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The news is delivered special by John, a village boy 1. Mycroft hears his mother answer the door, sat where he is in his father’s study while the man himself fetches a book for their reference 2, and he stills his pen just to hear the boy’s response since there is no one to chide him for distraction.
“My mum is well, ma’am, thank you for asking.” The grin of John is warm, and full, and sounds like his eyes.
“Oh, that’s so good to hear, John. Do take care to save some of this for her.” He hears the small thud of coin on palm, the jingle of John’s hand closing over them 3 as he does loose stones in the schoolyard.
“Of course, ma’am. Thank you, ma’am.”
The door closes. John starts to whistle as he walks away, the bit of music beckoned in by the open early spring windows of the study like a lone fly 4 .
His mother, thinking herself entirely unobserved, opens the little folded paper. She whispers to keep the letters where they should be as she reads 5.
“Baby dead,” a gasp, but she keeps going. “Arabella de—oh.”
Mycroft puts his pen down. Around them, the house moans, because it knows what is coming. It might have known the moment his aunt died, all those many miles away, and has held the secret to keep it from his mother, as though without her knowing it is not quite real, and her sister not quite dead.
“Silas!”
His father comes running, catching his mother as she turns to meet him. Mycroft cannot see them, only hear. “What is it? Cordelia, what’s happened?”
“Arab—” she has to take a steadying gasp, thrusting the paper over for his father to read, letting it wrinkle between them. “Oh, Silas.”
At least Sherlock and Beatrice are off at the bees 6 with the groundskeeper’s daughter Agatha, so it is only Mycroft here, pretending he is not listening. Pretending he cannot hear. He should leave, allow them their privacy, to tell him when they are ready, but it would mean passing right by his parents, where they cannot help but remember him.
He is still. He is the house, and if he stays still, all is safe, and the death is not quite true.
“Should we go help him?” his mother’s words are all tumbling, slipping against each other like mud. “No, I should go. For the children. Oh, little Alice. But Beatrice--”
“Shh,” his father urges. He would be rubbing her arms to keep her calm. Mycroft has seen him do that before, when panic grips his mother too harshly for thought. “Breathe, Cordelia. Just breathe.”
“Silas--”
“If you think it would help to go, then go. I can handle things here. Do not worry about us.”
His mother’s next words are so muffled that Mycroft must strain to hear, and he does strain. He wants to know. He can still taste John’s lingering whistling, going sour at the back of his tongue.
“I wasn’t there for her.”
His father sighs. “I know.”
They stand for a minute more, held tight by a house holding back its own tears, before his father ushers his mother to find Mrs. Crowle to help pack so she need not do it all herself. He will handle the rest.
He comes to the study, where he knew Mycroft was, of course he remembered, he was the one who left Mycroft there. In the doorway, lit at the edges by the springtime sun like the surge of a storm, he is already tired.
“Father?” Mycroft says, not sure if he should pretend. He is learning, quickly, what his father needs, but death has mostly only ever affected other families. It is bitter here. He knows to grieve right now would be wrong, not now, not for a woman he hardly knew, not for news only overheard.
His father heaves a sigh. He runs a hand through his hair, takes off his glasses. “Run and catch the boy that brought that wire. I need to tell your uncle.” 7
His mother leaves later that same day, her journey warned with another quick wire to his uncle, though the man is given no time to reject her offer. It is up to his father to tell Sherlock and Beatrice where their mother has gone. What has happened to their aunt.
Beatrice does not remember ever meeting her aunt before, but she does have many questions. Sherlock, who remembers everything, says nothing 8.
That the cousins will come to Appleton is confirmed when another wire arrives the day their mother is due at her sister’s house 9. There will be a funeral, and then she will bring them to Appleton so Uncle George can handle affairs. It will be better for them to be among family.
Thus, much must be done to make the house ready for them. John, despite never being asked, comes up from the village to help where he can. Mycroft finds Mrs. Crowle extra linens for the guests and then, when Frances’ age is considered against the Holmes children 10, he and John help turn the attic into a room for Sherlock so Frances can take his.
John does most of the work moving furniture around, but it is Mycroft who finds a hornet queen 11 slumbering in her empty nest, notched in the beams. Though Beatrice pleads for the queen’s salvation, their father dispatches the lone insect quickly, only saving a few choice specimens of the long dead workers where he can.
And Appleton, knowing it has lost a daughter of its own, weeps. It did much the same when his grandfather died of a summer fever 12, and every summer since the house has hidden red eyes as it tries to hold itself together. Now, it is early. Now, it has lost another. Now, there is no hiding.
