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In primary school, Martin had learned of the rule of three. In fairy tales and mythology, everything came in threes. There were three good fairies, three Fates, three wishes the genie gave you. Although primary school was a lifetime ago for an ordinary adult, and countless lifetimes ago for those working in the archives, the lesson stuck with Martin however many years passed.
When his father left, Martin was eight years old. Not that his father was present. Not that his father was a particularly good man, at least not according to his mother. When Mr. Blackwood left his wife and young son, Martin was almost glad because it meant the hall outside of his room that led to the kitchen was quiet for once.
He found himself staring at the ceiling of their tiny flat, the ugly rust colored stains like galaxies creeping across the graying plaster. He waited for Mum or Dad to start up, that urgent whispering that soon turned to screaming and then sounds of furniture being knocked around, or something being punched. He waited for hours every night, but this time, there was only the television's unintelligble sounds, muffled through the doors. Mum fell asleep in front of the television sometimes, he knew, slumped against the arm of the big lumpy chair that reminded young Martin of a big turd with the frayed yellowing doily draped over the back. He would tiptoe out, gently drape a blanket over her, and turn off the television. She wouldn't want it to be running through the night.
Dad was gone, he told himself after a few weeks. Martin couldn't decide whether that was good or bad. It was the first of three - good things, bad things? Martin was not sure.
And then Mum fell sick. Martin had forgotten about his father by then. Not forgotten, exactly, but he didn't think of him much anymore. When Mum fell sick, it only made sense for him to take care of her. After all, what did he have other than her?
None of his teachers missed him. That much was obvious when he didn't get a single call about coming back to the classroom. He doubted his classmates knew he existed, either. Martin wasn't particularly popular, just a chubby, awkward nobody who sat in the back of the classroom and scraped by with his mediocre grades and zero extracurricular activities.
He had passed his GCSEs, just barely, but passed nonetheless. His grades weren't stellar, and as sixth form dragged on, it grew clearer and clearer there was no money for university. Not that there was money for university before, but tuition fees would cut into food and rent, and there was no way he could afford to take care of Mum full time. Bitterly, he thought, it would be stupid to go to school to study poetry of all things. He couldn't spend 9k pounds a year for that, now could he? It's what Mum would say.
So Mum falling ill was definitely a bad thing. Martin wouldn't let her think that, of course. He couldn't remind her of that man who he no longer thought of as Dad anymore because after all, can you call a man whose voice and face you don't remember Dad? There were no pictures of them together, Mum had gotten rid of them all, so no, Martin chose not to remember him, but he wondered, sometimes, whether they could afford to send him to uni if only he had stuck around.
Rule of threes, he thought to himself as he worked odd jobs in the late night and came back to take care of Mum during the day. If Dad leaving was the first bad thing, and Mum falling sick was the second, perhaps there was only one misfortune left before he never had to experience anything truly bad again. It was oddly comforting to think this way, though he knew it was juvenile, overly simplistic thinking at best.
And then he found the advertisement in the newspaper. Everyone knew of the Magnus Institute, of course. Everyone also always laughed when they spoke of it - some whackjob institution that investigated aliens or some nonsense like that. He almost didn't look twice at the listing, but something caught his eye. Archival assistant. Some experience required.
It paid well, he reasoned. He didn't have "some experience," but he couldn't stop thinking about the job. He would just be an assistant, he assured himself. Besides, archive work can't be that different from stocking shelves and doing inventory, could it? Silently, he wrote down the phone number, noting the message to "ask for Elias to inquire into the position."
He also exaggerated a bit on his CV, but well, doesn't everyone? It's not like they would check whether he really had a Master's in parapsychology, right? He was nearing thirty, the right age to have that kind of degree, and he had always loved ghost stories, staying up to read them all night as a child. It counted, he told himself, and he kept telling himself as such when he went to meet Elias at the Magnus Institute in an ill fitting suit that he couldn't lift his arms in, and when he shook Elias's hand, and then when he was told he was a promising young man and he got the job, immediately after the interview.
Elias had taken one look at his CV and smiled, but Martin felt uneasy.
This was the first good thing, getting that archival assistant job. He went home that night, a bottle of cheap champagne in a small plastic bag from a local corner store.
"Good news, Mum," he announced to the once young woman who now sat staring forlornly at the television. "I got the job!" He smiled, hoping to prompt her to smile, too.
She looked at him with disgust. "Go away," she told him.
"Okay, Mum. I'll just make you some dinner," said Martin, because what else was he supposed to do?
