[CLICK]
[HEAVY BREATHING, SLIGHT WHIMPER]
[SOUND OF A BODY DRAGGING ITSELF ACROSS A FLOOR]
[WHISPERS BEGIN, OVERLAPPING ONE ANOTHER, JUST LOUD ENOUGH TO BE AUDIBLE, ECHOING SLIGHTLY]
GHOST 1
—hurt me, please don’t hurt me, I won’t tell—
GHOST 2
—have any money, I swear, it all went into—
GHOST 3
—think you’re doing with that, you little—
GHOST 4
—away from me, you crazy witch, I’ll have the law on—
GHOST 5
—Bookmaster, she who holds the Keys—
GHOST 6
—feeling better, I promise I am, you can—
GHOST 7
—hurts, it hurts, please make it stop, I’ll do—
GHOST 8
—me say goodbye to Martin—Martin?
[Louder] Martin! Martin—my God, is that you?
ARCHIVIST
Aah! Wh-what—how—o-oh, God.
GHOST 8
I can’t believe…
Oi! Shut up, you lot, he’s not—just—just give us a minute.
[WHISPERS FALL SILENT]
Bloody hell. Like looking in a mirror…not sure where you got those eyes, though. Don’t think mine are that bright, are they?
ARCHIVIST
Who…what are you?
GHOST 8
[Broken laugh] You’re telling me you don’t recognize your old man?
ARCHIVIST
What?!
KIERAN
Look at you. You’ve…(heh) you’ve grown since I saw you last.
[ARCHIVIST GIVES A SOFT GROAN OF PAIN]
ARCHIVIST
I was seven years old…d-did you think I…was going to shrink?
[KIERAN GIVES A GENUINE LAUGH AT THAT]
KIERAN
I see you got my temper as well as my face. That must make your mother happy.
ARCHIVIST
Explains why she…hates me so much.
KIERAN
She doesn’t hate you.
ARCHIVIST
How would you know? You were—nngh—never there.
KIERAN
Are you—you’re bleeding. You’re hurt.
ARCHIVIST
[Through gritted teeth] Brilliant deduction, Sherlock.
KIERAN
Did they do this to you?
…
I’ll kill them. By God, I don’t know how, but I’ll kill them for this.
ARCHIVIST
Don’t pretend to c-care to justify—
[HISS OF PAIN, A COUPLE OF RAGGED BREATHS]
If you want to kill them…f-fine. Fine. Just don’t pretend it’s on my account.
KIERAN
What…Martin.
Of course I care. What makes you think I don’t?
ARCHIVIST
What do you think? You left.
KIERAN
For work. I was—you’re, you’re right, I was never there, not like I should have been, but it was because I was working.
ARCHIVIST
Mum—[gasps] Mum t-told me you…weren’t coming back.
KIERAN
[Deep breath] I won’t deny I…said some things I regret. But I didn’t mean them. I was coming back.
I asked your grandfather to make sure you knew you weren’t why I left early. Didn’t he?
ARCHIVIST
…
Well…yeah, he did, but…I, I always assumed…he was just trying to buck me up.
I mean, I f-figured if, if you really c-cared about me, you…wouldn’t have left me with…her.
KIERAN
Martin. Son, I…
Jesus, that’s bad. Let me see it.
…
Ah. Aye, I probably should’ve expected that.
ARCHIVIST
I-it’s…it’s not that bad.
KIERAN
Not that bad?! You look like a Halloween decoration!
ARCHIVIST
T-trust me, I’ve had worse. (heh) Kind of sucks that—that it’s my…dominant hand, but…I’ll live. I think.
If…if I can g-get out of here, I can…there, there must be a hospital nearby. I just…[deep breath] I d-dont have the…energy.
KIERAN
That tends to be a side effect of major blood loss.
ARCHIVIST
[Faint laugh] I think that’s…the least of my problems right now, actually.
