Fic for colebaltblue: The Taste of Truth, PG

[spacemutineer]

Title: The Taste of Truth
Recipient: colebaltblue
Author: [redacted]
Rating: PG
Characters: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, past John Watson/Mary Morstan, Mrs Hudson, Prof. Moriarty
Warnings: None
Word Count: 25,500
Summary: Two and a half years after Reichenbach Falls, John Watson discovers the magical tree that caused Holmes to fake his death.
Disclaimer: Holmes and Watson live in the public domain; the Lie Tree belongs to Frances Hardinge.

 

          the Fruit
Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal tast
Brought Death into the World…
     — John Milton, Paradise Lost

I must apologise to my readers for the lies I practised upon them in my earlier chronicles. Some were beyond my control: indeed, they were perpetrated upon me by one in whom I had placed my trust. Others, namely those appearing in my narrative of "The Empty House", I perpetrated in full awareness of my own mendacity. I feel that these latter were justified by the circumstances, as putting the so-called Tree of Knowledge before the public could result only in villains seeking to abuse its powers for their personal gain — indeed, the Tree is a great corrupter, causing more damage than could ever be justified by the knowledge it offers. However, since the Tree has already caused so many falsehoods to be loosed upon an unsuspecting public, I feel compelled to set down a true account of the events surrounding Sherlock Holmes' supposed death. The few who read this document may judge for themselves whether I have done good or ill in withholding the truth.

It was the first of December, in the year 1893, when Mrs Hudson summoned me to Baker Street: the blackest day, perhaps, that I had known that year. In the early part of the year, my grief for both my friend Holmes and my wife Mary had become a shabby old coat, familiar and ready-to-hand if not particularly warming, but in autumn, with the publication of the final series of stories, my grief grew fresh and heavy.

Why the publication of the final story should have taken me so profoundly, more than even the act of penning it and sending it to my publisher, I do not know. Perhaps I fancied that while Holmes still lived in the Strand, he might yet step out from its pages and back into my life. Perhaps it was only that the publication of my account of Holmes' death marked the end of an era. But as July's heat inexorably decayed into November's chill, the successive issues of the Strand struck the news-agents' counters with all the relentlessness of a bell tolling. I dreaded the coming publication of "The Final Problem" with sick foreboding, and as the months passed my mood grew steadily lower. Inevitably the first of December arrived, and my account of Holmes' fatal struggle at the Reichenbach Falls became available for anyone with sixpence to read. There was a terrible finality to the occasion, and I greeted the day as if I had, with a stroke of my pen, sealed Holmes' fate myself.

"A sad day, Dr Watson," my newsagent said mournfully, as I bought my morning Daily Telegraph. An open copy of the Strand lay near his stool; he clearly knew what it contained.

"Yes, very," I answered. To my confusion, I saw that the Telegraph was announcing Holmes' death, as if they had not announced it two years before. I knew my editor would be gratified to see the notice — indeed, he had likely passed the news to the Telegraph himself, in hope of greater sales — but I regarded the headline with a wave of bitter sorrow.

"A great man, Mr Holmes was," my newsagent said, as if Holmes had died just that day. "A sad loss to us all."

I could not but agree.

The day was a strange one. My patients were of course more interested in their own maladies than in mine, but several offered condolences on Holmes' death. I accepted them with all the grace I could muster. Holmes' death was not a new grief, but at least I was not alone in my feeling that, with the publication of "The Final Problem", something momentous had occurred.

That evening, when I returned to the newsagent's to buy my evening Gazette, I saw that he was now wearing a mourning band. I duly offered my sympathies for his loss.

"It's for Mr Holmes," he said, as if there were nothing strange in that. "Perhaps you'd like an armband yourself, sir," he suggested, offering me a selection of black crêpe. "Or a band for your hat? On the house, Dr Watson."

I was taken by surprise, and I regret I was overly curt with him. "That won't be necessary, thank you," I snapped. There was something obscenely theatrical about wearing fresh mourning for Holmes, as if I had not been grieving him quietly for years.

The newsagent looked hurt at my rebuff, but turned to his next customer, who under my wondering eye bought both a copy of the Strand and a mourning band to go with it.

"Have you been selling many of those?" I asked.

"All day, sir. Your readers are much cut-up about Mr Holmes' death."

"I see," I said, much disquieted. It was a tribute to Holmes' extraordinary nature that my readers responded so to my account — never mind that they had known of his death for these two years and more. And they did know: my stories never sold better than after the news of Holmes' tragic passing reached England. Nevertheless, there was something otherworldly and fantastic about their reaction.

I passed across my coin and took my evening paper in exchange, returning to the modest rooms above my practice in Paddington, rooms I had once shared with Mary. That evening they felt lonelier than ever without Mary to comfort me for Holmes' loss, nor Holmes to comfort me for Mary's. There was an especial cruelty to losing them so close together, friend and helpmeet in nearly one stroke.

It was for the best that Mrs Hudson's telegram arrived before I was properly settled before the fire; left to my own devices, I would have spent the evening wallowing in my griefs. But I put on my hat to go back out: Mrs Hudson had endured much while we roomed with her, and I had further inconvenienced her with the publication of my stories — it was, after all, her address that was named within them, not my own. While Holmes lived, the stories had been good advertising for his practice, but I fear that after his death, my chronicles became a nuisance to her. Unfortunately, Holmes' final wishes had implored me to continue publishing. I had ceased mentioning Mrs Hudson's address, of course, but desperate supplicants still called at her door, seeking Holmes' assistance.

Thus, I hailed a cab to Baker Street. It was without much surprise that I discovered an ad hoc shrine of flowers and black crêpe erected on the stoop beside Mrs Hudson's door.

"Thank goodness you're here, Dr Watson," she said, when she answered my knock and ushered me inside. "There's something moving about in Mr Holmes' rooms."

It may seem strange that Mrs Hudson summoned me, who had not been her tenant for five years, to deal with intruders in her home. But she had never taken on new tenants after Holmes' death; indeed, Mycroft Holmes paid her not to, wishing her to maintain Holmes' rooms as they were, as a kind of memorial to his brother. It was a peculiar arrangement, but she seemed happy enough with it: in death, Sherlock Holmes was a much easier tenant than he had been in life.

"Inside his rooms? The blackguards!" I exclaimed, turning to take the stairs two at a time. "Can't they leave a woman in peace?"

"It isn't people," she said, coming after me. "I've heard no footsteps. But there's something moving in there, and has been all day."

"Mice?" I asked, although she would hardly have summoned me for mice.

"None in the kitchen, and that's where you'd think they would be," she answered. "It's whispering, too, not just movement. Or I keep thinking it's whispering, but it doesn't seem to be voices, either."

The door to our former rooms was locked; I applied my ear to the keyhole and listened. I heard nothing, but I had not been quiet coming up the stairs; I had likely frightened the occupants into silence. I stood aside and let Mrs Hudson wield the key, then motioned for her to stand back.

"Stand and show yourselves!" I called, as I came through the door.

There was no answer, and I reached for the gas. The sitting room stood empty and silent, much as it had been while Holmes lived. If an intruder had disturbed it, I could not see evidence of it, but it had, after all, been years since I last entered these rooms.

The scent of those shut-up rooms, however, was distinctive and new. I had expected must and damp, or perhaps the distinctive aroma of Holmes' tenure in Baker Street, chemical reagents and shag tobacco. Instead, a cold, medicinal scent filled the room. It reminded me of mint or wintergreen, while not being so pleasant as either.

But I did not pause to investigate the scent, as I could hear the rustling. It came from behind Holmes' bedroom door. Stealthily, I approached and tried the handle, only to find the door locked.

"That's Mr Holmes' own lock, installed before he died," Mrs Hudson said quietly. "And the key lost with him. I've asked Mr Mycroft about replacing it, but he's refused to give his permission. He is very strict that I touch nothing in these rooms. I'm not even to dust in here, nor air them out. You'd think he'd want them kept nice in memory of his brother."

"He never kept them nice while he lived. Did you contact Mr Holmes about the noises? The rustling, the… whispering?" I could hear the whispers, too, just at the edge of my hearing. Not voices, precisely, but perhaps the memory of voices: a thousand voiceless shades, whispering jealously about life. I took a deep breath to clear my head of the fantasy; the cold, minty scent of the room cut deep into my lungs.

"Touch nothing, he said!" Exasperation was clear in her voice. "Leave it exactly as it is."

"This is your home, Mrs Hudson. He surely can't expect you to ignore—"

Again something moved behind the door, a dry susurration. It was maddening that I could hear it but not see it. I tried the door handle again, rattled it in frustration. I wanted that door open.

"I think I know a man who can open this," I said, "but it may take some time to find him. I hope to be back tonight, but it may be late."

Mrs Hudson removed the key to Holmes' rooms from her ring, as well as the latchkey for the front door, and put them into my hand. Both were familiar from the time I had lived there. "Best take these, then, Dr Watson." She gave Holmes' door a worried look. "But is it safe?"

I pressed my ear to the door. Whatever was inside was still now; I could hear nothing.

"Whatever it is, it's locked in just as surely as we're locked out." I put an arm around my former landlady and walked her to the landing, then locked the door to my former rooms behind me. "There, that's two locked doors. Try not to worry, and I'll be back as soon as I can."

Holmes had been an amateur cracksman himself, but had learned the art from and sometimes consulted with a professional named Jack Barley, whom I had met twice. I had only the dimmest notion of where to find him, but happily, a remnant of Holmes' Irregulars still lurked about Baker Street. I approached them, and after offering them a coin for the information, discovered that they knew where Barley could be found.

I interrupted Barley at his dinner, but when I mentioned Holmes' name he was happy enough to come away; it was warming to know that even now, years after Holmes' death, there was still such affection for his memory. However, Barley faltered when, upon arriving at Baker Street, he learned that the object of his efforts was to be Holmes' own bedroom door.

"Don't his landlady 'ave a key then?" he asked doubtfully, contemplating Holmes' door. The strange scent had met me like a wall upon the threshold; Barley, too, sniffed curiously on entering the rooms. But he was not long distracted: he bent to examine Holmes' lock with professional interest, then stood and inspected the doorframe, as if considering the alternative of bypassing the lock entirely.

Mrs Hudson spoke up sharply. "Mr Holmes took the key away with him when he died."

"Aye, ma'am." Barley sucked his teeth thoughtfully. "Well, dead men 'ave no secrets. But this 'ere's a patent Putnam, y'see — Mr Holmes didn't want no one getting in 'ere."

"Will it be a problem?" I asked, concerned.

Barley flashed me a quick grin. "Not for the likes of me, Doctor. But it's a good thing I brought my special kit."

It took a little while for Barley to defeat the lock, but eventually he gave a small cry of triumph. The door swung inward to reveal an alcove comprised of heavy black drapes, which concealed what lay beyond as effectively as theater drapes mask a stage's wings. Something rustled indistinctly beyond.

I took up a poker, but nothing emerged. Again I heard the impression of voices.

"What's that, then?" Barley asked.

Jealousy flared up in me and I stepped forward to block Barley's view. "Thank you kindly for coming out," I told him, with an eye still on the door. I fished in my pocket for the fee for his services: generous enough, but surely nowhere near what he was accustomed to make from his more usual — and more illicit — lock-cracking jobs.

Barley continued to peer past my shoulder at the open door. "You don't think 'is ghost is walking, do you, sir? I've 'eard stories. People saying they seen 'im on the streets."

Again, I heard the unnerving suggestion of voices from behind the heavy drape. A shudder ran up my spine before I straightened my shoulders and reproved myself for being fanciful. Holmes was not a ghost, nor did he walk.

"It would annoy Holmes exceedingly to find he's become a ghost, seeing that he never believed in them while he lived," I told Barley by way of reassurance.

"Gorblimey, that’d only make 'is ghost angrier, wouldn't it? Wouldn't want to meet that."

"Let me show you out, Mr Barley," Mrs Hudson said firmly, and gestured to the sitting-room door.

Barley took a hesitant step away, then looked back at the open door. "I'm not much one for installing locks, missus, but if you want that replaced with something you 'ave the key for…"

"Then I'll be sure to send for you, Mr Barley," Mrs Hudson replied, and this time when she tried to show him out, he went.

Alone, I firmed up my grip on the poker and pushed past the drape.

Inky darkness filled Holmes' room, unrelieved by even the light of the gas lamps in the street: Holmes had covered the windows with heavy drapes like those at the doorway. I tried to push the door's curtain back to let in more light, but it was doubled back and heavily weighted, and resisted my efforts. I struck out blindly for the gas fixture by the door; suspended, flexible obstructions — leaves, they felt like, but how could they be leaves? — brushed at my face and arm. When I tried to step out, I stumbled on something. I found the gas fixture, but although the flint sparked when I turned the knob, there was no answering hiss of gas: the plumbing was disconnected. Thwarted, I fumbled my way back to the door and shoved past the drape into the light.

Mrs Hudson was waiting for me. "What's making the noise?"

"I don't know. It's pitch-black in there. Holmes has done something to the windows, and I can't get the gas to light."

Mrs Hudson pursed her lips. "He's had the gas disconnected in there for years. Said it made him nervous to sleep with it, he'd seen too many murders done by gas. He boarded up the windows, too."

"Boarded up the windows?"

"In his bedroom, aye. That would have been right close to the end. Almost as if he knew the end was coming."

"I don't wonder. Moriarty had eyes and ears everywhere, and numerous paid assassins at his beck and call. It'd be enough to make any man paranoid, and justifiably so."

"Aye, I remember the man," she said darkly. "Evil, grasping sort of fellow."

"You met him?" Holmes had never told me Moriarty and Mrs Hudson had met.

"Aye, he came to the house." She shuddered. "I could barely sleep in my own bed, all the next month. I give thanks regularly that man is dead and can't trouble us any more."

"It was the one good thing to come of that day," I agreed. At least Holmes' death had not been in vain. I had lit a lamp while we talked; now gripping it in one hand and my poker in the other, I turned to shove my way past the curtain again. "Best stay here until I find out what's on the other side of this curtain."

She nodded, one hand tightly clasped in the other. I again fought my way past the curtain.

To my amazement, the light revealed the room criss-crossed by gnarled roots and branches, quietly stirring, as if in a breeze. The nearest foliage shrank back from the light of the lantern, the leaves hissing and curling as the rays struck them. I held the lamp aloft to see better, but the action was badly judged: the nearest leaves emitted small wisps of smoke, and seconds later, ignited into flame.

I let out an oath and stepped forward to beat out the flames. Unfortunately, my movement only spread the reaction, as more foliage fell into the lamp's circle. I hurriedly extinguished the lamp, and in the sudden darkness could see only the burning leaves and branches, their margins outlined in red coal. I tore the branches free from the tree, beating the flaming leaves to the ground, and viciously stamped at them. Soon the last threadlike traceries of red were extinguished, leaving the acrid bite of smoke in the air, fighting for supremacy with the thick medicinal scent.

I stood in the blackness, my chest heaving, listening to the rustle of leaves all around me. There was no hint of a draft to stir them.

"Dr Watson?" Mrs Hudson called out anxiously.

