever knew him to be, except, perhaps, during the weeks leading up to my wedding. But during the eleven days that Sarah stayed with him, he was attentive, caring, considerate, and more solicitous toward her than I have ever witnessed him behave toward another human being. And she continually teased him about everything and seemed genuinely interested in his “experiments” which cluttered the kitchen.

Mrs. Hudson and Mary and I had all joined in helping him straighten up the flat before the health inspector arrived. It was the first time since he had moved in that the kitchen counters and table were actually clear, and they stayed that way for all of two days before the clutter of beakers and scales and microscopes and whatever gradually reappeared. In the living room, the piles of books and newspapers and general clutter grew again, also, as the days progressed.

Of course, his newfound compassionate nature did not extend to me. I still found myself on the receiving end of barbs and criticism and put-downs. I had often heard him refer to himself as a “high functioning sociopath” and, over the course of our years together, he certainly has displayed most of the traits that define that disorder, but I was heartened to observe that, at least for a week and a half, he was able to maintain a normal relationship with someone. There was nothing smarmy in his attitude toward Sarah, such as I had witnessed when he was pretending to be in love with Janine. Sarah managed to draw out from somewhere in his depths a kinder, gentler Sherlock that was real and genuine.

On the tenth day of her stay at Sherlock’s, Sarah was standing by the window in the living room while Sherlock was seated in his favorite chair with three books opened on his lap and another four clustered around his feet. “Are you expecting someone, Sherlock?”

By this time, she had become used to (as I had long ago grown accustomed) Sherlock’s habit of not responding to direct questions. He often feigned indifference to conversation going on around him, although I am quite certain that part of his brain was actively recording and storing everything that happened every single minute in his presence and that he was able to draw on that enormous reserve of information. It was what made him so extraordinary in his work. But it was extremely frustrating to anyone trying to talk to him.

“It’s an older couple,” Sarah continued, as she shifted to get a clearer view of the sidewalk below. “They just got out of a cab and are heading this way. The cab’s not leaving. I think they told him to wait.” She glanced at Sherlock, still reading his multiple books, then turned her attention back to the street below, craning her neck as the pair drew closer to the door. “Aww, he’s holding her arm. I think they’re going to ring the bell…or knock.”

Just then the bell rang and Sherlock closed his books and sprang from the chair like a jack-in-the-box. “Oh! Right on time. They’re not usually so punctual.”

“Who are they?”

“My parents. They’re flying out of Heathrow this morning and I asked them to drop by here first. Thought maybe they’d like to meet you.”

“You could have told me.”

“Didn’t I? I told someone. Maybe the cat.” Sherlock opened the living room door. Mrs. Hudson had let the couple in and was leading them up the stairs.

“You don’t have a cat.”

“Been thinking about getting one after you leave. Couldn’t have one while you were here since you’re allergic.”

“How do you know I’m allergic to cats?”

“Sherlock,” called Mrs. Hudson from a few steps below when she saw him at the door. “It’s your parents. What a nice surprise this morning.” Mrs. Hudson stepped out of the way as Sherlock ushered them in and then closed the door before she could go through, also.

“Mum. Dad. I would like you to meet Sarah Dunkirk.”

Sarah had known Sherlock long enough now to not be surprised by his lack of affectionate display toward his parents. In fact, she only briefly noted it as she stared at his father and tried to find in the lined face and the white hair the younger man she had seen over thirty-five years ago. She still stood across the room by the window and was backlit in the morning light.

“Come away from the window, so I can see you better,” said the elder Mr. Holmes.

Sarah stepped closer to them.

“My God, you’ve hardly changed at all. I would know you anywhere,” Mr. Holmes declared.

Sherlock’s mother spoke and her voice betrayed some emotion. “When Sherlock told us that the woman who had saved his life in the snow was here in London, we, of course, wanted to meet her. But then he added that she was also the woman who had saved his life in Iran all those years ago.” She squeezed her husband’s arm and patted him on the cheek. “He had never told me about that until now.”

