What The House Forgot

See How Close You Can Get

"You must be Victor," Sherlock began, holding out a pale yet elegant hand to shake. Victor blinked for a moment. Anyone under the age of thirty never bothered with such formalities in America. Nevertheless, he extended his hand in greeting. He allowed those long, spiderlike fingers to wrap around his own, the knuckles easing into a natural and hypnotic curl. Victor felt a jolt of excitement, almost like a static shock, and promptly pulled his hand away. Remembering his migraine from the beginning of the week, Victor was not going to take any chances with further harm.
"Yes," Victor ended most obviously. Sherlock gave a small grin, the sort of smile that was more pitiful than exalting. He seemed to be making fun of Victor, even if he tried to appear hospitable. IT was a strange thing to watch, those delicate features curling up into any emotion. The skin on his face seemed so taught that there was nothing available for a smile, and instead of his cheeks rising into a healthy sort of smile they instead bunched up into wrinkles, something strange yet not unattractive. Something that only highlighted the uniqueness of his resting face, the almost artistic arrangement of his sharp bone structure. Again, Victor felt suddenly afraid. He turned around in his seat, trying to avoid that piercing stare that was being emanated from behind the dangling black curls.
"Where are you planning to take us?" Rosie wondered, finally shifting the car into drive and beginning the slow crawl out of the parking lot. She made an effort to drive through as many parking spots as she could on the way out, ignoring the directional arrows painted upon the ground to avoid this very situation. Victor clenched the handle above the window, trying to anchor himself well for the unavoidable collision.
"It's a house in the middle of nowhere. I've never been there myself, but I read something about it the other day," Sherlock said with visible excitement. "It'll be perfect."
"You read about it? Do they advertise drug dens these days?" Victor scolded. Sherlock was silent for a moment, formulating his answer the way he most wanted it to be delivered. There seemed to be no consideration for timing. Instead he sat patiently, as if waiting to see when victor's patience would snap. When at last Victor turned back to face him, he found once again that Sherlock's eyes were unblinking, radiant in a sense that was unmatchable.
"Oh no. In a news article, Victor. A news article about a disappearance," Sherlock whispered.
"A disappearance?" Rosie exclaimed. Victor groaned, wondering if he had gotten in with the wrong group of friends after all. Were they really wandering into the Bermuda Triangle, assuming it would be safe to smoke in the comforts of a scientific anomaly?
"Just a couple of months ago, a pair of teenagers had tried to break in. Their cars were in the lot, their tools strewn outside the window panes. Though they were never seen again," Sherlock whispered.
"Wouldn't we know about that, though? Wouldn't you two go to school with someone who 'randomly vanished'?" Victor pointed out. Rosie chuckled, shaking her head as if Victor still had a lot to learn.
"We don't care about our classmates. And even if we did, it wouldn't be the first time. This town is weird. Everyone knows something's just...just not right," Rosie sighed.
"They went to another school," Sherlock pointed out. "But it's not the disappearance that's the most frightening. It's the house itself. They say there was a murder there, about sixteen years ago. A murder that remains unsolved to this day. Puddles of blood in the hallways, but no bodies."
"Sounds like a disappearance, not a murder," Victor protested.
"We'll find out, won't we?" Sherlock chuckled. Rosie gave a little hoot, banging on the steering wheel as the car jerked violently in the opposing direction. Victor clenched his teeth in protest, watching in horror as the wheel spun off into the berm, kicking up grass and gravel before Rosie could return the car to its proper orientation.
"You're not actually taking us there? Sounds like a death trap!" Victor protested in a low whine.
"Sounds like you're scared," Rosie pointed out.
"I'm not afraid to admit it!" Victor agreed. "I'm not too accustomed to walking into murder houses!"
"Neither am I," Sherlock assured. "But I doubt we'll be able to get in, anyways. We'll probably just smoke on the hood of the car."
"Can't we break inside?" Rosie protested.
