Chapter 28 The Librarian
Chapter twenty-eight
The Librarian
“A room without books is like a body without a soul.” - Cicero
“Want to come to the library with me?” Hailey asked her newly appointed conversation partner in her ParaCommunications class.
Giselle contorted her face. “I hate libraries,” she grumbled. “Too many bookworms.”
She only answered because she had to, otherwise she’d get a low mark in class participation, and she’d already failed the class three times.
She’d made it clear that she wasn’t happy about having a conversation partner, but then Giselle wasn’t happy about anything.
At least she hadn’t asked Hailey where she’d slept last night… which reminded her…
“Giselle, where were you Monday night? You never came home.”
“Working.”
Hailey jerked her chin back.
“Really? Where?”
“I had the night shift at the hospital,” she said airily.
Of course! That’s how she knew about carnivorous splinters.
Hailey tried not to shudder as she imagined Giselle’s bedside manner.
“And by the way,” Giselle continued like a snob, “I wasn’t home last night, either. Obviously, you weren’t there to notice—where were you?”
Well, that backfired.
“Were you sleeping with Pádraig?” Giselle jeered.
“No—I didn’t—it was—” Hailey sputtered, and then she huffed in frustration. “I got shot by a poisoned quill.”
“Really. I didn’t see you in the hospital.”
“Asher fixed me up.”
Giselle crossed her arms and bared her top teeth. “You mean he made you his slave.”
“No, he just fixed me up.”
“Envoys are all about balance. They don’t just save people without getting something in return.”
“Well, this one did.”
“Then he must be losing his mind.” As soon as she said it, she slapped her hands over her mouth and ducked. She looked around, terrified for several seconds before bowing her head, sniffling, and pulling a string of silk from her eye.
“Are you alright?” Hailey asked.
“Asher scares me,” Giselle answered softly, and Hailey gently patted her back.
“Remarkable!” trilled Professor Mum loudly as she clapped her hands and rushed over to the girls.
“You two are a model of human/non-human cooperation.” She beamed.
“Everyone!” she called, and the whole classroom turned to see a frozen, wide-eyed Hailey patting the back of cobweb-faced, whatever-the-heck-Giselle-was.
“Observe.” Professor Mum motioned to the girls.
“This is what a cross-creature friendship looks like!”
Hailey turned stiffly to Giselle, who turned to Hailey, looking as shocked as Hailey felt. Hailey stifled a giggle. And Giselle actually cracked a smile.
“Well, non-human friend,” said Hailey at the end of class, “you sure you don’t want to come to the library with me?”
“I hate you,” said Giselle, but she was only mildly wrathful as she walked out.
“Hello?” Hailey called softly as she finally stepped over the threshold of the Bear Towne University Library. An impossibly large shadow-clock spanned the ceiling, hands silently twitching. “Hello…” Hailey sang again, though she wasn’t sure why—it was a public library.
Some clairvoyant, she thought as she made her way inside, bribe in hand.
“Six hundred and eighty-seven,” barked a female voice.
Hailey spun around.
There stood the librarian, hands planted firmly on her hips, foot tapping impatiently. Mrs. Spitz looked like she’d just stepped out of 1960. She wore pointy, wing-tipped glasses, a beehive hairdo, and a boxy jacket with large buttons.
“Excuse me?” Hailey said politely.
“Six hundred and eighty-seven.” Mrs. Spitz articulated each syllable. Peering down her nose at Hailey, she thrust her hand out.
Hailey placed her offering into Mrs. Spitz’s outstretched hand and stepped back.
Mrs. Spitz opened the book, read a few lines, tested the binding, sniffed loudly, slammed the book shut, and said, “Follow me.”
Falling in step behind her, Hailey noticed a suspicious object protruding from the librarian’s back. And it looked an awful lot like a knife.
“Uh…Mrs. Spitz?”
The librarian whirled around.
“You have a…a…” Hailey remembered she wasn’t supposed to mention sharp objects.
“A what?” Mrs. Spitz demanded.
“There’s something wrong with your jacket,” Hailey said quickly, cringing as she nodded to it.
“Huh?” Looking over her shoulder, Mrs. Spitz tugged at the hem of her retro coat, which made the knife in her back wiggle up and down.
“I can never get this thing to lay right,” she muttered. “How’s that look?”
“That’s much better,” Hailey whispered, giving her a nervous thumbs-up and trying not to hyperventilate.
“Hmph. Still feels wrong.” Mrs. Spitz placed her hand on a bookcase in the reference section.
“You’ll start on this shelf, here. Those books need to be shelved.
