The Library of Souls

by Richard Denney

  I stared at the hotel TV. A news anchor woman with pink hair was talking about a total lunar eclipse happening on Thursday, which was tomorrow. A commercial for a keychain pooper scooper came on and I switched the TV off and jumped up from the bed.

  The sun was hidden behind the clouds and it looked pretty windy from the hotel room’s bay window. I watched as a couple shuffled past, covering their faces with a shopping bag. Across the street sat a few shops and a restaurant called Johnny’s Ribs, which I could smell from inside the hotel room and it was making me hungry.

  One of the shops caught my eye as I was about to close the curtain and get ready to head out. The shop was smaller than the rest but had one of the best signs I’d ever seen. It was a wooden sign shaped like a stereotypical ghost and in squiggly blood red letters it read: Ghost Town Souvenirs. The internet research I’d done was right. There was a gift/souvenir shop for the town’s own folklore.

  I decided that instead of running around the entire town in this crazy weather, I’d hit up that shop and see if the owner or whoever was working could help me out instead. It was worth the walk and even though my life was dedicated to the supernatural, I still enjoyed stuff like that shop from time to time.

  Finally after staring for what felt like eternity, I closed the curtain and headed to the bathroom, a towel hanging over my shoulder. We’d been on the road for so long that I figured it was time for a fresh shower.

  Flipping the switch on, I tossed the towel on the sink and turned the water on. The bathtub in this room was pretty huge and even had a therapy mode, where the water comes out of these tubes and massages your back for you, pretty sweet. I had to make a mental note to try that out before we checked out of this place.

  I was about to pull my shirt over my head when I heard someone call my name.

  “Simon…” the voice ripped through the air. It was more of a whisper than a call, and it sounded like a girl.

  I put my shirt back on, angry that I couldn’t even get naked without a ghost creeping up on me. I wanted to scream, but I knew I’d make whatever it was just as angry as me.

  “Hello!” I called out, checking the mirror. It happens a lot in horror movies, but in real life mirrors are a gateway to the other side and spirits love to use them when one is near. This mirror was empty.

  “Simon…” the voice rang out again, louder this time. “Why didn’t you listen to me?” anger rippled through her voice and the lights above the sink flickered and sizzled.

  “Listen to you… I don’t even know who you are!” I yelled out. I was tired of playing games.

  The bathroom door slammed behind me, the wood groaning as if someone was holding it shut. What in the heck!

  “Hey! You have no business coming at me like this when I don’t even know who you are!” I screamed. I couldn’t help that I was getting scared. Yeah, I’ve dealt with more spirits than anyone would care to count, but that doesn’t mean I don’t get the creeps sometimes.

  “Why didn’t you listen to me?” the voice said from the mirror this time. I swallowed hard and walked back over to the mirror, hoping I wasn’t about to have a showdown with an angry spirit.

  In the mirror stood a girl, about my height, with long blond hair and a long gaping gash down the middle of her face. Her eyes had been hollowed out and the rest of her face was chapped and corroded like the outside of an old house. Even without eyes, I could see that she was full of rage and at any moment she was going to bust.

  Suddenly the bathroom grew colder and I shuddered. Whoever she was, she was strong and I could feel my heartbeat moving toward my throat in fear. I wasn’t scared because of how she looked. I’d seen my fair share of grotesque looking spirits, some with their insides hanging out of their outsides, so I was pretty used to seeing some pretty messed up stuff. It was her strength that freaked me out most. Her aura was interesting. She didn’t seem evil, she seemed misunderstood, and hurt.

  I was trying my best to figure out what she wanted with me, and then it hit me like a freight train: she was the girl in the window from the library. The one Jade told me to stay away from. But in the window she looked different. She didn’t have a giant gash on her face in the window, she looked almost peaceful at the library.

  “You’re the girl from the library,” I told her, trying to calm her down, but the lights above the sink were still flickering and it was still freezing. It was so cold my arms began to prickle as if a million tiny ants were underneath my skin. I’d never felt like this before.

