The Sphere (24 page)

“What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to talk with you.”

“Are you well?” He moves closer to inspect me.

“Yeah, don’t worry. We have to talk.”

Sherlock takes me by the arm and walks me over to a nearby bench. He sits down slowly, with ceremony, never taking his eyes off me.

“Very well. Speak.”

“I wanted to apologize.” Sherlock’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise. “It was reckless to go alone to the monastery.” He doesn’t say anything. The scolding I’m waiting for doesn’t come. He goes on observing me with careful attention. “I put the investigation at risk. They might have discovered me, and then all of our work would have gone down the drain. Actually, I don’t know if I did cause some trouble with the monks. I know they were running after the trunk... I’m sorry. Just tell me if there’s anything I can do to fix the harm I’ve caused.”

“They saw nothing. They know that someone stole the trunk, but they didn’t see the kidnappers. We’ve been very lucky. And Morgan found all the pieces next to the cliff, and the trunk is back in the monastery.”

“Do they know about the myrtle branch?” I ask, a little fearfully now that I know how important it is.

“No one will know anything. Ambrosio would never admit that it’s been stolen from him. In fact, even though it’s an essential part of his role, he has always denied its existence.”

Sherlock takes my hands and looks at me silently. I can feel the wind in my hair and the damp sea air. Why doesn’t he say anything? Why doesn’t he let go of my hands? I wish Sherlock had eyes, that way I could tell if the look in those bottomless empty sockets was just concern, or... No, it couldn’t be anything else. I look away for a few moments and try to focus on the squat columns of the building in front of us, but I can’t stop wondering. When I turn back to Sherlock he’s still looking at me. I feel so uncomfortable.

“No one... There was no one in the cell. I mean... No one in the trunk. I was wrong.”

“The important thing is that we found you.”

“Yes, of course... I mean. Right. I’m sorry for what I did.”

I stand up. Sherlock remains seated, and his hands linger for a few seconds on mine even as the distance between us pulls them apart.

“You said that already.” His voice is as soft as velvet, so soft it doesn’t seem real.

I clear my throat: “Did you all discover anything important while I was off messing around?” Sherlock just sits there, and I start to get impatient. “I guess this isn’t the best place to tell me, is it? The street, the other Sphereans...”

“Quite so,” he says, finally standing up. “Let’s go to Beatrice’s house, and we’ll update you there. Although of course nothing important could have happened without you.”

Sherlock and I go into the gardens where Beatrice’s house is. Somehow the incident at the monastery has changed me, and it seems like it’s changed my companions, too. As soon as we pass through the gate I feel like the big oak tree is watching us. I stop for a moment and look to see if there’s someone behind it. I guess knowing that I’m dead is making me a daredevil. This is just another life, with other rules, I tell myself over and over again. Just other rules, another life—and better than the last one, in some ways. Here each person endlessly repeats the actions they like best. I can adjust a few details of the role they’ve invented for me. I finally understand the
roles
of the Sphere. And really, my life wasn’t so perfect after all. I wasn’t so happy. My heart grows heavy when I think of the pain my death must be causing my loved ones, but there’s nothing to be done. It’s better to let it go, to let my family and Laura and Marion and Axel go. The sooner I accept my new state, the better.

Sherlock waits for me next to Beatrice’s door. The wood grain of his face is beginning to disappear, giving way to a uniform gray that looks more and more like skin. I gaze at him steadily and his lips curve upwards. I’ll have to figure him out, to find out what he wants, what he expects of me—why this sudden change of heart.

––––––––

E
nough days have passed that I haven’t bothered to count them for a while. I try to keep my thoughts focused on the investigation work, every minute of every day. St Andrews still doesn’t seem like St Andrews. Sometimes I miss its smells, and I miss seeing people my age on the streets and knowing that they’re students, just like me. I miss the strange mix of modern and old that I had never even really noticed... until now. Old buildings full of people using the latest technology, modern cars parked out in front of hundreds of years of history. I miss Patrick Hamilton’s initials. In the Sphere there’s nothing on the ground that you’re supposed to walk around to avoid bad luck. Swimming in the icy ocean doesn’t make any sense here. Really, nothing here makes much sense when I compare it to the place that promised to give me the best years of my life. When I think of that, I miss St Andrews and everything from my world more than ever. But other times I call this place the Sphere and I forget that there was ever someplace else like it—but with color, with life, with another name.