"Stay where you are!" I ordered, and groped my way back to the door, stumbling over roots in the blackness.

"Dr Watson!" she exclaimed in relief when I emerged.

"You can't take a light in there, he has… erm, photosensitive chemicals about."

What possessed me to tell the lie, I could not have said. Perhaps it was a jealous need to protect Holmes' secrets. But dead men have no secrets, as Barley had pointed out. Whatever the impulse, the lie slipped out of my mouth, and I felt no urgency to take it back.

"Chemicals!" Mrs Hudson exclaimed, half in alarm and half in exasperation. She had argued many times with Holmes about his chemicals, in the years that he lived under her roof. "And the noises?"

I hesitated, still unwilling to tell the truth. Indeed, the truth hardly seemed plausible. "Rats, I should think."

"Rats! Oh, I should never have agreed to Mr Mycroft's wishes! But he was grieving his brother, it seemed unkind to do otherwise… I'll get some traps up, but what we'll do about the chemicals, I don't know."

"I'll deal with the chemicals," I reassured her. "You must keep everyone out until then. Meanwhile, I want to muffle this lamp, something to dim its light."

Mrs Hudson soon found a black cloth for me, which I wound around the lamp's chimney. "Mind you don't set the place ablaze with that," she warned me, as I trimmed the wick as low as it would go.

"I'll be careful," I promised.

"And I'll fetch the rat traps," she said. She whisked out of the room, and once again I faced the dark curtain across Holmes' doorway.

I entered cautiously, but the vines seemed to tolerate the dim light from my swaddled lamp; indeed, Holmes had hit upon much the same solution, for as I looked about, trying to make sense of the strange, lush jungle that his room had become, I found a dark lantern sitting just inside the door. I caught it up and ducked back out into the sitting room, this time to exchange lamp for lantern. In the light, I could see the aperture had been fitted with red glass. With the lantern half-shuttered, I again pushed my way into Holmes' bedroom.

The lantern's eerie red light did little to relieve the darkness of the room, as it was almost immediately sucked up by the inky drapes at door and windows. The tree, too, seemed to eat the light, its foliage nearly as black as the drapes. I reached for a trailing branch and examined it as best as I could in the dim light. The foliage was spiky and two-lobed with an oily texture; when I brought my fingers to my nose, the sharp scent of the tree struck me forcibly. The branches themselves were covered in long, needle-like thorns, much like a barberry; they caught at my clothing and hair as I moved. Despite the darkness of the room, the leaves were plentiful, flexible and apparently healthy. How a tree should thrive so, shut up in a dark room and suffering years of neglect, I could not imagine.

Here and there, I glimpsed disembodied eyes peering at me from between the branches: Holmes' criminals, staring down at me from the walls. The room otherwise gave little impression of the man I once knew, instead having the air of a long-abandoned hothouse run riot. Branches hung around Holmes' bed like a curtain, and when I pushed the leaves aside, I could see that under the creeping foliage, his bed was as he had left it that fateful morning we ran for the Continent, the bedclothes pushed back and his nightshirt tossed carelessly across its foot.

In that unventilated space, the cold scent from the tree bit into my throat; I felt almost dizzy with it. I made my way to the windows and pulled aside the heavy drapes to get more air, but the windows had been boarded over, exactly as Mrs Hudson had described. The tree's scent knifed deeply into my lungs, and I wondered if Holmes had been sleeping in this close, unhealthful environment before his death.

I could not make sense of the riot of leaves and roots. Not only was it improbable that a tree should be thriving in here after years of darkness and neglect, but I could not make sense of it being here at all: Holmes had never shown any particular affinity for plants, aside from the way they could be used in murders. But Holmes had obviously treasured this one, taking pains to protect its foliage from both gaslight and daylight. He had guarded it faithfully, boarding up the windows and installing a patent lock on the door. Had Moriarty sought it for himself, perhaps? But it was difficult to believe that Moriarty had shown any more interest in botany than Holmes had.

The roots and branches seemed to emanate from a screened shape in the corner, heavily draped as a secondary prophylactic against any light leaking from the door or windows. Closing the lantern's shade almost completely, I made my way past the clinging vines and pulled the drape aside.

I caught only the barest glimpse before the delicate fronds began shivering and withering; I was forced to close the lantern's shutter entirely to protect the tree that grew inside the drape. But I had seen a little before the darkness rushed in: a large ceramic urn, from which grew a gnarled trunk and numerous branches, which escaped the screening drapes and reached out into the room. I had glimpsed a fruit, too, the size and texture of a small lime, its flesh streaked light and dark, its color otherwise impossible to discern in the red glow of the lantern.

But there had been one thing more: a notebook, balanced on the lip of the urn. I groped for it in the dark, and when I found it, I grabbed it up and withdrew, drawing the shielding draperies closed after me. I escaped with my prize back through the dark bedroom, moving gingerly so as not to trip on tree roots, and into the light of the sitting room.

There, Mrs Hudson awaited me. "Well?" she asked, as I blinked owlishly in the light.

The compulsion to lie, to conceal the presence of the tree running amok in Holmes' bedroom, was as strong as before, although at the time I did not wonder at it. "I have his lab notebook here — it will help me know what needs to be done about his chemicals. But it's really not safe until then — you must keep everyone out."

"Is it that dangerous?" she asked.

"It is," I affirmed. That, at least, was not a lie: the tree's leaves had caught fire when I brought a simple lamp into the room; heaven knew what might occur if someone was more incautious.

"I'll instruct the maid, but she doesn't like coming up here — she thinks these rooms are haunted. I don't trust that man Barley, though."

"No need to worry about Barley — I can stay here tonight, if you like. I’ll sleep on the settee." The tree had obviously been important to Holmes, and I felt strangely protective of it — now that I had discovered it, I didn't want anyone else interfering. Even as I spoke to Mrs Hudson, I could hear it whispering and calling to me, as intriguing as any of the mysteries with which Holmes had once invited me to assist.

She looked relieved. "I'll have to explain to Mr Mycroft. It seems a shame to disturb Mr Holmes' things after all this time — his brother was so set upon leaving them as they were! — but all things must come to an end, I suppose."

It occurred to me then that Mycroft Holmes might have kept Holmes' rooms undisturbed in order to protect the plant after Holmes' death. Possibly in accordance with his brother's wishes, or else from some motivation of his own. "Perhaps it's best that I explain about the chemicals to Mr Holmes."

"Very well, I'll leave that to you. The rat-traps are here. Shall I bring up a pillow and blanket?"

"Thank you, but I'll likely be up very late with this," I said, and I tapped the notebook.

"Some coffee, then?" she asked, and I gratefully accepted.

While she was gone, I put the traps out of the way in Holmes' room, then laid a fire in the sitting room hearth, perhaps the first fire the grate had seen since Holmes' death.

"Thank you again for coming on such short notice, Doctor Watson," Mrs Hudson said, upon leaving the coffee tray.

"Of course, Mrs Hudson. You know you may always call on me. Sleep well, and try not to worry. I'll see what can be done about those chemicals." The lie was becoming easier with repetition.

"And the rats," she reminded me.

"And the rats," I agreed.

After she left, I ensconced myself in my customary chair before the fire, Mrs Hudson's silver coffee-pot near at hand. Holmes had once used it to spy on me as I moved about the room, and at the memory, grief rose up in me, worn and familiar. It felt almost like olden times when I had read beside the fire, waiting up for Holmes as he pursued some late-night line of inquiry.

But those days were gone, never to come again. I opened the notebook and began to read.

It was indeed a lab notebook, one of the series that he used to keep near his chemical table. This one seemed to have been begun just for the purpose of documenting his experiments with the tree, for the first entry, dated in July of 1887, read:

Moriarty came to see me last night, carrying a large ceramic urn half-hidden under a bag. He claimed that it contained a great scientific curiosity, one that would interest me very much: a descendent of the original Tree of Knowledge. When properly fed and cared for, he said, the tree produces a fruit — citrus, in flagrant disregard of Biblical tradition — which, when eaten, reveals a Truth near to the ingester's heart. I scoffed, but Moriarty was quite earnest in his claims. I might have charged him with opium-eating — he indeed had that yellow, wasted look of fellows who spend too much time dreaming of the Lotus — but his conversation was as clear and sharp as ever, despite all his fanciful talk.

I stopped reading, confused by the reference to Moriarty in 1887, years earlier than I understood them to have first crossed paths. Of far greater consternation to me, however, was the appearance of friendly acquaintance between them. But Moriarty was not an uncommon name; simply because Professor James Moriarty, criminal mastermind and the Napoleon of Crime, was on my mind that day, did not mean that every use of that surname referred to him.

I continued reading.

Fanciful indeed, for not only does the Tree allegedly grant the knowledge of the universe, but it shuns water and sunlight, and lives on darkness and lies. A lie, M—— says, whispered to the tree in the dark of night, will fuel its growth and the production of a truth-revealing fruit: one truth for one lie, the revealed truth in proportion to the importance of the falsehood and the number of people taken in by it.

"And what great truth has been revealed to you, Professor?" I asked.

"Perhaps you have heard of my treatise, On the Dynamics of Asteroids. No? It is my masterwork, Holmes, detailing a new branch of mathematics, beyond the reach of all but the finest European mathematicians. That is what the tree has given me: the greatest mathematical truths, the original language of Creation!"

I was faintly amused; the mathematics tutors at school had always gone on so, entranced with their abstractions while the real world passed unnoticed around them. "And what is mathematics to me?" I asked.

He laughed, that dry, rasping laugh that had so bedeviled his students. "No, mathematics was never your subject, despite your other gifts. As I said, it reveals a truth close to the ingester's own heart. For me, that is mathematics. For the man who gave the tree to me, it was the secrets of the Creation. For you... Perhaps there is some little mystery you wish to throw light upon?" He paused meaningfully, and I felt a smoulder of surprised anger that he might choose to invoke Father among such fancies. But he turned aside before the jump. "For you, questions of cosmic justice, perhaps. You know your own heart better than I, my dear boy."

But he had pricked me, I am ashamed to say. Discomfited, I struck back. "And what lie did you tell, in exchange for your Dynamics?"

"You are skeptical. Come, let us test the proposition. I shall tell it a lie, and when the Tree fruits, you shall test the fruit yourself."

He enjoined me to douse the light, claiming that even strong gaslight damages the tree's delicate tissues. Enough light filtered in from the street beyond the curtains that I could still see what he was about. He removed the bag to reveal a sickly little sapling, more anemic shrub than tree. Motioning me well back, he leaned down and whispered to it — what, I could not hear, although he looked at me slyly as he did so. I distinctly heard the plant's foliage rustle in response, a dry whisper of sound, like a snake in tall grass, although I could not see how he caused the plant to produce it. The curtains did not flutter; it was not a breeze passing through the windows that made the plant move so.

"There now," M—— said, straightening up and turning to me. "Do you have a dark place to keep it? A cupboard where it will not be disturbed by others?"

His story was preposterous, but we have a long acquaintance, he and I, and I was willing to humour him for the sake of old debts. M—— was never given to frivolities, after all; there was something serious behind this request, however fanciful it might appear.

"My armoire," I volunteered, and I went ahead into my bedroom. Leaving the gas off, so that the room was lit only dimly by the streetlamp, I removed clothing by the armful from my wardrobe to create a space large enough to hold the urn.

"Still running around the city in disguise, I see," he said, as he carried the urn through. The clothes I had removed included those of a common laborer and a few other professions.

"They're useful in inquiries," I replied.

"I'm sure," he said, and placed the plant inside the armoire. "Do you have what you need for the morning? You will not be able to open these doors again in daylight."

I raised an eyebrow at him, but wordlessly removed some further articles of clothing. He shut the armoire again, and took up my dressing gown from the foot of my bed and draped it artistically over the seam of the doors, the better to block any leakage of light.

"Is darkness really so necessary?" I asked.

"Forgive me, I forgot you shall want a practical demonstration." Removing my dressing gown from the doors again, he stood aside and instructed me to pluck a leaf from the tree. I did so: the foliage was leathery and oily, and pungently aromatic. He carefully shut the cupboard doors again, replacing the draped gown over the crack between them. "Now light the gas."

I went to the fixture and turned the cock; when the light struck the leaf, it smouldered, and after a few fitful seconds, ignited into flame. I cursed and dropped it, stamping it out upon the carpet. Moriarty laughed while I sucked my fingers.

"Be careful with the tree, lest you carelessly ignite your rooms," he cautioned me. "The reaction with sunlight is more violent."

"But how can this be? What does it live on, if it reacts to light so?"

His expression twisted into bitter disappointment, just as it had done, so many years ago, when I fumbled a question of mathematics. "I have already told you, Holmes: lies. No, don't ask me how — it's a metaphysical mystery. Perhaps you will be the one to shed light upon it, so to speak. The fruit will be ready in a day's time, perhaps two. Eat it, and you shall tell me what it revealed to you."

After he left, I doused the gas and removed the plant from the armoire again so that I might examine it. It is, as I have said, a sickly thing; it could ill spare the leaf I had burnt. It bore long spines, but no fruit, nor blossoms nor buds. I could not see how it could support fruiting at all, let alone in two days' time.

I of course do not credit M——'s story, but I am intrigued nonetheless: why does he bring me this plant at all, and what does he hope to accomplish by telling me such tales about it?

The entry was in Holmes' spidery hand, unquestionably authentic, but it discomfited me greatly. The Moriarty herein appeared to be a mathematics professor, and thus could very well be the same Moriarty who, much to my sorrow, murdered my friend at Reichenbach Falls. Yet this entry suggested that Moriarty had been one of Holmes' tutors at school and that they had been on friendly terms for years afterward. And not just friendly terms: why did Holmes name Moriarty as someone to whom he owed gratitude? If it were the same man, no wonder Holmes had spoken of Moriarty with such respect and venom, days before their mutual deaths: given this history, Holmes' feeling of betrayal when he discovered Moriarty's true nature must have been considerable.

The next entry was dry and technical, supplemented with rough but serviceable illustrations in Holmes' own hand, documenting the appearance of a bud near the crown of the tree. In the entry after that, the bud had become a small fruit the size of a sloe berry, with a tough rind streaked green and orange. Holmes confessed to not knowing enough botany to judge whether it appeared unusually quickly, but when the fruit did not grow further, he appealed to Moriarty for advice. Moriarty's reply telegram was pasted into the notebook:

It was only a small lie, told to a small audience. If you wish to be impressed by the fruit, you must first tell a lie of impressive scope and audience. Eat it, and tell me what you learn.

Holmes' next entry duly detailed the result of ingesting the fruit. It appeared that he had consumed it in his room while I, unsuspecting, read by the fire in the sitting room, "in easy shouting distance" should the fruit take him badly. That was Holmes' idea of proper precautions: I ruefully remembered the chances he used to take in his investigations, and the way he had relied upon me to extricate him from scrapes. I used to remonstrate with him for running such preposterous risks, even as I insisted that if he must run them, I must be permitted to run them with him. It made my heart ache to read of his eating an unknown fruit from Moriarty's own hand, and to know that I would never again chide him for such foolhardiness.