The air is a clogged throat, stiff and scratchy and thick. Paint peels and bubbles. Cracks reveal themselves in windows older than his mother. The stones are too heavy for the earth meant to hold them and with every morning, the whole building sinks further into its grave. It puts on its best show when his mother and cousins come up the drive, but it is tired.
Mycroft is the last to the landing, though just in time to grab Beatrice by her collar so she doesn’t jump down the stairs. She pouts, but at least does not complain as readily as Sherlock once did. Sherlock, who has taken the chance to hide behind his brother, taking his last chance to hook fingers at the corners of his lips to make certain the frown looks real.
Their mother shows the cousins in, little Alice holding her brother’s hand. “Anything at all that you need,” she is saying, like she has said it before and has run out of words but needs to keep speaking. “We are all here for you, darlings, every one of us. Do not hesitate to ask.”
“Thank you, Aunt,” Frances says, his voice cracking. In their black crape, they are a pair of bruises, one in the shadow of the other.
Beatrice squirms.
“Wait,” Mycroft whispers, but even that sound is enough to catch attention. Little Alice hides behind her brother.
Their mother has heavy dark circles as she sees her children. “Oh, good, Mycroft, you’re here. Go help Crowle with their trunks, would you?”
“Of course, Mother.” Reluctantly, he releases Beatrice, but she has obeyed his warning and does not rush the cousins, only stays where they were waiting, rising up onto her toes.
Their mother offers a hand and relieved smile to her daughter. “Bea, come here and meet your little cousin. And, Sherlock, dear, go and fetch your father.”
Sherlock is a little blackbird as he darts to the attic, cawing the summons.
Mycroft and Frances exchange a nod before the older boy twists to unpick his sister from his side. “Alice, you can say hello.”
The sun makes Mycroft squint. He checks the drive for John even though the boy knew he wasn’t needed today 13.
The cousins only brought a single trunk between them, so Mr. Crowle doesn’t need any help. Mycroft trails him back inside like a poor shepherd.
In the hall, the two girls gape at each other. Little Alice, held in place by her brother, is a little mouse kept from fleeing. She curls one hand under her chin for comfort, but there are bite marks on her thumb, and Mycroft knows what she wants to do.
His tongue darts to the ruined skin of his own cheek as he nods to his father, coming down with Sherlock in hand, though the man’s attention is quickly snagged for silent conversation with their mother that Mycroft does not watch.
Beatrice cocks her head at her little cousin. “Do you like dolls?” she asks, speaking slow, as Mycroft has heard her talk to worms.
Little Alice does not answer. Frances nods for her. “You have a dolly, don’t you, Alice?”
Beatrice rocks between her toes and heels. “Does she have a name?”
Frances squeezes his sister’s shoulders. “What is her name, Alice?”
The thumb slips into her mouth. “Mary,” Alice says, garbled, flushing.
Beatrice nods, approving. “Do you want to meet my doll? Her name is Boudica, and Father says he will make her a sword this summer so she can fight the Romans.”
Alice looks wide-eyed to Frances. He smiles at her. “How about you go with cousin Beatrice, and I’ll get Mary from the trunk for you to show her.”
Beatrice spins to their father. “Can you make Mary a sword too?”
He startles at being addressed, but laughs quick, stepping aside so Mr. Crowle can pass him with the trunks. “Of course, Bea. Frances, let me show you to your room.”
First, Frances tugs on one of Alice’s braids until she smiles around her thumb, pulling away from him to trade his hand for Beatrice’s. Sherlock leads the way to the nursery as Beatrice explains, in much detail, the sort of toys they have and the best ways to play with each.
Without his sister, Frances wavers, but he has already been given where he should go next, and clings to that instruction. “Yes, thank you, Uncle.”
Mycroft’s father holds out an arm to beckon him, and Frances goes. Mycroft’s mother watches her nephew vanish up the stairs. She sighs in time with the house.
She does not know that Mycroft heard her receive the news of her sister. He has known as long as she has.
“Would you like some tea, Mother?” he asks, alone with her again.
His mother does not turn. Only continues to stare at the staircase, as if her attention might coax her sister from the house, as if her sister has only been hiding and is not long in the ground. If Appleton could, it would bring her back. “Yes,” she says, quiet. “I think I would.”
Mrs. Crowle is taking biscuits from the stove when they arrive, but she leaves mother and son alone to go check that the room is to Frances’ satisfaction. Mycroft makes the tea just as his mother likes, and gives her a biscuit, still hot enough to scald his fingertips and so soft it crumbles as she tries to lift it, but she eats it anyway.
