Sleep didn’t come. A swarm of ideas and theories stormed Sherlock’s mind the moment the cab left the house. The puzzle, the enigma, the great mystery of the unexpected visitor tortured his brain. To calm down, Sherlock chose to keep busy. First, he washed his nightdress, rubbing it mercilessly with soap. Then he attempted to clean the carpet, but somewhere in the middle of crawling over it with a wet rag, he got two ideas:

  a) hire a housekeeper;

  b) buy a new carpet.

  Finally, he threw himself into a hot bath. Lying there with his eyes closed, again and again, in the most meticulous detail, he reviewed the scene with the stranger.

  Sherry.

  Sherlock opened his eyes. The mother’s voice in his head seemed so real that it made him shudder. He sat up in the bathtub, hugging himself by the shoulders.

  You imagined it. She’s gone. The man must’ve said something different.

  Holmes stepped out of the hot water, patted his skin with a towel, and wrapped himself in a bathrobe. Determined to distract himself from the stranger bleeding in his hall for no apparent reason, calling for the ghosts of the past, he went to his library to immerse himself in reading.

  I should focus. For now, I can do nothing about the wounded man in the rain and...

  Although he had only arrived at the family mansion to take it over as per his mother’s last will, he had already managed to sort the catalogue and add new titles. His mind kept spiralling around the challenging police cases, but his hand pushed aside the pile of local newspapers and grabbed the anthropology journal. Before he knew it, Sherlock was reading the article about Mauka’s tradition of dancing to the ocean and the four winds. The clock hands struck seven, and the gong of the Grandfather clock shook the air.

  He must have fallen asleep. Sherlock lifted his head from the table and saw Mother, Aileen Holmes, standing in front of him, clear as day. The gentle smile on her plump lips and the calmness of her pale blue eyes echoed with sorrow and attachment in Sherlock’s chest. The bleak light sipped through the thick wall of rain behind the windows, but Aileen’s figure seemed to shine with its own, orange glow.

  Sherry, my sunshine, what took you so long?

  She said it casually, as if her son had lost count of time while playing outside and was too late for dinner.

  “Mother?” Sherlock blinked, trying to absorb the idea.

  Sorry that I left you.

  There was no pity in her voice. She continued to look at him with those deep, tranquil eyes. Her long, loose black hair swayed around her body in the windless room, as if deep underwater.

  I had to send you away from me. You needed this.

  “No!” Sherlock cried, and the sound of his voice echoed off the walls. “No. I didn’t need a boarding school. I wanted to stay home. In Terra Santa. I wanted us to be a family!”

  Aileen gazed at him with a warm smile. Gradually, she approached him, moving in a straight line as if floating through the air. Her cool, thin palm touched Sherlock’s cheek. It felt like a gust of winter wind on his skin.

  I’m your mother. I had to protect you, Sherry.

  She turned and walked away, just like that. Her steps fell silently on the parquet, and she soon vanished through the closed door.

  “Not again, no! You won't do this to me. Again!” Sherlock jumped to the door, swung it open, rushed into the corridor, and down the staircase. Aileen was gone. The chandelier swayed slightly as if a gust of wind had run through it. The gas bra blinked in the misty hall. Sherlock focused on the clues, the signs; she must have left SOMETHING!

  He ran downstairs, his gown flapping around his legs, and landed his bare feet on warm sand. Oh. That was unexpected. He wore slippers, did he not? And where does the sand come from? But that thought evaporated as long as he noticed the footprints. Aileen’s shoe size. And the unique scent of her perfumes. She always brought it along. Her clothes smelled of jasmine and lemongrass, like a spring garden, even though Sherlock only had scattered childish memories of her; jasmine and lemongrass forever smelled like home to him.

  He still keeps a few dried jasmine flowers in his diary.

  Sherlock followed the steps. The darkness of his hall transformed into the darkness of the strange forest where rain didn’t reach. A wall of weird-looking trees, wrapped in smoke, lined the seashore. He heard the rustle of the swash behind him but didn’t see it. The fires burn on the sand here and there, and dark silhouettes cuddle over them, chanting quietly.

  “Mom?” Sherlock called out and looked around, searching for more clues.

  “There was a battle. He tried to save her. He’s over there, getting stitched back to one piece,” said a voice, and Sherlock noticed a man sitting on the sand, wearing nothing but leaves on his crotch, wrists and ankles. His hair was long and wavy, and his gaze was black like the owl’s button eyes.

