The archives are still waking up when I arrive. Lights humming, vents sighing, the stacks stretching into a quiet I have always found kinder than most people. I slip into my workstation, coffee in hand, ready to pick up where I left off.
And there it is.
The shoebox.
Exactly where I abandoned it yesterday.
I am not surprised. It is my job, after all. But something about the way it sits on the table feels like it has been waiting for me. Patient. Unbothered. A little smug, if cardboard can be smug.
"Well," I murmur, setting down my cup, "round two."
I open my notebook, flipping to the page of notes I started yesterday. Age estimates, object list, early provenance guesses. Everything logical. Everything exactly how I left it.
But my attention keeps drifting.
Not to the box. To what is inside it.
More specifically: the ring.
It rests in the corner like a punctuation mark, too large to be decorative, too plain to be jewelry, too cold if yesterday was anything to go by. I should be cataloging the brooch or the ribbon first, easing myself in.
Instead, my hand moves toward the ring almost automatically.
A curiosity that knocks at the door of my mind and begs to be let in. To be unraveled and figured out.
It felt familiar, somehow. Like reaching into my own jewelry box to check the weight of something I have worn a thousand times.
I do not question the impulse. Not at first.
My fingers brush the metal.
A wave of cold breathes up my arm, surprising but not alarming. More like touching the side of a metal railing in winter. My instinct is to turn the ring over, check for new details, anything I missed.
So I pick it up and cradle it in my palm.
And then it happens.
The metal warms suddenly under my fingers, fast, like it is reacting to the heat of my body. Before I can blink, the entire band shivers, smooths, and collapses into itself like liquid mercury.
I watch, more fascinated than frightened, as the ring melts across my palm, thin as a ribbon of silver, fluid and impossibly deliberate.
"What..." I whisper, not moving, not wanting to drop it. "Okay. That is new."
Maybe the metal has an absurdly low melting point. An alloy of some kind.
The silver ripples once more and disappears into the creases of my hand, absorbed, gone, like it tunneled straight through my fingerprints.
My breath catches, but not in panic. More like the shock of watching a museum artifact behave like a special effects trick.
I turn my hand over.
No burn. No mark. Nothing.
Then something gleams.
The ring is sitting neatly on my pinky finger.
Not loose. Not tight. A perfect fit.
"Huh?"
I lift my hand closer to my face, studying it from every angle. The metal looks unchanged. Same smooth surface, same silver sheen. Like it has always belonged there.
I test the band gently with my thumb.
It does not move.
I tug lightly.
Then harder.
It stays put.
"Okay," I mutter, eyebrows knitting. "Bold of you."
Another tug. The ring does not budge.
Still not panicking. More annoyed. Like a puzzle refusing to solve cleanly.
I grab the hand lotion. Soap. Even try the string trick.
No movement.
"It is going to be one of those days," I say under my breath.
I give the ring one last experimental twist.
And that is when the door slams open behind me.
"GOOD MORNING, ANGEL OF DEATH AND PAPERWORK!"
Monica strides in with two iced lattes balanced expertly in one hand, scarf bright enough to cause property damage. Her energy hits the room like a controlled explosion, loud, warm, and somehow always on purpose.
I sit up straighter, hand dropping casually (too casually) to my lap.
"You bring caffeine," I say. "I tolerate your existence."
"That is the spirit." She sets a caramel latte beside me with a flourish. "Fuel up. You look like you spent all night arguing with a label maker."
I take a long sip. "Rude."
Monica does not notice anything unusual yet, which is good, because my pinky feels heavier than it should. I rest my hand on my thigh, angled away from her. Not hiding, just not highlighting the supernatural hand accessory I acquired in the last twenty minutes.
She leans over the workstation, peering into the shoebox. "So what fresh nonsense are we dealing with today?"
"Normal cataloging," I say, painfully neutral. "Nothing exciting."
She raises a brow. "You said that like you are trying to convince yourself."
"I am adjusting to your volume," I deadpan.
"Mmm." Suspicious, but distracted enough to let it go for now.