The months passed, and then a few years, and the head archivist was replaced. Martin never worked with Gertrude Robinson, but he wondered briefly what happened to her.
Not that he could complain when he saw the new archivist. He was distinguished looking, graying dark hair swept back, wire rim glasses, dark skin, clean shaven. Looked like he took his coffee black, looked like the type of guy whose life was his work, and who took no nonsense from anyone.
His name was Jonathan Sims.
Martin was assigned to work with him, one day, along with two other archive assistants, Tim and Sasha. He knew Tim and Sasha, somewhat. They were never close, but they talked.
As far as the rule of threes went, it was a neutral thing. New boss, new colleagues.
As the weeks continued on, he found himself learning more about them. Sasha loved jazz and traveling, and Tim was quite the ladies (and gentelmen) man, both perfectly charming. They went out for drinks after work, and eventually, Martin found himself staying out more, worrying about Mum less.
He felt guilty whenever he did, of course, but he assured himself he still cared for her, he just needed to focus on his own life.
He still fed her, bathed her, changed her as she deteriorated. She stared at him with eyes full of burning hatred.
"Go away," she would say. "Shut up. Go away." Her voice was so cold.
"Okay, Mum, I'm almost done. Do you want dessert?" he would always respond something like that.
Her eyes bored into him, as though willing him to drop dead. Martin sighed. Perhaps, he figured, it would be better for her to have professional care. He wasn't abandoning her, he thought with annoyance at the little voice in his head that accused him. He just wasn't equipped to take care of her. And the arrangements were made, and that was that.
The flat was lonely without her. It was lonely with her, too, but lonely without her seemed appropriate because he wasn't a monster who loathed his mother. He just wanted his own life, and was that so wrong?
Work went well, but he noticed little things - Jonathan liked to be called Jon. Apparently, he was Martin's age, although he looked older due to his prematurely graying hair. He didn't sleep much.
Oh, and he thought Martin was useless.
He wasn't wrong, thought Martin petulantly. It still hurt. Not that Jon ever said it, of course, but it was obvious, wasn't it?
But there was also something about Jon, something endearing. He was a small man, thin and much shorter than Martin, and he had a way of contentedly holding a tape recorder in one hand and a statement in another if you happened to pass his office while he was recording one. He was deathly afraid of spiders, which Martin personally found offensive, as furry spiders were very cute and did so much for the environment, but it was amusing to watch this put together man scream at the sight of a tiny jumping spider on the kitchen counter in the shared archive space where everyone made coffee. He drank an absurd amount of chamomile, as if he could somehow force himself to sleep at night, which seemed unlikely given the dark circles under his eyes, if he could just drown himself in tea.
One night, late at the archive, Martin was packing up to go home. The door to Jon's office was slightly ajar, the head archivist slumped over, his glasses askew, breathing softly, his cheek on his forearm. The teabag in his Styrofoam cup sat in the weak yellowish liquid, soggy and cold.
Almost out of habit, Martin took the jacket off the back of Jon's chair, covering the archivist's shoulders. He seemed to breathe a little easier after that.
Martin made him a fresh cup of tea and left it on the desk before gathering his bags and going home to an apartment where no one awaited him. A warm feeling rose in his chest, paralleling the small smile he felt drift onto his reddened face.
Jonathan Sims was his boss. Neutral thing, Martin stubbornly reminded himself in the cold winter air. Neutral thing. He couldn't afford it to be a good or a bad thing.
And then Jane Prentiss attacked. Worms everywhere, and Martin felt like he was eight years old again, helpless and waiting for the yelling to start, except this time, he stared at the rusty brown stains for two minutes at a time before he got up and checked the windows and the door of his flat and the cabinets, and he paced and paced and this time, there was no Mum watching the television. Just Martin, waiting in the silence for those hideous worms to wriggle through the cracks in his door.
He ate canned peaches for two weeks. Kept waiting and watching and blocking up cracks and holes in the walls and floors until Jane Prentiss went away and the coast was clear, and then he went as fast as he could to the archive, to alert Tim and Sasha and Jon.
Rule of threes: bad thing. Jane Prentiss was a very, very bad thing.
But that was good, wasn't it? Because Jane Prentiss was the last bad thing. Rule of threes, how could everything possibly get worse than being marooned in his flat, hunted by worms with no way to contact the archive.
He almost wanted to cry when Jon demanded he stay in the archive in order to stay safe. When he saw Jon cared. About him.
As it turned out, the rule of threes was utter bullshit. But at the moment... at the moment, Martin let himself believe in the second good thing: maybe, just maybe, the bad things had spent themselves out at last.