I was…already tired. Used too much of…m-myself in there. If I…had the strength…
KIERAN
[Anguished] What do you need? I—damn it, Martin, I haven’t been able to do anything for you. Tell me—
Oh, fuck.
ARCHIVIST
[Calmly] Okay, that’s…probably not good.
KIERAN
Don’t you dare die on me, you hear me, boyo? I love you, but—
ARCHIVIST
[With a sudden burst of energy] You don’t get to say that. Not yet.
KIERAN
[Sighs] My temper, all right. And every ounce of stubbornness from both sides.
Here, if I can…I can help you. I can—
Okay, maybe I can’t rip up a pillowcase and tie that hand up for you. Wouldn’t trust that bedding anyway. She bathes more often than he does, but I still don’t know what’s on those…
Tell me what to do. Tell me how to help.
ARCHIVIST
I…
Tell me what happened.
KIERAN
What?
[FAINT GROAN FROM THE ARCHIVIST]
[FABRIC RUSTLES, THE BED CREAKS FAINTLY AS THE ARCHIVIST LEANS AGAINST IT]
ARCHIVIST
I’m…it’s, it’s a thing I’m…becoming. It’s…a long story. But when people—when they t-tell me their, things that have happened, their…(heh) their deepest, darkest secrets…I, they kind of…fuel me.
Tell me…why you left. How you…got here.
You’re, you’re dead. I didn’t—
[Realizes] F-fuck! Fuck, he—he was right. You—you were in the Book.
KIERAN
You knew about that?
ARCHIVIST
Aunt M-Mary…showed all three of us. The Book, I mean. To, to scare us into line.
Gerry…Gerry told me that…he thought you m-might have…been in it. But I didn’t…
KIERAN
Gerry?
Wait—not the Gerard those two are always going on about?
ARCHIVIST
Yeah. Gerard Keay. We…we call him Gerry.
What—how did you…
KIERAN
It’s not a nice story.
And I’m not sure—you don’t need to know that. You don’t need to…
ARCHIVIST
Hate Mum?
KIERAN
I didn’t say that.
ARCHIVIST
You didn’t have to.
[A PAUSE, BROKEN BY THE ARCHIVIST’S RAGGED BREATHING]
I work for the Magnus Institute. Taking statements is…kind of what we do. I’m…in the Archives and…I have, the-there are things I can do. Not…nice things. Not really.
KIERAN
…Will it really help you?
ARCHIVIST
Yeah. Fear…I sort of…eat it. That’s a bit of an understatement, but…so-something like that.
And…it might…connect us. Dunno. Never…never taken a statement from a ghost before. But…
Sometimes I dream about them. The, the statements. The live ones, anyway.
Do you…still dream?
KIERAN
I don’t quite know if it’s properly dreaming.
But I remember. Sometimes. When I’m not…fully here.
ARCHIVIST
M-maybe if…you remember…I’ll be there next time. Watching.
KIERAN
I don’t want that. Not for you.
…
But I’m not letting you die, either.
So. Where do you want me to start?
ARCHIVIST
At…at the beginning. I guess.
[Deep breath] Statement of…Kieran Blackwood, regarding his life and death. Statement taken direct from subject, twenty-fifth July, 2017. Recording by Martin Blackwood, Archivist, the Magnus Institute, London.
Statement begins.
KIERAN (Statement)
I didn’t know what I wanted as a kid, except that I wanted to be important.
My birthday was—is, I suppose—the second of June, and every year my parents would tell the story, tossing the parts back and forth like a well-rehearsed script until I could practically recite the lines myself—how Mum had tried to ignore the contractions so she and Da could enjoy the procession and the festivities, how it had finally got so bad that they tried to leave their spot watching and barely made it through the crowd, how no taxis were available, how Da tried to carry her himself but didn’t know where he was going because they were only visiting London for the coronation. How I was born right there on the street. Da always laughed and said I was so impatient to see the new queen myself that I couldn’t wait even another hour. I always hated that story, not because it was embarrassing but because it wasn’t really about me. It was about them, and about the coronation. I told Da once that if I’d been able to pick when I was born I’d have picked a day that nothing else was happening so that I was what people would remember, but he just laughed.
