Nutrisco et exstinguo Chapter XI - Tanquam aegri somnia
Back to Table of contents
A.N.: I have used in this chapter quotes from the original BBC episodes, from the English Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs, and from two songs: Stayin' Alive (The BeeGees) and You've survived (Firewind). I take no credits at all: they're quotes.
Nutrisco et exstinguo: "I feed from it and extinguish it"
Tanquam aegri somnia: literally 'Like a sick man's dreams'
Warnings: Rating for this chapter is K+
Chapter XI: Tanquam aegri somnia
song: I'll see you in my dreams, by Ingrid Michaelson
oOo
Though the days are long
Twilight sings a song
Of a happiness that used to be
Soon my eyes will close
Soon I'll find repose
And in dreams, you're always near to me
You wake up with a start. Trying to dispel the lingering images and sounds of the nightmare, you take a deep breath and look around.
The room is too vast and you don't like it. Not an inch of it. It's still dark and the only light dispersing the shadows is red and painfully bright. It says: 3:42. You like it even less.
As your brain flashes 'C-D-B', you let yourself fall back onto the bed with a groan. You shake it off and frown. This whole affair is giving you a headache already. Who knew John's absence could have such an impact on your well-being? He'd been absent even when you lived together. For several days or even weeks, sometimes.
No, corrects your brain, who seems to have build a life of its own, he hadn't. He was always there. In the cup left on the kitchen table. In his laptop always lying around the living-room. He was everywhere in 221B. You wonder absent-mindedly if he'd think the same of you. Of course he noticed when you weren't in the room, so you couldn't be sure. But wasn't that why he had refused to go back to the flat in the first place? You really hadn't understood why in the world he'd want to move out just because you were dead: obviously, Mrs. Hudson would lower the rent for him, and it was a blessed opportunity to live in central London at his ease in a flat big enough for two. Having a spare room could even be useful if he wanted to have his first child there.
You swallow and try to dispel the thought. John didn't have the money to move out of Baker Street and stay in London for very long. He wouldn't want to go to Harry. Would he leave London altogether?
Stop it. There is no time to look back.
Oh, but there is, and that is why the dreadful calm and abhorred peacefulness is getting on your wick. You've been stuck in this room for almost a week and now you're even wondering if you went to the right hotel. "Second home", was it? On second avenue. You can't help but growl in the darkness. Moriarty sure knew how to pick his addresses. And if you'd had any doubt whether you got his hint right, the name of the place was confirmation enough.
So here you are in this maddeningly silent room, waiting. Thinking most of the time - mainly of letters and numbers and partitas, and old Jim is lucky to be dead because you would no doubt have found the most elaborate and painful way to send him to hell if he were still alive. Except youare the one going through hell right now.
It was quite obvious to you from the beginning that the clue to the real code was in Bach's pieces - gematria. [1] Hence your playing of the violin when you were expecting old Jim's little visit after his trial. I got it, was your message. Of course, you hadn't exactly got it - in fact you had missed the most important fact, which was that Moriarty would use your 'friends' against you. That had become obvious when he'd started talking about fairy tales: protagonists always had auxiliary egos supporting them or helping them in their quest. When they sticked to the hero for a substantial period of time, they became targets. They needed tobe left behind, so you could figure out Moriarty's little riddles, most of them encrypted in gematria. Music, letters and numbers thus filled your mind most of the time lately.
When you're not busy thinking about your next step in this unnecessarily convoluted mess your late nemesis left you, you eat and sleep. You've noticed you must pay extra attention now, as John isn't here to remind you to do so if you want your body to be functional. You groan again - it's becoming a habit - and burry your head in your pillow. Whenever you eat, you think of John. Whenever you sleep, you dream - you, who hardly dreamt before, who could never remember a dream!
And you dream of him.
Of course, the increase in your sleep time isn't linked at all.
I'll see you in my dreams
Hold you in my dreams
Someone took you out of my arms
Still, I feel the thrill of your charms
The Three Sillies.
You wanted to get rid of the bloody parchment. Yes, parchment: maybe the man truly was a maniac. It was your little Welcome to New-York present you'd found in the drawer next to the bed and that had been further proof that you were in the right room - second floor, n°221.
