Short Story: A Visit from the Moon

“Do not speak his name to me. I am far from Baker Street and his meddling now. The moon, and its outdated trick of transport. I would rather go back to Reichenbach and push him over the edge again than sit in this infernal champak tree in this land of yours.” – A Visit from the Moon, by Rei Nguyen

Short story

A Visit from the Moon

Silver moonlight crept all the way down to the inner leaves of the champak branch leaning across my window. A supermoon night. People had been talking about it all week.

I stood at my blending desk. Trial 53. I could not go on. A scent too safe, though well rounded. Balanced, but too balanced. I wanted to break that balance. Yet one way or another it stayed balanced, in a slovenly sort of way. Number 53 had no way out, and deserved a pause.

I looked at the moonlight.

Was it postnatal anaemia, or seven hours glued to the desk without a break? My hands looked blurred and indistinct, their veins a bluish violet. As if the moonlight were sprinkling fairy dust into the attic room that for so long had held only me.

Somewhere a stray cat was purring. I was no stranger to the cats that prowled at night along the gutter beside the house. A species of strange habits. Their purring frightens me more than it pleases me. Like that black cat in white socks over there, staring with amber eyes. Go on! Off with you! Your eyes are brighter than the moon. And oh dear, why does that violet haze cling to you so? That settles it: I need more haemoglobin, and quickly.

“Bright moon, isn’t it?”

I turned round. A chill ran down my spine. The low, rasping voice echoed from somewhere, though I could not tell whether it came from outside or from within me. It was so close that someone might have secretly drilled a loudspeaker into my eardrum without leaving a wound or a drop of blood.

I had been up here alone all week. It is a habit of mine to retreat to an attic far from the city whenever I need to create.

“Either you rest, and tomorrow you begin again from version one. Or you stay up the whole night and throw another hundred bottles out of that window.”

This time the voice went on long enough to trace. I looked down at the floor: nothing but the stray cat, which had jumped into the room at some point. One light bound. With the grace of a ballet dancer’s leap, it stretched out unhurriedly on my blending desk, so deftly that not one of my 5 ml sample vials so much as trembled or tipped.

“You thought of patchouli, so why do you stubbornly insist on white flowers?”

I had not misheard. That hoarse, thick voice came from the cat itself.

My jaw clenched, to stop the fear from making me bite my tongue. Nearest to hand, just above my head and to one side, was a fairly heavy brass candlestick: about three steps, perhaps four seconds to swing it at the disturbance.

In the fairy tales I read, a white cat would be a good omen. This black cat, besides its worldly haughtiness, had, it must be said, a strange sharpness. If I was unwell, perhaps I really had fainted after more than fifty versions without rest, and this was some devilish joke brought on by seeing my little nephew forever watching talking-cat videos. That was still not a bad theory. But if I was awake, and this cat was speaking into my head in that strange violet light, then I suspected I was in real trouble.

“Eighty-two pages on patchouli, at the very least, in the past seven days. And orange blossom: about four people have told you it is what they like in their perfume.”

That was it, then. It really could talk.

“You chose orange blossom as the lead material. And after that, you went on reading about patchouli.”

I stopped short. The cat no longer frightened me; it annoyed me.

“Aren’t we clever. Where has this kitten come from, looking for trouble? Off you go and catch mice, little one.”

“Now, now. Temper, temper. Fifteen named scent strips on your desk, and one older than all the rest. Smelled again and again, by the look of it. Either you love it very much. Or you have had to keep going back to it without any clear progress. Fingernail marks at both the dipping end and where you hold it. The last few sniffs, it seems, did not go well. Orange blossom absolute @ 10% in ethanol.”

“And the other strip, marked with the name kiss-of-the-earth, tucked into your favourite book. Patchouli, undiluted.”

I think a mosquito had bitten my foot. That burning, itching feeling meant that everything going on was real, beyond any doubt.

“What is this? A detective cat? Or a cat playing Sherlock Holmes, making a show of keen observation? So what have you worked out, then?”

“Do not speak his name to me. I am far from Baker Street and his meddling now. The moon, and its outdated trick of transport. I would rather go back to Reichenbach and push him over the edge again than sit in this infernal champak tree in this land of yours.”

“Who are you?”

“A waste of words.”

For a few moments my neurons hunted for the connection, as though I had stepped into a Pensieve and gone back to the days when I clutched detective novels and pored over every page. That voice, somewhere between a thick rasp and a shrill whine; that manner; that cunning and menace.

“Professor James Moriarty!”

“Well. No need to raise your voice. But thank you.”

I realised the thanks was for the title of Professor I had used. The cat seemed pleased. It stretched forward and growled. Of course: the great mind behind every tentacle of the British octopus. The finger that worked the criminal puppets through London’s hidden streets. But what, in the end, was this? James Moriarty was never real. Where on earth was I?