I don’t think he got it.
Once I started school, I went out for everything I could, trying to find something I would be the best at and make a name for myself. None of it really stuck. Looking back, I had bought into the idea that if I wasn’t a prodigy and immediately good at something, I never would be—or at least, that I would never be great. Of course everyone eventually improved with practice, but I rather had it in my head that I’d never reach the top if I didn’t start off halfway up the hill. So I would try something for a week or two, then abandon it as soon as I got my first critique. The only thing I was decent at, not even good, but had some talent with, was swimming—and even then it wasn’t necessarily speed or form. I wasn’t winning races or anything. But I could last longer than anyone in my class—even the teacher. Not just floating, either. I could swim for ages and not get tired.
I had a bit of skill with rowing, too, but the problem was that I was bigger and stronger than most of my mates, so in the end I wound up the coxswain for the school team. We won more often than not, but there was a part of me that was dissatisfied, no matter how loud Da cheered or how proudly Mum displayed the ribbons on the walls. I mean, how many famous rowing teams can you name?
I actually wanted to be a politician. I had dreams of being the next Winston Churchill or summat. But I had my heart set on Christ’s College at Cambridge, and my grades weren’t near good enough to get me in without some kind of advantage. And between the fact that Da was a dockworker and I never managed to successfully cover up the Geordie when I talked, I knew I’d never be taken seriously if I didn’t have a really good university degree, so I gave that up. For the first summer after I left school, I worked with Da on the docks.
That’s how I met Mikaele Salesa.
If you work for the Magnus Institute, I’m sure you’ve heard his name, you know what he does. Did, maybe, he might be retired by now, I dunno. Back then, though, he was just starting out. Walked away from some library job, so he told me, assistant to a stuck-up old fool who could afford to indulge a weird hobby. He’d done it with a tidy nest egg, though, and was looking to set up his own business, dealing in antiques. Thought trading by sea was the way to go; it’d be cheaper, after all, and easier to evade customs if need be, although he didn’t say that part out loud. Trouble was, he was a foreigner, in a time when being foreign in England wasn’t the greatest opportunity. And I won’t pretend the sort of lad that hung about docks those days were the most open-minded of fellows.
Me, I never had a problem with them. Partly it was that having wanted to be in politics, where I figured being diplomatic and able to get along with anyone might give me an edge, but partly, well, with my background—not just being in the North, near the docks, where people expected you to be slow and stupid, but also the fact that Mum was from Belfast originally—I had a bit of sympathy for anyone seen as “other”. So when I got off shift and found him being avoided in the local, I sat down next to him and bought him a pint.
He wasn’t much older than I was, maybe ten years at best, and since he’d been born during the second World War, he had some of the same experiences I did about his birthday being overshadowed by historic events. I was fascinated by the stories I told. He was intrigued when I mentioned what skills I’d picked up, said that being able to row if we were becalmed or swim if we capsized were good things for a sailor to know. And after I told off one of my da’s mates for saying something racist, he offered me a job on his crew. Told me he needed a first mate, and if I could help him find a good boat, the post was mine.
We found her, all right, and since it was me doing the talking, we got a good rate on her too. Signed on a crew for the first voyage, provisioned her up, and the Demeter was ready to set sail.
For the first few years, it was…exactly what I’d expected. Finding artifacts, buying them, selling them to rich idiots with more money than sense. The pay was decent, definitely better than I’d have got anywhere else—a kid with no experience, I’d expected to hire on as a seaman, nothing more, and certainly not as first mate—but for me it was about the clout. See, Mikaele—he was Captain Salesa, or just Captain, in front of the crew, but in private he told me to keep calling him Mikaele—tended to treat the crew the way the old sailors did: you signed on for a voyage, you got paid off, and then he’d sign on a whole new crew when he was ready to ship out again. I think it was a way to keep anyone from really knowing what he was doing with some of those artifacts. But I was his partner, so I stayed on. And since I was the only one who’d ever sailed more than one voyage in a row with him, the men in the pubs thought I had something special.