The fruit, as small as it was, was apparently potent, for it induced in him a dreamlike trance lasting the better part of an hour. Holmes detailed a jungle scene rich with wildlife, featuring a jewel-green snake that hunted a pair of flying squirrels. Illustrations, rough and untutored, accompanied the narrative. I was not impressed with the vision. Neither was Holmes, for he evidently complained to Moriarty, whose reply was again pasted into the notebook:

Possess yourself in patience. Perhaps your vision will gain greater meaning in time.

Holmes seemed to have followed Moriarty's advice, but without enthusiasm; the next several entries were purely chemical in nature, Holmes attempting to isolate the compounds that made the leaves ignite when struck by light.

But a week later there was an entry with a considerably changed tone:

I have just returned from Stoke Moran in Sussex. As the vision foretold, there was a baboon and a cheetah there, and more importantly, a deadly snake. Helen Stoner had not yet crossed my door when I had the vision, so the fruit did not unlock some half-hidden knowledge already in my head — a solution that I had devised, but which had not yet percolated up from my mind's depths. The vision was indubitably new knowledge, entirely independent of me.

But nothing is proved. The fruit's vision may be like the predictions of mediums and fortune-tellers: a vague, non-specific image that the victim, in his desire to believe, makes too much of. Would the vision have applied as well to another case, should a different problem have landed at my door yesterday? The coincidence of the snake would not be so exact, but one creature hunting two others — that is not so rare an occurrence in my profession. I must test the tree again. To that end, I have told W—— that Roylott fed the snake milk, although the milk was almost certainly intended for Roylott's cheetah. A harmless falsehood, but one which he is nevertheless likely to propagate in his telling of the case. W—— will forgive me practising on him, I am sure. It is a pity I cannot bring him in on the experiment, but my lies must have some audience, and W—— will more readily forgive me than another might. When I have disproved Moriarty's tales about the tree, I will confess all to W——, and we will laugh at my credulous foolishness.

I touched the page wistfully; Holmes had died before that day had ever come. It stung a little to learn that the milk-drinking snake had been a deliberate falsehood: ever since the printing of that particular story, my readers had corrected me on that point with varying degrees of politeness. But Holmes was correct: I would have forgiven him the falsehood. I forgave him it even now.

But that had been years before Holmes' death, plenty of time for the experiment to fail and the tree be cleared away as so much rubbish. The tree's photophobic properties might interest the botanists at Kew, but surely that would not have held Holmes' interest so long? I flipped ahead, scanning the dates: the entries continued for years. Perplexed, I paged back to where I had left off.

Holmes put the tree through an exacting set of trials, randomly "feeding" it lies and truths, attempting to discover if a lie was truly necessary to the tree's reproductive cycle. Much to his frustration and irritation, Holmes became convinced that Moriarty's assertion about the tree feeding on lies was fact, but was maddened by the absurdity of a plant knowing the difference between a lie and a truth. What could possibly be the mechanism for such a thing?

For myself, I believed not a word of it. It was clear that Holmes did, but it was also clear that Holmes had fallen under the force of the fruit's drug. He wrote of the tree whispering to him, calling to him, begging to be fed another lie. That the tree’s drug was potent, I had no doubt: I myself had experienced the same effects, merely from breathing air heavy with its vapors. (On that thought, I opened a window and dragged my chair closer to it.)

As the entries proceeded, Holmes became ever more eager to taste each new fruit, and ever more credulous about what the visions might mean. He recorded one occasion that I had caught him in the dreaming trance of the drug. "Morphine," he had told me, then turned around and whispered the same lie to the tree, chasing another fruit and another so-called Truth. That fruit Holmes thought especially potent, which he attributed to my repeating it in my account of The Sign of the Four, thereby spreading the falsehood to thousands. Yet for all his conviction of the lie's potency, and thus the potency of the resulting fruit, his vision from that fruit was no more sensible than any other. And still he chased the visions, repeatedly perjuring himself in quest of another purported truth.

It was not only Holmes who seemed in thrall to the plant's fruit. Holmes wrote, not long after acquiring the tree:

I have heard the most disturbing news about M—— today. He has been removed from his Chair, his professional reputation in tatters. On the Dynamics of Asteroids was not the success he represented to me. Quite to the contrary, it has made him a laughingstock, an object of derision and pity among his colleagues. It seems that Dynamics was initially well-received among the mathematical elite as a work of genius, but it has since been denounced as a fever dream with no merit or substance.

I admit I am flummoxed. Was Dynamics too far ahead of its time for its genius to be recognised? I must acquire a copy for myself.

Then, several days later:

I have acquired said copy of Dynamics. Whatever possessed me to attempt the thing? I must appeal to the man himself.

And the next entry:

It is true: Dynamics is a hoax, fabricated and foisted upon the mathematical elite in order to provide fodder for the Tree of Knowledge. The best results, M—— says, come not from lies of opportunity and happenstance, but from bold, deliberate efforts to deceive, and to deceive widely. Presumably, that was the lie that M—— whispered to the Tree when he first brought it to me: that Dynamics was the fruit of the Tree, as opposed to its food. I asked him what great truth had been revealed to him for the price of his reputation, and had it been worth the cost? He did not answer, but said that he was well-satisfied.

But now I know why he brought the tree to me: with his reputation in shreds, his integrity under a cloud, the tree is useless to him. Tell what falsehoods he will in an effort to feed it, he will not be believed. So he has come to me that I might continue his researches. But despite the regular experimentation to which I have subjected it, its metaphysical properties are as much a mystery as ever. It is no clearer to me than to him whence the Tree's powers derive.

Yet Holmes did not take Moriarty's disgrace as a warning, much to my frustration. It seemed to me that Holmes ran great risks with his own reputation during his experimentation with the tree, regularly manufacturing falsehoods for its consumption.

It was Holmes' habit to record his visions in detail, but on one occasion, in the winter of 1887-88, he explicitly declined to do so:

The tree is having a joke on me, and a tasteless, cruel joke at that. In fact, I hardly dare call this a true vision at all, but only an elaboration of my own fevered imaginings. I shall not record it here among these pages; W—— is an honourable man, and does not deserve to have his character besmirched so, not even in the name of science.

My curiosity was much aroused, of course. Whatever the nature of the dream, it was repeated two weeks later.

Again W——; ditto as before.

And twice again, each time tersely noted as:

W——, id.

It appeared that I was a recurring topic of interest in his visions, but Holmes seemed determined not to speak of them, and I resigned myself to their remaining a mystery.

But then Holmes wrote:

I repent of my doubts; it has come to pass. A particularly fine concert with W—— tonight and an excellent dinner after to celebrate a successful conclusion to Grice Paterson's little problem. Before retiring, W—— made the most extraordinary proposition; indeed, I had not believed it possible when the Tree foretold it. I presumed that I misunderstood his proposal, my faculties corrupted by the wicked whisperings of the Tree, but W—— offered me the most compelling proofs.

Alas, I was forced to decline his invitation. I regret what my pursuit of scientific knowledge has led me to do, and what falsehoods I have practised on him — and indeed, that I am committed to continuing to practise on him. I have tried not to involve him too deeply, or in ways that he may not eventually forgive, but W—— is an honest man, fundamentally decent in his nature, and deserves a better companion than I. For a few seconds I cravenly entertained the proposition, so great was my desire, before seeing its utter impossibility. I almost hate how low I have become in my experiments with this Tree; I could not bear to drag W—— down to my own level. I told him he was much mistaken, that I had no interest in such relations with him. The lie burned in my throat as I told it, but I have become well-practised, and he did not suspect me. He took the rejection bravely and offered to find new rooms if he had offended. A better man than I would have seized the opportunity to remove him from my low influence, but I am not that man, and if I could not permit myself to have W——, I might still have him near.

This is the first lie that it has cost me to tell. Moriarty has chided me for being too timid in my explorations, for being niggardly in my feeding of the Tree. This lie will never be widely known, God willing, but it is at least of importance to both W—— and me. Tonight I feed the Tree with it, and I hope that my sacrifice will be worthy of rewards of a different flavour.

I remembered the night well, of course. I had been so certain of Holmes that evening, so certain that my advances would be well-received. I had retreated shaken, feeling the worst kind of fool. My only consolation at the time was that Holmes had not taken offense, had not seen fit to cut me to ribbons or turn me out of our rooms. He had shown no aversion to me over the following days, but of course there sprouted between us a stiff awkwardness, felt more on my part it seemed than his. He behaved as if nothing of importance had happened, and I staunchly did my best to follow his lead, however strongly I felt otherwise.

On reading Holmes' own account of the evening, I felt none of the outrage of a falsely spurned lover: that evening had been long ago, and much had happened since then to mute those feelings. My marriage to Mary had been a profound blessing in my life, and Holmes' unequivocal rejection that night had cleared the path for her; it was impossible to now wish that my life had taken a different turn. Too, I could not say that Holmes had been wrong to reject me that evening, given what I now knew. He had told me many lies by then, and seemingly intended to tell me many more. As has been demonstrated repeatedly among Holmes' cases, where lies are passed and secrets are kept, only grief and tragedy can grow. Perhaps I felt somewhat stung that Holmes had chosen his tree over me, but it was also clear to me that its fruit bore much in common with opium: it was possible that the choice had not been fully voluntary on his part.

But what I mainly felt upon reading the entry was an overwhelming pity: pity that Holmes, when offered something he apparently sincerely wanted, had thought too ill of himself to take it. I had long believed him content with his solitary life; I had not known that he ever wished for another. I had been deeply happy with Mary; I wished that Holmes could have known happiness, too.

Holmes, however, did not seem to regret his decision:

My sacrifice has borne fruit, if I may be permitted the jest: the Tree has deemed my offering worthy (but how? the question continues to perplex!) for it has both grown prodigiously and produced a new fruit, fully double the size of any previous. The Tree now threatens to burst from my wardrobe; I shall have to make over this room into a darkroom, so that it may have space to grow unthreatened by the light. This newest fruit is the size and shape of a kumquat, oblong, 2.3 cm in length, 1.2 cm in width, and 6.5 cm in girth around its longest axis. It must be juicier than its predecessors as well, for it is 2.4 g in weight, although that might be accounted for by its larger shape, having a proportionally greater interior volume than rind. Ingestion at ten-thirty p.m.

What followed were the ravings of a madman. I hardly recognised the man I had known; even his handwriting spread itself across the page in a dissipated scrawl. Sketches, too, appeared in the margin, and they, at least, were sensible enough: various renderings of a schooner, its hull dark with cross-hatching.

However nonsensical his scribblings were to me, however, Holmes seemed excited about the results. The next day, in his usual hand, after he had recovered from the trance:

Moriarty has claimed time and again that the Tree would tell me something I truly wished to know if only I would not be so timid with it. Until now, it has always told me things I could have learned for myself via other means. I am confident that, on the basis of my own powers alone, I could still have saved Helen Stoner from her stepfather's clutches; I likewise could have discovered W——'s feelings through the simple expedient of asking him (and indeed, he ultimately came to me with his proposal). But this new vision is not knowledge I could have discovered for myself: I have searched long and hard for the solution to Father's mystery, with no results.

But it will not do to become too excited. I must be moderate, moderate, and test the truth of this revelation. This, too, may be a wild goose chase, just like every other lead I thought I had. And yet it is difficult to be moderate — I can feel in my bones that this is the lead that I have so long sought!

No, I must show discipline and not anticipate my results. I am now engaged on a case in Herefordshire, but when I have laid that to rest, I will pursue this dark ship the vision speaks of, and then we shall see what we can discover.

I knew almost nothing of Holmes' father; Holmes had rarely spoken of his family, and then only briefly. What his father's mystery might be, I had no idea.

There was a two-month gap before the next entry. I presumed Holmes was pursuing the "dark ship" of his vision, too busy to engage in further experimentation with the tree. For myself, I was relieved to see the gap, mistrusting the tree's influence on him.

It has been a long search, but I have found the ship. The Tree can indeed shed light on Father's fate — this is the most progress I have made on the mystery since I first learned my profession. I must cultivate another fruit and try again. The inconsequential lies I have told until now are obviously too anemic for my purposes; I must be bold, and execute a falsehood of consequence.

I read his resolution with misgiving, and indeed, the following pages grieved me sorely. As Holmes quested for a larger and more potent fruit, his falsehoods became bolder, manipulating his cases so that they might provide him with a potent lie, one capable of producing potent fruit.

I have sunk to new depths. I had thought it the extreme of perfidy when I released Jack Ryder, compounding his felony when I intimated to the Yard that I had no idea who stole the Countess' blue carbuncle, only that it was not John Horner. W—— seemed to think it was Christian charity that motivated me on that occasion, but little did he know it was the Tree and its everlasting need for more untruths. But that was merely refusing to solve a crime, and I have not, after all, been put on this Earth to provide for the Yard's deficiencies.

But now I have deliberately obscured the solution to a case, rendering it unsolvable. The damning wine glass went into my pocket, the footprints were scuffed out beneath my feet, and the lines of evidence are now so compromised that they are a welter of confusion, pointing to no one at all. Heaven help me if the case should ever be brought to prosecution — I have made such a muddle of the evidence that I shall never get the poor beggar off, whoever he may be. And all so that Harry Fortescue might escape the certain clutches of the law, and I, in the process, might have a sizable falsehood for the Tree. I cannot confess myself anything but glad at Fortescue's continued freedom, but I am all too aware that I did not act from pure motives. Rather: a base, selfish desire to further my own ends. I saw the opportunity for a lie that might feed the Tree better than any I have yet devised, and thinking of aught else, I took it.

I remembered Harry Fortescue well, a meek and earnestly honest young man with his future before him. He had not been moved of his own volition to take a life that morning; in coming to Holmes the week before, in fact, he had done everything in his power to avoid it. But we had been too slow and ineffective to prevent the necessity, arriving only in time to prevent, through clever management, suspicion from falling on him. Perhaps he would have prevailed in a court of law, even despite the power and position of those who would be arrayed against him, but Holmes had preferred not to take the risk. Instead, he had appointed himself judge and me jury, and after we had acquitted Fortescue, Holmes saw to it that he was returned to the loving arms of his fiancée, never to be separated from her again.

I had harboured no reservations about our actions that morning, but Holmes had been very low after. I had assumed that he rebuked himself for being too slow to prevent one man's death and preserve another man's moral innocence, not to mention avoid the strain and terror that poor Mary Harper, Fortescue's fiancée, had undoubtedly felt. It had never for a moment occurred to me that Holmes had questioned the moral rightness of our actions. Even if Holmes had a double motive in protecting poor Fortescue, that did not tarnish the fact that Holmes had given shelter to two innocents, protecting them from further harm. I wished desperately that he had chosen to counsel with me at the time: the strain of the lies he had told was too great for one man to bear alone.

He had not turned to me.

As he sought to cultivate ever larger, more potent fruits, he also waited longer to harvest them, hoping that I would publish his falsehoods, disseminating them to a wider audience and giving the falsehood more power and the resulting fruit more potency. Alas, he still did not make his wishes known to me, and I was as likely to share the truth with my readers. Holmes cursed me often within the notebook's pages as I inadvertently thwarted his plans.

