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Virginia walked up North Street past the puddles that had formed in the uneven paving stones. A kid on a BMX bike whizzed by on her right, splashing through a puddle and wetting her boots.
She didn’t care. She was thinking about No Time for This.
Aside from the strangely coincidental duplicate shopping list, and the fact that her name appeared in the pages it was marking, the book was unexceptional. Competent writing, decent structure, nice use of setting, and a sympathetic main character, but despite the engrossing plot, Virginia didn’t feel moved.
And when it came down to it, that’s why she ploughed through books – to have her heart grasped by the author’s invisible hand, to have the writer’s ink be injected into her bloodstream, to be made to feel more than she was capable of in the day-to-day life of an orphan with no life plan and no love in her life.
A book that didn’t really tug at her soul was a book that needed to be replaced as soon as possible. It made her feel like some kind of junkie – always seeking that bigger, better fix – but she really didn’t care. She saw no harm in her choice, so she trudged on determinedly toward Bemmie library amid the street noise.
She passed the butcher, the smell of death wafting out onto the street, then the bakery with its fresh doughy bread aroma, and then the green grocer with his garden of bright veggies in wooden crates smelling fresh as morning dew. Further up the road she passed the public swimming baths, the chlorine escaping with echoing kids’ screams each time the heavy doors were opened.
Then, a ninety degree turn onto East Street, and, at last, into the sacred double doors of her home away from home.
She gently placed No Time for This on the return desk, then made a bee line for her section upstairs.
This time she had an Ellie Tarkenton book in mind, one of the few she hadn’t yet read – Run to the Devil. She figured she could spend the morning here reading it, then grab a couple other books to take home after lunch.
They only had it in paperback, which was a little disappointing – she loved the sheer weight of hardbacks. She brought it to a quiet, windowless, armchair-lined reading room where she could be alone – easy to do at nine on a Wednesday morning. Out of habit, she flipped it open to the library sleeve to see when it had last been checked out – nearly nine years for this one.
A slip of light blue paper slid out partway from the bottom of the book. She turned to the page it was marking.
Page 217.
The slip of paper had her name at the top in cursive, but the other written words were all washed out as if the paper had gotten wet and smudged all the ink to an unintelligible blur. The only other decipherable words were the closing words – I love you, Wendell.
Her hand started faintly shaking and she let the paper drop to her lap. Her eyes focused on page 217.
“Your life is in danger,” he said, gently taking the auburn-haired young woman by the elbow and tugging her in his direction. “You must trust me.”
“But I don’t even know your name,” she said, trying to keep up with his brisk pace through the foggy alley.
“Claude,” he said. “Just call me Claude. Now, we must take refuge before what happened to your parents happens to you.”
Chilled to the bone, Virginia closed the book.
Her stomach felt a little sick. She suddenly did not feel like reading. She just wanted to be home with Claude, behind her bolted door, away from the world.
She fled down the hard library steps, her heels clicking, her hand sliding down the cool steel handrail. She burst out the heavy front doors into the noise and dirt of East Street, and returned home down North Street at a speed-walking pace.
She slammed her front door behind her and bolted it, then leaned her back against it and breathed heavily, her knees feeling like jelly, and little pinpricks of sweat forming around her hairline.
She let out a little high-pitched yelp and nearly hit the ceiling when the knocker rapped three times against her back. Struggling to compose herself, she got on tiptoe and peeked through the little lens.
That man again – the one from the library. The one who’d followed her home last night.
Was he stalking her?
He knocked again. He knew she was there – she’d just screamed. She could just wait for him to go away again, but then where would this end? She rushed back to the kitchen and grabbed a long steak knife, then slid the security chain into place on the door and slowly opened it until the chain was taut.
She held the knife behind her back as she brushed her hair out of her green eyes and came face to face with the menacing man.
“Wh-what do you want?” she said, stammering despite her steely resolve to show no fear.
“My name is Kyle Walker. It’s very important that I speak with you. I’m an investigator.”
“Badge?”
“I don’t – I don’t have one. I’m a – a special kind of investigator. I look into paranormal activity. There’s been a rash of strange occurrences lately at the library. I just want to talk to you about your experiences, ask you a few questions – try to understand what we’re dealing with here. Please, just let me in to talk with you for a few minutes. You won’t regret it.”
Virginia took a deep breath, her eyes not leaving his gray-blue eyes for a second.
“Fine. You have ten minutes. But I have some questions of my own, and I expect them answered in return for my information.”