Mycroft makes a cup for himself so he has something to hold as he sits by his mother, though the stove has left the kitchen too hot for him to drink. “I think Beatrice and Alice will be friends,” he says, so his mother will look at him.
Her focus is desperate. He has to try to not flinch from it. “Do you think?”
He nods. “She’s been very excited to share her room.”
That makes his mother smile. “It will be good for her, to have someone to look out for.”
“She and Agatha have made a lot of plans for new games to play.”
A little laugh, eyes bright with what is not tears. “Did they remember to include Sherlock?”
“He was the stand-in.”
She looks away to drink her tea, all sweet and little milk, and Mycroft is allowed a moment to breathe before his mother speaks again. “George was in no state to look after them, but when I told him we were leaving, the way he held them… I was right to bring them here, wasn’t I?”
Mycroft nods before he is aware of his own answer, but he believes it. “Yes, Mother.”
She nods in time with him. “You’ll look after them, won’t you, Mycroft? You’ll help make sure they’re comfortable, and safe?”
“Of course, Mother.”
She leans forward to put a hand on his knee, squeezing, and then whisks herself from the kitchen to call after Mrs. Crowle for aid. Mycroft tries to drink the rest of his tea, but pours most into the dirt.
When John comes that evening, just as he promised, Mr. Crowle gets to talk with him on the drive until Mycroft’s father needs him to help with the bees. The hive pulls John’s attention, but he does glance back, checking for Mycroft, who cannot make it.
Then, later, spring moonlight caught behind low clouds, Mycroft listens at Beatrice’s door to the two girls whispering when they should be asleep 14, and he listens at the stairs as his parents talk bitterly of his uncle and what might be done for him, and he peeks in at Sherlock up in the attic 15, but he pauses at Frances’ door before he decides not to knock. Better, he decides, to leave him some privacy.
Appleton settles, some, with these wayward children in its embrace. It cradles them just as Mycroft’s mother does when Alice wakes crying early in the morning, wanting only her mother 16. Beatrice fetches help, bleary eyed, and ends up with cousin, brother, and mother overseeing little Alice’s settling, though only Cordelia will linger to see the rest of the night out.
By morning, Frances is asking Mycroft’s father about his recent trips through Africa, and Alice is giggling about plans for the day with Beatrice. Even Mycroft’s mother hums as she helps Mrs. Crowle in the kitchen, cheeks sunrise pink, and she is pure delight when Sherlock presents a bouquet of weeds still dangling roots, sending Mycroft to find a vase. From there, it is easy for her to declare there will be a picnic for dinner without room for refusal.
After all, the air is sweet in late spring, and the Holmes family is not one that enjoys being stuck inside, so neither can the cousins.
Beatrice is eager to show Alice the expanse of her world, and Appleton preens, offering baby birds to entice Alice to learn how to climb trees, and clear waters so the girls can crouch in the stream watching the fish. Sherlock lugs an encyclopedia outside to keep working on his field guide of the estate. Mycroft and Frances help set up canvas and paints for Cordelia. And then, for once, Mycroft is not needed.
Well, he must keep an eye on the girls because his mother will sink too far into her art to remember to check they aren’t injured, and he must at least know what direction Sherlock wanders off in – right now, he is behind the hive – so the boy can be fetched for meals because he will forget if left on his own. But all of that he is well used to.
From the shield of his own book, Mycroft watches as Frances fumbles for what he might do with his day. There is a futile attempt at sketching, and then a lingering nap beneath the oak tree where he jerks too much to ever actually have fallen asleep, and even time spent keeping the girls company by the stream until they rebuff his supervision.
When he ends up settling in the garden, Mycroft leaves him a few minutes of solitude 17 before journeying over in search of some shade.
Frances glances up as Mycroft enters, letting the cousins nod to each other, before his focus nominally returns to the book on African flora and fauna he was recommended by Mycroft’s father. “Have the bees made any honey yet?”
Mycroft perches himself on the short stone wall. Not too close to his cousin, but near enough if his mother looks to them, she will be pleased. “A bit.”
So close, it is clear Frances is not actually reading. His gaze stays locked on one part of the page until he remembers it should be time to flip to a new one. “Is it any good?”
“By summer, it will be.”
It gets him another look. Even just this brief time outside has turned Frances’ nose pink. Hopefully Alice will not burn so quick. “You’ve had them before?”
“Last year was the first.”
“My mother always wanted bees, but she was too worried Alice would be allergic.”
Mycroft swallows. “Is she?”
“No.”
“Oh.”