It was what I’d wanted, so I ran with it.
They were just ordinary objects back then, nothing special—well, maybe except for the fact that some of them probably shouldn’t have left the country, if you catch my drift. But one day, maybe eight or nine years after I met him, I came to talk to him about something and found him staring at a sack full of Morgan silver dollars. I knew how rare those were, but after a moment, he looked up at me with the most serious expression I’d ever seen on the man and told me not to touch them, or to let anyone else on the crew near them. If he sold them, he promised, he’d explain everything, but until then it wasn’t safe.
I don’t know what I thought. Maybe that they were radioactive or something? But when we got back to England about six months later, after he’d sold everything and paid off the crew, he asked me to come up to his rooms and discuss “the truth”. That night he laid out everything.
I…I assume from what you said that you know about the Fourteen. That was the first I’d ever heard of them. Mikaele told me the silver dollars he’d been sold belonged to the one called the Slaughter, and that he’d been lucky to be rid of them without it sticking…but it looked like we might have a new avenue of sales. Swore me to secrecy on that front, but promised that if I kept the crew from getting too involved in the…special artifacts, he’d do right by me.
He never let me handle those objects. Said he cared too much about my safety to put me through that. I thought he was just being dramatic until he told me some about what had happened to the other people who’d worked for Jurgen Leitner, and how he’d sworn he would never be that careless with the lives of people who depended on him. Eventually, we worked it out so I handled the men and he handled the purchasing and…acquiring, and that worked well. I got good at spotting the men who’d been touched by the sorts of things that made those objects, too, and would refuse to sign them on. It was a good way to protect the artifacts, or so I thought.
It must’ve been fourteen years later that I met Liliana Koskiewicz. I remember her because she seemed so out of place with the other people that were picking over the cargo, but fit in better with the cargo itself—she looked like a Gibson girl frozen in time. Turned out she was studying archeology at Oxford—there, I bet you didn’t know that about your mum—and had come to see the cargo because she’d heard rumors Mikaele had something that was in her field of study. He had, but it was “special” cargo, so he’d already sold it. I felt bad for her, so I offered to buy her dinner as a consolation prize, and for a wonder, she accepted.
It was a whirlwind romance, which I know must come as a bit of a shock to you, but I tell you I fell head over heels for that woman the moment I met her, and she swore it was the same. Mikaele was a bit disappointed at first, it seemed to me, but after a bit he encouraged it. Said the more connections you had, the safer you were from…certain things. I was willing to take any excuse to keep courting her, and just before we set sail, I asked her to marry me. She said she’d think about it and let me know when I got back.
We were gone nine months that go-round, and when I went to her da’s farm to see her after we made port and sold off the last of the cargo, the first thing she said to me was that she accepted. She wanted a spring wedding, and Mikaele would’ve delayed sailing for it, but I talked her into a late December wedding instead on the grounds that I’d be more likely to be home for our anniversary that way.
If I’m honest, the only reason I went through with it was because of what Mikaele said about needing connections to fight back against the Fourteen. After all, I’d had nine months to think about it too, and I didn’t know her that well. But, well, I reckoned we’d get to know each other well enough, and if it didn’t work out great, at least I wouldn’t be home that much. I bought her a little house, near enough that she could go visit her da when I was out to sea but far enough that we were independent, and I made sure she had everything she might need before we set to sea again.
We’d been married two years when she told me she was pregnant. She…she wanted me to stay, but Mikaele needed me. I was still chasing that sense of being important, so I went. Promised I’d be back before you were born, but…well, you were early. We were in Malta when Alastair called—long distance and all—to tell me Lily’d been taken to hospital and it wasn’t looking good. Mikaele bought me a plane ticket and told me to get home to my family. Before I left, he gave me a talisman, some little thing made of bone and silver. He told me he didn’t think it was one of those, but that it had a bit of power in it and might…make a difference.
