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London fog held thick over Iris Wilson’s head and humming street lights shone brightly onto Iris’s knapsack as she walked home. Her knapsack bounced on her back as she ran, clutching a pouch in her hand. Different colors of leaves were tied neatly into it, remnants of her herb shopping for the day - after being given it as an early birthday gift, from Barok.
Despite only knowing her for two months, his Reaper persona - now put out in the open by Runo a few months beforehand - was a lot less scary up close to him. His dark gray mullet had been tamed out by Mikotoba’s advice, and now lay a fresher layer of gray, less coarse hair. It wasn’t quite the same scarier look that resembled his brother, Klint as he traveled throughout the streets of London. After the last trial, something must have happened, because he had come to the suite all quiet the first time, shaking hands holding a thick book. After some talking with Sholmes, the part where Iris had to try to not eavesdrop. They spoke in hushed whispers, Herlock closing his eyes and reciting something to Barok the entire time.
He had taught her before to be considerate of feelings, but it was so hard sometimes, as they talked in low tones about something behind Herlock’s bedroom door. It was hard not to instinctively want to eavesdrop on the two older men, when she knew they were talking about her. When they came out to her and Mikotoba, the professor who stayed for a while after the trial that shook the London public, he proceeded to stare at her for the rest of the time. Mikotoba had told her to give it some time, but the staring started unnerving, then moved to flustered when she asked him if he wanted any tea, hesitation to what they were saying about. Deducing people’s emotions was what Hurley had taught her, and she had deduced…that something was up with him. Something with the shift of attention onto her after that trial and the way he and Hurley would talk, long after her supposed bedtime.
She noticed how he would come just to hear Herlock talk after the trial, the two men forgetting that Iris was outside of Herlock’s door. A small peak of the young girl hearing through the not-so-closed door they left a bit open. She had just heard her own name, over and over again in the small whispers.
She had stopped after she heard Barok cry for the first time, Herlock sitting patiently for the man to break down his defenses. In the trial, it exposed his weaknesses, raw for the entire world to see after - the death of his brother and his involvement in the Professor Killings.
He had given her a velvet pouch, which she carefully held to her heart as she ran down the busy streets, pink ponytails thumping on her dress behind her. Carriages and omnibuses whipped past her, horse clomping of feet echoing around in the low murmurs of the tired London population. Herbal teas ran through her mind, rushing through with the newest ideas for her manuscript in her mind. Cold chilly air rushed her back home, desperate to get the ideas out of her head with the busier and fog-held city.
New mysteries around every corner in the fog ladden city of London. She thought. It’s just like in one of Mikotoba’s old notes, where every part of the city holds dark secrets. Holds the darkness in people’s heart as they ventured into the newest age of technological advancement in the biggest city in the world.
She stifled a laugh at that, at the voice that came out when she thought of Mikotoba’s old notebooks - the one that she had previously thought of as her father, John Wilson. The very man Herlock had told her that was her father, for her own stilled curiosity.
I would of loved to have Susie as my half-sister. But he still wouldn’t reveal that information to her. It doesn’t matter though. He’s my father and that’s enough for me. That curiosity still lingered at times, when she heard him and Barok talk, when she heard about the whispers of the Professor Killings. When they had gotten home that night, something had been up with Runo and Susie, the snapped looks that was clear as day that they knew something.
It doesn’t matter now. She thought. Curiosity could be ladden on the side when her father cried for the first time at her note. Curiosity and the initial disappointment could be stifled down for his crinkling eyes and sobs. I have the family I want with me.
That family is surely waiting for me to return back home. Night was falling fast around her, shadows already elongating in the sidewalk she ran. Professor Mikotba will love my newest concoction.
The professor had taken to staying with them months at a time, when Ryunosuke and Susato held their own in Japan. They would visit about once a year, but with the need and clear show of a new defense attorney in the Japanese court, they had been busier than ever. The professor came by for months at a time, finally able to stay with his relief at knowing his daughter and his student could hold their own after their time in Great Britain. Heating two voices arguing over a case when she got home was a lot more enjoyable than Herlock’s voice muttering to himself as he stared up at the ceiling. He brought herbal teas that she could practice with from Japan as well.
Hopefully he’ll like this one.
Iris dipped to the side as people walked past, narrowly avoiding falling onto old trinkets scattered in the shop windows. Her eyes fell onto the closed door sign, with the boarded-up doors and shattered glass. It was……the old pawnbroker store. Old trinkets lay around, antiques of different designs laying around her like long forgotten treasures.
