Work Text:
Jon slammed the lid to the chest shut in frustration. He knew what he was looking for had to be in here somewhere, but the organization in the archives was so terrible that he could tell he would be lucky to find it by the end of the day, nevermind within the hour.
“Some archive this is. Might as well just call it a dump at this point,” he grumbled under his breath as he crouched down to check the bottom shelf of a shelving unit next to the chest.
“No luck yet?”
Jon jumped at the voice, just catching the top of his head on the underside of the shelf. At the bang of his head against metal, he heard Martin startle and something crash behind him. Jon fell backwards onto the floor, clutching his head and biting back a curse. His curse word of choice came out as the name of his assistant.
“Martin!”
“Oh! I’m so sorry, I thought you heard me come in! Are you okay?” Martin asked, flustered as he bent down to pick up the jar of paint brushes he had knocked onto the floor during his own scare.
Jon huffed a breath. “Somehow, I was doing much better before.” He pinched his forehead, trying to will away the fringes of his impending headache. He had spent the entirety of the night before working away in his office, and his lack of sleep was catching up to him.
Martin stood up, placing the jar back in its spot. He shifted on his feet uncomfortably. “Of course, sorry again. I just thought two pairs of eyes looking would be more helpful.”
“Not if your eyes are as coordinated as the rest of you,” Jon bit out, his hand still firmly placed against the back of his head.
As soon as the words had left his lips, he regretted them. He could see the hurt flash in Martin’s eyes before the man pursed his lips and cleaned the expression from his face like a slate being wiped. Before Jon could apologize, Martin had turned on his heel, pushing the door open again.
“Right. Well, I’m going to go get you some aspirin and a cup of tea, I’ll be right back.”
With that, he was gone before Jon could even blink. He sighed, mentally kicking himself for putting his foot in his mouth again, his shoulders slumping forward. At this point, he was going to need a lot more than an aspirin to chase away his headache. He slammed the drawer he was searching through shut, reveling in the temporary satisfaction before pulling open another.
He knew tensions were running high around the archival department of the institute, but Jon couldn’t seem to stop himself from adding to the stress. He really didn’t mean to, his mouth just always seemed to be three steps ahead of his brain, and thus any social skills he may have had. He sighed, rubbing his tired eyes, and made a note to apologize to Martin when he came back.
Artefact Storage was poorly organized, but once upon a time, some poor soul had attempted to make the room organized. Jon wasn’t sure if the sap had done a good job or mucked it up even worse than it had been before. Signs were posted around the room, indicating generalized categories of what the storage spaces might hold, but the problem was that items of every sort came down to Artefact storage. It was about as organized as Jon had been when he had moved to uni, haphazardly throwing whatever fit into any random box he could. He had packed up his entire life in a few boxes, and if the items happened to share a living space or some similarities, it was a miracle.
The statement Jon was working on had talked extensively about a puzzle and the giver noted that he had donated it to the Archives. However, when Jon had looked through the file, there was no note about anything being stored in Artefact Storage. So now he found himself wandering into the section labelled ‘toys’, thinking that was his best bet for finding wherever the puzzles were hidden. He strode over to a wardrobe, pulling open one of the bottom drawers. Although the drawer he had opened was unlabeled, it seemed to be full of puzzles. For a brief moment, Jon allowed his hubris to bubble up in celebration of his triumph. It seemed warranted considering he had found the right drawer in this department on the first try. There were a few boxes of jigsaw puzzles, but thrown casually on top were other types of puzzles, locking mechanical puzzles, geometric puzzles, and even things as basic as a knot tied in an impossible manner.
All of the puzzles were neatly stacked, and the ones that were still in pieces were either packed in boxes or clear bags, some labelled with bold lettering reading “Do Not Assemble”. However, there was one that seemed just a tad messy, so Jon pulled it out of the drawer. It was just a basic wooden puzzle made up of various pieces. Most of the pieces were already inplace, creating an abstract shape, except for one wooden rectangle, curved upwards at each end. He felt like he had seen one on Georgie’s coffee table at one point or another. He twisted the pieces in his hand, finally lining the smaller part up to the other pieces. He wasn’t really thinking about solving the puzzle, he just knew the piece would fit, and it did.
As the final piece clicked into place, there was a sudden flash of light, blinding him. He dropped the puzzle in his surprise and he could hear it breaking into pieces as it fell back into the drawer, but it was too late.
Everything went white.
His body burned. As his hand could attest, he had felt the fury of fire before, but it was nothing like this. He could feel his muscles seize and scream as they went taught, but there was nothing he could do to ease the pain. He wanted to double over, to curl into a ball until his vision came back and the pain stopped, but he was completely paralyzed. The best he could do was lean against the wardrobe for support, his hips pushing the drawer back into it’s cubby.
There was no end to the pain, only an endless burning of skin, every nerve ending firing in a panic. He thought that he may have called out for Martin, but his head was pounding so loudly that he couldn’t focus on anything else. The dizziness had crept in, overwhelming him all at once. He felt wrong, his body stretched, tight, and shrunken all at once.
And suddenly, the white was consumed, and everything was black. There was nothing.
________________________________________
Martin carefully pushed the heavy wooden door to Artefact Storage open with his elbow, being careful not to spill any of the steaming liquid from the cups in either hand. He could no longer hear Jon grumbling from the stacks, so he took that as a good sign. Maybe having a minute alone had put the archivist in a better mood. Martin hoped so anyway.
“Jon? Are you still in here?” Martin asked. The room didn’t answer back. Not getting a solid response wasn’t particularly unusual if Jon was entranced in work, but Martin usually got a hum or grunt of some sort regardless.
Martin felt a bit of unease creep forward. The room was just so eerily silent, and after the Prentiss attack, well- he couldn’t help but think about how Tim had come back from lunch that time, stepping into a literal battleground with no knowledge of it.
He tried to dismiss the thought, stepping into the first of the stacks. Artefact Storage was basically just a large basement, made up of rows of bookshelves mostly, with about half the space in the back reserved for larger items. The bookshelves held anything from books and research to children’s toys and houseware. He listened for any noises that could indicate where the archivist had been consumed by the stacks.
There was nothing except the sound of his own breathing for a minute. The room was so quiet that he considered going to check Jon’s office, because maybe the man really had gone back upstairs and Martin was just being paranoid. But then he heard it.
It was gone just as fast as it had come, but Martin had definitely heard the creaking of one of the wooden floorboards.
“Jon?” He called again, a bit quieter this time. The tea wobbled inside the cups he was carrying.
The floorboards were just as old as the institute itself, so they betrayed the position of who Martin could only assume was Jon, as the creaking noise sounded again. This time, Martin had a clear idea of where the sound originated and started to pick his way two stacks down. As he made his way, there was the sound of running footsteps and before Martin even had time to flinch, Jon had flown by him. Except something seemed...off. Was Jon shorter than he remembered?
When Martin turned around, he nearly dropped both of the cups he was holding. His jaw went slack as he stared at the archivist. Or maybe it was more accurate to say the future archivist.
A handful of paces away, stood an incredibly young boy. Technically, Martin had never seen him before, except that there was no doubt in Martin’s mind that this was Jonathan Sims, head archivist of the Magnus Institute. His usual button up and slacks had been replaced with a simple t-shirt and khaki shorts, but he had the same dark hair that hung just above his furrowed eyebrows, and the same scowl as he held a rounders bat in Martin’s direction. The bat might have been menacing, except that rounders bats weren’t very long in general, and this one was brightly colored pink plastic, with a bright blue grip, clearly meant for kids just learning the game. On top of that, the child wielding it was probably only about 120 centimetres tall, barely making it past Martin’s waist.
