Stepping into the archives, I’m met with a waft of cool, dry air. It carries that comforting, papery smell you find in a used bookstore. The scent sometimes clings to Aiden after a long day of working down here. I stop on the stairs and take a long breath of it.

It’s dark and still, but I can make out the faint glow of the dim lamp, all the way on the other side of the room.

I thread through the rows of cabinets, following Aiden’s light.

I find him standing at one of the tables. He’s facing away from me, holding an aged piece of paper beneath the lamp, reading in thoughtful silence. White gloves on his hands, the sleeves of his dress shirt rolled up to his elbows.

“Aiden,” I say softly.

He doesn’t seem to hear me, even though I’m only a few feet away from him. I open my mouth to say his name again, then stop, watching him. He’s holding the paper so carefully, by its very edge, so that his fingers make no contact with the ink. He lifts his other hand to push his hair out of his face, then stops mid-movement, remembering his gloves.

I’m about to say something again, but Aiden suddenly lifts his head and tilts it to the side. Listening.

He turns, looking towards the stairs.

“Jamie?” he murmurs, peering through the darkness.

“Hi,” I say quietly, from behind him. He startles a little, twisting to face me.

“Oh-” Aiden glances quickly back to the paper. He makes sure he didn’t wrinkle it, then gently sets it down and reaches for me. “Hi. How long have you been there?”

I go to him, then lean up for a hello kiss.

“Not too long.” I smooth back that strand of hair that was bugging him. “Am I interrupting? I came to see if you wanted to get some lunch.”

He had smiled when I fixed his hair, but now he frowns.

“Fuck. I took my lunch break already. I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were coming.”

“Aw. It’s alright, I should have texted you.” I spread my hands on his chest, since I can’t take his fingers. “I’d grab us some dessert and bring it back, but since you flipped out the last time I brought a sandwich down here-”

“Yeah, dude, turns out it’s not a great idea to bring a French dip sandwich into a place where archival work is happening. And I did not flip out, that is a wild exaggeration.”

I flick a hand at him. “Details.”

“Oh, my god.” Aiden half-groans, half-laughs, then rests his forehead on mine, his eyes catching the glimmer of the lamp. “You dumb idiot.”

I know I should probably leave, but I don’t want to. I don’t care if we get lunch, I just felt like spending some time with him. Would he be bothered if I hung out down here for a bit?

“Can I see?” I nod at the table. “What you’re up to?”

Aiden considers. “You don’t have any food in your pockets you’re going to unexpectedly pull out?”

“Of course not,” I answer, and then, remembering - “Oh, hang on, I’ve got some M&Ms.”

“What!” Aiden huffs out another laugh. “You’ve got loose pocket M&Ms? That’s gross. You’re gross.”

“Um! They’re in a package, I’m not an animal! Destinee gave them to me when I left the shop, I forgot!”

Aiden grins, then tips his head at the table.

“You can come look, but keep the M&Ms put away, please. In fact, just for my sanity-” He turns back to the table, grabs something, and offers it to me: a spare pair of white cotton gloves.

I slip them on, then come to stand with him. “So, what are you doing?”

“Archiving this stuff,” he says, pointing to a cardboard box on the far edge of the table.

“How does that work?”

“It’s…” Aiden hesitates. “I’m not sure you’re gonna find it that interesting, honestly.”

I nudge his side with my elbow. “Try me.”

“Okay... yeah, okay.” He reaches for the box and tugs it towards us. Upon closer inspection, I see that it’s crammed full of papers and files, haphazardly organized. There are also a few faded books, with cloth covers. “This stuff just came in for arrangement and description,” Aiden explains.

“Okay?”

“Arrangement means organizing the materials by standard archival guidelines. Usually, it goes by original order, and provenance.” He extracts one of the books from the box. “A bound book already has its pages in the original order, so I can skip right to provenance. Provenance is where it came from, its history.”

“Where does it say the provenance?” I ask, curious.

“Half the time it doesn’t say, and I have to figure it out.”

I stare at him. “How the hell do you do that?”

“Here, I’ll just show you.” Aiden gently lets the book fall open, revealing rows and rows of handwritten numbers. “Okay, so this looks like a cash book, for recording payments.” He carefully thumbs through the pages, then stops. “Here’s something potentially helpful.”

It’s a thin sheet of pink paper, attached to one of the pages. Aiden unfolds it, then shows me.

“This is a receipt from a school, salary payments for teachers.” He uses a gloved finger to point to the payment line. “From… the Isobel Miller Elementary School, so this must be one of their cash books.”

Aiden sets the book down again.

