Adeline Holmes - Lord Tewksbury

Chapter 1 - prologue

My name is Adeline Holmes.
My mother, Eudoria, named me after a variation of the name Adele meaning nobility.
To her, that was always key to my life, as she said; "no matter what happens, a women who never breaks and keeps her head high, and a lady who never let's a man hold her dignity, will ever be stronger than a boy."

A year later, on my first birthday my sister Enola was born. You see my mother loved ciphers and to her, we were the hardest ones to crack. I grew up independently even as a baby, never needing my siblings per say so my mother conveyed Enola as my life long friend and I would never be alone.

I grew up reading all the books in Ferndell library, rereading them by the time I was ten. Unlike my mother or sister, I preferred to use my intellect to my strength rather than agility and combat. So while my mother and sister practiced all kinds of sports, I read in the library or in the old oak tree in the garden. Sometimes Enola would join me, and I would stroke her hair as I read her my favourite fairytales until she fell asleep.

Sherlock was always a major part of my world and even though I was barely a six year old when he and Mycroft left, I seem to have Hyperthymesia. I remember following him around the garden, watching as he grew old enough to leave but he left me his most prized possession, an old magnifying glass, his first one to be exact. I grew up hiding in his room, reading on his bed and making sure it was impeccable in case he came home, which he never did but none the less, it kept me busy.

One last thing, I love to paint. Enola enjoys drawing caricatures, often to release her humour but I prefer to sit on the branch opposite and draw her, or the orange orchard across the field, or the stream that flows through the far end of the garden in the early morning.

So there you have it. I, Adeline Holmes, am as normal as I can possibly be when you live in my family. Now I'm seventeen years old and I've become what my mother likes to call a professional artist, but in reality I paint whatever I like around the village and sell them at the market, although most will come to the house for a request, from as far as York to collect a painting with the Holmes signature. A government figure, detective, artist, mini ninja and eccentric mother all some how fit together.
However six days ago on my seventeenth birthday and Enola'a sixteenth, as I woke up and baked a cake in the early morning, my mother was no where to be seen and at the end of the day, as the sun set, I cradled a tearful Enola by the fireplace lulling her into a deep sleep as I looked over at our present from afar. An art set complete with a book on nature and several cards on flowers. From that night on, I let my sister sleep with me in my room, hugging her until she stopped crying, and encouraging her to stay strong like our mother would and simply waited until I heard her soft sleepy sighs before the tears silently rolled down my own cheeks, right up until this morning when our brothers would come home.