We—we almost lost both of you. You were a breech, and when I got there, it turned out the umbilical cord had got wrapped around your neck. Between that and the fact that you were so early they weren’t sure your lungs had developed all the way, they weren’t sure you were going to make it. And Lily…they had to do a C-section on you in the end, and she had a bad reaction to the anesthesia or summat like that. She was in a coma and they didn’t think she was going to ever come out of it.
I looked at the thing Mikaele had given me. There was a notch in it, and I thought if I…maybe it would help you both. So I snapped it in half. Put one side on your incubator and the other tucked under Lily’s pillow and hoped.
You recovered, obviously. Both of you. You were actually fine less than four hours later, and I got to hold you for the first time…I’d, I’d never felt anything like that. I was thirty-five years old and it was like I was living for the first time. Lily took a bit longer, but she eventually came round, and all was well, or so I thought.
Lily never completely recovered. It was gradual, so her da didn’t notice and neither did she—or at least she said she didn’t—but, well, I went out again when you were six months old, soon as the winter storms had passed, like always, and when I got back I could see she not only wasn’t better, she was…getting worse. At the time, I put it down to the fact that you were cutting teeth, and you were prone to ear infections back then too, so you cried unless you were being held most of the time. Your grandfather was a godsend, but he had the farm to take care of, and so most of it fell on Lily. I took over while I was home, but…well, I had to go back out again eventually.
That’s when we started fighting. She wanted me to give up sailing and get a job closer to home. I argued we needed the money—now more than ever, between you getting bigger every day and her getting sicker every week. She said if she was so sick, why wasn’t I there to help her? Round and round we went, and it always ended the same, with her going to bed early with a headache and me stomping out the door and going down the pub.
And through it all, there you were. Staring up at me with those big green eyes of yours—they weren’t so bright back then, but they were always so full of love and wonder and trust. I’d have done anything for you.
Except stay.
The final straw came just after the new year when you were seven. Mikaele had suggested we all, as a family, go out on the water and watch the fireworks on the shore to welcome in 1996. You were…so excited. It was all you’d been talking about for a week, getting to see the Demeter and see what I did for a living and finally meet “Uncle Kay”—that’s what you called him, you had trouble with “Mikaele”. And then, just as we were getting ready to go, Lily said she wasn’t feeling well. I was all set to get her settled on the couch or in bed and offer to spend the night on the boat so we wouldn’t disturb her when she told you to hang up your coat and go make her a cup of tea—the oolong, not the bagged kind. I said I’d do it and for you to go wait by the car, but Lily snapped that she’d told you to do it and you needed to learn responsibility.
I wasn’t being funny when I said you had my temper. I blew up on her, said more than a few things I’d been holding back longer than I knew. I accused her of faking her symptoms for sympathy, or to punish the rest of us, or to manipulate us—hell, I didn’t know why, and I didn’t care. Told her she could be as miserable as she wanted but she had no right to make the rest of us miserable too. She gave as good as she got, saying I’d never loved her, I didn’t have any sympathy for her, I obviously hadn’t meant it when I said “in sickness and in health”, on and on and on. We wound up shouting at one another, and then I saw you standing in the doorway with her cup of tea and tears in your eyes, and I made myself stop. I told you we could go, but you just very quietly said no, thank you, that you would stay and take care of your mother, but for me to tell Uncle Kay you said hello.
I didn’t go to the ship that night. I went over to Alastair’s, and I must’ve ranted at him for an hour. He just sat there and listened—you know what he was like—and at the end of it, suggested I take a short break away from Lily, that things might look better after we’d both had a rest. And I agreed. At first I was going to…I don’t know, stay in town for a bit maybe…but Mikaele got a line on something that, if it panned out, would have let us retire for life after the next voyage, and there was a calm spell, so we got a crew together sharpish and sailed out.
