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It was raining that time. Albert couldn't forget the thunderous sound of the drops that had flooded the road. He couldn't forget the sound of sirens and the shouts of those barking orders. He couldn't forget the image of his younger brother's car, which had fallen into that infernal crevice, causing him to lose control. However, William wasn't found inside the vehicle or anywhere in the vicinity. They had said that his body had probably been thrown forward and went flying through the windshield, as the scene indicated. So where was the body?
Albert was in shock. He couldn't hear when people spoke to him or when the police tried to offer him a glimpse of comfort.
It kept raining.
This complicated things because it was ruining the entire scene, but not completely, since Albert noticed the drops of blood that were already being erased, swallowed by the merciless water. He didn't understand anything. How could William walk with those wounds? How didn't he lose consciousness?
Albert walked following the trail. The streams of blood were large, already being blurred by the time he saw them, as if somehow the universe wasn't cruel enough to let William die at the mercy of abandonment and never find his body. But it wouldn't be like that, since Albert would be capable of cutting down that entire forest if it meant finding his beloved brother.
After a few minutes of walking, the trail disappeared. He felt like his heart was going to collide inside his chest. He could barely breathe. The water had already soaked him from head to toe, but he didn't stop searching. He kept sweeping his gaze around the surroundings, trying to penetrate the darkness with his phone's flashlight, which would probably soon break from getting wet.
"What are you doing at such late hours of the night here, young man?"
Turning his head, Albert noticed an old man with a hat under the immensity and beauty of an oak tree with branches so leafy they prevented the water from penetrating. Even so, the hat had a wide brim and protected him from the rain. He had heavy wrinkles on his face and smoked a cigar that he chewed with pleasure.
"There was an accident a few meters down..." His voice trembled. "I'm looking for my brother."
The old man nodded and then sighed. Despite the thunder and roars of the sky, Albert heard him perfectly. Almost as if it had been done in his ear, making his being shudder with an icy wind. It seemed like the sigh of someone who knew this scenario that kept repeating itself. It seemed like the sigh of someone who already knew the outcome.
"You're not going to find him, son," he said with such conviction that Albert felt his soul freeze, his breathing torn to shreds, and the strength in his legs would soon abandon him. "Let him go. Your brother stopped being of this world since he met that scoundrel."
Who? What was this man talking about? Had he actually seen William and wasn't able to help him?
He clenched his fists. He had a knot tangled in his throat. So he was probably crying. Or so he thought. Because his eyes burned, and so did his heart.
"I need to bury a body. Or I'll be searching for him my whole life because I'll have hope that he's still alive."
The old man closed his eyes and took several minutes to respond. Albert turned to leave, every second could be a ticking clock for William, before the old man's voice made him stop.
"Walk uphill about ten meters and cross to the right, in an arch of trees where my café stands. You'll probably find him there. That boy always comes to visit him. And if you don't find your brother, you'll find that scoundrel, who can help you."
"You know William?" Albert asked. "Who...?"
But he couldn't finish. At that moment, there was a lightning bolt that illuminated the darkness over the dejected night, creating an incandescent silver beacon that flickered, driving away the sweep of night for a few seconds. Albert looked up, and when he returned his attention to the old man, he was no longer there. He didn't understand anything he had said, he seemed to speak of nameless people, but at the same time knowing perfectly well who he was referring to.
He had no time for distractions. If there was someone who could help him find William, then he would seek them out.
He ran like he had never done in his life, praying like he had never done in his twenty-seven years, of which he barely knew a prayer or two. The only thing he asked of God, from the bottom of his heart, was:
"Please, God, let me find him and say goodbye to my brother. Please, let me thank him for everything he did for me. Please, let me wash his wounds and put on his favorite suit. Please, let him be illuminated by candles and, his ears that can no longer hear, receive prayers for his soul. Please, let a priest bless his body and ask you to receive him in your kingdom. Please, please, please; let me find him."
Albert bit back tears fiercely and tasted the metallic flavor of blood dancing in his throat. Just as the old man had indicated, there was a crossroads that led to a procession of trees that swirled around, and the skeleton of an abandoned café rose with a funereal air.
He found the trail again, a pool of blood that was also barely recognizable due to the water and this accelerated his heart. He quickened his steps toward the café, trying to understand the intricate threads that were William's actions and how he had walked so far, given the gravity of what his wounds indicated, perhaps in delirium, without realizing it, to get there.
He circled the place. He entered the café only to find a deserted establishment surrendered to the harshness of crime: fallen stools, broken tables, debris everywhere, dust weaving transparent veils, glass fragments. There was a desolate silence that wasn't penetrated by the rain. Albert stood absorbed for a few minutes, as if something were gripping his throat, before a lightning bolt shook the sky and momentarily brought him out of his trance. Only when he came out and because he heard the old man's voice did everything end.
Albert found William, not knowing if it was a blessing or a misfortune, lying in front of two crosses that time seemed to dress with black tears and with names carved on their surface. William was holding one in particular, filling it with his own blood. Albert hadn't read at that moment what name was on the cross, he would discover it later when he would have to know details about that character.
The old man was kneeling in front of his brother, who had scratches on his face, on his hands, had torn shoulders, and the mortal wound: on his side where his life finished draining, leaving beneath him a scarlet flower as if it were a bed of roses.
