Chapter 2: Chapter 2

“Cailyn!” Nathaniel’s voice boomed into the shop from the back.

‘Ah, shit.’ Cay knew it was never good when the bossman started yelling. She motioned at the sign on the front door and flipped it to ‘closed’, locking the door to all but the most stubborn of magical intruders. She hurried to the door to the back hallway, pulling it open quickly and shutting it just as hastily behind her. She found her way to his office in a few short strides.

“Oh my god, Chris!” she gasped.

“I’ve got him, for the moment, but I need you to retrieve something for me,” he said, holding the condensed orb of swirling spiritual energy in stasis above Christian’s rapidly cooling corpse.

“Of course!” Cay snapped, her muscles tensing. 

“Room two-hundred seventy-four, grab one of the knots.”

Without a second thought, Cailyn was off down the hall, racing to the nearest directory board. She pressed her finger to the listing for block three-hundred and infused a spark of magical energy into it. The world shifted rapidly, and she found herself standing at a nearly identical directory, her finger pressed to ‘You are Here.’

She turned and sprinted back up the block into the high two-hundreds, rapidly approaching the two-seventies. The door in question was identical to all the others, and she traced the opening rune on the door hastily. So hastily that it made her retrace it again before it would open, causing her to shout in frustration at it.

She grabbed one of the dolls off the shelving unit closest to the door, retreated from the vaguely creepy room, and headed back towards the nearest directory.

“I got it,” she gasped raggedly, thrusting the doll out towards Nathaniel.

“Thank you, Cailyn. Please place it next to Christian’s body.”

She quickly laid it out beside him, the tiny figure looking comically small compared to his lanky frame.

Nathaniel concentrated on the sphere of energy, guiding it to the doll in one fluid motion.

The pale white energy seeped into the patchwork doll through the gaps in its clumsily stitched seams. The chipped black buttons that served as its eyes seemed to take on some kind of life, and its ragged limbs twitched.

“Did it work?” Cay asked.

“Only time will tell, I’m afraid. He will need a place to stay while we wait and watch.”

“Can’t he stay with you?” she asked.

“No. My living quarters are… unsuitable for his current state of being.” Nathaniel answered grimly.

“Okay, shit, uh, I guess I can take him back to my brother and I’s place. Aiden gets along well with Chris, and I don’t have any problems with him.”

“Then that is what we will do. I will arrange your schedules so that someone can always be with him until he unravels… assuming the binding took hold properly.”

“Okay… so what do we do with him? I’ve never exactly watched over a knot before, Mr. Owens.”

“Watch, and wait for him to wake. If he does, bring him to the shop so I may have a look at him. If everything is going to plan, we won’t need to inquire with any of our underworld associates.”

“And if everything doesn’t go to plan?” Cay asked.

“Then we… what is it you say, Ms. Rowe… burn that bridge when we get to it?”

Cay forced a smile to meet Nathaniel’s grimace. “Great, here’s hoping it goes to plan.”

“There should be some information about knot things back in room two-seventy-four. I will go get it. Stay here with Mr. Gray.”

Cay nodded, taking a seat on the floor next to the doll… and the corpse that used to be her friend and coworker.

‘Chris… I hope everything works... ‘ she thought, watching his lips darken to an eerie blue hue.

 

“Here you are,” Nathaniel said, returning what felt like an eternity later.

“Thanks,” she said, taking the pamphlet he was holding out towards her. “Wait, is this from…?”

“The Office of Great Transformations, yes. Notorious gatekeeping pricks they may be, but their knot care information is still valuable. Let’s sincerely hope we don’t have to involve them in this.”

“Yeah, fuck those guys,” Cay agreed.

“My sentiments exactly, Cailyn. Now, you may take the rest of the night off. I will mind the shop. Get Christian home and settled in, read the care pamphlet, and hope by the Goddess that this works out for young Mr. Gray.”

Cay scooped him up carefully, holding the somewhat nightmarish doll gingerly. “What… what about the body?”

“I will take care of it, do not worry.”

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Cay nodded absently. “Right, uh, I guess I’ll see you later then. Thank you, Mr. Owens.”

“Of course, Cailyn. Have a good evening… and try not to worry too much about Mr. Gray. He is a resilient young man.”

