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“I want to be a spider when I grow up!” Warlock announces, running inside from an informative (and exceedingly muddy) afternoon in the garden. His mom wrinkles her nose; he’s not sure if it’s at the idea of being a spider or the concept of spiders or the mud or all of it (it’s probably all of it), but Nanny’s there soon enough so it doesn’t really matter.
Nanny smiles like always, amused but never ever laughing at Warlock. “Do you, now?”
“Yeah! Brother Francis was telling me all about them. They have as many eyes as they do legs, and they shoot silk out of their butts! And they have their skeletons on the outside!”
“So they do, and I believe if you kept their agility to scale, you’d be leaping about the countryside in no time.” Nanny looks the way Warlock’s mom went, which he’s learned by now is to make sure she’s out of earshot. “You can be anything you want when you grow up, hellspawn. Even if that’s a spider. Now, what have I told you about tracking mud through the halls?”
“...Only do it when Dad’s about to have important company?”
“Well said. Go and get changed out of those dirty clothes.”
The mud is, as it always is (unless his dad has important company), gone without a trace by the time Warlock comes back downstairs. He’s not sure how Nanny does it, only that she never seems to be kidding when she talks about him bring about the end of the world or whatever, so maybe it’s related to that.
***
The whole thing in Israel makes no sense. Warlock doesn’t know why his father’s been reassigned out of nowhere, doesn’t know why it didn’t come up until after his birthday, doesn’t know why they all had to go to that stupid field, doesn’t know why the weirdo professor guy zeroed in on him and freaked out when he didn’t have a dog, and especially doesn’t know why the weirdo professor guy smelled so bad. Usually the diplomatic types are, you know. Cleaner.
His father waits until they’re back in the hotel room that night to announce that they’re not going back to England after this, but instead to America. ‘Home,’ he calls it, like Warlock’s ever seen the place.
“Did you get fired? You got fired, didn’t you.” He says it entirely to get a rise out of his father, who predictably starts blustering about how it’s some kind of temporary something or other, but by then Warlock’s already getting out his headphones. His mom’s bound to lay into his father for dropping this on them with even less warning than they got for going to Israel, and he really doesn’t want to hear it.
Warlock hates Texas. He hates his new school and he hates listening to his parents argue and he hates not having Nanny and Brother Francis around and he hates the feeling that he used up all his good luck by the time he was ten, but how else can he explain everything suddenly getting worse?
Most of all, though, Warlock hates puberty. It feels like he’s completely lost what little control of his life he ever had, and he just wants it to stop. His upper arms are spotted with scabs and the occasional scar from picking at spots, as what started as simple curiosity spirals into the one thing he has any real say over (he’s an expert at not bleeding on his shirts by now); somehow, he never considers anything more drastic.
Actually, it’s not ‘somehow.’ Nanny would be beyond disappointed if he gave up that easily. She’d probably understand what Warlock means, but he couldn’t face her again if he let her down like that.
In the absence of literally anyone else who gives a damn, it’ll have to do.
***
The week after his fourteenth birthday, Warlock’s mom takes him to a therapist. He hates the idea at first, because there’s not much he doesn’t hate right now (he doesn’t hate Nanny or Brother Francis or spiders or his music collection, and that’s about it).
“Why? Because some weird smelly guy said I was supposed to have voices in my head three years ago and you’re just now freaking out?”
“This has nothing to do with that, honey.” His mom sighs, looking upset. “It’s because you’re hurting now, and I don’t know how to stop it, or how to get in touch with the person you really want to talk to. I just want you to try once, and if you don’t like it I won’t make you go back.”
So he agrees, mostly to keep her from bugging him about it, and it turns out to not suck. His mom isn’t in the room with him, and the therapist is a nice enough lady. When she asks if he’s ever considered hurting himself, Warlock pointedly does not pull his sleeves down, and says no. (That’s probably not the kind of hurting himself she means, anyway.)
“Nanny would never let me hear the end of it if I did.”
“Your grandmother, or an actual nanny?”
“Actual nanny - she left before my eleventh birthday, but I don’t think she would’ve ended up here with us anyway. Not as quick as the move ended up being. She’s… think ‘Goth Mary Poppins’ and you’ve pretty much got it.”
The therapist smiles. “It sounds like you like her a lot. Tell me more about her?”
So Warlock does, glossing over the stories that’d make Nanny sound like an unfit parental figure (she was the only fit parental figure in most of Warlock’s childhood - well, and Brother Francis, but he was the gardener and not considered ‘parental’ by most of the world’s standards). A few stories in, a pattern emerges, at least in his memories, but it’s not one he’s sure how to voice until his appointment is nearly over.