Mr. Holmes patted her hand. “We weren’t supposed to talk about it. And I wouldn’t have if Sherlock, here, had not started asking me questions a few weeks ago. Interrogating me is more like it.” The elder Holmes held out his arms toward Sarah. “But if not for this lady right here before me, Sherlock would not even be here.”

“I was just window dressing, Mr. Holmes,” Sarah said quietly. “You actually owe your life to a very brave man named Gamel.”

“I don’t know Mr. Gamel, but I remember you on that long plane ride home. How you took the time to sit with each of us, me and those three other blokes you rescued, and how you visited with us, asking about our work and our families. Just small talk, but it calmed our fears and made us feel like maybe we were really safe and free from place. I know it helped me. I was so scared and I was shaking so badly that I think I was literally rocking that plane. I was afraid any minute that we would be shot out of the sky or forced to turn around and face all of that again.” His hands began to tremble and his eyes filled with tears. Mrs. Holmes took his hands in hers.

“I’m…uh…glad you made it home safely.” Sarah really was not sure what to say.

“I have something for you.” Mr. Holmes voice cracked with emotion. “I promised myself that if I ever saw you again, I would return it to you.” He reached a hand into a pocket of his trousers. “You gave it to me on the plane. Do you remember?”

Sarah did not want to confess that she had no memory of giving him anything so she stayed silent.

The elder Holmes held out his hand. A small smooth pebble lay in his open palm.
Sarah still did not remember giving it to him, but she recognized what it was. “A worry stone,” she said.

“You told me to rub it to help my anxiety, to keep it in my pocket, and that’s where it’s been ever since.”

“And been through the wash many times,” added Mrs. Holmes.

Sherlock picked the green and yellow-flecked stone from his father’s hand. “I remember this from when I was a child. You told us boys an angel gave it to you.”

“And so she did,” said Mr. Holmes.

Sherlock handed it to Sarah who put it back in Mr. Homes’ hand. “I think you should keep it. If it weren’t there after all these years, you’d still always be reaching into your pocket and finding it empty.”

“If you insist,” said the old gentleman, his eyes still glistening with tears.

“We really must be going,” said Mrs. Holmes. “The taxi is waiting and the meter’s running.”

Although Sherlock had not demonstrated any affection toward his parents, Sarah stepped forward to hug both of them before they left. Mrs. Holmes gave her a brisk hug then passed her off to her husband who was a little more enthusiastic and hugged her tight. Sarah emitted a little yelp of pain and he quickly released her. “Are you all right?” he asked, alarmed.

Sarah glanced over his shoulder at Sherlock who shook his head no. He had evidently not told his parents of his most recent adventure in the warehouse with the Saudi terrorist cell. “Oh, it’s nothing,” Sarah said to the elder Holmes. “Just a little accident I had not long ago. It’s on the mend.” She took one of his hands in both of hers. “Good-bye, Mr. Holmes. I’m really glad I got to see again and… and to meet your son.”

“Good-bye, my dear.” Mr. Holmes kissed her on the cheek. “I owe you my life and the life of my boy, here. There’s no way I can ever repay that.”

“You just did, Mr. Holmes. Safe journey to the both of you on your next adventure.”

Mrs. Holmes took her husband’s arm and pushed him toward the door. “We’re off to the American Southwest. Ghost town tour. And a little shopping, I hope.”

Sherlock closed the door behind them and stood with his back to it. Sarah smiled at him and shook her head.

“What?” he asked.

“They just weren’t what I expected for your parents. I take it they just think I’m here visiting.”

“I rarely discuss my cases with them, but Mum reads John’s blog religiously, so she knew that I was missing back in January and how you rescued me. I’ve asked him not to publish anything on the Saudi cell for a while.”

“I’m glad I got to meet them. You’re very lucky to still have them both.”

“You looked as if you had no recollection of giving him that stone 36 years ago.”

“I don’t remember giving it to him. But that night at my house, before you got your memory back, you seemed to think there was something familiar about the one I gave you. You even asked if it were green…”

“With flecks of gold that sparkle in the firelight. That’s how I remembered his from when I was a little. Did you know I was his son when you gave it to me?”

