The Strangest Forms

THE STRANGEST FORMS THE ADVENTURES OF HOLLOWAY HOLMES BOOK 1 GREGORY ASHE H&B This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The Strangest Forms Copyright © 2023 Gregory Ashe All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by United States of America copyright law. For permission requests and all other inquiries, contact: [email protected] Published by Hodgkin & Blount https://www.hodgkinandblount.com/ [email protected] Published 2023 Printed in the United States of America Version 1.04 Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-1-63621-045-2 eBook ISBN: 978-1-63621-044-5 My ancestors were country squires, who appear to have led much the same life as is natural to their class. But, none the less, my turn that way is in my veins, and may have come with my grandmother, who was the sister of Vernet, the French artist. Art in the blood is liable to take the strangest forms. — “The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter,” Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Yes, it is an interesting instance of a throwback, which appears to be both physical and spiritual. A study of family portraits is enough to convert a man to the doctrine of reincarnation. —The Hound of the Baskervilles, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle You know, Watson, I don’t mind confessing to you that I have always had an idea that I would have made a highly efficient criminal. —“The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton,” Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Chapter 1 Empty All Receptacles Watson was late. I paced, planks creaking underfoot. The old boathouse was dark; starlight filtered through where boards had warped and no longer met and the tin roof sagged. The air smelled like waxed canvas, dust, dry wood. When I turned too fast, I bumped one of the boats racked on either side of me. I made my way to the south wall, bumping another boat in the process, and pressed my eye to one of the gaps in the wall. On the other side, the twinkle of The Walker School’s lights broke the mountain night. No movement. Me, and the murmur of the lake, and that was just about it. Then a golf cart whined, its shadow moving down the path less than a hundred yards off. A girl said something, and a boy laughed drunkenly, and then the golf cart was gone, the whine fading toward the glow between the trees. Friday night fun. Still no Watson. I checked my jacket pocket. It was September, and down in the valley, it was still too warm to need another layer, but up here, on the back of Timp, the temperature dropped quickly. The zannies shifted under my touch; the plastic baggie rustled. I paced back the other way, toward the roll-up doors and the dock that pushed out into the lake. I told myself, For fuck’s sake, stand still and stop making so much noise. It wasn’t always like this; it wasn’t always Xanax. Sometimes it was beer. Well, more often it was rum or vodka or hard seltzer. Sometimes it was Ding Dongs or Twinkies or Doublemint, stuff you couldn’t buy in the canteen. There was a manga girl who paid me a shitload to bring her a case of Milkis every month, covered in all that Korean writing I couldn’t read, and then that little bit of English: New feeling of soda beverage. Sure, whatever. There was a wannabe tweaker, a little white boy, who wanted Sudafed. There was another white boy, not so little, who wanted live crickets, and I never asked why. One time, this real butch Mexican kid had wanted a Snuggie. So, you never knew. It didn’t matter what they wanted. They were stuck up here—that was the whole point of Walker, a place rich people could send their troubled teens to be kept neatly out of sight—and I wasn’t. I knew what that meant; I hadn’t read all those Wikipedia articles on economics for nothing. What mattered was that the rich kids paid, and some months they paid enough that Dad and I weren’t completely underwater. Of course, that had been before I bought hundreds of dollars of zannies on credit from Shivers and Watson decided not to show. Never again, I told myself. Never buy on credit again. When I made my next loop, I pressed up against that gap in the boards, looking out again, and called myself every kind of stupid. Nothing. The boathouse was a good spot; it didn’t get used much during the school year, and it was far enough from the rest of campus that people wouldn’t stumble across you—with the exception of the occasional joyride or the kids who wanted a quick fuck. I had an excuse for being here if anybody spotted me: the raccoons dragged trash up this way sometimes. I always had an excuse. The rules were clear; any trouble, and Dad would be out of a job, and so I’d be out of a job, and what the hell would we do then? I made one last loop of the boathouse and gave up on waiting any longer. I let myself out and locked the door behind me. I headed south, toward campus, the buildings faintly visible between the trees like the fairy lights Mom had hung on our Salt Lake porch. I fumbled the custodial cart out from where I’d hidden it behind some trash cans and wheeled it toward the maintenance building. I pulled on my headphones, fired up Dad’s old Discman, and turned up the volume as “Smells Like Teen Spirit” started. Kurt sang hello. How low. I tried to think. I’d finished my route for the night, so I could drop the