“Stay back! I don’t know how you know my name, but I won’t hesitate to use this!” The boy glared, giving the bat a shake in Martin’s direction.
Martin would have loved to reply, but all the gears in his brain seemed to be stuck at the moment. He knew this was Jon, but the differences were striking. Martin generally found Jon to be charming in a stiff, academic sort of way, but looking at his younger self, the years had not been kind to him. Really, the year had not been kind to him.
All the scars that Martin had become so accustomed to seeing were non-existent, not a trace of disfigurement from the worms, or white lines on Jon’s dark skin from where his throat had been cut with Daisy’s blade. Even the burn on his hand was gone, the skin perfect and smooth. The only marrings on his skin were purple-blue bruises on his knees and elbows, and a few plasters scattered around variously. However, the physical tension that Martin was unfortunately too familiar with remained in the way that young Jon clenched his hands until the dark skin of his knuckles went white, and the way his brow furrowed, darkening his eyes.
Moving slowly, so that the boy could see all of his movements, Martin carefully set both cups of tea down on a table next to him. With his luck, the table was probably some artifact down there for a reason, so hopefully the cups wouldn’t leave a ring on the wood or else he would find himself cursed for at least the next seven years or something even more undesirable.
He turned back to face Jon, holding his hands out in front of him, as if approaching a frightened animal. He had no idea what he was supposed to say in a situation like this, but he figured he should make himself as non-threatening as possible.
“I’m not going to hurt you. I was just bringing you some tea, see?” Martin said, with a slight nod to the cups sitting on the table.
Jon’s eyes flicked to the cups for a minute, before cutting back to glare at Martin again.
“Where am I? And who are you?”
Martin wasn’t sure how much information he should impart onto this version of Jon who didn’t seem to remember anything about the present, but calmly he replied, “My name is Martin Blackwood. I’m an archival assistant here at the Magnus Institute, in London.”
Jon’s eyes widened and he fumbled with the rounders bat in his hand. “London?” He asked incredulously. “How did I get here and where is my grandmother?”
Martin faltered. “Your grandmother?” He didn’t think Jon had ever mentioned his grandmother to him. Not that they really ever talked about Jon’s childhood. Come to think of it, Martin wasn’t even sure Jon was from the London area. The boy in front of him hadn’t let go of the rounders bat but he had lowered it ever so slightly, which Martin considered progress. He felt like telling him that he was the de-aged version of his 32 year old self would bring that barrier right back up again, so he opted for a more gentle truth instead.
“I don’t know how, and I don’t know anything about your grandmother,” he said carefully. “Where are you from?”
Jon hesitated, his eyes looking Martin up and down again. “Bournemouth,” he said finally. “I’ve only been to London a few times for special occasions with my grandmother.”
“Well, this is certainly an occasion,” Martin muttered, trying to keep his voice light. He took a deep breath before making his voice cheery. “...Right. Well, while we figure this out, would you like to maybe come upstairs and meet the rest of the employees here? I think there’s some snacks upstairs too if you’re hungry.”
Jon eyed him warily, but he didn’t say no, so Martin turned around, making his way towards the door back to the stairs. He glanced back only once, to find Jon following just a few paces behind him, bat still clenched in hand. His lips were drawn in a tight line and when he caught Martin’s eye, he scowled again.
Entering the main office, Martin found Tim working at his desk. “Working” being more of a vague descriptor, since he was actually bent over his desk, smoothly folding a piece of paper into a plane.
“Where’s Melanie?” Martin asked.
“Went to look for a file, I think.” Tim responded, not looking up as his hands smoothed a crease out. “I’m going to launch this at her when she comes back. Wanna take a bet as to whether she’ll scream if I hit her?”
“Actually, we have a bit of a situation.” Martin said, twisting his fingers together.
Tim scoffed. “Yea, we always seem to have a bit of a situation, don’t we?”
When Martin had first met Tim, he’d found it hard to believe that the man ever stopped smiling. He was always the first to quip in with a joke or a smile, but now Martin couldn’t remember the last time he had seen a smile that actually reached past the corner of his lips.
“It’s about Jon. He was alone in Artefact Storage and now he’s...small,” Martin trailed off, turning around to gesture at the baby-faced archivist. However, all he found was empty space where his boss should have been.
“Jon?” Martin called.
Tim watched him with something perhaps akin to interest. “Jon’s always small. He’s like the shortest one here. Are you sure it’s not you we have to worry about, Martin? Jon hasn’t been up here since he went off on all of us this morning.” Tim scrunched his nose and furrowed his eyebrows, lowering his voice to a bad mimic of Jon’s and said, “You’d better not be wasting time, Mah-tin,” he said, voice heavy to draw out the consonants in Martin’s name. “The institute isn’t paying you to laze around and chat all day.”
“Tim, our boss is basically an elementary school student at the moment. Can you please put aside your blatant distaste for him and help me find a literal child?” Martin snapped. Tim blinked, a bit taken aback, but he sighed and rose from his desk chair without another word.
Martin filed back into the hall with Tim at his heels, calling Jon’s name. He had only checked to see if he was following in the stairwell, so maybe Jon had gone back into Artefact Storage? But when the men did a quick walk through the basement, there was no sign of him.
Panic was starting to build in Martin’s chest, bubbling unpleasantly upwards. He didn’t know what would happen if Jon made his way to the larger, more general part of the archives. He knew Jon’s interaction with most of the staff was limited, considering it was pulling teeth to get him to ever leave his office, but surely Rosie would recognize him at least. If that happened, he would definitely be leaving that explanation for Elias to deal with.
That said, Elias himself was also definitely an issue. He shuddered, thinking about the misfortune Jone would have to run into Elias when he couldn’t remember who Elias was or anything about the Magnus Institute.
Back upstairs, Martin’s panic had resorted to just throwing open all the doors that lined the hallways. He apologized quickly to a few folks as they looked up from their work to see what the disruption was about.
Martin’s panic had begun to peak, crawling up the back of his throat like a many legged intrusion. “Okay, okay. This is fine. We lost our boss, our eight year old boss. Okay.”
“What about his office?” Tim asked,his attitude still nonchalant.
Martin pursed his lips together. The thought unsettled him for some reason, but it was as good a guess as any.
The pair made their way to the door and Tim didn’t bother to knock before he opened the door. The room was empty. However, with the way that tapes were piled in the corner and papers were strewn over the desk, as well as the clothes haphazardly tossed over the back of Jon’s chair, Martin could tell that Jon had pulled another all-nighter the night before. He really didn’t understand why Jon bothered to pay rent on a flat he barely ever saw.
Martin wrung his hands together. “Where could he have gone? He was right behind me!”
Tim looked a bit skeptical, but suddenly they heard a distinct laugh from down the hall. The laugh was warbly, and a bit distorted. Tim and Martin exchanged a glance before sprinting towards the sound.
The sound was coming from the break room, a small kitchen equipped with the basic necessities and a large table for people to eat lunch at.
And there Jon was, sitting at the end, seemingly without a care in the world. His rounders bat was abandoned at his feet and Helen sat perched on the table next to him, still laughing.
Martin finally felt like he could breathe again, the panic that was constricting his chest releasing it’s grasp. Martin could see Tim’s mouth go slack as he processed the scene before him.
“You weren’t kidding,” he said. “I suspected that the boss had started shrinking from stress, but this wasn’t quite what I imagined.”
“I like him like this,” Helen chirped. “Of course, I like regular Jon too, but this one has a certain charm.”
