It is. It’s from [bonegod]. If we were to take one less moral from the story thus far what would you like it to be? Sometimes, OK, people make mistakes in, uh, editing and that’s OK, and it doesn’t need to be- it doesn’t need to be linked at all.

ALEX This is from [geo]: In previous seasons it has appeared that the only people who had supernatural encounters have been the ones giving statements to The Magnus Institute. JONNY [BACKGROUND] Right. ALEX [CONT.] But in season four we heard about The Archivist getting statements from essentially random people on the street. Approximately what percentage of people in the Magnus-verse have had an encounter with one of the entities? JONNY Well, I mean, they’re random people on the street, but they’re random people on the street who’ve had encounters with the entities. Uh, it’s- it’s not the case that everyone who’s had an encounter with the entities has gone to The Magnus Institute. I mean, I haven’t really thought about it, but if I was going to just guess a number I’d say maybe… five to ten percent of the people in the Magnus world who’ve had an encounter with the entities have ended up reporting it to The Magnus Institute or, uh, one of the other, uh, organizations. ALEX And… running the numbers in my head on the fly in order for this universe to make any sense the percentage of the general population that has been exposed to the genuinely supernatural must be less than about one percent? JONNY I’d say probably everyone has brushed up against them. ALEX (surprised) Really? JONNY Just- just in- in the sense of like- I mean, everyone has that thing that they’re like, “Someone? Is there someone…? No. OK, I’m fine.” Uh… ALEX [OVERLAPPING] But it must be less than one percent of the (i don’t know what alex said here) in every way? JONNY Maybe, yeah, maybe like 10 to 15 percent have had like… ALEX [OVERLAPPING] A spook. JONNY [OVERLAPPING, CONT.] A spook of what you might just think of, like a slightly ghostly encounter that is not significant enough to delve into… ALEX Didn’t really go anywhere. JONNY Yeah, and maybe- maybe point one (.1) percent have had a legitimate… ALEX Yeah. JONNY Like it’s a small enough number that it’s not the- they’re not going to speak up to anyone who’s not like: “Hey, (archivist voice, ominous) tell me your story.” ALEX Alex-narratologist here, I recommend anyone interested in that reading up on the technique of writing known as the “Masquerade.” It’s a trope or conceit. The idea being there’s the world behind the world but there’s quite a lot of writing on how many people within your world are allowed to see behind that curtain before your world breaks?

a police car’s lights flashing over the unmoving van. The doors are open, and the too-familiar statues stand either side of the well-worn wooden box.

She is relaxed, suspended from a dozen broken handrails and shattered, jagged seats. They cut her flesh, but she does not bleed. There is no pain in her eyes. There is nothing except the certainty of her fate.

There is a door in front of him. A yellow door. He knows the dream it used to lead to; he knows it well. But that’s not where it leads anymore. He does not know what is behind it anymore, and he is deathly afraid of finding out.

When faced with her, he even longs for the terrible dream of the melted woman, who would see everything desolated without rhyme or reason.

Somewhere, underneath that twitching, burrowing mass, is the exterminator. He is screaming.

The dark building is newer, but he knows it well; knows the two lost souls who creep through it with an alert hunger on their faces. He recognizes that look from the other hunter, whose dreams he has watched for so long. They stalk the darkness itself, and hope to catch and kill it before it can do the same to them. They see him watching, but they cannot catch his scent.

At last, he is in the moonlit graveyard - the oldest of the dreams. It is peaceful, cool and damp, as the rolling, boggy fields stretch out in all directions. He hears her calling pathetically from the bottom of the graves, ut by now he knows there is nothing he can do but stare. She begs to be released, to dream of this place no more, but there is nothing he can do.

Another dissection room, another figure standing in its centre - but this one is calm. She simply looks at him sadly, a pity in her face that burns him worse than any flame. More than anything, the Archivist wants to look away, to turn his eye from her gentle sadness, from the disappointment in what she sees in him.

The same post was on a couple of different forums, and each time told slightly differently.