But you didn't. Get rid of it, that is. One never knew, after all, when an old fairy tale could come in handy. Especially when it was the heritage of a psychopath. Maybe some secret message - another 'riddle' - was hidden in this children's story of a man realizing how silly his fiancée and her parents are and so leaving on a journey, saying he will come back to marry her only if he can find three other people just as silly.
However, it could also just be a very bad joke: Moriarty wasn't above that, quite the contrary. Naturally, by now you already know the whole tale by heart. You can almost hear the madman repeating the last lines again and again in your mind with his sing-song voice, and you hate him for it. You hate yourself for it.
So there was a whole lot of sillies bigger than them three sillies at home. So the gentleman turned back home again and married the farmer's daughter, and if they didn't live happy for ever after, that's nothing to do with you or me.
"It really hasn't, has it, Sexy? :) Since it won't happen. It's not for us. But don't worry: you'll find enough sillies out there to occupy yourself, and there'll probably be a nice little sillies' wedding at 'home', don't you think? Only without you. Cheers. :)"
That didn't actually belong to the tale, obviously. It was a a hand-written note in red ink in the margin besides the typed text, matching the seal of the envelope in which the parchment was. Another magpie, just like on those received in London. Part of the tale or not, it still manages to rile you at night.
With a last growl and a frown on your face, you decide it's high time to go back to sleep. Maybe the voice you'll hear then will be more pleasant. But you've never been one to fall asleep easily (no, you are not insomniac, it's just that you've always considered sleeping such a waste of time). It's not that you cannot fall asleep. Of course not. You start counting in your head. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8... And your intrusive brain chanting in counterpoint: A, B, C, D, E, F, G...
Lips that once were mine
Tender eyes that shine
They will light our way tonight
I'll see you in my dreams
26 = 23
John would have laughed at you and asked if you'd deleted calculus as well, because it wasn't worth the space on your hard drive. But the good doctor didn't think.
Unlike a certain maniac. It turned out the phone Moriarty had on the roof wasn't his real phone. Not the one with which he'd managed to break into the three supposedly most guarded places in Great Britain anyway. You hadn't even noticed - you didn't care much, truth be told, and you hadn't quite expected the man to shoot himself in the mouth. But then you'd been startled by a ringtone breaking the silence of the mortuary at night. 'If you're still alive, bang your drum, play it hard, celebrate, you have survived'. Another idiotic song. It could only mean one thing.
Your late archenemy had left you his iPhone - and contacts. Great. Just great. And yes, that's ironic. Of course it will be very helpful - it already is - but it's also proof you're in a finer mess than you thought. A long way into it, too. Naturally, you still had to crack the password - and remember the number he'd given you at Bart's a long time ago as Molly's boyfriend: the last four digits in particular (could he have been fuller of himself?).
So Moriarty knew what you'd been up to - wasn't sure, though. You were quite certain he had doubted you on the roof for a while. But after all, he'd dated Molly Hooper. He was aware of her attachment for you. Maybe he wasn't sure you would think of her, though. Still, Moriarty wanted to play until the end: he was bored. Staying alive was boring.
And so he had invited you to die along, or fall down to hell: "You're me". That didn't say whether you'd live like him, or die like him. Oh, he had thought this through, hadn't he? Your final problem. The final problem. To live, or not to live? And if to live, to live in hell.
You'd chosen hell.
Moriarty's "good luck with that" had been genuine, if a little ironic. Good luck with that big bad world out there. Maybe you won't be disappointed. At least you didn't disappoint me. Thank you.
You groan: you never liked Cornelian dilemmas, and to be forced into one wasn't exactly your definition of a good Game.
Now that you have a weakness, my dear, you're ordinary. Boring, and ordinary, just like anyone else. Aren't you even bored with yourself? You should just commit suicide. Or have some fun doing something new. What do you say?
"I don't have to die if I've got you", you'd said.
And you did get it: both Moriarty and 'U'... Still, you wonder if killing yourself wouldn't have been less trouble. All that playing, putting on a show with a madman for other madmen who were watching. Playing each other and playing others too... It was all so tedious.