Jon was staring at Helen’s hands, which were longer and twisted than in a manner unfit for any human, and unnaturally blurry if one looked a little too hard, but to his credit he didn’t look particularly shaken from meeting the avatar of the Spiral.
“Tim, why don’t you take Jon back into the office. Maybe someone else is back by now and Jon can meet them too.” Martin said, gently ushering Jon towards Tim.
Tim gave him a hard look before molding it into something more gentle and patting Jon on the shoulder as he made some joke about how easy it was to get lost in the archives.
As Martin waited for the door to close behind them, Helen folded her hands in her lap, or at least that’s what Martin was pretty sure she did. Her hands were too distorted to actually be sure.
“Doesn’t it bother anyone else that Jon is a child?” Martin asked incredulously. “He’s not someone for you to toy with right now. He doesn’t know anything about what we’ve been dealing with.”
Helen shrugged. “Self is difficult. It doesn’t matter to me how old the archivist is, he’s still quite nice to me.” A particular glint came into her eye that unsettled Martin. “Besides that, you’d be surprised at how much someone who doesn’t know ‘anything’ knows. Maybe you’re lying to him and he’s figured it out. Maybe he’s lying to you. Maybe he’s lying to himself.”
“Don’t start twisting things around,” Martin said bitterly. “No one is lying about anything, we just need to sort this out.”
A smile, a little wider than normal, stretched the corners of Helen’s lips. “A lie of omission is still technically a lie, isn’t it, Assistant?”
Martin sputtered for a moment, before his being caught off guard changed to something more akin to anger.
“Leave Jon alone, Helen. I don’t want him dragged into anything dangerous right now.”
“Dragged?” Helen questioned.”I would never. They have to instigate their fate themselves. I would say that Jon’s already done that himself. You’re welcome to live in your denial though, the Spiral quite enjoys it.”
Martin could feel his patience wearing thin. “Look, just don’t talk to him, okay?.”
Helen opened her mouth to speak, but before she had the chance, he stormed out, not caring when the door slammed behind him.
When he re-entered the office, none of the others had returned yet. Tim had somehow convinced Jon to participate in an arm wrestling competition, and had stolen the chair from Martin’s desk to create the appropriate set-up around his own desk. Jon’s face was the perfect image of concentration, his brow furrowed and his arm shaking as he pushed back against the pressure. Tim mirrored Jon’s scowl with a triumphant grin as he pushed the younger boy’s arm down onto the desk. He leapt up from his seat, pumping his fist before putting on this obnoxious announcer voice.
“And Tim Stoker is the winner! Champion of the Magnus Institute’s Annual Arm Wrestling Championship 2018!” He hissed into his hands, making the sound of a crowd going wild.
Jon made a face at him and for a moment, Martin expected him to start sulking. But suddenly, the corners of his lips upturned and became a smirk.
“You may have won, but I’ve stolen the grand prize.” With a grin, he upturned the hand he hadn’t been using. In it, lay a wrapped chocolate bar from the vending machine outside. Tim’s mouth dropped open and he made a sound of protest, but before he could grab the bar, Jon had unwrapped the bar and bit the top portion off.
“That was my snack!” Tim cried indignantly.
“Not anymore,” Jon said innocently.
Tim’s bafflement turned to amusement. “You’ve got a pretty sly hand, kid.”
Rising from the desk, Tim left Jon to continue eating his stolen snack and moved towards Martin. Martin blinked as the serious mask Tim’s been wearing lately settled back into place. For a minute, it had been like the old times where touching had come easily and their office was full of shoulder touches, high fives, and lighthearted greetings.
“Martin, we’re never going to get anything done like this, especially if he keeps wandering off.” Tim said, “I think someone should tell him that he’s not actually an eight year old. At least not physically.”
“I know, but you do realize how crazy that sounds, right? I don’t want to scare him or anything.What if some weird stuff happens and we mess with the timeline or something?”
“Wouldn’t want that in an institute of Eldritch horrors where we’re all trapped,” Tim said dryly. “I know you want to protect him, but it’s for the best.”
After a moment, Martin nodded.
“Are you gonna be the one to break it to him, or shall I?”
Martin squared his shoulders. Tim lacked a particular...sensitivity that Martin had spent years cultivating while caring for people.“No, I’ll do it.”
He moved over to Tim’s desk, where Jon had stolen his chair and was slumped over the wood surface, playing with the tiny gadgets Tim had set up around the far edge. His small fingers carefully stacked pieces of a magnetic sculpture that sat on a small base. When Martin stepped in front of him, his eyes floated upwards momentarily before he returned to intently stacking magnets into formation. It was a look that Martin was well accustomed to, as it was the one he received most of the time when he pulled Jon from a statement to give him a cup of tea.
“Hey,” Martin said uncomfortably. “Can we talk about something?” He mentally kicked him. He was talking to an eight year old, not his boss. Technically. “It’s a bit serious,” He added.
Jon straightened up, interest clear now. “All ears,”
“Right. Well, this isn’t easy to explain, but you know how you asked me how you got here?” Jon nodded. “Well… you work here. You’re the head archivist here, and you’re 32. The Magnus Institute deals with a lot of strange things, like really strange things. Sometimes… it can go a bit wrong.”
Martin had been carefully watching Jon’s face, but it hadn’t changed. His face was perfectly schooled into a neutral expression. Martin wasn’t even sure he had blinked.
“If you’re trying to pull one over me, you’re going to have to try a lot harder than that. I’m eight, not dumb.”
“He’s not pulling one over on you, boss. Welcome to the club of weird and terrible things happening to you. Or maybe I should say welcome back?” Tim quipped. Martin didn’t think Tim’s support was particularly helpful though since Tim’s voice was always varying degrees of sarcasm at this point.
“Yeah, okay,” Jon scoffed. “This isn’t really the first time I’ve ended up in a strange place, although usually I,” he paused, “...remember more. Anyways, my grandmother will probably have the police come to collect me soon.”
Tim opened his mouth to ask why Jon thinks the cops are coming, but at the same moment, the door to the office creaked open and Basira came in, with Daisy tailing behind her. Daisy and Basira were both in plain clothes, but Martin assumed that they did create a rather authoritative impression to most, Daisy with the combination of her scowl and muscle and Basira with that confident calmness she tended to carry. Jon looked the pair up and down, pushing his hair behind his ear.
“Are you two with the police?”
Martin could tell by their faces that the pair could easily see the resemblance of Jon in the face of this tiny eight year old. Basira had carefully schooled her face into neutrality, although she did spare a glance for Tim and Martin. Daisy’s poker face was non-existent, and her eyebrows had shot up in response, her mouth agape.
“Not anymore. Do you need help with something?” Basira asked.
Jon faltered for a moment, looking more than a bit lost. “Oh, sorry. I just assumed that my grandmother would have dispatched the police to come collect me by now.”
“What’s the last name?” Basira asked, pulling her phone out of her pocket.
“Sims. She lives in Bournemouth.” Jon answered.
Basira nodded, pretending to type the information into her phone. “I’ve still got some friends in the force, so I’ll have them clue me in if her name comes up, okay?”
“Okay, thanks.” Jon repeated, his confidence a bit dampened.
“Buck up, kid.” Daisy said, awkwardly putting one of her hands on his shoulder. Her strong hand dwarfed Jon’s tiny shoulder. “Whatever’s happening, we’ll figure it out.”
Jon slowly relaxed into her touch. “Of course,” his eyes drifted, taking in Daisy’s towering figure. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Oh, um, sure?”
