Mind Games

by Heather W. Petty

  “I thought if I got rid of his weapon, maybe he’d stop—even if it was just for one day.”

  “But why?—”

  “It didn’t work.” I closed my eyes against a wave of emotion, which was a mistake. All I could see in my self-imposed darkness was the look of terror Sadie wore in the drawing. Would I always remember her that way now? My “second sin,” it had said. My greatest sin. “I’ve already lost something precious to me because of that decision. I don’t need—” Lily started to move in front of me again, and I yanked her back to my side. “I don’t need you to make accusations as though you could ever understand what it meant for me to find my friend . . . like that.”

  “Sadie Mae,” Lily said. “She was your friend?”

  I let go of her arm. “I have somewhere to be, and you’ve already made me late. Believe me or don’t, but don’t call me again.”

  She didn’t try to stop me from going downstairs this time, but she followed me, saying nothing all the way to the Hammersmith & City–line platform. She sat next to me, but I didn’t look at her. And when the train stopped at Paddington, she said, “I didn’t know she was your friend.”

  I crossed my arms a little tighter around my chest. Then I looked the opposite way from where she sat and tried to think of anything but Sadie’s muddy shoe. Of the way her body refused to move, even to take a breath. Of the bruising around her neck. And when I finally looked back, Lily was gone, leaving her tattered bouquet behind to rest on the seat next to me.

  • • •

  I texted Lock when I reached the bottom of the concrete steps that led up to the hospital’s main entrance. It was already starting to get dark and I was exhausted, but I was there.

  Where are you?

  I stared at the screen for a few seconds, and when he didn’t reply, I figured he was either angry or on a ward that didn’t allow mobile phones. Either way, I’d have to find him on my own, which turned out to be much easier than I thought it would be. When I reached the top of the steps, I saw Lock sitting on a bench near the automatic glass doors. He was a rumpled mess of himself, his coat sliding off his shoulders, his mobile clutched to his chest, and his expression completely blank and staring across to the wall beyond.

  When I got closer, I saw the cigarette in his fingers, slowly burning down so that half of it was already a tower of ash. I carefully sat beside him, but the slight shift of the bench didn’t attract his attention. I was starting to wonder if he even knew I was there at all.

  “I’m late,” I said.

  He waited a long time to speak. “Thank you,” he said, at last. Then nothing again for a long time, before he added, “Never mind being late.”

  He still stared straight forward, and I knew this was where I should say something or do something comforting or helpful. I wanted to ask why we were there or what had happened to his mother—I assumed it was his mother. But I had hated that question when it was my mother in the hospital. “Is it worse?” they would ask, like they didn’t know what the word “terminal” meant. Like we’d be spending our days at a hospital if she were even the slightest bit improved.

  I thought about reaching for his hand, but it still held a burning cigarette. I thought about just staying quiet, or even standing to leave, but he’d said he needed me. And for some reason I couldn’t read him that night. Maybe my confrontation with Lily had thrown me off.

  “You should go in,” I said at last. When he didn’t reply or make any movement toward leaving, I asked, “What if there’s news of your mother’s condition?”

  “Mycroft will call me with news.”

  “What if she wants to see you?” I listened to the quiet sizzle of his next drag and his slow exhale, then watched as all the built-up ash was flicked to the ground. He never answered me. “You should go in.”

  “Will you go home if I do?”

  “I don’t have to go.”

  He didn’t move or speak, even after he’d finished his cigarette and put it out on the ground.

  I tried again. “You should—”

  “I need you. I can’t go in, because I need you.”

  I sat with that for a few seconds before I asked, “Tell me what to do?”

  Sherlock lit another cigarette, but this time he took it from his mouth with the hand that held his mobile, so I quickly reached across the space between us to wrap my fingers around to his palm. He flinched a bit, but his expression softened when he glanced down at our hands. Then he looked back to the wall, and I thought maybe we’d just sit in silence, but he said, “Like this. Today, this is exactly how I need you.”

  We sat on that bench until it was dark and Lock was out of cigarettes. When it started to get cold, I reached around him to pull his coat over his shoulders. As I straightened the collar, his arms came up around me, holding me close. He never met my eyes. He just brushed tentative fingers through my hair, smoothing it down and pushing strands behind my ear.

  When he was done, I said, “I’m sorry.” And I meant it in ways he’d never understand. It was a ridiculous time for a revelation, but right then, held in his arms, I felt all my anger and resentment wash away. The weeks I’d spent refusing to forgive him felt selfish and wasted as I wrapped an arm around his back. I rested my palm in the center of his chest and felt the faint thrum of his heart as his eyes finally tilted down to find mine, and I realized how stupid I’d been.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said. “For everything.”

  I still couldn’t read his expression, but when he leaned forward to rest his forehead on my shoulder, he seemed lighter somehow. Unburdened, perhaps. I rested a hand on the back of his neck, and he said, “Just like this.”

  Chapter 14

  I went back to the hospital the next day, without a summons. I half expected to find Sherlock sitting on the bench where he’d sat the night before, waiting for me. When he wasn’t, I sat and sent him a text. I’m outside.

