I frowned. “But surely it’s evidence,” I said.
“It’s seditionary nonsense,” said my friend.
And I should have burned it. Indeed, I told Lestrade I had burned it, when he returned, and he congratulated me on my good sense. Lestrade kept his job, and Prince Albert wrote a note to my friend congratulating him on his deductions, while regretting that the perpetrator was still at large.
They have not yet caught Sherry Vernet, or whatever his name really is, nor was any trace found of his murderous accomplice, tentatively identified as a former military surgeon named John （or perhaps James） Watson. Curiously, it was revealed that he had also been in Afghanistan. I wonder if we ever met.
My shoulder, touched by the Queen, continues to improve, the flesh fills and it heals. Soon I shall be a dead-shot once more.
One night when we were alone, several months ago, I asked my friend if he remembered the correspondence referred to in the letter from the man who signed himself Rache. My friend said that he remembered it well, and that “Sigerson” （for so the actor had called himself then, claiming to be an Icelander） had been inspired by an equation of my friend’s to suggest some wild theories furthering the relationship between mass, energy, and the hypothetical speed of light. “Nonsense, of course,” said my friend, without smiling. “But inspired and dangerous nonsense nonetheless.”
The palace eventually sent word that the Queen was pleased with my friend’s accomplishments in the case, and there the matter has rested.
I doubt my friend will leave it alone, though; it will not be over until one of them has killed the other.
I kept the note. I have said things in this retelling of events that are not to be said. If I were a sensible man I would burn all these pages, but then, as my friend taught me, even ashes can give up their secrets. Instead, I shall place these papers in a strongbox at my bank with instructions that the box may not be opened until long after anyone now living is dead. Although, in the light of the recent events in Russia, I fear that day may be closer than any of us would care to think.
S——M——Major （Ret’d）
Baker Street,
London, New Albion, 1881
THE FAIRY REEL
If I were young as once I was, and dreams and death more distant then,
I wouldn’t split my soul in two, and keep half in the world of men,
So half of me would stay at home, and strive for F?erie in vain,
While all the while my soul would stroll up narrow path, down crooked lane,
And there would meet a fairy lass and smile and bow with kisses three,
She’d pluck wild eagles from the air and nail me to a lightning tree
And if my heart would run from her or flee from her, be gone from her,
She’d wrap it in a nest of stars and then she’d take it on with her
Until one day she’d tire of it, all bored with it and done with it
She’d leave it by a burning brook, and off brown boys would run with it.
They’d take it and have fun with it and stretch it long and cruel and thin,
They’d slice it into four and then they’d string with it a violin.
And every day and every night they’d play upon my heart a song
So plaintive and so wild and strange that all who heard it danced along
And sang and whirled and sank and trod and skipped and slipped and reeled and rolled
Until, with eyes as bright as coals, they’d crumble into wheels of gold…
But I am young no longer now; for sixty years my heart’s been gone
To play its dreadful music there, beyond the valley of the sun.
I watch with envious eyes and mind, the single-souled, who dare not feel
The wind that blows beyond the moon, who do not hear the Fairy Reel.
If you don’t hear the Fairy Reel, they will not pause to steal your breath.
When I was young I was a fool. So wrap me up in dreams and death.
OCTOBER IN THE CHAIR
October was in the chair, so it was chilly that evening, and the leaves were red and orange and tumbled from the trees that circled the grove. The twelve of them sat around a campfire roasting huge sausages on sticks, which spat and crackled as the fat dripped onto the burning applewood, and drinking fresh apple cider, tangy and tart in their mouths.
April took a dainty bite from her sausage, which burst open as she bit into it, spilling hot juice down her chin. “Beshrew and suck-ordure on it,” she said.
Squat March, sitting next to her, laughed, low and dirty, and then pulled out a huge, filthy handkerchief. “Here you go,” he said.
April wiped her chin. “Thanks,” she said. “The cursed bag-of-innards burned me. I’ll have a blister there tomorrow.”