“No, of course not. I didn’t know until you told me when I got here two weeks ago.”

“Hmmm,” said Sherlock. “‘Curiouser and curiouser’.”

“‘Cried Alice’,” Sarah said, completing the quote from Lewis Carroll.

On the night before she left, Sarah and Sherlock treated us to a violin concert at her going away party in Sherlock’s flat, us being Mary and myself, Mrs. Hudson, Molly, and Detective Inspector Lestrade. That night I also saw a new side of Sherlock. He played frequently when I shared the flat with him, and he played at my wedding reception the song he had composed for Mary and me, but only rarely did he play when others were present. But on this particular evening he pulled out his second violin for Sarah to use and they alternated playing several songs, he playing classical music and she playing what she called mountain fiddle tunes. Even I, with very little music training, recognized that the songs grew progressively harder and more complicated with each number. It was clear that the two of them were in a friendly competition. After Sarah’s first song, I insisted that she sit down for the others. I did not want her undoing the great strides she had made so far in her recovery.

But their last one left us all in tears because we were laughing so hard. I remember just after Sarah had been shot and we were waiting for the ambulance and Sherlock was talking to her, trying to keep her conscious, he told her something about how he had been practicing playing fiddle music. So, on this evening of musical entertainment, after they had each played several songs in their respective styles, he started one that had the definite sound of what Sarah had been playing—something I would call Appalachian or Ozark Mountain music. I could not tell you the name of the song. And it was not bad, but it was not quite the quality that Sarah had just played for us.

When Sherlock had finished the short selection, Sarah looked surprised at his choice of music. “Not bad, Cowboy, but let me give you a few pointers.” She stood up. I had not even noticed before, but she was wearing black jeans that were topped with one of Sherlock’s white shirts and a black vest and one of his ties. She positioned her violin—well, I guess, in her case, it was a fiddle. “You have to think about it in word pictures,” she told him. “First, you get this long drawn-out train whistle and then you follow that up with the train chuggin’ down the tracks.” As she spoke she drew her bow across the strings to imitate the sounds. “And now you’re racin’ along the ridge tops and down into the valley and back up on the ridge and then you take off and you’re soarin’ with the eagles.” She stopped. “Now you try it.”

Sherlock replicated her technique as she called out, “There’s the whistle and now you’re chuggin’ along, and now head for the ridgetops and down and up and now you’re soarin’! OK! That was good. So now, what you do is take those same basic sounds and change them around. Like this. Listen and then you copy.” Sarah played a few bars and then Sherlock played them back to her.

She played again. This time it was a little different and again he repeated it. I wish I knew more about music at this point to give you, the reader, a better idea of what it sounded like, although even my untrained ear could pick out the train whistle and the ridge running strains. But after this is when it really started to get funny. But it is probably one of those situations where you just had to be there to appreciate how much fun it was watching the two of them. I wish one of us would have recorded it. And I do not know to this day if they had rehearsed this bit or if they were just responding to each other.

She played again, and again Sherlock was able to copy it. But after that it turned into a “no holds barred” competition. Each time she would play faster and wilder and Sherlock really began to struggle to keep up. And that was what was so amazing about this whole thing. Sherlock was always, always so cold and aloof when he was in public. And even here in his own home, whenever we had people over, it was if he had this particular image of himself that was so important for him to maintain. But on this night he laughed and he growled and he made horrible faces whenever his fingers would not move fast enough or in the correct sequence. For a few, brief minutes, he let down his guard, his façade cracked. Sarah stepped closer to him on each round until finally he actually dropped to his knees and she stood over him in triumph. “You win!” he cried and he sat back on the rug, exhausted and laughing.

As I said, everyone was laughing so hard at that point that I don’t think anyone but me noticed the wince of pain that crossed Sarah’s face like a shadow. I hoped she had not over exerted herself.

Lestrade, still laughing, stood and offered Sherlock a hand to help him up. The Detective Inspector slapped him on the back as he stood, and said, “Sherlock, you always make a production out of everything you do, but this time it was actually good.”

