Daughter Of The Baskervilles

"This is the house where he wrote 'Hound of the Baskervilles',” Samara's mother said as they stepped through the door. How the mighty are fallen, Samara thought. The house was now a visitor's centre, selling pencils inscribed with the town's name that broke within minutes of buying, along with leaflets of local history, walks, and the prison that cast a shadow over the town from its outskirts.

Samara was pulled instantly to the shelf where copies of 'Hound of the Baskervilles' were displayed in multiple languages. She picked up a German copy and turned it over, trying to translate the blurb using the German she'd learnt last year. “Hound of the Baskervilles... of the... 'Baskervilles' again... Why is normal German so hard?” She put the book back on the shelf.

“Over here.” Samara followed the sound of her sister's voice, and found her standing in front of a 7ft plastic statue of Sherlock Holmes.

The statue was wearing a dressing gown, smoking a pipe, and also wearing... The deerstalker cap. Samara was constantly puzzled as to why Holmes was often portrayed with it; None of the original stories had ever mentioned a deerstalker specifically.

Her sister was still surveying the statue when Samara discovered a small video-room. The walls and floor were black, and the only things in the room were large steps to sit on and a screen. Samara sat down to watch.

“The Hound was inspired by the local folklore of the nearby forest, Wistman's Wood, said to be home to the Wist Hounds. No local walker ever ventures to these woods at night for fear of the legendary Hounds,” the video said.

Samara's mother called her away to look at something else, but she returned a few minutes later. “ - rocks where Arthur Conan Doyle often sat to write his stories.” Samara vowed silently that if they ever came back, she would bring her notebook and pen and find those rocks. Then, she thought, she would write the best story she'd ever written. The ghost of the famous author would be there, helping her, writing with her.

When she reunited with her family at the front desk, she carefully refrained from mentioning the idea to her sister. 'Just the kind of silly thing you would think of,' she could imagine her sister saying.

Samara thought of the 'Sherlock Shelf' back at her house, with her two oldest books – One containing the 4 Holmes novels, spine broken and pages falling out from use, the other holding all 56 Holmes short stories, front cover broken off, back cover holding on by a thread.

When asked which moors inspired the Grimpen Mire, the woman at the front desk showed them a map and pointed to the Fox Moors. The family thanked her and left.

As they drove out of the town, Samara bombarded her family with Sherlockian facts.

"Did you know that Sherlock never actually said 'elementary"? In any of the stories?" She said, wriggling in her seat. "Did you know that Arthur Conan Doyle got sick of him after the first few stories and eventually decided to kill him off? But the public and the Strand Magazine wouldn't have it so - Sherlock Holmes was brought back from the dead!" Samara's sister tried counting on her fingers how many times she had heard each fact. She soon ran out of fingers.

"Did you know that -" Samara stopped dead as they came out through the tunnel of trees, onto the moors. "The great Grimpen More," she whispered. "A false step yonder means death to man or beast."

The moors stretched for miles ahead of them, growing and shrinking into hills and valleys, bare and hauntingly beautiful. Rocks lay scattered across the flatlands and ferns dotted the hills ahead. It seemed as if they were the only living things on the vast, unchanging moors.

Everything ahead was clay-red with dead, brittle ferns, islands of green grass and rocks sprouting from the fertile ground.

"Did you know," continued Samara, in awe of her surroundings but desperate to get in one more fact before they parked, "that 53% of people who were asked if Sherlock Holmes was real or fictional said 'real'?"

The road ran passed a large square of trees, perfectly bordered – too perfect for nature alone to receive credit, the only trees on the moor apart from one. One singular tree standing all alone, rocks surrounding it that looked just right for sitting on.

Maybe the old moor people sat there at night to tell their children stories under the stars, Samara thought. She already fervently believed in the moor people, as much as she believed in the spirit of Conan Doyle that still haunted the place where they had lived.

The car slowed down and Samara took off her seatbelt, opening the door before the engine was off. She had seen something and was determined to get to it before her sister.

It was a sheep's skull. "I've found something and I'm keeping it!" Samara shouted to her parents.

"What is it?"

"The head of a dead animal," she laughed.

The skull was barely damaged. A little cracked, a little holey (Samara could hear herself making the usual corny holy joke in the car on the way back), but otherwise in good condition.

She picked it up, wondering if there was space in her backpack for it. She decided to keep in her hands until they went back home. It would crack more if she put it in her backpack.

Samara looked up. Intent on reaching the sheep's head (her sheep's head, she laughed), she had entirely ignored her surroundings. Now she paid attention.

Around them were stone houses. Some were in good shape, with walls higher a little higher than Samara and obvious doorways, but some were little more than piles of rock. The limestone mortar that would've kept the walls together had long rotted away, and what was left were simply stones piled on top of one another, the highest on the piles toppling precariously.

Stone walls encircled the houses protectively. Once, they might've towered over the inhabitants, making them feel safe and secure, deterring intruders and ill-wishers. Now they had crumbled, and as Samara stepped over them she thought again, how the mighty are fallen.

This is the house where the family lived, she continued to fantasize. Coming to another, smaller house next to it, enclosed by the same set of walls - No, this family was a big one. They were split between these two houses. She noticed the grass inside, completely flat where the sheep would have often slept. It had an aesthetic cleanness about it.

Running to the top of her hill, Samara looked over the wide moors. She traced the stone walls along the surrounding landscape with her finger until it disappeared over a hill in the distance and didn't return.

In the valley, Samara had thought she knew what she would feel when she reached the top. She would be Queen of the Moors, surveying her land from above. But here, she shivered at the thought. The moors were wild and free, and that was made them beautiful. They had no queen, no owner.

Except, perhaps, the spirit of the famous author whose presence Samara felt with every breath.