But most of all, you hated the fact that you had to completely play John for the last few months you spent living with him. You'd been strangely touched when he said he cared, and would never believe you were a liar because no-one could fake being such an annoying dick all the time. You'd been touched, and yet it wasn't entirely pleasant. Something started gnawing in the pit of your stomach that day, something you still couldn't quite manage to shake off. Was it guilt? Or perhaps only the pain of those who know? You can't be sure. And you don't want to.
Looking down at the screen, you add the last recipient. Because he left you this phone, you already have the list of numbers you need to send the message to in the address book - not all, of course, but as always, the hint is in the name ( Uruguay, Ingrid Olivia, was the most obvious - almost unworthy of dear old Jim).
Oh yes, John would have laughed at you, and suddenly it doesn't matter if it had been just another sign of his stupidity: you catch yourself wishing he were there being clueless by your side. Ignoring the twinge in your chest, you press the Send button and the equation disappears from the screen.
26 = 23
In the dreary gray
Of another day
You are far away and I am blue
Someone comes and knocks on your door at last. It is high time: you were starting to wonder if Moriarty had made a mistake somewhere (not you, of course, you are not that careless).
You open and a short, plump woman with greyish hair cut like a man's, wearing enormous horn-rimmed glasses, stares up at you. John would have described her as a funny-looking woman, surely. She pulls a face.
"Your hair, it's..."
"Blue, yes. Very perceptive of you."
Her frown deepens but she makes no comment as she enters the room with her small purple suitcase, her coat and hat under the arm.
"I can see you haven't been very occupied."
"Oh, I've been quite busy reading and singing!"
"Have you, now?"
"Oh yes. Always loved letters and numbers."
"I can't see many of those in songs."
"Really? Aren't notes even better than anything, as they're both letters and numbers?"
She arches an eyebrow and replies with a tight-lipped smile:
"I had been told you were quite the man for the job, Mr. Villabella."
You send her a boyish grin, more likely to make her cringe than a dark look - and your smile widens as you are proved right.
"Are you having second thoughts now that you've seen me, Mrs. …?"
"You can call me Lucia."
She doesn't answer your question, and it's just as well. The Work won't wait. Everything else can.
Still I hope and pray
Through each weary day
For it brings the night and dreams of you
You wake up with a start, and can still hear John's scream echoing in your mind. It's too bad his last words to you were your own name: you don't care much for it now.
The room surrounding you is much smaller than the previous one, and not as bare: more furniture, more ornaments - tiring. Didn't you have even more junk in Baker Street? You scowl at your brain for using the word 'junk' and ignore it. Arching your back, you sit straighter in the old armchair. Apparently, you can no longer sleep in beds. Not that you used to very much, evidently. But the last time you did, it was in John's room. His hand in yours.
Shaking off the memory, you stand up and walk to the window. Beds are dull, anyway.
You wonder idly how come a room in a Bed & breakfast near Chicago can be noisier than one in Manhattan - you hear you brain mention vaguely something about the top floor and double glazing, but you're not paying much attention. Not quiet isn't so bad, though. Fabrizio (Lucia's "husband") is snoring loudly next door, and the rain outside is pouring. It's only 5am or so and the road one block away is busy already. Yet there is a silence in your head you just can't seem to break.
So you try to fill it. With something else than 9-14-8-13. John. Because somehow that's where the silence seems to be radiating from.
Tapping on the windowsill absent-mindedly, you peruse the mental scores of Bach's partitas you have on your hard drive. You've already solved most of Moriarty's little riddles, but not all: and you are quite aware that could be fatal.
You turn away from the window because even the rain is too bright, and your gaze falls on a piece of parchment paper laying over the libretto of Rossini's La gazza ladra. You had found the sealed letter in this very room upon your arrival, above the fireplace. Naturally the owner had no idea it was there and didn't even notice when she cleaned the room. Still, considering the woman, it could have been left there among the other bibelots and gone unnoticed for months. If anything, she didn't seem particularly astute.