The slap and the remark brought Sherlock back to the moment and I literally saw that façade, that mask, wipe over his body. ‘When I glanced again his face had resumed that red-Indian composure which had made so many regard him as a machine rather than a man.’3 He had become Sherlock once more. And the laughter stopped.

As Sherlock and Sarah returned their instruments to the cases on the desk, Sarah was still short of breath. “Thank you, Cowboy,” she whispered. “You are very good.”

“I think I will stick to violin music.” He kept his voice low. “Are you all right? That wasn’t too much for you?”

“I’m fine. Just still sore.”

After everyone had left, Sherlock was at his desk, working on a laptop when he heard a sharp cry and a crash in the kitchen. Sarah was standing in front of the sink, but was doubled over in pain. The glass of water she had dropped was scattered in pieces on the floor at her feet. “Sarah!” He rushed to her side, but she waved him off.

“I’m all right,” she said through clenched teeth. “It’s just a pain. I think I must have pulled something, playing that hard.”

“You might have reopened one of your internal wounds. I’d better call John. He can’t have gotten far.”

Sarah shook her head. “No, don’t call John.” She straightened up part way. “See, it was just a momentary thing—caught me off guard, that’s all. It’s nothing.”

“It’s not nothing, Sarah.” Sherlock picked up the open medicine vial on the counter. It contained her pain pills. “Did you take one of these already?”

“Yes. Sorry about the glass. I’ll clean it up.” She tried to bend down but Sherlock caught her by her arm and waist and held her up.”

“I’ll get that later,” said Sherlock. “You need to lie down. I know you’ve just been taking one of these pills at a time, but it says you can take two. Perhaps you should.”

“I don’t want to get addicted to them. I’ve taken them for too many days already and I don’t like the way they make me feel.”

“But you’re still in pain. I think tonight calls for two. And you’ll be asleep in a few minutes, so it won’t matter how you feel.”

Sarah’s head was bowed and she had a tight grip on the edge of the counter. “OK. Just for tonight.” She let Sherlock fill a clean glass with water and fish out a pill. He made sure she swallowed it.

“Stay here. Let me put these in the bedroom for later,” he said, indicating the water glass and medicine bottle he was holding. “Then I’ll help you into there.”

“Stay here,” he ordered again. It took only a few seconds to put them on the small bedside table and fold back the covers on the bed. He returned and slowly escorted her to the bedroom, she holding onto his arm for support.

Sarah sat down on the edge of the bed. “I’ve been putting myself to bed for a long time, Cowboy. I think I can take it from here.” She still wore the clothes she had borrowed from him earlier in the evening. “Or not.” She laid her head against the pillow, but her feet were still on the floor. “I don’t know what’s in those pills, but they work pretty darn fast.” Her speech was already slowing and slurry.

Sherlock got the rest of her onto the bed then sat on the edge.

“We made them laugh tonight, didn’t we?” she said, quietly

“Yes, we did,” he answered. “Is that important to you?”

“Of course it is.”

“Why?” He unbuttoned the cuffs of the shirt that she wore.

“Because…it’s creates an echo in time.” Her voice was so soft; he had to lean in to listen. “Even years from now, should the memory of what we did tonight come to mind, it will still bring a smile with it…and the person remembering will feel a little better, if only for a moment. And that’s a good thing.”

“Like the way you feel when you remember George Harrison looking up and smiling at you fifty years ago?”

Sarah’s eyes were closed but a smile spread across her face. “Yeah. Just like that.”

Sherlock loosened the necktie she had on and pulled it over her head. He unbuttoned the top two buttons of her shirt.

“Are you undressing me, sir?” she asked groggily.

“Of course not,” Sherlock answered, defensively. “I’m just making you more comfortable.”

“Oh, good. Cause if John came in and caught you, he’d be…perplexed.”

“I’m afraid where I am concerned,” said Sherlock, “John is perpetually perplexed.”

“Perpetually perplexed,” repeated Sarah.