  “Thank you, sir.” Sherlock hurried to get away from that gaze, towards the crooked-looking tent precisely like the one he used to build as a kid in his games. When he turned to check if the man was still watching him, he saw only a bonfire. Curious, he stared at other bonfires around and realised that the men cuddled around them were only dancing shadows of the timber. “I need to concentrate!”

  He crouched and crawled into the tent.

  It turned out much bigger on the inside, almost like an average-sized room. There was a carpet with stains of blood. A blanket and some pillows lay scattered around. A man was sleeping in the corner, curled into an embryo. His only clue.

  A key to all the closed doors.

  “Sir, are you sick?” Sherlock crouched beside him, putting a hand on his muscular shoulder, amazingly solid and warm. “Everything will be alright, sir. You’ll get better. I called for a doctor and paid for the cab.” He turned him to his back, long chestnut hair fell from his face, and the man opened his eyes. Yellow-green, wild, and sharp. He was his night visitor.

  “Hey, Sherry,” the stranger said in a low, harsh voice. “What took you so long?”

  Sherlock gasped and opened his eyes to the gong of the Grandfather clock, striking seven. He unstuck his face from the tabletop and straightened up in his armchair, straining from a piercing pain in his stiff neck. He rubbed his muscles with a clumsy hand, focusing his eyes on the pictures of the pagan dressing attributes of the islanders he had dozed on. The event of the night rushed into his mind in an avalanche of questions.

  And there was only one way to get the answers.

  Sherlock checked the time and walked to his room to get dressed. He chose a strict black suit for the occasion. He caught his reflection in the mirror on the wall.

  A ghost in mourning.

  The last time he saw his mother, he was eleven. Mycroft took him to London, and his ‘proper education’ started. They were exchanging letters, of course, but even in writing, Aileen Holmes seemed so... detached. Indifferent. Still. He missed her. He missed all the secrets they shared. All the time they could spend together, but never did.

  Sherlock sighed. Fixed the tie and combed his coal black hair back. The young man looking at him from the mirror had Aileen’s eyes.

  The dawn rose in a shy grey mist somewhere behind the veil of dripping rain that no longer savaged the trees and windows but snivelled under its breath, dripping occasionally from gutters and leaves. The house stood silent and cold.

  Sherlock made himself a strong Earl Grey with lemon and a toast, still holding the journal in the other hand, scanning the article. “The British Empire took hold of the islands a few decades ago, bringing progress and industrialisation, boosting the economy... local lads tend to join the imperial army seeking material reward and a chance to travel the world...” He put the journal away. “And die in the arms of a stranger on his business trip to the family house.” He finished and sipped his coffee.

  I need to find out what he wanted. He came for help. And it’s not just first aid; he could go to the neighbourhood for that.

  But first, Sherlock visited the local paper to place an advertisement for a housekeeper. It was easier than addressing the local employment office or asking old family friends for a favour. Because it didn’t involve senseless chit-chat over tea with endless condolences about his mother’s death or sharing the real purpose of his staying in Terra Santa. Somehow, Sherlock didn’t feel comfortable uncovering the fact that he needed some closure with his past while dealing with her heritage. He wasn’t even sure if he wanted to sell the house.

  The hospital of St. Aurelia stood in Gran Palacio, not far from Holmes’s mansion. Sherlock expected to get the prohibition on visiting the recent patient, considering the state of his injuries. Yet, surprisingly, the tiny, black-haired nurse took him straight to the chamber. Sherlock appeared in the long, big hall with fifteen beds at the very least. Large flowerpots with decorative palm trees and codiaeums decorated the passages, cheering the dull atmosphere of sickness.

  About ten beds were occupied by patients. Holmes immediately spotted his yesterday’s visitor on the far bed near the window. It was hard not to set eyes on him. The man was so big he could hardly fit on the hospital bed.

  And he was shirtless.

  Apparently, the hospital staff didn’t find the right size for him or simply didn’t bother. And since Sherlock cut his vest and shirt, the man was left without them. Not that it bothered him. He looked relaxed, deep in his thoughts, one hand resting on his thigh. Long, wavy hair was scattered around his shoulders. Wild arches of eyebrows and slight exotropia of his yellow-green eyes gave the man a menacing expression of a pagan chief.