Even though there are no mirrors here that I can see myself in, I know my body has changed. I’m thinner, much thinner than I used to be. My clothing is so baggy that I have to wonder what my mother would say if she could see me. “Take that thing off!” probably. But I would just argue that it isn’t dirty, because here clothing never gets dirty. That actually doesn’t seem so strange to me. It’s logical: why would you need to wash anything in eternity?

I never get hungry anymore. I eat only when my role requires it, just like the rest of the Sphereans. I’m never tired, either. In fact, I haven’t slept at all in quite some time. I go out by myself at dawn to watch the sun rise, a magical moment when a sort of serene happiness comes over me. I lose myself in the contemplation of the sky and my mind goes silent, a silence that feels like a gift. Those are the moments that have helped me make peace with my new situation, even though accepting it doesn’t keep me from remembering my old life. Dawn after dawn I lie down on the beach to watch the sky, waiting, trusting that if I just follow my role with an iron will, I’ll finally stop clinging to the stupid hope that I might go back.

And one solitary dawn after another, it’s started to feel like the sun is growing fond of me, and growing warmer, turning the Sphere, little by little, into a world of sepia tones. Now I can see that it’s a beautiful world—peculiar, but beautiful. Sometimes I’m even surprised by how comfortable I feel here. Crossing paths with the Sphereans every day has made me appreciate their faces and learn their names, to grow familiar with their roles and enjoy the repetition. I even have a kind of friendship with some of them, like this melodramatic, gallant old man called Don Quixote, who goes around with a little fat guy. Or Marco Polo, who spends his time traveling back and forth, never stopping to rest, always telling tales of his exotic adventures. I like some of these strange people so much that I could watch them repeat their routines over and over again, always eager to see it one more time, without ever getting bored. Even though it’s the same story I always seem to discover some new detail.

Working with the investigation team is nice, but a little strange, especially because of Sherlock. I still don’t understand what he wants from me. Morgan has hinted more than once at a romantic relationship between us, but I don’t understand why—it’s obvious that there isn’t one! Sherlock is after Beatrice. The little gestures he makes toward me sometimes don’t mean anything. The investigation itself is at a standstill. We meet every day but we don’t know how to move forward. We still haven’t found Doctor Jekyll, though there’s nothing to suggest that he’s disappeared, either. Morgan and I have gone to his house several times, but we always find the little sign on the door that says “Hyde mode on.” I might find it funny if the whole thing didn’t have such sinister implications. The sign that Doctor Jekyll uses is just like the ones you see sometimes in stores and pharmacies. It hangs on the window with a suction cup and a little chain, and you can just turn it over to choose “Yes, Jekyll’s in” or “Hyde mode on.”

What’s more, the thing we saw in the library—the crow on the bookshelf that turned into a man—has led Sherlock to suspect the Count, lord of the bats. I’ve heard so many incredible stories that I can’t wait to meet him. My heart speeds up at the slightest mention of the mysterious Count. Sometimes I think that if a Spherean like him truly existed, I could really get hooked on life here. Every single day I ask when we’re going to go meet with him, and I volunteer to investigate whether he has something to do with the crow in the library, but I’m only answered with silent stares. They seem to admire and fear the count in equal measure, so the thought that today might finally be the day when I meet him is enough to make me tremble. That’s what Sherlock said this morning while we were planning how to divide up today’s tasks. It all depends on what luck Sherlock and I have. This time we’re going together to Doctor Jekyll’s house, which, as you can imagine, Morgan didn’t like too much.

Beatrice and Morgan went out to start on their assigned tasks while Sherlock and I walked briskly to the doctor’s house. And here we are, face to face again with that little sign. Sherlock is quiet, but I can hear his breathing getting faster, his chest rising and falling more and more rapidly. He looks at me, his brow creased, and then takes off like a mad bull. I follow him down the street without saying a word. Surprised, frightened, intrigued. We go into an apothecary with a wood façade and notices painted on the windows. Sherlock leaps behind the counter, ignoring the druggist’s
good morning.
The tail of his coat billows out like a cape and his shoes flash through the air. The druggist stares at him in surprise, his mouth hanging open and his little round glasses fogged up.