The smallest of smiles quirked at the edges of his lips. “How tall are you? Are you taller than Tim?”
Taken aback, a hearty laugh escaped from Daisy’s throat, her head flung back. While the boy was distracted with Daisy, Basira had made her way over to where the rest of the staff was crowded.
“Does Elias know about him yet?” Basira asked quietly after Martin had filled her in.
“Doesn’t he know everything that goes on here? Voyeuristic tendencies and all that,” Tim replied, waving his hand in the air
.
“We haven’t seen him all day,” Martin answered.
“I don’t feel like that’s a good sign,” Basira frowned. “I’ll try to keep him busy while you guys sort this out,”
“Thank you,” Martin said, hoping Basira could tell just how much he appreciated the sacrifice. As Basira turned to leave, Daisy shook herself free of Jon and his questions, tailing her partner out the door.
Tim and Martin exchanged looks again, not quite sure where to go from here. If Jon saw it, he didn’t comment on it. Instead, he turned on his heel, heading towards the door.
“Where are you going?” Martin asked. He wasn’t about to lose him to the archives again.
Jon waved him off. “I’m just going to get a drink from the water fountain in the hall.”
As he went to push the door outwards, someone else opened it at the same time. Melanie entered the office, her head bent over a report. Of course, with so little warning, Jon had no time to move and Melanie ran straight into him.
“Oh, sorry,” Melanie said, looking up from the report. Her eyes widened as realization dawned on her. “Jon?!”
“Hello,” Jon replied warily.
Melanie’s features lit up with delight. She fished her phone out of her back pocket and snapped a picture of Jon before he could protest, a smirk playing across her lips.
“What was that for?” Jon asked accusingly, his eyes narrowed.
Melanie hummed, still smiling at her phone. “Nothing much, just thought it might be useful for later.”
Jon’s face contorted into his pouting scowl again before he slipped out into the hall.
“You’re not even going to question the fact that our boss is eight?” Tim asked.
Melanie shrugged. “Just another day at the office. The point is that this is great potential blackmail material. I can’t wait until Georgie sees the picture I just sent her.”
“The point is that we need to figure out how to change him back,” Martin said, a bit of irritation seeping through.
“Relax,” Tim replied, slapping his shoulder. “We’ll get him back to the proper age so you two can continue pining over each other and powering the building’s lights with the energy of your sexual tension.”
As he rolled his eyes, Martin could tell that his face was starting to flush red. He was immensely relieved that young Jon had ducked out of the room to find the water fountain. He wouldn’t have even wanted age appropriate Jon to be in the same room.
“How did he change in the first place?” Melanie asked.
“It was one of the artefacts from downstairs,” Martin answered. “So I guess we’d better go back into Artefact Storage.”
With Jon back in tow, the group made their way down the stairs and through the heavy doors of Artefact Storage. Now that Jon had calmed down from the confusion of his initial time downstairs, his eyes shone with an eagerness as his attention was pulled from one artefact to the next.
“Okay, first order of business,” Melanie said. “What artefact was Jon using?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you ‘don’t know’?” Melanie said incredulously. “I thought you were with him!”
Martin cracked his knuckles softly, flexing his fingers. “I went to get him tea! Besides that, we were all stepping around him a bit this morning, so he didn’t tell me specifically what statements he was working on today.”
Melanie sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Okay, so we need to figure out what made him into small Jon in the first place then. Is there like some sort of log we could reference to see what’s been pulled or searched for?”
Martin exhaled with a little laugh. “Another thing on Jon’s list of things to change around the archives, I’m sure. But nope, organization is as non-existent as usual.”
“Okay,” Melanie said slowly. “So it could literally be any of these objects?”
“Pretty much,” Martin replied.
Jon had taken Tim by the sleeve, peppering him with various questions as he led him around the room, pointing out different artefacts. Martin tuned Melanie’s rant about the lack of organization in the archives out for a moment to watch the pair.
“What does this do?”
“Um, that’s an old fashioned radio, except that it only plays one song over and over again.”
“What about this one?”
“That’s a never ending ball of string, but the catch is that it’s not real string, but strings of black licorice. I’m not sure it really belongs in the arts section.”
“That doesn’t seem so bad,” Jon said. “I like black licorice.”
Tim made a noise of disgust. “Of course you would, Jon.” Despite the accusal in his voice, he gave Jon a fond look.
For the first time in months, Tim’s shoulders weren’t hunched up by his ears, muscles wrought with tension. His lips had eased back into a smile when he spoke to young Jon and the sarcasm that tended to drip from his voice as of late had all been drained, making way for his easygoing charm and humor to flow back in. Somehow, watching Tim interact with the younger Jon was more like stepping into a time machine than seeing young Jon himself.
Jon had picked up a silver pocket watch and rotated it in his hands, rubbing his fingers over the engraving on the back.
“Even as time passes, you never get old to me. Until you get old.” Jon read aloud before turning to Tim, “What’s this mean?”
“Um, actually that’s just a normal pocket watch I gave to the former archivist for secret santa one year,” Tim said. “I was wondering what she did with that. She never did properly appreciate my humor.”
Jon laughed, his eyes narrowing, not out of impatience or sourness, but joy, and the corner of his lips upturning to reveal tiny dimples that melted Martin’s heart on the spot. His heart was simultaneously soaring and breaking to see Jon in such a state.
“So since you’ve got it this bad, are you going to finally ask Jon on a date when he’s old and grumpy again?” Melanie asked, pulling Martin from the haze of his thoughts.
Martin could feel the blush rush up from his neck to his freckles as he snapped back to the conversation he was supposed to be paying attention to.
“I don’t!” He sputtered. Melanie gave him a look. “Okay, okay, I know. I just… wonder what it would be like to have a normal job,” he admitted. “I wish that our Jon was able to laugh so easily. Instead of being traumatized by eldritch horrors and grappling with his own humanity all the time.”
“Or lack thereof,” Melanie mused. Martin shot her a look of his own.
“Sorry,” she said. “I know what you mean though. The atmosphere around the archives is so different and it’s only been a few hours. For the record though, I think you should ask him on that date.” He went red all over again, and her eyes drifted over Martin’s shoulder, where Tim was reading the tag on a music box. Behind him, Jon was examining a snowglobe intently. As he reached out to pick it up, both Martin and Melanie made a loud noise of protest, to which his head snapped up.
“Jon, you probably shouldn’t touch anything,” Martin said gently. “All the items in here are insanely powerful, as you’ve maybe already realized.”
Jon regarded the snowglobe again. His eyes still had a hungry sort of gaze to them, but he did seem a bit more wary.
“Of course. Hands off,” he said, his hands open in surrender.
There was a sturdy wooden table in the center of the room for members of the archive to use while researching or pulling multiple items from Artefact Storage, so Jon pulled a chair out and sat down, watching the assistants while they rummaged around the storage room.
After a few minutes, Jon stood up and started shadowing each employee. He peered over Martin’s shoulder as Martin rummaged through a magician’s chest of things, and sat next to Tim on the ground as Tim rifled through a few drawers on the nearest storage cabinet.
As they continued to look, Jon filled the silence with questions, about the artefacts, the archives in general, and the assistants themselves.
He seemed to particularly enjoy bombarding Melanie with questions. Melanie, for her part, was doing everything in her power to give him the least satisfying answer. Martin thought that he would give up after Melanie answered “it’s a thing in this room of things that does extremely magical things,” but Jon was relentless.
Sometimes, Jon would get distracted looking at something and drift off into silence. Martin would glance over periodically, just to check on him, only to find him transfixed on the same object.
