Seeing double

Chapter one

The clocks were striking thirteen when the cab pulled up outside of 221B. The tires scraped the gravel and the raindrops splattered the windows and I was suddenly regretting my life choices very, very much.

"£17.50, love" the driver said, turning round to face me with his hand out expectantly. I slapped a twenty pound note into his hand with a smile, it was the least he deserved with having to drive me from the station, the windows open despite the temperature and my threats of vomiting every two seconds. "Travel sickness?" he had said, and I nodded, even though it was more that the butterflies in my stomach had turned into bees, buzzing violently, splashing in acid and teasing sickness.

I'd always been an anxious person, but this fear and dread was something else. It was like my stomach was a stone and my heart a drum, banging against my chest with painful and erratic thud, thud, thuds. Why was I so afraid? London wasn't a foreign country and my brother wasn't a stranger. Admittedly, over the last few years whilst I'd been away at university, I lost contact with John Watson, who had been the only constant in my life, the protective, older brother I adored and seeked security in when I needed it. When he'd heard the news about my wellbeing, he'd ordered me to come and stay with him, an instruction I could not refuse and reluctantly accepted.

I stepped out of the cab and the driver, friendly and kind, grinned widely before pulling away, leaving me on the sidewalk, clutching a crimson suitcase in my shaky hands and willing my heart to slow.

"It's okay, Avery" I whispered to myself, the reassurance somewhat dissolving my anxiety. I stepped forward and bashed the golden knocker against the ebony door with three rhythmic thumps. Only seconds later, the rusted hinges screeched and a woman, petite and smiling, appeared behind the door.

"Can I help you, dear?" she asks.

"Um, yeah, hi" I stutter, my mind electric, unable to form coherent sentences "I'm here to see John? I'm his sister."

Her eyes suddenly light up with delight. "Ah! He said you were coming! Avery, is it?"

I nod with a small smile and she pulls the door open further, allowing me to slip inside. She points to a rickety staircase "just up there, first flat on your right"

"Thank you, Mrs-"

"Hudson,'' the lady smiled.

I nod and begin to drag my luggage behind me and I start walking up. The anxiety is building, my jumper sticking to me with sweat, shallow breaths, inhaling cotton wool.

One. Two. Three.

As an endeavor to ground myself in reality, I start to observe my surroundings. Five things I can see? Dusty carpet, screaming in desperation for a vacuum, walls with mysterious damage in them, looking strangely like bullet-holes, the door, oh my goodness, the door.

Before managing to complete the technique and calm the nervousness, I find myself robotically knocking.

"Avery!" John cries when he opens it, embracing me into a hug before he even looks at me properly. I sink into it, breathing in his aftershave and not realizing how starved I was from his affection and love. Tears spring into my eyes and I blink in desperate dismissal.

"How are you?" I ask, stepping into his flat. It's small but homely, two worn armchairs in the center, decorative wallpaper with a massive spray-painted smiley face in luminous yellow, a monopoly board, strangely stabbed to the wall, hanging precariously with a blade as well as a small child, her strawberry-blonde hair messily tied into bunches, playing with a toy(?) skull.

"You haven't met Rosie," my brother states, making his way to the child. She starts giggling when she sees me, and I'm dumbfounded. How do I act? At twenty-two years of age, you'd think it was expected I'd figured out how to alter my behavior towards babies and children and yet I'm a statue, frozen.