Taking the parchment you sit again on the armchair sloppily, and skim through it in case you'd miss a clue. It tells the story of Titty Mouse and Tatty Mouse who live and do everything together. Then Titty dies and Tatty weeps, and for some unfathomable reason the whole house goes amok starting with the stool that begins to hop around, then the broom, the door and so on. Until a man on a ladder is told Tatty's weeping and so decides to fall and break his neck, thus destroying Tatty's house and her with it, by a reversed butterfly effect. Complete nonsense. But not so much as the little note in red ink at the end of the tale, saying: 'Don't weep, my dear, see where it leads. Oops! I forgot! You're not the one left weeping, you are DEAD! :D'
When you hear the paper crumple inside your clenched fist, you remember why you decided to wait before re-reading the letter. Seems like you didn't wait long enough.
I'll see you in my dreams
Hold you in my dreams
Moriarty's iPhone contains a surprising amount of music files, including songs and pieces. He'd left Rossini's overture there as well - the piece he'd played while breaking into the Tower of London (according to the camera videos in any case). Actually, he'd even configured it to be his morning alarm, something you were quick to change. Wakening was reserved to John. To his screams, adds your brain casually.
Slapping yourself mentally, you look up and force a smile to the young woman sitting across the table. Certainly, John would have found her attractive, with her plump lips and charming green eyes. What you notice however is the 25 ACP in the inside pocket of her jacket and the suspicious shape of her wedding ring - definitely one you could open and fill with any kind of powder you'd like. And you doubted it was cocoa or sugar.
"Are you listening?"
"Of course, Ninetta. I'm sure your holiday will be better next time."
"But it was my honey moon!"
"As I said."
She sighs.
"Come on, let me show you some pictures from my holiday to cheer you up."
She shrugs and sips her cocktail with a pout (for some absurd reason you're pleased to see she isn't as pretty when she pulls a face - when you realize why you're so happy about it and how utterly ridiculous it is, your brow furrows slightly). Bending over the table, she takes a look at the image appearing on the screen of your phone.
It's a picture of a graffiti: the one on the wall opposite the flat on Baker Street ; 'IOU' in large, red letters, with black wings. The one John probably didn't even notice. How could he? He never observed. And you hadn't even told him anything about IOU. Indubitably, it must have been erased by now. Nevertheless, it was still there the day you jumped from Bart's roof, according to your network. It is such a pity you aren't acquainted with homeless people in the US, they truly are priceless.
Ninetta takes the picture in but her face betrays nothing. Finally, she puts her glass back onto the table. You catch her eye and ask in a light-hearted tone:
"So what do you think?"
"Oh you know what they say. Fuss and feathers!"
She scoffs. You grin.
Someone took you out of my arms
Still, I feel the thrill of your charms
November 2, Royal Academy of music, London.
You can almost hear John telling you how crazy this is (and that's rather comical, because John wouldn't actually tell you it's crazy to come back to London, but to leave it pretending you are dead in the first place). But you're not staying long - you just arrived this afternoon, and your train is leaving tomorrow first thing in the morning.
Thinking that you took all the precautions to go undetected even by Mycroft, you cannot help but smirk. Of course it's high time he knew you were alive so he could be of some use, but you'll have the pleasure to contact him upon your arrival in Paris so he knows you were right under his nose and he didn't even notice.
However, the smirk doesn't last long, and soon you remember why you had to come all the way to London, which is probably the most dangerous city in the world for you right now. But precisely. You came to pick up something precious you'd rather have on your side - your "pet". Hopefully, your hair colour will have been clear enough - if he didn't get your message, then you have come for nothing, and that was so troublesome you really hope he did get it and will be here tonight. But you are quite sure he did get it - hadn't he been trained to see such things after all? The blue hair had been obvious enough.
'Here', namely in the Royal Academy of music listening to Bach's cantatas as part of the London Bachfest taking place from October 31 to November 10. The soloists are quite incredible but unfortunately you are too busy discreetly scanning the audience for any sign of the man you're looking for. You wouldn't want him to notice you first, although that is very unlikely. Your hair isn't blue anymore, but you've mastered the art of disguise to perfection, and this is the kind of situations it comes in handy. For tonight you decided to be a history professor, and you are rather proud of the result. Not that you think the grey beard and round glasses suit you. A fleeting thought of the Woman passes in your mind. Always a self-portrait, was it? You have to keep yourself in check not to scoff. But this is the best disguise you have managed to pull yet. To be fair, this is also the most hazardous situation you've been in since your death ; and not only because of Mycroft.