  She glared at me and tried to open her mouth to speak, but it was as if something were forcing it to stay shut. With all her might, she forced her mouth open and the sides of her cheeks split open like a fresh wound. I took a tiny step back. I’d never seen a ghost do something like that before.

  Her jaw was now hanging at an awkward angle as she tried to speak.

  “Must… stay… away…” she said, her tongue slithering in and out of her now broken mouth like a snake. I decided that I wasn’t scared of her anymore, I was scared for her. Something was doing this to her.

  “I tried,” I told her. “My uncle won’t listen to me!”

  “MAKE HIM LISTEN!!” she screamed with so much force that the walls rattled. Her jaw tore away from her face and flew to the ground so she couldn’t speak right anymore. I could feel the rage rising in her and I wanted to run, but I couldn’t. She was forcing me to stay put. I turned away from her and saw that the bathtub was now full of blood instead of water and it was pouring over the rim of the tub. The floor of the bathroom began to fill with the crimson liquid and the sharp aroma of copper attacked my senses. I hated the smell of blood.

  I turned back to the girl and watched as she helplessly writhed in place as if something was attacking her from the inside. Piece by piece parts of her skin flaked away until she was almost bone. I could see the pain in her face and I wanted to stop it. This was one of the worst encounters I’d ever experienced and it was all because of that stupid library.

  “WHY DIDN’T YOU LISTEN?” a crying whisper shot through both of my ears like a razor blade and I leaned on the sink from the pain. I pushed myself back up and stared at the girl in the mirror, disintegrating right before my eyes.

  “WHO IS DOING THIS TO YOU?” I screamed.

  She looked like she was trying to tell me, but something was holding her back. With all her might she let out a scream, louder than I’d ever heard and then erupted into tiny chunks of dust.

  Free from her grasp, I collapsed to the ground and into the blood. The thick, coppery liquid filled my mouth and ears as I tried to call out for help. I pushed myself up from the ground and slammed myself against the wall. When I opened my eyes, I realized that it was no longer blood, it was just water, and the bathroom was flooded.

  I decided to skip the shower after what happened in the bathroom and had to call the front desk to tell them that the bathroom was flooded. Monty was never going to let me hear the end of it when he found out. Luckily, the woman at the front desk could hear my distraught voice and told me that she’d send someone up to clean it before my uncle got back. I wanted to ask her if she’s ever considered adopting a kid, but she hung up before I could say another word.

  I was sitting on the bed, my head in my hands trying to figure out what the heck happened in the bathroom. I’d never had a spirit from a haunt follow me back to a hotel, or even home. So the fact that the girl was able to do that and conjure up all that power to cause hallucinations meant that the library was more troubling than I already knew. And not just that, something had come along with her and was making sure she kept her mouth shut.

  If I could, I’d run. I’d take some of Monty’s not-so-secretly-hidden-in-his-underwear money and take the next bus out of Childermass. But I didn’t have that type of courage. I could face ghosts, but real life was a lot more terrifying than an angry spirit or two.

  I was going through possible escape scenarios in my head when someone knocked on the room’s door.
Maybe whoever was sent to clean the bathroom could let me know of the closest bus station. I pushed myself up from the bed and headed to the door, my heart still sitting in my throat like a frightened child.

  I pulled the door open, expecting to see a plumber of some kind with a frustrated expression, but instead I was met with a dreadfully familiar face.

  CHAPTER 8:

  BOOK OF SHADOWS

  “Jade,” I said. My throat tightened as I pulled the door open the rest of the way and crossed my arms over my soaked chest. This was nowhere near what I had begun to plan and from the look on my face, she could tell that I was not as happy to see her as she was to see me.

  “Is this a bad time?” she asked, lugging a giant black book in her arms. She looked as if she were about to fall over from how heavy it seemed.