“Everything okay over there?” Martin asked.
Jon blinked at him like he was a completely foreign being before his eyes unglazed and he came back down to Earth.
“Everything’s fine, why?”
“Just checking in. You were seriously zoned out there for a minute.”
Melanie looked up from the pile of objects she was sorting through, pushing the hair from her face. “Do you remember what object you were looking at when you changed?”
Jon’s fingers twitched, his hands suddenly moving in a sort of fashion like he couldn’t decide what to do with them. He frowned down at his hands, as if they were out of his control.
“I don’t remember any object. But then again, I can’t even tell you how I got here.”
Melanie sighed. It was easy for Martin to understand her frustration. It was like they were no closer to an answer than they had been to begin with, despite all the work they had put in. He was itching to find a solution, craving to see Jon’s familiar scowl, hear the faint murmur of his voice from outside his office. Martin had always been good at seeing the small things about Jon that no one else noticed, and it was the small things that he missed most of all now.
He forced himself to focus on rummaging through the children’s jewelry box in front of him. Every time he opened a compartment on the box, it seemed to have something new inside it. It was hard to tell though because the box seemingly contained any random object that had caught the previous owner’s fancy, including tubes of lip gloss, small stones, little bobbles from gashapon machines, and jewelry that had tangled together.
“Jon, stop touching things.” Melanie reminded the boy. Jon moved away from whatever he had been going to touch, sitting down at the table again. A few minutes went by as Martin shuffled through reports before he heard Melanie’s voice again, much more irritated this time.
“Jon!”
Martin looked up to see Jon sheepishly retracting his hand from a carved figurine. He looked very much like a child who had been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
“I thought we agreed that you weren’t going to touch anything,” Melanie said exasperated.
“I was just looking,” Jon protested.
“That was definitely a hand looking over there.” Tim noted.
“I couldn’t tell whether the lines were painted or carved. I didn’t break it or anything, I just wanted to know.”
A quiet fell over the room and Martin’s heart sat heavy in his chest. Thinking that Jon was going to be the end of him wasn’t an usual thought for him, but eight year old Jon brought that to a whole new level.
He was just so innocent and curious. He really had no idea what he had just stepped into.
Tim found his voice first. “That’s not the point. One of these artefacts is what turned you into baby Jon to begin with, we don’t need you to double up that damage.”
“The supernatural only gets more complicated than it already is when it gets twisted together,” Melanie added, a bit more gently.
Jon’s shoulders slumped, his face already ashen, but he nodded mutely.
Martin strode across the room, placing a hand on the boy’s shoulder.
“Let’s go find something for you to do, shall we?”
His hand still on his shoulder, he guided Jon back out of the archives and upstairs. Daisy was shuffling through some paperwork. As he entered the office, Daisy shook her head slightly, but Martin realized what she was indicating a bit too late.
Basira and Elias stood talking by Basira’s desk, with Elias’ back turned to Jon and Martin. At the sight of Martin, Basira tried to make a desperate save, saying, “so you thought some follow up with his step-father would be helpful, right?”
Before Martin could grab Jon and haul him from the office, the door closed noisily behind them.
Dressed in his usual suit with his hair slicked back, Elias Bouchard turned around at the sound of the office door. Basira’s eyes flashed with something resembling anger, although Martin couldn’t tell if it was directed at him or Elias.
“Ah, there you are Martin. I’ve been looking for you.”
“My bad,” Martin said coldly.
Elias’ eyes traveled down to Martin’s pant leg, where Jon had instinctively stepped behind him, hovering close. A sly smile crept across his face.
“No matter, I’ve left the files on your desk for you to go through. Why don’t you introduce me to your, ah,” he paused, smiling at Martin, “friend?”
“I don’t think that’s necessary,” Martin frowned.
Elias ignored him, bending down to Jon’s height and reaching out his hand. “You must be Jon,” he beamed, his voice dripping in a false politeness.
Jon eyed the hand, ultimately deciding not to take it and clinging to Martin’s shirt instead. “Hello,” he said stiffly.
Wisely, Elias withdrew his hand, standing up and straightening his tie with it instead.
“Look, unless you know how to fix this, then we need to be on our way.”
“Someone’s a little cross today, hm? I’m only being cordial to our young friend here.”
“So basically, you’re going to be no help whatsoever, as usual,”
Elias clicked his tongue. “Now, now. I would love to help you, but I can’t. This is far out of my control, but I assure you that I much prefer Jon in his normal state.”
This did not reassure Martin at all, funny enough, but he just made an unimpressed sound, keeping his expression as flat as possible.
“I was going to ask for your help with one more thing, but I can see you’ve got your hands full, so I’ll have Basira assist me instead.” Martin didn’t bother with a reply and Elias didn’t bother waiting for one. Instead, he looked back down at Jon, plastering his disgustingly polite smile back on. “It was a pleasure seeing you, Jon. I hope you find your day at the Magnus Archives agreeable.”
Martin sent Basira a look of sympathy as she passed by, to which she just rolled her eyes. She made the motion of stirring tea with her hand and Martin nodded. At this point he had a pretty good idea of what sort of tea every one in the office liked, so making a cup for Basira was an easy price to pay for this favor.
Daisy, who had been eyeing the exchange the entire time, let out a deep sigh as the office door closed behind Basira and Elias. Martin made his way over to her desk, Jon trailing behind. Daisy’s desk, usually a relatively barren space considering her hatred of working behind a desk, was covered in an array of files and papers that she had spread out along the surface.
“What are you up to, Daisy?”
“Found a pile of papers on Jon’s desk. Figured if I could work out which statement Jon was working on, it could be helpful.”
“Huh. Well, if you find anything, let me know,” Martin said. “I have to find something to keep Jon occupied right now. I don’t suppose you stumbled across any crayons or anything?” He didn’t have to look over to tell that Jon was giving him a dirty look.
“Why don’t you give him some statements to read? Keeps old man Jon busy.”
“We can’t give those to him! He’s a kid, Daisy.”
Daisy shrugged. “Not in reality,”
Jon had noticeably perked up, a familiar glint in his eye. An almost hungry look.
“I can read them,” He said. “My grandmother gives me books of lots of different reading levels all the time.”
Martin scratched the back of his neck. “It’s not really the reading level I’m concerned about. They’re… not nice to read, Jon.”
“It’s okay,” Jon insisted. “My grandmother has given me lots of adult mystery novels and thrillers. I’ve read plenty of dark books.”
Daisy shot Martin a pointed look, and finally he conceded. If they were getting regular Jon back, did it really matter anyway?
“Fine,” he sighed. “There should be some in Jon’s office, let’s go pull a few.”
“I have an office?” Jon said incredulously.
“Yes, it also doubles as your apartment,” Daisy grinned. “I think you’ll probably ask to be buried there as well.”
The corners of Jon’s mouth turned upward as he let out a small laugh. All of Jon’s laughs, although rare, made Martin’s heart melt, but there was something especially special about seeing a younger Jon, unbridled by the stress of adulthood and eldritch horrors, grant his company with the pleasure of the rare occurrence.
There was no part of Martin that could imagine Daisy being good with children, but as he watched her interact with Jon, he felt that she was proving him wrong with every passing second. Maybe it wasn’t so much the children that she was good with as it was Jon. There was just an instant comradery between Daisy and young Jon. Maybe because they were both on the quieter side, with the most British sense of humor Martin had ever experienced. Either way, he was grateful that Daisy always seemed to be able to draw a smile from him, no matter how small.