I could only regret that he had not confided in me. I never divined the sad history of Holmes' father from the journal's pages, although I gathered that he had disappeared under a cloud of suspicion when Holmes was a boy. Whatever had happened to his father, it clearly haunted him. I disliked the thought of him struggling alone under his burden, even if I could have been no material help to him — perhaps the sympathy of a friend could have eased his torment. At the very least, I could have worked with him to preserve his secrets and propagate only those stories which he wished propagated. I would have done at least that much, if asked.

As I read, I grew to almost hate the tree. Perhaps I was wrong to ascribe agency to a mere plant, but it seemed to me that a fraudulent medium could not have played her grieving victim more deftly than the tree played Holmes, now and then offering some tantalising glimpse of the truth he sought, but far more often withholding it to elicit greater exertions on Holmes’ part.

The tree thrived during this period. Fed a painstaking diet of falsehoods, it grew prodigiously. As promised, Holmes made his bedroom over into a darkroom, disconnecting the gas as a safeguard against accidents and generously draping the door and windows with heavy theater curtains.

Then, on April 3rd of 1891, came the betrayal I had been expecting:

Arrived home late last night to find the street door forced and Mrs Hudson, that usually stalwart lady, hysterical. Much to my dismay and rage, she was injured as well as frightened; it was a little time before she calmed sufficiently that I was able to have the story from her. Burglars had entered Baker Street, and Mrs Hudson had the misfortune of interrupting them on the way to my rooms. She, showing more courage than was perhaps wise, set up a cry of alarm, but instead of fleeing, as any respectable burglars should have done, they rushed Mrs Hudson, laid hands on her, and silenced her by main force. The older, more dominant man of the two proceeded up the stairs on his own, while the brute of the pair continued to menace my household. Fortunately the foray upstairs was brief — the thief knew exactly what he wanted and where to find it — and after he had secured his prize, they escaped into the night.

It did not take me long to discover what the thieves had taken: the most recent fruit, a prize so specialised that there is hardly but one person to suspect of the crime. Indeed, Mrs Hudson's description of the older thief matched Moriarty exactly. I spent a year cultivating this particular fruit and had high hopes for it; only this week, W—— published the story that should give it potency. Unfortunately, I had foolishly told Moriarty so in a letter, falsely believing him a fellow scientist. Within twenty-four hours of my writing, the fruit was stolen.

Mrs Hudson was in no state to be left alone, so it was not until this morning that I was able to confront Moriarty. I have not been to his rooms in years, and was much shocked to find him running a petty criminal enterprise from them. This is what he has been reduced to, after the exposure of Dynamics. He was gleeful and unrepentant of his crimes, his eyes still gold from the fruit, and he did not attempt to conceal from me what he had done. He showed no remorse for Mrs Hudson's fright and injuries, and insisted that his need for the fruit was greater than mine. His minions threw me out, but I am pleased to say that before they did, I was able to revenge myself on Mrs Hudson's assailant.

I cannot express my outrage and grief. I had once held such respect and esteem for M——. Gratitude, too, for what I owed him. But something has become twisted in him — or perhaps it was always twisted, and I was too young and naïve to see it. There is something rotten there, and I wonder that I had never known it before.

I shall have the Yard down on him and his petty fiefdom, in revenge for laying hands on Mrs Hudson; he shall bitterly regret his man touching her. But the harm is not only to her: he owes me a fruit as well. I shall take it from him personally, and tell such a story about him and the extent of his evil as to sufficiently feed the Tree.

I hardly knew what to think. A man who could cold-bloodedly menace and injure Mrs Hudson deserved no consideration from me, but to know that the grandiose tale of the "Napoleon of Crime" was another of Holmes' lies… And worse, not a lie driven by some high principle, but petty revenge! Not for the first time, I regretted bitterly the hold the tree had on Holmes, and the alterations it made to his character. And not just Holmes — Moriarty, too, seemed to have lost all reason under its influence.

Holmes' next several entries were brief and distracted, detailing the measures he took to protect tree and household from further predation from Moriarty. By this time the tree had grown too large to be moved: Holmes was forced to defend the tree where it stood. He hired bruisers to stand guard in the street, and another to fetch and carry for Mrs Hudson inside the house. He remade his room into a fortress: the boarded-up windows and patent-lock on the door hailed from this period, only weeks before his death. Holmes had even gone so far as to nail the windows shut before boarding them over. But he refused to be thrown into a purely defensive position: as promised, Holmes set the Yard upon Moriarty, attempting to bring him to bay before the fruit ripened.

On April the 24th, Holmes wrote:

I have caught Moriarty's man skulking about in the street, trying to gain entrance. Sent him away again, but not before breaking my knuckles across his face. I can wait no longer to pick the fruit; Moriarty's henchmen will have it if I do not. This fruiting is paltry compared to its predecessors; my lies about the extent of Moriarty's criminal enterprise had too much truth in them. That, or they are not much credited at the Yard. Perhaps it was inevitable that the strength of my word would erode, much as Moriarty's has — the Tree will have its price in exchange for the Knowledge it gives. In any case, for as long as Moriarty walks free, this is likely to be the last fruit I will have from the Tree; it will have to do as it is, even if I wish it could have been left to ripen unmolested.

Then again, later the same day:

Moriarty's men have tried twice more. It is clear that my rooms are not secure; I would ingest the fruit now if I thought I could experience the trance undisturbed. I will take the fruit to W—— for safekeeping. He knows not the fruit's value, but he is loyal and has never required to know why I ask a thing of him. Tomorrow we shall fly to Europe together, and with luck we will shake Moriarty, giving me some space to have my trance. I will procure a quiet suite for us, so that I have a room with privacy, and then claim exhaustion from my months-long contest with Moriarty and retire. In the outer room, W—— will stand guard against Moriarty's interference while I ingest the fruit and dream. I will have my vision. I will learn Father's fate for once and for all, and that will be the end of it.

I was aghast and confused by these revelations, but they explained much about Holmes' behaviour on that trip. We never did procure a suite in Brussels, although Holmes had tried to insist upon one. After our fifth hôtel I had put my foot down, and Holmes reluctantly settled for a double-bedded room. Had he found time to ingest his fruit later, that week we spent crossing the Continent? I could not recall an opportunity for it; perhaps the fruit, like Holmes and Moriarty themselves, lay at the bottom of the Reichenbach Falls.

But I indeed remembered the box he had entrusted to me: three inches square, well wrapped in paper, and secured with wax and string — it had made little impression on me at the time. I had not included it in my account of the day because it had not seemed to fit into the narrative — as indeed it had not, for the narrative Holmes had given me was a false one. Holmes used to scold me for my habit of dismissing the pieces of the story that did not fit — would that I had heeded his teachings on that occasion! He had pressed the box into my hands and enjoined me most earnestly to keep it on my person. On no account was I to pack it in my luggage — in retrospect, he had planned even then for us to disembark in Canterbury and abandon our luggage to Paris. He had reclaimed the box from me in Newcastle while we waited for the boat to Dieppe, and I never saw it again. Little had I known its importance. That small, unprepossessing box was the entire reason we had fled to the Continent. Indeed, it was the reason Holmes had died.

What I could have done to avert that fate I did not know, but to have held in my hands the cause of Holmes' death… Even at the remove of two years, I despaired of my impotence. I had kept the box safe for him, but been utterly unable to help him in his hour of greatest need.

That should have been the last entry in the notebook. We had left for the Continent the next morning, and this notebook had not been among Holmes' effects that I brought back from Meirengen and returned to his brother. Holmes had left his lab notebook here, in Baker Street; thus it should have ended with our impending departure to the Continent.

But there was one more entry, a lengthy one, dated May 11th — a full seven days after Holmes' death, and my breath came short in my chest to see it. I had made errors in dates before, as my readers were never shy in pointing out, but to confuse the date of Holmes' death? Impossible. May 4th was emblazoned in infamy upon my memory, never to be mistaken or forgotten. It was frankly impossible that Holmes could have written an entry dated May 11th, but there was his own spidery hand, unmistakable. The world seemed to narrow, the words twisting and blurring on the page, and I struggled to read.

Disaster. I have fabricated my own Dynamics and set it loose upon the world, may I be forgiven for it. Unfortunately, it is a fabrication which I fear will cause my friends more grief than any merely academic hoax that Moriarty perpetrated. If I am judged as harshly as Moriarty was, or as my father was for his own alleged crimes, then it will be no more than I deserve.

It was as well I gave the fruit to W—— for safekeeping; Moriarty's men attacked me in my rooms again that same night. They were not well-disciplined: they brought an unshuttered light with them, and before the fight was half-finished, the Tree had ignited from the beams of the lantern. His henchmen fled, leaving me alone with the fire. I was able to extinguish the Tree by means of my buckets of sand — a precaution I kept at hand — my jug and basin, blankets and much stamping, but the Tree is in a sorry state. At least the main trunk was untouched; the curtain swathing the urn from light was singed but did not catch fire itself. It is a pity to see the damage to the Tree after all my hard work caring for it, but I have hope for its recovery: it was in worse state when Moriarty first brought it to me.

(Even now it revives, new growth unfurling with the lie I have fed to it.)

I was not entirely successful in slipping away the next morning, but my disguise gained me a few precious minutes, sufficient to force Moriarty onto a different train from W—— and myself. That happy chance permitted us to lose him at Canterbury, whereupon we continued to Newcastle and Dieppe, bringing us without further incident to Brussels.

Unfortunately, after that we only saw bad luck — bad luck, the coward's name for bad management! There was not a suite to be had in all Brussels, and W—— was much confused by my insistence on the point. "We've shared a bed before, Holmes; why are you making such a fuss now about sharing a room?" I had no answer for him, and we ultimately were forced to share a double-bedded room, giving me no privacy whatsoever.

I could have brought W—— into my confidence then, confessed all and asked him to stand guard over me in my trance. He would have disliked it greatly: he dislikes all my vices, and has unwittingly spoken strongly to me on the subject of the fruit's effects upon me, when he thought it was only morphine I was taking. Knowing the fruit's true nature and provenance would bring him no ease; indeed, it would likely incite him to greater anxiety. Nevertheless, he would have performed the service if I had asked, if only because it was I who asked it.

It was shame that stopped me — shame over the lies I told him, shame over the times I made him an unwitting accomplice to my schemes. W—— has always trusted that my deceptions arise from the best of motives. Perhaps that was once true, back when I was investigating the Tree's metaphysical properties, but now I fabricate falsehoods for personal gain. How else shall I describe my burning need to know, for once and for all, what became of Father? There are no possible benefactors to this question but Mycroft and myself, and the question does not haunt Mycroft as it does me. I have endeavoured to arrange matters so that I have told no lie that I cannot stomach, so that no innocents have been harmed by my deceptions, but still my motive poisons all. I am not the man my father intended me to become, and I regret it exceedingly.

I could not bring myself to confide in W——, so I conspired to send him home. Alas, my lies had trapped me in their net, and he would not go. As long as Moriarty threatened me (or so he believed), he would not leave my side. The more I spoke of the dangers to him, of the utter necessity that he return to England and his wife, the more obstinate he became. When he is roused, there is no man on Earth as stubborn as John Watson. I do not deserve such a friend as he. I did not deserve him before, and I surely do not deserve him now.

It was for W——'s sake that I finally contacted Moriarty. If I had not, W—— would still be at my side, determinedly guarding my flank as we crossed and criss-crossed Europe. But I could not permit that: W—— has a wife and could not travel with me forever. She, too, deserves his loyalty, and has far more honest claim upon it than I. I arranged the meeting with Moriarty, and to facilitate the privacy of our conversation, I further arranged a distraction for W——. I had thought to negotiate a truce with Moriarty, some compromise wherein we would both receive a portion of the fruit…

Alas, it was rank naïvete to believe that Moriarty and I could strike a bargain. He had long ago become a criminal, mendacity his trade, his word of so little worth that he bequeathed the Tree to me. He was not interested in discussion. He arrived armed, and attempted to take the fruit by main force. Madness took me, and I would not give it up to him: without a truce, there would be no peace in which to grow another fruit, and without another fruit, Father's fate would be forever unknown. Within seconds we were rolling together at the lip of the Falls like two vengeful schoolboys. In the scuffle, the fruit went over the edge. Moriarty lunged for it—

It was only due to some last tattered thread of sanity that I did not follow them both.

It is not the end I would have chosen for Moriarty, not even after his outrages. I had looked up to him once, admired and respected him. He deserved better than this. I felt only grief and pity as I stood at the lip of that chasm, and I could almost believe the Tree to be the architect of his downfall. I know it has been the architect of mine.

Moriarty was gone, and the fruit with him. With the loss of both, Father's fate seemed as unknowable as ever. My lie about Moriarty's empire of evil was nearly unconscionable in its effect: it might well have contributed to the man’s death. My soul trembled with the lie's weight, and I could not bring myself to orchestrate another such. I could not continue to play with the fates of other men, deserving or not. I have only one thing I may honestly bargain with: myself. If I am to be the benefactor of my lies, then I must bear the cost of them myself.

The plan came to me fully formed as I stood at the lip of that chasm, the downrush of air tearing at me, attempting to haul me after the man I had once called a mentor and friend. I saw then what I must do and how I must do it, and I set about the execution of my plan with a workmanlike detachment. Only when I left my forged note for W——, written as if I were a true friend to him and not the liar I am, did my composure threaten to break. I wished to confess all and beg his forgiveness, but how can one apologise for what one does knowingly and with full intent, without regard to the pain one knows one will cause?

And yet I must beg someone's forgiveness. The Almighty's, if I cannot beg John Watson's. For it was not enough that I make him grieve my passing, but I must also cruelly use him as well: in my note, I hoped that he would tell the tale of my death. W—— has made me famous with his stories, and the newspapers will carry notice of my passing, I am sure, but there is no pen that will attest to the truth of my lies as well as John Watson's. If I am mourned, it will be because W—— will make them mourn me.

W—— is still in Switzerland, no doubt futilely leading the search for my corpse along the banks of that unforgiving river. I have stolen back into England like the criminal I am to whisper my lie to the Tree. Already it recovers from its injury at Moriarty's hands. Even as I watch, new growth unfurls in response to the lie I have told. It seems to me that I can hear it whisper to itself. I am certain that I hear a voice, although perhaps it is only the voice of my own guilt.

The entry ended there. I turned several pages more, but the following sheets were crisp and new, unmarred by any hand.

A grey dawn was rising beyond the sitting room windows, washing out the yellow of the street lamps. My coffee-pot was cold; I poured anyway and discovered that it contained only a sad, gritty mud. I stood to instead pour myself a brandy from Holmes' tantalus, my shaking hand unerringly searching out the key from its customary place. As I poured, I was keenly aware that I was making free with the property of a man who still lived. But Holmes had never begrudged me a drink while he lived. He lived now; ergo, he would not begrudge me a brandy now, either.

It was a neat bit of logic, worthy of Holmes himself, and I congratulated myself upon it. Perhaps Holmes would return soon, now that I had published my account of his death. When he did, he would congratulate me upon my logic, too.