Then her gaze drifts, sharp as a bloodhound's, to the hand I am trying desperately to keep unnoticeable.
"...Is that a ring?"
I sigh internally. "Maybe."
She steps closer. "But you hate jewelry. You do not even wear an engagement ring."
"Correct."
"Did you put it on?"
"No."
She blinks. "So someone else did?"
"No. It just kind of fell on. And now it is stuck."
She gives me a pointed look. "I have seen that one before, but it usually involves a step sister and a dryer—"
"I do not know what happened, okay?" I hiss quietly. "I touched the ring and then it melted and now it is fused to my hand."
That shuts her up.
Just for a second. I can practically see her brain clicking from gossip mode into archivist handling a weird artifact mode.
"Okay," she murmurs. "Let me see."
Her tone is steady. Practical. Not panicked. Just curious. Archivist curious.
So I hold out my hand.
She takes it gently, turning it in the light. "Huh. It looks almost fitted to you. Is this really the ring from yesterday? That thing was huge and, God, your fingers are so dainty, how did I never notice?"
"It is," I answer, ignoring all the finger commentary.
She tests the ring with a light tug.
Nothing.
She tries a firmer pull.
Still nothing.
She gives me a look that could catalog my soul. "How stuck are we talking here?"
"Hydrogen bond level stuck."
"That is specific."
"It is also not coming off with lotion, soap, string, or brute force."
Monica lets go slowly, like she is afraid sudden movement might provoke it. "Okay. So. Jeweler or priest?"
"Priest?"
"For the inevitable exorcism."
"Oh, you have jokes. Ha. ha."
She nods thoughtfully. She should ask more questions. Press harder. Freak out at least a little. But Monica watches serial killer documentaries for fun. Her alarm system is specialized.
Honestly, I'm relieved she is this calm.
"Well," she says, sipping her latte, "just don't let it curse you or whatever."
"Great advice."
"Always here for you."
She checks her phone. "Anyway, I might need to duck out early today. My mom has that routine physical she scheduled weeks ago. I need to pick up her prescriptions."
I am still rubbing my pinky, as if sheer annoyance could dislodge the ring.
The lie lands in my mind like a note sliding neatly into the correct folder.
Her tone is perfect. Her face is neutral. Her story is plausible.
But the truth hits instantly:
Her mother does not have an appointment. Monica is leaving early for a date. And she does not want to say so out loud.
It is so clean, so sudden, that for a moment I wonder if I hallucinated it.
I feel myself nodding before I even decide to. "If you ever need to leave early for other reasons, I'll cover for you."
Monica freezes, just a fraction of a second, before her grin returns.
"You are a gem," she says lightly. "A mysterious gem with questionable decision making skills, but still."
She waves a hand and heads for the door. "Harold is looking for you, by the way. Something about a lost file."
Of course he is.
I take another sip of coffee, trying to focus. Trying to feel normal. Trying to pretend the ring is not pulsing faintly against my skin like it has an opinion.
And I can feel, deep in my chest, that things are about to keep getting stranger.
Harold's voice echoes down the corridor before I even round the corner.
"Evie. Evie, I need you. There is a situation with the donor files."
There is always a situation with the donor files. Usually spelled H A R O L D.
I sigh, straighten my shoulders, and follow the sound of bureaucratic distress to his office.
He is standing in the middle of the room, surrounded by half open drawers and one dramatically upturned manila folder, as if the archives themselves betrayed him in the dead of night.
"There you are," he says, breathless with urgency. "It is catastrophic. I lost the Offerman file."
He is lying.
It hits me instantly. Clean, quiet, automatic:
He did not lose the file. He tucked it behind the shelf. On purpose. He wanted me to come in here. To bend down. To give him a chance to stare.
The knowledge does not come with outrage or shock, just a cold, precise click of truth falling into place. Another folder, neatly labeled.
I meet his eyes. "Did you check the shelf behind the drawer?"
Harold startles. "Well, I, uh, of course I checked, why would I—"
He is lying again.
I move toward the drawer slowly, deliberately, and he flinches like he has been caught with his hand in the archival cookie jar.