“I never really thought about it before, but Nanny… I can’t remember her ever calling me a boy unless my parents were around. Definitely not when my father was in earshot, she might’ve dropped it around Mom a couple times. I’m not sure.” Well, and there was Nanny’s lullaby, but the fact that she needed a good rhyme for ‘destroyed’ is probably one of those things that would make people ask uncomfortable questions.
The therapist nods, and then asks the kind of uncomfortable question it’s her job to ask. “How do you feel about that?”
“...I don’t know. Not bad?”
“Well, you should think about it. If you’d like to come back and talk again, consider it homework. If not, I hope this helped at least a little.”
“I think it did, maybe.” Warlock hesitates. “If I do come back… you won’t tell my father anything we talk about?”
“I won’t tell either of your parents anything, unless you’re a clear danger to yourself or others, and I don’t believe that to be the case. If you want your father cut out of the loop entirely, that’s doable on my end.”
It’s better than nothing. Warlock’s not sold on coming back yet, but not committed to running screaming in the opposite direction, either.
When they get home, Warlock digs out a box of old keepsakes, and a very well-worn copy of Gashlycrumb Tinies. (Most kids learn the alphabet from a basic song. Warlock learned both the alphabet and what ‘ennui’ meant at five.) Warlock’s had the whole thing memorised for ages, now, but the need to pull out the actual book is strong, and--
Something is making the pages stand up funny. Warlock frowns, and flips to the offending pages in question; sandwiched in between Susan and Titus (possibly Warlock’s favorite illustrations of the lot) is a business card with nothing but a British-style phone number on it.
There’s only one person who had access to this book and might have left a phone number in it, and Warlock has a text message half composed before conscious thought really enters the picture. But what if the number’s been disconnected? What if it’s someone else’s number that Nanny was holding onto, and Warlock’s about to vent a lot of personal shit to a complete stranger? (What if Warlock’s luck really has run out, and Nanny doesn’t want to talk at all?)
What Warlock sends instead is Nanny?, followed by It’s Warlock after several minutes with no response.
The reply, thankfully, comes pretty quickly after that despite the… what is it, a six-hour time difference? I know it’s you, hellspawn. Been wondering when you’d find my parting gift. What’s up?
Warlock cracks a smile for what feels like - isn’t, but it sure feels like - the first time in years. Texas sucks and my father’s an idiot. You probably knew that already, though. I miss you. I wish I was home still. I wish I felt good about myself again. I realised something earlier and I’m not sure what to do with it.
Then Warlock hesitates, unsure of how to word the next bit. ‘How did you know you were a girl’ is out, since even having grown up in a diplomatic bubble, Warlock’s vaguely aware there are more than two options and something in the middle might apply. ‘Why did you leave’ is a better question, but it’s older and not really connected to the current crisis (and the sudden move to America made it a little easier for Warlock to forgive her and Brother Francis for disappearing anyway).
Did you know?
I know lots of things. You’re going to have to be more specific.
Warlock groans, but having walked right into that one, can’t really complain. Explaining takes several false starts, but really, Nanny deserves to hear this first. You just about never called me a boy. I think maybe you were on to something. Did you know, or was that just a lucky guess?
It was more that binary gender and everything that comes with it is humanity’s single stupidest invention to date. That and you needing something to balance out your father’s perception of manliness. I can’t say I didn’t wonder, though. Nine-year-old boys who are confident in the ‘boy’ part don’t usually ask to try on a dress.
No, that’s probably true. What do I do now?
You’re going to have to figure that out for yourself. That was Nanny’s answer every time Warlock asked that question, so getting it now is no surprise. What I can tell you is this: If you want to be a girl, or a boy, or something else entirely, all you have to do is call yourself one. Everything else is just set dressing, and you don’t need anyone else’s permission.
It can’t really be that simple, can it? Not with as much baggage as everyone else seems to put on it. But saying it’s not that simple would be accusing Nanny of lying, and Warlock can’t see her doing that without a very good reason. And she’s certainly not wrong about Warlock’s father (look no further than his eternal disappointment about Warlock’s complete disinterest in playing sportsball games for him to fail to attend).
Well, it can’t hurt to try, anyway. In the meantime, it also can’t hurt to ask the other burning question, as long as they’re talking. Why did you and Brother Francis leave so suddenly?
This time, there’s a long pause before Nanny answers. That’s a story you deserve to be told in person, hellspawn. We’ll make that happen sometime soon, when you can get away from your parents for it. I hope you don’t doubt that we care, though. Wouldn’t have left you my number otherwise.
