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There is a book on Sasha’s desk, accompanied by a statement, but the piece of paper does little for anything, but shoulder a second of curiosity, before eyes are diverted to the true oddity; the book. She wonders what it might be, as Martin and Tim walk in to speak with her about something. There is something strange about this book, old and worn, the front is slightly torn.
It feels important, feels like a statement, feels like answers.
A Guest for Mr. Spider, she stares at it, and then at the cobwebs in the corner. And then at her assistants and friends. She wonders what in the world they’re here for, until they are talking and it feels like there's water in her ears, bubbling like a hot tub, making everything told to her warbling and strange, not reaching her brain in a way that makes any sense of the words. Sasha sets her head on her table, waiting for the sudden wave of deja vu and nausea to pass before she questions her friends.
“Sasha are you alright?” Martin asks cautiously, as Tim is already walking over to put a hand on her shoulder, he looks worried, Sasha realizes vaguely.
Said archivist looks at her friends and sighs, “Sorry just needed a second. What is that?”
The cover of A Guest for Mr. Spider is white, the cobwebbed words seem to smile menacingly at the humans who stare at its cover, unsettling them pulling their minds into fearful fantasy.
It is not a spider on the front of the cover, but a man, not quite tall but not short, eight eyes staring up, as he holds a steaming cup in hands. He is sitting at a table, the only real color a lovely deep red hat that he wears. It is childish, not a detailed thing, other than the horrible eyes, and visceral spider legs that come out of his back.
They open the cover, and the nameplate leitner is not there, but they can see something has been torn out. A page, or maybe a phrase. Something is torn viciously from the page, the words “I am not him.” written over and over in a childlike scrawl. It sends something dark to pool into all of their stomach, the words looking old as the book, seeing as the scrawl dissolves into blotting ink and tear stains. There is blood in small droplets mixing with the black ink that smudged across the bottom of the page.
Sasha carefully turns to the first page. Martin and Tim make to stop her, before looking interested as well. It wasn’t a leitner presumably so here should be no harm, it reads in three lines per page, some words are scratched out and some are penciled in in different color pen, the words slowly ranging from Mr. Spider, to Mr. Sims, back to Mr. Spider again as the handwriting grew more mature. The final page is blank, and written in ink that has only just settling, scrawling and spidery.
“An Archivist reads the page, and Mr. Spider waits blocks away.
A Guest for Mr. Spider, a teatime guest, he is content not for dinner,
She wants to know, and she will learn. But the Archivist is Hungry, and it is not enough.”
Sasha throws the book with a short yell, she is breathing unevenly, sucking in air as if she was unable to while her eyes were skimming the children's book. She is curious. The Archivist is Hungry. Those words are echoing in her head like a cavernous thing, the clicking of spider’s mouth, flashes of red like blood and like the bright red hat.
Tim looks at her and then the book, and he glares at it, “Sasha are you alright?”
“No. It knew I was going to read it. That means someone was in my office and left this here for me. Those words didn’t magically appear Tim.” She stands up staring at the creased pages of the haphazardly thrown book. A scream is still trapped in her chest, but she forces it down again. This was dangerous.
‘The Archivist is Hungry.’
Martin and Tim are looking around with her, glaring around the room, and Sasha spots a spider crawling out from under the book, a large thing with too many eyes that had not been in the pages as she perused. Big black with long legs and thick dark body, lean and fast, it’s legs carry it as it seems to be looking both at its destination and Sasha herself.
She follows it with a vicious resolve to squish it, her stomping footsteps unsettling her companions as they follow her, she follows the spider up until she gets to the glass doors of the lobby and realizes that was what the spider wanted. Pausing, she evaluates her resolve, was it truly her plan to squish it, was something manipulating her?
The spider has stopped in its tracks as well.
The door to her office is closed when she runs back down, and both Martin and Tim have their things with them, and she sees Tim holding her bag. They both look somber, curious, a mirage of emotions that she isn't in the right mindset to deal with, to know is not to understand, she thinks.
“We’re going to investigate with you, we either do this now and together or we keep you from leaving out sights. You won't let this go.” Martin explains, a stoney set to his face.
They realize that this is not smart, even as they stare at the red door the spider leads them too. Tim goes to knock before Sasha stops him, remembering that the fly knocked and that's what trapped him in the web, and yells.
“Let us in Mr. Spider! We won't knock.” She thinks the small house was almost idyllic, old but in a rustic pretty way, flowers on the windowsills, the red door glaring at her. It was a trap, a web weaved by Mr. Spider, the spider crawls into an open window, and the door opens. They cannot leave now, but they have the choice to, something surprising to the three.