"That's what those kids were trying to do. They had bolt cutters and everything, but there was no visible entrance point. Apparently the police thought they had gotten in and were hiding somewhere in the house. They ground nothing. No one," Sherlock whispered. A shiver went up Victor's spine, a feeling so abrupt and violent that he quaked against his seat of the car. Rosie sniggered, patting his shoulder as if a fierce grip would help calm his nerves.
"Wouldn't it be fun to go down in history? Three disappearances, our names all smacked across the evening paper?" she insisted.
"No!" Victor protested. Again, Sherlock began to laugh. He had a stoic laugh, one without much humor embedded. Though it was a beautiful sound, one that, once begun, should never be allowed to stop. It was like a natural phenomenon, a sublime roar of the deepest crack of thunder. An octave that reached down your throat and grabbed your heart with its clenching hands, a feeling of awe that was better left experienced than missed.
"Turn here, Rosie. Then keep going straight. You'll see the driveway on your right," Sherlock instructed.
"How do you know how to get there?" Rosie wondered, her voice laden with doubt if not a touch of violence. Sherlock didn't feel the need to answer that, though Victor readjusted in his chair, blinking as he stared along the side of this strangely familiar route. He had never been to this house, nor had he heard of the place before in his life. And yet, for some reason, he agreed with Sherlock. He knew how to get there. The path, now visible, seemed obvious. As if he had traveled it before. Traveled on foot, in a car, in a wagon, on a horse. As if Victor had trekked along these same edges of woods so many times that he had lost count, his feet scraping against mud, then dirt, then pavement. He aged with the forest, he knew the oldest trees along his side since the time they were saplings. It was a strange feeling, this permanence. This meaning. It was the first time Victor began to wonder if England was meant to be his home all along.
The rest of the way they were silent. Victor was overcome with a sudden feeling of urgency, a mass of anxiety wrenching itself within his stomach and forcing his mouth shut in order to keep it from flowing out. Perhaps he was going to vomit because of Rosie's driving style, or perhaps he was simply reacting to his surroundings. Perhaps his internal organs were better at recognizing imposing danger than his eyes. Perhaps this was his first warning.
The driveway popped up along their right side, as promised. There was a dingy mailbox, crudely put up by the postal service in an attempt to give the ghosts access to worldly interaction. The thing had long since rusted, with its door hanging by one rusted hinge. It never read an address, though as the gap in the tree line began to pronounce itself Victor found himself pointing in its direction, a silent cue that this was the spot they were supposed to be. Rosie had her doubts, muttering about how they would be arrested for trespassing on someone's land, though she seemed to trust the innermost compass of her companions. Victor was determined; he knew exactly where to go. And it would seem that Sherlock shared the same confidence. He had fallen unusually silent, though Victor could feel the leather on his seat curling and retracting away from his back, as if there was a set of fingers kneading at the fabric in an attempt to relieve pent up anxiety.
The driveway seemed longer than most, rocky and ridden with potholes. The forest was stretching along every direction, a mess of limbs and underbrush that had become so thick the rest of the world was incomprehensible. Though even the trees seemed to hold respect for the house, for while the forest itself was too thick to see through, the driveway was clear of any invasive plants. Rosie's car, in all its glory, was able to pass by unchallenged.
As they approached the clearing, Victor began to wonder if he should close his eyes. Suddenly he realized that he was coming across something much more meaningful than a drug den, he felt a suspense in his stomach that was beating like a bass drum, reminding him of the significance of this moment. He wondered if he ought to save the moment for some other time. He wondered if gazing upon this house would be in his best interest. Though before Victor could make the choice for himself, the driveway bent around and forced his hand. The house rose as if from the core of the earth, a structure so impressively massive that Victor pressed himself to his seat, clenching every muscle in his body to prevent himself from scrambling out of the car and running back the way they came. Awe inspiring was just one word. Terrifying was more accurate.
