Will you Walk into my Parlour?

It was well into the afternoon when Tim woke up. It was a workday, and his shift started hours ago, but he was well past the point of caring. Slowly, he picked his way out of bed.

Coffee, he needed coffee and… breakfast. Tim didn’t usually eat breakfast, but he couldn’t deny the hunger that gnawed at his bones. It threw him for a bit of a loop. Unlike Jon, Tim actually took care of himself. He shouldn’t be this hungry.

He pulled on a pair of jeans and a shirt which hurt to look at. It was the one he’d been wearing when Michael trapped him in their infinite hallways. Tim rather liked it. He toed on his shoes and headed towards the door.

Jon was still sleeping.

That was… Tim had never seen Jon sleep before. He wasn’t even sure if he still needed to. He looked so relaxed like this. Human even.

Swaddled in blankets and an oversized sweater on a couch that was too small even for him, Jon looked more peaceful than Tim had ever seen him. Even before the shitshow that was the archives, Jon wasn’t the type to let his guard down.

Jon’s breathing came gentle and even and his glasses fogged up with each rise and fall of his chest. Tim reached out, slowly, gently, and pulled the glasses away. He folded them up and placed them on the coffee table.

“Right,” he whispered to no one. “I’ll be right back.”

Melanie was waiting for him on the top of the steps.

“ What the hell , Tim,” she growled, jabbing a finger at his chest. “It’s almost three.”

Tim arched an eyebrow. “And?”

“And you’re just showing up now?”

“Haven’t been fired yet.”

“That’s not- you can’t just fuck off to gods know where and leave all the work to me and Martin. Martin doesn’t even work here, I checked. That’s not fair to him. Also, how haven’t you been fired yet? I’ve filed at least three complaints.”

Tim brushed past her. “Good for you.”

“Oh fuck off ,” Melanie called after him, but she didn’t care enough to follow.

“I’ve been trying!” came his cheeky response.

The spider was the one keeping them trapped here, Tim was sure of it. After all, the rest of the institute could quit. It was only the archival staff who were bound to their jobs through supernatural force. Jon and Tim, the people the Spider cared most about in its own twisted way, were the only ones trapped. It had tried to point the finger at Elias of all people, useless beaurocrat that he was, but Tim was no fool. He didn’t believe in coincidence.

The spider had started bringing tea for Melanie a few weeks ago. Tim hoped, for her sake, that she was still able to quit. He’d told her when she’d first taken the job to quit while she still could. That hadn’t gone over well.

The hunger hit him in a wave as he pulled open the door to the archives. It was an odd sort of thing, but he cast it aside. He’d record a statement then he’d see about takeout.

“Tim!” The spider waved at him cheerfully, already sat at its desk.

Tim kept walking. Maybe if he ignored it it would go away.

“Tim, hey.”

No such luck. Tim turned around and headed for the door. It wasn’t like he could be fired for skipping work.

“ Tim .” And then the Spider was in the doorway. It smiled, looking for all the world like its placement was purely coincidental. “Would you like some tea?”

“No thank you.” He stepped to the side to look for an opening but Martin was a big man and an even bigger monster.

“I made you a cup.”

“I was just heading out.”

Martin reached behind him. The door clicked shut. Tim flinched at the sound

The Spider, Tim corrected, The Spider reached behind.

It stared at him, beetle eyes and cobweb smile. “I made you a cup. I wanted to say thank you, for looking after Jon.”

Tim took a step back. He wanted to scream at the thing but the words caught in his throat. (Be politeTim. I know you don’t like me but that really wasn’t very nice at all) . His eyes flicked to the side, searching. There was no one there but him and the monster. There was a chair, three steps to the right which he might be able to use if it came to that. If the Spider let him get that far.

Tim swallowed. “You tracked him?”

“I tracked his phone.”

“That’s-” absolutely psychotic. “Isn’t that a breach of his privacy?”

“He stormed out of our flat two hours after meeting with a supernatural pyromaniac who gave him a third degree burn. After I told him not to. After he lied to me, to my face , that he was going to see Georgie. Trust is a two way thing, Tim.”

Jon had been telling the truth then. That, or it was lying. It seemed a bit much to fake the anger seeping underneath a layer of aggressive positivity, but Tim wouldn’t put it past the Spider.

It offered the cup to him again. Tim decided he’d take it, if that was what it took to get the thing to move out of the way.

The Spider didn’t move.

It was probably waiting for him to drink it. Tim had just enough self preservation to know that was a horrible idea.

Minutes passed. The Spider didn’t so much as blink.

Which was worse, disrupting the neat domestic narrative the spider had spun or following it to script? It wasn’t a choice at all.

Move, Tim wanted to demand, and go fuck off forever while you’re at it. What came out instead was “Could you slide over a bit? You’re blocking the door.”

The Spider fixed its gaze on the untouched mug in Tim’s hands. “In a bit.”

“I was really hoping to leave now .”