William was smiling, and that was the worst part of it all. He left as he always was.
"I'm very sorry, son. He bled to death. I don't think he suffered." He paused, sighing. "Sherlock Holmes, this is your fault."
Albert didn't pay attention to him, kneeling down, taking him in his arms to give him a warmth he still had, despite the weather, and cursed his luck for having arrived late.
He didn't know if the noise that extended for minutes was from the storm, its roar, the crackling of the roof, or... his voice, hurling screams into the air for a death that the world would mourn.
He never saw again the old man who had been his guide and who stayed by his side until help arrived. Only when the ambulance took the body away did he examine the cross that was left with bloodstains.
Sherlock Holmes.
The tragedy was a shock that affected not only academics mourning how a brilliant mind was extinguished before its time, but also spread by contagion to the London populace who depended on gossip to relieve the weight of boredom.
The premature departure of the talented genius William James Moriarty, caused by the negligence of the state authorities who never paved that road connecting the peaceful town of Durham Hill with the bustling city of London, surrounded by century-old trees that formed a dark and enclosed forest.
They spoke of his achievements like a dream, of a man too young to have so many titles and a wall decorated with golden-ink diplomas. William won the Abel Prize at fifteen, wrote the admirable and unrepeatable essay on Asteroid Dynamics at eighteen, and became a professor at twenty-two.
In local universities, a week of mourning was proclaimed, flags were lowered to half-mast outside, and there were several gatherings that released lament to the sky with white balloons bearing the name of William James Moriarty: that sweet professor who taught so many minds atrophied by insecurities.
London seemed to gather at the funeral, turning the facilities into a sweltering heat where people could barely move without bumping into each other. Albert and Louis received so many flower wreaths, from as many organizations as students, that they had to leave some outside since they were attracting swarms of insects.
The coffin was open the first day, displaying William's immortal beauty. They had reconstructed his face, and the cuts from the accident weren't visible. Some women wept for his departure, and young people fainted on the floor, victims of their torment. Jack, the master and butler of their house, took charge of opening a security perimeter to avoid some scandals and also protect the deceased's safety. Louis and Albert maintained themselves in a line of suspension where barely a tear escaped them, their backs straight and countenances that, while shadowed by that profound sadness, received so many condolences that "thank you" had become an automatic word on their lips.
They were raised with the rigor of controlling their emotions, also due to their own pride, so cry they did; but under the shelter of solitude, without bothering anyone.
At the close of the first day, when they were already dismissing visitors, they received a peculiar visit.
It was a man wrapped in immortal languor, with broad shoulders and a shadow under his eyelids that gave the sensation he hadn't slept in years. He crossed the threshold with a bouquet of white flowers and left it next to the wall of wreaths, which was already a beautiful garden, before approaching the brothers.
Albert didn't recognize him at first, nor when he spoke.
"I am called Mycroft Holmes, I would like to present my condolences," the man greeted and made a deep bow to Louis and him, who nodded with practiced modesty to all those who lamented William's death.
"Sherlock Holmes, this is your fault," that phrase returned to Albert at the crucial moment, and he frowned slightly.
Holmes. His heart tightened in his chest. That surname already seemed like the sound of a heavy omen.
"I would like to have a moment with one of you, if you permit me, to speak about the man I knew in the same place where he died."
Albert bristled like a cat. Could it be that finally someone could shed light on that mystery of why William decided to honor to that grave in a desolate and decrepit café, touching a cross bearing a name he couldn't place?
He had searched William's room for clues and found some newspapers pinned to his wall. Some mentioned a young man named Sherlock Holmes who had won an academic prize for inventing a solution capable of recovering blood traces on already cleaned surfaces, no matter how small; there were also other less honorable events, like a rising young man with a promising future who threw his life away to drug and alcohol consumption; and finally, the chemical genius leaves his legacy in his only invention and falls into oblivion in that tragic accident. Only five people attended his funeral, and the greed of forgetfulness took care of the rest.
That revelation left more questions than answers. Where did William meet this Sherlock Holmes? He never mentioned a glimpse of that man, whose black and white photograph he had cut from the newspaper and put in a picture frame. Albert remembered that image, and the man standing before him undoubtedly had familiar features.
Louis and Albert didn't want to touch anything their brother left behind, displaying that portrait on his desk, next to his notes, imagining William alone in that room under the yellowish light of a lamp observing the photo of a stranger he had rescued from an old newspaper. They sealed the room until they had the strength to go through it and only entered to look for clothes with which he would go to the family tomb.
With the grace of controlling his emotions so no one would perceive the turmoil that was his blood, having trained his expression with such mastery, Albert stood up.
"We can talk outside, please." He turned toward Louis who, although he maintained an iron posture, the crimson arch of his eyes betrayed his internal pain. "I'll be right back. We don't want William to feel alone."
And he looked toward the coffin where his brother's remains rested, still preserving a smile that had shattered the forensic doctor's nerves, because it definitely seemed like he was just sleeping. William had always said that, if unfortunate events took him from this world, three of his organs would be donated to save lives when his was extinguished. They fulfilled that wish.