This is where the shooting happened. She remembered, frowning. This is where Hurley’s Red-Handed Recorders helped save the day.
Well, it had helped. If helped meant people immediately doubting her father’s potential with his newest inventions in court. There was still a stigma around his inventions at Scotland Yard. After the trial, some had argued that the projector - one that she had come up with, mind you - was a short-handed trick purposely made to create doubt around Scotland Yard’s reputation worse. It just happened to work that way though, and now matter what any of them said or did, no one would ever believe that, no matter what Gina said.
I'll be getting home. Hurley and Mikotoba will surely be getting nervous for me. She decided, but stopped as she peered inside a bit, at a dark wooden instrument behind the glass. Surely that isn’t….
She looked around, but too many people would notice her if she smashed through the windows. Best not to get a copper called onto me, especially after being known after the projector incident.
But Hurley had his violin at home, right? He had had it in the corner after the trial, not touching it after the viola incident the previous morning. Too many bad memories for Hurley. Even with the common hackling he would do at this pawnbrokery, it still held all the memories of him pawning his stuff.
Let’s see. She decided, slipping her pouch into her knapsack. Her blue and pink charms bounced a bit, and she gripped one of them playfully, tugging on an ear. Instinctively, one of them made to clip onto her ear. Maybe next time I shouldn’t put them on the ears. She thought ruefully. Herlock had complained that to her last time, from when they were on the SS. Grouse.
She tugged out a new invention of hers, a long thin stick. She pressed a button, leaning light into the dusty window sill. She positioned it to lay on the dark wooden floor, and there it was - just inside. A violin, dark wood rippling with its strings primed to the ready. An elegant bow sat next to it, and she sucked in a breath when she saw the familiar dark patterns on it. It’s Hurley’s violin!
She ran up to her suite after that, her mind deducing what was probably going to come. She knew from the incessant, tiny off-tune wailing coming from the windows. I was right!
She knocked on the door, where Mikotoba’s curious eyes peered out. “Ah, welcome home Iris.”
“Yes,” she nodded, entering after the man into the sweeping suite. “I got- what is going on?”
Herlock was in the middle of the room, paper spread around him. He was tinkling with his instrument, furiously twisting the pedals on the ends. He pushed his hair back and looked up, “Ah, hello my dear Iris.”
“Hello Hurley.” she headed for the other side of the room, slipping off her knapsack. Digging out the tea from the purple pouch, she sorted it out on her little stand, taking the board next to it and scribbling another note onto it. She turned to Mikotoba when he didn’t answer, and looked to where Herlock was staring now at the instrument as if it had personally offended him. “Professor Mikotoba, what’s up with him?”
“I can deduce from your young lingering gaze that you are staring at me as all great men do,” Hurley said, clenching his fists to himself. “Dear Iris, like all great men stare as they do at disinspired musicians, devoid of no musical inspiration within them and-”
“Hurley, that’s a viola, you know that?” Iris interjected, staring at her adoptive father exasperatedly. She set down her knapsack, a small thud landing in the place of the incessant wailing of his viola he had set down. In the kitchen behind her, she grabbed the kettle, warmth filling her numbing hands. “Thank you Professor Mikotoba! This is perfect for my newest herbal blends.”
“Barok sent a telegram ahead.” Mikotoba smiled, the same one that he held for Herlock when he finally solved a new case. “I can’t wait for you to taste your newest herbal blends.”
Iris jumped at the dramatical wailing from Herlock next, booming around the suite. “My dear Iris, I do admire your efforts to raise my spirits, as all tend to do. No, this violin does not compromise the tunes that I wish to play for the musical masses. No more recitals to you and my dear old partner for your bountiful ears when my notes do spring like flowers blooming. Only dying wilting ones stage around me like-”
“He’s been like this for hours.” Mikotoba said watching his old partner clutch his head over the viola. “He can’t get the pegs, or whatever he’s trying to get right. The ones at the ends of the violin.”
“My cherished violin, reduced to a mess of wistful petals and,” he yanked one of the pegs, making the entire string snap, making Mikotoba wince. That made him set it down, settling his hands into his head, “My cherished wooden friend, now broken like-”
“Hurley, that’s a viola.” Iris said again, bringing her kettle over to her table. “I saw your violin at the Pawnbroker’s shop on the way back.” Herlcok stared at her, dark eyes full of such desperation. It was like a spotlight from one of his dance of deductions had spotlit over him, “That’s a viola.”