  Fresh bandages around his torso and shoulders looked neat and clean. Doctors did their job, still, Sherlock couldn’t believe anyone with such injuries could recover so quickly. This man’s vitality seemed extraordinary.

  The tiny nurse said she’d be back in twenty minutes and left. Sherlock didn’t pay attention. He could stand there, watching the man all day in the bitter smell of medicines and moans of pain, trying to uncover this enigma by simply observing. In silence. But somehow the stranger sensed his stare and lifted his head to look straight at him through the hall. An electric current ran through Sherlock’s body when their eyes met. For a second, he froze on the spot, bewildered by this sudden sensation.

  He knows me.

  Holmes forced a smile on his face and approached the stranger.

  “Good morning, sir. Glad to see you’re feeling much better since last night.” He offered his hand to the man. “Sherlock Holmes.”

  The man looked at his hand, then up to his face. “Sherry.” His sudden reply made Holme's hand stiff from surprise.

  Now, he said that again. This inexplicable familiarity from a stranger!

  The voice was rough and low, with a slight American accent. “You’re a Cherry of no tree. I’m sorry about your mother.” The man continued.

  Aileen’s famous saying, “a cherry of my tree”. She used to call Sherlock like that when he was just a toddler. The thought instantly hit Sherlock’s heart with a thin prick of pain, turning his knees into jelly. He dropped his hand.

  I need to sit down.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  Slowly, Holmes lowered onto the brim of the bed. “Do I... know you?”

  “I don’t think so,” the man kept looking into him, or rather, right through his very self, without moving. “But I’m here to protect you. Though I expected to find here a kid, not a fine lad as yourself.” His eyes travelled down Sherlock’s figure, softening the stranger's features, wiping wilderness off his face. That same glint in them, like in the morning dream, made Sherlock sense his entire body, every inch of his skin under his clothes, as if the gaze alone could pierce that deep.

  Involuntarily, Sherlock tucked his hands under his arms, taking a defensive pose. “May I know your name? Sir,” he muttered, looking in front of himself, just in case the stranger’s eyes would make another tour of his body.

  “Nah, sorry. I lost it.”

  “You. Lost it,” Holmes repeated with pauses.

  “I don't remember it.” The man shrugged his shoulders. Casually. As if losing one’s name is an ordinary business.

  This conversation is absurd.

  Sherlock took a deep breath, looked down for a moment and up again at the islander’s face.

  “Yet you remember you came here to protect me,” he paused before emphasising ‘protect’.

  Holmes’s eyes quickly run over the man’s features. He tried to spot something new about him, something important, exposing, compromising. Yet somehow, he felt uneasy staring at him. Besides, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t find any traces of a lie or conspiracy. The stranger was... unusual, yes. A foreigner — hell yes. But a scam? No.

  “Terra Santa island, Gran Palacio, Silverwood Manor, Aileen Holmes. You’re her son. I’m here to protect you.” The nameless man said as a fact beyond discussion. His speech had little, if any, emotion, was void of doubt, and rather rough. Sherlock signed it off to his exhaustion, but still ticked it in his Mind Attic as odd for the situation.

  “From what?” Sherlock shrugged, playing up. His hands now travelled down to his knees, found the tiny wrinkle on the trousers and smoothed it with no success.

  “Men and forces dead and alive,” the man said as if it explained anything. “Spirits your mother evoked.”

  Okay, this sounds rather crazy.

  Sherlock pinched the bridge of his nose, sighing with his eyes closed. “You knew my mother?”

  The man simply watched him back.

  “I’m sorry, sir, but you don’t look the type of person my mother would share intimate information about her family. I need the truth. I can help you.” He turned towards him, raising his finger. “Is this why you came to my house last night? For help. I promise, I’ll do all in my power to assist you, but I need you to be absolutely honest with me. So tell me. Who are you?”

  “What type of person do you think I am?” The stranger tilted his head aside. “The one respectable folks wouldn’t talk to?”

  Sherlock opened his mouth to explain, but found all the explanations racist. Feeling his cheeks blush, he cleared his throat and gently added. “I intended to say... it is unlikely...” He took a breath. “All right, how did you meet with my mother? Was it here on the islands or abroad?”