  “Yes,” I grunted, still angry that she’d shown up when I was about to make my supposed break for it. I just wanted her to go and never come back.

  “Oh.” The smile melted from her face and she looked hurt. Staring at her frowning, I began to feel bad. It wasn’t her fault that the library was insanely haunted, she was trying to help, and I was being a royal jerk.

  “Sorry,” I said, letting my arms fall away from my chest. “I just got a visit from one of your library’s ghosts and it didn’t go well, as you can tell by me being Water Park soaked.” I gestured to my damp t-shirt and jeans.

  “One of them followed you?” she was smiling as she hurried into the room and I closed the door. She tossed the book on the bed and turned back to me like a kid at story time waiting to hear the ending of a scary story.

  “Yeah, the girl in the window I told you about. She wasn’t as bad as you said she was. She didn’t seem evil at all. She was just trying to help.”

  “That doesn’t seem right,” Jade said. “She was always throwing books off of shelves at me and locking me in the bathroom with the lights flickering off and on. And she pushed me off of a ladder once and I sprained my ankle. That’s pretty evil, in my book.”

  That kind of stuff is child’s play compared to what I’ve been through. But we were in danger and things needed to be dealt with as soon as possible.

  “Someone was trying to stop her from telling me something, and it was ripping her to pieces right in front of me. Whoever it was must be so strong that they could destroy a ghost and that’s pretty freaking terrifying. In my opinion, whatever it was that was doing all of that stuff to her, it was from the library too. It just had to be.” I could see the fear in Jade’s eyes and even though I felt bad telling her that the library was more horrible than she thought, she had to know everything.

  “What are we going to do?” Jade looked deflated, as if all the life had been sucked out of her body. She was scared for her life, and I couldn’t blame her. She was looking at me with hope and I wanted to turn away and run back into the bathroom.

  But something inside of me was not done with the library. I couldn’t deny that a part of me wanted to run, but the stronger part of me, wanted to kick some ghostly butt.

  “I have to destroy it.” the words came out of my mouth and for once they didn’t feel wrong, or forced. They felt right.

  “We, you mean we have to destroy it. I’m not letting you do it alone. It was Ms. Freestone that brought you and your uncle to our library and now I’m going to help you do some serious ghost damage- which reminds me!” she turned and pulled the book she’d brought along with her off the bed and plopped it on the ground.

  “Why did you bring a bible?” I asked as I got down on the ground and watched Jade pull a buckle free and open the book to a bookmarked page. It looked old, seriously old, and it even smelt like soggy earth.

  “It’s supposed to look like a bible but it’s a book of shadows. I went to the second floor again after you left because I’m super impatient. I know, I suck.” She let a giggle escape her as she turned to the next page. “And I found this sitting in a ray of sunlight on the floor and our library doesn’t have these types of books in our system. I’m pretty sure a ghost put it there for us.”

  “So there’s more good spirits in that library full of souls after all. That’s a great thing, Jade. It means we aren’t alone in this. We have someone on the other side and that’s the best kind of help there is.”

  “I think I know who it is.” Jade said and turned to me. “The Lady in White. She’s a ghost who lets me see her sometimes, just fragments though. I’ve never actually seen her full body. But she’s always doing tiny things in the library, like helping patrons by pushing the book they’re looking for out of the shelf, or watching over the kids in the children’s section when the parents aren’t paying attention. She can’t talk though. She’s always writing things, so I wondered if the writing on the window was her and I guess I was right.”

  “I guess you were. But what about this Black Veil lady you were talking about. What’s her deal?”

  Jade looked around before saying anything, as if the ghost followed her here too. I wouldn’t be surprised if it did, so I took a survey of the room before putting my focus back on Jade.

  “Is she the big bad in the library? Is that why you’re so afraid?”

