Chapter Text
“Are you quite all right?”
The young woman flinched at the question, turning back towards the stern-faced older woman. “Yes, it’s just. . . is there any way that you could turn those lights on?”
“You mean the lights in the archive’s storage rooms?” the older woman clarified. When the younger woman nodded, the older one coughed. “I’m afraid that that’s not possible. Many of our older statements are light sensitive. Turning additional lights on could damage them. Those lights are only for emergencies.”
“I. . . see.”
“If you would like, I could close the door,” the older woman offered.
“No,” the younger woman said softly. “No, the darkness would still be there, wouldn’t it? It doesn’t need me to see it for it to still be there. Still. . . waiting.”
“All right, then,” the older woman said, seemingly trying to be placating. It didn’t completely work. Perhaps, if another person had been there, they might have thought that the older woman wasn’t suited to calming other people down. Or for interacting with other people, really. It wasn’t her style.
Then, the older woman looked down, noticing the recorder. Already on. Had she turned it on herself, or had it. . . started by itself? Perhaps something was overly interested in what the young woman had to say.
“The case of Martha Bradshaw, regarding a series of disappearances and a rainbow entity. Recording date, the twenty-ninth of June, 2013.” The older woman paused. “Gertrude Robinson recording.” She turned to Martha, giving her something that might have been considered a comforting smile. “Whenever you’re ready.”
“Where am I supposed to start?” Martha asked. She glanced down at her lap, and noticed for the first time that she was wringing her hands. Picking at a scar. Fiddling with a bracelet. Anything to keep her hands from staying still.
“When did you first begin looking into the disappearances?” Gertrude asked, and Martha’s mind began to focus for the first time in weeks.
“I didn’t think anything weird was going on at first,” she began, her hands finally starting to settle down. “I’m a student. Well. Was a student, before all of this happened. It was easy to just rationalize the first few disappearances, right? I wasn’t particularly close with most of my classmates, so I just brushed it off. They were probably sick, or had dropped out of the school, or had even just slept in late.”
Martha shook her head. Was she still feeling guilty, or was she just emphasizing her point? Difficult to say either way. “I was actually used to not seeing the same students every morning. I went for morning classes, whenever I could. I worked afternoons and evenings at a restaurant downtown, and I generally got home before dark. I knew the other students at school didn’t have the same habits. They were more likely to stay out late and come to class hungover, if they came to class at all. So I really didn’t think anything of it, when the first few students began to disappear.”
She sighed. “I could have noticed. There were signs of what was going on, if I just thought to look. But I was focused on passing my exams and making sure I didn’t lose my scholarship. My job was taking up a lot of my time, and I barely had the time for schoolwork, let alone a social life.”
Martha glanced at Gertrude, then, possibly wondering if the story was boring the archivist. Or trying to assess if the archivist would think she was insane, if she told the next part of the story.
Gertrude wouldn’t, of course. There was very little that would shock the elderly woman that sat across from Martha at this point in time. But there was no way for Martha to know that.
“I probably wouldn’t have realized what was happening at all,” Martha continued, “if it wasn’t for my best friend. Lizzie Wright. She was brilliant and amazing, and I was more than half in love with her. I never said it, though. I’ve never even come out to anyone, not really. I was terrified of what my parents would say, or if Lizzie would feel the same way or not.”
“Lizzie, though?“ Martha laughed. “When we met, I was convinced that she wasn’t scared of anything. We became friends in our first year, and she pushed me to do things I wouldn’t have done in my wildest dreams.”
She stared down at her hands again, especially the homemade bracelet on her wrist. It was a friendship bracelet, worn and faded in places. She had worn it for a long time. She’d probably keep it for an even longer one. “Lizzie was scared of things, though. She was the sort of person who worried about the future, what sort of things might happen outside of her control. The unknowns of it haunted her, I think. But if she could find ways to control her situation, so that she was better prepared, she’d jump on it in a heartbeat.” She sighed. “She seized every opportunity she could get, and sometimes, she’d take me for the ride, too.”
“When did people first start disappearing? That’s what you asked, right? At first, I barely even noticed. I was in my own head, barely interacting with anyone. I hadn’t even talked with Lizzie in person for weeks. We had messaged each other online, of course, but that wasn’t the same thing at all. All it told me was that she’d joined a new club, or that her classes were going well. We’d made plans to meet up again sometime, so that we could really talk. And then, when we actually saw each other in person. . . That’s when things went horribly wrong.”
Martha stared at the wall here. Possibly, she was trying not to cry. Her thoughts and words kept moving, though, flowing more cohesively than she’d ever dreamed was possible,
“Lizzie came to my flat in the middle of the night,” she said, “It was a rainy night, maybe a month or so ago, and the street was the darkest I’d ever seen it. Lizzie was. . . She was panicking. When I came down, after she’d rung the doorbell a few times and annoyed all my roommates, she was shaking and crying. I can still see her face when I close my eyes. She was absolutely terrified, like she’d been running in the dark. So, of course, I brought her inside, gave her the last packet of cocoa that someone had left in the cupboard, and asked her to tell me what was wrong.”