  The man shrugged with his shoulder, shaking his head. His messy curls, dry and springy now, shook along. He wasn’t going to reply to this, and his eyes remained calm like deep seas, where the waves never reach their roll.

  “You... you don’t remember?” Sherlock frowned.

  Another shrug.

  “Ah, I see our mysterious patient is having a visitor.” A man in a doctor’s coat walked towards them. “Lucky you, John Doe. Another mighty trait of your survival instinct, I presume.” He turned to Sherlock with a lopsided smile that could cut veins like a scalpel. “I’m Doctor Watson.” He spread his hand.

  Sherlock stood up immediately and shook his firm, dry palm. “Sherlock Holmes.”

  “Ah, famous Sherlock Holmes from Silverwood Manor? This lad keeps repeating your name, sir, and that’s pretty all he remembers, I’m afraid. Is he a friend of yours?”

  Sherlock looked closely at the doctor. He was quite young. Maybe in his mid-twenties. Smooth face with a strict straight nose and thin cheeks gave away German roots, if not for those warm-brown eyes and dark eyebrows that softened his features. He was clean-shaven, and his hair was cut short in a stoic soldier’s style.

  “Yes. No.” Sherlock glanced at the islander and added, “A friend of my family.”

  A thin smile on the doctor’s lips widened. “Glad to hear it. Perhaps you could shed some light on this case, sir.” Watson nodded at the stranger. “We need a name for the records. Also, medical fees will be charged from your account, I assume.”

  “Yes. Yes, of course,” Sherlock nodded hastily, eager to get rid of these boring formalities. His eyes returned to the islander. He couldn’t help but notice that Dr Watson was talking about his patient like he wasn’t there, addressing Holmes only. Even though Sherlock was young, and the islander looked much more responsible, Holmes remained a more respectable figure. Because he was white. He had a name. And money. Not for the first time, the social order piqued Sherlock’s sense of justice. He knew the islander could hear them well.

  Dr Watson informed Holmes briefly about the patient’s health, once again astonished by the islander’s vitality.

  “I assume I should thank our family doctor for responding so quickly. He must’ve worked the whole night,” Sherlock added.

  “Dr Armstrong?” Watson’s linear eyebrows jumped, and he chuckled, shaking his head. “He left soon after the patient arrived. It was I patching your fellow all night.”

  Interesting. An acquaintance of my mother’s, recognised by our family doctor, but was not treated by him. Why?

  Sherlock frowned, baffled. His mind drifted inward. When he does that, time usually stops for him. He didn’t hear what Dr Watson said next until the doctor stopped talking and cleared his throat, looking down at the file in his hands. “Well, if you have any questions, Mr Holmes, you can address me any time or ask my assistants,” he looked about the room, searching for the nurses and smirked with the corner of his lips when one of them smiled back at him. “I’ll leave you the papers for signing, and you can take your friend home whenever you’re ready.” He didn't even glance at his patient’s direction, handing the file to Holmes.

  Sherlock dropped out of his Mind Palace. “Pardon? You suggest that he can go home? Are you sure?” He raised his eyebrows in surprise. “He nearly died yesterday on my doorstep.”

  Dr Watson chuckled. “He is perfectly fine, I’m certain of it. You know what local Indians say about us? When a patient wants to live, doctors are helpless. I’m sure your servants are capable of changing the bandages once a day.” A vague wave in the patient’s direction.

  The furrow between Sherlock’s brows deepened. Did he imagine it, or did the doctor crave getting rid of the foreigner in his hospital? He briefly remembered that this medical establishment only served white people and the local aristocracy, so basically, his night visitor was here only under his responsibility.

  “Of course,” Sherlock nodded, taking the file and opening it to read the questionnaire. His mind feverishly raced for any ideas where he could find these ‘servants’ to treat his family’s friend without a name. “I suppose, if you can find some decent clothing, we’ll leave immediately.”

  “Swell.” Dr Watson grinned wider with his hands tucked into his trousers’ pockets. He gazed at Sherlock with obvious interest while Holmes read the questionnaire. “Funny how time flies and some people never change.” He added in a wishful tone. “I’m glad you’re back, Sherry.” That made Sherlock look up. “You don't remember me, do you? We used to play as kids when our parents held parties.”

  Sherlock squinted at him. “Um... Jon? Jonathan Watson?”