“Where is Poole?” Sherlock’s voice is a clap of thunder that rattles the glass of the cabinets filled with porcelain bottles.

“Pardon me?”

“You heard me perfectly well, you ruffian,” Sherlock shouts, like a man possessed. I’ve never seen him this way. “Poole—where is he? Your choice: call for him to come out or I’ll go in looking for him, and I cannot be held responsible for what may happen then.”

The fat druggist is panting from fear, gasping soundlessly like a fish flopping around on land. One waxy, trembling hand reaches out and slowly opens the velvet curtain of the back room. A man appears—presumably Poole, Doctor Jekyll’s butler.

“Where is the doctor?” shouts Holmes.

“At... at home, s-sir.”

Sherlock grabs him by the collar and lifts him off of the floor. Poole is even paler than the druggist; he’s sweating bullets, but he won’t talk. Finally he starts to cry, and confesses that both the doctor and Mr. Hyde disappeared several days ago.

“Since then I’ve been hiding in the apothecary,” he says, sniffling. “It was my fault.”

“What have you done? You scoundrel...!”

I look at Sherlock. Where is he getting this language?

“Doctor Jekyll used to put me in charge of getting certain substances, very strange ones, and I—as you know, as my role directs—I buy them at the apothecary. One day, sick of demands and sick of oddities, we just dyed some sugar in different colors. I took it to the doctor in exotic-looking bottles. The next day he was gone. I’ve searched for my master everywhere, I swear to you,” says the butler, whimpering like a child, “but there’s no trace of him. He has disappeared.”

“Fools,
no one
disappears in the Sphere.”

I nod confidently, going along with Sherlock’s tactics.

“That’s right, no one disappears,” I say.

“We think our little joke has had catastrophic consequences,” says the druggist in trembling voice. “Don’t do anything to us, Mr. Holmes. We never meant for this to happen.”

“If things were like normal, something like this would never even occur to me. But now the Sphere is all turned upside down... you know,” says Poole between sobs. “Anything could happen. I’ve heard talk about the shadow. Some people are saying this is the end.”

“The end.
Period
,” whispers the druggist, his jaw quivering like Jell-O.

Sherlock gives a forced laugh, which I try to imitate. Poole traces a quill and inkwell on his chest, just like I’ve seen Beatrice do when something scandalizes or frightens her.

“I swear to you, Mr. Holmes, it’s been some time since I’ve seen either of my masters. My joke... our joke,” says Poole, including the druggist, who fiddles nervously with the edge of his apron, “had disastrous consequences. But that wasn’t our intent!” He falls to his knees. “Don’t let us be shamed in front of the Sphereans. Let us live out our final days in peace. Soon we’ll all disappear. Kindly keep our secret...”

“All right, now you’ve really lost it,” roars Sherlock. “Tell me, what exactly do you think happened?”

“My, my, my master’s alchemy could have been changed by the coloring, and perhaps he simply disappeared. He and his double, you understand.”

Both the druggist and Poole are so pale that I can tell they are totally convinced.

“Write down the names of the dyes you used here, at once,” Sherlock hands a little notebook to the druggist, who scribbles three words with a shaky hand. “I hope you are aware of what this could mean for you both.”

Sherlock passes me the notebook and I nod, raising an eyebrow. I can’t decipher the chicken scratch on the paper. Now the two men are on their knees, holding their hands out to Sherlock without daring to touch him, like he’s some kind of saint come down from the heavens. They beg him not to let what they’ve said out of this room.

“Try to act normal. Only your infinite idiocy could have led you to hide here,” Sherlock says to Poole.

“It’s true, it’s true! I am stupid, sir, I’m sorry.”

“Resume your daily rounds between the doctor’s house and the apothecary at once. The Sphereans must not suspect any change.”

“And my master? ... My masters?”

“We’ll take care of that. You two just stop acting like the pair of asses you are.”