It didn’t. Pan out, that is—someone beat us to it, we never did find out who. And of course the winter storms came back with a vengeance, so we wound up in Gibraltar for six weeks waiting for an opportunity to sail again. During that time, I talked things over with Mikaele, and he agreed with Alastair that a break wouldn’t be a bad thing.
I also talked to him about Lily’s illness. I’d never really mentioned it to him; there was a sort of silent sense that anything that happened on land—well, except you—stayed there, and vice versa. But I laid it all out for him, every symptom and surge, everything that had happened back to your birth. He listened with a curious sort of look on his face, and then he asked the question I’d never thought about. He asked what happened to the talisman he’d given me. I explained what I’d done, and he nodded, said I’d done exactly what I was supposed to, but he wanted to know what had happened after that.
It wasn’t until…later that I found out the answer. Lily found the half I’d tucked under her pillow, recognized it was broken, and…I don’t know. Maybe she’d heard something of the Fourteen before. Her da worked for the Institute himself, you know, so he might have given her a bit of warning. Anyway, she asked the nurses if they’d seen the other half, and they eventually found it and gave it to her.
From what Mikaele told me, what he’d eventually learned or figured out—I never did ask how—was that it was meant to separate and spare two lives. It wasn’t…exactly one use only, but it had an odd sort of catch to it. You weren’t meant to keep it, and once you’d used it, you were supposed to bury the halves together in the earth, where they would…reform? I don’t know. It was all a bit bizarre to me. Obviously Lily hadn’t done that, but…well, we’ll get there.
Anyway, we were out to sea for eighteen months that go-round. I felt bad about missing your birthday that year—I wrote you a letter, sent you a gift, but I don’t know if you ever got it—and worse about missing Christmas, but we’d done well enough by the end of it that I could have retired, and I was considering it. I told Mikaele when we pulled into port that I was going to give it one last go talking to Lily, see if we could reconcile, because I did still love her, just not the same way I had at the beginning. And I never wanted to leave you.
Obviously, you know that when I went back to Devon, there was someone else in the house I’d bought for Lily, and they told me they’d paid cash for it from a lady who’d taken her son to London. I thought that seemed a bit odd, but at the same time, I was hoping there was a specialist she was seeing regularly and she was doing better, so I got her address and headed down. I was looking forward to seeing both of you, so much.
Somehow, she knew I was coming. There was a note on her door addressed to me when I got into town, and when I opened it, it had an address and said she’d be there all afternoon. I assumed the family who’d bought the house had called her, so I went to where it said. Turned out to be a shop—a place called Pinhole Books. The door was unlocked, so I went in.
And Lily was waiting for me. Pretty as a picture, sweet as sugar. With an antique razor in one hand and a cane in the other.
I won’t go into details, but I will say she didn’t do it alone. There was another woman, old enough to be her mother, holding her steady and coaching her through it. Everything went black, and for a while I thought that was it.
If you know about the Book, you know what she did after that. She used to summon me from time to time. Talk to me, taunt me. Tell me what she was up to. That’s how I found out what she’d done with the talisman. She’d figured out how to join it back together, and thought it would protect her from sickness, but…that wasn’t its purpose. And because she tried to keep it, instead of give it away, it was corrupting her. I begged her to get rid of it, and eventually she finally admitted that she’d already destroyed it, after she met Roger, and it hadn’t helped. Mary—who I assumed was the woman who helped her kill me—had ideas that would help her, she said, but she wouldn’t really tell me what they were. Sometimes she’d summon me and just…leave me there. It hurt, and she knew it hurt, and she said she wanted me to feel a little of what she was feeling.
And no matter how much I pleaded, she wouldn’t let me see you.
The last time I saw her was eight years after she killed me, which I only know because I told her fifty looked good on her and I thought she was going to kill me again when she told me, very sharply, that she’d only just turned forty. She looked closer to sixty, but, well, you don’t need me to tell you that. She recovered fast, though, and told me that the next time we spoke, I’d never know how old she was. She had found a way to stay young and beautiful forever, and, she said, when the Bookmaster took the lead, I would know everything. Then she wished me luck, said she would see me soon, and dismissed me.