  While I waited for his response, I caught myself tapping my coat pocket. Or, more accurately, I was tapping on the envelope that held both drawings in it. I’d told myself I was bringing them along as a just-in-case measure, if Lock needed a distraction from everything. But in truth, it had been a giant relief when I got home the night before to find the cards and my lamp still exactly where I’d left them. It occurred to me that anyone in the house could have wandered in and seen the drawings—my sins scribbled onto card stock in detail. I decided then not to ever leave them behind again. I wanted them with me.

  I checked my phone to see if he’d texted me back, then sent him a new text. I’m out front. Which is your mother’s ward?

  Nothing again, so I watched the people file in and out of the hospital lobby as if it were a grocery store or an apartment complex. People laughed and sipped coffee as though the building weren’t full of people fighting for their lives.

  I tapped at my coat pocket again and started to wonder for the thousandth time who could possibly be sending me the drawings. “Have I really gained a nemesis?” I whispered. I hadn’t expected a reply.

  “Come now,” he said. “I know we’re not close, but I’m not sure I’d go so far as ‘nemesis’ to describe our burgeoning relationship.”

  I sighed. “Mycroft.”

  Lock’s brother leaned lazily against the brick wall behind my bench and smiled at me, but the true state of him showed on his face. His eyelids drooped more than normal and seemed swollen, like he’d just woken. His clothes were rumpled and one side of his coat’s collar was still tucked in by his neck.

  “I’m still planning to get you a bell,” I said, standing. “Your sneaking days are numbered, Elder Holmes. Cherish them.”

  “Noted. Sherlock told me you were here last night. He seemed in better spirits when he returned to the ward. Well done, that.”

  I couldn’t decide which was more unbelievable, that Mycroft was praising me or that me sitting on a bench had any impact at all on Sherlock’s mood. “All he did was smoke. I’m not sure you should be so approvin
g.”

  Mycroft shrugged. “There are worse vices. Like naming your boyfriend’s brother as a nemesis.” He stood up from the wall and held a melodramatic hand to his chest. “That hurts.”

  I reached over to straighten his collar. “He’s not my boyfriend.”

  I wasn’t sure why I’d said that. No, I knew exactly why. I just didn’t want to think about it there in front of his brother. Regardless, Mycroft seemed taken aback, though he shrugged it away in the end and started walking toward the entrance. “As you say.”

  “Is he inside?”

  Mycroft raised a brow. “He didn’t come here with you?”

  We stared at each other for a few seconds.

  “When did you last see him?” I asked.

  “He left before midnight last night. I assumed he went home or to your house.”

  I shook my head, and then raised a hand to stop Mycroft from rushing past me. “You stay with your mother. I’ll go find him.”

  I held his gaze until I was sure he would do as I said, and then I nodded once and walked toward the line of taxis.

  • • •

  I tried calling Lock most of the ride to his house, but he never answered. I did get a text, however, the very minute I started to walk up the steps to his front door.

  I’m on my way.

  I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I headed home. I supposed whether he came to me or to Mycroft at the hospital, at least we’d know where he was.

  My front stoop was uncharacteristically barren. No reporters. No protesters. No police. There weren’t even any of Alice’s men posted that day. I could almost have tricked myself into believing we’d found a bit of normalcy. I should’ve known better.

  “Who are you?” a gruff voice called out from behind me.

  An older man in a threatening posture was holding a sleepy Sherlock by the arm. The man shook Lock once, perhaps just to prove he could, and then he demanded again, “Who are you? And what were you doing lurking in the bushes there?”

  That’s when I recognized him as the man from the grocery. Alice’s savior prince. Only, instead of the gentle concern that had wafted off the man when he dealt with Alice, now his eyes were boring into Lock like he wanted to burn him from the earth. Lock, in contrast, didn’t seem overly concerned about any of it. He gazed off into the distance as if his mind was taken up with too many other things to care.

  “Let him go right now,” I said.

  The prince stood firm. “I won’t. Not until I know who he is and what he’s doing here.”

  “What he’s doing here is none of your business.”  When he still didn’t let go of Lock, I ground out, “He is here because I want him to be here.”

  The prince let go of Sherlock and said, “Sorry, then, lad.”

  Sherlock shrugged and wandered up the front stairs and into the house, leaving me to deal with our resident guard all on my own.

  “Who the hell are you?”

  He cleared his throat and assumed a soldier’s at-ease stance before answering. “Stuart Tucker, miss. And I came because your aunt—”

  “I know. Just . . .” I tried my best to calm down. “That one who just went inside? He comes and goes as he pleases. Got it?”

  “Yes, miss.”

  “My name is Mori.” My voice was softer this time, but I didn’t wait for his reply. Instead, I texted Mycroft quickly and then followed Sherlock inside.

  By the time I got to my room, a Sherlock-shaped heap of boy was sprawled on the floor right on the spot where he used to sleep when my dad was still about the house.

  “Where have you been?” I tossed my coat over my desk chair and kicked at his shoe twice. “Mycroft wants to know as well.”

  He rolled over to stare at the ceiling. “Working a case.”

  “The phone theft again?”

