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Elias smiled as Martin walked up to his desk, hands behind his back and looking sheepish. He could feel the Eye trying to feed him insight, the information there for him to see what his son was hiding behind his back, but Elias ignored the information feed as the boy stepped up toward his desk. Once the boy had reached the large, ominous piece of wood, he stood up on his toes, placing a wrapped object on the polished surface. The object was slid forward with two small fingers and Martin rested back on his heels.
Raising an eyebrow, he ran a nail under the cutely patterned tape that held the brown packing paper together and gently removed it from the object. With each inch the paper moved, the more an image of a spider appeared. Once the paper had been fully unwrapped he paused, eyes lighting up in delight.
A Guest For Mr. Spider.
Looking up from the Leitner, he reached a hand over the desk to ruffle his son’s bright red hair. The boy beamed up at him and Elias couldn’t help but be filled with pride. The pride was doubled as the Eye greedily soaked up the book on the desk, impressing a heavy gaze of pride on Elias to pass to a small Martin.
“And how did you find this?”
The boy turned a bright red, eyes shifting away and beginning to kick his foot on the ground.
“I um. Found it.”
“Martin…”
“I saw this cute boy at the park! He was wearing a cute pair of glasses with eye beads and he had the book! Then this mean kid came and took it away and suddenly was eaten by a huge spider! The spider was nice though, he waved ‘hi’ after he took the mean boy! The book fell to the ground and while the cute boy was distracted I grabbed the book and hid it from him! He ran away shortly after though...I didn’t get to say hi…”
Elias blinked once, twice, then nodded slowly. There were many things to break down in that long winded statement, Elias mostly focusing on the fact that Mr. Spider had waved at Martin and the boy with the eye beads glasses.
Knowing that his child was most certainly aligned (and considered dear if Mr. Spider’s affection was to go by) to the Web was not new, but the reaffirmation still made him slightly angry and just a little bit possessive of his son.
Then there was the “cute” boy with the eye bead glasses. How...fascinating.
Stepping out from behind his desk, he walked over and knelt down in front of the boy.
“Perhaps we can go back to where you met him this weekend. That was really nice of you to help him, maybe he was just a little shy and didn’t know what to say. Large spiders like Mr. Spider tend to scare the average normal person, Martin dear.”
“But papa! He wasn’t normal! He had Eyes!”
-
Jon slumped against the door to his bedroom, heart beating a mile a minute and his gaze blurry.
That book…
He had known the moment he touched it that it was bad news, but suddenly he had to Know what was inside and suddenly he was reading it and…
Mr. Spider.
Then there was that boy. The boy that the spider waved to with fiery red hair. No one besides Da had helped him before. When he Looked at the boy, with only two more eyes than his normal two (Da told him to only Look with a few eyes at first, less he passed out from over exhaustion), he could see strands of silk webs floating gently on low lying fog at the boy’s feet. Just out of his Sight, he could feel another set of Eyes, much more powerful than his own. Blinking rapidly, he turned away from the spider, the book, and the boy and ran as fast as he could, letting out a quiet cheer when fog began to surround him.
“Jon?”
There was no knock (which Jon was so so happy for), but from under the door, fog began to waft in. Moving away from the door, it opened just a little bit, before it fully opened and a tall mariner walked in. Catching just a quick glance at the boy’s terrified face, he immediately knelt down and held Jon’s face between large hands.
“Jon? What’s wrong?”
“Da? I thought…”
“The Lonely pulled me here, said that something was wrong. I saw you run out of It as I arrived. What happened, my boy?”
“Are you going to get in trouble? I don’t want you to get in trouble.” He knew that his presence was a sore spot between his Da and the Lonely, so he truly tried to avoid causing problems for the man that had raised him and loved him like a true parent would.
“No no. The Lonely was quite adamant I come back to you, in fact. What happened Jon?” Wringing his hands together, Jon felt tears well up in his eyes.
“There was a book! I found it in this pile of old books at the bookstore and don’t know why I picked it up. Suddenly I had to Know what was inside and then there was a huge spider!”
“Spider? Jon...did you encounter the Web?”
Jon shook his head, not sure what his Da was asking. Were there more large spiders?
“I don’t know! The book was taken from me, then the spider appeared! Then a boy showed up and...and…!”
“Jon! Lad, breathe. It’s okay...breathe. What happened after the spider appeared?” The fog that had been slowly rolling around had become just a bit more thicker, the room disappearing as the Lonely sought to protect It’s avatar and It’s avatar’s child.
“...the spider appeared from the door and ate the boy! Then the other boy with really red hair showed up! The spider looked at him, waved, before disappearing back inside! I was really scared so I ran away but I think he grabbed the book…”
“I see...Jon, did you See anything?”
“Um...yea…” Looking down at his oversized sweater (one that had been too small for Peter but made Jon happy when his Da was out on long voyages), Jon nodded just so. “I saw...webs around the boy...and fog...like your fog…”
Keeping his head down, Jon failed to miss the startled look on Peter’s face.
“And…”
“Jon?”
“I couldn’t see it, but I felt it. There were Eyes there, watching him.”
Eyes widening, Peter barely stopped himself from collapsing onto the floor. He knew of only one person who was truly aligned with the Eye.
Elias.