Frances turns his page, but looks up at the house instead, tracking where Alice and Beatrice run to meet where Mycroft’s father is calling them with a ladybird 18 caught in his hands. “My mother always said she could feel the house watching her when she came back here. I never really understood what she meant, but…” Frances’ sentence falls away and he takes a long breath. “She hated it here.”
“I’m sorry,” Mycroft says. He does not say that he thought so, that he heard how his mother hated when her sister visited, but Frances knows as well as he does.
“Will Alice be okay, do you think?” The question is quiet. Almost in time with the bees.
Only Beatrice is brave enough to let the ladybird crawl on her, though Alice is watching with her thumb tucked close, looking tempted.
“She won’t be alone,” Mycroft says.
“No,” Frances agrees, like that is enough. It has to be.
“Mycroft,” Sherlock calls, suddenly shrill, but it gets both boys looking over with the speed of a shotgun blast. He is still crouched behind the hive, encyclopedia abandoned in the dirt. “Come see!”
“See what?”
“The bees are dancing.”
Frances snorts, going back to his book.
Mycroft lifts his eyebrows. “Dancing?” he clarifies.
“Dancing!” Sherlock repeats. “You have to come see, Mycroft.”
He does, despite himself, and we all know what comes next.
1. They sit near each other at school, and when boredom drifts Mycroft’s attention from the work he has already finished, he often finds his way to John’s eyes, which are as green as spring clover. He will stare until he is shocked out of it by someone else. The habit is worse than when he bites his cheek, because at least that is only him and the pain and the blood, but the few times John has caught him staring, he has never told anyone, or asked Mycroft to stop. Once, he might have angled his sitting so Mycroft could see him better, his ears going pink. return to text
2. A History of Tudor Architecture, to indulge him, because research always earned him focus if he wanted to research the right things. return to text
3. He has nice hands too. Made thick with farm work, now that his father has stopped coming home. When he is shamed away from eyes, Mycroft’s attention will linger there. return to text
4. Musca domesticareturn to text
5. Mycroft used to do the same, but it always made his father frown, so he tries to only need it when he is tired. return to text
6. Apis melliferareturn to text
7. John is not so far away from the house, and his smile when he sees that it is Mycroft coming up to him on the road almost hurts, how sweet it is, and Mycroft cannot even enjoy it.
“Mycroft,” John greets. He has a hat against the sun, and he taps it like a gentleman out on promenade.
Mycroft is out of breath and hiding it badly. “Sorry, my father needs to send a wire.” To calm his heart, he taps fists on his thighs, but John is watching him, so he tries to stop, and cannot.
“Are you alright?”
Mycroft swallows hard. He is his mother’s son, letting words and reactions slip. “My aunt died. Is dead. That’s what the wire was. My mother’s sister.”
“Oh.” John steps closer, nice hand hovering over Mycroft’s shoulder for a second before he talks himself into closing the distance. “Jesus, Mycroft, I’m sorry.”
“Yes, well. The wire.”
John lets him go, and that is the worst shock, how much he misses it. “Of course.” return to text
8. Later, Mycroft will catch him in front of a mirror practicing his frowns. return to text
9. Well, what was her house. return to text
10. He is four months out of fourteen and used to boarding school, where Mycroft is not even thirteen and still goes to the village school. Privacy is a privilege for men and sons in mourning. That Mycroft’s room remains his own is only because there is somewhere else for Sherlock to go. return to text
11. Vespa crabroreturn to text
12. Mycroft was the only Holmes’ child who ever met the man, though Sherlock was close at hand. He painted even when he couldn’t sit upright, Mycroft often drafted in to hold the canvas or paints so the nurse they’d hired could take a break. return to text
13. John still promised to come before the evening, no matter what his mother had to say about him always slipping away to visit a family who doesn’t even pay him properly. return to text
14. Beatrice is telling little Alice about the injured magpie she and their mother found in the forest around Appleton, and how when it was better it took her flying all around the world to meet princesses and emperors. return to text
15. Sherlock is curled in a narrow ceilinged corner, bed linens arranged in a cocoon, and so deeply focused on his book that he doesn’t even notice Mycroft open and close the door. return to text
16. Cordelia tries to become her sister, then, slipping back into those early years where the two girls were too unformed to be anything but twins, and it doesn’t work. They diverged too far too soon. Still, she will order Arabella’s perfume special to add to Alice’s linens, knowing that reminder helped when her own mother died, and keep one for herself, at the back of her dresser, for the late nights when the dark is too heavy and she does not want to wake Silas. return to text
17. Frances and Sherlock are ignoring each other. return to text
18. Coccinella septempunctata return to text