Mikotoba sighed, watching Herlock stare blankly at her. He gently tugged the instrument out of the man’s hand and started to clear up the papers that were scattered around him.
Those are the guides on how to handle an instrument. They were for when Iris would try playing the violin when she was younger when the violin was the most appealing thing in the household. The tunes that would come from it when Hurley practiced, a sweet melody that caused her to sleep when she saw her father play the melodic instrument were sweet memories of when she was wondering, just who her mother was or just who her real father was. The worrying days where she would watch his elegant figure play and block out the night that poured in from the windows, the only worry being on what his next song was gonna be, on which one she wanted next. Those times when all I worried about was the next song and whether I would have to wait an entire day to hear the next one. Those days we recorded some of the songs on cylinders on the phonograph. She remembered excitedly.
His eyes finally lit up, “Ah, yes, however could I forget our first meeting with the young Miss Gina Lestrade. Are you saying that when we went in to exchange my beloved instrument, I forgot to take the correct one?”
“Yes, I saw it through the window today.” she shrugged, laying her hands down exasperatedly, “How long have you been trying with that?”
“I’ve been trying to change it to the melodic tone that I-”
“How did you not realize that it was different strings than what you were used to?”
“Perhaps some of young Iris’s tea will help cheer you up from this disappearance you find yourself in?” Mikotoba tried when Herlock slumped at Iris’s words of attempted compassion.
“My beloved instrument is now locked behind the restraints of bonds that even I cannot conquer,” he said sorrowfully. “Perhaps you could make me an earl gray tea to match the gray slumber my creativity has fallen into with this newest revelation.”
“You can ask Miss Lestrade to talk to Scotland Yard about getting your violin.” Mikotoba pointed out reasonably. “They have the keys to the establishment if I’m aware of it correctly.”
“It’s too late now,” she said, “Night has already fallen.” She shuffled her papers around, sorting out her notes of Mikotoba into smaller pieces. She had taken to interviewing him personally about some of the adventures, and her neat handwriting scribbled the notes onto blank pieces of paper. Perhaps this could be an extra story in one of them! Showing the detective on what he truly is in a more domestic setting.
“We’ll have to get it in the morning, Hurley!” she said more reassuringly after he didn’t stir. “Don’t worry, we’ll get it in the morning, and then you can play the violin for all of us again.” Hopefully I can make you play the one you played that reminded you of Inspector Gregsy.
Herlock still sulked from that and collapsed onto the couch while staring up at the ceiling. Iris sighed, grabbing the kettle and pouring three cups of tea into different mugs. She started with one, tearing into one of the newest ones to try, the water rippling in the tea bag, dust of the tea sinking into the clear water from the kettle.
“How’s Susie doing?” Iris asked Mikotoba, while looking over to Herlock. He was still staring at the ceiling numbly, murmuring disparaging things to himself. Here we go again.
He got into these modes, where the music he cherished from the tips of his fingertips fell flat out shortly after he hadn’t practiced. Or the cases that fell short in his reasoning without a second voice to back up and break up his rapid-firing deductions. Falling short of a partner at times, the deductions fell short, the clients were unimpressed at the speculator they had been thinking of from Iris’s stories. He would stare at the ceiling for hours, paving each wooden cross board with his eyes. Sometimes Iris would entertain him, talking about her day as he mumbled about failed creativity.
It often took her asking questions about her newest manuscript, and about the details that Miktooba might not have added. He’s very keen to add on more tangents to it to make it a lot better.
“She’s doing brilliantly helping young Narahudo in Japan in the courtroom. She’s currently teaching her friend Rei with becoming a judicial assistant. She is aiming to be a judicial assistant, just as she is.” Fondly, he shook his head, “I do find that putting those two together to study often leads to Susato becoming less of the equity filed lady that her grandmother raised her to be.”
“Susie wouldn’t be anything less of a gentlewoman.” She was the refinement of any Japanese lady. “She-”
“I do mean that in a good way,” he held his hands up alarmingly, “Her and her friend Rei, they bring out a lot in each other that I’m sure will make Rei a great judicial assistant one day. She is on the right path, both of them.”