I can’t tell from looking at you how long it’s been since then, but I reckon that didn’t work out so well for her.
ARCHIVIST
And how are you…here? I thought the Book got burned.
KIERAN
It did. I think.
I don’t know too much about how all this works, but as near as I can tell, all of us who were in those pages—the ones who weren’t summoned, anyway, since I think your Gerard was involved, from what I’ve heard those two say—were set free when it burned, but not all the way. We’re loose in the world again, but we can’t go very far from the Bookmasters.
ARCHIVIST
The Bookmasters?
KIERAN
Those two bastards in the other room. Don’t ask me why, I just…knew that’s what they were when I saw them.
ARCHIVIST
It…it makes sense. I think.
…
Twelve years.
KIERAN
Eh?
ARCHIVIST
Since she—it’s been twenty years since she killed you. She tried to do…whatever it was, I still don’t know…twelve years ago.
And you’re right. It didn’t work. That was when she started needing round-the-clock care, couldn’t leave the house except to see her doctors, the whole nine yards. I dropped out of school and…well, that’s when I went to work for the Institute. Roger got fired around the same time—he had early onset dementia, it was just starting to get bad about then—and Melanie couldn’t fake being an adult like I could back then.
KIERAN
I wish you hadn’t felt like you had to do that.
ARCHIVIST
Me, too, but…I think I needed to be there. Eventually.
KIERAN
Twenty years…so you’re twenty-eight then? No, twenty-nine.
ARCHIVIST
I will be in August. If I live that long. If the world doesn’t end.
KIERAN
[Fiercely] You’re not dying.
ARCHIVIST
Yes, sir.
[More seriously] I’m okay. That…thank you. For, for giving me the statement. It…helped. A lot.
KIERAN
Good. Now you can get that hand—
…Oh.
Blimey, how long was I talking?
ARCHIVIST
Not nearly that long.
Yeah, that’s, um, probably not a good sign, but…[sighs] you know what, at this point, I don’t really have time to worry about it.
KIERAN
What’s your next move, then?
ARCHIVIST
I need to get back to London. Hopefully without the Van Helsings in there sending me back in pieces, or calling Gerry—or Jon.
KIERAN
…Okay, you told me who Gerry is, and Lily mentioned Roger’s girl Melanie, but who’s Jon?
ARCHIVIST
My b—
…
Um…he’s my…boyfriend.
KIERAN
(heh) Does Roger approve?
ARCHIVIST
He died five years ago.
But…you know, I think he would have liked him.
I think you’d like him. If you met him.
…
Maybe you’ll get the chance.
KIERAN
I doubt that, boyo.
ARCHIVIST
I’ll come back. When, when I figure out how to set you all free.
I will figure it out. What’s the good of working for the embodiment of fearful knowledge if I can’t occasionally learn something to my advantage?
[KIERAN LAUGHS. AFTER A MOMENT, THE ARCHIVIST JOINS IN]
KIERAN
Aye, maybe there’s something to that.
Let me rally the others. We can distract the Bookmasters, maybe keep them busy for a while, so you can get away. Do you—no, that window’s a bit small—ah, no offense.
ARCHIVIST
None taken. But believe me, I’ve forced my way through much smaller spaces than that.
…Thank you.
KIERAN
I’m just glad I can help.
And I’m glad to know that I finally became something important after all.
ARCHIVIST
What’s that?
KIERAN
Martin Blackwood’s father.
ARCHIVIST
…
You know…it’s a good thing Mum is the way she is.
KIERAN
Eh? Why is that?
ARCHIVIST
It long ago disabused me of the notion that parents have to love and be proud of their kids no matter what.
Otherwise I might not have believed you meant that.
KIERAN
Martin.
[FAINT FABRIC RUSTLES]
There has not been one single moment since the nurse put you in my arms that I have not been proud of you.
I love you, son.
ARCHIVIST
…
I love you, too, Papa.
[CLICK]