“I’ve done docs from that school before. It closed a long time ago.” He taps the spacebar on his open laptop. The screen brightens to show an empty form. “This is an administrative history sheet. I’ll put in the school’s name, and some information about its known history. I’ll mark the organization as nil, because it doesn’t exist anymore. Then fill out the description of the item itself.”

The form has a lot more boxes and lines than I expected.

“That looks complicated.”

“Mmm, it’s not so bad.” Aiden shrugs. “I already have the description of the school, so that’ll be quick.” He tucks the pink slip of paper back into the book, and closes it. “The forms will go with the pictures into our inventory system. I’ll assign the book an ID number, based on the related materials. Make sure it’s stored properly - that’s a whole separate process, we don’t have to get into it. Then I’ll put it away, and - that’s all.”

That’s all? As if it’s nothing! When did Aiden even have time to learn all this stuff? I knew it was more complicated than I originally gave it credit for, but this is more than I imagined. Here he is scouring through old documents for clues about where they came from, and what they mean, and how they fit together.

I’m impressed.

“Wow, Aiden,” I murmur.

He groans. “I told you that you wouldn’t find it interesting.”

“On the contrary, dummy. I really like hearing you talk about this stuff. My Companion Plant is talented.”

“Oh.” He pauses, then returns my smile, nibbling his lip. “Well - if you’re interested, I mean. I could show you how I do the storing part. Wait, I’ll - let me go get something more interesting, not a cash book. Stay right here for a sec.”

Apparently I’ve opened a door without realizing, because Aiden suddenly has a lot to tell me about this.

Totally fine with me. I’m happy to listen, and to look. I feel all warm inside, watching him talk about this so passionately, showing me all the steps, all the little details.

I end up staying in the archives way longer than I intended.

Eventually, Aiden digs up some very specific old newspapers. So specific, in fact, that I wonder if he’d already been planning on showing me. He had the ID numbers saved in a note on his phone.

The publication is called Banner of Light. It's a spiritualist newspaper, all about ghosts and the beyond. The editions that Aiden uncovers are from 1857.

“I’ve been dying to show you this,” he says, confirming my suspicion. “Thought you’d find it cool.”

He’s exactly right about that. An old-timey ghost newspaper? I mean, come on.

We stand together in the cool dark of the archives, bent over the old pages, reading notable lines out loud.

“Mrs. Emma Francos Bullene, the widely known and justly celebrated trance speaking and singing medium, will lecture in the Melodeon on Thursday evening. Admittance: fifteen cents.”

“You’re justly celebrated,” Aiden tells me.

“Your face is justly celebrated!” I fire back, before realizing that this is not the cutting insult I thought.

“How about this one? Apparition of a Spirit Child: we have the following from an ear witness - ear witness?” Aiden laughs. “Is that a thing?”

“Manifestations in North Carolina - We have had the dining-table walk all over the room, and one night it was broken by a gentleman who tried to hold it down. I saw my friend carried around the table seemingly as light as a feather, then carried back and seated on the lounge. Okay, see, dude? This is the shit we’re inviting into our lives by fucking with a ouija board.”

“Here, this is my favorite.” Aiden points to a section called Messenger. “They’ve got letters supposedly sent in by ghosts. Look how this one starts: My earth life was a pleasant one.”

“Too bad Will never sent in a letter, huh?” I ask, and Aiden laughs again.

I stand there smiling at him, appreciating that sweet, huffing sound, and - a thought suddenly occurs to me.

“Hey - you’ve searched the archives for stuff about Will, right?”

“Yes.” Aiden gently sets the newspaper back in its box. “Several times. Although - some stuff around here is misfiled, I’m discovering. I don’t think the last archivist cared too much about their job. They even forgot to remove the paper clips and rubber bands from some of the materials.”

He makes a face like this is something very telling.

“Okay,” I answer, not sure what he means, but trying to keep us on track, “So - you searched for Will, but we didn’t know about Ariana. Could we search for her? Maybe there’s something that could help us. You said more information is always better, right?”

Aiden pauses, his expression thoughtful.

“That’s true, but - remember, I told you, secrecy is paramount in my family, and it always has been. I really doubt that Ariana would have allowed herself to be mentioned in a newspaper, or anything like that.”

“Will had employment records,” I point out.

“Yeah, but was it common for women to work, during that time?”

“Let’s consult our historian,” I suggest. “Got the glasses on you? Yes? Cool, put them on. Hey, Kasey!”

She appears by my side, yawning.

“What?” she grumbles. “I was sleeping.”

“Were women working when Ariana was alive?”