Gertrude leaned forward slightly. Martha noticed, and took a deep breath. Of course the woman from the Magnus Institute would be the most interested in this part. It was fine. Everything was. . . fine.
“Lizzie took the cocoa,” she said, “and thanked me for it, in the most wretched voice I’d heard in a long time. For some reason, she’d turned all the lights on while I was warming up the water, and I tried to make a joke about my roommates probably not liking the electric bill. That was what made her start crying.”
“It turned out,” Martha continued, trying to avoid the hungry eyes of the woman across from her, “that the club Lizzie had joined was meant to help reach out to first-year students. Get them to face their fears, make connections with more experienced students, that sort of thing. A couple weeks before, one of the members offered to bring them stargazing. ‘The darkest night sky you’ll ever see, especially this close to London’. That was the offer, as well as Lizzie could remember it. There were a few arguments that it was too cold for good stargazing, but the member arguing said that actually, the night sky is clearer in cold temperatures. Less haze from heat rising off the ground. So they went.”
Martha shook her head, yet again. “Lizzie knew something was wrong when they got there. The club member had promised a good spot to camp out for the night, far away from city lights. Instead, they met at an abandoned looking churchyard. It was just as dark as promised, though, so Lizzie and the other members that showed up got settled for a good few hours of stargazing and conversation.” She chuckled, humorlessly. “Apparently, the first hour or two was great. Around midnight, though, a man showed up. Lizzie couldn’t describe him well, just said he had a ‘voice like shadows’, whatever that means. She said that he’d told them to be careful, that even if the stars were out, the darkness in these parts was hungry. Gave them a smile, and went on his way into the church building.”
“After that, people started packing up. The member who brought them to the churchyard said it was all right, that Mr. Rayner was a little touchy, but they could stay as long as they liked. Lizzie stayed long enough to help with clean-up, but she said the mood wasn’t right anymore. She. . . she said that they couldn’t see as many stars, like they were disappearing in the haze. I-- I actually remembered her telling me about this at the time, but it hadn’t seemed terribly important. Now, though, the way she looked at me? I could tell it had terrified her, and I felt like an awful friend.”
Martha glanced at the friendship bracelet again, pulling at the ends as she kept talking. “The next night was when the first person disappeared, according to Lizzie. Every few nights after that, someone who had been at that meeting just. . . vanished into the night. And tonight, she was certain it was going to be her. The lights in her house refused to turn on. The shadows kept gathering. Lizzie was terrified out of her wits, and she felt like there was nothing she could do to stop it from making her disappear, too. All I could do was to ask if she wanted to stay the night. She did, of course, and I set her up on the couch for the night. Told her to call me if she needed anything. When I woke up at five the next morning, before the sun was even up? The lights weren’t working, and Lizzie was gone. I asked my roommates if they’d seen her, and they said no. One of them had remembered hearing someone scream, though. They’d assumed it was a dream.”
“That,” she said, sounding more confident, “was when I decided to screw it. Screw everything that wasn’t helping my friend. I contacted every one of Lizzie’s friends that I could think of, first to check if they had seen her, and then to try to figure out where that church was. Lizzie had been convinced that it was the source of what was happening. I thought, maybe if I went there, I could find out what had actually happened, and get her back.” She shook her head, an odd sort of smile flashing across her face. “I must have looked like a sight, walking around the streets near campus, talking nonstop on my telephone. Probably close to tears, if I’m being honest. So it’s probably not that surprising that someone took interest and offered to help.”
She paused for a moment. “To be completely honest, I was surprised, though. For one, I had somehow gotten it into my head that nobody was going to overhear me and ask what was going on. It’s just not typical behavior around here, I suppose. Or, at the very least, people haven’t done it to me before. But, I was more surprised by who it was that stopped me and asked if I wanted help, I think.”
“I looked at this person, and I thought to myself. . . well, my first thought was, “Oh, this makes sense now. I’ve just been on an accidental drug trip because one of my roommates was careless, and I’m going to wake up any minute now.” Part of my brain is still thinking that, I suppose. But the rest of it was real, so this person had to be, too. My second thought, though, was ‘All right, maybe Lizzie wasn’t so terrible at describing people after all.’ I’d been annoyed with her being all ‘voice like shadows’ on me. Needlessly cryptic, right? Well, the person I talked to? They had hair like shifting rainbows, and the sharpest eyes I’d ever seen. They just seemed. . . off, somehow. Maybe it was that they were taller than I’d expected, or maybe something was off with their face? Or maybe it was their accent. I couldn’t place where it was from. That. . . doesn’t necessarily mean much, though. I couldn’t even tell if they were a man or a woman, and something told me it was better not to ask. Or maybe I was just too overwhelmed by everything going on to care much. That’s more likely, since I didn’t even ask what their name was.”