A man stares at them, looking pleasant enough, though not like an accommodating host. The only thing that separates him from a normal man that was confused at visitors yelling a name like Mr. Spider had been the lovely deep red hat on his head. He adjusts the collar of his shirt as if surprised.
“Hello Archivist. Archival Assistants. Smart way to get around the knocking situation I suppose. I’m glad you didn’t knock.” He moves out of the way, his way of inviting them in. Sasha walks in, feeling the completely different force wave in the room. It was like walking in a place where gravity was different.
‘I’m glad you didn’t knock.’ again words echo in all of their heads, Sasha stares. What do those words mean, she thinks, she glares her question into the bun on the back of the spider’s head.
They walk past wall to wall bookshelves and reading nooks full of blankets and cobwebs, and then see a door the same red as the front, and spiders are making their way in and out from the crack under the door. Mr. Spider shoos them past the door.
They come to a table, one they recognize as the one from the cover of the book, the same mahogany wood and chairs.
They all sit, and Mr. Spider looks at them, “Yes? Ask your questions.”
Sasha stares, “What are you? What do you mean my you’re glad we didn’t knock.”
“Un unwilling spider.” Mr. Spider says, pushing hair out of his face and tapping his nails on the table, before wincing, “One question at a time from now on, that hurts. I’m glad you didn’t knock, because then you would have been guests, and you know what happens to guests.”
He looks wistfully at them, before sighing. He seems less intimidating now, as he answers her questions, feeds her curiosity.
“What do you mean unwilling?”
Mr. Spider stares for a second, a small smile on his face as if he was making a joke, “Would you like my statement? Is that what you want?”
Sasha nods faster than she thinks is appropriate, and Mr. Spider obliges.
“Statement of Jonathan Sims, regarding his childhood experience with Mr. Spider,
My grandmother bought me books from charity shops all the time, it was the only way to keep me still and keep me from being an annoying child. I was picky, not wanting to read a book that was like any I’ve read before, and she scrounged for them. I can’t say she didn’t love me, but she didn’t want me, I don’t think. It’s pretty obvious now, but it is what it will be, however sad that seems. I am content with it.
The book was old, as I got it, and I read it, one you might be familiar with, Archivist, A Guest for Mr. Spider. I read it, and was made to follow a silent string, as I walked and read and dreaded the fate that awaited me. A fly walking into a spiderweb. I end up at a red door, hand poised to knock, and the door opens early, Mr. Spider is standing there, looking at me, his new meal. Instead of taking me into the house and killing me, as usual, he drops dead.
That’s the only reason I’m alive I believe, a stroke of luck at a stray bullet hitting a human sized creature. I do wonder about fate, what would have happened. We both know the answer to that though, I wouldn’t be here giving my statement.
I drop the book, and I run home, terrified for my life, still full of fear and childlike.
Hiding under the blankets did nothing, because the next day I see the book staring at me, now unable to hurt me I think, because the monster is dead. I try to ignore it, not touching it, but I’m curious, and I see my name in the book. Jonathan Spider. Not Sims. That might be where the horror filled scrawls came from as I wrote and wrote that that was not me.
As I grew older, the book was still on the shelf, and I still tried to get rid of the spiders in my room, and tried to dust away the cobwebs. It was funny, to other people that I started getting grey hair at the ripe age of eleven, three years after that experience, but it was never grey hair, it was cobwebs, strands of silk growing from my head as if spun there.
I felt like I was starving for years, until I moved here, until I had the urge to paint my door red, the urge to leave the webs be. The urge to wait, until a knock at my door, the urge to control.
In the end it was me, some twist of fate made me take the spider's place, feeding off the fear of people unable to stop me from inviting them in. A knock is what ends it I think, that strong sound that puts it into perspective. A knock is like a dinner bell, in a sick way.”
He looks at the three of them, and takes off the red hat, setting it on the table. He looks tired, different from what they expected from a monster. Bags under his eyes, cobwebs that look like grey hairs, worry lines deep and stressed.
“May I ask some questions of my own?” Mr. Spider, no Jonathan Sims, asks. His hands are clasped in front of him, and Sasha can swear she sees double, she swears she can see a man who is curious like her, one that may have been her in some weird way, in some distant time. A sad realization struck that maybe if life went different they could have been friends.
“Go ahead.” Martin shakily responded, he is holding Sasha’s hand under the table, all three of them taken aback and still in shock. Tim and Martin are looking at him with fear, and something that reminds her of pity. She wonders if she looks the same, as she gestures for him to ask.
Jonathan Sims gives them a weak, sad smile, and they see eight eyes staring at them now, teeth too sharp, “What is it like to be able to choose to be human?”