“Mmm.” Kasey scrubs a hand over her face. “Women have worked since forever, babe.”

“Well - yes, but is it possible that Ariana might have employment records? That kind of job?”

“That’s a complicated question, Jamie.” Kasey stretches her arms over her head. “I don’t know enough about Ariana to answer that. It depends on a lot of things. Her family, her religion, her social class, whether she could read and wr-” Kasey breaks off, her eyes narrowing. “Why?”

“We’re trying to figure out if it would be helpful to search her name in the archives,” Aiden explains.

Kasey stares at us for a long moment, then presses her fingers to her temples.

“Wow. You guys are so dumb. You had a great idea, you could have looked smart, and you biffed it. Calling me here to explain the history of women in the workforce, when you could just go search her name, and skip this step.”

“Oh, god, she’s right,” Aiden mumbles. “What are we doing? Let’s go, I left my laptop on the table.”

“By the way,” Kasey says, as we set off down the rows of cabinets, “How was last night, for you two?”

I jolt to a stop, my face coloring up. “What?”

Kasey arches an eyebrow.

“How was practicing?” she elaborates. “You and Aiden said you were gonna practice turning things.”

“Oh. Oh! Um, yeah, that’s - what we-”

“Oh, my god.” Kasey shoots me a knowing look, shaking her head. “You’re absurdly obvious. Let’s hope that Will wasn’t hanging out in your apartment last night, Jamie.”

“Yeah, he’d probably be scandalized,” I answer, as Aiden opens his laptop again. “He died in the 1820s, right? That wasn’t exactly the era of queer liberation, was it?”

“Okay, but he’s lived through every era since,” Kasey argues, “So we can’t know that he’d be weird about it. In fact, we know pretty much nothing about his personality or his character. All we have are the basic facts of his life.” Her forehead creases. “I think I just realized that right now, actually. Huh. Maybe - maybe our personalities won’t go together.”

She suddenly looks troubled.

“Let’s do the search,” I say, trying to provide her with a distraction.

“I mean, don’t get your hopes up,” Aiden warns. “I don’t think we’ll find anything. Like I said, Ariana would have been taught from a very young age to stay as anonymous as possible. We all are. I had a whole freakout when a newspaper ran my name in a story about a soccer game we won in high school, so…”

He fades off, and Kasey nods.

“It's okay, I won’t get my hopes up. Just try it."

Aiden turns back to the laptop and searches Ariana’s name.

“Oh, shit. I stand corrected. She’s got a mention in a newspaper.”

Aiden pulls up the scan, and we all lean in close.

Unbelievably, it’s a letter to the editor, penned by Ariana herself. From what I can tell, she wanted to address something that had been published in a previous issue.

Sir, the letter begins, I must express my sincere disappointment with the entry submitted to this paper by Mr. J.E. Dawdson, which I posit is fiction painted as truth. It is not my habit to write in, but Mr. Dawdson leaves me little choice. His article reduces women to no more than decorative onlookers to the achievements of men. This is simply not true. Over fifty years have passed since Ms. Mary Wollstonecraft first published her Vindication of the Rights of Woman, yet Mr. Dawdson would have your readers believe that women have no individuality of expression, no role in society beyond the home, and no bearing on the intellectual world. Again, sir, this is simply not true.

The letter goes on, sharply and passionately criticizing the previous article. And there it is, right at the bottom: Ariana’s name.

“Damn.” Kasey lets out a low whistle. “This is savage, by the standards of the time period. You guys don’t even know, she basically tore that guy’s head off. I respect it.”

“Wait a minute,” I say slowly. “Are you telling me that Ariana Callahan broke a major Callahan family rule because she was so pissed off that someone wrote a particularly sexist newspaper article? Is that what’s going on here?”

Aiden sees where I’m going with this, and a grin spreads across his face.

“Why are both of you smiling like that?” Kasey asks, suspicious.

“Because,” Aiden explains, “It looks like we actually do know something about Will, beyond the basic facts.”

Kasey frowns, puzzled. “What’s that?”

Aiden is battling a laugh, so I’m the one who answers.

“He clearly has a type.” I’m wearing a grin to match Aiden’s, and I stab a finger at the laptop screen. “Pretty sure your personalities will go just fine together, because - Kasey, do you really not realize that this sounds like it was written by the nineteenth-century version of you?”

She blinks, then looks back at the letter, realizing.

The moment she does, all three of us lose our shit at once.

My suggestion didn't produce any helpful information for the ghost hunt. But it did make my two favorite people laugh really hard, and made Kasey feel better.

Overall, I'd call it a success.