Sherlocked (BBC Fanfiction)

Chapter 5 - Vineyard

Evangeline, Eva for short, has been that constant friend in my life.  She’s not my friend, or my best friend; she’s like a sister to me.  A sister I never had.  From when we first met in second grade and all throughout the misery and blessedness of life up to now, she’s been there.

            “Jordyn!”  Her voice broke through the phone line, suddenly piercing my ear.

            “Eva, hey,” I said and ran a hand through my hair, my fingers getting tangled up in the knots.

            “Why haven’t I heard from you?”  She asked, her voice acquiring that cutting edge to it.

            I managed a short, breathy laugh and said, “I’m sorry.  I’ve, um, been busy.  I found an apartment though.”

            “Where?”

            “London,” I confessed, resting my head on my knee.

            “London?  I don’t picture you in London,” Eva told me.

            “Well,” I respired.

            “When can I come over?”  She asked.

            “Uh,” I mumbled and heard the door behind me click open.  “I’ve got to go.  I’ll call you back soon, bye.”  I immediately hung up in fear of someone overhearing me.  I’ve always been paranoid.

            “Ready?”  I heard Sherlock say as he walked passed me on the steps.

            “For what?”  I asked, standing up.

            “We’re going to visit Augustus Warren.”

            “To the abandoned warehouse in Liverpool?”  I said, stifling a yawn.

            “No,” he said our eyes locking.  I felt perplexed.

            “What?  But I thought that’s where he-”

            “That’s where he wants us to go.  Think about the letter, Jordyn.”

            “What about it?”

            “I cannot be the only one who understood that?  Who noticed it?!”  Sherlock exclaimed.  He looked at me for consolation that he wasn’t the only one.

            “Sherlock, what are you on about?”  I questioned, crossing my arms.  Images of the letter, excerpts of the spidery writing, dancing in my subconscious.  I searched Sherlock’s face for some kind of answer.

            “The blood on the tangible letter wasn’t truly blood.  It was wine-”

            “You tasted it,” I breathed.

            “Jordyn, that’s not the point.  It was wine!  And did you feel the paper?  It was thicker and smelled musty.  What place do you know that’s underground and also produces wine?”

            I felt my thoughts link together, a light bulb flickering on.  My thoughts yoked together, forming a train of thought.  My mind yanked me back to the fallow wine vault out in the country side.  My memories inverted, twisting unto themselves and bring me back to my early teenage years.  A younger form of me sauntered aimlessly through the miles of fields of grapes, nobody bothering to tend them.  I so vividly remember the late afternoon sun beating down on me, a breeze whipping through the pastures, the leaves blowing on the vines that wound up the sides of picket fences.  The fences ran for at least three miles across the grasslands, the countryside barely inhabited, and the uncultivated soil packed solid beneath my boots.