Herlock finally spoke up again, “The world is nothing but a hallowed husk of the bright flames that would have ignited my passion for inventions in my mind. The fire that would rampage across this husk of a city, but has not sparked in an millennium, because of them clowned down to detective tricks in courthouses.”
I’ll make sure they don’t doubt you again. She had wanted to kick the arguing lawyers that paraded back and forth over his inventions. They said that if they weren’t Scotland Yard approved, they were nothing but a facade that was deemed by the trickery of a dramatized detective. Herlock’s inventions have solved all of the cases that have shaped some of the most recent cases, highlighting his genius!
“Don’t say that.” Iris said, staring back into the brown-gray eyes, “You’re the one that stated the principles of solving mysteries, remember?” I only remember that because of the many times you’ve told me about it.
“I did.” A light seemed to pop up in his mind, making him startle up. “I did do that.” he grabbed the viola again, fingering the remaining strings. It bounced back at him, and he shifted his fingers to the pegs again. “Mikotoba, my dear, do you remember how we made that music?”
What are you doing now? She thought curiously. She abandoned the tea tapping her forehead in thought for a second. She popped her finger up, remembering, “The one that you always like humming when you did it with Runo? The one that you love to play on the violin?”
“The one I will play on the viola now, now that you have refreshed me with the accomplishments that can overtake a dear, hallowed-out husk of a brain devoid of any creativity of stirring flames.” he took the bow and placed it sideways on the viola, bringing it up to his arm. Mikotoba went to put his hands around Iris’s ears, but a piercing sound made it through anyways.
Screeching as if an alarm came through, Iris clamped her own hands over her ears just as quickly. “Hurley, stop!”
The raggedly screeching tone only heightened, the sound such as a strangling of a cat filling her ears. It sounded somewhat like the song she would hear him recite whenever she had the chance, but the two octaves that he played it on - while also missing an entire string filled the air with an ear splitting screech. That’s made for four strings, not three!
“Herlock, if I remember correctly, was playable on strings that are needed on a violin, and not as high as those.” Mikotoba pointed out when he took the bow off of the viola. “I do admit your confidence in playing it on a broken three-stringed viola, but that sounded nothing like it’”
“How do you feel we can play it as though my most cherished violin is not here?” Herlock countered, raising his eyebrows at the other man.
Mikotoba went to the other side of the room, slipping on his shoes but making no sign to leave the room “Play those notes again, Sholmes, but an octave down. It might not sound the same as it does on a violin, but it’s still something. I do not think young Iris was on the SS Goura when we did this deduction sequence last time.” they made eye contact, then nodded, some kind of understanding falling over each of them.
The incessant wailing came up again, and Iris watched as Mikotoba tapped his shoes in that exact order she had heard her father hum so many times. Slowly but surely, the strings fell down, Herlock not missing a beat as he lowered the strings to a slightly different octave. It still resembled the music that Mikotba tapped out, but a slightly more tense one, a slightly acute one.
“That one is the prototype we used before Sholmes decided on the first one for his main tone for his dance of deductions,” he explained, ending after Herlock ended after a minute or so, “He insists on being dramatic throughout, claiming he has to have a backdrop of the same type of music.”
“That’s what makes Herlock’s Logic and Reasoning Spectacular is all about, my dear friend. What’s life without some music in the background to spice it up? What is life without a humming melody of - Iris, what are you doing?”
Iris was fidgeting with the phonograph across the room, digging through the drawers among it. Her remembrance had sparked something up inside of her, and her burning hands filled her with curiosity and the burning of an idea. She pushed some old books off of the desk as she rummaged through the dark oak dressers. Dusty books fell onto the floor, making Herlock spin around. After a minute, she held up a tin cylinder. “Is this what you’re looking for? Is this what you’re trying to mimic?
“What is that?”
“You showed me this when I was younger,” Iris said, going to change out the phonograph. She dusted it off, wiping it onto her dress. “You dug it out of your records to make me stop crying once. You said you made it years beforehand with a partner of yours.” The one I thought was John Wilson when you first told me.
She set up the phonograph, setting it to register the disc, then bent down to pick up the books that had been scattered everywhere. Herlok waited for the familiar town to come on, grinning as the familiar melody came back on. I knew that would work!
“Isn’t that the one we recorded a year before I had to go away?” Mikotoba asked, grinning as a familiar tap dancing of shoes echoed in the background of the harmonies.