Closing his eyes to escape his own thoughts, Albert followed the steps of that suited man to a hallway where they served coffee and there were some students who cried and talked about how William failed them without mercy.
"You will tell me how I can be useful to you," he began, after politely declining an offer to sit.
"I lament your loss, Mr. Moriarty, and I couldn't understand you better; for I too lost a younger brother, almost under the same conditions as yours."
Albert received this information with a slow blink.
"Sherlock Holmes?"
"Sherlock Holmes." Mycroft Holmes nodded. "He died a couple of years ago."
"What relationship did my brother have with yours?"
Mycroft shook his head.
"They didn't know each other. At least, not in life."
"What do you mean?"
Sighing, the man only extracted from his finger a skull ring that seemed to have once been an artisanal silver beauty and was now only a metallic band that promised to spray the skin beneath it black with perennial oxidation.
"This isn't the moment to talk about it, perhaps I'll do so later. This ring belonged to my brother. I had thought of giving it to yours when I saw him constantly visiting the place where my Sherly's soul cannot find peace. Your brother told me he was able to see him, and I believe him. He also told me he would have wished to know Sherlock and that he had fallen in love with death." He bowed again in a petition that was bold, coming from a stranger. "I would like William James Moriarty to take my brother's ring to his sepulcher. I want to believe he would have liked to have it."
"Don't bow so much," Albert asked with a gentle voice, no longer having strength to cry as those words barely disturbed something in the turbulent waters of his pain. "I'll do it. William died touching that cross." He remembered how he found him. He remembered the rain. The scattered blood and William lying on the ground in a scarlet puddle. "It barely seems possible that he arrived alive at that place, but he did. Until the last moment, he was thinking of him."
And so Albert, under the protection of a veil that he requested from Bond and Fred, family friends who were tied to the infernal mourning they could barely control, placed the ring on William's finger. He had noticed that Mycroft wore it on his index finger, so he did the same.
Louis didn't ask at the moment, he would do so later, when he requested details about that man, information that Albert wouldn't deny him. Leaving that aside for a moment, Louis took advantage of them opening the coffin to remove the rosary that was intertwined in his hands and place a mathematics book under them.
"This will guide the journey," Louis said.
Albert's tears betrayed him at those words. He touched William's cold hand and smiled at him with the most broken expression his face could engender. He quoted a passage from a book, knowing that his brother loved them and that there was no greater honor than bidding him farewell with literature.
"To sleep. Perchance to dream. To die is to close one's eyes and open the spirit, isn't it, William?"
From that moment until they closed the coffin forever, walking through the streets with a mantle of rose petals and whitish balloons that the crowd released with messages of affection for the professor, William wore the skull ring on his finger.
The first weeks were stormy. The empty room. Books scattered in different places with half-finished readings, exams in folders in the living room, and William's presence so present that Albert felt he could call him and he would answer.
But it wasn't so.
He endured the pincers of his pain to be with Louis, who had cried in the light of no one when cleaning William's study and had been found in a corner unable to control his weeping; both embracing and shedding that lament they hadn't been able to, because they were still in the denial stage.
Their close friends stayed for a while in their home, keeping them company, distracting them, doing everything reasonably possible to appease the incalculable void left by William's premature departure. Fred had been hovering around Louis trying to use some ideas to spread a bit of tranquility to his heaviness. He began helping him in the kitchen, the butler Jack invited him to take occasional outings because the brothers had locked themselves in that mansion too large for three people and now even more so for two, wishing to protect the remains of William's traces, as if this way they could capture his essence forever.
Albert, for his part, locked himself in his office. He would curl up on the floor when exhaustion overcame him, crushed by memories of his brother, crying without respite over the now cold remains in the family crypt, wishing to go with him to keep him company because all of them had the curse of being infected with solitude. And now the thought that William was in that bed of roses, alone, with no one to read him his favorite book or share good tea, tormented him greatly.
He barely ate or slept, working to distract his mind and even losing weight, always staining his documents with tears that he had to reprint to be able to sign them. He had taken Sherlock's portrait from William's room and somehow engender a silent hatred toward that character, because of his own lament. Someone had to be to blame, didn't they? Or was it his for having allowed William to go teach in that rural area where beyond there was a town when rain had been forecast on TV?
Louis also tried to offer him a kind of comfort, watching that he ate three times a day, or at least twice, to fill his stomach and push the energies a bit. He said nothing when he observed the portrait on the living room table, and it was there when he revealed:
"He was at the university where I graduated. I went to his funeral. I recognized his brother when he came to William's funeral. What exactly did he tell you?"
Albert looked up and sketched a sad smile.
"Apparently everyone knew them except me."
Louis offered no more details, adjusting his glasses when he added:
"I didn't know that William knew him. Mr. Holmes, I mean." Realizing he wasn't being specific, he made a gesture with his face to point to the black and white photo. "Him."
"He didn't," Albert corrected, and seeing his little brother's question manifest in the arch of his blond eyebrows, he continued offering the scant information he knew. "I don't understand it either, but the day we found William with the broken-down car, he saw something he didn't tell us about." He observed Sherlock's portrait. "'He found death and fell in love with it,'" he repeated the words that Holmes had left burning in his consciousness.