On the same logical principle as before, I helped myself to one of Holmes' cigarettes, then struggled to strike the match. The cigarette had long gone stale, but no matter: Holmes would replenish them soon enough.

For that was the main thing: Holmes lived. Holmes was alive, or he had been. Even as I had searched for his body, driving the official forces ever onward in the throes of my grief, he lived. Where Holmes had spent the past two years and how, I did not know. Whether he was well, I likewise did not know. But he had survived Switzerland to return to England, that much was clear. There was no reason not to believe he had also survived the last two and a half years, wherever he might be.

That one note was clear above the chaotic tumult of feeling: Holmes lived.

Everything else I felt — chagrin, guilt, pity, anger — for I felt all those by the bucketful, and more besides, emotions far beneath me, but that nevertheless clamoured for my attention — they hardly mattered beside the fact that Holmes lived.

I smoked Holmes' cigarette, almost stupefied by the depth of my feeling.

The Tree, however — the thought came to me in a blinding flash of revelation — the Tree would have to go.

"Mrs Hudson!" I bellowed as Holmes used to do, bursting out of his rooms and down the stairs. "Mrs Hudson!" I called again, storming down the corridor to her door, whereupon I set up such a clamour that I dragged the poor woman from her bed. "Mrs Hudson, do you have such a thing as an axe?"

She pulled her wrapper tight about herself and regarded me as she might a madman. "An axe, Dr Watson?"

"For the rats," I said, the lie coming more easily the more often I repeated it. I was panting as if the short journey down the stairs had winded me.

"I have a cleaver—"

"It must be an axe!"

I must have appeared a wild man, unshaven and unslept, but Mrs Hudson had nerves of iron, else she could not have tolerated Holmes as a lodger all those years. She was surprised by my urgency, but I did not frighten her.

"In the garden shed," she said, and I pushed past her to the back of the house.

The grey dawn barely penetrated the recesses of the shed, but I found the axe. I caught it up and reversed my steps, taking the stairs to Holmes' rooms two at a time in my eagerness to revenge myself upon the Tree.

Upon entering Holmes' rooms, however, I could not find the dark lantern. It was not on the table where I thought I had left it, nor was it by the door, nor any other place I could see.

Warily, my gaze turned to the heavy drape across Holmes' door. I could not see that it had been disturbed, but I did not have Holmes' eagle eye for detail. I approached the doorway and nudged the curtain aside slightly; there was nothing but darkness behind. I had expected the red glow of the lantern, but it was possible the interloper had heard my return and closed the shutter. If there was someone there, I did not relish encountering him in the dark, myself still blinded from the light of the sitting room.

But with the windows boarded over, there was no other exit from that room. Making as much noise as I had before, I went to the sitting room door and opened and shut it again. Then I crept back to Holmes' bedroom door. I tucked myself against the wall beside the door and reversed the axe in my hand, so that I might use its handle as a club.

I waited. The tense silence was broken only by the ticking of the clock and the dry whisper of the Tree.

"Stand down, Watson," called out a long-forgotten voice, achingly familiar in its note of command. My heart leapt in recognition. "I have no wish to be struck down in my own rooms."

"Holmes?" I cried and dropped my axe.

The man who emerged from behind the drape was not Holmes: he was too bulky in figure, his brows too bushy, his mouth protruding, and his nose much-broken. But he raised his hands to his face, and when he lowered them again, Holmes stood before me. His face was too thin and pale, weary with exhaustion and sadness, but undeniably Holmes’ face.

It was one thing to read in his own hand that he lived, but to see him in the flesh was entirely another thing, and I was quite overcome.

Holmes said nothing, only watched me warily.

"Holmes!" I said, and stepped forward to catch him in an embrace. It seemed to me that he flinched, but I dragged him to me anyway. The apparent bulk of his physique was only padding, and I could feel his thin limbs and the rise and fall of his chest. His scent filled my nostrils, a scent that I had not known I knew, yet recognised instantly. Tears came to my eyes, and I hugged him more tightly. "Oh, Holmes! Thank God it's true."

"Watson," he murmured, but stood there like a man dumbfounded, and did not return my embrace.

I drew away to look at him again, my hands gripping tightly at his threadbare and battered coat. It struck me again that he was too thin, his skin drawn tight over the bones of his face. He had not been taking care of himself, wherever he had been. I touched his cheek, his jaw, tracing the features I knew so well, but had thought never to see again, and wondered at the miracle of having him there before me.

He watched me closely in return, something haunted in his eyes. "I see you found my journal. How much have you read?"

I glanced at the chair where I had left his notebook, sudden guilt rising in me — he had not wanted me to know about his father. Some of his secrets concerned me, and arguably I had a right to those, but his family secrets were another matter. "All of it," I admitted.

He shut his eyes on a sigh of resignation.

"Forgive me, Holmes. I never would have pried, but…"

"But you believed me dead, exactly as I intended. I deserve as much." He looked at me again, his eyes searching mine. "You said you read all of it?"

"Every word."

"I've trespassed against you, Watson. Great trespasses."

I was unable to explain, even to myself, the tumult of everything I felt: my chagrin at being used, my sympathy for his pain, my pity for his decision to endure his trials alone. And above all, nearly drowning the rest: my profound relief to have him returned to me. "You had your reasons."

His eyes went bright and his hand came up to clasp my wrist, where I still touched his cheek. "I owe you a thousand apologies, my dear Watson. I never hoped for your forgiveness."

"Then you know me less well than you should. Holmes, I would never have stood between you and the solution to your father's mystery, whatever it is you're questing to solve."

His smile was wry and regretful. "Yes. I always did know that."

He did not mention what he had written in the journal many times over: I had been more useful as I was, an unwitting audience for his lies. I felt a flush of anger and frustration, that he could claim to know me and yet use me so poorly, and unbidden, my tears sprang up, as much anger as relief. I turned my face away and dashed them from my eyes.

He pulled me to him. "Watson," he said, his face in my hair, and then again, "Watson." I put my arms around him and turned my face into his shabby coat collar, trying to will my tears to stop. His arms tightened around me, and the feeling became too much to control: I cried like a child. He curled around me, and did not release his hold.

When at last I pulled away, Holmes' own face was wet. He did not seem embarrassed, however, and only searched my face with concern.

"I was sorry to hear of your bereavement," he said quietly, and grief for Mary rose in me fresh and new, along with a new burst of anger. Holmes had heard of her death while he was gone, then, and chose to stay away. I did not know why that should wound me so, not when he had chosen to make me grieve his false death in the first place, but wound me it did.

Gathering myself, I stood back from him.

"You've come for the fruit, then," I said. "Now that I've published my account of your supposed death."

He neither flinched nor dropped his eyes, but the wariness returned to them. "I have."

"Holmes, you musn't—"

His expression hardened. "I must. I've sacrificed too much. Don't stand in my way, Watson."

Dismay pierced me — I had already reassured him once that I wouldn't stand in the way of the solution to his father's mystery. But this mania for the fruit's promises of arcane knowledge: that was more than the simple, honest need to know what happened to his father. I wondered then what lengths Holmes would go to, beyond even those he had already travelled, in his thrall to the Tree. But if I stood in his way now he would never forgive me, and I could not bear to lose him twice over.

"Of course not — I know how much you've sacrificed. I never meant you mustn't eat it; only don't eat it alone. Please. It's larger than any fruit you've previously had from the tree. You don't know its potency, and I fear for the dosage." I had only glimpsed the fruit in the moment before I had dowsed the lantern, but it was fully twice the size of any specimen documented in the notebook.

"Ingest it under medical supervision, you mean."

"With the assistance of a trusted friend, I hope."

I saw that firm mouth tremble before he mastered it. "Are you a friend, then? After what I have done to you?"

"I hope I am. I hope you'll allow me to be."

He touched my cheek, the barest brush before he dropped his hand again. He looked down, and when he looked up again, his eyes overflowed with gratitude and affection.

"I would be honoured to have you at my side. But you've been awake all night, and look done in. You should sleep first. The trance will require several hours, I imagine."

"Can you wait until I'm awake?"

"Yes," he assured me.

But it struck me then that he had arrived wearing a disguise, and waited to harvest the fruit until I had left his rooms unattended. It was not the work of a man who intended to stay and reveal himself to his friends. Presumably he had meant to fly after securing the fruit, and it was only by dumb chance and bad management on his part that I stood talking to him now.

"You never intended to reveal yourself tonight, did you?"

"I had intended to harvest the fruit tomorrow night, after more of your readership had a chance to read your story, but then Mycroft sent for me, saying Mrs Hudson had become inquisitive about noises in my rooms, and I became concerned for the fruit's safety. I've been across the street all night, watching you read in the window, waiting for a moment when I could steal in and retrieve the fruit."

And I had surprised him before he could get away again. Was it so probable, that he now intended to stay? Or would he fly again, as soon as I lay down to sleep? Unbidden, I thought of the notebook then, and all the times in the past he had told me a deliberate falsehood. I had never once suspected any of them.

My thought must have been obvious on my face, because his expression fell.

"You do not trust me. Take the fruit with you," he said, putting his hand to his pocket, and bringing out a black-swaddled object the size of his fist.

I reached out to stop the gesture, mortified that my trust in him, once implicit, was now tenuous and shaky. "That's not necessary," I protested.

"You'll sleep better with an assurance. I've wronged you, Watson, wronged you and abused your faith in me, and it's only fair that you should expect a security from me now."

"No," I said more firmly, and refused to take what he tried to press upon me. "I do not want a friendship wherein I must hold hostage something dear to you in order to compel your good faith. If you intend to betray me…" I steeled myself against the pain in my heart. Once, I could not have imagined saying such a thing to him. "Better I should know now than later. No, you keep it. I shall send a note to Anstruther—"

I was interrupted by a gasp behind me, and turned to see Mrs Hudson at the door of the sitting room, a breakfast tray in her hands.

Holmes at once strode across the room to her. He took the tray from her and put it aside, then took her hands in his. "My dear woman," he said.

She gaped up at him. "You're alive," she said, and without further preamble burst into tears. He drew her into his arms and held her close; for all she had endured as his landlady, there had always been affection between them.

At last she gathered herself and pulled away, patting her eyes dry. She looked him up and down, and then with a frown looked around the room, which had stood untouched for two and a half years.

"You and your brother have played a trick on me," she said, and turned accusing eyes on me, as if I had perhaps been part of the plot.

Holmes leapt to my defense. "Watson is innocent. He knew nothing, just as you did not."

She drew herself up. "So it's old times again. Like when you were at death's door, but it was all only play-acting."

He pursed his lips, drawn into the old argument. "That was necessary. I was laying a trap for a poisoner."

She sniffed, no more charitable to his justifications now than the last time she had heard them. "And what were you doing this time?"

"Running for my life," he said, and for one bewildering moment I believed him, despite having only an hour earlier read contrary testimony in his own hand. But the truth washed over me with a shock, and I stared at him in dismay. His lie had come smoothly and naturally, and I could see now how I had been taken in so readily before.

Mrs Hudson looked at me for confirmation. Well-trained to follow Holmes' lead and still bewildered, I nodded. "He was just now telling me the story."

Holmes cast me a grateful look above Mrs Hudson's head; I frowned in return. He ignored my warning, however, and settled Mrs Hudson on the settee with coffee from the tray. He then related to her a story about Tibet, Mecca, and a Norwegian named Sigerson, which is no doubt familiar to readers of "The Empty House".

I listened, troubled, but spoke no word nor made any gesture that might cast doubt on Holmes’ narrative. I rinsed the sludge from last night's cup, poured myself fresh coffee, and sat and listened, wondering how it was possible that the Tree still had its claws in Holmes, even at the remove of two and a half years. It was not only Holmes' lie that troubled me; I was troubled, too, by the lies I had told to protect the Tree, last night and again this morning, under no more influence than breathing its vapours for a few hours.

"You lied to her," I said, when Mrs Hudson had left.

He shook his head once, eyes far away, and did not try to justify himself. I wondered if he intended to feed the lie to the Tree later, if this fruit proved unsatisfactory to his needs.

"Come back to Paddington with me," I urged him, wanting him away from the influence of the Tree. "We both need to sleep, and your bed is full of roots and branches."

The corner of his mouth twitched, rueful. "Are you still trying to ensure I have no privacy to eat the fruit without you?"

"I'm afraid that I'll wake, and this will have been a dream."

He looked at me then, his eyes full of pain and loneliness, and I ached for him.

"Come to Paddington with me," I urged again.

This time, he agreed.

 

Holmes changed back into his more customary dress before we left, fighting through the foliage that blocked his wardrobe. Then he locked the door of his room with the key that all this time had been safe on his ring, no more lost than he was. We walked to my consulting rooms together, in silence for the most part, a silence not as companionable as it once had been. He did not take my arm, as had been his custom of old, but still it was good to walk beside him, to breathe the raw December air and look at the Christmas decorations in the shops, and to know that he lived. When we reached my newsagent's stand, it was a dull sort of shock to see that the man still wore a black armband for Holmes. I turned away, drawing Holmes to the other side of the street. He looked at me curiously, but did not argue.

I unlocked the door to my practice for Holmes, then stepped next door to speak to Anstruther and ask him to take my patients for the day. I had used to do so before Holmes' supposed death, when he wished me to accompany him on a case, but never once since Mary's passing. Anstruther eyed my rumpled and unshaven state, but mildly agreed to see to my practice for me. I descended his stairs and climbed mine, and duly hung the placard directing my patients to see my neighbour. Inside, I went upstairs to my rooms and gave Jane the day off, not wishing to be disturbed by her daily routine.

I found Holmes in what had once been Mary's parlour, which now sat unused. He was standing in the center of the room, touching nothing, looking about him. I had done little to clear the room of Mary's things. In that respect, Mary's parlour was rather like Holmes' rooms in Baker Street, a memorial to the departed. Mary, however, would not return miraculously from the dead. Unlike with Holmes, I had signed Mary's certificate and seen her laid to rest in the churchyard, where she was now presumably at peace.

"I am sorry I didn't come before," Holmes said, still looking at Mary's things.

"I am sorry too," I said. It was as close as I could come to expressing my grief on that point. "Come, we'll put your fruit in my safe, and you can borrow one of my nightshirts."

Holmes agreed, and watched carefully as I locked it away. I did not hide the safe's combination from him — he might retrieve the fruit at any time he wished, even while I slept if he so chose, and disappear into the streets of London forever.

It seemed the fruit whispered to me as I took it from him, and to my distress and revulsion, whispered in Mary's voice. But Mary and I had said everything in our hearts during the weeks leading up to her death; the Tree could not possibly know any secrets of hers that I wished to hear. I firmly shut the door on the fruit, and resolved again to destroy the Tree as soon as I could persuade Holmes of the necessity.

We went upstairs, and I loaned him a nightshirt. He changed and sat on the edge of the bed I had shared with Mary, waiting while I changed, too.

"I see that your practice is doing well," Holmes said.

"Hard work is an antidote to sorrow."