Nanny doesn’t admit to caring easily, so the truth in that statement is obvious. For now, especially with the promise of the whole story, Warlock will take it.
***
She does go back to the therapist. Nanny’s great and all, and Warlock’s beyond relieved to be able to talk to her again, but sometimes texting doesn’t really cover everything she needs to get off her chest. (She asks, the second time they text, if she should be calling Nanny something else. Like I said, binary gender is stupid isn’t a helpful answer; I mostly go by Crowley, but I’ll be your Nanny as long as you want me to be is a little more so.)
Her parents are fighting more. They’ve never been a happy couple, beneath the veneer of respectability everyone else gets to see, but it’s nearly constant sniping now, whenever her father’s home (which isn’t often). She both hopes they get a divorce and dreads the potential custody battle, especially since the parent she wants to live with is neither of them.
Warlock doesn’t want to think about how much worse this would all be if she still hadn’t figured out the source of a lot of her misery. Texas still sucks, and so does school, and her parents’ unending arguments aren’t exactly helping anything, and she can’t face telling either of them yet. (Among other things, it’ll probably be the last conversation she ever has with her father.) But she doesn’t hate herself anymore, and even if it’s just Nanny and the therapist for now, she has people who have her back on it.
School is really only useful to Warlock as her ticket the fuck out of here. She has a reputation as a nerdy snob who won’t talk to anyone, but it’s more that she doesn’t know how - weirdly, a childhood of relative isolation doesn’t prepare one for making friends. Besides, the guys get on her nerves and the other girls don’t see her as one of them. Better to focus her energy on studying, so she can go home to England and figure herself out better there.
Nanny’s reassurance that the external trappings of any given gender aren’t necessary to claiming it for yourself is a godsend, given that she can’t experiment with any of them right now. Once she’s out of her parents’ house she thinks she might like to try, though. Maybe she won’t like it (and given that she’s still growing like a weed, she’s pretty sure heels will be out no matter what), but she can’t know that without trying.
...And, admittedly, she’s been itching to get a dress since Nanny reminded her of that day when she was nine. Thinking back, it’s the last time she can say she really felt good about herself. (Thinking back, it probably should have been a sign.)
She really needs to work on the name problem. It’s not worth the effort of ditching ‘Dowling,’ she knows that much; she’s not sure what she’d replace it with anyway. ‘Warlock,’ though, is starting to get to her. It’s not gendered the way most names are, but it’s still a name picked for a boy.
At least she can thank her mom for being too high on painkillers and spite to name her Thaddeus the N Plus One. Having started life with one of the most dramatic and edgy names possible, she feels obligated to continue being dramatic and edgy going forward - but it’s a better place to start than Small Clone, and she doesn’t feel a need to change it immediately. It’ll take some thinking to get right, but it’s not like she can really start using a different name until she graduates high school anyway; her father would just pretend she hadn’t changed it, so she might as well carry on with the old wound until she can achieve escape velocity.
A mythology review in her junior year of high school finally cracks the name puzzle, and then she can’t think why she didn’t see it sooner. She’s known most of these stories for a long time, and she knows the one about Athena being a sore loser in a weaving contest is one of the ones Nanny and Brother Francis read for her. (The moral of Nanny’s version was ‘sometimes gods need a good challenge,’ while Brother Francis opted for ‘you never know who that bug might have been, so treat it kindly.’) It’s just as dramatic as what she started life with, which is good - and she did want to be a spider when she grew up, once upon a time.
Arachne Dowling has a nice ring to it.
***
She wants to test the name in the privacy of her own head for a couple of days before telling anyone, but she breaks down and texts Nanny after dinner. Nanny heartily approves, which is no surprise - Arachne’s starting to wonder when Nanny ever sleeps, though, since she always answers pretty quickly. Still, she doesn’t want to tell anyone else just yet, because the fewer chances for her father to hear about it the better, so having one person in on her choice boosts her spirits nearly as much as the name itself.
A couple weeks after that, Arachne comes home from school to something odd.
Her parents didn’t bother keeping up the pretense of sharing a bedroom, when they moved to Texas; she could swear her mom, at least, is a little happier for it. But usually the house is quiet when she gets back from school, and today there’s music blasting from the direction of her mom’s bedroom, something Arachne vaguely remembers from the radio when she was really young - maybe even before Nanny and Brother Francis came along.
“Mom?”
There’s no answer. As she approaches her mom’s bedroom, trying not to think about the fact that this is how any number of ‘and then they discovered a gruesome murder’ scenarios on TV start and failing miserably, the song starts over. I was left to my own devices, it says, and Arachne chokes back something between a bitter laugh and an even more bitter sob.
