I open it—because wine and curiosity are a dangerous combination—and my fingers tingle where they touch the binding. The sensation travels up my arms like cold fire. Inside, there’s a bookplate: “‘Property of the Wickham Historical Society. Donated by the Founding Families Collection, 1923. Do not remove from archives.’”
“Well, Edgar definitely removed it from the archives,” I mutter, my voice too loud in the sudden quiet.
The first page is covered in symbols—not quite Norse, not quite anything I recognize. But somehow, impossibly, I can read them. The words pull themselves from my throat before I can stop them.
“‘When winter’s darkest night draws near,’” I hear myself say, my hand moving to trace the symbols even as my brain screams stop, “‘and bonds between worlds grow thin...’”
Mister Poofypants bolts, his bulk moving with surprising speed. He crashes into something in Poetry that sounds expensive—probably the new display I spent three hours setting up yesterday.
“‘Let those who guard the ancient ways speak these words to begin.’” My voice sounds layered, like I’m harmonizing with myself. The wine glass on my desk starts to vibrate, moving in small circles. “‘I call upon the Vetrfolk, guardians of the winter ways. I call upon the winter to witness.’”
The temperature drops so fast my wine starts forming ice crystals. The bottle cracks in my hand, plastic splitting along the seam. Outside, the light flurries become a wall of white. My phone erupts with weather alerts, buzzing and chiming until it falls off the desk entirely.
WINTER STORM WARNING: Seek shelter immediately. Unprecedented weather event.
I slam the book shut so hard my palms sting. The binding feels hot now, like touching a stove burner through an oven mitt. “What the hell was that?”
From Fiction, Mister Poofypants yowls—not his usual cry, but something that speaks to ancient fears, the kind of sound that makes your hindbrain remember why humans feared the dark.
The lights flicker again. In the darkness between flashes, shadows move between the shelves. Tall shadows. Wrong shadows. Shadows that move like they’re pouring themselves through space rather than walking.
But when the lights steady, the library is empty. Just me, my cracked wine bottle leaking Sweet Berry Sunset onto my shoes, and somewhere in the building, one terrified cat.
STENRIK
The magic inside hits me—a dizzying wave of intoxication and chaos. The air tastes of lightning.
Someone has activated the Chronicle.
The solstice is in three days. The timing could not be worse.
“Poof? Kitty? Where did you go? I have tuna!”
The voice comes from the reference section—female, young, thoroughly intoxicated based on the slurred edges of her words.
She stands beside the circulation desk, swaying slightly. A wine bottle in one hand, a can of tuna in the other. Her glasses sit crooked on her nose, held together with adhesive tape. Her hair escapes from what was probably once a bun in seventeen different directions.
“Mister Poofypants, this is not funny! I’m having a very weird night and I need emotional support!”
She turns, sees me, and drops both bottle and can. The bottle bounces—plastic, apparently—and rolls to my feet, leaving a trail of pink liquid. The can rolls under the desk, where something orange and massive hisses at it.
“Oh my God, you’re tall.” She blinks several times, pushing her glasses up her nose with one finger. They immediately slide back down. “Why are you so tall? Are those ears? Why do youhave—is that frost? Are you literally frosting? Like a cake but a person?”
“You activated the Chronicle.” I pick up the wine bottle, gingerly.
She spins around so quickly she nearly falls, catching herself on the desk. Her palm lands in a puddle of what smells like old coffee. “I catalogued a book! It’s my job! I’m a librarian! We read things!” She grabs a tissue and wipes her hand, then immediately starts straightening the papers on the desk into perfect right angles.
“You read an ancient treaty aloud. You made libations.” I set the bottle on the desk. The plastic cracks from the cold, liquid leaking through the fissures.
“I am not drunk! I’m... festively enhanced. And I can still do the alphabet backwards. Z, Y, X... W... something with a V...”
Through the window, I observe shapes gathering in the storm. Dark shapes that move incorrectly, like shadows that gained mass but forgot how physics works. They press against the glass, leaving smears of something that might be condensation but looks more like longing.
“We need to—” I stop. An enormous orange cat has materialized on the desk, fixing me with a glare of pure malevolence. One paw bats at the cracked wine bottle, sending more pink liquid spreading across the papers. “Why is your cat so hostile?”
“That’s Mister Poofypants the Third. He glares at everyone. It’s his thing.” She scoops the cat up with surprising strength, considering her size and intoxication level. The cat’s back feet dangle comically, but he allows it.
“Mister... Poofypants.”