"So it is. Watson, I owe you a thousand apologies. I thought I bargained with no lives but my own, but to come home and be confronted with what I have done, to see the cost to my friend…" He looked up then, for I had drawn near to him.

"John," I corrected him, and tilting his face up to mine, I kissed him.

"John," he said, when I drew back. He gazed up at me, something naked and vulnerable in his eyes.

"Or do you intend to lie again and tell me that you do not want me?" I asked.

His grip tightened on my hips, and he shook his head.

I leaned down and kissed him again. The kiss was tentative and fragile, so different from when I had confidently propositioned him in the months before I had met Mary. His words had been regretful, but he had not chosen to confess all and ask my forgiveness; he had crept in, a thief in the night, and been ambushed by my already knowing all. I could not be confident of him, nor whether he would hare off on his quest once more.

Again I pulled back, and again he gazed up at me, his eyes grave and full of feeling.

"You have a second chance, Sherlock. Don't squander it on another dance with the Tree."

He made me no promises. It was as well, for in that mood, I was unsure whether I would have believed him. I felt unlike myself, to be so suspicious, and I did not like it. Perhaps it was merely the fatigue of a night without sleep; perhaps it was the exhaustion of too many revelations in too few hours.

I touched Holmes' face, marvelling again that he was alive. I could overlook much, simply to have him alive again.

"John," he said again, and this time he pulled me down to kiss him.

Eventually Holmes pulled back the covers and got in, sliding to the far side of the bed; I followed after. I ended up not on my usual side of the bed, and I wondered if observation had for once failed Holmes, or if he had simply not thought to care. He lay back on my pillow, staring at the ceiling as if he planned to lie awake, thinking.

I reached out to put a hand on his arm, and his hand came to cover mine.

Comforted by his touch, I slept.

 

I woke to an empty bed and the smell of coffee; Holmes, fully dressed, stood at the window, looking out into broad daylight. For a moment I thought I dreamed, and then reality came rushing in: Holmes had never died at Reichenbach Falls, but had only allowed me to believe so. Holmes, alive. I could stand up and touch him, if I wished.

"There's coffee and sandwiches," Holmes said, still looking out the window. There was a taut, nervous energy to his figure, for all its stillness. "The sandwiches are rudimentary, but they were the best I could manage from your larder."

"You're still here," I said.

"I said I would be," he said simply, as if his word was his bond. "Come, drink your coffee."

Sitting up, I poured the coffee that he had left on my bedside table. It was hot and fragrant, and did much to clear my head. The sandwiches were merely thick slabs of meat between rough slices of bread; I took one, and be damned to the crumbs among my sheets. "Have you eaten?"

He shook his head, the movement sharp and clipped. "No. I don't wish to adulterate the effects of the fruit."

I understood, then, the tension in him — he had endured two and a half years of hardship and loneliness, and was about to discover whether it was worth the sacrifice. The sandwich went to dry ash in my mouth, and I laid the remainder aside.

"I have been standing here just now," Holmes said, "considering whether I should destroy the fruit. It could be simply done: unwrap it and expose it to the light of this window. Can any good come from its poison?"

I contemplated the fruit's destruction: two years of pain on both our parts, suffered to no purpose whatsoever.

"Would you be content, never knowing the answers to your questions?" I asked.

He looked at me for a long, silent moment. "No, I would not."

"Come, then," I said, throwing my covers back. "If we are to do this, let us do it now."

Nevertheless, I was unable to conceal my distaste for the proposition when, having dressed and shaved, I withdrew the fruit from my safe. The Tree had caused such pain. Holmes had given up his integrity and friends for it; Moriarty, his reputation, character, and life. I was not convinced that there was a good that was worth such sacrifices; I was even less convinced that the fruit could deliver it.

The fruit whispered, still in Mary's voice. I wondered if Holmes heard his father's.

"You dislike this," Holmes observed.

"It doesn't matter what I like. You sacrificed two and a half years of your life to harvest this fruit. I'm not about to stand in your way."

"And if I had consulted you in the beginning?"

I couldn't imagine what he thought to gain by asking such a question. "Do you want me to tell you not to do this? I will and gladly. Say the word, and I'll throw it into the fire now."

He watched me steadily for a long moment. "Give it here."

With a feeling of defeat, I did so.

"What else shall you need?" I asked, drawing the curtains against the daylight; the room's main light came from the fire in the grate. I felt as if I was preparing the room for a seance; I could only hope that the spirits Holmes meant to commune with were benevolent.

He looked about my study. "To be locked in; sometimes I walk under its influence. Watson, you do not have to do this with me. Sometimes I come back to myself to discover I have become violent in my trance and smashed things. I do not wish to put you in harm's way."

"All the more reason for me to be present, to prevent you from hurting yourself."

"I'm rather more concerned about hurting you."

I locked the door, then pocketed the key. "Nevertheless, I am staying."

He smiled. "I should have known you would not be driven away so easily."

With my permission, Holmes sat himself at my desk. He turned my chair so that he was working in his own shadow and tenderly unwrapped the fruit. When revealed, it was the size of a lime — hardly anything at all. It was difficult to believe it was worth Moriarty's life and reputation, or Holmes' own sacrifices.

Holmes withdrew a knife from his pocket.

"Holmes, you needn't do this. Whatever questions you have, we'll find another way of answering them."

He favoured me with a thin smile. "It will be all right, John. Trust me."

Unhappily, I nodded.

He cut the fruit in two, and experimentally prodded at its flesh. "Still no seeds. I had thought there might be this time, given its size." Closing his eyes, he placed one portion in his mouth, rind and all.

He had described the fruit’s flavour in his notebook as bitter, giving something of a burning sensation in the throat. Apparently the fruit was far more foul than he had intimated there, for his face stretched involuntarily in distaste, much like a child sucking upon a lemon. By main force of will he made himself chew and swallow it, then glared balefully at the second portion where it rested in his hand.

"You look like a child faced with a dish of boiled turnips."

"It's more foul than I remembered," he said, but made himself eat the second portion, a little more stoically than the first. Then he settled back in my chair, his fingers steepled before his face.

"How long now?" I asked.

He shrugged. "A few minutes, perhaps. I was never lucid enough to time it."

I sat on the settee to wait.

I will not chronicle the details of what ensued: Holmes was not himself, and I will not violate his confidence, not even in a private and otherwise candid account; the clinical notes I have entered into his lab notebook will have to suffice on that front. He was much agitated by the drug, and paced restlessly like a caged lion. Indeed, his eyes took on a golden, leonine glow that I could not attribute entirely to the firelight. When not pacing the room, Holmes wrote madly at my desk, filling a great many sheets of foolscap. Sketches, too, fell from his pen. More than once he attempted to escape from the room, and twice I was required to coax him away from the door, lest he damage his hands on it. Sometimes he addressed me with great ferocity; other times he seemed very nearly himself, but for the nonsensicality of the exchange. But while Holmes sometimes raged — at his captivity, at my inability to answer his questions — I was never afraid for my person. In that aspect alone, he remained himself.

He was once more pacing the room when all energy suddenly passed from him. He stumbled, and I caught his arm, guiding him to the settee, where he fell into a kind of swoon. He lay insensate for some time, his pulse strong but worryingly slow. As I sat vigil, it slowed further, and further still. His breathing, too, became depressed. I was considering administering a stimulant when at last he stirred and took a deep breath.

He gazed at me from behind heavy lids, his eyes still that uncanny yellow. "Have I hurt you?"

"Not at all," I reassured him.

He nodded, and his eyes shut again. Soon he fell into a normal sleep. I drew a blanket over him, and unable to bear the uselessness of sitting still, I set about tidying the room.

I deliberately did not read his writings as I straightened his papers on my desk, but his drawings could not help but fall under my eye. There was a distinctly nautical theme among them, several ships, including one being savagely wrecked upon surf-crashed rocks, and another sketch of two Naval gentlemen wearing the high cocked hats of Nelson's era, each man so alike the other as to be brothers. Other drawings, however, did not fit the theme: there was a lovingly-detailed rendering of a pastoral farmyard, as well as a rough, cartoonish sketch of a fledgling in a nest. Chiding myself for my curiosity, I set the drawings aside. Light no longer leaked in past the curtains; I lit a lamp and set myself down to read a medical journal while I waited for Holmes to wake.

I was not as alert as I might have been: I looked up between one article and the next to discover that Holmes had covered his face with his arm and was silently weeping, as a schoolboy might in a dormitory.

"Holmes," I said gently.

He shook his head. "It's only a reaction from the drug," he said, and turned his face away.

"I'll make some tea," I said, and putting aside my journal, I quietly left the room.

I lingered in the kitchen as long as I could justify. When I returned, he was standing at my desk, composed and reserved, deliberately reading each page of his scribblings through before turning it face-down upon the blotter.

"Thank you, Watson," he said, when I placed his cup near his hand.

"I'll leave you to it," I said, and moved to retreat from the room again, but he reached out and caught my hand.

"I would rather you stayed."

"Certainly," I said, and stood near his side, my hand still in his.

I watched him closely as he read. His face betrayed little emotion, and I could not tell if he was satisfied or disappointed with what he had written while under the spell of the fruit. His pupils were still dilated, even beyond what the dim room required. Concerned, I reached up to turn his chin to the lamp. His pupils did not constrict in response to the light; rather, they gleamed from within with a yellow flame, like those of some nocturnal creature lurking beyond the circle of a campfire.

"Your eyes," I said.

He squeezed my hand. "Do not concern yourself. It'll pass off, soon enough. Here, you may take my pulse, if you wish. There, see? All is well."

Reassured by the strong and steady beat of his heart under my fingertips, I took up my cup of tea. He returned to his reading. When I finished my tea, I drank his, too.

At last he put down the final page. He shut his eyes and stood with his fingertips on the stack of face-down pages, terribly still.

"Holmes?" I asked. "What is it?"

"The Tree spoke of my grandfather, not my father." He turned the stack of pages over again, and fanning them out, plucked out the picture of the farmyard. "Except this one." He touched the stone well in the foreground, with its winch and bucket. "My father's resting place. How am I meant to find one farmyard in all of Ireland?"

I was touched by his tone of despair. I considered the drawing carefully: there was little to distinguish this particular stone-and-thatch outbuilding from any other, nor the well that stood before it, and yet the scene was detailed enough that I might recognise it, were I to see it in person. Assuming the farm even existed, and was not a fever dream of his own creation.

"If need be, we'll visit every one," I said staunchly. "We'll leave in the morning, if you like."

The smile he gave me was pathetic with gratitude. "Ah, Watson. How I've missed you."

"And I you. Come now, be so good as to tell me why I have just volunteered to traipse all over Ireland with you."

He sighed, and folded himself into my desk chair. I poured him a fresh cup of tea, still warm from under its cosy, and he took it gratefully, breathing its steam while he gathered his thoughts.

"The Holmeses are a line of staid country squires in Lancashire, as unremarkable as they are respectable, with a custom of sending their younger sons to sea. Sherrinford Holmes was one such younger son, and had the honour of serving the Crown in its fight against the French Republic. Sherrinford distinguished himself favourably in that war, rising to the rank of captain by the time the Peace of Amiens was signed. During that peace, he married my grandmother, the daughter of the Portsmouth harbour master, but they had only a few weeks together before he was called again, this time to the fight against French tyranny.

"The second war did not go as well as the first: in 1805, after a courageous duel in which she sank a French ship of the line, the HMS Scylla was forced upon the rocks off the Breton coast. Nearly all hands were lost, but a few souls survived the shipwreck, Sherrinford among them, only to become guests of Napoleon.

"Napoleon, as you may recall, was not an advocate of the cartel, believing that men released to their mother countries would only take up arms again. Thus the surviving crewmen of the Scylla spent the remaining nine years of war in a French prison hulk; many among them did not survive the experience. The two officers who survived the wreck, Captain Sherrinford Holmes and Lieutenant Elias Bellamy, were spared the indignities of the hulk; they were quartered ashore, in slightly more healthful conditions, although records state that Lieutenant Bellamy — originally third of the Scylla, but now acting first by dint of his two seniors drowning — enjoyed his promotion for only a month, before succumbing to an infection arising from the amputation of his leg, which had been crushed when Scylla foundered.

"Thus it was not until 1814 that my grandfather returned to England to stand court martial for the Scylla's loss. He was honourably acquitted and returned to Lancashire a hero, but much changed from the man who had left in 1803. Captain Sherrinford had been sunny and outgoing as a youth, I am told, but I remember my grandfather as a taciturn and forbidding man, scarred from his injuries, and suspicious of everyone he met. Nevertheless, my grandmother, Sherrinford's wife, welcomed my grandfather home. He moved into the great hall and took up the duties of squire, Sherrinford's older brother having died during the Peninsular War.

"My grandfather was still the squire when I was a boy. He was not much liked in the village, nor was he affectionate with us boys, but that was of little concern to us, for my father, an otherwise shy and awkward man, showered us with affection as freely as the sun — or rather more freely, given the dampness of our little island. I had a carefree boyhood, much consumed with the collection of frogs and birds' eggs, and while Mycroft sometimes felt the want of a mother's love, I had been so young when she died that I had never known her to miss her.

"When I was seven, Grandfather died, and Mycroft then being away at school, my father and I moved to the Great Hall, so that my father might take up his duties as the new squire.

"I remember well the oppressive air of that house, the very rooms themselves having taken on my grandfather's character. My father was much subdued in his grief — he had never been close with my grandfather, but sometimes the grief of a difficult relationship severed is much harder to bear than that of a close one. I did not know of such things, however, being only a boy — I knew only that my father's affectionate nature became heavy and troubled. Time did not ease what ailed him; he soon became skittish under the weight of his new responsibilities, and he insisted that I curtail my roaming for birds' eggs and remain always within sight of the house. Unfortunately, I forgot my instructions sometimes and followed the croak of a frog well beyond the lawns. Then my father would come down to the brook and catch me up tightly before hustling me back to the house.

"Three months after my grandfather's passing, my father went out one morning and never came back. It was quickly discovered that he had boarded a train for Liverpool, but whither from there, no one could say. Foul play was initially suspected, given his fearful behaviour, but when our cousin Merritt and his family arrived to take charge, it was soon discovered that the estate and farms were in debt, and that furthermore Father had secured several large loans before boarding the train to Liverpool. The village had always thought him an odd man at best, and opinion in the village turned against him: he had obviously been waiting for the opportunity to get his hands on the family money, and finding none, had secured what cash he could and vanished with it.

"Mycroft came home from school, and although he questioned myself, the staff, and villagers, he was never able to throw any more light on my father's disappearance. I wish I had been older and more observant — I might have noticed some vital clue, now lost to the years."

I ached for a young boy's loss of a beloved father. "And that's why you became a detective?" I asked. "To investigate your father's disappearance?"

Holmes inclined his head. "Perhaps it was the naïvete of youth, but I could not believe what people said of my father. If he left of his own will, it was with regret and for good reason. But neither did we have any idea why he might be forcibly kept from home. Or worse, done away with.