The house was ancient, so ancient in fact that it ought not to be standing at all. It was a mausoleum, created with such architecture to house the dead. The house itself seemed to be alive, growing as the car approached, its white walls swelling in an attempt to become more and more intimidating. The windows which ran across three floors blinked with a humane darkness, as if they were being used as the house's eyes, its ability to see its guests before they arrived upon the porch. The entire estate seemed to be both on the state of collapse and in the prime of its life. While degraded by weather and exhausted in age, the house and the surrounding property must have been maintained by someone. It looked strong, unusually so, as if the foundations of the house ran into something much more solid than earth. It was more alive than some people. It was more conscious, more aware, than Victor himself could claim to be.
"This is it," Sherlock announced, his words seeping through his lips as if his exhaled breath did not want to be in such close proximity to the structure.
"I've seen this house before," Rosie announced. Victor felt the same, though he could not justify himself. "My mother has a picture of it."
"Is she a real estate agent? Or a ghost hunter?" Sherlock mocked, prodding Rosie in the back of the head as if to clear the fear from her voice. There was a respectful hesitation in those words, as if Rosie had realized that this house held more significance to her family than she realized. From the whiteness of her usually flushed face, Victor had to assume that a connection to her side of the Watson family may not be a good thing.
"Should we turn around?" Victor wondered hopefully. Rosie clenched the steering wheel reluctantly, staring up at the house's mahogany doors, her eyes reflecting the white stains of paint that tried to cover the exposed wooden skin of the structure. A heaving breath.
"No," Rosie decided at last, finally putting the car in park in the small square of gravel driveway. The weeds hadn't even invaded the landscape, the greenery staying where it should be in the grass that was growing around what appeared to be a developing pond. Victor smiled a bit sadly, remembering John's impractical love of standing water. He would have loved that pond. Perhaps he still might.
"I'm not sure what you two are so scared of. This place looks like it hasn't been touched in ages. And you know what that means?" Sherlock chuckled, forcing open his car door and swinging his long legs out onto the gravel.
"It means that no one will come around now," Rosie agreed with a sigh.
"What about those kids who vanished? What, you think that can't happen to us?" Victor protested, staying buckled within his seat all the while Rosie and Sherlock clambered out of the car. For some reason he still expected them to make up their minds, to look at the house a bit closer and decide it was not their business to be inside. It seemed a home for worms and maggots, not three teenagers looking to have a good time. They could smoke on the roof of the car and be just as happy.
"Don't you know we're invincible?" Sherlock insisted, producing from the pocket of his suit jacket (Victor only just realized he was exquisitely dressed) a plastic bagged full of rolled blunts.
"I don't think we are," was Victor's pathetic response. Sherlock opened the car door, trying to coax Victor out by wagging the bag in front of his face. As if that was tempting. Victor could smell the foul, skunk like scent of the marijuana. He didn't want it. He didn't want this at all.
"Just give him something a little stronger. He'll come out eventually," Rosie suggested, snatching the bag from Sherlock's hand and helping herself. Sherlock merely laughed, leaning up against the car door so that his elegant frame could bend at an enticing angle, bowed like a soft curve as his heels dug into the gravel like anchors.
"If anyone can get him out, it's me," Sherlock decided. Rosie laughed in agreement, holding a hot pink lighter to the rolled paper and puffing a large cloud of intoxicating smoke. When she laughed, her mouth formed a small plume quite like a nuclear mushroom cloud. "Come on then, Victor dear. You don't have to smoke if you don't want to. But where's your sense of adventure?"
"Adventure?" Victor scolded, unbuckling his seatbelt as if that was in some way defying the direct order. An action made his anger seem a bit more justified. "You say that as if I'm not seven and a half hours away from my hometown, talking with people who sound like they're mocking me! Adventure. I've never even left my home state, much less my home country!"
"Good. A virgin explorer," Sherlock muttered, finally settling himself onto his feet and grabbing hold of the front of Victor's tee shirt. In a clasp of long fingers and a quick yank, Sherlock succeeded in pulling a hesitant Victor out of the safety of the car. The poor boy stumbled along with the inertia, deciding he would rather cooperate than see his favorite shirt ripped in the fingers which were surprisingly strong. The gravel crunched under his sneakers as Victor emerged, stumbling back onto the body of the car and leaning an elbow across the roof. Sherlock's eyes glistened; the closest Victor had ever witnessed them. When reflecting the sun, they seemed to be multiple colors at the same time. Ever-changing, iridescent. Victor couldn't help but blush.