“Can you teach me how to do that?” she asked, bouncing up and down. Herlock opened his mouth, but she accidentally kicked the books she had reorganized, sending them scattering across the floor of the suite. “You did that whole deduction on me once.”
When Mikotoba got punched out onto the couch and Runo figured out that I stole the autopsy report. She thought, thinking of the confession she had to make to Dr. Gorey.
“Hopefully that won’t be necessary next time,” Mikotoba said, making her hang her head low. He had passed out on the couch, and by the time she was gonna help him, the other had gotten back, to a silent Iris and a German lullaby. He had seen her about to open it when he came in, and when he went to stop her, he got sucker-punched.
That would have been me. She thought. The key was now easily accessible on the fireplace, but she didn’t touch it unless Herlock was there. He had disarmed the invention, but she felt wary whenever he did open it for her. The guilt still churned at times when she saw the open box, the one she had hid her stolen paper under for years. I could have been punched out. It had been scary enough seeing Herlock bounce across the room like that. I don’t think I would have survived that earlier, compared to the fall I took earlier.
“Iris is allowed to keep her secrets,” Herlock countered, giving her a wink, making her shoulder raise at his reassurance. “But when my old friend is warbling an old German tune, I find that secret just a bit too tempting to not do a deducation on.”
She crossed her arms and flicked on the recording. A familiar tone rang through the air, the smooth violin cutting through the air like butter. Mikotoba started it up again, tipping up his hat at the end and giving Iris a look, making the little girl giggle a bit.
“I did an Iris ‘Logic and Reasoning Spectacular’ when I first met Susie and Runo,” Iris said, clasping her hands together in delight. An uncurrent of taps radiating in the back of it piled in the backdrop, mixing in with the harmony of Herlock’s prized violin.
“How did you do it?”
“It was as fun as you taught me to do,” she flipped her goggles in the same way Herlcok did, smiling at his echoing grin. “I didn’t quite get around your spinning bits though,” she twirled around, flicking her hat at different parts of the room. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to mimic your own.
“It’s all a part of the charm, my dear Iris.” he flicked his hat in mimicment of the younger girl’s attempt to copy him. “Detectives never reveal their secrets.”
“You spilled your secrets to Inspector Gregson when we were first investigating cases, if I recall correctly, Sholmes” Mikotoba laughed at the two, Iris flicking her goggles harder for the effect of it. “So I think you can spill it for your daughter.”
“Yeah,” she crossed her arms in a fake pout, “You’re not doing it for me? Your daughter?”
“If I recall correctly,” Herlock put on a poised face, “Ryunosuke told me that you said you were my roommate the first time he met you, did he not?” she huffed at that, and he let out a cackling laugh, “Of course, I would teach you, Iris, daughter or not of mine.”
Daughter. She beamed at that name. A little nickname and all, but the pride shining on her father’s face when he said that, so easily slipped out. Would my actual father have said that?
“I know you flick your hands like this, and you do that spinning dance.” Iris spun, nearly tripping on the books she had scattered. Herlock grabbed her wayward arm, catching it right before she fell.
“Like this, my dear,” he put his pipe to his mouth, and said, “Welcome to Herlock’s ‘Logic and Reasoning Spectacular’”, and the music rose with that spot, as if just on cue. “Just imagine your person - the person you’re trying to select, take Miktoba for this part,” he snapped his hand at his partner, making him jump, “See how I did that, my dear? The act of deducation isn’t just observance, there’s also a way to do it. See how his eyes automatically went to the table, where the tea cups lay?”
“Like this?” she brought her hand up to her goggles, snapping it in an imitation. But this time, she held it for a moment, but without the pipe, she knew she couldn’t get quite the effect that she knew she was going for. The silhouette of him in the picture she drew, with the famous ‘ The game’s afoot!’ tagline for it, leaning on the page, his back to the edge of the paper. “Since Mikotoba is now aware of his spotlight, it’s easier to deduce things based on his body language, correct?”
“Precisely!” Miktoba sighed as his partner spun across, gliding smoothly and coming to a spot across the room and aiming a finger at him, “Mikotba, I fear you are hiding something. Based on the tea cup, and-”
“Herlock, as much as I enjoy seeing you reliving our youth through teaching miss Iris, I have done nothing of the sort for you to deduce.” Mikotoba sighed. Herlcok deflated, and Iris let out a laugh, one that made Herlock pick up his pipe, as if hoping to regain some kind of dignity.
