The Storykeeper

Chapter Four: Wherefore Art Thou?

"Holmes!" Watson cried, running up the final stretch of staircase and, rushing into the apartment with flushed cheeks and the face of a man who is dazed with astonishment.

"Eh? Watson, what's wrong?" Holmes twisted himself round upon the sofa to get a fairer view of his friend's animated face.

"It's true, it's all true. You must believe me now, this is not a hallucination – " He seized the lapels of Holmes' suit in his earnestness.

"My dear boy – "

" – I'm aware how preposterous this seems – "

"Watson – "

"but there was really a dragon, and a knight, and strange things are really happening – "

"I know! Watson, I know."

"You do?" Watson, staggered back to collapse on his preferred chair, bringing out a hanky to wipe his sweated brow. "God Lord, you might have said."

"I did try, but you were being very insistent." Holmes said. "Rightly so, of course. You were, for once, ahead of me on this one. Makes the whole thing doubly extraordinary."

Watson had no time to reply; there was the sound of more footsteps hastening up the stairs. "My, my," said Holmes, "this does promise to be an eventful day."

The door opened, and in entered Thalia Opus, still in that ridiculous get-up. Watson could hardly believe she had traversed the public streets in it. It really was the most outrageous thing he had seen – and that included a dragon on Saint Paul's knocking a jousting knight into the Thames. "Don't mind me," Thalia said, with a casual wave of her hand, "I just need to use your cupboard quickly."

"Use away," said Holmes airily, ignoring Watson's splutter of disapproval. "We do have some questions, however, when you are done. If you'd like a cup of tea?"

Thalia's head emerged from the linen cupboard that she was closely scrutinising. "Oh. Uh, yeah, sure that would be nice – milk, no sugar please."

Which was how Watson found himself sitting across from a woman in red pants and a Mickey Mouse t-shirt as they both sipped cups of tea from the floral set. Holmes, demurring that he had already had coffee brought up, lit his pipe and held his slippered feet to the cheerful blaze of the fire. "I was saying to Watson, before you entered, that I was most impressed by his deduction. He was not for a moment clouded by the fact that you are clearly from the future."

She is? Watson thought.

"Actually, you're from a book set in the past," Thalia said. "Bit of a distinction."

Holmes paused between puffs, as if in thought. "Quite extraordinary. It is a lot to have to adjust one's perception of existence so radically, is it not Watson?"

"Umm," said poor Watson, who had not followed a word of their exchange. "There was a dragon. A real one."

"Well, as real as anything fictional can be within a fictional world." Holmes glanced at Thalia, "yes?"

"I am impressed, this conversation never goes this smoothly."

"I am the world's greatest detective. Which, I suppose, ought to have been a sign of characterisation meant to pique an invisible interest."

"Well, it did take you an entire episode to work out that when someone is dead, they stay dead."

Holmes frowned. "Excuse me?"

"The Adominable Bride," Thalia waved her hand in dismissal, "but different version."

"Hold on." Watson said, setting his teacup on the table with such a jolt the liquid spilled over the rim. "You aren't suggesting... you aren't proposing...?"