"Maybe I can go, just a little," Victor whispered, finding that the silence was becoming too much for him to bear.
"Just a little is all we ask," Sherlock promised, leaning in closer despite Victor's apparent captivity. He couldn't recoil away from the looming presence, even if he had wanted to, and instead Victor just pressed himself flat against the car, closing his eyes and expecting some sort of impact. What he expected from Sherlock Holmes was still unclear, though Victor was surprised when he was left alone, his skin untouched, his body undented. Sherlock had receded, stepping back audibly against the gravel and beginning his way towards the front porch. Victor opened his eyes, pressed so far into the car that he might as well get back inside. He found, as he watched the retreating back of his new friend, that he was completely breathless. Worse still, his heart did not seem to cooperate.
"Is he always like that?" Victor wondered with a gasp, his face blushing so hot that he patted his cheeks to cool them. Rosie was lounging on the back of her heels, squatted down in the gravel and tapping ashes onto the driveway. Her smile was wrapped around the blunt, squishing the foul thing between her teeth.
"Never with me," she assured, as if that was somehow supposed to ease Victor's mind.
Together, the two approached behind their leader, Victor dragging along behind with the intention of being the only survivor. Any logical assumption would presume that the missing teenagers had been taken by an external source, an outside aggressor, a monster, or a bear. Though Victor had to assume that this menace was something otherworldly, something that innocents could not properly expect. He wondered if the threat would not come from behind, but from in front. If, when those doors would eventually open, they would swallow their guests and refuse to spit them back out. As if the house itself was a beast, dwarfing any logical threat.
"Did you bring anything to get in?" Rosie wondered.
"No," Sherlock sighed, sounding disappointed with himself as he clambered up the steps to the long, ancient porch. Victor suspected any one of those boards would collapse under his foot, though he kept any hesitations to himself. Perhaps the best case scenario would end with Sherlock's leg sinking through a jaw of splinters, lost to the underbelly of the foundations. Perhaps then they could all go home.
It was disappointing when Sherlock made it to the door, touching his forefinger against the wooden panels in amazement. He seemed transfixed, if just for a moment, as his beautiful face dropped into an expression of disbelief. It was as if that single finger, that touch which connected him to the house, was sending a signal through his body like a jolt of energy, like a wavelength of understanding. For a moment the boy's eyes sagged, his head bobbed, and the house seemed to glow with a sickening aura. As if it wasn't just offering something to Sherlock, but taking something back as well.
"You'd think there'd be more damage. Didn't you say they had bolt cutters? First thing I would try would be these windows," Rosie muttered, ascending the porch only to fiddle with the exterior components of the window locks. The panes themselves were dusty, though Victor could peer through just well enough to see thick curtains impeding any further view.
"I think we don't have to be so aggressive. Houses respond to good behavior. I wonder if those children ever thought to just...try the handle," Sherlock clasped his hand around the brass knob, a grip that Victor felt tighten around his own hand. When Sherlock squeezed he felt the pressure, and when he twisted Victor's hand jolted in the same direction. Though as Victor's wrist jolted, the door gave a reassuring creak. The locks subsided, as if passed away by the invisible turn of a key, and the doors that ought never to be open began to creak along their hinges, revealing a shade of darkness too deep to be immediately penetrated. Even while the light began to trickle in it seemed to be absorbed, not illuminated. As the door opened the darkness seemed to get darker, and the echoes of the house halted almost immediately as they entered the foyer.
"It was that easy?" Rosie whispered.
"Maybe those kids really are inside," Victor suggested, though for some reason he didn't believe what he said. For some reason he knew that there were only a few people on this earth who could turn that knob without resistance. There were only a few that could be invited inside. Sherlock didn't offer a comment, instead he merely pushed the door open farther, breathed his last breath of fresh air, and took a step inside. Victor resisted the urge to protest, he cemented himself to the driveway to make sure he did not make a fool out of himself. He wanted to grab Sherlock by the back of the neck, like a mother cat collecting her kitten, and yank him back into the daylight. Victor held back, he restrained himself, and he waited for disaster. When it didn't come, he became curious.
