East Wind and Rose
“Eurus,” Sherlock’s mind raced, searching high and low for this familiar yet unfamiliar word. He repeated the name countless times, as if trying to awaken some memories through this murmur. When he finally regained some clarity and his gaze fell on Rose, he was instantly plunged into a fog again. He stared blankly into Rose’s eyes: “Eurus, no, Rose,” he felt dizzy: “Rose, who is Eurus?”
Sherlock frantically tried to find familiar marks on Rose's face, but something just didn't add up.
In that instant, a bizarre and absurd idea came to mind—a possibility based on deductive reasoning, after eliminating all other possibilities.
But he quickly and decisively rejected the idea, in less than half a second.
How absurd! Sherlock even mocked himself inwardly for having such a stupid thought. So only one conclusion remained: auditory hallucination. He quickly accepted it, like a drowning man clinging to a piece of driftwood.
Sherlock scratched his head and smiled at Rose: "I must have misheard. Oh no, my ears are about to be ruined by that wailing piano music from the attic."
But Rose knew that this was not due to the logic and reasoning he was so proud of, but rather to self-deception in the face of unacceptable facts.
Her lips moved, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't utter a word.
As Sherlock looked at her with concern and confusion, she heard Mycorft's voice behind her.
“Sherlock,” Mycorft said as he entered the restaurant. Perhaps due to having just attended an academic conference, he looked slightly weary. “Are you at it again with your captivating, imaginative, and flawed logical deductions?”
Rose keenly noticed something odd. Mycorft was always impeccably dressed, almost to the point of being obsessive about cleanliness. But now his shoes had some fresh mud on them, subtle yet out of character for him.
He walked closer to Sherlock, his gaze lingering on the dark circles under his eyes, and covered them with his finger: "Your brain is overactive, and you're unusually sensitive to irrelevant noise. This is a side effect of your long-term lack of regular sleep and over-reliance on psychiatric medications. Go to sleep now."
Sherlock's body language showed some resistance. "This is not a suggestion, Sherlock, but an order." Mycorft waved for a servant, signaling him to take Sherlock back to his room.
“I’m going back with my sister. I can’t leave her with a madman.” Sherlock habitually took Rose’s hand.
“I agree with that, so you should leave even more.” Mycorft reached out and grabbed Rose’s wrist from the opposite direction.
What reached Rose's senses was no longer the fiery touch of a young man, but a cold, tight feeling of being held by slender fingers.
Sherlock glared at him fiercely, while Mycroft remained unyielding: "Take him away."
Sherlock was half-helped, half-dragged away from the dining room by his servants, leaving only the crackling sound of the fireplace burning in the room.
After he left, Mycroft immediately let go of Rose's hand, as if he were avoiding a plague.
“Rose,” his voice was low and calm, yet more penetrating than any roar, “fear, the fear of your secret being exposed, envelops you like a cheap perfume. It’s dangerous, very dangerous.”
"Brother, why are you so frank? Don't you have any secrets? Your pursuit of cleanliness has reached an almost obsessive level. If you weren't in such a rush and didn't have the energy to deal with it, why would you allow fresh mud to remain on your shoes?"
“I did what was necessary. I think you’ve probably guessed it. Eurus,” he pronounced the name clearly, as if reciting a forbidden incantation, “she is the sister in Sherlock’s memories, the one whose traces were concealed by her mother. She was too smart, so smart that even I am ashamed of myself. Too smart but not knowing how to conceal her brilliance, that’s the problem.”
"What exactly did she do to be expelled from the family?"
"She hated the cage, so she tried to destroy everything her mother cared about, and repeatedly mocked her on grand and solemn occasions."
"Eurus failed?"
"No, she succeeded, and she succeeded every time she teased her. That's what really terrified my mother. When she was five, she almost set fire to the west wing of the estate because it held portraits of ancestors—which she called 'false totems.' When she was seven, she could see through the most shameful secrets of every guest at my mother's tea parties and say them out loud in an innocent tone."
Mycroft paused for a moment, “However, it wasn’t fatal. At first, her mother only restricted her movements, until she found it increasingly difficult to cope with the mental strain that grew with age. So she completely imprisoned her, keeping her in a dark place for years, never seeing the light of day.”
"Then why does the housekeeper look so rushed and frightened today?" Rose paused, "Did something happen to her?"
“I was dealing with this very tricky situation. She didn’t encounter an accident; she created one. Neither my mother nor I expected that she could actually evade supervision and leave the cell freely. She was very curious about the grown-up Sherlock and you, who were playing her, so the first thing she did after being released was to disguise herself and visit you. Obviously, she succeeded, but she left a loophole because she was too hasty.”
"Look at you all?" Rose carefully recalled everything that had happened outside the manor that day: "But there's nothing unusual..."
"Who knows? Maybe it was someone you brushed past, or someone who just peeked at you from the shadows. It's perfectly normal that you didn't notice them. I think that feeling is like being scratched by a wildcat—weird but painless. She almost caused a major disaster today, but fortunately, I had time to mitigate the damage when I received the information: to keep Eurus 'calm' for the time being, to dispel the regulators' doubts, and to make it impossible for Mother to investigate, thereby ensuring the apparent peace of the manor."
"And what about her... how is Eurus now? She hasn't left the house in ages. Even if she's very intelligent, she must be terrified. After all, things are different now. The Industrial Revolution brought many strange and grotesque new things to London." She asked out of sympathy.