The door is open; her mom’s flopped on the bed, staring at the ceiling and mercifully not at all in a puddle of blood or anything. In fact, she props herself up on her elbows when Arachne sticks her head in the door, turning the music down with a remote. “Oh, it’s you. Hi, honey.”
Well, that was a little anticlimactic. “Do you know how many murder investigations start like this?” she blurts out, before she can think any better of it - but it gets her mom to crack a smile, so maybe it wasn’t so bad after all. “Are you okay?”
“I’m… I will be. I was pondering the immortal words of Socrates, who said, ‘I drank what?’”
“What?”
“Quoting a movie, don’t mind me.” Her mom sighs. “Your father, in his infinite wisdom, accepted a posting in China.”
Arachne’s heart sinks. If there was one good thing to be said about Texas, it was that they’d finally seemed to achieve political-life escape velocity - but apparently that was only until her father could persuade someone to send him abroad again (or make that big of a nuisance of himself, one or the other). He hadn’t seemed to want to leave until now, and he picks China, of all places? It’s not like she has any friends here, but she’d be even more isolated. “Great. When do we go.”
“We’re not going.”
Arachne blinks. “We’re not?”
“I told Tad he’s more than welcome to go to Beijing by himself - not that I know what good this is going to do China relations unless they really want to revert to Trump-era policy, but what would I know - but I’m not uprooting you this late into your schooling. Especially not to somewhere you don’t speak the primary language. If it was back to England, that’d be one thing, but I don’t want to go to China and I didn’t think you would either. He stormed off to sulk, and I have no idea if he’s planning to come back here before he heads out or not. Frankly, I don’t really care right now.”
“Yeah, if it was England I’d be psyched about going home.” This is as much a relief as it is a surprise - Arachne can’t think of a time she’s seen her mom push back against her father quite like this. Maybe they just did the part with the yelling while she was at school.
“I was already expecting you to apply to British universities.” Her mom presses another button on the remote, but the music doesn’t stop. “Anyway, I’ve been doing some thinking. For longer than today, really, but I needed to stew in it for a while. I’ve been a shit parent to you, Warlock, and I’m sorry. I want to try better than packing you off to a therapist or letting Nanny deal with it, if you’ll let me.”
“Arachne.” She’s so caught up in the questions this raises - how did her mom know she’s in touch with Nanny again, why outsource the work to anyone in the first place - that she doesn’t realise what she actually said until her mom does pause the music, looking at her with dawning realisation.
Well. Cat’s out of the bag now.
“Oh, is that what was eating at you so badly? I’m doubly sorry, honey, I feel like I should have seen that one coming.”
“Not like it was one of your dresses I tried on when I was nine.”
“No, but it’s also not like I wasn’t involved in scheduling your haircuts, either. Besides, I watched some friends transition in college.” Her mom sits up properly on the bed; she’s smiling again. “Still on the spider thing, huh? It’s a good name for you.”
“I haven’t been off the spider thing since I was six. You can’t tell me it’s that much of a surprise.” Arachne laughs, a little hysterical and a lot relieved - she’d expected this to go so much worse. (She has no illusions of her father ever getting the picture, but at least one of them is really on her side.) “How’d you know I was talking to Nanny again?”
“Tad threw a fit about the international texting charges, like he’s not just as bad. I told him to knock it off and let you have someone in your corner for once.” Her mom sighs. “I swear, the second you turn eighteen I’m filing for divorce.”
“Why wait that long, if he’s leaving the country?”
“Because he’d come back just to start a custody battle over you, and you’ve been in the middle of our fights too much as it is. It’s past time one of us put you first.”
Arachne doesn’t know what to say, and just stares at her mom for way longer than she should. “You’re not forgiven yet,” she finally manages, swallowing around a lump in her throat. “But this is one hell of a good start.”
***
Arachne’s music collection expands a lot once her father’s out of the country, and her mom starts playing her stuff more. (She can’t quite believe her mom had the balls to keep American Idiot, of all things, in a diplomat’s house; her mom just smiles and says it was one of her little rebellions.) It’s not the only thing they really bond over, but it is one of the first that isn’t hating Thaddeus Dowling The At Least Fourth.
She takes Arachne shopping for new clothes before the end of the school year, reasoning that they have access to quite a bit of money and there’s no point in Arachne being uncomfortable in her own home, even if she still doubts getting into it at school would be all that great. “Besides,” she adds with a vicious smile, “not only have I barely touched everything I inherited from my parents, but I made sure the pre-nup was foolproof. Tad can’t even say I’m spending his money on this.”
Arachne laughs. “Remind me never to piss you off.”