Martin led the way down the hall to Jon’s office, stopping at the wooden door with the frosted glass window labeled ‘Head Archivist’. He turned the knob and stepped into the room, holding the door open for Jon to follow.
As the younger archivist stepped into the room, he breathed out in awe, eyes scanning across the room to absorb all the detail. He swept through the room, clearly overwhelmed by the intensity of the new environment. He picked things up, examining them intensely and turning them over in his hand before setting them down again and striding across the room to repeat the process.
“I can’t believe I have my own office,” Jon said, running his finger over the spines of the books on the shelves.
Martin hummed a reply. For as many times as Martin had been in here, he hadn’t realized how much of Jon’s personality had seeped into the tiny details of the room. At first glance, it just looked like a standard desk in a room filled with bookshelves. However, as Martin actually looked around, he discovered that Jon had tucked away things here and there. The coat hanging on the rack, a tiny cactus by the window, a few hair ties, thrown in with Jon’s paperclips. It made his chest ache for the familiar sight of Jon working at his desk.
Martin shook the thought from his head. He just needed to work through this. He would help Jon, and then everything would go back to the way it was. Young Jon seemed absorbed in exploring the room, so Martin asked him if he was planning to stay in the office while he went back downstairs to help the others.
“Is that okay?” Jon twisted a strand of his hair between his fingers. “I just don’t want to be underfoot downstairs.”
“Right. I guess that it’s fine? I mean, it is technically your office.”
Jon settled into the office’s armchair, letting out a contented sigh as he began to read the first statement he picked up. The chair was a bit too big for regular Jon, but now it was comically so. The chair looked like it could swallow the child’s body whole if it wanted to. With a bit of reluctance, Martin exited the office, closing the door behind him. As Martin started to descend into the basement, Daisy called him back over to her desk.
“I found this particular statement, it has a page of follow up questions stapled to it, so I assume it’s the one Jon was working on. There’s already a tape recorded for the statement itself.”
“What’s it about?”
Daisy flipped from the page with Jon’s handwriting back to the initial statement. “It’s about this man, Benjamin Cross. He was practicing for a puzzle solving competition? Yeah, anyways, every time he solved the puzzle, something different would happen to him and it messed him up.”
Martin took the statement, eyes skimming through the details, his heart moving just as fast.
“Oh, one more thing, Daisy?”
“Yeah?”
“I left him in Jon’s office, can you keep an ear out?”
Daisy’s eyes met his, and for a moment she hesitated. “Yeah, I reckon so,”
Downstairs, Martin shared the statement with the others. Even knowing the generals of the item they should be looking for wasn’t as helpful as it should have been because there were still a lot of parts of Artefact Storage that hadn’t been properly labeled yet.
The three assistants swept through the storage room, ignoring various ceramics, framed paintings and photographs, knick knacks, and household furniture and appliances. They opened boxes and various drawers, brimming with objects.
They mostly worked in silence, but every once and awhile, a tiny spark of conversation would take hold, just to show off a funny item or mention something about an old case. It was surprisingly comfortable, a feeling Martin hadn’t felt at work in months.
They had fallen into an easy silence, filled only by the rustling of papers or the quiet clanking of objects when a muffled scream pierced through the quiet, startling Melanie to drop the book she was paging through. Although the voice itself was unfamiliar, Martin had no doubt about who the screams belonged to. He shot up and before any of the other assistants could react, he had already bolted out of Artefact Storage and up the stairs.
By the time he made it up the stairs, Daisy was sprinting past him from the office, and he was several paces behind her as the two raced down the hall. When Daisy reached Jon’s office, where the screams were loudest, she wasted no time in slamming the door open. It bounced off the wall with a loud bang, and the two of them burst into the room.
Jon’s screams had died to a whimper at the explosion of the door, but he was paralyzed in the corner of the room, his eyes frozen on a spot on the desk. Martin followed his line of sight to find a spider, decently sized enough to see the spindly legs from a small distance, sitting next to Jon’s desk lamp.
Martin had known that Jon’s fear of spiders was bad, but he hadn’t realized that it had mellowed out since Jon was a child. Although the boy was stuck in place, his entire body shook, and tears streamed down his cheeks.
Martin turned to Daisy, and she gave him a curt nod.
“I’ll go let the others know everything’s okay.”
As Daisy closed the door behind her, Martin moved slowly over to the desk. He didn’t want to set Jon off anymore, but clearly the spider needed to be taken care of in order for his panic to die down. Very gently, Martin cupped his hands around the spider on the desk, gently scooping it up and cupping his hand over the top. Jon made a small noise of concern from the back of his throat. Using his still cupped hand, Martin nudged open the window in Jon’s office, and opened his hand next to a bush outside. The spider padded from his skin and disappeared into the branches.
Dusting off his hands, Martin shut the window again. Jon had sunk to the ground, only held aloft by the wall behind. He was still sniffling quite loudly and trembling with the force of a small earthquake. Martin fell to his knees next to where the boy was paralyzed. Jon made a choked noise, an attempt at words caught by something much more primal.
Not wanting to hurt him any further, Martin didn’t make a move to make physical contact with the boy. He simply kneeled next to him quietly, letting his presence be there if Jon needed it. Jon took a few deep breaths before he matched his breathing to Martin’s, their chests rising and falling together.
“I promise that everything we’ve told you is the truth. Things can get, ah, weird around here.” Martin said quietly.
Jon hesitated. When he spoke, his voice sounded impossibly small. “I know you’re telling the truth. When we were in the office, Tim had a calendar on his desk with the year 2019. And your desk has pictures.”
Martin blinked. He had completely forgotten about the photos he had tacked up next to his desk. They were old now, from a time when his job hadn’t been like working a waking nightmare. The photos had been taken at some holiday party that they had managed to drag Jon out of his office for. One of the pictures is an almost blurry snapshot taken by Sasha of Jon and Martin talking over a pint. Everything about the picture is soft, from the lighting to the expression on Jon’s face. Every time Martin looks at that picture, he wishes he could remember what they were talking about just so that he could make Jon look that content again.
Underneath that one is a polaroid taken by the bartender, special for the holidays. It’s one of the few photos they could find of the real Sasha. In the photo, the four of them are crowded into frame. Tim had the charming grin that he had been so well known for, and he had thrown his arm over Martin’s shoulders, pulling him in. Jon and Sasha are in front, Sasha with her arm intertwined into Jon’s, beaming at the camera. Jon looks a little embarrassed, but happy enough. Martin could recall that he was a few drinks in by that point.
Those pictures felt like a lifetime ago.
“I look so old in those pictures,” Jon said, wrinkling his nose.
Martin cracked a small smile. “Well, you are compared to where you’re at now. And you’ve been through a lot in the past few years.”
“Apparently. Everyone has been acting like I’m not… a great person to be around most of the time.” Jon swallowed hard.
“You can be a little mean sometimes, maybe a little bitter,” Martin admitted. “But you have a lot of things to deal with and you never actually get angry with us. For the record, I tend to enjoy your company.”
Jon looked up at his, his eyes round and hopeful. “Really? I don’t know if I’ve ever told you as an… adult,” he said like the word fit in his mouth strangely, “but I’m really happy that you helped me today. I’m sorry if I’ve said anything mean to you.”
It was official: Martin’s heart was completely melted, nothing but a puddle on the floor.
“It’s okay, Jon. No matter what the others say, we know you’re trying your best. It doesn’t matter if you’re mean sometimes, because you’re also incredibly dedicated, and curious, and you always mean well. They’re all pieces that make up the whole, and I like them.” Martin paused. He hadn’t quite intended to confess all this to his eight year old boss. Or at all, really. “I just want to help, to be here for you, no matter what.”