“What are you doing here? I did not think you really existed.” I fidgeted.

“It seems a few of my claws across that gaunt face might change your view. You may consider it. Do not forget the risk that you would need at least seven jabs of Abhayrab. I am not sure this body has had all its rabies vaccinations.”

“What happened?” I asked, suddenly aware that I could manage nothing but clipped questions. The blood had still not come back to my jaw.

“I do not know. All that happened before was that Sherlock Holmes and I fell into the Reichenbach Falls. And after that, this body could never leave your roof, with its tree whose flowers bloom all year round but grow too far away to pick. I have tried to get away. But it seems that every time my feet touch the ground, I am still circling this spot.”

I stayed frozen.

“Perhaps I needed to meet you. And tonight’s supermoon is a fitting occasion for introductions.”

“I… is there anything I can do for you? I mean, ah, would you like some pâté?”

I could not believe I was offering a criminal mastermind warm pâté. I keep a few odds and ends for the strays round here, and there were still a few things in the cupboard that could be warmed up. The whiskers did not move. I could not guess what he was thinking. A few seconds of silence passed.

“Thank you. Why not. I have not eaten for days. This body still knows hunger.”

“One November night, Grandma met a cat that called itself Moriarty, from the novels she loved. It may have been someone’s prank. But it looked hungry. So she fed it pâté on the sofa. It seemed to enjoy it very much.” I thought I would write this in my diary to hand down to my grandchildren. Across the room, the ceramic dish of hot pâté had long since been licked clean. Even a criminal mind runs on its stomach, it seems. “You seem to have a few small troubles.” Moriarty strolled back to my blending desk and looked over my unfinished glass bottles.

“Nothing out of the ordinary. We call it ‘art block’.” “Of course, you know it is bigger than any block in your work. The block lies in you.” I said nothing.

“The same tiresome illusion of everyone who chases beautiful things,” Moriarty muttered, his voice mocking. “A scent that pleases them will not make them love you any more, young woman. They care more about Bitcoin kings or NFTs. You seem not bad with numbers yourself. Why agonise over how many 0.00 grams? Such a waste.”

“Well said. I hardly think your pages of quantum-physics analysis are so very different from this young lady’s predicament.”

A rustle from the champak leaves; a white shape slipped past and landed on the wooden floor, light as a feather. A cat with white fur and green eyes. To be precise, its coat looked rumpled, as if it had threaded its way across many roofs over the past few days, leaving a colour neither quite white nor ivory, though it still glimmered with the violet light of the moon. Exactly as Moriarty had appeared not long before. A stately voice, a little wry, a little languid, giving nothing away.

“Sherlock Holmes! Can it really be you?”

“It seems he has told you about the affair at the Reichenbach Falls.” The white cat glanced at Moriarty, who wore the look of a thoroughly weary black cat.

“Your face does turn up everywhere, doesn’t it. But the pâté party is over!”

Two voices burst out laughing. The room shook. Was I the only one who could hear this noise? I had not thought Sherlock and Moriarty felt any warmth for each other, let alone that they could laugh together so cheerfully. Something was not right.

“There is nothing strange about it, dear lady. Though the two of us chose different sides of the coin, that does not mean we cannot laugh together at this sorry plight in the skins of cats. The supermoon is playing a trick on us.”

“How can I believe you are telling the truth? This is absurd.” I looked into the two pairs of eyes blazing in the violet moonlight. What did a supermoon have to do with my attic?

“I do not think you have the slightest doubt. What you are greedy for is a little persuasion from us, which, I believe, you know perfectly well we never offer. Unless you can help me back into my old body and my old world – ah, and a seven-per-cent solution of cocaine.” I said nothing. Of course I had been caught out.

“That is your problem. You are honest but sceptical. The two do not usually go together.”

“I do not think you two usually go together either.”

A few seconds passed. The scene seemed unchanged. Still me, and two cats that had come out of the champak tree on a night when the moon was brighter than it needed to be. The violet light was still there; by now its pale purple had slowly deepened into a dark blood-crimson. The haemoglobin I needed, the moon seemed to have in abundance. The moon shone full and bright. The ticking of the clock became the loneliest sound that moved. It was ten o’clock at night.

“I think your formula was already your formula at version 8. The numbers after that are unnecessary adjustments. You wasted 45 versions and threw it all away at version 53. A day lost, then. Not too bad,” said the white cat.

“Version 54 will be better adjusted.” I felt certain of it.

“Do you not understand that tearing down and rebuilding is quicker than carrying on renovating what you already have? You can build walls. But the foundation is cracked. Useless.” The amber eyes ran over the handwritten figures on my formula sheet.

“This young lady is not always as fond of destruction as you would like, Moriarty.”