Trying on a dress for the first time since she was nine, one that actually fits her more or less properly, feels like coming home. The pants, on the other hand, present an immediate problem: She can’t even get her fingers all the way in the pockets, never mind actually put anything in them.
“These are stupid,” she says, putting all the pants on a return rack after trying on one pair. “We have a tailor. Screw giving up my pockets. How does anyone manage with these things?”
“We don’t, mostly,” her mom says. “I should have thought of the tailor thing a long time ago.”
Thanks to that little hiccup, she doesn’t leave with any new pairs of pants, but Arachne does get several dresses - and leaves the first store wearing one, at her mom’s urging. She’s not nervous about anything so much as the fact that the dress is sleeveless and she hasn’t quite managed to leave her arms alone, even though she doesn’t need the control outlet as much anymore. Her mom does give the scattering of fresh scabs and older scars a concerned look, but doesn’t say anything about it.
“I haven’t seen you this happy in years, honey. I’m glad I could help you reclaim it.” She looks away, probably instead of apologising again, then meets Arachne’s eyes with a smile. “So, mother-daughter dinner, while we’re out?”
Arachne’s mom is pretty all right, now that she’s starting to figure out how to be a parent. That night, she texts Nanny with an update; Nanny says she’s relieved Arachne’s mom turned out to not be completely useless, which is very high praise from Nanny, before moving on to an update about what she and Brother Francis have been up to.
Maybe Arachne’s luck hasn’t completely run out after all, if she’s got three parents worthy of the name.
***
For her seventeenth birthday, Arachne’s mom presents her with formal name-change paperwork. Arachne hadn’t even thought that far into the process yet, so she just stares at the pile of forms way past the point where she should’ve said something.
“Changing your name is hell. Trust me, it was bad enough when I had the convenient excuse of getting married, and I’m not looking forward to reversing it once the divorce happens. You might as well get a start on it now, even if you still don’t want to rock the boat at school.”
She doesn’t, just for one year, but she wants to treat college as the blank slate it’ll be when no one she knows is even thinking of leaving the state, never mind the country, and Arachne launches herself at her mom to hug her. She could’ve bought her half the nearby outlet mall and it wouldn’t have meant as much as this.
Over the course of the school year, they both slowly pack up the house. Her father’s not there to care, and her mom’s no fonder of Texas than Arachne herself. More importantly, her father was fool enough to not want anything to do with the paperwork when it came to actually buying the house, so her mom is free to sell it whenever she damn well pleases.
They agree it would serve him right to come back to the country and have nowhere ready for him to land.
On the weekends, Arachne experiments with the set dressing, since she has a safe place to do it after all. Makeup, she quickly decides, isn’t worth the time, effort, or stabbing yourself in the eye with mascara wands her mom puts into it; nail polish is a maybe, but that’s going to wait until she doesn’t have to remove it before the school week starts again. She always has liked having enough hair to at least tie back, though, and learning various updos is fun. As for shaving, the plausible deniability of facial hair means she’s been on that train for years - it may be a ridiculous double standard, but it makes her feel better, and Nanny would say that’s what counts.
It’s not that there aren’t bad days. Her father calls a few times, clearly fishing for something to brag about to his new political connections. Her mom slips back into emotional distance easily, after wearing it like armor for so long. Sometimes Nanny can’t answer her texts right away, and Arachne ends up in an anxiety spiral over the radio silence. But she can refuse to play her father’s game, and her mom apologises for her bad habits winning out, and Nanny always texts back within a day. More often than not, she can talk herself out of taking the bad days as a sign her luck really has run out.
Over spring break, Arachne goes to her last therapy appointment - the last one she’s making in Texas, anyway - with good news in tow. She shows off her acceptance letter to Oxford, and Emily (the therapist; they got on a first-name basis pretty quickly) smiles.
“Congratulations. How’s your family taking the news?”
“Mom already knew I was going to bug out for home as soon as I could, so she’s happy for me. Nanny’s insisting I stay with her.” Arachne’s pretty sure it was actually Brother Francis refusing to hear otherwise - even though he seems to be afraid of mobile phones, he sends so many comments via Nanny that they’re not doing a damn thing to convince her they’re not married - but which of them is behind it doesn’t matter as much as the fact that they offered at all.
That they specifically want her around.
She doesn’t mention her father, and Emily doesn’t ask. “I’m glad you’ll have a support system in place there. Heard through the grapevine you won’t be coming back?”
“Not unless there’s some kind of emergency. It’s definitely not you, or I wouldn’t have stuck it out this long, but Mom and I are going to Philadelphia after graduation, so she can start getting her parents’ old house livable again. And after that I’m going home, so. Not looking forward to re-establishing, but there’s no point taking up space on your schedule if I’m not here.”
