The dragon hisses, it twists in its cage, three- dimensional and rubbery, a muddy green- gray with golden wings – more than eight feet long from head to tail. Even Sherlock can’t figure how he has done it. It is rising up, it seems, from the depths of the underworld below the theater, a remarkable illusion.

the writhing beast that has materialized on the stage. Alistair Hemsworth stands in front of jungle trees, a hand on his hip, his chest thrust out, his other arm raised, his index finger pointing at. Girls, he was learning, are full of surprises.īut not even they can make a dragon appear.

He had assumed that she was younger than he. Sherlock had been surprised when she told him that this was her birthday and how old she would be turning. They have been walking out together, she boldly defying her father’s wishes, he (seven months her junior), unrestricted in his movements due to the liberal ways of his mentor, the extraordinary Denmark Street apothecary, Sigerson Bell. Theirs has been a tempestuous relationship, but lately everything has changed. And she is the most beautiful girl, no, the most beautiful woman, in all of England. Sitting beside him with her mouth as wide as his, celebrating her sixteenth birthday, is Irene Doyle. He is dressed in a coal- black, impeccably cleaned and brushed secondhand frock coat, the first of his life all its predecessors were much older. It is the late summer of 1869, and the boy feels as if he is a man.

The moment the dragon appears on the stage of The Egyptian Hall theater in London, Sherlock Holmes knows there is something truly wonderful, truly disturbed, about Alistair Hemsworth.

The Dragon Turn by Shane Peacock