Total pages in book: 21
Estimated words: 19879 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 99(@200wpm)___ 80(@250wpm)___ 66(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 19879 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 99(@200wpm)___ 80(@250wpm)___ 66(@300wpm)
The library is housed in one of the oldest, most-active buildings in the entire town. A section of the floor down the aisle that’s nowhere near where I’m standing creaks as if the building can hear me thinking about it. My eyes shift as goosebumps flow down my shoulders.
I stack the old books in the crook of my elbow and leave the circulation desk with easy strides. The reaction is instant. My breath gets short and a chill races down my spine and the feeling of being watched—being followed, closely—gets so strong that I almost react.
I don’t turn around, though.
It’s a game these ghosts play, I think. They used to startle me. They still try to do so. My lips kick up in an asymmetric smirk.
There are other games they could play if they wanted to drive me crazy or run me out of town, but other than a few books thrown off the shelves and doors opening and closing when they’re not supposed to, nothing ominous has happened.
Other than the general haunting. They simply exist and want their presence known. Perhaps that gives them comfort.
Clearing my throat, my shoulders back, I step into one of the aisles to reshelve borrowed books that have been returned. Movement flickers in the corner of my eye, but I pretend I didn’t see it.
Some spirits or ghosts don’t want to be looked at, and they’ll use the shadows to their advantage. You’ll see a creepy face when you don’t want to, or a figure that doesn’t look right, and then you’ll never be able to un-see it.
I’ve worked here long enough to know better.
Long enough to know all about the history of the building, and how it was originally the town hall.
That’s where the leaders of the town would go to meet and decide issues of the day. It sounds innocent enough when you phrase it like that, but there have been times when the leaders of the town—mostly the older men—would decide to go after people who scared them.
They’d decide to go after women they could easily label witches. I’ve only seen one of the women once. But sure enough, I knew it was her because I’d spent that week reading about the trials. I knew her face when I saw it. She came and went, perhaps at peace with someone in this realm understanding the horror of what had happened. And knowing she was innocent.
She was the first, but not the last. Some come and go, others, like the one behind me, stay. What they crave from their hauntings, I do not know.
The heavy book in my left hand is a record of town meetings. In buildings like this one, sometimes there would be debates that turned into arguments. Some of those arguments even turned bloody. Passionate and emotional energy was expended here when this was the town hall, and that was before it was the courthouse.
I can’t tell you how much justice was actually done in these walls, but justice wasn’t the only thing done here. Corruption and lies and fear form a long-lasting layer over the original hardwood.
More of the boards creak as I cross to the opposite side of the main hall.
There are rows of bookshelves in the largest study room with my circulation desk in the center, more toward the front. The aisles are narrow so we can fit as much shelving as we need to house the library’s collection, but none of the aisles are as narrow as the one in the very back.
It’s probably against some building code to have an aisle that narrow, but nobody who’s in charge of enforcing those codes ever does anything about it. It’s where I feel the most presence. Where so many spirits hide. Tucked away with the history of this place.
Whenever the fire marshal comes around, he avoids the aisle in the back like someone tiptoed their fingers down his spine and blew between his vertebrae.
They probably did.
They’ve done it to me.
With my shoulders squared and in silence, I go from aisle to aisle and stack to stack. The sensation of eyes on the back of my neck gets stronger, then lets off, then gets stronger again. I remind myself to breathe deep and normal. My mind might be used to the fact that the library I spend most of my time in is haunted, but my body isn’t.
I’ve been haunted by night terrors of death before. Often waking and needing to know who it was and what exactly happened. The visions so real.
But other dreams have come, day and night, regardless of whether or not my eyes are shut. Dreams of comfort and gratefulness.
The spirit behind me, I am unsure of. It’s something that’s old and wary, or maybe my age and devilish.
I don’t know for sure. I don’t know if I’ll ever know for sure about these particular ghosts.