“No.” The spider said it softly, like a gentle caress, like petting a sickly dog right before you put it out of its misery. “No, that won’t do at all.”

It felt like standing in Covent Garden Theater, too terrified to move. It felt like passing out in the archives while worms burrowed into his skin. It felt like being called into the coroner’s office to identify Sasha’s body, which wasn’t Sasha’s body at all.

Tim took a step back. Before he could take another, a hand curled over his wrist.

“You should record a statement first.”

“I don’t like recording statements.” That was a lie.

Tim tugged at the hand on his wrist but the Spider was strong. Too strong. “Why not? You’ve done it before.”

He had. When Lietner was murdered and Jon was framed, Tim was alone in the archives with the Spider. Tim knew the Spider had done it. He didn’t Know the way Jon did, but Tim had a brain thank you very much. He just couldn’t figure out why.

The Spider had offered to help but Tim wasn’t having it so it was up to him to record until Melanie arrived to lighten the load. Even then he kept recording more than his share. He’d found three tapes in Jon’s voice cobwebbed up on his desk. They sat there for 13 days, untouched. He’d almost thrown them away, but Tim’s curiosity got that better of him and he’d played them back. It was a good thing he had. They were all about the circus, about the things which stole his brother’s skin and Sasha’s name, and how could Tim stop recording statements after that? If these were here then there must be more and Tim had to know .

“I could give you mine if you like.”

Tim stared at it. It took him awhile to find his voice. “... no thank you.”

“It’s really no bother.”

“I recorded one yesterday,” Tim said because that was true, wasn’t it?

“I know.” The Spider’s eyes gleamed. There were six of them now. “In the future I’d prefer if you didn’t feed off my boyfriend, but I suppose I can’t fault you for this one. I’m just glad it worked.”

What worked? Tim stared at it. His breath was in his ears and his heart was in his feet. He needed to leave. Now.

“You must be hungry Tim. Afterall, you only had half a statement.”

Tim heard static. He tasted battery acid and magnets and that thin paper filament they put in tapes. He bit his tongue till it bled because this wasn’t happening. This wasn’t happening this wasn’t happening this wasn’t happening thiswasn’thappening

He was so hungry. Dear gods, he was starving.

The Spider continued its rambling, “Jon stopped it, didn’t he? He managed to stop a statement right in the middle. He’s quite powerful, my Jon. Adorable really.”

Had that tape recorder always been there?

“But you must be starving. Poor thing. Look at me, prattling on about my love life while you still haven’t eaten. That’s very impolite of me, and while you’ve been so good to my Jon too and- Right. Getting sidetracked. Statement of-”

“Stop it.”

“Martin Blackwood regarding the Spider and the Fly. Statement given-”

“I said stop ! Stop talking. Stop stop stopstopstopstopstop -”

“As a gift to a dear friend, April 25th 2017.”

The spider smiled at him.

“Statement begins.”

I’ve always liked spiders.

When I was a child, I kept a spider in the back of my closet. Made me feel a bit rebellious, and I think I needed that. She didn’t like pets, my mum.

It wasn’t a lie exactly. I just never told her and she never asked. I probably could have kept a dog if I’d really wanted, so long as I kept it like I kept myself, quiet and out of sight. I liked the spider though, and I’d already named him George.

George was a good spider. I’d feed him the dead stink bugs I found when I cleaned around the house and he’d crawl over the palm of my hand before scuttling back into the dark and cobwebs. I used to talk with him for hours. He probably didn’t actually understand anything I said, but I like to think that when he lifted one leg in the air, just a bit, it was his way of nodding. George was a good listener.

Mum stepped on him.

It was an accident of course. Well, she meant to do it, but she couldn’t have known. That’s my mum for you. She just did things like that sometimes, throwing out things without telling me, or ordering in when I’d already cooked, or telling me to finish up the kitchen right when I grabbed the sponge. She wasn’t trying to be hurtful, she just didn’t know what she was doing and I never told her how I felt about it. Well, I did try to tell her. Once. My mum wasn’t a very good listener.

Spiders have always liked me too. Looking back, I wonder how many of them were normal, if any of them were. I probably should have been more concerned when my fifth grade bully ended up in the hospital for spider bites. Or when this girl at my first job working the checkout line outed me to our boss and half our stock went missing on her watch. She ended up being fired for that. I called it karma at the time, but I can’t help but recall a lot more cobwebs at work after.

It was a good thing I’d gotten that job. I had to quit school just a few months after to take care of my mum.

It was hard, and my mum made it harder, but we got by. I picked up a second job  at a little cafe. When that place closed down, I applied to be a bartender. I had to lie about my age, but that was okay. Between that place and the grocery we got by.

I told myself this was fine. I’d take care of mum until she got better, then I’d go back to school and get on with my life. Obviously, that never happened.

After a while, the hospital bills started to wrack up. So I... lied. Faked my cv. Got a job at the Magnus Institute, in the library. I was transferred to the archives some years after. The job came with a decent pay raise, which was good. The care home mum had insisted on was expensive.