“Oh, absolutely,” smiled Kyle, revealing his yellowing but straight teeth. “I’m free to share whatever I know with you – I don’t work for Her Majesty, so you know, no government regs or whatnot – I can be completely open with you.”
Virginia closed the door to unfasten the chain, then reopened it to usher Kyle in.
“Front room, please,” said Virginia, standing aside with the knife behind her back, and her back against the outdated pink flowery wallpaper to let Kyle pass into the warm living room. “Have a seat.”
Kyle lowered his rear into a soft brown armchair with his back to the window, so his face fell into shadow.
“Your name, miss?” said Kyle.
“I’m Virginia Ward, she said, remaining standing, her right fist on her hip, the other dangling behind her back, wielding the knife. She felt like a deranged killer. “Why have you been following me?”
“It’s complicated. But it boils down to two words: Wendell Young.”
“Did you say Wendell?” asked Virginia, her curiosity aroused.
“Why, yes. Young was a notorious serial killer – he murdered eight young female library patrons between 1893 and 1901. A sad chapter in our city’s very checkered past.”
Virginia’s arms folded loosely across her chest. The now unhidden knife glinted a flash of reflected daylight at Kyle. “So what of him? What does he have to do with me?”
“Whoa, there, luv – mind putting away the weapon? I promise I’m not here to hurt you – if I was determined, your little steak knife wouldn’t help you much anyway.”
She looked at the jagged edge of the blade, then over at Kyle. A sheepish smile lifted the corner of her red lips. “Sure – sorry. I just thought maybe you were some kind of sicko.”
“It’s Wendell Young that was the sicko. He was obsessed with reading. He himself could not read, but women who could read drove him batty. So he slit their throats with his own kitchen knife.”
“Again,” said Virginia, stepping back and sitting in the armchair facing Kyle, “what does any of that have to do with me?”
“He’s trying to get you – he’s been making contact and trying to draw you into his little games.”
“Uh, didn’t you say he was offing girls in the 1890s? I assume this guy is long dead by now.”
“Dead and well, wandering the library to this day,” said Kyle. “And apparently he’s finally learned to read, because he’s using some rudimentary ectoplasmic tricks to write notes to you. To get your
attention. Can you show me his notes – or at least tell me what he said?”
Virginia sat stunned.
Ghosts? At the library? A dead serial killer trying to get her attention? This was as crazy as some of those paranormal romances she’d tried to read last spring but quickly put away.
“You’re serious?”
“Dead.”
“Well, all right. The first note was just a duplicate of my shopping list from the day before. On the page where it was left, a character with my name was introduced.”
“Mm-hm, mm-hm,” Kyle nodded sagely. “Classic approach – he’s reaching into your mind and grabbing anything he can get a hold of – in this case, your recent shopping list – and using it to make a connection. The specific placement in the book was a nice added touch. He’s getting smarter all the time.”
“Um, can I get you some cocoa or something?” asked Virginia, feeling oddly more comfortable with this guy the more he spoke of ghostly behavior as if it he were discussing last night’s football game.
“You have any tea?” he asked, following her down the narrow white-wallpapered hallway to the kitchen.
“Tea? Uh, no. Hate the stuff.”
“What kind of Brit are you?”
“The half-American kind. Dad was from the States. I never got the tea gene, I suppose. Don’t worry, my cocoa is delicious.”
“Right then. So, what about the second note?”
Virginia put the kettle on, dispensed some cocoa powder into two mugs with a shiny teaspoon, then returned with Kyle to the living room and started to build a fire.
“Well,” said Virginia, “the second note was all washed out, but it opened with my name, and closed with ‘I love you, Wendell.’ It really creeped me out.”
They returned to the living room. Virginia rubbed her upper arms with her hands, hugging herself against the cool air. She started to shovel out her ashes into a little copper pail, sift through her wood for the right pieces, and arrange her kindling.
“What about the page the note was on?” Kyle knelt near the fireplace and started tearing yellowed newspapers to help ignite the fire.
“It talked about danger, and the fact that the girl’s parents had died. It hit really close to home, because my parents di-” She choked on the word. “My parents died a few months ago.”
“I’m sorry,” said Kyle, standing again and moving to the armchair by the window. “That’s just Wendell trying to get under your skin. He’ll try to control your actions by playing with your mind.”
“So, what am I supposed to do?” asked Virginia as the kettle’s whistle started to rise in the kitchen.
“Check out another book, of course.”
“Because?”
“That’s the only way we’re going to be able to stop this unholy madman.”
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