“That’s true. But what you’re not doing is taking up my time in a way I mind spending it.” Emily grabs a business card off her desk and hands it to Arachne, after writing something else on the back - a phone number. “If you have trouble finding someone else who does this properly, or need to talk between now and when you do, don’t hesitate to call me, all right?”
“I don’t… I didn’t say that just to get something from you.”
“I know. Deserving good things in your life isn’t the same as being entitled to them, remember?”
Like Arachne could forget - that was one hell of a depression-brain bombshell. Wanting to be happy isn’t the thing that made her a spoiled brat when she was younger. Someday it’ll actually sink in properly, maybe. “Right. Thanks. For everything.”
The name-change paperwork is through just in time for graduation; she’s still announced as Warlock and seated with the guys, but when she peeks inside the fancy diploma folder she nearly cries. Her mom must have talked to the school about getting it labeled correctly. (Her father didn’t bother coming back for the ceremony, which is just as well. Even he wouldn’t overlook the mostly-packed state of the house.)
***
The day after her eighteenth birthday, wearing her favorite dress (deep purple, with spiderwebs picked out in silver and gold thread), Arachne Charlotte Dowling boards a flight home.
She only didn’t go on the day of as a favor to her mom, who wanted to celebrate filing for divorce with her there, calling it a victory for both of them. And really, she couldn’t ask for a better present than knowing she never has to talk to her father again. Going home was, at this point, a done deal anyway.
She’s unaccountably nervous getting off the plane, even knowing everything’s going to be fine - she chalks it up to anticipation more than actual apprehension - and still manages to be caught off guard as she heads to the baggage claim. Nanny’s there waiting for her, and even with the drastic shift to masculine presentation, she’d know Nanny anywhere, between the bright red hair and the sunglasses. The ‘ARACHNE’ sign is just icing on the cake.
Arachne doesn’t run down the escalator, but she does close the gap as quickly as she can, once she’s off it. Nanny hugs her, just as solid and comforting as she remembers - even if they’re the same height now, and that’s a little weird.
“Bless it, you got tall, hellspawn.”
“Yeah, well. That I don’t mind. Just you here?”
“Wanted to pick you up in style.” Nanny smiles. “Come on, let’s get your stuff. Don’t wanna keep the angel waiting, do we?”
Arachne laughs. “Oh, never.” That does explain why it’s just Nanny, though - Brother Francis (Aziraphale, Aziraphale, she really needs to get used to the new name in that case) never did seem fond of tearing across the countryside if he didn’t absolutely have to.
Nanny’s Bentley is parked out front, with a complete disregard for the airport’s parking regulations and no sign of impending trouble over that. Arachne settles into the front passenger seat - fuck, she missed this stupid, wonderful car almost as much as its owner - and “Seven Seas of Rhye” starts blasting from the speakers as soon as Nanny gets in. The funny thing is Arachne would swear the music starts before the car does.
“You keep out of this,” Nanny mutters, glaring at the steering wheel. Arachne can’t say she minds, though. Of the Bentley’s seemingly endless Queen rotation, this one was always her favorite, and it plays for most of the breakneck drive through London. (Maybe this is why the song never seems long enough on its own.)
They come to an abrupt stop in the middle of Soho, Nanny once again ignoring the idea of parking regulations; Arachne is somehow not surprised to see they’ve stopped in front of a bookshop. “So this is where you two ran off to?”
“Ran back to, more like. I’m not even here all the time, just… more of it than not, these days.”
“Then why not stay all the time?”
Nanny shrugs. “Habit, mainly. Also works out better if my plants aren’t so close to the books.”
Arachne’s not sure she completely buys it, but she can grant the plant point, at least. Plants like it warm and humid, and books decidedly do not.
The inside of the store easily outstrips any library Arachne’s ever been to, and she’s seen a few good ones. She can’t see how this unassuming building holds it all, but she also doesn’t much care. Maybe it’ll be part of the explanation Nanny promised her when they started talking again, but even if it isn’t, this is going to be one hell of a boon with her class work.
“Angel!” Nanny calls. “We’re back!”
It’s weird. Even without the full Goth Mary Poppins ensemble, Nanny is still solidly Nanny. But Aziraphale, when he wanders out of some back corner of the shop to meet them, looks so different that Arachne has a hard time reconciling him with Brother Francis - which is, to be fair, probably the point. Maybe the difference is that Nanny specifically said the old name was okay.
The way he beams when he sees her and immediately moves in for a hug erases the few creeping doubts that were trying to sneak in. “Welcome home, my dear girl. It’s so good to see you again.”