The panic had already brought Jon’s quietness out, but his body took on a new stillness that Martin could tell he had something he wanted to say. His eyes darted around the room before they settled on Martin.
“Even if I hadn’t seen any of the things I’ve seen today, I would know you were telling the truth. I’ve… seen things.”
Martin hummed, waiting patiently for him to continue. The boy pushed his hair out of his face and behind his ear, the same way older Jon did when the gears were turning in his head.
“I haven’t told anyone about this, not even my grandmother. But, um, there was this book called ‘A Guest for Mr. Spider’.”
Martin hummed softly, although the sound caught in his throat. He felt as if his mouth was suddenly incredibly dry.
“I, well, my grandmother, found this book and,” Jon drifted off, his own voice betraying him. “Hold on.”
He stood up, moving to the corner of the desk where the tapes were piled high. He pulled several tapes down, finally settling on one close to the bottom, labelled #0171702-A.
His nimble fingers inserted it inside the cassette player and pressed play. With a click, the tape started playing and shivers ran down Martin’s spine as he heard Jon’s voice, not this Jon, but his Jon.
“Statement of Jonathan Sims, Head Arch- former Head Archivist at the Magnus Institute, London, regarding a childhood encounter with a book formerly possessed by Jurgen Leitner.”
Martin and Jon sat in silence until the deeper version of Jon’s voice said ‘Statement end’ and the tape ended with a click.
Martin swallowed heavily. Jon would no longer meet his eyes.
“How did you know it was that statement?”
Jon shrugged. “I just knew,” he said quietly. “I can’t explain it, but all day, random things, things I shouldn’t know, have sort of just popped into my head.”
As he spoke, he began to wring his hands together. Martin reached out, placing one hand over his to stop the movement. Jon’s hands were so small now that it was easy for Martin’s hand to encompass his.
“Hey, it’s okay.” Martin said quietly. “We’re going to fix all of this.”
With his free hand, Jon wiped his eyes, taking a deep breath out. He looked up at Martin, his brown eyes serious. “I know. I trust you guys.”
As he helped Jon up from the floor, his eyes drifted back over to the desk and he noticed something he hadn’t before. On the desk lamp next to where the spider had been sitting, was a neat, intricately woven web, strung from the upper joint to the head’s rim. As Martin inspected it closer, he realized that the pattern inside was a perfect spiral.
________________________________________
“Where are we going?” Jon asked, as Martin knelt on the ground and unlocked the trapdoor with the key he had taken from Jon’s desk.
“I think I know who we need to talk to now,” Martin said.
“And that person is going to be in that dark underground tunnel?” Jon asked, his nose wrinkling as he peered over the edge of the hole.
“It’s a bit of a weird thing, I know. But this is probably our best bet.”
Jon looked at him pointedly. “I’ve seen enough weird things today for a lifetime, which I don’t think bodes well for future me. Try me.”
Martin stepped through the trapdoor, onto the stone steps leading down, and a moment later Jon followed. Martin cracked his knuckles, trying to think of the best way to explain all the complicated things they had learned in the past few years about terrifying monsters and fear gods.
“You remember Helen? The person you met in the breakroom?” Jon hummed his reply from behind him. “Well, she’s an avatar, a like… representation of fear. That spider was trying to tell you that her fear is the one responsible for this.”
“How did you get all that from a spider?” Jon asked, shuddering at the mere mention.
“They’re not normal spiders, they’re aspects of another fear, the Web.”
“Wow, this is a great place to work,” Jon muttered.
The tunnel was completely black, the little light from the trap door tapering off and consumed by the unending darkness. When Martin reached the bottom of the steps, he got off and waited to help Jon, but the boy ignored his hand, choosing to jump off the third to last step instead. He landed with ease and began to move down the corridor without even waiting for Martin.
Martin pulled out his phone and clicked the torch button before following. The torch dimly lit a few feet in front of them, which wasn’t much to be truly helpful, but was sufficient at making Martin feel better. He hadn’t been down in the tunnel since he had found Gertrude and frankly, he hadn’t been looking for an excuse to come back.
As Martin walked by Jon’s side, he watched the boy carefully. His face was schooled into a neutral expression, but every once and awhile, his eyebrows would twitch. Martin could practically hear the gears turning in his head as he processed all the information that Martin had told him. The thing was, he could also tell that this information hadn’t scared Jon, not really. His stride was still quick and certain. Suddenly it was very easy for Martin to imagine how young Jon had acquired all those bruises and bumps needing plasters.
“Martin?”
“Yes, Jon?”
“Is… Do you think Helen is bad then? Like as a representative of fear or whatever?”
Martin sighed, running the hand not occupied by holding the torch through his hair. “I think… it’s complicated,” He said finally. “On one hand, she is literally fear manifest, but on the other, she really does try her best to help the institute. I’m not sure I would say that I completely trust her, but I don’t actually mind her.”
Martin’s torch flickered, blinking out and plunging them into complete darkness before flickering back on.
“I think we’re close,” Martin said.
The two cautiously pressed on, careful not to make any noise. There was a wooden door at the side of the tunnel, a few strides from where they were. As they approached the door, Martin’s torch went out completely, and even tapping his phone in the palm of his hand did nothing to kick it back to life.
Giving up, he slid it back into his pocket. As they approached the spot they knew the door to be, there was no sound except the soft exchange of their breathing. Martin considered opening the door outright, but before he had a chance to make a decision, Jon had already reached out tentatively and knocked on the door. Martin could feel the younger version of his collegue press into his side, one of his hands clinging to the back of Martin’s shirt. He ruffled his hair in response, and moved to grip his shoulder.
The door creaked open slowly. The door led to nowhere, and everywhere all at the same time. It hurt Martin’s eyes to try and understand what was going on in the room, so instead he focused on the figure standing in the doorway.
“So you came to find me,” Helen frowned at Martin. “Rather bold of you after you accused me of dragging our young archivist into this. As if he wasn’t wrapped up in the supernatural from the beginning.”
“Look, I’m sorry Helen. I was just trying to protect him.”
“Aren’t you always? But I’m probably the only person in this institution who could actually help him. Because of what I am. Because of what he is.”
When Helen had appeared in the doorway, Jon’s grip on Martin had eased considerably, but he remained huddled close. Suddenly he spoke up again, “What I am?”
Helen looked at him sympathetically. “It’s far too soon to reap the rewards of your confusion on that topic right now, young Archivist. For now, we should just focus on getting you back to your normal stature, yes?”
“Do you know how to fix this?” Martin asked.
Helen shrugged, twisting one of her long, distorted fingers within her curls. “Maybe, maybe not. This whole situation is part of my expertise, but you didn’t seem to want my help before.”
Jon stepped away from Martin so that he was standing before Helen. “Please, Helen. You’re probably the only person who really understands what’s happened to me.”
Helen drummed her impossibly long fingers on the back of her arm as she looked down at the boy. Martin didn’t think Jon was aware of it but he really had the biggest kicked puppy sort of eyes, soft, sad, and irresistible.
Helen looked thoughtfully down at the boy. “Lucky for you, this little incident has been a rather delightful surprise, young Archivist.”
________________________________________
Returning to Artefact Storage, they found the remaining archival assistants working through the statement Daisy had found. More or less, Martin noted. Daisy was sitting at the table in the center of the room, her combat boots kicked up onto the table as she casually sifted through a CD case pulled from storage. Melanie stood next to her, carefully reading over the statement in her hands. Tim was nowhere in sight, but from the rummaging sound he could hear a few stacks away, Martin could tell he was still in the room.