ARCHIVIST (overlapping) Mm, they were… Well, let’s just say it’s not a complete shock there was something unnatural to them. Didn’t know we had copies in the Institute, though, let alone original cuts. [He laughs.] ARCHIVIST (CONT’D) Records indicate they ended up in… (paper flips) Artefact Storage.

It was almost six months ago when the woman came to our door. She looked like a film student, and at first I took her for a fan. Neil’s work wasn’t the sort to attract adoring masses, but occasionally admirers would find their way to his home. Usually he’d send them away, but sometimes he’d have them wait in the atrium while I positioned him in his studio, ready for a short meeting or Q-and-A session.

The Spider’s always an easy job, no fuss, no complications, everything planned and prepared. It knows too much to truly be a stranger, but hides its knowing well enough to endure. We knew she wouldn’t scream as she was hollowed out and drunk, but still he thought best to cover the sounds with a laugh.

What grabbed his wrist was not a hand. Not exactly, not – anymore. It was coarse and bony and covered in fine, sharp hairs. Greg screamed, falling backwards, pulling the figure under the street lamp where, for a second, I saw it more completely than he did. It was definitely human once. At least, based on how it was screaming. But it was thin, with bits of twisted and discolored, covered in small, scurrying shapes. Its face was the most human part of it remaining. Except for the two black and hollow spaces where its eyes once were. From which now poured an endless stream of scuttling legs and fangs. Its mouth was full of them too, but I could see, as it grasped desperately at Greg; it was trying to say: “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Tell her I’m sorry,” but words were not what tumbled from those lips.

The Chelicerae popped up on the occasional paranormal site or edgy message board, each time accompanied by a now-defunct link. According to those who followed such things, all you had to do was start a new thread as a Guest, something Greg had been instructed to make sure was possible, and the title of that thread should be the name of someone you want dead. As the stories went, you would receive a reply almost immediately, and it would simply ask you for a story. You would have to write out, and post, in full, a horrible event that had happened to you, or someone that you loved. All the instructions were very clear that the target would only die, if the account satisfied the “Story-spinner.” None of them made any mention of what would happen if it did not.

It started with an email he got from a hotmail address he didn’t recognize. The subject line was simply “Are you the Chelicerae?” At first, Greg thought his client must have passed his details on, but opening the message, there were just four more words: “Please make it stop.”

As he told it, she was young, rail-thin underneath an oversized brown hoodie, which she kept pulled up, trying to cover up a network of pale stitches that stretched over one side of her head.

What I’ve been doing to these people, it – it hasn’t been because I was puppeted, or controlled, or possessed. I wanted to do it. It felt good.

I should ask the others for help but I… I can’t. At best, they’d just try to talk me out of it. At worst… No, I… if I’m going down there, I go alone.

parapsychology

But you think sometimes about what the real world is. Just what your brain mixes together from what your senses tell you. We create the world in a lot of ways. I suppose it shouldn’t be surprising that, when we’re not being careful, we can change it.

Dexter clearly wasn’t sleeping. He had insisted on using old equipment, and avoided digital almost entirely, to the point where several of the crew were using pieces of kit they’d never even seen before. This meant that a work print had to be made manually for the dailies, something he refused to let anyone else do.

She never told us how she felt about being bound to you. Never even called you by name. Just called you her anchor. The thing weighing her down, tying her to this world and stopping her destiny.

You know, thinking about it, the amount of pain and loss and legitimate devastation I’ve caused among your little cult over the last, what, forty years? I think the Desolation is probably very fond of me.

Well, he hasn’t been at your little meetings the last two weeks, has he? I suppose no one’s looked into it yet; not surprising, he seemed a thoroughly unpleasant little man.

Big talk. But Agnes is dead. And I don’t know if you heard, but your little woodland circle’s been broken. So I don’t really see, anything getting in my way, if I wanted to burn the flesh, off your snarky bones.