“Oh too late,” said Sherlock. “I hear him on the stairs.”

“Did you call him?” Sarah asked, accusingly.

“No.”

“Sherlock!” I called out as I opened the door to the flat. “It’s only me. Mary forgot her purse. I’ll just get it and pop out”

Sherlock stood up from the bed and walked to the bedroom door. “Would you come in here, please, John?”

“What’s the matter?” I asked as I entered the bedroom.

“Sarah’s experiencing some rather intense pain tonight. I think you should take a look at her.”

Sarah had been on her right side but she rolled onto her back as I sat down on the bed. “It’s better, now,” she said. “Still hurts, but not stabbing like a few minutes ago. I think it was just from playing tonight.”

I gently palpated different areas of her abdomen, watching for her reaction. “I shouldn’t have let you play at all.”

“I don’t think you could have stopped me. Owww!”

“Have you taken any medication tonight?” I hoped she would answer in the affirmative since that would explain her slurred speech and slowed reaction time. I probed carefully the area where she hurt the most.

“Sherlock made me take two.”

“Sometimes he gets things right,” I said. “Why do you have your shoes on in bed?”

“He was undressing me. I don’t think he got that far. It’s a good thing you came in, John. I think he was going to take advantage of me.”

“What? Jesus, Sherlock!” I turned and looked in disgust at Sherlock who still stood by the bedroom door.

“She’s kidding, John,” he said.

I turned my attention back to Sarah, who said, “I’m kidding, John. Don’t be perplexed.”

I took off her shoes and set them on the floor by the bed. “Maybe you should postpone going home tomorrow. Wait a few more days.”

“No, I need to get home,” she said slowly. “I’m all right.”

I leaned in close and whispered to her. “You’re not all right, Sarah. And you know it. You need to admit that to yourself.” I straightened up then stood and looked at Sherlock. “I don’t think there’s any internal hemorrhaging. But if the pain worsens or if her temperature elevates, get her to hospital immediately.” I leaned over and took Sarah’s hand. “Goodnight, Sarah. That was a good show the two of you put on tonight, even if you shouldn’t have played.”

“We made you laugh, didn’t we?”

“Of course you did,” I said.

“Remember,” she said quietly.

I went back into the living room and picked up Mary’s purse where she had left it by the couch. I reached the door when Sherlock grabbed my arm. “What’s wrong with her, John?”

I could feel the anger I’d been holding in for days, rising from my gut and exploding into my head. “You’re what’s wrong with her, Sherlock! You and you’re bloody disregard for your own life and the lives of others. Her suffering and…and her pain are because of you. You put her in that situation without any thought of what the consequences might be. Every time she cries out in pain, you can take satisfaction in knowing that you are the one who caused it. It’s all on your head, Sherlock. So put that in your sociopathic pipe and smoke it.” I pulled free of his grasp and slammed the door behind me.

I stood on the landing, my breath coming in short gasps. I fully expected him to come through that door and knock me down the stairs. Instead I heard some thuds and imagined him sweeping his arms across the desk, knocking books and newspapers and possibly even a laptop or two across the room. A crash and the sound of breaking glass meant he had thrown something against the wall. I clenched my fists and exhaled, then put my hand on the doorknob. I waited during a few moments of silence before I deemed it safe to open the door. Sherlock stood rigid by his desk, his back to me. Just as I had envisioned, papers and books lay strewn over the floor. “Redecorating?” I asked.

“Leave me alone, John.” His voice was hoarse.

“Sherlock, I…uh…I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said what I said.”

“Go home, John. Mary’s waiting in the car.”

“Yeah. Right. Well, I’ll be round in the morning to see Sarah to the airport, if she’s able. Goodnight, mate.”

A few minutes after I had left, Sherlock returned to Sarah’s bedside to check on her and found her still awake. “Those meds should have kicked in by now. You should be asleep.” Sarah’s eyes were open and Sherlock thought she looked more alert now than she had been when he put her to bed.

“I heard voices and…sounds. Were you and John fighting?”

