Failing Upward

Chapter 10 (part 1): Sandpaper Box

Last night I dreamt about the roses. They spoke— they warned me. I tried to recall those thorny harbingers as I transplanted the mum seedlings. I'd shucked off my t-shirt an hour ago. Sweat streamed in salty rivers down my back and bare chest as I meticulously separated the thousands of toothpick-sized sprouts and planted them one per cell. The greenhouse roof vents were flung wide open and the large inset wall fans roared, blasting over the flats of recent cuttings and seedlings I'd toiled over: a hundred-plus trays of them, all precisely lined up on the clay-topped benches. A hundred-plus degrees in this hothouse, it felt like, and even hotter where I labored in the last cramped aisle of the very last greenhouse. Hot, sticky air. I had only a few feet to move in between the potting bench and the glass side walls. I stretched back carefully, stopping my hand within an inch of the glass.

Not even ten o'clock; it would be unbearable by noon. I wiped a bead of sweat off the end of my nose with the back of my hand and filled another flat from the mix of perlite, compost and peat that was piled high on the old cement and oak potting bench. I leveled the mixture off with a swipe from the back of my arm. The potting mix stuck to my sweat and hairs. I brushed off the dirt and sweat on the leg of my jeans.

I thought about Sherlock.

I clicked off reasons why I shouldn't tell him how I feel, but finally I admitted to myself that it was one part concern for his safety and one part self-preservation. After last night, I knew what I felt for Sherlock was real, lust and all. I knew I loved the hard parts of him as well as the beautiful. That realization was as scary as the shit I'd been through the last weeks.

As Sherlock smoothed my hair and spooned against me last night, I almost told him the depth of what I felt. My mouth couldn't untangle the reasons knotted inside my jumbled head. Reflecting back, I realized that I was afraid for him. I looked into his emerald eyes, afraid he'd say he loved me again and even more afraid he wouldn't.

I finished another flat of mums and turned to get the next when I had one of those instinctive " someone is watching me" creeped-out sensations. Last night's dream flooded back, and there he stood at the end of the aisle... the man who shot at Sherlock in the parking lot.

In one flash, I knew. I was being crushed from the inside out. Lights, emotion, texture and utter helplessness. Not one morsel of control. I clutched the bench, fighting off the urge to start hyperventilating. Every detail from the hypnosis I suddenly recalled. I even heard Dr. Deal counting backward — three, two, one.

And I remembered this time.

The revelation was agony. Each detail a glass prism that cut through me. No longer words in Sherlock's notebook but moments in time. A living experience. Real. I recognized that man in front of me from my altered state where he had stood in the early morning fog near the dunes of Lake Michigan. Just like sharp edge that had cut through the mist in my trance, he stepped closer, blocking the narrow aisle as I remembered him blocking my way before, in another time and place. It all seemed to be coming true. Oh, so true.

The minister— Camden's assailant.

The stalker— The shooter in the parking lot.

The same person. He was the same man!

"Nice to finally meet you," he said. "The name's Moriarty, James Moriarty !" he giggled.

He picked up a handful of potting soil, then let it sift through his thin fingers, eyes burning through me.

I cursed his name and he gave me the most hideously wicked smile.

"I see you've worked it all out. Yes, I've had many names over my lifetime. So many names. As has Camden or should I say, Dr. Gregory Lestrade . Many experiences, but none as wretched as Lestrade's'. I asked him once what is it was like to be buried alive," he said, voice filled with disappointment. "He never told me. The bastard hit me instead. Such a poor sport. Perhaps if I buried you alive, you could enlighten me?"