Paths Woven

Prologue - Scarlet

Knock.

Knock, knock.

Knock, knock, knock.

Crash!

The little girl jumped. She had been obediently coloring and ignoring the knocks on the front door nearby, but a crash was something she had never heard before at the front door. She was eight years old, but she was smart, and she knew that the kitchen was next to the front door. She decided that no matter what, she would save her Mummy.

She got up and ran to the kitchen to find an alarming sight. A man with black hair had just stepped away from her fallen mother, collapsed on the floor.

The girl ran to her mother, then looked intently at the man. "What did you do to my Mummy?" She asked him with eight-year-old fierceness.

"Nothing, dear." The man said, letting his hand settle down by his side. The child noticed that it was oddly shaped, and black, and sort of oily. She decided it was bad.

"Do you know how to fire a gun?" The man asked suddenly.

"No." The child replied incredulously.

"And you are?"

"My name is Scarly." The girl crossed her arms. "Why isn't my Mummy moving?"

"Do you like stamps?"

"Stamps!" Scarly smiled.

With a chuckle, the man stamped an M right on her hand... And handed her the gun.

"Shoot everyone who comes close to your mother who does not bear the name Sherlock Holmes." The man instructed her. "Your Mummy will be all right soon. Understand?"

The girl nodded. With a chuckle, the man slipped out of a broken window. Sighing, the girl grabbed a coloring book and waited for her Mummy to wake up, not understanding as the blood left her body that she never would.

--

Sherlock sat up, pleasantly startled.

"Stop there," he said, motioning for the police officer to stop in his telling. "Start from the beginning."

"Well, sir, we have a girl - a smidgen, the age of my own little girl back at home - who has barricaded herself in her kitchen with a dead woman beside her. She has nearly murdered a police officer and quite calmly told me that she would shoot anyone who wasn't Sherlock Holmes. Because it would go against her conscience otherwise, I let her shoot me in the hand." The officer held up a bandaged hand. "She's really quite good at shooting."

"Of course she is." Sherlock muttered. "Come along, then, John. Step carefully, it is wet outside."

The trio were off, walking to the crime scene because Sherlock preferred the stroll. It was an odd day, and the sun was still shining though it was raining, and people walked all about with ice cream though police had a crime scene sectioned off with a girl over her mother's dead body.

"Who are you?" The girl demanded the curly-haired detective and his sidekick. "Are you Sherlock Holmes?"

"Indeed I am." Sherlock nodded his head. "What seems to be the problem here? Is your mother alright?"

John gasped. "That's her mother? Why would she kill her mother?"

"My Mummy's not dead." Scarly told him matter-of-factly. "She's just sleeping. There was a man here who gave me this gun and a stamp." She held out her hand proudly and displayed the stamp.

"Moriarty." Sherlock hissed. "Now, put down the gun. You're coming with us."

"But what about Mummy?" Scarly asked innocently.

"Yes, and where is her father?" John asked.

"Her father died very suddenly, correct? It was a heart attack." Sherlock told John, a bit of hesitation in his voice. It seemed nearly, for a moment, like emotion.

"Do you know who this girl is?" John asked Sherlock, astonished.

"Scarlet Holmes, daughter of Jacob Holmes, brother of myself." Sherlock sighed.

"I never knew you had a brother."

"You never hear often of dead people, do you, John?" Sherlock turned to the girl. "People will come for your mother shortly, Scarlet. Come along."

{Three years later}

"So her mother could have been saved?" Scarlet heard a whisper.

She deduced from Sherlock's lessons that it was John, Sherlock, and another - but one she didn't recognize.

"Had there not been the delay," another voice whispered, "her mother could have been saved."

"Let us not tell her." A voice counseled. "She shall think she killed her mother."

Scarlet's eyes widened, and she stepped out from behind the corner. "What?" She asked, her face stricken. "I did what?"

"Nothing, my child." John assured her quickly. Scarlet looked at the newcomer - a tall, fatter man who resembled Sherlock - who returned her gaze quite steadily and not unlike Uncle Sherlock's. However, there was something about him that made her relax - slightly. She stared at her uncle.

"What is going on? I..." Scarlet looked at her hands. "My mother... I'm a monster."

"No, Scarlet..."

"Thank you, Uncle John, but no." The traumatized girl stopped the man. Backing out of the room, she ran out of the apartment and into the street. She streaked down the sidewalk.

You monster.