  “She is. Truthfully, I don’t know just how many spirits are in the library, but like I told you, she’s the worst of them all. As I said she wears a black veil so you can’t see her face, and she brings this cold front with her wherever she goes and it’s not a regular type of paranormal chill, it’s icy and prickly as if it’s seeping into your skin and laying eggs or something.” I wondered if that icy feeling in the bathroom was Black Veil. From what Jade was telling me, it seemed so. But I didn’t want to scare her even more so I decided to keep that bit to myself.

  I watched the fear build even more on Jade’s face as she continued to explain “She has a special kind of hatred for Ms. Freestone though. She almost killed her last summer when an entire bookshelf collapsed and Ms. Freestone missed it by an inch. Just after it happened, I saw Black Veil, standing near the shelf. She’s one of the only ones that you can see full body and I’d rather not see her at all, if I’m honest.”

  I’d heard some pretty insane stuff during most of our cases, but what Jade was telling me seemed seriously intense, almost demonic. And I didn’t have a good track record with demons. They really didn’t like me. I shuddered thinking about Texas.

  “Have you ever thought she might be a demon?” I asked, goose bumps erupting all over me.

  “She might be. I never really thought to look into it more. Now, I feel kind of stupid.” She rubbed at her arms, embarrassed.

  “Don’t be, demons are not the kind of entities you mess with. Even researching them can set things off.”

  “Thanks, I feel a bit better now.” Jade smiled as she went back to flipping through the pages. “There’s a page in here with that mural above the circulation desk on it. It was saying something about- oh, here it is!”

  I looked down at the book and swallowed hard. Right there on the page was a perfect drawing of the mural, almost as if whoever owned this book had painted the mural in the library themselves. On the bottom was a paragraph written in what seemed like blood that Jade began to read out loud:

  “The Déjà Quimorta is a symbol and conduit to the spirit world. First introduced centuries ago by unknown occultists , drawing the symbol on a wall, mirror, or door, opens an instant connection to the spirit world and allows spirits, demons, and other supernatural beings access to the human realm. As long as the symbol is present and active, it feeds great power to the person dead or alive who wields it.”

  “So basically it can be stopped,” I said.

  “If we knew how, yes, it seems so.” Jade flipped to the next page but it looked like that was the only page about the mural.

  From the way everything looked Jade and I were stuck on this one. How would we figure out how to destroy the symbol without the right help? Who in their right mind would help us with something so insane? And then it clicked. It looked li
ke the Ghost Town Souvenir shop was going to be the giant help we needed after all.

  CHAPTER 9:

  GHOST TOWN SOUVENIRS

  The Ghost Town Souvenirs shop was way smaller inside than the outside made it appear. There weren’t aisles or even sections, it was just one straight line full of shelves of various trinkets and town souvenirs that led toward the cash register at the very end. It was very anti-climatic, if you asked me.

  I stopped in my tracks, staring at a row of mason jars that looked as if they had actual spirit orbs sitting inside. A green tag on the bottom of one of the jars read: Looking to take a spirit home with you? Grab one of these extraordinary jars complete with an actual ghost inside. Warning: Do not touch or open these jars. You’ll live to regret it.

  Now, that was a pretty interesting selling point. There were several jars left and dust rings on the shelf showing that people actually bought some. I picked up one of the jars and stared into it. I could see a mass of what looked a cloud and an orb of blue light inside. I tried looking for a switch or a button, but I couldn’t find one. As I held the jar, I could feel the energy that beamed from within. It was real and it almost made me drop it. The memory of that ghost in that jar back in New York appeared in my head.

  “What are you doing? You’ll make Emerson mad.” Jade took the jar from me and carefully put it back on the shelf.

  “Who’s Emerson?” I asked. Instead of answering Jade took me by the arm and practically dragged me up to the check-out counter.

  We stood there for a few seconds staring at an old cuckoo clock that had a ghost waiting behind the number twelve instead of a bird ready to boo instead of hoot. It was almost noon and I only had a couple more hours before I had to be back at the hotel before Monty threw a fit, if he was even back by then.