Martha bit her lip. “They just asked me what was wrong, and I told them everything. Everything Lizzie had said about the darkness eating her, and it feeling alive, and how she’d vanished in the middle of the night. And then they looked at me for a few moments, and asked if I knew the address for the church yet. I told them I did, and that I was planning to head that way now. They just smiled and said, ‘I think I might be able to help’. And so, we went to the churchyard together.”
“It was the middle of the day when we got there, and the person with me? They glanced around the churchyard, but didn’t really seem invested in looking around it, like I was. When I asked them why, they said, ‘If the things that took your friend like dark, I doubt they’ll be outside now.’ Then they shuddered, and said, ‘I’ll go inspect the church.’”
She stared at the floor, for now. Anything to avoid Gertrude Robinson’s gaze. The archivist had seemed like a normal elderly woman at first, but now? Now, all Martha could see was the way that the woman’s eyes seemed to dissect her. Like she was nothing but a particularly interesting specimen.
But it was better than hiding in the dark.
“I shouldn’t have followed them inside,” Martha continued. “I wish I hadn’t. But I couldn’t just stand by if Lizzie was in there. So I followed them in.”
“I. . . I couldn’t see anything in there. There were no windows, no lights. Just complete darkness everywhere. I could hear movement, though. There were people in there, and they weren’t happy with being interrupted.”
“‘You shouldn’t have followed me in,’ my companion said, and they sounded slightly annoyed. Then, they ran forward, and I could hear the sounds of a tussle. I had no clue where anyone was, but the person with me didn’t seem to have a problem. Maybe they could see something I couldn’t, I suppose. I. . . don’t remember much of the fighting. The echoes of screams. A gunshot or two. Laughter. The words, ‘Found you’. Or was it ‘I see you’?”
“I walked to the wall, ducking whenever I heard a gunshot, and ran my hands over it, trying to find a light switch or something, anything, that I could do to help. I couldn’t seem to find anything, though. There was nothing I could do. And then, I felt a hand on my shoulder. A voice whispered into my ear, ‘The darkness is always there. All lights run out eventually. Yours will, too.’”
Martha closed her eyes. “I don’t remember how I got out of the church. What I remember next is sitting outside, with a few other students sitting around me. Rainbow guy was gone. Lizzie was there, and I reached over for her, offering to hug her. And then she turned towards me, and I saw that they. . . they’d plucked her eyes out. Each of the students there was the same way.”
Gertrude visibly flinched.
“It’s all a bit of a blur, really,” Martha continued. “I remember talking to the other students, trying to figure out what to do next. Whether or not to call the police. But one of the others said that the police wouldn’t believe us anyway. That they’d be more likely to write us all off as cult members, since the church there was known for being a weird cult back in the day. The additional details of what happened didn’t help. After all, the creatures were all gone. Were the police supposed to believe that somehow, eight different college students had been coerced to pluck their own eyes out by the literal monsters under the bed? Or would they just think it was collective insanity?”
“After that, though?” She laughed slightly again. “I’ve dropped out of school. It’s not like anyone there would understand what happened, would they? I’m working as many hours as I can get at the restaurant, and I’ve picked up a second job on the side. Lizzie and I are living together, at least until she can figure out her next steps. And I’m trying to forget.” And finally, Martha sat back in her chair, the words tumbling to a halt.
“All right,” Gertrude said, running her fingers over her notes. “Are you willing to answer a follow up question or two?”
“Sure,” Martha said, sounding wary. “Go ahead.”
“Did the church building belong to the People’s Church of the Divine Host?”
“That sounds right.”
Gertrude nodded, making a small check on the side of her notes. “And have you seen your. . . companion again?”
“Not really?” Martha sighed. “I have looked for them around campus, but I don’t think they’re a student. I asked around, even, and a few people said that they’d seen someone like that on long walks around town, but I haven’t been able to track them down. If you find them, for follow-up? Tell them I said thanks. Without their help . . . I don’t think Lizzie would be alive.”
“Of course,” Gertrude said, somewhat dismissively. “Thank you for your time, Miss Bradshaw. We have your contact information from the form you filled out, and we can let you know if we learn anything more.”
Martha left the room, her legs trembling slightly as she walked, and Gertrude turned towards the tape recorder.
“Final comments,” she said, turning over her notes. “A rather typical case, considering the entities involved. This particular case is interesting on two accounts. Firstly, it shows that the People’s Church is more active than I had anticipated. I had assumed that their ritual would be sometime over the course of the next ten years. Instead, I’m afraid that I will be preparing for their ritual alongside my preparations for the Unknowing. I believe my actions this week following up on statement #0132306 have delayed the Unknowing to an extent, but it is best to be prepared.”
“As to the second matter. . . ” Gertrude continued, tapping her pen on her notes, “the identity of the entity that aided Miss Bradshaw. Many of their physical qualities seem to point to the Spiral, but the abilities they demonstrate in seeing people in a domain like that seem much more likely to be from . . . other areas. I will have to,” she chuckled as she underlined a note, “keep my eyes open for them in the future. . . .”
The tape recorder clicked off, barely even noticed.