That was all he could understand. William must have found something and pursued it to a place where they couldn't go. The only thing left for them was emptiness, because truly living without William was hell.
A month after William's death, on a Sunday morning when Albert was reading the newspaper and barely making an effort to read the printed letters, he received a peculiar visit.
He was exhausted from false condolences. He was sick of the fraudulent empathy over true feelings, as if they were spitting with their hypocrisy on William's body that was still whole in that coffin.
The announcement of who it was barely extracted any surprise from him. His natural gentleness and languid ways of changing expressions would always be virtues, but also a lack of spirit to his soul.
Mycroft was in the visitors' room, bringing with him three roses of different colors: white, blue, and red. A bag was also in his hand, and Albert already imagined it would be other condolence gifts that he wouldn't hesitate to throw in the trash. To his next surprise, it wasn't so. None of that was destined for him, and Mycroft only brought a voice of strong tenor, his world-weary smile, and his presence.
"I hope I'm not bothering you, Mr. Moriarty, but I wanted to stop by and greet you."
Albert nodded and sat across from him, in those furniture whose leather upholstery was gleaming under the tears of light that rained from the ceiling.
"Don't worry, I wasn't doing much." He didn't want to be discourteous, but Mycroft's presence caused great intrigue. "To what do I owe your visit on this Sunday?"
"I've only come to leave you this." He extracted from that bag a package that had some scribbles on its surface. "It's Assam tea, I recommend you add milk. It will help you sleep."
It wasn't an anomaly to do so with tea, being pure-blooded Englishmen, but there was something in that man's tone that seemed to carry a second intention. Mycroft seemed to read his expression and gently narrowed his eyes. He gave him a small smile.
"I also lost my younger brother, I told you before," he whispered, losing that resolute nuance. "I know what you're feeling."
Master of his emotions, knowing his hands were trembling but without losing control, Albert felt himself bite his lower lip.
"How do you bear it?" was Albert's question without realizing it, before noticing his lapse and hurrying to correct himself. "I mean, forgive my words."
"Don't apologize," Mycroft interrupted him gently. "I ask myself the same thing sometimes."
And then, he sketched the most afflicted smile that Albert could have ever seen on a face that seemed to have hardened with time, resigned to circumstances and adding a mute sadness that still bled.
Mycroft stood up and put his hand inside his jacket to pull out a small card with legible printing on its surface.
"If you wish to speak confidentially, with someone who was also and will be in the same situation as you, you can call me. Besides, I would like..." His voice was interrupted when his blue eyes located the portrait that Albert had left forgotten on one of the foyer tables and hadn't dared to touch because he felt he would smash it to the floor. "Sherly?"
Breaking his aura of repose, Mycroft went to the photograph. The host felt the need to explain the situation.
"William did that. He must have researched your brother," he spoke quickly. "And cut out that photograph."
But his voice didn't seem to reach Mycroft, who used his finger to trace the curve drawn on his brother's lips.
"Before dying, Sherly had lost that smile..." He raised the portrait toward Albert. "If it's not too much to ask, may I keep it before you throw it in the trash?"
At that revelation, Albert blinked. He couldn't have been so obvious with his thoughts and suddenly felt naked under that inquisitive gaze. He cleared his throat and put his hands behind his back.
"I'm afraid I can't, it was William's. I don't want him to turn in his grave because I gave away something precious to him. I can make you a photocopy if you wish."
"How much will you give me for the portrait?"
"You offend me, Mr. Holmes."
"You must understand the traces one pursues of someone who has been lost. I have little left of my brother."
Albert sighed, closing his eyes and then opening them slowly as if he were carrying years of weariness. Before speaking, he read without passion the card that the visitor had previously given him; the surname still caused him a brilliant curiosity that wasn't attenuated by courtesy.
"I'll think about it, but don't get your hopes up. I want to respect what William left behind. On the other hand, since you've dared to come here, I hope you have the desire to give me a bit of honesty," Albert stated, then launched the sting that had been piercing his consciousness so much. "How did you lose your brother, if you permit my boldness? According to the newspaper that William pinned to his wall, it speaks of an accident."
Narrowing his eyes and sighing, Mycroft spoke:
"Exactly. The difference with mine was that accident was caused. Someone cut the brakes on Sherlock's car."
A chill danced down Albert's spine.
"My condolences... Did they catch the culprit?"
"Of course," was his terse and hardened response.
Definitely, the shadow left behind by that character Sherlock Holmes seemed like a real spider web that probably dragged William to the bottom. He needed to know more. Albert realized that man also wanted to talk about it, perhaps to find comfort in the right person. He rang his small bell and Jack appeared again with his profile silhouetted against the window light, whose wrinkled face showed stoic and dignified impermeability.
"Jack, be so kind as to bring us some wine. Tea isn't enough for my companion now."
With a smile, small and evasive, because his soul was still in pieces, Albert accepted the offering of that intimacy of beings who look at each other across the line of reserve and understand they are equals.
The glasses were soon filled. Mycroft didn't take his yet, indecisive, before yielding to the invitation. He observed its contents, swirling that garnet liquid like blood, before taking a sip.
"I see you have mastery in drinking wines," Albert pointed out. "If one must have vices, they should be ones that applaud you because not everyone can have them."