When Tim did emerge, he jumped at the sight of Helen.“Oh hell, I didn’t know she was here,”
“Oh come now, I’m sure I’m better company than some other employees of the Magnus Institute,” Helen sniffed.
“Can’t argue with that,” Tim agreed, shrugging.
“Helen is going to help us figure this out,” Martin explained. “Whatever object did this to Jon is part of the Spiral.”
“We found the drawer full of puzzles from reading the statement,” Melanie said, pointing to an open drawer in the section containing all the toys. “But it’s good to have your help, Helen. This statement is a bit vague. I know the object is a puzzle, but I don’t know what sort or which one.”
“Oh, I don’t know the specifics.”
“What do you mean?” Melanie asked.
“She means that she will be absolutely no help in figuring anything out,” Tim said flatly. “More cryptic bullshit, as usual.”
“Call it what you like, but there’s too many things in this room that feed the power of the Spiral. If none of you were present at the time of the incident, then the only person who could solve this is our archivist.”
“He’s small,” Daisy noted.
“Hey!” Jon said in protest. Daisy grinned wolfishly at him. “I can figure it out. I know I can.”
He stepped up to the drawer, looking at the pieces inside. He took a deep breath before reaching inside. His hand hovered over the various puzzles and pieces, his eyes scanning each one thoroughly. He passed over the Rubrik’s cube with too many colors, and over the puzzle box claiming it had ‘infinite pieces and endless fun’. For a moment, he hesitated over the Tavor, a wooden puzzle of interlocking pieces with a marble inside. Ultimately, he decided to pass over it, and his hand finally settled on a jumble of pieces, curved wooden pieces with rectangles cut from either side of the flat part.
“This one,” Jon said, pulling the pieces out of the drawer. Most of the puzzle was already assembled, but there were 3 wooden pieces missing.
Helen hummed with admiration. “You have a good eye, young Archivist,”
“Are you sure that’s the right one?” Tim asked, eying the puzzle sceptically. “I mean, it doesn’t look any different than one of the puzzles on my desk. It’s just a cheap knick knack.”
“I think that’s the point,” Melanie answered. “Most of the objects in Artefact Storage are pretty unassuming at first glance.”
“It’s this one,” Jon answered, his voice full of certainty. His hands twisted and flipped the individual pieces, trying to figure out how they would best fit into the puzzle. His eyes were trained on the object, examining the way the pieces already in place fit.
The rest of the archival staff went to sit at the table while they waited, but Jon remained rooted in place. Martin continued to watch, fascinated by how Jon’s obsession with the things he did was rooted in his youth, from how he devoured readings without a care for what they were to the way his nimble fingers slid over the wooden puzzle, gears in his mind turning at the same time.
A quiet fell over the group as they watched and waited. As the minutes passed, Martin watched Jon’s eyebrows furrow more and more in frustration.
“I don’t understand how this is supposed to fit into place,” Jon finally grumbled, his eyebrows knit tight. “I can get this piece in, or this piece, but not all three at the same time. It’s almost like they don’t go together at all, but they must.”
“They must,” Helen agreed.
Jon stopped fumbling with the puzzle to look up at her. Helen was perched on the edge of the table again, her legs crossed in her colorful and bizarre skirt. The wrinkles in Jon’s face smoothed as he took her in and she flashed him a grin that spread upwards just a bit too far.
“Of course,” Jon breathed. “They don’t go together, but they must,”
He put the piece he was holding down, and took a deep breath before closing his eyes. With a blind hand, he grazed his fingers across the 3 wooden pieces, filling the gaps and juts of each one.
Still watching, Martin and the rest of the assistants could see what Jon could not, which was that the pieces that shouldn’t align were aligning perfectly. As Jon fumbled with the blocks, placing them without being able to see, the bigger edges of the block fit into the smaller holes, and then slid into other blocks that it shouldn’t have been able to.
“What the hell?” Tim gaped, standing up from his seat now.
“The Spiral specializes in things that are not quite right, which is clearly the case with this puzzle.” Helen explained. “The pieces shouldn’t fit, but somehow, they do.”
As Jon continued to work, his movements became more adept and certain. He floundered with the blocks less, no longer trying to shove them into place, even though his eyes were still closed. The two remaining pieces slid together to become a sort of curved T. With one final movement, Jon drove the base of the T into the center of the puzzle, and with a click, the piece was nestled in perfectly and the puzzle was complete.
There was a brilliant flash of light, originating from the center of the puzzle in Jon’s tiny hand. The light was so intense that the archival staff had to look away, shielding their faces. Martin could hear Helen erupt into a fit of distorted giggles, reverberating throughout the room. Something compelled him to move forwards, even though he couldn’t see. With a hand in front of his face, he pushed his way over to the origin of the light. When the light finally faded, Martin blinked the colors dancing in front his vision away. A foot away from him, stood Jon, their Jon, with all his scars and greying hairs, as well as his usual dress shirt and slacks, in the place that young Jon had been standing.
Their eyes met, expressions equally tender. Jon’s chapped lips fell open, Martin’s name spilling from his lips.
His body swayed and the puzzle fell to the floor as his hand went limp, his body following behind it. Martin lurched forward, closing the space between them as he caught Jon’s body in his arms.
Jon’s frame, now larger than his eight year old self, but still small compared to Martin’s, fit neatly into Martin’s arms as he cradled the unconscious archivist. He pushed the hair out of Jon’s face, checking the pulse at the edge of his windpipe. As he did so, his eyes drank in all the things he had missed, the familiar scars along Jon’s cheek, the curve of his cheek bone, and his heart pounded with what at first he thought was relief and quickly realized was something else too.
________________________________________
When Jon woke up, there was a still steaming cup of tea on the table next to him. It was the first thing he noticed because the scent, light and herbal was so familiar. It’s not his usual, which is Earl Grey with a dash of sugar, but he was pretty sure that he’s found Martin with a cup more than once. As he blinks the sleep from his eyes, his brain allows him to take in more details. First the familiar pale yellow wallpaper of the archive, and then the stiff cot he’s lying on, the one they kept in the backroom.
He eased himself upwards with his elbows. His muscles ached, feeling as worn as stretched putty. To be fair, he supposed they technically had been. There was no way that shrinking and then growing again, all in the same day, was easy on the body.
For a moment, he did nothing except breath in the steam of the tea, reveling in the warmth it spread to his hands. His mind reeled as he recalled the events of the day, and he could feel his face start to flush. He couldn’t believe that other members of the archives had seen him like that. He sighed deeply, knowing that Tim would never let him live it down. Still, he supposed it could have gone worse.
Sipping the tea, he could taste peppermint slowly bleeding through the heat and he savored it. The tea instantly quells any worries he had about his coworkers, smoothing the sharper edges of Jon’s mind.
When Jon looked over at the side table again, he noticed something his drowsy self had missed. In the spot that had been just under his mug, sat a small bit of white parchment.
Jon carefully set his mug back down next to him and picked the paper up, his fingers fumbling along the crisp fold. The warmth has spread now, from the tips of his fingers, through the veins up his arms, straight to his chest. If a small spread across his face, subtly revealing dimples at the very corner, no one was the wiser. Except for maybe the assistant, who stood peering through the crack in the door, hands clasped tightly around his own cup of tea as he felt his
Written on the note, in a handwriting that Jon had become very familiar with during his time reading the research of his assistants, was just one line.
Maybe a coffee date next time?