“Destruction is the first step of reconstruction. Most of you think of it as destruction. I simply want everything back in its proper place.”

The tail swayed softly with each slow step Moriarty took. Moonlight came through the window frame, and the cat was blacker even than its own shadow, stretched across the floor in the soft violet light. It was beautiful. Without thinking, I wanted to hold that lonely figure in my arms. After all, it was only a cat.

“The supermoon is a special light that makes anyone’s longings come true. Only for the worthy, of course,” said Sherlock.

The black cat stayed silent. It seemed lost in a world of its own. Would it try to conquer the moon and bend it to its will? I suspected Moriarty could hardly pass up such a longing. Jewels and treasures were far too commonplace to catch the attention of these two minds. A supermoon with the power to step into another world was another matter, and worth some thought.

“In any case, we have no interest in this supermoon nonsense. My dear lady, do not lose yourself in fancies about things beyond the earth. The moon and the stars have nothing to do with us, but the cases in England do.” The white cat spoke again, as if reading my thoughts. I knew Sherlock was one for deduction, but for some reason I found him rather disagreeable just then. Then again, it was true that Sherlock never cared to cram his head with anything unconnected with his detective work, not even teddy bears or Mars.

“I smell something familiar.” After a long stillness, the black cat had finally spoken.

“Not from the scents you are making, my dear lady. This smell is soaked with dew and vapour and mud. Not the mud of the crypt, like those who once vanished from my web: it is the smell of damp, mossy earth and wet stone from the Reichenbach Falls. I think you smell it too, Sherlock.”

“Quite right. Except that I smell blood more clearly than anything.”

“The moondust is fading.”

“It must be nearly time for us to go back. Though I do not know when.” The white cat now sprang onto my bookshelf and stepped slowly along the tops of the books, one by one. Oh, of course they liked books, both of these cats. One a master of anatomy, the other a renowned scholar. But I suspected that, apart from the books on technique and botany on the shelf, my ‘Dragon Ball’ and ‘Black Jack’ would only make him shake his head. What would a man who cares nothing for the solar system want with manga?

Wait. A thought cut across my mind and my heart sank.

“If you go back, does that mean you will return to the Reichenbach Falls?”

“To the bottom of the Reichenbach Falls, to be more precise, my dear lady.”

I could not say a word. The hearts of Sherlockians all over the world broke at the ending, with Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty grappling and falling together to the bottom of the chasm. Even though Conan Doyle later brought Sherlock back, what followed had lost Moriarty. Even now I did not know whether Sherlock knew. And I decided not to ask. A strange sadness came over me as I thought of it.

“Is there no way to change the ending?” I asked, unable to hide the tremor in my own voice.

“My dear lady, much as I value your hospitality and your warm pâté, I confess my store of patience is limited. You are asking me a question to which you already know the answer.”

Silence once again took hold of the creaking attic room. The moon still shone overhead, though its violet had begun to turn into a faint blue. The scent of champak drifted in.

Even in the guise of stray cats, both Sherlock and Moriarty gave off an air of mystery and pride. I saw no hatred or hostility in them. Like old friends, different but understanding each other. Whether from the moonlight or the wind turning cold, my heart began to pound. My hands were blue-veined, and my whole body grew cold.

The black fur and the white seemed to be losing their colour in the moonlight. No. They were dissolving. Slowly, little by little. The white cat had by now jumped down from the bookshelf to the floor, and sat beside the black cat, gazing towards the moonlight at the window. The clock had begun to strike midnight.

“Why did you choose to become a criminal?” I asked Moriarty, directly and somewhat rudely. Earlier I had called him Professor. But I truly wanted to know why, out of so many choices, James Moriarty had become that version of himself.

“Well. You see. Criminal or professor, I have both titles. But in truth, I am simply James Moriarty.”

“I must admit it, James. Without you, my life is dreadfully dull. Cocaine and tobacco excite me less than your intricate schemes and your cunning. The London police have grown tired of coming to beg me over every one of your cases.”

“Then you had better stop poking your nose into my business. Ah, or perhaps you will, once we are back at Reichenbach.”

“I shall miss you, James.”

They seemed lost in the scene and in their own thoughts. The moonlight now glittered, larger than usual, as if it were burning in a blue flame. I seemed to stand amid streams of dream and waking drifting slowly with every mote of dust. My hands grew brighter by the moment. Set against the two cats’ turned backs — the same cats that only a few hours earlier had set me so on edge — there was me, and my tangle of feelings.

“Take care of your thoughts, Rei.”

The two silhouettes vanished. The clock struck one in the morning.

The moonlight returned to its first soft glow. The window stood open. Scent bottles lay everywhere. The champak branch, heavy with white flowers, breathed its fragrance as if from very far away.

Rei Nguyen