He ignored the question and sat down on the bed. “Is the pain keeping you awake?”

“No, it’s about the same as usual.”

“Then why aren’t you asleep?”

“I can’t. I…I don’t know. I haven’t felt like this before. I can’t close my eyes. My heart is racing. I…I’m afraid that if I go to sleep tonight, I won’t wake up.”

Sherlock took one of Sarah’s hands in his. He could feel her trembling. “Nothing’s going to happen to you, Sarah. Why are you so scared tonight?”

“Something John said when he was in here.”

Sherlock turned his face away from her. “John’s a fool.”

“Don’t say that. He’s your friend, your best friend. And he’s right about what he said to me.”

He looked back at her and squeezed her hand. “John is an excellent doctor. He knows medicine and surgery and all sorts of medical stuff, but he doesn’t know you, Sarah. He doesn’t know that you’re a fighter, that you’re a survivor. He doesn’t know how strong you are. He doesn’t know that when bad times come and all the other salamanders are giving in and growing up and becoming air breathers, that my Sarah sees adversity as just another adventure.”

“Just before you came back in, I tried to tell myself that. I tried to convince myself that it didn’t matter if I did die tonight. Death is really the greatest adventure of all, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but you’re not going to die tonight.”

“How can you know that? Because you’re Sherlock Holmes?”

“No, because you’re Sarah Dunkirk. Now, I want you to close your eyes and sleep. Here.” He dug the worry stone out of his pocket and closed it in her left hand. “Keep this in your left hand and I will hold your right hand and I will stay right here beside you all night if you want me to.”

“You don’t have to do that.” Her breathing had slowed and her voice had calmed. “But would you stay until I’m asleep?’

“Of course.”

“And maybe since I took a double dose tonight, I’ll make it all night without having to take more.”

Sherlock continued to hold her hand and waited until she was asleep before drawing the covers over her. He switched off the lamp beside the bed and retreated to the couch in the living room where he had been sleeping every night since she had moved in to his bedroom. He unbuttoned the top button of his shirt but remained in the clothes he had worn all evening. He stretched out on the couch but sleep eluded him as he replayed John’s harsh words in his mind. He must have finally drifted off because he awoke to the sound of Sarah crying out.

It had been the same for the past eleven nights. During the day she seemed to manage the pain, but at night it would intensify. The medication wore off by about three o’clock every morning. Evidently taking a double dose had not helped and the evening’s exertion had made it worse tonight. Careful to not step on the broken glass, he filled a glass of water in the kitchen and went in to her and set the glass down on the bedside table next to the glass that was half-full and the medicine bottle.

Sarah was on her right side in a fetal position, whimpering. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I tried not to wake you.”

He felt her forehead; there was no fever. “Did you take your pills?”

“Yes, a few minutes ago.

“Are you sure? Two of them?”

“Yes, they just haven’t taken effect yet. Go back to bed. I’ll be all right.”

But he did not return to the couch until she fell asleep. He sat on the bed beside her and gently rested a hand on her head, occasionally stroking her hair.

The next morning, Mrs. Hudson fixed a big breakfast for Sherlock and Sarah and joined them to eat it. I arrived just as Mrs. Hudson was heading back downstairs afterwards. The mess from Sherlock’s temper tantrum had been cleared away and Sarah had returned to the bedroom to finish packing. When she came out to the living room, Sherlock was standing by the window and I was sitting in my favorite chair.

“I left the suitcase and my bag on the bed since I’m not supposed to lift over five pounds,” Sarah said. The previous night’s pain episode had apparently passed and she appeared fit enough to travel.

“I’ll take it down for you,” I said, “when your ride gets here. “Sherlock said Mycroft was sending a car. You don’t mind if I come see you off?”

“Oh, not at all,” said Sarah.

Sherlock turned away from the window and clicked something on the laptop on his desk. He looked at Sarah who was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. “Do you think you’re well enough to dance one more time with me before you leave?”

“Now?”

“When will we have another chance?”

“Well, make it a slow one. I don’t think I should have played quite so…exuberantly...last night.”

