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Humming a melody beyond human recognition, Jon finds himself watching through mirrors and paintings and walls as Michael lures a worrisome woman with a severe expression into the hallways. She walks in without understanding, answering the pulse under her skin.
Her name is and isn't Helen Richardson, and Jon can hear her song just out of reach. He knows her, feels her just beyond a human countenance that masks her true nature. The Spiral bats at time like a ball of string before a cat, and Helen and Richardson stand before a mirror, Jon's mirror, looking past themselves and then back inwards to the twisting madness that lies beneath.
"Helen," Jon warbles and reaches through the mirror. "Come home, sister…"
But time unravels itself for an instant, and there is no Helen…
Helen Richardson finds a door through a mirror and bolts. Later, she will learn, in a hospital bed, that it's been days since she vanished. She will worry and wonder about the voice calling her sister; she feels its name is Jonathan… but she won't search for the door back to ask.
No, Helen Richardson intends to put it out of her mind...
And Jon is pissed.
Beholding laughs as Helen Richardson enters its London-based temple. It had to spend hours impressing upon its nephew that just because Helen left the hallways, that doesn't mean that she won't ever return. Michael had years to acclimate to Jon's presence; she had days.
So Jon huffs and waits within the twisting cacophony for Helen Richardson to descend into the archives to tell her story.
As soon as Helen Richardson finishes her tale, Sasha notices the yellow spiraled handle. She can feel the desire radiating from its color, the compulsion to open it and walk inside. If Sasha listens hard enough, she can hear a voice calling from beyond the door… But none of it's for her.
"Helen," she warns, but it's too late. Helen opens the door anyway and walks into the distortion again.
Jon wraps his arms around his sister as she shudders, lying on a floor made of unyielding carpet and soft rocks. Her body twists and lengthens and becomes so perfect, so correct as a song spills from her insides. She frays at the edges where she touches Jon skin to skin, and she can feel him deep with her as she sinks into him.
"Helen…" he whispers her name in a chant as the hallways rip Richardson away and strip her bare before singing his sister into being. "Helen, Helen, Helen–"
She shushes him, eyes soft and sharp and flecked with so many colors. "I'm here now… I'm not going anywhere."
Jon cries so happily and beckons for the third twisted figure to curl around them. Michael sinks into them both, the three creatures resonating so perfectly that it's like they're one twisted conglomeration. It's perfect, yet...
"You know…" She smiles with razor sharp teeth. "I think I'm hungry."
The next time Sasha sees Helen, there's a lithe creature behind her made of too many colors and odd angles and far too many bones. Helen looks just like it, in a way, frightening Tim and Martin who'd never come across anything like it or heard Helen's tale… but they listen and watch, held fast by tempestuous curiosity.
"Thank you for trying to help me." Helen's voice echoes just the slightest bit and is threaded through with a melody that no one can place. "I want you to meet my brother." She pushes Jon forwards, and he smiles at Sasha wider than humanly possible… but there's no malice in that grin; he doesn't blame her for Helen leaving that first time. "This is Jonathan."
"Hello, archivist."
"And that's Michael." She points towards the open yellow door in the archives where Michael stands, leaning against the door frame with wild eyes painted by memories of a life past.
He steps through all but ignoring the humans to stand with his family. "I found a lovely diner for us to get something to eat," he says, and there's a terrifying gleam to his painted eyes.
And Helen laughs and feels at peace for once in her lives.