"After I learned my profession, I returned to my ancestral home, still managed by Cousin Merritt, to discover what I could, now that I had a man's skill and knowledge. I consulted with Mycroft on what he had discovered at the time, reinterviewed the servants who still served at the Hall, and made new inquiries in the village. I searched in Liverpool and, when that proved useless, I investigated the facts of Sherrinford's service, imprisonment, and court martial, hypothesising that my grandfather's death had precipitated some sequence of events that led to my father's disappearance. Unfortunately, some fifteen years had passed — and forty-five years since Grandfather's naval service — so there was little new evidence to be gained. Everyone connected to my father had formulated his own theory of what had happened and twisted half-remembered facts to suit his own narrative. The men who had served with my grandfather had mostly perished with the Scylla, and those who had not were now old men who remembered Sherrinford Holmes as a fine and upright man, without a professional shadow to his name until the day he lost the Scylla. Perhaps if I had been a man grown into my full powers at the time my father disappeared I could have discovered something. But at such a remove, it was impossible.

"I gave up the quest, thinking my father's fate not only unknown, but unknowable."

"Until the Tree," I supplied.

"Until the Tree, yes. One of the early visions helped me trace my father to Dublin. But once there, he disappeared again. It has been over thirty years, and no one now remembers one shy and awkward middle-aged Englishman, unremarkable to everyone but his children. Still, it was the first lead I had ever had in his case. Perhaps if the Tree knew this one thing about my father, it might know another. Alas, what the Tree told me was often too vague to use, and seldom provable. Perhaps a larger falsehood, one of more consequence, told to more people…

"Unfortunately, Moriarty also wanted a more potent fruit, and having destroyed his own reputation, needed me to cultivate it for him. I had first met him at university, where he had been one of my tutors. Most of my professors knew of nothing outside their own narrow disciplines, but Moriarty had a keenly attentive mind that I recognised as being much like my own. When I was frustrated and despondent while re-investigating my father's death, he became a friend, a source of comfort and good advice. The change in him since then was remarkable. The man who set his thug upon Mrs Hudson, and whom I met in Switzerland… He was so unlike the Moriarty I had known that I barely recognised him at all.

"After his death in Switzerland, I discovered that I could stomach the lies no more. But just as little could I give up my father's quest. I gambled everything I loved on one great, final falsehood. I had consulted Mycroft occasionally during my explorations with the Tree; with his assistance, I was able to keep it safe at Baker Street while I waited for you to publish your account of my death. I must apologise for bringing him into my confidence and not you, but I could hardly help but to do so. He is more perspicacious than I am: I have never once in my life successfully lied to him, neither as a boy nor as a man."

Whereas he had needed a credulous vessel to receive of his lies, and that duty had fallen to me. I remembered how I had called out Holmes' name in Switzerland beside the Falls, desperate for an answer. Had he heard me and turned away? I could not fault his need for answers to his father's disappearance, but I could still wish he had taken me into his confidence.

But he was taking me into his confidence now.

I gestured at the drawing of the farmyard, resting atop the papers spread out on my desk. "And this farm is in Ireland?"

"The Tree did not specify, but as my father was last seen in Dublin, it seems the likeliest place to start."

"And your father lives here?" I asked, although I had little hope of that.

Holmes touched the well. "No. If the Tree is to be believed, he lies here, at the bottom."

Holmes seemed unmoved, but the revelation — provided he believed it — must have been a terrible blow. "I'm sorry, Holmes."

"It was always unlikely that he still lived, at the remove of thirty years."

"Nevertheless," I said. I touched his hand in sympathy, and he turned his to briefly return the touch.

"If it's true," I said, "his body would poison the well. No one could live there, after that."

"Not unless there is another water source. A cistern, a brook, a second well — perhaps one newly dug after this one was poisoned. That will be something to look for: a new well commissioned after the previous one unexpectedly failed, or a farm that became suddenly untenanted thirty years ago. Perhaps one that was originally tenanted by a sailor who was in His Majesty's service during the wars against Napoleon."

"A sailor? Why a sailor?"

Holmes stirred the papers on my desk, and drew forth the crude sketch of the fledgling in the nest. "Do you recognise this? No, I do not think you robbed birds' nests as a child. It is a cuckoo. A gowk, as we called them as children."

"A cuckoo? I don't understand."

"The Tree, having its little joke." Holmes rifled the papers again, and this time drew forth the picture of the two Naval officers, so similar in appearance. "Alike, are they not? When I was investigating Captain Sherrinford Holmes' naval career, that was something one powder boy, then liver-spotted with age, remembered distinctly: how alike the captain and his third lieutenant were. Everyone said my grandfather was hardly the same man when he returned from the war. They may have been more right than they knew."

"You're saying your grandfather was actually this man? The lieutenant, Elias Bellamy?"

"My grandmother had been married to Sherrinford for only a few weeks before he sailed against the tyrant. Penelope did not recognise Ulysses after a twenty-year absence; might my grandmother fail to recognise her husband after ten? We know that only two officers survived the Scylla's foundering, Sherrinford Holmes and Elias Bellamy, and one of them was gravely injured in that event. As officers, they were imprisoned separately from the Scylla's sailors, so there was no one present who could attest to either man's identity. We are told the injured officer was Bellamy, who thereafter died of his wounds, but might it not have been the Scylla's captain, Sherrinford Holmes, who was the injured man? Too gravely ill to protest — or perhaps even too ill to notice — when his lieutenant exchanged their uniform jackets?"

"But this is monstrous!"

"Monstrous things happen in war," Holmes replied. "Bellamy came from a family of no money and no consequence, and was without patronage. Even during war, he had little chance of promotion, and none as a prisoner of Napoleon. Yet in one swift moment of deception, he attains a captain's rank and a squirehood in Lancashire, if only he can survive his imprisonment to enjoy them both. However monstrous the deception might be, it was entirely possible."

"But that would mean you're not a Holmes at all."

"Then it is fortunate that Mycroft never desired the squirehood and was content to leave its duties in the hands of Cousin Merritt, who has no such shadow in his lineage. But to prove the imposture at this late date? That is the problem. My grandfather, whoever he was, has been dead for thirty years, while the man who died in prison beside him has been dead for seventy. Perhaps thirty years ago, there was someone who knew the two men and could prove the difference, but now? I think it extremely unlikely."

"But you think we're looking for a sailor."

"A sailor who possibly blackmailed my grandfather, and my father after him, yes. It would explain why the estate was so heavily mortgaged, and likewise why my father became so frightened after my grandfather's death: the blackmailer turned his attentions from my deceased grandfather to his only living son. It might explain my father's disappearance, also. Perhaps my father went to meet his blackmailer, either to buy him off or to acquire his proof and make it right. Pah! This is all conjecture. As neat as the theory is, I can no more prove this line of inquiry than any other. If only..."

His eyes gleamed gold.

My stomach sank. "No, Holmes. Don't do this."

"The Tree knows, Watson."

"It may know, but it can't be induced to tell you what it knows. Surely you've proven that by now."

"It told me the entire history of my grandfather, clearly and without equivocation. I need only a lead, something I can turn into a productive line of inquiry. The Tree is constrained to tell the truth, after all."

"But not usefully! It is like dealing with a genie, Holmes. It will twist and evade and never give you what you want. It is selfish and concerned only with its own survival. It is always going to withhold, for fear that you will stop feeding it."

"I don't need much, Watson. Grist for the mill, something to work with…!"

There was still that otherworldly flame in his eyes, a firey yellow so unlike his usual cool grey. I took his hand. "Wait a while. You're not yourself — the fruit's effects haven't passed off yet."

"I'm entirely rational, Watson."

"It has an addictive, compulsive effect," I continued. "I noticed it in your journal. I saw it in myself, even the few hours I spent with the Tree."

He looked at me with disappointment. "You said you wouldn't stand in the way of my discovering what happened to Father."

"And I won't. I will knock on every door in Ireland for you, if that's what you require. But the Tree is the Devil's bait, Holmes. Don't you see it?"

He stood, his face forbidding. "This is why I did not take you into my confidence before."

The words wounded me, but convinced me more than ever that he was not himself. "Holmes, the drug is still upon you," I pleaded. "Stay here for the night, just until—"

But he had already walked out the door.

I sat stunned for a moment, it was so unlike him, before I rushed into the corridor and down the stairs. But his long legs were faster than mine, and the front door shut behind him just as I reached the foyer. I dashed out into the street bareheaded, but the fog had pressed close during the course of the evening, and already concealed him from view. "Holmes!" I called. "Holmes!"

He didn't answer.

I went back into the house to snatch up my coat and hat. I took up his, too, for he had left them behind in his cold fury. Back in the street, I ran for Paddington Station as quickly as my legs would carry me, in the hopes of securing a hansom that would allow me to overtake Holmes. Finding a cab was easy enough, and with the cabbie urged on by my generous coin we made good time to Baker Street.

"Dr Watson," Mrs Hudson exclaimed in surprise when she answered the door to my harried ring of the bell.

"Is Holmes in?"

"Why, no! I thought he was with you."

I cursed, startling my former landlady very much. "Dr Watson!" she reproved, but she nevertheless let me in to wait for Holmes. I took the stairs two at a time to the first floor landing.

When I opened the door to the sitting room, the Tree’s scent, as strong as ever, reached deep into my lungs. Holmes was not in the sitting room, and I tried the door to his bedroom. It was locked, just as he had left it. I pounded on it with my fist, on the off-chance that he had locked himself in with the Tree.

"Holmes!" I called.

There was no response but from the Tree itself, a chorus of sibilant voices. Before the voices had always been meaningless, but now they resolved into words, which I eventually recognised as lies, lies that I had told at one point or another in my life. Lies of childhood, made to my nurse or my parents. Lies of a wastrel medical student, begging allowances from my instructors. Evasions and half-truths told to my commanding officers, when I wished to escape orders or discipline. Lies meant to comfort terrified, dying, pain-wracked men. Lies printed in the Strand as I changed a date or name to protect myself from the inconvenience of a defamation suit. Lies I had told plentifully, without reservation or remorse.

I pounded my fist on the door again, as much to drown out the whispering as to be heard. "If I have engaged in false witness to ill end, then that is on my soul, and my soul alone. But I will not let you have Holmes!"

"Dr Watson?" Mrs Hudson asked from behind me. She bore a tea service on a tray. "Are you quite all right?"

I turned, embarrassed at having been caught shouting at a locked door. "Quite all right, Mrs Hudson."

She raised her eyebrow at me, but nevertheless put the tea tray on Holmes' breakfast table. "Has he left again so soon?"

"I expect him back. I hope." He would come to feed the Tree, if for no other reason.

Behind me, the Tree whispered in satisfaction.

Mrs Hudson seemed to hear it, too. "What is in there, that he has kept that door locked all this time?"

"Photosensitive chemicals," I said automatically.

She eyed me dubiously. "Well, there's tea here, if you want it. It may be a long wait."

I thanked her for her kindness. With a last lingering glance at Holmes' door, she left.

It was a twenty-minute walk from Paddington to Baker Street, but it was hours before Holmes arrived. How he spent the intervening time, I did not know, but I spent it staring into the fire, listening to the whispers of the Tree.

"Watson," Holmes said, and I looked up to see him in the open doorway. I had not heard him enter.

"You came back." I had been afraid he would not return. Afraid that, in my impetuousness, I had seen the last of him for another two years, if not forever.

"I owe you an apology," he said.

"No, I owe one to you," I said urgently.

He looked at me quizzically. "Do you?"

"I do. You've always used deception in your cases. A false tip to the newspapers. A disguise. The falsehood that one accomplice has already confessed, told to spur a confession from another. Lies, all, but in every case, designed to reveal the truth. This is no different."

Holmes frowned. "I had been about to say that the truth can't be conjured by lies."

"Except that it can. If you need me to spread a falsehood for you, to help you find your father's final resting place, I am here to be used."

Holmes came to me and took me by the chin, turning my face toward the lamplight. His eyes were a cool, glittering grey, and I saw his jaw set in grim determination. "I'm gratified to hear that," he said his tone more casual than his expression. "Have you been waiting here long?"

"Since you left Paddington."

Holmes went to the window and threw the sash up, letting in the night air and the poison fog it carried. He went to the next and did the same, and the same again with the third.

"The story you told Mrs Hudson about Mecca, perhaps," I suggested. "That would be readily believed, I think."

"I see. Come out onto the landing with me, there's a good fellow." On the landing, he went to the window overlooking the street and threw that open as well. He took me by the shoulders and stood me in front of the window. "Stand here and breathe deeply, please."

"Or Tibet! The Orient is popular with the readers of the Strand."

Holmes left me, re-entering his rooms, and I followed him in again. He removed his jacket and caught up the axe from where I had dropped it that morning. He lit the dark lantern, then took the key from his watch chain and unlocked his bedroom door.

"Or the travels of Sigerson!" I said, not to be put off, but Holmes ignored me and pushed under the drape covering the door.

The Tree seemed to welcome him in a voiceless chorus, just beyond the edge of my hearing.

"Holmes?" I asked, but there was no answer. Instead, there was the ringing whack of one solid object striking another.

The Tree screamed.

I have no other explanation for the sound that seemed to rend the room. Or more accurately, the absence of sound: as ever, the Tree's voices were just beyond my hearing. I rushed to the bedroom door as the Tree again cried out, an agonising shriek that made my flesh crawl. From within, I could hear the steady thunk of an axe on wood, but when I pushed back the curtain into the room I could see only the shudder and trembling of the branches that filled the room. Foliage rained around me. Holmes himself was not to be seen, hidden behind the curtain that shrouded the Tree's urn.

"Holmes!" I cried out, and tried to push my way to him. The branches, however, tore at me in a frenzy of terror, blocking my path, and I was much cut-up by their thorns by the time I gained the inner curtain. I pulled it back to find Holmes, stance wide and strong, steadily chopping the trunk of the Tree.

"I will not," he said grimly, the axe punctuating his words, "have you suborning, my friend. He is good, and he is honest—"

At that, the Tree seemed to groan, the trunk twisting and tearing. In the close confines of Holmes' room, the Tree couldn't do anything so majestic as topple, but the trunk sundered and sagged, the branches around my head tilting and sinking as their support gave way. Holmes reversed his grip on the axe, and left-handed, struck from the other side, severing the last connection between roots and trunk.

The shriek of voices ebbed away, like the hissing of a fast-running tide. Then there was silence, true silence, in which I could hear only my own breath and Holmes'.

Holmes let the axe rest on the ground and turned to me. "Are you all right, Watson?" Again he took my chin, holding me still so he could search my eyes.

"Perfectly," I said, bewildered by what he had just done. "But the Tree, and your quest for your father!"

His mouth twisted, and his thumb stroked my cheek. "It's no matter. Now we must get these curtains down."

But before he could do so, Mrs Hudson interrupted us.

"Oh, my goodness! Mr Holmes!" she exclaimed, and I turned to find that she had pushed her way past the drape to enter the room, and was ducking to see beneath the sagging branches. "I heard screaming! What in Heaven's name…!"

"There's no time to explain," Holmes answered. "It is vitally important that we have this all cleared away by daylight. A second axe, if you please, Mrs Hudson. I don't care whom you have to wake to secure it!"