"Sherlock?" Rosie whispered, peering around the door frame as Victor hesitantly approached the stairs. There was no word from inside. Not even a footstep to assure them that he was moving out of their view. Sherlock's figure had vanished around the door, vanished into the foyer that was swallowing sunlight like an addict.
"Is he alright?" Victor wondered, feeling a strong sense of urgency as he pounded up the porch to meet Rosie in the doorway. Both peered inside, seeing only a marble entrance hall, a domed ceiling, and a curved set of carpeted steps. No Sherlock.
"He's just messing around," Rosie snarled, though she hesitated to join. Victor nodded, seeing as though it was finally his chance to prove himself worthy of this group of friends. This was his opportunity to be brave. Victor didn't give Rosie warning, nor did he allow himself any time to hesitate. Some part of his brain understood that he was not supposed to be standing on the porch; he was supposed to be inside. Most importantly, he was supposed to be inside in the company of Sherlock.
And so Victor stepped through the door frame, pulling a hand across the dark wooden door as he stepped into the beautiful marble foyer. He stood aghast for some time, feeling the deep inhales of the house, as if it was sucking him deeper and deeper into its core. A chandelier swung dangerously on its cord above, candles burned to nubs within its decadent framework. Ready to snap at any time, ready to crash, though maintaining what had to have been two hundred years of gravity. Was this house so old that it never saw electricity? Had it never had a touch of modernity in the whole of its uncharitable life?
There were statues in the coves of the walls, marble busts and sculptures of men and women alike, mostly nude. One of these statues, a remarkably colorful one, began to move. A familiar boy, emerging from the wallpaper, blowing a plume of smoke from parted lips.
"Aren't you glad you've joined me?" Sherlock wondered, tucking his hands into his pockets as he strode towards Victor's stunned, lifeless body. Sherlock collided without arms, without hands to guide him. Instead he drove his hips into Victor's, pressed his chest against the stunned captive, and snaked his neck around so that his lips could press his next words along the back of Victor's neck.
"Doesn't it feel appropriate?" Sherlock wondered, not feeling the need to raise his voice to any octave higher than necessary. And, with his words being uttered so close to Victor's ear, nothing more than a whisper was needed. Victor gulped, such a startled and frantic response that was undoubtedly heard in full by the boy's ear, pressed close enough to hear his heartbeat through the echoes of his spine. Sherlock must have rejoiced in the fear he was causing, the sudden panic of a boy who did not know how to respond. Victor kept his hands clasped to his sides, feeling it inappropriate to reciprocate, as if he wasn't allowed to wrap his arms around the boy who had pressed himself so close.
"What...what are you doing?" Victor muttered anxiously, his voice catching in his throat as if he was trying to vomit rocks. Sherlock merely chuckled, giving one final lean of pressure that nearly toppled Victor to the floor before realigning himself on his own two feet. He gave a smirk, peeling off of Victor's body with an almost tangible pull, as if the sweat from Victor's chest had stuck them together like glue.
"Testing your limits, Victor. Seeing how close I can get," Sherlock chuckled.
"I'm not sure there's anyone who would keep you at a distance," Victor whispered, quite without his consent. He breathed in this air, this recycled breath of generations long gone, and exhaled words spoken in a foreign tongue. Words that didn't fit right in his mouth, as if it was not his choice to speak them. As if someone else lived in the back of his throat, screaming what they saw fit. Sherlock grinned, capturing his lower lip between his lips and taking a large, graceful step away. All the while his eyes examined, as if he was beginning to appreciate what he saw.
"If boundaries are presented, I adhere to them. Though you have not yet protested, so I will be closer the next time around," Sherlock promised. He smiled with white teeth, teeth that when Victor blinked appeared to be stained with blood.