“You too.” Arachne’s always liked Nanny’s hugs best (but then, it’s maybe slightly possible she imprinted hard on the one useful maternal figure of her childhood), but Aziraphale’s are a different kind of unparalleled; they feel safe in a way nothing else ever has. For a brief moment she might as well be seven again, sneaking out to the gardener’s quarters and trying to figure out why neither of her so-called actual parents seemed to give a damn about her.
“So,” she says, to shake it off, “I believe I was promised a story a few years back?”
“Thought you might wanna do that when you weren’t all… jet-laggy,” Nanny says.
Arachne shrugs. “I’m not gonna be interested in sleeping for a while yet, and neither of you two have ever seemed to need much. No time like the present, right?”
“She does have a point, dear. I’ll go put the kettle on.” Aziraphale bustles off to do just that, and Nanny steers Arachne to one of the store’s side rooms, occupied by a well-worn couch and a cluttered desk. Nanny sprawls across a good half of the couch, utterly boneless; Arachne shifts a grey tartan blanket out of the opposite corner and sits down herself, taking up considerably less space.
Aziraphale is back with the tea in short order - almost too short, really, but Arachne’s never been one to complain about refreshments. Between distributing everyone’s drinks, he says, “Now, where to start. The best place for any story, of course, is the beginning--”
“Beginning of what, angel? You start at the very Beginning, we’re just going to lose her.”
Arachne can damn near hear the capital B in Nanny’s interruption, and makes a mental note to follow up later, but nods. “Yeah, maybe… keep it within my lifetime, for a start. You can backtrack after that if you need to.”
So they do keep it within her lifetime, or at least within a few hours of it. She’s not an idiot - she knows most of her classmates, even at the fancy-ass schools her parents paid through the nose for, didn’t grow up with the cocktail of conflicting messages she did, and she remembers enough of the weird stuff that ‘legit thought we were raising the Antichrist’ isn’t even completely surprising. But even with that, she has to stop them after they get through the bit with the hospital.
“Let me get this… well, none of us are straight, but you know what I mean. You’re telling me I can’t even reduce my father’s contributions to screwing up my life to ‘sperm donor’?”
“Well, I’d buggered off by that point,” Nanny says, “but… probably not. We know you’re not the kid they thought they were swapping in, but that doesn’t mean you weren’t swapped in.”
Arachne sighs, trying to figure out if she’s going to need to text Emily about this - at least the ‘so I was maybe accidentally adopted’ part, anyway. She knows it’s too much to drop on her mom, and it’s at least not fucking with how she feels about any of the three parents who matter, but that doesn’t make it not A Lot.
“I’m mostly pissed it costs me a perfectly good insult for him. Otherwise… think I’m gonna have to chew on that later. Which means we can move on to what you were doing dropping off a world-ending baby at a Satanic hospital in the first place, and I can’t picture any doomsday cult weird enough to take both of you at once.” There’s another possibility, one that would account for things like too-fast tea and too-large bookshops and quasi-sentient cars, but she doesn’t want to voice that. What if it’s real? Worse, what if it isn’t and she just makes an ass of herself?
No. She’s overthinking it. Nanny has never once laughed at her for asking a silly-sounding question, and won’t start now. Besides, they told her this much of the truth, so there’s no reason they’d deny her the rest.
“So. ‘Angel.’” That seems like the easiest place to start. “Is that… I mean, it’s obviously a term of endearment, but is it just a term of endearment, or like. Literal?”
Nanny splutters, probably over being accused of finding anything endearing, and Aziraphale smiles. “Well spotted, dear girl. It started out entirely literal, but by this point I dare say it’s both of those things.”
“And that would make Professor Homeless in Israel…”
“One of my lot,” Nanny says. “Well, they’re not mine anymore, we’ve retired, but. You get the idea.”
She does, rather. But even having been the one to raise the possibility, it’s just not sinking in - it’s too big - and after a full minute of waiting for it to process, Arachne stands up. “I… think I need a minute. I’m not gonna leave, I promise, but… I need a minute.”
Neither of them stop her from leaving. She wanders into the… are they still stacks if this isn’t technically a library? for a while, eventually stopping in front of a cubby bristling with scrolls. If only she had gloves handy to see what they were - but it’s unlikely she could read them anyway, given that this is Aziraphale’s private collection masquerading as a legitimate business, and who knows how old they are.
They’re probably originals, and that’s enough to leave her feeling slightly hysterical.
She’s still there (and still itching to pull the scrolls out of their cubby holes and have a look) when someone comes up behind her. “See you found Alexandria,” Nanny says.