  “That’s me all right. You know... this island was never the same after you left for school.”

  Sherlock couldn’t find what to say to this. He wasn’t particularly strong in small talk. Jon must have sensed it and patted him on the shoulder. “Call me any time if you need anything. Perhaps, we could meet at dinner? I’ll introduce you to my wife.”

  “That would be lovely, but so far...” Sherlock glanced at the islander, still in his silent indifference, without taking his hand off his bent knee on his bed or moving his eyes off Sherlock.

  Why does he look at me like that? It gives me chills.

  “I’ll be busy at the moment. With my mother’s death…”

  “Yes, yes, a tragedy to our community. My condolences.” Jon gave a little bow.

  “Thank you,” Sherlock avoided his eyes. “We'd better be going.”

  Jon glanced at the patient’s direction, and his smile faded. “Well, take care then, good fellow. I’ll ask nurses to see about the clothes.” Jon, Dr Watson, touched Sherlock’s shoulder again, and his fingers lingered on his forearm as he turned and went to attend to his other patients.

  Sherlock watched him leave. Still sensing those fingers on his arm, he tried to recall their games together. Unsettling memories of local bullies sprang out first. But then... a blurry picture, just two or three episodes about a boy coming along with his mother to visit Aileen Holmes. They played in the garden, and Jon challenged him to jump in the fountain. Sherlock shuddered from the vivid sensation of cold water on his skin and quickly blocked this memory. He turned to his new case. The islander. He’ll have to call him somehow. Until they find his real name.

  I'm not going to call him John Doe.

  “We need to fill the form,” Holmes said with a sigh. “How should I call you for the records? Temporarily, of course.”

  The islander took his razor-sharp, cold eyes off Dr Watson, joining his nurses on the other side of the room, and looked up at Sherlock. For a moment, Sherlock fought with the idea that this man was completely mad and was probably a cold-blooded murderer. But when he spoke, his voice sounded civil, even kind.

  “What is the name of your best friend? Call me like that.”

  That took Sherlock off guard. He opened his mouth to explain how improperly intimate it was, but then remembered he actually had no best friend and the closest one was a lady. He closed his mouth.

  “Galahad,” Holmes finally said, a bit blushing because Sir Galahad wasn’t a friend of his. He was his favourite knight from Arthur’s legends.

  The islander nodded, savouring the sound of his new name. “I like it.” Then he stood up, and Sherlock stepped closer to hold him by the arm in case he collapsed again, but the man didn't seem to face any difficulties with that. “I feel fine, Sherry.” He flashed a shiny gaze at him.

  “You may feel fine, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that you are,” Sherlock noted.

  Galahad looked at him calmly, waiting for other arguments, and Sherlock lowered his eyes away from that glance. A second after Holmes realised he was staring at Galahad’s bare chest half covered by intricate tattoos.

  “You're amulets!” he gasped. “We need to retrieve them.”

  Sherlock rushed to the small side table near the bed and peeked into the upper drawer. The amulets were there. All three of them. Holmes gave the trinkets to his new acquaintance.

  “They might tell us something about you.”

  Galahad’s hand brushing against cold Sherlock’s fingers was warm and rough. The islander kept silent, so Sherlock cleared his throat and nodded at the papers. “I need to sign this.”

  He returned to the reception desk to fill in the form, feeling a little weird writing Galahad Silverwood in the name section and thinking about inviting a wild-looking stranger to his house.

  A tiny black-haired nurse, who showed Sherlock to the chambers, found a clean shirt from their stock that the churches supplied in abundance, and brought Galahad’s leather trench coat. Sherlock noticed her sincere curiosity in his new pal, simply by the way she was looking at him. He glanced at Galahad, too. Undeniably, the man, the islander, was attractive.

  Questions started to fill Sherlock’s head as they stepped out of the cool hospital hall into the hot morning sun. Why did this man come to his house? How does he know about his mother? What does he know about her? Could it be a coincidence that he turns up here now, when Sherlock steps into his inheritance? And nearly dies.

  Not now.

  Not here.

  Holmes fetched them a cab, and only in the privacy of a small carriage did Sherlock finally give vent to his feelings. “I can’t believe you could know my mother. You’re too young to be her l...” Okay, that was silly. Sherlock shut up abruptly and looked away. “Do you remember anything? Anything about what happened last night?”