"I've always been a regular client of your vineyard, Mr. Moriarty. It's a fascination I discovered only after my brother died. Before, I didn't drink."
Albert frowned slightly, making no show of any movement other than placing his hand on the shoulder of that stranger who had the stench of solitude... and of one who had lost everything.
"Please, if you can tell me more, I'll be grateful. I can also offer you company."
There was the hint of a smile, which was accentuated in the shadows of that stern face, which the host noticed and understood was pleasant to see.
"I've come to offer mine, but the matter is getting out of hand."
"You can also talk to me."
That last part didn't seem to please the guest, but he considered it necessary to explain. A sigh tangled in that throat from which came a stoic and severe voice, which only yielded its rigor when sadness clouded his words.
"I would like to be able to do so many things that are not possible today, Mr. Moriarty. The only real thing is that my brother was murdered, and due to that accident, the owner of the café where his car crashed also died. I'm in charge of the family in compensation."
There was a heavy silence, and Albert offered a special one to those incorporeal and heavy presences, of those brothers who were no longer there and would hurt for life.
"How is it possible that William knew your brother? I feel terrible that I never knew about it." Albert ended up saying after swallowing several discomforts. "You told me they didn't know each other in life: so how did that happen?"
Before answering, Mycroft had seen the time and decided that the visit should end if he wanted to arrive on time for his commitment.
"I wouldn't know how to explain it, I don't understand it myself; but rumors circulate that my brother's soul and the local owner's appear when it rains. You have the freedom to believe me or not. And it seems to me that your brother must have found mine when his car had the accident."
In other circumstances, Albert would have branded his guest as insane without appeal to even a curiosity out of pity. However, something in that dialogue attracted his attention.
"You mention there was also another deceased."
"That's right."
"Do you happen to have a photograph?" he wanted to know, from a sudden hunch that could change his life forever and irreparably.
After that question, Mycroft observed him gravely. Albert was oblivious to the internal thoughts and how he needed no more explanations, because he was the one most soaked with rumors, pursuing clues in vain, in a desperate attempt to meet his brother. To ask for forgiveness, to embrace him one last time, to be able to say goodbye properly and tell him how much he loved him. That his life went into a bottomless void since he lost him, that he tried to commit suicide in the café only to feel, by a miracle, that a whisper came from the depths of darkness. It was incomprehensible and he could never decipher it, until he felt something wrap around his hands with a breath behind his ear.
Don't do it.
He had turned around suddenly, alarmed, only to find the shadows dancing in spirals.
Only then did he know that his brother was there, alone and abandoned, and he swore that for the days remaining in his life he would keep him company. He had bought the local to let it die under the claws of abandonment, since having it in activity would have eliminated Sherlock's traces.
It was all he had left of him. He wasn't going to lose him again.
After those quick reflections, Mycroft extracted his phone, sliding through the gallery and showed the respective photographs of the identities. Upon seeing them, Albert brought his hand to his lips and, a horror, after iron self-control, tamed his expression.
"That was the man who helped me find William."
There was no surprise in Mycroft. Only a frown and a faint nod, as if he felt envy. Albert could imagine it; now being in his place, he understood the tangle of questions that got stuck between each other.
"Then you can already verify what I've told you, Mr. Moriarty."
Arranging his things to leave, Mycroft put on his hat and gave Albert a smile.
"Thank you for the wine, Mr. Moriarty, you have been pleasant company for my birthday."
That last part tore the host from his perplexity.
"Oh, you should have said so before and I invite you to dinner."
"I appreciate the willingness, but I'm running late to receive my Sherlock's birthday. We were born a day apart."
Albert observed the flowers and now understood their destination.
"Are you going to that place? If so, allow me to accompany you. I wouldn't like William to feel alone."
Returning to that forgotten and inhospitable road, bewitched by watercolor rain that turned the asphalt into a death trap, made Albert's heart tremble.
They reached the area near that concave crack, the very culprit that had caused his younger brother's car to lose control and carry him to that point of no return.
"This is where Will had the accident," he mentioned, his voice stripped of its natural serene composure. "From there, he walked injured to the café. No one can explain how he managed to get there with those wounds. If he had been expected, he wouldn't have bled to death... Or so I wanted to convince myself." He clenched his hands folded in his lap, breathing forcefully in the passenger seat, trying to contain the torrent of emotions. He closed his eyes and then let out a deep sigh. "Who am I kidding? William would have died anyway."
Mycroft drove in silence, his concentration so intense that Albert thought he wasn't listening, until he said:
"...I hadn't even gotten in the car when I received the call confirming Sherly's death. He died on the way to the hospital. The paramedics told me that my name was on his lips and he was asking for forgiveness." His eyes dissolved in a pain that his expression didn't reveal, but Albert knew perfectly well that authoritative control in his character. "I still wonder why he said that. I'm the one who wants to ask for his forgiveness; for not being able to protect him. For not seeing his enemies and for underestimating the danger he had become to himself."
He released a bit of that tangle of anguish, only for a few seconds, from his rigid composure. Before Albert could respond, they arrived at their destination, parking near the entrance of the café where the car's wheels whispered laments against the rough earth.
