Chapter Text
“I wasn’t aware we had an appointment.”
Gertrude raises an eyebrow at the woman standing in her doorway. Mary Keay, as if she hasn’t even spoken, strides right on in.
“Come on, Gertrude.” She drawls. “Do I need to make an appointment to speak with an old friend?”
“Who let you in?”
“Emma.” Mary says smoothly. “You can hardly act surprised, dear, what with your…”
“I do not serve the beholding.” Gertrude replies sharply. “Watch your tongue– oh, ah. Why did you bring him?”
The “him” in question is Mary’s toddler, whom Gertude has just noticed peeking from behind the door frame. He’s redheaded just like his mum, the same dark locks that flow straight down Mary’s back like a curtain.
“Well, I could hardly leave him at home.” She says, snapping her fingers. “He could—Gerard, come over here—get into any number of unpleasant artefacts. I don’t fancy my son being eaten by a book before he can even understand what they are.”
“I’ll have you know there are many artefacts here that could eat him.” She says dryly, watching the child scamper across the floor to his mother. He stares up at her with wide, dark eyes, long eyelashes. He bears an almost uncanny resemblance to his mum. Gertrude can’t remember the last time she’d seen the boy. Maybe the pictures collecting dust on Eric’s desk before she’d moved all his abandoned things into a box in the corner of the archive.
“At that age they’re… talking, yes?”
“Oh yes, you should hear him sometimes. Doesn’t shut up, really.” Mary laughs. “Gerard, say hello to Gertrude.”
Gerard just stares, looking between his mother and her, and his little face takes on a bit of a frightened quality. He doesn’t speak.
“Well, it hardly matters.” Gertrude waves it off, leaning back in her chair. “In any case, you did come to see me for a reason, and I’m sure it wasn’t showing off your little prodigy. So what is it?”
Mary smirks. “Sharp as ever, Gertie-” Gertrude scoffs. “-I do need something from you.”
“What makes you think I’ll give it to you?”
“Oh… just a thought.” She leans against the desk and slightly forward, the tips of her red hair brushing the scattered statements. “A little birdie told me… that you’re after the ritual of the hunt?”
“Which birdie would that be?”
Mary simply smiles secretively and doesn’t entertain her with an answer. In the corner of her eye, Gertrude watches little Gerard playing with a pen that she’d dropped on the floor earlier. She sighs.
“Out with it then. I’m sure you have some inane proposal for me.”
“There’s a book.”
Figures.
“It’s always a book with you.” Gertrude mutters under her breath. She knows Mary hears, and the other woman just tilts her head, still smiling.
“Let me finish, Gertrude dear. It belongs to the hunt. I’m sure it could bring you ever so closer to this, ah… grand revelation that you seek.”
Gertrude raises an eyebrow. “A hunt book? Are you certain?”
“Quite.” Mary gets a real smug look on her face now, like she knows she’s got Gertrude hook, line, and sinker. One of her hands walks across Gertrude’s desk to snatch a pen from the mug she’s been using to store them.
“Well, I’m sure you’re going to tell me about it even if I don’t want to hear, correct?”
“Yes.” She clicks the pen. “See, the thing is, Gertrude, is that it’s a children’s book. Currently in the possession of a decently affluent purveyor of children’s literature.”
“I see.”
“She’s planning to auction off the book at a family event later this week, along with a few other… unimportant pieces. None of the rest of them are abnormal, to my knowledge.”
“And I care about this… why?”
“The book is titled Everchase. Going by the summary, it follows a group of school children that join a game of tag and end up playing… forever.”
Gertrude adjusts her glasses, giving no outward sign to Mary that she’s affected, though she feels her heart start to beat faster. “I… see.”
“Gertrude, I think we might be able to help each other here.” Mary smirks, slowly picking up one of the old statements abandoned on her desk. She turns it over to the blank side, and begins to scribble something.
“Indeed.” Gertrude replies dryly. She spares another look back at Gerard, who’s sat himself on the floor and is making the aforementioned pen and the corpse of a dead cockroach dance in circles. Best not to dwell on that. She looks back at Mary, who slides the paper back toward her, the written side down.
“Am I correct in assuming that this… family event requires one to show up with… one’s family?”
“On the nose, Gertie.” Mary pushes her hair behind her ear. “Plenty of rich families will be vying for these books. You must be two parents and bring at least one child—bit backward if you ask me—but there’s nothing that bars a same-sex couple from attending.”
Gertrude had seen where this was going a long time before she’d gotten to the punchline, but it’s still nice to be proven right, even if she had known she was right from the start. She sighs.
“And when we’ve acquired the book.” It’s not a question. Both Mary and Gertrude have large sums of money squirrelled away for the purpose of purchasing such artefacts, so at least one of them ought to have enough for the transaction.
“Oh, you can study it.” She says sweetly. “All I ask is that, once you’ve squeezed all the information you can out of it, you return it to Pinhole Books.”
“Very well.” Gertrude says, knowing that that could mean close to anything, and that she very well might be making a deal with the devil. The promise of information on the ritual of the hunt is too tantalising to resist. Evidently, Mary knows that. She extends her hand to shake on it, and Mary’s grip is tight and cold.
“Wonderful.” Mary says, smiling like a shark, her teeth gleaming. She backs off the desk. “I’ll see you on the provided date. Dress to impress.”
“Will do.” Gertrude says dryly. Again, Mary snaps her fingers.
“Come, Gerard.” Then, she’s leaving, her high heels clicking on the wood floor. She vanishes out the door, her long straight hair swinging behind her. She doesn’t look back, and her son, with one last unreadable glance back at Gertrude, disappears behind her.
Gertrude sighs again, leaning back in her chair, and pinches the bridge of her nose. Flipping over the statement, written on the blank side in Mary’s chicken scratch, is an address, a time, and the words: WE WILL MEET AT THE INSTITUTE HALF AN HOUR TO START.
“What have I gotten myself into.” She mutters, then gets up to close the door. Mary had left it open, predictably. That woman has no respect.