  “Nope,” Galahad replied with a cutting move of his head, as if crossing a line. “Well, apart from you saving my life.”

  Sherlock gave him a cautious look with a barely noticeable move of an eyebrow. “You’re not entirely saved so far. Not your memory, at least. We need to know who you are and what happened to you yesterday.” He took the gloves out of his pocket and put them on, slowly, thinking about the scattered pattern of clues. “We may start with Dr. Armstrong. I have a feeling he knows you. The faster we crack this riddle, the better.”

  He noticed Galahad’s silence on the opposite seat, like a whiff of cold air. He didn’t say a word, but the ice of his silence was undeniable.

  Sherlock sighed. “It doesn’t mean I’m weary of your... company, I just,” he shuffled on his seat, “I need to know the truth about your connection to my mother.”

  As he said this, heavy sadness weighed his chest, and his ribcage felt hollow. The telegram informing about Aileen’s death and Mycroft, pale and stiff, on the doorstep of his London quarters, came as a thunder from the blue skies. Sherlock had no chance to say his last goodbye, share his feelings, his pains, and his joys with Mother like he used to when he was a kid, and the world seemed bigger and sunnier.

  Galahad placed his hand out on the window frame. “Absolutely, Sherry. A genius detective never misses a tough case.”

  “I'm not a detective, yet. I'm surprised you mentioned it.” Sherlock turned his gaze to the window, to give himself fewer chances of staring at the magnetic stranger in front. So many details, so exotic looks, it kept his brain racing. “But I won’t deny, this entire situation,” he circled Galahad in one graceful gesture of his hand, “is extremely thought-stimulating.”

  He pressed his lips together and looked at his palms.

  Galahad looked at Sherlock’s palms, too. “Are you married, Sherry?”

  Sherlock glared at him, surprised, not because the stranger dared poking his private matters so abruptly, but because he wasn’t attentive enough to see it for himself. Swiftly, he pulled his left glove off and showed his ringless hand.

  His reaction was phenomenal. “Does it mean yes?”

  “Are you..?” Sherlock remembered that the poor man didn't remember even his name and added softly. “No, I'm not married, Galahad.”

  “No Mrs Holmes, then. So I won’t be much of a bother in your house. I failed to keep your mother safe. I won’t fail this time. No hard feelings, Sherry.”

  “You’re not...,” Sherlock stopped, pulled his glove back on and finally looked at the man with a mix of pain and tenderness in his eyes. “You're not a bother to me. I’m glad to help you get better, and I’m curious about you. I’m just bitter that I haven’t talked to my mom properly since... since I left. And now a complete stranger drops by saying he knew her well, and he’s here to protect me while I myself... I didn’t even know she was dying, and now it’s too late to...”

  He looked away to the window, with all his body tensed, palms clenched into fists, plump lips pressed into a thin line, cheeks burning with red stains. Sherlock didn’t dare to say another word and break this dam. He felt ashamed that he had started telling this to someone he barely knew. This never happened to him before. Sharing his feelings even with Mycroft, his brother, was out of his character.

  Silence lay between them. Galahad didn’t reply. Instead, the man moved. The carriage tilted as he stood up, and then tilted again as his mighty body sat down next to Sherlock. They were now sitting close to each other, brushing their shoulders. Sherlock felt slight discomfort as the islander sat on the brim of his coat. He jerked when the other man’s hand wrapped around his back. His first reaction was to push Galahad away, so angry he felt. He made an attempt to shake his hand off, but Galahad only tightened the grip and pulled him even closer.

  Sherlock gave up. This was too much. Scattered memories rushed through his vision. The parties in Silverwood Manor, mother’s cheering laughter, stories at night, cocoa before bed, all that invisible, but constant bleeding from loneliness ever since she sent him away to the boarding school, like she no longer loved him, like he grew up into something too... Mumsie? So he needed to learn to be a man, with other men. All the ‘crying yourself to sleep’ nights. Letters with contexts never said aloud. Strings cut between them, words of care and regret suspended in the air. All of this flushed down at once. Sherlock closed his face with his palms, breathing in the leather of his gloves. He yielded to another man’s embrace.

  It felt good. It felt warm and secure, like going back home.

  His palms slid down, and Sherlock rested his head on the man’s shoulder. The curly hair tickled his ear.

  Why does it smell like a sea breeze?