So saying, and using his axe like a machete, he fought his way through the sagging branches to the windows and began pulling down their curtains. When he had the first window clear, he used the axe to prise away the boards. The sash would not open, however, being nailed shut, and so warning me to cover my eyes, Holmes used the axe-head to break the glass, systematically knocking away the jagged shards at the edges of the frame.

"Mr Holmes!" Mrs Hudson exclaimed. "I protest!"

I made my way to her side. "Truly, Mrs Hudson. If we don't have it all disposed of by daylight, Baker Street will go up in flames."

She gave me a poisonous look, but gathered up her skirts. "An axe, sir, and then you will both explain!"

We worked with a steely determination. Mrs Hudson returned with the second axe, complaining that Marie Turner, who kept boarders of her own next door, would not soon forgive being rousted at two in the morning for an axe for her chickens. Before turning the axe over to us, however, Mrs Hudson demanded her explanation.

"The Tree is photoreactive," Holmes said. "All plants are, of course, but this one will ignite violently if daylight strikes it. We must have it all in the garden by daybreak, every last leaf and twig, well away from the house walls, lest it take Baker Street with it when it goes up in flame."

Her lips pursed. "That is no kind of explanation at all, Mr Holmes." Nevertheless, Holmes had impressed on her the urgency of the situation, and she worked beside us before going down to the garden to rake the branches away from the walls. Once she had a goodly pile, she lit a bonfire — a safer alternative, we felt, to letting the entire pile spontaneously combust when daylight struck it. Once lit, the branches burnt with an unnatural intensity. I shuddered to think what might have happened to Baker Street if Holmes' precautions against the light had failed at any point during his two-year absence.

Even after the main bulk of the trunk, branches, and roots had been chopped into shorter lengths, thrust out the window, and burnt, there was still meticulous sweeping-up to be done, lest the litter of fallen leaves and axe chips caught in rugs and bedclothes should ignite small fires of their own at daybreak. Bedclothes and rugs were removed from Holmes' room and hung from the line, well shaken, beaten, and wetted against accident, and the floor of Holmes' room wetted as a precaution against inflammable dust. We shook out our clothes, too, and Holmes went through my hair with meticulous care, removing any small matter that had been caught there.

The night was too foggy for a proper dawn: the mist grew brighter around us, but did not cleanly admit the sun's rays. Nevertheless, Holmes and I sat vigil in his room, now chill from the damp morning fog threading through the shattered windows, on watch for any small lick of flame as the city slowly brightened to grey beyond the windows.

"It's been another sleepless night for you," Holmes said, as he traced a curl of smoke back to an overlooked leaf. He shoveled it into his bucket of sand, where it could burn safely. "You'll have to ask Anstruther to take your patients again."

"I already sent a note around, while you were convincing Mrs Hudson not to throw you out." Negotiations between the two had been tense, but she had eventually softened enough to permit him to remain as her lodger, even condescending to send up a fresh pot of coffee for our morning's vigil.

"And I am going to pay handsomely for the privilege, I assure you. Enough so that I may require someone to go shares with me." His glance was almost shy, and I realised he was asking me, once again, to room with him.

"The Tree is gone, John," he said, when I hesitated. "I can't promise to give over my deceptive ways entirely — as you pointed out last night, they are entirely too useful in the pursuit of a case. But you may be assured that I shall not be looking for opportunities to practise upon you, and that if I do, it is for the good of the case and no other reason."

"I'd rather you didn't practise upon me at all, Holmes. I should think that anyone you call your friend and partner should have earned your trust. Or was our alleged partnership, too, a lie?"

"Never a lie. Yours was an essential role, and there was no one I could have trusted better to fulfill it."

It was a strange sort of trust, to be used but told nothing of his schemes. But it had long been so; even putting aside the Tree's influence, I had been given occasion to know it.

"I know I don't deserve your trust," Holmes said. "Not after what has passed. But I should like the chance to earn it, if you can find the charity to permit me the opportunity."

"Of course," I said. Perhaps it is a fault of my nature to forgive so easily, but when I contemplate living my life without the presumption of the good faith of my fellow man, it seems a very small and grasping sort of existence. Perhaps it is a natural consequence that I should sometimes be practised upon, but I cannot stomach how suspicious I would have to become to scrupulously prevent it.

"But what about the Tree?" I said. "And your father?"

Holmes shook his head. "You tried to warn me, but I would not listen. I had not realised how deep it had its claws in me, until I saw its claws in you. I might not have shaken off its influence for my own sake, but for yours… I am very fond of that cornflower blue, John. Gold doesn't suit you at all."

I ducked my head in embarassment, although there was nothing but understanding and affection in Holmes' eyes. As the air in his rooms had cleared during the night, the Tree's vapours gradually replaced by London fog, the narcotic effect passed and I became myself again, if somewhat chagrined at how easily I had fallen prey to the Tree's seductions.

But Holmes, too, had fallen into the Tree's orbit, and much more heavily than I. Two years of abstention had done much to clear his mind of its influence, until the taste of a single fruit had threatened to bring him back into its embraces. But it seemed the honest, noxious fogs of London had done much to clear his head.

"Gold clashes with my moustache," I agreed, and Holmes smiled. "But what of your father, Holmes?"

"You suggested last night that you would help me knock on every croft door in Ireland, if it would help me find my father's grave." He said it as if he could not be sure that I meant the offer, or if it still held.

"And so I would. Scotland, too, if that would help. We'll find his bones, Holmes. And when we do, it may yet become clear for what reason and with what intent your father left the hall that morning, and who prevented him from coming back."

He sighed. "Or it may be that I will never know. It may be that there is no one now alive who can shed light on the problem, and the clues that may once have been helpful have long since been destroyed by time. You've been kind enough not to dwell on the fact in your stories, but my files are swollen with cases that I never resolved to my satisfaction."

So it has proved in the case of Holmes' father's disappearance, insofar as can yet be known. Holmes has concentrated his efforts on tracking down the naval acquaintances of Sherrinford Holmes and Elias Bellamy in the hopes that one will lead us to a farmyard in Ireland. It has been frustrating and unrewarding work, given that the principals are all dead of war or old age, and our only informants are descendants, journals, and the yellowed and dusty pages of the Naval Chronicle. I assist where and how I can. However frustrating the effort, we have not given up hope: after all, we have not yet attempted the stratagem of knocking on every farmhouse door in Ireland.

Unfortunately, Holmes has been able to work on the problem only intermittently. Not long after his return, we were faced with the problem of Ronald Adair's murder, and Holmes' professional life has been busy ever since. In writing up Adair's case, I explained Holmes' return by employing the fiction he had first told to Mrs Hudson, the one about Tibet, Mecca, and the explorations of a Norwegian named Sigerson. My conscience twinged as I did so, but I saw no public value in branding Holmes a liar in the press, nor in placing his private griefs and an unsubstantiated family scandal before the public. After all, with the exception of "The Final Problem", my tales of his career are a largely accurate depiction of Holmes' powers and achievements, and those who were most harmed by Holmes' false death have already forgiven him. It helps, of course, to know that the Tree itself is gone — the lies I told in "The Empty House" were not told at its behest, nor in pursuit of its forbidden knowledge. I hope to lay any last twinges of my conscience to rest by penning this true account. I have no plans to publish it, but scholars may find it edifying after our deaths, if there is still interest in Holmes' life at that time.

As for my libel of Professor James Moriarty, who, while criminal, was not nearly so criminal as my story claimed, Holmes and I have made what reparations we can to his brother, Colonel James Moriarty, although he has expressed little desire to communicate with either of us.

As for the Tree, its destruction has prevented science from solving the mystery of its metaphysical properties — although if the Tree is a descendant of the original Tree, as I feel it must be, then knowledge of it has been forbidden since the Beginning. Certainly I doubt that the worthy gentlemen at Kew would fare any better against the Tree's seductions than Holmes and I. Nevertheless, I sometimes wonder if Holmes regrets his rashness in destroying the Tree—

"I do not regret it," Holmes said from where he sat cross-legged on the floor in a square of morning sunshine, pasting newspaper articles into his scrapbook as I wrote at my desk. I looked up in consternation.

"My dear man! How did you know what I had been about to ask?"

"You were writing about the Tree, were you not? And have been ever since you sent 'The Empty House' to your publisher, as if you could assuage your misgivings about its untruths by setting a more honest account down on paper. But this morning you have achieved that peculiar air, half satisfaction and half sorrow, that signifies you have at last come to the end of your tale. You looked at the urn in the bow window, which now contains an admirable aspidistra, and then you turned your contemplation on me. It was elementary that you should ask me if I regretted the Tree's destruction. I do not. I would have fed that Tree lies until my word was worthless, and I still would never have been satisfied with its answers. It is as well that it is gone. It was a mad time, and I have you to thank that it did not go on for longer."

"I only did what a friend would do."

"I disagree. You showed me that I was not yet beyond the society of good men, and furthermore, that there was something I valued more than the solution to my father's mystery."

There was nothing I could say to that, and I did not try.

"But come, if you have quite finished, let me take you to Simpson's for lunch, and then to a matinee. Tchaikovsky is being performed, and I should very much like you to hear it."

I consented to his plan, and he, leaving his scrapbooks strewn across the floor, stood and went to change. I penned these final lines, and the aspidistra soaked up every scrap of daylight that London skies could give it.

Comments

[rachelindeed]

Omg, what a richly imagined and tremendously well-crafted story! Your prose is beautiful, and your alternate canon weaves in such an abundance details from Doyle so cleverly!

It was harrowing to watch Holmes's worst failings cultivated and magnified by the dark, addictive magic of the Tree. Although Holmes might not have deserved Watson's forgiveness, he clearly quite desperately needed it. And he made good use of it -- it was moving that, in the end, his determination to protect Watson gave him that 'brief moment of sanity and strength,' to borrow a phrase, that he needed to break free at last. :)

[methylviolet10b]

Wow. This was epic, in every sense of the term. I love the interweaving of the Tree mythology with ACD Holmes and the entirely plausible way you've incorporated his various falsehoods into this canon. Your Watson is a treasure, with a strong, clear narrative voice. And the Tree is a truly horrifying monster, insidious and destructive. I will have to go back and re-read this to enjoy all the details I'm sure I missed the first time in my rush to find out how it all ended.

[saki101]

What a masterful tale! Its mood and Watson's voice drew me in and would not let me go. (ACD with Poe and perhaps a bit of Stoker blended in!)

Your description of the Tree's effect on Watson was fabulous and chilling. The lies of all his life coming back to him - oh, the insidious seductiveness of it.

And your exploration of how fiction interacts with reality is intriguing and unsettling. Which was more real, the death of the man or the death of the character? Had Holmes truly died while his character lived? Watson's uneasiness about his own feelings after the publication of the story as well as how people were reacting as though Holmes has just died because he was revealed to have died in the story is such a brilliant bit of foreshadowing, too. I settled into my chair, knowing I was embarking on a special journey.

And the delicate intricacy of the plot! Each thread carefully interwoven, distinct and untangled!

There were so many beautiful, evocative lines - I will quote just a couple of my many favourites:

But as July's heat inexorably decayed into November's chill, the successive issues of the Strand struck the news-agents' counters with all the relentlessness of a bell tolling.

Oh, the atmosphere! The heat decaying. Ah! I could hear the rhythmic thud of the journals on the countertops and the mood grew darker.

And this return to the 'lies' of the author at the end:

It helps, of course, to know that the Tree itself is gone — the lies I told in "The Empty House" were not told at its behest, nor in pursuit of its forbidden knowledge. I hope to lay any last twinges of my conscience to rest by penning this true account. I have no plans to publish it, but scholars may find it edifying after our deaths, if there is still interest in Holmes' life at that time.

Watson's lingering guilt over his heightened awareness of his lies (his loss of innocence) and his need to atone for them with a true, although not absolutely complete, narrative is such a perfect, warning note on which to end. As in the morning after the destruction of the Tree, the dark atmosphere at the outset of the story has only resolved into a brighter mist - the sun's rays have not yet managed to shine through.

What a pleasure! Thank you!!

[colebaltblue]

Deepest apologies oh author! Things have been a bit more than I’m used to offline and I haven’t had a chance to sit down and savor this from beginning to end in one sitting which is how I’m determined to read it. I will have a bit of time carved out in my schedule to do just that in a day or two and will absolutely give you the gushing adoring comment I am positive you fully deserve!

[colebaltblue]

I. Am. Speechless.

I don't think there are enough words in the English language to describe how gorgeous, heartbreaking, compelling, enthralling, poignant, romantic, and beautiful this is.

First things first - this is an incredible gift and I cannot express how honored I am to have received it. Nor can I thank you enough for writing it for the greater Holmes community.

I haven't read The Lie Tree, but my goodness what a fascinating concept. I've placed it on hold at my library for a digital ebook and can't wait to read it. I really love the entire concepts and I especially love how skilled you were at interweaving the worldbuilding into ACD in such a way that I did not feel as if I was "missing" something from not having read the source material.

I absolutely love the tender romantic relationship between those two - Watson's bisexuality, Holmes's complicated feelings that were tied up in his addiction to the tree (and SUCH an addict he was!), the tender treatment of Mary, while also giving us a happy ending of sorts between those two (romantically).

I LOVE Holmes's relationship with the tree. Wow. What a alternate reality of both The Final Problem and The Empty House. Wow. And Watson's relationship as well. And the description of the tree itself! Not necessarily evil but malevolent, selfish, unkind? What a metaphor!

The writing itself is also incredible. Your pacing and language is fantastic and I was drawn in and captivated the entire way through. The story itself was just beautiful and such a treat to read.

I cannot get over how incredible this story is nor can I say thank you enough. Thank you, so much, from the bottom of my heart.

Wow.

[spacemutineer]

This story is INCREDIBLE. I almost feel like it was written just for me, so perfectly it is catered to my interests. Perhaps the Tree has greater powers than we know.

I genuinely believe you should consider getting this story published. It's compelling and exquisitely drawn. It's hard for me to even know how to properly express to you what I found so impressive. Should I start with the characterization, so multi-shaded, complex and true? Should I focus on the plot, absolutely absorbing and fascinating as it is? Should I reflect your obviously deep and loving knowledge of canon and how well you reflect it in every regard?

I give up. It's useless. I will just consider myself happy to have read such an amazing piece, tell you how grateful I am that you added it to our exchange, and hope to see it one day in print.

Oh, and remind me to look up everything else you've ever written once the reveals are made. I hope you've been prolific.

[capt_facepalm]

This was absolutely stunning. I was engrossed from start to finish. What a tale! I wish I had more and better words to describe it. Wow!

[garonne]

That was amazing! I was fascinated and horrified in equal measure by this gripping tale. A rather dark and twisted but entirely plausible version of Holmes' motivations during his different cases in the years preceding his "death", and also possibly the most credible explanation I've ever read for why on earth Holmes let Watson believe he was dead. The memory of this fic will stay with me a long time, I think. So well written, and so many layers of motivations and emotions and lies and truths -- as tangled as the branches of the tree itself!