Maybe it hadn't been such a good idea to tell Molly, either. Your brain points out you haven't actually told her anything: you've just said 'blue', and she took it as a joke. She would never understand, would she? Still, it had been an unnecessary risk to take. Blue. B.L.U.E. 2-11 / 20-5. No, she wouldn't get it, your brain confirms.
You are startled out of your thoughts by the beginning of the next cantata. The cantata. BWV 205: Zerreißet, zersprenget, zertrümmert die Gruft. "Destroy, burst, shatter the tomb". Oh, how fitting it was. Your ego certainly had reasons to be stroked tonight.
As you start coughing and cannot seem to stop, people send you dark looks and you are forced to leave the concert room. You keep coughing until you are outside, and only then does it magically subside. In front of the Academy, a man is standing and smoking, his back turned to you. Your eyes scrutinize his silhouette intensely.
There had been only one name in the entire address book to which no phone number was attached. You put on your best smile and walk up to him.
"Good evening, Mr. Moran."
Lips that once were mine
Tender eyes that shine
They will light our way tonight
I'll see you in my dreams
"Friends are what protect you."
"SHERLOCK!"
"Are you listening to me?"
"Do you even care?"
"People are dying!"
"I need some air."
"It's how you get your kicks, isn't it? Risking your life to prove you're clever."
"What the hell are you doing?"
"Sherlock? We're out of milk."
"I had a row, in the shop, with a chip and pin machine."
"I told you, no fingers in the JAM!
Why don't you use the honey pot or something?"
"The world doesn't revolve around you, Sherlock.
Remember? There's the Sun."
"So... how are we feeling about that?"
"I never agreed to that! When did I agree to that?"
"We can't giggle, it's a crime scene... Stop it!"
"You don't remember, Sherlock, I'm a soldier! I've killed people!"
"I always hear "Punch me in the face" when you're speaking but it's usually subtext. "
"You just carry on talking when I'm away?"
"We can try to understand
The New York Times' effect on man."
You wake up with a gasp. And blink. Twice.
"Whether you're a brother
Or whether you're a mother,
You're stayin' alive, stayin' alive."
Taking in your surroundings, you remember you're in a room a contact rented for you in the Marais.
"Feel the city breakin'
And ev'rybody shakin'
And we're stayin' alive, stayin' alive."
Groaning, you cut the song short and pick up the phone.
"Yes."
Your voice sounds deeper than usual, and even you are surprised by its low pitch.
"Is this Moriarty speaking?"
Frowning with annoyance, you answer without a pause.
"Of course it is. What do you want?"
They will light our way tonight
I'll see you in my dreams
xXx
.
[1] Gematria: the substitution of numbers for letters of the Hebrew alphabet, a favourite method of exegesis used by medieval Kabbalists to derive mystical insights into sacred writings or obtain new interpretations of the texts. Some condemned its use as mere toying with numbers, but others considered it a useful tool, especially when difficult or ambiguous texts otherwise failed to yield satisfactory analysis. Genesis 28:12, for example, relates that in a dream Jacob saw a ladder (Hebrew sullam) stretching from earth to heaven. Since the numerical value of the word sullam is 130 (60 + 30 + 40)-the same numerical value of Sinai (60 + 10 + 50 + 10)-exegetes concluded that the Law revealed to Moses on Mount Sinai is man's means of reaching heaven. Of the 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet, the first ten are given number values consecutively from one to ten, the next eight from 20 to 90 in intervals of ten, while the final four letters equal 100, 200, 300, and 400, respectively. More complicated methods have been used, such as employing the squares of numbers or making a letter equivalent to its basic value plus all numbers preceding it. [Encyclopedia Britannica]
Click to viewPrevious Chapter
NEXT CHAPTER