CHAPTER ONE

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“Excuse me, Miss. Can you please direct me to the children’s books?” I smiled at the young mother holding the hand of a cute little girl I guess to be about five. She put her thumb in her mouth and looked up at me with huge blue eyes.

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“Sure, it’s to your right and through that door.” I smiled at the couple and pointed towards an open set of ornate doors that led to the collection of books held by the State Library.

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“Thanks so much for your help, Jenny,” she said, pausing as she read my nametag. I immediately smiled; I loved it when patrons took the time to learn my name.

 

“Of course. Let me know if you don’t find what you’re looking for. It can get a bit messy in there by the end of the day,” I joked, but the laughter died in my throat as a figure entered my peripheral vision.

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Turning, I saw the woman’s bell-shaped skirt, the once-bright rose fabric faded to a faint pink. Her cream-colored blouse closely following the tiny waist created by a very tight corset, and her bell sleeves billowed out like puffy cream clouds. The hardwood floor showed through her transparent visage.

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She was someone who had also died over a hundred years ago. This was my gift. My curse. Like the ghost sliding in front of my eyes, it made my life hell.

Last week, she appeared from thin air while I was reshelving some of our rarer books, and I was so scared I dropped a tome that was nearly as old as her. Thank goodness it was nearly indestructible and showed no signs of damage; a mistake like that could have cost me my job.

 

And now she was back again, though at least this time she wasn’t wailing. She always chose the Redmond Barry Reading Room when she wanted to wail, and the echoes —as I feared my gift had already done — drove me mad. I’d had to ask my manager if I could switch my shifts so I could avoid that room due to “allergies” from the dust.

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Of course, it was a lie. The only thing I was really allergic to was an aggravating colonial spirit figure who, at this very moment, was setting her clothes alight. This was a new trick of hers. It worked particularly well in the afternoon, when the sun shining through the large windows made the flames glow burnt umber.

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“Help me find my baby,” she moaned.

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My heart lurched and my mouth went dry. She’d asked me repeatedly over the months to search for her child, but when I asked for details, she didn’t respond. She just repeated those words, “Help me find my baby,” over and over until my head ached.

 

I saw ghosts, spirits and figures all around me, and had my entire life. But I didn’t know how to help them. I could see them, hear them, feel their presence, but that was all I was able to do. My gift hadn’t come with a manual and any time I’d reached for anyone who I thought could possibly help me, I was met with suggestions to find a good psychologist. Or worse, a mental institution. Some days, I thought the latter was a good idea. I’d do anything just to be able to rest, but the ghosts were relentless. They’d be even more relentless in a mental institution.

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The first spirit I ever saw was a young angel who appeared to me when I was 3 or 4. He had golden blonde hair and sun kissed skin and would sit by my side and play with me for hours. Sometimes he would sing to me, unfamiliar songs with lilting melodies that always set me at ease. I’d told my mother about him and she’d flown into a rage, telling me I shouldn’t have invisible friends. I didn’t know what she meant. I saw him quite clearly. When that happened, he would stand by my side and hold my hand. He disappeared just before I went to kindergarten and I knew I’d done something to offend him. Something horrible and bad that made him not want to come back and play.

 

My grandmother only mentioned my gift once. Maybe because I was too small to really understand. That was the one and only time anyone in my family had ever mentioned my gift. My grandma passed soon after, and I had spent my childhood living alone with my mother, who refused to acknowledge my abilities.

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“Jenny? Will you stop staring into space!”

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Mark Johnson, the library manager, glared at me, crossing his arms over his chest. He peered at me over the glasses perched on the end of his nose, wearing his sour-lemon expression. I often questioned how someone with such terrible bedside manner had been promoted to a managerial position.

“I’m sorry, Mark,” I said, wincing because I knew that apologising wouldn’t help. Mark hated apologies. He always said, “Don’t be sorry, just do your job.”

That was easier said than done when I was constantly being tormented by an irate shadow while I was trying to do my job.

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“Have you finished putting the returns away?” he asked, and I could tell by his smirk that he thought my answer was going to be ‘no.’

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I smiled victoriously as I answered, “Yes, I have. And I’ve handled all the interlibrary loan and hold requests, too.”

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His brow creased and I shouted an internal cheer of joy. It was a small triumph, but a triumph nonetheless. And I’d hardly had reason to feel very triumphant lately. Being constantly frightened and on-edge had decimated my confidence levels to near zero. Sometimes it was challenge enough to wake up and come into work, knowing I’d be confronted ghosts all day.

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“Right. Well then go find something else useful to do. I don’t pay you to stand around, you know,” he said with a huff.

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“Jenny? I’m sorry, but could you help me? I can’t find ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar” Can you please help me find a copy?” The patron I was helping earlier came up to me and I could have hugged her.

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“Of course, I’ll help you. I’d be happy to,” As I followed her into the children’s reading room, I looked over my shoulder to find Mark still glaring at me.

Next to him was the ghost, mirroring his scowl.

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***

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A week later the ghost appeared again. She morphed through the stuffed shelves of boxes where I was deep in the library’s basement. My back slammed into the shelving behind me so hard a box toppled off a shelf. “Don’t come any closer. I can’t help you!”