” She pointed to a stack on a wooden cart next to the shelf, and then she shook her finger at Hailey.
“Exactly six hundred and eighty-seven books to a case.”
Hailey gave her a blank stare.
“Oh, I wasn’t looking for a job, Mrs. Spitz, I came to find some information, and Asher said you had a message for me.”
“You’ll finish these, and then you’ll start on the Mysteries section in the 001’s with the books on Atlantis.” She shoved an armful of books into Hailey’s chest. “Six hundred and eighty-seven books per case,” she said again, and then she walked away.
Hailey wasn’t sure what to do, so she started shelving and counting and making sure each case had exactly six hundred and eighty-seven books. So began Hailey’s first day as a part-time library clerk at Bear Towne University.
It took her two hours to sort out one case in the reference section, mostly because every time she started counting, a poltergeist would shout numbers at her, and she’d lose her place. Over and over and over.
Finally, she gave up and worked on her original mission, which was finding a book on ghost traps. “And you’re the first ghost I’m going to lock up!” she called over her shoulder as she marched to the circulation desk.
There she encountered a problem. The place was deserted.
There was no computer, no card catalog. Hailey slapped her hands against her legs and looked all around.
How was she supposed to find a book in this place?
Slumping into a wooden chair at a desk near the stacks, Hailey plopped her head against the bare wood of the table and squeezed her eyes shut.
When she opened them, she saw, unnervingly close to her face, a tiny inchworm.
Hailey bolted upright. “You’re a bookworm, aren’t you?”
The worm nodded.
“You wouldn’t happen to know where I could find a good book on ghost traps, would you?”
The worm nodded again, inched itself together and like a pebble out of a sling-shot, it flew off the table toward the stacks, skidding to a halt only moments later on the desk in front of Hailey with two books in tow—Modern Methods in Poltergeist Procurement and Techniques in Crystallic Ghost Trap Calibration.
“Perfect!” she said, and the worm bowed. “You got a name?”
The worm nodded and flipped open a stray book on the desk, tapping its nose against the name of the author—Matthew.
“Pleased to meet you, Matthew.”
The worm bowed again and inched away as Hailey headed to Mysteries.
She’d only just climbed the ladder with an armful of books when Fin appeared.
“Too bad you’re not wearing a skirt,” he called up to her with a broad smile.
“Fin!”
“Hai—ley!” Mrs. Spitz called out.
She pumped her arms high as she took ridiculously long strides.
Fin gave her a wide berth.
“There are only six hundred and eighty-five books on that shelf!” She pointed emphatically toward Reference.
“I’ll add another two when I’m finished here.”
“You’ll add another two right now,” Mrs. Spitz countered.
“I’ll only be ten minutes longer here…”
“Fix it now!” She stamped her foot.
“But…I’m on the tenth rung of this ladder…”
Like a three-year-old in a tantrum, Mrs. Spitz gnashed her teeth, balled her fists, and let out an ear-piercing screech until Hailey climbed down and headed to Reference.
Fin followed, smirking, his shoulders silently quaking.
“Sometimes with Mrs. Spitz, you just have to shut up and color,” he said once the librarian was out of earshot.
“That woman is three kinds of crotchety.”
“That happens to zombies,” Fin said nonchalantly, and Hailey froze.
“Is she…?” Hailey couldn’t bring herself to say the word.
“Yup. Mostly dead most of the time and all the way dead some of the time. She might be late to her funeral, but she’s never late to work.”
“Bear Towne has a zombie librarian?”
Fin stepped back, looking sly. “You know how hard it is to find a good librarian these days?” he asked, and Hailey shook her head. “It’s a dying profession,” he told her with a wry smile.
Hailey threw her arm out and pointed toward the circulation desk.
“Is she going to eat my brains?”
He shook his head. “You watch too much TV. You still wanna go into town with me tomorrow?”
“Yes, definitely.”
“Alright, we’ll hit whatever stores you need to pick up your…necessities. Like a razor.”
Hailey gasped. He had noticed her tarantula legs!
“Oops,” he said checking his watch. “Gotta go. It doesn’t look good when the team captain’s late for practice.”
“You’re the captain of the hockey team?”
Fin winked at her. “Told you I was good.”
When Hailey got back to her room that night, she found a note on the floor just inside the door. With Fin on her mind, she grabbed it up and tore it open.
Giselle tsk’ed loudly from behind her magazine.
The envelope twitched. Then it bulged. And something that resembled a corpse hand emerged.
Hailey dropped the envelope, and by the time it hit the floor, a rotting arm and part of a shoulder were crawling out of the letter too.