“Really?”
“Yep. Angel’s got some stuff from Baghdad, too, handful of monasteries - I think he even nabbed a few before they could get shoved in a cave in Judea. Lot of stuff in this shop you can’t find anywhere else. Me, I’m just glad you didn’t get as far as the Bibles.”
Arachne blinks. “How many Bibles does one person need?”
“He likes picking up the misprints, the utter bastard. And I think he has a normal one for reference, but… never asked. Should hope for obvious reasons.”
The reasons are obvious, in light of everything. She stares aimlessly at the cubby for a while, and when she turns around, discovers that Nanny’s sunglasses are off for the first time she can remember. On the one hand, it helps make all this a little more real. On the other… well, it helps make all this a little more real.
“How is this fair?” she finally says. “Not - well, not specifically me, I’m still more happy to have any kind of useful parents than pissed about how I got them, but… Under all the ‘crush your enemies under your heel’ talk you’re legit one of the kindest people I’ve ever met, and no one took that into account. Aziraphale clearly likes you fine now, but how starved for positive feedback was he that he turned to you in the first place? And I can’t very well tell Mom any of this, and those jerks wanted to literally put the weight of the world on a kid’s shoulders and tossed you both aside because you cared about something they didn’t, and - how is any of this fair?”
Nanny looks at her for a long moment, then pulls her into a hug. “It isn’t fair in the slightest, hellspawn. Aziraphale would tell you everything turned out this way for a reason, or because it was meant to all along, and maybe it did, but that doesn’t have to be comforting. It isn’t fair, and parts of what’s happened were complete shit. But neither of us regret you, or each other, and that’s got to count for something, right?”
(“I regret having had a child with your father as a general concept,” her mom said over dinner last night. “But I don’t regret having you specifically in the slightest, honey. You’re a wonderful girl, and I’m glad I caught on soon enough to see it.”)
“You’re right. It’s not comforting at all. Maybe it will be eventually, but right now it’s not.” Still, Arachne’s glad Nanny didn’t try to bullshit it into fairness. “Is… the third kid from the hospital thing okay?”
“Adam says he’s a bit of a prick.”
Arachne snorts. “I mean, so was I when I was eleven, but at least he had the chance to become one.” She disentangles herself from the hug a little - not completely, with neither of them commenting on the tear stain she left on Nanny’s shoulder - and then can’t help smiling as she reconsiders her weird weekend in Israel in a whole new light.
“I told a demon to his face that he smelled like shit, and lived to tell the tale. Somehow I don’t think there are many people who can say that.”
Nanny laughs. “You’re not wrong there, hellspawn. And that’s when I knew you’d turned out all right.”
***
Naturally, that’s when the jet lag decides to crash into her. She goes back to the side room long enough to tell Aziraphale she needs to hit the pause button on story time - and that she fully intends to circle back to the promised Beginning when she’s awake enough to process it - and then they both herd her upstairs.
It’s not that she wasn’t expecting a guest room. They’ve certainly had enough warning that she was coming, and were the ones to insist on her crashing with them in the first place. But even with that, Arachne wasn’t expecting it to be actually tailored to her - and yet, there’s framed Gorey prints on the wall and an achingly familiar, god-awful red-and-beige plaid bedspread on the bed.
“Where’d you even find this? I’ve been looking for this stupid pattern for ages and I can’t turn it up anywhere.”
“Well, of course you couldn’t,” Aziraphale says. “I hadn’t wanted to presume what family ties you may or may not be able to claim, so that pattern is unique to you.”
It’s almost enough to make her start crying again. Instead, she hugs them both again (that’s not going to get old for a while); before they leave her to get ready for bed, she says, “Your plan worked, you know.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, if… if it had been me. I mean, when I was eleven I didn’t want to be in the world? But that was about me. The second I realised doing anything to the world would’ve hurt you guys? No dice.” Granted, she’s not at all sure that would’ve been the case if it had been her and whatever help her parents had hired hadn’t been as important to her, but that’s not the frame of reference she has.
“Oh, hellspawn. What did we do to deserve you?” Nanny hugs her one more time. “Get some sleep, kid. We’ll pick this back up when you’re more awake.”
It’s not until after they leave that Arachne sees the photo on the nightstand. It’s her when she was nine, wearing one of Nanny’s dresses (which was comically large on a prepubescent kid) and beaming in a way she used to think she’d never be able to do again. She hadn’t realised Nanny got a picture of that, or maybe she hadn’t remembered. She’ll have to ask them about getting a more current picture.
This has been nothing like she thought coming home would be. But as she settles into bed, she thinks it might be better.