His smile was much warmer and more genuine this time, and Cay tried to meet it with a genuine smile of her own. It didn’t work, but an effort was made.

==========

‘It’s dark.’ That was his first thought immediately upon waking. 

‘It smells nice,’ was his second.

The first thought meant he could be just about anywhere, and considering that he’d been asleep, it could very well be his room. The second thought pretty much shot that down immediately, though.

His eyes began to adjust to the dark and he started to get a better view of his surroundings.

The first thing he noticed was that this room was clearly made for giants. He’d played levels in video games like this, so clearly this was his video game addled brain having a weird dream.

The second thing he noticed was just how menacing the room looked. The walls were adorned with posters of a few bands he recognized, some famous witchy movie quotes, and a lot of very dark humour posters. Trinkets and knick-knacks rested all over most flat surfaces, and there was a wicked-looking dagger on the top of the dresser.

The next thing he was aware of, and suddenly very embarrassed for not noticing immediately, was the massive form of Cay asleep on the bed next to him. He jumped and let out a squeak at how large she was, and the sound that came out was decidedly raspy and higher pitched than his voice had been in years.

Cay’s eyes snapped open at the sound, and he let out a startled shriek - scream? - no, definitely a shriek. High and piercing and almost… metallic, like the scraping of metal against metal.

“Holy shit, it worked, you’re awake! You’re alive!” 

Then she was crushing him against her chest in a hug that he couldn’t entirely deny enjoying. He wasn’t sure how he was enjoying it, given that he was normally taller than her, and now she was several feet taller than him, but he’d had more than one fantasy about the very cleavage he was now resting in.

Cailyn seemed to realize exactly what she was doing and who she was doing it to after a moment, and yanked him free, holding him at arm’s length.

“Wah!” he yelped, grasping onto her arms with his hands.

Except they weren’t his hands. He’d had his hands for his entire life, and never before had his hands been gray sack-cloth lumps with fingers made of sharp bits of metal. He felt like his breathing should be hastening, his heart rate spiking… but neither of those things were happening.

Because he neither had a heartbeat, nor was he breathing. Those realizations sent him further into his panicked state.

“Ow, Chris…” Cay winced.

He immediately snapped back to his senses, and realized he had latched into her arms with his pointed metal fingers. Tiny pinpricks of blood welled up from where he had pierced her.

“Oh, shit, I’m so sorry, Cay, I’m sorry!” His voice was still as raspy, higher than normal, and as he spoke the words, he noticed that strange metal-on-metal sound to his sharper consonants.

“It’s okay,” she said, climbing out of bed and hurrying to the attached bathroom.

She crossed the room so quickly that it kinda freaked him out. His logical brain knew that she was normal sized, so this room was normal to her, but he was very small, and he was used to being normal sized, so seeing all this was causing his brain to perform some very complicated mental gymnastics. 

‘Do I even have a brain right now? I don’t have a heartbeat, and I’m not breathing…’

He had to set that train of thought aside, because Cay was returning.

“Okay, now that that’s taken care of,” she said, causing Chris to take note of the new bandaids on her arms. “How are you feeling, Chris?”

He stared dumbly up at her. Here was a beautiful girl in nothing but an oversized t-shirt, sitting in bed with him, asking him if he was okay after he’d just physically wounded her.

“I’m… totally fine,” he lied. “Sorry about your arm…”

“No, it’s okay, just some little scratches. I’ve had worse from cats!” she smiled soothingly.

“Speaking of little things… uh… h-how small am I right now?” Chris asked, looking around the jumbo-sized room.

“Well, I didn’t exactly measure you, but maybe like ten inches tall?”

“Woah…” He flopped back to a seated position on the bed, staring up at it all. “So uh, I’m guessing that I’m a knot thing right now, aren’t I?”

He’d delivered more than one in his time with the Underground, mostly to snobby rich witches that wanted to look younger or prettier, but occasionally to desperately searching young trans and nonbinary people. He really hoped it worked out for them, but felt bad that he was using one now. One less person out there was getting their shot to be happy because of him. 

He wasn’t like them, after all. He’d been mostly happy with his old body. Thankfully, that meant that very little would change during this grueling process.

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