The sound of The Byrds singing My Back Pages filled the room.

“Oh, I think I will get your bags and head on downstairs,” I said, making a hasty exit. I do not think either of them even heard me.

“Another ‘60’s song?” asked Sarah, taking Sherlock’s hand in hers.

He put his hand on the small of her back and drew her closer than he had when they had danced at her house. “It’s the music you grew up with.”

“It’s the music before you were born.”

“It’s still good music.”

“It’s not really slow enough, though.”

“Don’t move your feet,” Sherlock said. “Just…just move.”

“May I ask you a question?” asked Sarah as they swayed gently to the music.

“I’d rather you wouldn’t.”

“But I’d like to know.” She raised her head and looked in his eyes. “Why did you wait until the last day to come to see me in the hospital?”

Sherlock turned his head away from her gaze. He did not answer immediately, but finally said, “Because I was angry. I was so very angry.”

“With me?”

“With you. With me. With…the world.”

“That’s a lot of anger.”

“That bullet had my name on it.”

“No, I don’t think so,” said Sarah. “I never actually saw it, but I’m pretty sure that bullet was not inscribed with your name or my name or anyone’s name. I shoved you because you didn’t see the guy and then I didn’t get out of the way in time. It’s as simple as that.”

“And how could I tell my father that the very person who saved his life died because of me?”

“But I didn’t die. Sherlock, look at me.” She turned his face back toward her. “It wasn’t your fault. And I didn’t die. I’m right here.”

“But you will carry the scars forever.”

“Scars are a testament to our lives. Their very presence means that we survived.”

“But the damage that bullet did…you will have to live with that for the rest of your life.”

“I’m alive, Sherlock. And I’m going home. I will still be able to work on my music project. I can still write my books. I can still go for long walks in the woods with Scout. I can sit in front of the fire on a cold, winter’s night and remember… What’s a little discomfort and… inconvenience… against all that?”

“But who will be there for you in the night when you cry because the pain is so bad?”

The song continued to play and the two of them continued to move together. Finally Sarah spoke. “Did I tell you there were angels there when I got shot?”

“Angels?” His tone was more than slightly derisive.

“They were all around and they were…scary. I think I could hear you talking, but I was watching them. They had swords of fire and then the swords morphed into machine guns and they were all wearing those bandoliers, you know, those sashes with bullets in them. In the Bible whenever angels appear, the first thing they always say is, “Fear not.” I know why they say that now because they were…frightful, terrifying beings.”

“Your brain was getting very little oxygen at that point.”

“You’re saying I didn’t really see them. But maybe they were there so you wouldn’t have to tell your father I died.”

The last notes of the song faded away but Sherlock still held her close, and they still moved. From down below, Mrs. Hudson called up, saying there was a limo parked outside.

“Sherlock,” Sarah said softly. “The music stopped.”

“I know.”

“I have to go. I have a plane to catch.”

You’re the only passenger. I doubt it will leave without you.”

She stopped moving and stepped back from him. “Thank you for…for everything.”

Sherlock picked up a small package on the desk. “Here. This is for you. I found it in the antique shop down the street.”

“Wait. I’ve been here all this time and you didn’t think to mention that there was an antique shop just down the street? How could you have been in my house and not know that I like antiques?”

“I do know that you like antiques. But now we have some place to go when you return to London for a visit. And remember, we didn’t get a chance to explore my highlights of the city either. Go ahead. Open it.”

Sarah took the lid off the box and smiled. A figurine about five inches long lay nestled in some silk. “It’s a salamander,” she said, smiling.

“Larger than life, of course,” said Sherlock as Sarah removed it from the box and examined it. “It’s carved from an antler, from a Roe deer I believe.”

“And you can tell what kind of deer this came from just by looking at it. How many people can do that?”

“I’m Sherlock Holmes. It’s my job,” he said with a wink. “I thought it resembled one of your Grotto Salamanders. But it must be an adult one. No gills. And no eyes.”

“I don’t care,” said Sarah. “I love it. Thank you.” She replaced it in the box.