She spun and snapped her fingers, imagining a spotlight coming up over Herlcok. He jumped as she spun, aiming her finger toward him, a mimic of what he had just done. Aha! I did it! “Like this. You and Runo always imagine spotlights over different parts of the rooms, right? Like signaling the different areas that you think show your dedication? Right?”
“Exactly, my dear! Deductions are mostly kept to one area of the room - and everything tells a story, that’s the core root of it all. ” he said, holding up a finger, “Your scuffed shoes for an example.,” he pointed towards them, “You tell a sign of going through sparse dirt - you went down to the park to feed the birds again, correct?”
“I wish Runo was here to help correct your deduction, but no,” she shrugged, dropping her arms in front of her. “They would be wet, they’re just full of scuffed dirt.”
“Meaning you went down to the lake.” he tried to correct, bringing his pipe up to his mouth.
“No, meaning that I fell over at the market, Hurley. You know how it’s an old construction sight and it’s bare dirt? I was running in it,” she stretched up her dark tights, revealing scraped knees, “And I fell.”
“Are you okay?” he broke his dramatical posture, hurrying to the first aid kit near Mikotoba, on Iris’s side of the room, “Do you need to-”
“I put some herbal paste I made,” she stretched it higher to display the white paste that stretched across it. “The same herbs that I brought with my tea, they’re the same that you can make a paste out of.”
“Are you sure?”
“I am sure.” Oh, Hurley, she thought affectionately. His tendency to jump to deductions applied to her injuries, frantic for any one of them. He was made of impulsive decisions and energy, the core of him is scattered enough to piece together one emotion in total. “Thank you though.”
The violin faded out, and her shoulders drooped, I guess that’s the end of that dance lesson. “Your deductions aren’t always right, Hurley, I’m afraid.”
He slumped against the couch at this, which just made Iris sigh. Guess her attempt at something to cheer him up failed miserably. She went over to the phonograph, sliding across the wooden floor with her socks. “What other songs do you have in here?”
Herlock just groaned, dragging his hands down his face, “What is there to listen to that isn’t my beautiful harmonized music that I played with my most cherished violin years ago that is now distraught and ruined? The music that the muses gave me that they ever so rejected in my misplaced misery of dismal absent-mindly. The dance of deducation I made reduced down to a mere dance lesson for children.”
“I liked the lesson,” she crossed her arms in a pout, “I enjoyed you teaching me!”
“Thank you, it is my pleasure to pass down what I know down to the youths.”
She switched out the music, holding a dusty cylinder in her hands, tossing it from palm to palm. Would he like this one? she thought, looking over to her father, in his black home suit attire, lying across the couch. Would he remember this one?
Iris slipped it in, and a cheerful bouncy tune came up. She bounced back, hopping on her toes in beat with the rhythm, “Hurley, do you remember this one?”
She met his eyes across the room, his body upright again. “This is the one you made when you were younger, is it not? The one that I played on my cherished violin and-”
“The one we made together!” she said. It rose with the higher melodies of his violin and the little drum she had brought from the market a few years ago. With them, the bouncy music fell into rhythm with each other, complementing each other’s varied pitches. “Come on, dance!”
The enthusiasm ran through her, the small dying memory sparking to life with the memory that sprang up. The music they finally recorded together, was a messy attempt at some sort of something they could record again. Finessed violin accompanied young Iris trying to beat in line with her adopted father as he fell into the musing god’s whimsical descent onto him.
“Do you know any dance moves, Hurley?” the seven-year-old Iris looked up to her dad, her hands buzzing with excitement. They had just made a song! Her hands gripped the drum in front of her, tapping on it excitedly. “Can we dance to this?”
He brought down his violin, pondering for a second, “I was never taught dance moves as a kid, I do regret to inform you. I’ve never danced in my life - it’s not necessarily a skill set people to have, Iris, and is - back! What are you doing?”
“Dancing! Gimme your hands!”
She grabbed for his hands, making him put his violin to the side ungracefully. He took his daughter’s hands as she started to yank him forward, “Iris, my dear, I think-”
She pushed him back and forth, the repeat of the song around her bouncing with their rhythm as their hands grasped each other, intertwining almost naturally. She shuffled them back and forth, hopping with every beat.
Hurley stumbled, and she let out a laugh. “Just go along with the music.”