If I - knew what his plan was, if I knew what Peter was doing, if I just - (he stops, cuts himself off) Can I? [The low rumble of the Archivist’s static begins to sound in the background. The Archivist makes a few sounds of effort, which begin to grow both louder and more ragged.] [Then the high-pitched static that resembles microphone static layers itself on top with its strange, musical, near-angelic quality, and it becomes clear that the Archivist is putting a lot of effort into this Beholding, and that, as in “Heavy Goods,” it is not clear how much of this he is in control of.] [He continues to struggle through the process, and as he does, the distinct squeaky static of Peter Lukas begins to fade in as well.] [There’s a sound that’s difficult to place, could possibly be some things knocked off of the Archivist’s desk, but which could also be the sound of a door opening. The Archivist groans.] [Then all at once, the static all fades out; the Archivist begins to regain his breath.]

I’m just worried about Martin. (sigh, under his breath) Christ. (normal) Every other Avatar gets to have their feelings burned right out of them, but me? I’ve just got to sit in mine.

I’m curious to see what it was she did to derail this big ritual, because I’m sure she didn’t pay poor Jack Barnabas to fall in love with Agnes. (beat) Well, ninety percent sure.

As for you, (shaky inhale) whatever you did, and whatever protection it might have afforded you is severed with Agnes’s death. Arthur has told us not to harm you yet, but this whole thing has really rather weakened his authority, and many of us are now looking towards Diego for leadership. But we shall see, I suppose.

It was Agnes herself that suggested it. If we tried the ritual and failed, she said, it might be hundreds of years before we had the strength to try again. But if she ceased, not in culmination of fire, but in a cold and quiet death, perhaps her spark would return to the Lightless Flame and she could try again.

I was… not one of those assigned to watch our chosen one, so I can’t say much about exactly what happened within the walls of that house, but it seems the fight scarred the place in a way far deeper than simple fire. A scar in reality, that I believe has since been compounded by the interferences of other powers.

The compromise we came to was Hill Top Road. We knew it was a stronghold of the Web, full of other children Agnes’ age. We would supervise from a distance, but were confident she would be in no danger. The Mother of Puppets has always suffered at our hand; all the manipulation and subtle venom in the world means nothing against a pure and unrestrained force of destruction and ruin.

We burned down five acres of woodland to create the site. At the center of the blackened, ash-covered forest we built a pyre so high and strong the flame would be clear for miles, and so cunningly built it would catch in moments. Before it, the great bowl of pure water for Asag’s scalding baptism. And in the center of pyre, a hollow, where Eileen was to lay. We prayed, and sacrificed, and anointed her body with holy oil and a crown of kindling. I protested the last one, felt we could do better than to ape the Christians, but I was shouted down. At last, the hour was at hand, and as the first contractions started, Arthur struck a match. The fire was so immediate, so intense, that I was almost brought to my knees, the light of the pyre so bright for a second before it turned inwards, robbed of its glow and comfort, and turned entirely into blistering and unbearable heat. It covered Eileen in a second, flesh blackening and cracking, lips parting in a scream that was all at once agony and joy and terror and communion, as layer after layer of skin and muscle and bone were one by one destroyed by the force of the flames, until at last nothing remained of her but ash and bone. And on top of that, sleeping peacefully among the fire, a baby. Untouched, unharmed, and to our eyes, alight with a burning divinity.

Regardless, the effect it had on Agnes was unanticipated. As far as we could tell, she had destroyed the place utterly. And yet she remained bound to it, tied to it in some vital way. I knew when Arthur told me she had kept Raymond Fielding’s hand, that he was worried. But none of us could know what you were going to do.

My first thought was that the house had caught fire, and I would arrive only to a scorched ruin and blackened bone, but as we got closer I could see that it was a single tree that was burning. A gnarled and ancient elm, that sat removed from the rest of the forest. A small crowd surrounded the spectacle. One man, who I took to be a groundskeeper, stood closer than the others, with a lit torch in his hand. On my instruction, the driver pulled closer, though the horses were nervous, and I asked the man why they were burning the tree, when the rain was coming down so heavily. Surely it could have waited for drier weather. The man simply shrugged. My German is… fine, though I have had little cause to use it of late, but his accent was thick, and all that I could get from him was a sense of… resignation, and the insistence that his master, who I took to be Albrecht, wanted the tree dead. I’m sure that he used that word, though. Not burned, not removed, or destroyed. Dead. I resolved to ask Albrecht about it when I saw him.