“Maybe you should keep it on your mantel as a reminder.”

“Of what?”

“Of what happens if you ever decide to become an air breather.” He reached for something else on the desk. “Oh, and my brother Mycroft sent this over for you.” He handed Sarah a large manila envelope.

She opened the flap and peered inside. “It’s money…cash,” she said. “Bills. Big Bills. American. There’s a lot of money in here, Sherlock.”

“I don’t know why cash. Probably because it’s harder to trace. But he thought you might not feel like writing for a while. And since you’ll be back in America, there will probably be some extra medical expenses you weren’t counting on.”

“I can’t take this.”

“Oh, take it,” said Sherlock.

“But you’re the one who’s been out of pocket all this time, taking care of me. You’ve haven’t been able to work on a proper case. Here, you take it.” She shoved the envelope in his hands, but he refused it.

“It’s yours,” he said.

“But he’s already paid for everything and…and has flown me here and back in a private jet. Why would he give me all this?”

“He probably thinks he has a debt to pay. He’s peculiar that way.”

“I’m glad to know that peculiar doesn’t run in the family.”

“Not at all,” said Sherlock, smiling. “You’d think Mrs. Hudson would get tired of yelling after a while.”

The landlady had called their names several times from the bottom of the stairs.

“I’d better go. Oh, and…” She reached into her pocket and pulled out the worry stone. “You left this in my bed last night. You might need it.” Sherlock took it and slipped it into his pocket.

“Good-bye, Cowboy.” Sarah stretched to kiss him on the cheek.

“Good-bye, Auntie Sarah.” And he returned the kiss on her cheek where the second bullet had creased it.

“You sure you don’t want to come to the airport to see me off?”

Sherlock shook his head no. “John will keep you company. But you will return?”

“I don’t know. I keep thinking about what Linda Ronstadt sings in that Stone Poneys song: We'll both live a lot longer if you live without me.”**

“Oh, but where’s the adventure in that?”

“Good-bye, Sherlock. I hope you never become an air breather.”

And, as far as I know, that was the last time that Sherlock Holmes and Sarah Dunkirk saw each other. Their timelines had crossed three times. Once thirty-six years ago, before Sherlock was even born, and a second time just over two months ago, and the third time just now. On the way to the airport and the plane that Mycroft had provided for her, she confessed that she had a theory about the events that had transpired to bring the two of them together. She had not shared it with Sherlock and she was hesitant to tell me because she thought it sounded too mystical, but I persuaded her.

“You know what I think?” she said. “I think…I believe…that our souls—Sherlock’s and mine— knew each other before…in the past. Maybe we’ve known each other many times in the past. But this time around, we were…incarnated out of sync…different time, different generations, thousands of miles apart. But somehow deep inside of us, I believe our souls still recognize each other. And maybe that’s why our lives have crossed, beginning with his father in Iran. The universe kept trying to bring us together, but it just wasn’t meant to be. Too many variables this time.”

“So why didn’t you tell him that?” I asked.

“Oh, I don’t think Sherlock would go for the whole soul thing.”

“But I heard him tell you that first night when you arrived in London. He said there were no coincidences.”

She smiled and leaned her head back against the upholstered seat of the limo. “Dr. Watson, how long do you think I’ll live with…whatever is wrong inside me?”

I had seen the surgical reports, the scans, all of the tests results. I was the one who had told her the prognosis while she was still in hospital. Patient confidentiality had prevented me from telling Sherlock and I don’t know if she had discussed it with him either, although it was obvious he had deduced something was seriously wrong. I had to look away and clear my throat several times before I could answer. “I don’t know. How long do you want to live?”

“Forever. And then…start all over.”

* Words by Paul Simon, 1969. Copyright: Paul Simon Music

** Words by Mike Nesmith, 1965. Copyright: Screen Gems-emi Music, Inc.

*** Words by Bob Dylan, 1964. Copyright: Special Rider Music

Quotes of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

1 The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle

2The Adventure of the Speckled Band

3 The Crooked Man