  He didn’t answer in word or gesture, and I let it be, leaving him to muse into the rafters. I wasn’t sure why he was in my room instead of with his brother at the ward, but I didn’t have the energy to form the words into a question, so I grabbed a book and sank down onto my bed to read. Almost the minute I lay back on my pillow, however, I couldn’t seem to focus on the words. My mind was a tornado of half-answered questions, potential dangers, and endless unknowns. I put the book aside and let my mind spiral through the storm a bit. Then I watched Sherlock for a while, and when I shifted my gaze from him to the corner of envelope sticking out of my coat pocket, I caught him watching me. I draped my arm over the side of my bed so that my fingers could trace over the pattern of the rug and tried not to think about anything.

  “Was it your second sin?” Sherlock asked, bringing me fully back to my senses in a way no other question would have. “The new drawing was your second sin?”

  He’d seen the hidden text in the first illustration. Of course he had. And he hadn’t mentioned it yet, because . . .?

  “Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “I knew you’d find it yourself. This new one is of you lying to the constable in the park about your dad being with you. Right?”

  “No. It isn’t.” Apparently, Lock had decided my “sins” were merely my mistakes.

  He tilted his head to look directly at me. I looked across the room at my coat.

  “Sadie.” I answered before he could ask, then watched him scowl and stare up at the ceiling again. I thought he might press me about it, so I asked, “Why didn’t you go to the hospital today?”

  His expression was blank as he seemed to ponder that question. “She stopped breathing last night. Mycroft had to give her CPR.” His voice sounded a little more distant when he said, “She’s had heart troubles since she was my age. I never knew that about my own mother.”

  “Mothers keep secrets.”

  “They do.” Lock kicked one foot up and rested his heel on the toe of his other shoe. “She was supposed to be going in for regular treatments. She was supposed to be taking medications. But she stopped.”

  “Why didn’t you go to the hospital today?”

  “Sons are supposed to take care of their mothers, and she has two. She should’ve been doubly cared for.”

  “She is.” It was a stupid thing to say, because I knew he wouldn’t believe it.

  Lock shook his head. “She isn’t, though. Because it’s too late now for us to take care of her. So much of her heart is damaged, she can’t breathe right. The doctor said her next heart event will . . .” Lock took a quick breath and seemed startled by his own inability to finish the sentence.

  “But you ask why I didn’t go there,” he continued. “It’s because of Mycroft. He’s intolerable on a good day, but do you know what he said to me after the doctor left? He said, ‘Then we’ll have to make sure she doesn’t have another.’ As if we can control her heart just by sitting at her bedside.”

  Lock rubbed his eyes angrily, but it didn’t keep me from noticing how wet they were.

  “Would you like me to hit him with a stick, or shall I hold him while you do it?”

  It was a small smile, but Lock did indulge for a brief moment. Then he frowned at me. “Bartitsu weapons are called staffs or canes. They are not sticks.”

  “Yes, of course,” I said. “Never a mere stick.”

  I closed my eyes then, but before I gave in to sleep, Sherlock’s hand found mine and held tight.

  Chapter 15

  I’m not sure why I decided to descend into the bowels of the theater instead of going to chemistry. Was it perhaps that going to class seemed a waste of time now that I’d already taken our final exams? Or that, if I had to sit next to that moron Marcus Gregson for even one more hour, I would probably explode with all the insults I’d managed to keep at bay the entire school year?

  I was surprised to find Sherlock there, directing his beakers and pipettes as though his mother wasn’t presently dying in a hospital bed.

  “What is it?” he asked without looking up. “Busy.”

  “Are you?”

  He spun in place to find me wit
h eyes as wide as if I’d rattled ghostly chains. But then he smiled and said, “You.”

  I’d never seen that side of Sherlock Holmes and found I missed it as soon as he recovered, which was much more quickly than I liked. “Me.”

  “How did you know to find me here?”

  “I wasn’t looking for you. And what on earth are you doing in this basement that is more important than being with your mother?”

  Lock scowled and hunched back over his experiment, which seemed to have something to do with how far different volumes of the same liquid spread across different kinds of flooring. He had various sizes of carpet samples and a table full of pipettes and beakers that were all filled with the same red liquid. “Mycroft kicked me out.”

  “For no reason at all, I assume.”

  “We might have had words about his habit of saying useless things.”

  I frowned in solidarity with Lock. “He’s a bossy thing.”

  Sherlock barely responded to that with a grunt. He was already absorbed in his experiment once again. I watched him for a while, but there’re only so many times you can watch pools of liquid expand through cut sections of carpet fiber before you find you would rather carve the periodic table into your skin than continue on. And still I sat and watched. There was something comfortable in this dank basement lab of his.

  “This liquid has the same viscosity as blood,” Lock said, as if I had asked him what he was doing. “If we imagine a wound dribbling blood in a steady stream onto a floor—”

  “Because who doesn’t?” I interjected.

  “—and we know how the blood will react with the surface, we can estimate the victim’s blood loss based on how far the pool of blood has expanded.”

  “And the point of knowing that is?”

  Lock watched the last of his liquid bleed out onto a tightly woven carpet, like the kind one might find in an office building. “For when a bloodstain is all you have.”