Being again in front of that barren skeleton, corroded by abandonment and dark inside, provoked an uncomfortable sensation in Albert. Mycroft got out of the car without waiting for him to escape his stupor, going to the back. He watched through the rearview mirror as he took out a broom and some cleaning tools.
Taking a gulp of air, forcing himself to continue, young Moriarty took the bag containing the flowers and, with that courage he rarely managed to awaken, got out of the car. There was a ringing in his ears as his shoes filled with dirt and his breathing quickened when he turned the corner of the café to reach where the crosses of the deceased stood.
There was a third one. Albert dropped the flowers.
William J. Moriarty.
"Did you...?"
Sweeping the leaves that had piled up on the ground, Mycroft nodded silently.
"I came the week after to wash your brother's blood and thought it only right that he should be next to mine." He extracted a handkerchief from his vest and with a splash of soap from a bucket, kneeling to clean Sherlock Holmes's cross. "I apologize in advance if it was presumptuous of me. I met him in this place," he was referring to William. "I didn't think the next time we would meet would be like this."
For the first time, the voice he had maintained at a high pitch for years of an undervalued presence faded into a lamentable sigh, and it was as far as he could go, which Albert interpreted as the weeping of those who don't know how to cry. Not for Sherlock, because he had dedicated so many silent tears without weeping to him, having left them all on the sheets until they dried up; he did it for William, because he had also seen him collapse, in that same place, telling him that he loved his brother and that he wished he had never left the café.
His wish came true.
Recomposing himself, taking on his servile and sensible aura, Mycroft wasn't ashamed of his own trembling but rather stopped being so because, in the end, he was in the presence of someone who also had that crack in his soul. That would never heal. It would always be there, throbbing, bleeding, and would do so more when memories assaulted him on the most silent nights.
Understanding this even without words, Albert crouched down to take a scrubber from the bucket and also soap.
"I'll clean William's," he said with a sad smile. Running his fingers over the name, he added: "It's only been a couple of weeks and it's already dirty..."
"It's the humidity," commented his companion, who was already cleaning the old man's. "It rains a lot in this area."
When they finished, Mycroft entered the café that was always in the shadows and Albert didn't want to follow him, staying in the entrance frame that was terribly fractured. There were traces of small glass fragments still scattered in the corners.
Seeming to find something at the bar counter, next to an ashtray and several cigarette butts showing that someone had smoked there, Mycroft stood observing them.
"Why not renovate this place?" Unable to contain his curiosity, Albert asked. He finally decided to enter, after a deep breath and ignoring the funereal air that was danced there, to sit on one of the stools after placing another spare handkerchief on top to avoid getting covered in dust.
Leafing through the stack of papers, Mycroft responded without looking at him:
"Because I'm afraid they won't have anywhere to go."
Them.
Approaching him and sitting in the adjacent seat, Mycroft extended the letters over the aged wood.
"I think they're letters from your brother."
A shudder tensed in his body upon recognizing, indeed, William's handwriting. Albert was slow to react, taking them with trembling hands, finding that familiarity of the soft spirals that was his brother's calligraphy.
"Yes, it's his handwriting," he confirmed.
Opening a bottle of wine, Mycroft served three glasses. He handed one to Albert and left one on the bar.
" Cheers , Sherly. Happy birthday to me and soon I'll say it for you," he said, raising his own glass toward the other before taking a sip.
"Happy birthday, Mr. Holmes." Albert brought his glass to the man's in celebration to support the toast. "To the years ahead of being the living dead."
Albert also drank because he needed something to warm his throat and release the tension of the knot that obstructed words. He also toasted in the name of the deceased, before saying:
"I should serve a glass to my brother, though he was never a good drinker."
"And Sherly didn't like wine either."
And unable to contain it, despite the funereal stupor they both had from the pain of loss, they smiled at each other. To please him, Mycroft served an extra glass and they left those two between them while they began to chat.
Mycroft revealed that he had always come when he knew it would rain hard, hoping to find the old owner and ask him if Sherlock was well. To ask for details or some miserable pity to know that his brother no longer suffered... Only finding disappointment. He seemed to appear to everyone except him, who most desired to see them.
Not long after, when Mycroft loosened his tie knot a bit and breathed deeply, he observed the pages that seemed like another person there with them, speaking to them through the ink.
"The letters were for Sherly. It makes me happy to know that he loved him. My brother only tasted the worst of this world."
Albert by that time had only read one but nodded. He had already had two glasses of wine and needed a third. While it was William's privacy, if he left them there adrift, was it so they would be found? He took another of the loose letters and read aloud:
"Sherly, because that's what I want to call you even though I already know your real name. You once told me that's what only your friends called you, so I want to keep it. I have discovered your death and also several triggers that led you to drive drunk on that road that was your guillotine, not knowing that they had sabotaged your car's brakes. Perhaps you already know this, because your older brother visits you more than I can allow myself, but he pursued Milverton and gave him his due punishment. That direct and indirect responsible party who drove you mad until he broke you. I visited him in jail and learned that he committed suicide. I was glad of it. Don't be afflicted anymore, that serpent no longer exists. I wish I had known you before and that you had had a friend to confide in. I would like to be able to repeat that dream where I heard you laugh. With that countenance where you found peace and no longer felt pain. I wish I had never left the café, if I had known it would be the last time I would see you. Now, I write these letters hoping that the dead haven't completely gone away and, just as you were aware that your brother visited you, that you also know that I love you; I will love you until I die and can meet you again ." After finishing the reading with his phone's flashlight, Albert tilted his head to look at the one mentioned in the letter. "Who is Milverton?"