She yanked him back and forth, making their steps go back and forth with each other. Right food, left foot, their feet fell into the beat with each other as they swung, back and forth.
“I hardly count this as dancing,” Hurley pointed out as his harmonized violin swelled into the background.
“You said you believed I could do anything I set my mind to, right?” Iris unhooked his hands from his own, crossing her arms into a pout, “The definition is, “Dance is an art form consisting of sequences of movement, either improvised or purposefully selected - this is both of them. Therefore it is dancing, and you just danced.”
She grinned at her dad’s bewildered state. The form she had seen him in this morning, slumped with no pipe to his mouth in his despair over a new case. I’ve cheered him up now. She thought.
Legal definition or not, I came here for what I wanted to do. She thought as their feet landed in step with each other. She had succeeded at cheering up her father.
“Is this the same thing you were doing all those years ago?” he asked as she dragged him up, small hands gripping callouses, ink stained ones.
“It worked back then, and it’ll work now,” she informed him. “Gimme your hands.” she gripped his calloused hands and swung him forward. Familiar steps came back to Herlcok and he let his daughter drag him back and forth. He twisted his body in turn, his feet landing gracefully with every step. In a forward motion, he twisted and landed in turn with her, his body elegant in his flying feet.
He let go for a second, letting her fall onto his hand as he spun her. Her dress flew around her, her pigtails getting adapted up in her goggles as the room spun around her. She laughed, squealing in delight at her father’s poised posture as he took her up again, eventually letting go of her hands and facing Mikotoba. He raised his eyebrows at him as his violin rose into a swelling wave, rising octaves.
“Would you care for a dance, my dear Mikotoba?” he asked the other man, offering out two hands, one on the hip, and one carefully opening up a space for his partner to step into. Miktooba took up the space, pushing back his hair in his white part.
The next part of the recording started up, which was one of Herlock’s solos on the violin, just a bit after they recorded the last one. A beautiful composement of rich vibratos that sailed across the bridge years ago. Watching him play that back for the cylinder all those years ago, tall thin bow smoothing across the bridge of the violin beautifully, closed eyes, and a small smile accompanying it. Dust spiraled across the room, capturing honey-suckled light as it through the windows of the late afternoon sun in their suite.
Miktoba settled into his grip, and Herlock began up their dance. Slow and steady, they swayed with the music, stepping in off-beat patterns with each other. mIktoba took up tap dancing as they fell back and forth with the rise and fall of the music. Iris settled onto Herlock’s desk, watching as the two men fell into a melody of old music, their shoes tapping out only a rhythm that they knew, perfectly swaying with each tapping shoe. They functioned like a well-oiled machine, Herlock’s small smile and closed eyes playing up with his old friend again. Their shoes clipped on the wooden floor, a small hint of the previous music airing Mikotoba's instinct with his old partner.
Sun spilled into the room, a peak of the sun opening into the suite as they turned and swayed gently together. At the crescendos, they moved slowly, the sun favoring them into the slant that fell in, streaking across the dusty, book-strewn floor. Dark wood lay beneath Iris’s hands as she placed them gently on the desk, letting her legs kick out in a slow rhythm with the two men enjoying their peace and serenity.
It worked. It distracted Hurley.
The muses of the past, his creativity, and serenity casting their spell on him now, offering him the soft memories and clouds of the past in the suite. They chased away the clouds of doubt that had rained across the entire suite, offering their sunlit embrace among the two men.
Iris hummed a bit, the thought of Hurley’s violin forgotten in the spell-cast moment. All doubts, all case worry floated away as the dust swirled, and the music swelled. Just for a moment, her tea leaves floated away in the misty moment of her dad, her only dad swaying with his partner.
Like home. A simple home that caught in the despair of one now, the theatrics shaking all of the occupants in its wake. The dramatics made Iris laugh and exasperated, content with her failing dad who cursed the muses for their creativity. Iris's sweet herbal tea, wafted out a scent of comfort, the smell of chamomile roasting in the household.
221b street is as simple as that. It’s just me and Hurley’s life here, as memory cast or not as it is.
auburndeath Sat 18 Feb 2023 09:44PM UTC
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jay_hawk Sat 18 Feb 2023 10:29PM UTC
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ryunosukefan4407 Fri 19 Jan 2024 09:07AM UTC
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jay_hawk Sat 20 Jan 2024 04:25AM UTC
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