Mycorft glanced at her, his gaze complex. “I made an excuse to skip dinner and used that as an excuse to bring her back to the secret room,” he began. “Those who are watching her will only think they’ve misunderstood, but I think Mother will be more vigilant afterward. As for Eurus… she seemed a little lost, but she tried her best not to show it to me. Heh, when it comes to pride, the Holmes family really can’t compete.”
Rose was almost overwhelmed by the truth, so she ignored Mycorft's final taunt. "I think I'll be more careful," she promised with difficulty.
“Careful?” Mycroft gave a very soft chuckle. “Rose Holmes, what you need is to ‘be’ Eurus, body and soul. Sweep away the dust of the orphanage that covers your heart, forget your real name, forget your fears and those pointless questions. Your ‘worth,’ the only foundation of your existence, is how perfectly you play the role. Once Sherlock discovers the truth, you will instantly lose your meaning in your mother’s eyes.” He paused. “Don’t be yourself.”
Perhaps this statement was abrupt, so Mycorft tried to explain or cover it up with something else: "Sherlock's mind is a sophisticated palace. Any unusual emotional fluctuation, any detail that defies logic, could become the fulcrum for him to uncover the truth. His reaction to the name 'Eurus' tonight is proof of that. If he hadn't had an almost obsessive protective instinct for his 'lost and found sister' deep down, forcibly suppressing his suspicions, the consequences would have been unimaginable. Besides, will I be there next time he becomes suspicious?"
"I understand." Rose's voice was dry, and she lowered her eyelashes to avoid his scrutinizing gaze that seemed to penetrate her soul.
Mycroft nodded slightly, turned around to leave the restaurant, his movements still exuding an air of complete control.
The instant he turned away, Rose's gaze involuntarily fell upon him again. This time, she didn't look at his shoes, still covered in fresh mud; that imperfection was completely overshadowed by his aura. Her gaze settled on his broad, straight back and his meticulously combed brown hair, which gleamed with a cold, hard sheen in the candlelight. The dim light of the restaurant cast a long, silent shadow on him, blending him into the oppressive space, yet strangely outlining a solitary silhouette.
That small gesture of clutching a handkerchief tightly in the garden, her knuckles turning white, inappropriately resurfaced before her eyes. Like a stubborn seed, it quietly sprouted a strange, tender shoot in the soil of fear and hatred.
Maintaining a necessary stability. Before possessing the power to end everything.
That's what he said then. This cold declaration, at this moment, stirred a ripple in her heart so faint it seemed absurd even to herself. Did his "stability" include her survival? Was his intervention at the dinner table truly, as he claimed, the choice that minimized harm? Even his handling of Eurus's crisis tonight, did it indirectly protect her, the substitute, from being exposed?
These thoughts, like poisonous vines, entangled her initial pure disgust. She began to realize that Mycroft Holmes was not merely a cold-blooded executor or accomplice. He was more like a chess player at the center of a storm, maintaining a precarious balance between his mother's frenzied will, Sherlock's dangerous sharpness, Eurus's unfathomable destructive power, and her own fragile existence as a "fake." This balance itself was a cold fortress built upon an abyss.
Since that night, Rose's survival instincts have been pushed to their limits. She plays the role of Eurus even more cautiously. She observes Sherlock and tries to fill the void left by that almost obsessive dependence.
At the same time, her observation of Mycroft entered a new and more secretive dimension. It was no longer driven by the lady's orders or simple fear, but by a mixture of curiosity and a desire to explore that she herself could hardly describe. She began to act like a detective, trying to find subtle cracks beneath his impeccable rational exterior that might reveal his true emotions.
She noticed that in secluded corners, when Mycroft thought he was alone, he would occasionally gaze blankly at the gray sky outside the window, a fleeting, almost imperceptible weariness and boredom crossing the depths of his gray eyes. This fleeting expression was completely different from his composed, aloof, and seemingly perpetually calm demeanor in public.
She also noticed that his sweet tooth hadn't really changed since the terrace incident. Although Rose no longer brought him desserts, she had once glimpsed a faint light coming from under his door while going downstairs to get water late at night, and heard the very slight rustling of candy wrappers. The next morning, she learned by chance from the servants cleaning the kitchen that Master Mycorft had ordered two servings of maple syrup muffins the night before.
He seems to channel the oppression of reality into a form of sweet violence, rather than unleashing it all on the weak, even though he has the right to dominate and berate everyone in the mansion except for the lady.
What struck her most deeply was that Mycroft's attitude towards Sherlock was far from the indifference that appeared on the surface. When Sherlock was immersed in his violin, playing melodies filled with pain and struggle, if Mycroft happened to be nearby, his hands would move much slower than usual when flipping through documents or books. His face would remain expressionless, but Rose could sense a strange concern, a silent heartache. And when Sherlock's violin playing went out of tune due to despair, Mycroft would furrow his brow almost imperceptibly, then quickly return to normal, as if the jarring sound were merely insignificant background noise, and the frown from seconds earlier was nothing more than an illusion.
This peaceful yet oppressive daily life passed by like flowing water, and before we knew it, the year was coming to an end.
This year's Christmas was different from previous years; the Lady received a royal medal and was invited to the year-end banquet.
She was not at the manor for several days in a row, and only the three siblings were at home on Christmas Eve this year.
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