"The one responsible. Sherlock unmasked him several times at university and he was expelled for multiple charges: bribery, extortion, abuse toward some women. He was vindictive and Sherlock got overconfident. You can imagine the rest."
Outside, it suddenly began to rain and both residents were inevitably alarmed. The door that Mycroft had recently repaired to prevent vandalism from continuing to wreak havoc in the establishment closed with a whip that made the remaining glass pieces in the windows tremble. Unable to help it, because that whole place had him on edge, Albert felt a fear that had nothing to do with driving back on that road that had taken his brothers' lives.
A hand reached for his. It was thick and warm, and Albert turned to see Mycroft looking at a fixed point ahead, beyond the broken window, where from that distance, the three crosses could be seen. Illuminated by the rays of a sunset that was already retreating.
"Don't be scared. It's them."
"Them?"
Mycroft laughed softly and Albert discovered that apparently he could do so.
"Who else would prevent us from making a return journey in the rain?"
Albert brought his hand to his face and drew a sorrowful expression.
"I'm drinking wine, with a companion I'm just getting to know, in a café haunted by my brother-in-law's ghost and my brother." He laughed bitterly. "I mean, who believes that?"
There was a laugh that matched his own that came from his companion's lips.
"I stopped looking for an explanation long ago, but I know that Sherly is somewhere in this place. I've pursued every person who has mentioned seeing him and asked for descriptions; I've asked them to tell me what they experienced; I've asked them to talk to me about his personality. It's him, Albert." He used his first name for the first time, looking at him with that crushing conviction of a saint. "My brother is here and probably yours too. Don't be afraid. You yourself saw old George."
Albert couldn't deny that there was a heavy aura in that place.
"What do we do...?"
"Drink this bottle of wine and wait for it to stop raining. There's a sofa in the back that I placed when I stay to sleep here. I also have spare lamps there."
"You really aren't afraid of anything, Mr. Holmes."
Mycroft sketched a smile and stood up, signaling Albert to do the same.
"I'm not afraid of my brother."
Night fell with a veil of water. They sat on that plush piece of furniture that had accumulated a sheet of dust which both shook off with their handkerchiefs, discovering it was comfortable enough to endure a few hours waiting for that merciless rain to subside, rain that howled and left the window frames trembling. They lit some emergency lamps that were indeed hidden behind the bar, illuminating some corners, since the ceiling bulbs seemed to have been pelted by people with nothing better to do. However, Mycroft had forgotten to charge them since the last time, and they were abandoned by light after half an hour.
The warmth of the place also gradually dropped as the weather worsened, leaving an icy breath that startled the pores. Thus, they found themselves under impermeable darkness that was sometimes broken by lightning from the sky, accompanied by the scent of burnt wax and dampness. An intermittent dripping could be heard besides the rain, one that Albert couldn't locate and didn't want to think about.
He noticed no sign of discomfort in Mycroft, who seemed familiar with the environment, making Albert wonder how many times this solitary man, abandoned by the world, had stayed in this place where the atmosphere was so heavy that things might float.
He clasped his hands in his lap, his discomfort evident enough for his companion to chuckle softly.
"The rain doesn't last more than two hours before taking a break. We'll be able to leave during that interval," Mycroft told him, pouring himself another drink.
Taking out his phone, Albert noticed it was already late, not to mention he had no signal.
"I'd prefer not to drive in the dead of night on this road."
"Are you sure you want to wait until dawn?"
Already growing accustomed to the darkness enough to guess Mycroft's expressions, Albert shrugged.
"We have two bottles of wine and, apparently, much to talk about. I suppose we should make ourselves comfortable. It's going to be a long night."
Taking his words to heart, Mycroft stood up to kneel on the furniture and search behind it for a suitcase, which he lifted and placed on the floor in front of them. Albert hid a smile with his hand over his mouth.
"You really have stayed here before. How often do you do this?"
"When I feel I'm forgetting things about him and need to remember them," he clarified in an answer that held much more than it revealed. "You'll understand in time."
Sighing, Albert settled into his coat before feeling a warm embrace in the form of a blanket that his companion placed over him, and he couldn't help but raise an amused eyebrow, only to realize that Mycroft had kept some things in that suitcase to shelter from the cold. There were also pillows, candles, a half-empty bottle of whiskey, and a pack of cigarettes. Albert didn't accept one but watched him smoke in comfortable silence, the silence of allies with many shared intricacies, just like the tendrils of smoke that rose lazily from his cigarette held between his index and ring fingers.
They lit a candle in front of them. To Albert, it seemed worse because it heightened the tension of the place, as if something might emerge from the corners. But he tried to ignore it and let himself be carried away by the scarlet lies of wine.