That’s where I met him. Jon. He was... he was an asshole.

I was smitten.

I wasn’t in love or anything. I just liked him. And then I beat myself up about liking him because not only was he my boss, he hated me. He always thanked me when I made him tea though. My mum never thanked me. Plus he had this way of saying my name. Sometimes when I didn’t format something right or I attached the wrong follow up he’d lengthen the vowel.

He was always going off about my follow up research. I could never manage to scrape up as much evidence as you and Sasha, Tim. Sure I hadn’t gone to some fancy university like the rest of the institute, but I did my job just fine thank you very much. Jon thought I was unqualified. I was unqualified. I couldn’t very well tell him that though. So I thought I’d try and prove myself instead.

Which was how I ended up in the basement of Carlos Vittery’s apartment. And then trapped in my apartment under siege by worms. And then dead.

Right. I left that part out of my original statement, didn’t I?

(Oh do settle down, Tim. I know you’re hungry but I’m getting to that part.)

It was on the fifth day that it happened. A silly thing, really. I thought I might, I dunno, outrun Jane and her worms. To be fair, I hadn’t slept in all that time so I wasn’t in the best state of mind. I didn’t even make it out the door. As soon as I opened it the worms were there, and then they were on me and in me, and I was screaming. I thought at the very least someone might have heard that, but no one ever came. I must have laid there for hours.

The worms were... gods I could feel each and every one of them burrowing into my flesh. I’d never been scared of worms before Prentiss. I wasn’t exactly fond of them either, but I’d always made an effort to lift them up off the sidewalk and into the grass after it rained.

I think somehow Jane knew that about me. She was singing through all of it, and the worms were singing, and they wanted me to sing too. It was haunting. It was horrifying.

It was beautiful.

The worms just wanted a home. They wanted me to be their home, and that was all I’d ever wanted, really. I wanted to love and be loved back, to give everything I had and have someone say thank you for once instead of shouting at me to go away.

I wanted to sing, I really did. I almost did.

And then George showed up.

He sat there, perched on my chest. Around him the worms wailed, silvery slimy things gone dead in an instant leaving a perfect worm free ring around him. George stared at me for a long time. Then he lifted one leg in the air, just a bit.

I nodded back.

And then I died.

When I woke up I wasn’t human anymore, though I didn’t realize it at first. I honestly thought I was going a bit mad. I remembered vividly Carlos Vittery’s statement, and Jane Prentiss, and being slowly eaten alive by a thousand silvery worms, but when I blinked my eyes open there was no sign of Jane or her worms, not even carcasses left behind. There was no sign that anything happened at all.

I’d almost convinced myself it was all some terrible dream when George scuttled across my shoulder. He was bigger now, almost the size of my palm and he looked almost human somehow. I don’t know how to describe it, except to say that spiders aren’t supposed to smile. They aren’t supposed to have teeth at all, and they certainly aren’t supposed to be that sharp.

I suppose it could have been a different spider, but the thought wouldn’t occur to me until half a year later. This was George, my George, the same George who spun webs in the back of my closets and dulled my mother's words with cotton. It was the only thing that made any sense.

George smiled at me and I smiled back. Our smiles were the same.

He raised one leg up and then simply because I could I pressed my palm against it. And then another. And another.

I froze. That was too many hands.

There were six of them, I later realized, once I stopped screaming.

The fear hit me all at once, although it had never left at all. It was simply dulled and then the Mother tugged a single thread and a carefully crafted wall of cotton fell away.

The Mother. She’s not a she, not really, but that’s what we call her.

Would you like it back? She asked, and she was me and Anabelle Cane and the spiders and everyone and everything the Web had ever touched all at once.

I whimpered. I didn’t want this, I hadn’t asked for this, but I’d chosen this. There was nothing I could do. I belonged to the Web, and the Mother and there was nothing I could do. It was out of my control. I didn’t like that.

I looked to George for help. He did nothing. 

Did I want it back? Yes please.

The Mother smiled, if such a thing can be said to smile at all

Do it yourself then.

I didn’t know what to do, and then all at once I did. I could see the threads, all of them, the way they shimmered silver and impossible. Beautiful. More brilliant than Jane’s song could ever hope to be. The Mother hadn’t taken control, I realized, she’d given it to me.

I reached out and began to weave.

It took me nine days to do it. I spun and I wove and I knit and I sewed and I shaped a brilliant tapestry, so thin it was imperceptible. I pulled it around my shoulders and then I had two arms instead of my six and my teeth looked halfway normal. It was sloppy work. I’m much better at it now.

Elias was there when I rushed into the institute 13 days after I visited Carlos Vittery’s flat. He was waiting at the top of the steps. The Beholding saw right through me.

Jon was fooled though. The tape recorder whined when I gave my statement, and my story felt false on my tongue because it was, but Jon couldn’t See when he refused to look.

That was okay. He would soon.

I was going to make sure of it.