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Her mouth opened in a terrible grimace and held a bundle of tattered blankets. I peered down and sagged against the shelf, my knees week. Part of the covering moved, revealing the emaciated face of an infant. I couldn’t stop staring at the charred skin and hollowed out eyes of the baby. I wanted to. How I wanted to but my damn traitorous body wasn’t complying.

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“Please, stop taunting me. I can’t help you. Just stop. You have to stop!” my voice shook as hard as my body.

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“Help me save her. I need to save my little girl. Help me, Jenny,” the ghost said, her cheeks wet with tears.

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She had never spoken my name before and hearing it from her broke me. I collapsed onto the floor sobbing so hard I couldn’t catch my breath. I curled into a ball, hugging my knees to my chest. I wanted to disappear. Why couldn’t the floor just open up and swallow me whole?

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“Help me,” the ghost wailed. I shook my head, covering my face with my hands. My tears continued to fall, sliding down my fingers to pool in my cupped palms.

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“I can’t,” I croaked. I couldn’t help any of them. All I could do was take their torment. Torment that sunk into my soul, twisting it up and turning it black.

A whoosh and crackling flames had my hand dropping from my eyes. My chest caved and the breath stuck in my chest. The ghost erupted in flames, blackening her skin and devouring her clothes.

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“HELP ME!” The flames burned her mouth, leaving a gaping black hole.

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“I can’t help you!” I sobbed. “I don’t know how.”

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I reached towards the flames. I thought that maybe if I entered her space, if she could see how truly distressed I was, she might stop. Surely if she could feel anger and sadness, she could feel sympathy, too? Maybe seeing how upset she’d made me would finally make her stop.

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“Please, just leave me alone and find someone else to talk to. You’re driving me mad,” I whispered.

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The ghost mirrored stared at me with a bitter glare. She looked truly terrifying, and suddenly I doubted whether reaching for her was really a good idea. She bent down to me, the heat from the flames crackling over me. Flames danced in her eyes, her wild hair streamed around her head caught in an invisible wind. “I will not leave. Not until you find my baby.”

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“I don’t know how to find your baby! I don’t know who you are or what you’ve been through! I don’t know anything. I don’t even know how to control this gift, so please, just go away. I can’t take it anymore.” My voice broke on that last word, and the tears started again, but this time, they weren’t tears of frustration. They were tears of anger.

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I was sick of her taunting me. I was tired of feeling like a freak. I’d spent my entire life alone because of my gift. I’d been teased on the playground for having “imaginary friends”, when really, I was seeing ghosts around every swing set and monkey bar. My mother had ignored me, and I’d been shrugged off by every man I’d ever shown interest in.

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“GET AWAY FROM ME!” I screamed.

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For a moment, the ghost and I were one, bound together by fire. The ghost’s eyes were filled with a torrent of emotions, and then she vanished. The only evidence she had ever been there at all was a small whisp of smoke curling up toward the ceiling from a pile of ash on the floor.

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“Jenny? What the hell is wrong with you?”

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Oh no.

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In the mess of emotions, I’d forgotten all about where I was. At work. In the basement. Near Mark’s office, which had very thin walls.

I turned to my right and saw Mark staring at me from his doorway, looking scared.

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When I glanced down, I saw that my skirt was singed at the hem and the straps of my camisole had burned off, leaving the fabric drooping over my strapless bra. Wiping my face, I found soot on my fingers which, combined with my tears, had turned into a kind of spreadable mud that was smeared across my face.

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I knew I looked crazy, but I put on my brightest smile and flipped my plait over my shoulder like nothing was wrong, ignoring the burned scent my hair gave off the moment I touched it.

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“I was putting out a small fire. I’m not sure how it started, but I walked down here and there it was!” I said, pointing in front of me, where the smoke was still emanating from the ash.

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“You expect me to believe that?” Mark asked, cautiously walking a few steps toward me.

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“Mark, I’m telling you what I saw. I found this fire and I put it out, at great risk to my personal safety, I might add. Now, can I go change so I can finish my shift?”

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“No, you can’t, Jenny. You’re fired. I’m tired of these…incidents.”

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I refused to believe this was happening. He couldn’t be firing me, could he? After I’d worked my way up from Shelving Clerk to Assistant Librarian? After I’d graduated top of my master’s degree class? After I’d single-handedly reshelved the entire fiction section my first month on the job?

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“Come on, Mark. You can’t—”

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“I can. I’m the Managing Director of this library, and I can fire whoever I want. And in the past four months there have been innumerable instances when you’ve slacked on the job, created disturbances and frightened patrons. Those are not the actions of a good librarian.”

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I gulped, my false smile and confidence suddenly dropping, because he was right. Since the ghost had turned up, I’d been operating at fifty percent, barely managing to fulfil my duties on the best of days.

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“Get some help, and try not to freak anyone out when you leave, okay? I’ve had enough complaints about you as is,” he said, rolling his eyes as he walked toward the stairwell door and held it open for me.

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“Use the back entrance when you exit. I don’t want our patrons to see what a mess you’ve made of yourself.”

He had no idea just how much of a mess I really was.

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