They talked about their brothers, only about them, while they drank and smoked, paying no attention to how the world outside was falling apart in fragments of water. When the second bottle warmed Albert's thoughts, he wrapped himself completely in the sheet, lying lengthwise with his feet on Mycroft's lap, who suggested there was no problem with that. Albert wasn't one for such actions, nor did he allow himself such informality, but this time, pushed perhaps by exhaustion, his pain, he sent all decorum to hell.
Tears began to flow from his eyes just like the torrential rain outside, and he released a sob muffled by the sound of thunder.
"My dear brother..." he sobbed, bringing his hands to his eyes, pressing his skin as if he wanted to tear it off. "I couldn't save him... I never could..."
Gentle fingers prevented him from hurting himself, and when Albert uncovered his eyes, a handkerchief was before him along with the gaze of a man who, rather than pitying him, cursed the world. Just like him. Albert realized that was exactly what he needed. Not stupid empathy and empty words. He just needed someone to stay by his side, knowing there was nothing to be done or said. Mycroft moved closer to him, helped him sit up, and wrapped his arms around him.
It was one of the few embraces Albert had received and allowed himself since William's death. And he didn't know how much he had wanted it until Mycroft's voice poured into his ears.
"It's a pain that won't go away; you'll have to learn to live with it. It will be in your mornings and when you least expect it. You'll remember him in all things and in insignificant details; but that's okay, because memory is what will keep them alive. Those who forget... they die." He caressed him with small oscillations on his back. "Come with me each time so that, even though we can't see them, even though they think we've lost our minds, they know they have someone who loves them."
Albert pressed his lips together and immersed himself in the warmth of that shoulder, the gentle scent and that aura of dignity that inspired respect. He managed to calm himself, now receiving the last drops of wine while Mycroft told him they were out of reserves.
"We'll have to leave a case hidden here, Mr. Holmes. And better sheets, please."
"I've tried, but they take them away. The only thing I've protected is the Wifi. I forgot to give you the password, in case you need signal."
Albert gestured that it didn't matter, and both sitting on the furniture, he rested his head on his companion's shoulder. A bluish mist surrounded them, as the candle had already burned out, and it was noticeable that dawn was breaking with copper flashes that began to pierce the darkness. Mycroft also leaned against him.
They stayed like that, in silence, for who knows how long until the murmur of insects alerted them to something. The rain had already stopped.
Albert had dozed off a little, and Mycroft woke him up carefully.
"We have to go back," he said with a voice so gentle and so close to his face that it awakened the sleeping beauty.
Mycroft began to collect everything, taking advantage of that gap to leave. Watching his back, Albert decided to ask something that had caught his attention earlier in William's letter.
"Mr. Holmes, that suicide of that Milverton fellow..." he asked almost as if amused, "you caused it, didn't you?"
The question was forceful and straight to the point.
Stopping his actions, Mycroft didn't respond immediately. And that slight tension was all Albert needed to weave the hidden truth. Mycroft turned toward him slowly, and a fierce edge dressed his gaze. He smiled with that edge on the rim of his lip that seemed to give him a villainous air he concealed perfectly.
Albert laughed, narrowing his eyes. He did so by throwing his head back slightly, and his green eyes darkened.
"Good," he said. "Good, I would have done the same."
"I imagined you would."
"It doesn't surprise you."
"I'm not a good person either. Neither was your brother."
Albert agreed with him.
"If you hadn't killed Milverton, William would have."
He stood up beside him, folding the sheet and preparing to leave, collecting everything. Mycroft took a photograph of the wine glasses they had left as an offering to their brothers at the bar.
"I always take photographs of the place when I come, to see if I can catch him," Mycroft revealed, then sighing resignedly. "You can imagine I never get anything."
"Your brother is clearly elusive," Albert commented, already heading toward the exit. "We could install cameras. They catch paranormal events. I'm starting to feel like a ghost hunter."
Mycroft gave him a small smile.
"We'd have to rebuild part of the electrical installation."
"We'll discuss it better in the future."
The door had always been without a latch because it didn't work, so they ventured outside where they breathed humid and feverish air, with mud that Albert knew would get his shoes wet... an idea he didn't like. Mycroft was already storing everything in the car trunk. Before getting into the passenger seat, Albert remembered he had left William's pages at the bar and went back to find them.
He found them without trouble, but what he saw next left him frozen. He was paralyzed for a few seconds before finding his voice.
"Mr. Holmes, come here."
Hearing him, Mycroft returned unhurriedly and joined him.
"Did something happen?"
Pointing toward the spot with a trembling arm, Albert said:
"Mr. Holmes, the glasses... the glasses are empty."
At the bar, where they had left two full glasses as an offering for those who weren't there, now had no content. They didn't even seem to be wet.
Realizing this, Mycroft lightened his expression.
"Cheers, Sherlock, happy birthday. Cheers, William. We'll come back soon."
He placed his hand on Albert's shoulder, and their eyes now linked in that unsettling secret. He pulled him out of his stupor to calm him. It was then that Albert awakened the feeling that William was really there and would protect that place no matter what.
His eyes filled with tears.
"Cheers, my dear brother."
He turned to go toward the exit, getting into the car with his friend and now accomplice, without noticing how two silhouettes were leaning against the door watching them leave.
They smiled, until they disappeared forever.