I crouch, not bending at the waist, but folding down cleanly, knees together, spine straight, and reach behind the drawer. My fingers brush paper almost immediately.
Offerman file. Exactly where he hid it.
I pull it out.
Harold laughs a brittle little laugh. "Ha. Look at that. Must have, uh, fallen back there."
"It did not fall," I say.
It is not a threat. Not a scolding. Just a statement of fact.
Harold's eyes widen. Not because he is guilty, he is always guilty, but because I am looking at him differently. Directly.
He opens his mouth to say something, probably to spin this into a harmless mistake, but I cut in:
"I will email you instructions for preventing this from happening again. You will not need me in here next time."
He swallows. "Evie, I, I did not mean—"
"I know," I say.
And God help him, I do know.
All of it. Exactly what he was thinking. Exactly why he called me.
I hand him the file. "Have a good rest of your morning, Harold."
There is no malice in my tone. Just finality.
When I leave his office, he is still standing there holding the folder like it might bite him.
Back in the corridor, I let out a long, shaky breath I did not realize I was holding.
The ring sits warm and solid against my pinky, like a quiet presence tucked under my skin.
I do not know what it is doing.
But I know I am not quite the same person I was yesterday.
By the time lunch rolls around, the archives have settled into that soft midday hush I love, the kind where even the vents seem to breathe slower.
Monica has already slipped out with a wink that says please pretend I am helping my mother and not meeting a man who wears cologne like a second skin.
I eat at my workstation, as usual. Leftover pasta. Podcast murmuring softly through my earbuds. Everything familiar.
Except the ring.
It is warm now. Not uncomfortable, just present. Like it is syncing to my body temperature or something.
I cannot help but smile at the idea of a supernatural mood ring.
I keep glancing at it while chewing, and each time I do, there is this faint pulse of recognition in my chest. Not mine. Its.
"No," I tell it quietly. "We are not forming a relationship."
The ring does not comment.
Lunch ends. I clean up, close my laptop, and go back to cataloging a set of old train schedules. It is dull work, repetitive in a soothing way, perfect for settling myself after the Harold Incident.
I am mid note when the world blurs.
Not dramatically. Just shifts.
Like someone quietly swapped the slide in a projector.
The stacks around me fade into a wash of soft shadow. Cold air prickles across my skin.
And then
A face.
Not close enough to be threatening. Not far enough to ignore.
Just there, hovering in the space where sight turns into memory.
A man I have never seen.
Strong features. Long dark hair falling around his shoulders. Eyes the color of winter dusk. Pointed ears, elegant and inhuman. A quiet intensity, like he is watching me with a familiarity I have not earned.
My breath catches.
My heart stutters.
But before I can blink
Pain blooms behind my eyes.
A sharp, stabbing migraine that knocks the air from my lungs. I grip the edge of the table and squeeze my eyes shut, waiting for the world to stop tilting.
When I open them again, the vision is gone. The stacks return. The archives are still.
I am alone.
The man never existed.
Except the ache pounding behind my forehead insists otherwise.
"Okay," I whisper, massaging my temples. "Absolutely not doing this today."
I try to keep working, but the letters on the page swim. The fluorescent lights suddenly feel too bright. Every sound a fraction too sharp.
And beneath it all, that warm, steady pressure from the ring.
Like a heartbeat that is not mine.
I grab my bag slowly, testing my balance. Yeah. No. I am done. I cannot catalog donor materials when my brain feels like it is trying to download a fantasy novel directly.
I tell Harold I am leaving early. He barely looks up from his desk, clearly terrified to make eye contact after earlier. And I send Monica a quick headed home, headache text.
Neither question it.
By the time I reach the parking lot, the migraine has dulled to a throb, but the vision still clings to me. Like an afterimage burned too deep into my mind.
A long haired, pointy eared stranger. Watching me like he knows me.
I shake my head hard and unlock my car.
"Definitely going home," I mutter. "I need a long bath and generous pour of wine."
The ring rests warm and stubborn against my skin.
And for the first time today, I wonder if it is the reason I cannot shake the feeling that something, someone, was looking back.