Arnie laughed and held out the mug for her. “Wednesday.”
Stella was about to take the mug and tell Arnie what happened last night, but when she looked around for the ball of plastic from the prank, she didn’t see it anywhere. Creamy-white words formed from the steam rising from the hot liquid.Fiction. Disappear. Out of time.
Goose bumps rose on her arms. What had happened to the plastic wrap? Sheknewshe hadn’t dreamed walking around the library chasing possible vandals, and she hadn’t dreamed running into the plastic wrap.
“You called me last night?” Arnie asked, still holding out the mug. “Everything okay?”
“I might be hallucinating, but I don’t think so,” she said, then reached for the mug of coffee and thanked him. “In the middle of the night, I’m pretty sure I saw two teenagers lurking around the stacks, and they set up a booby trap for me.”
A crease formed between Arnie’s eyebrows. “I’m not sure if you’re being serious or not.”
Stella cupped her hands around the warm mug and heard a crinkling noise. Instead of smooth ceramic, the mug felt papery. She pulled off a folded college brochure that had been wrapped around and taped to the mug. She shook the paper in the space between them before dropping it on the sleeping bag.
“You and Percy... Are you two working together to plan my life? He’s trying to get me to take a job in Florida, and you’re going on about extended education. Will you ever stop nagging me?”
“Anything is possible,” Arnie said. “What’s this about a job in Florida?”
Stella sipped more coffee. The hot liquid slid down her throat and sent tendrils of warmth through her, waking up her sluggish body. “Don’t get me started on Florida, but I’m serious about the possibility of library vandals. They stretched plastic wrap across the bookshelves, and I ran into it. I took it down and wadded it up, and the ball of plastic was right here when I went to sleep.” She pointed at an empty spot on the floor. “I don’t know how they got out. You set the alarm when you left, didn’t you?”
“Of course.” Arnie frowned. “Are you sure you weren’t dreaming?”
She’d never “dreamed” so much in her life and certainly not dreams that were so vivid, so corporeal. Last night hadn’t felt like a dream at all. Stella touched her face as she thought about the wall of plastic. “Two teenagers, I think. Laughing, seemingly up to no good, but when I chased after them, they disappeared.”
Arnie crossed his arms over his chest. Stella placed the mug beside her and shimmied out of the sleeping bag. She glanced over her shoulder to where she’d seen the boys and their shadows stretching across the cartoonish train track rug.
She stood and walked toward the rug and stared down at the curving railroad track. Bright red words wiggled out from between the carpet fibers.Believe. Childhood. Wonder.“I don’t remember seeing any boys in here when we were closing down last night,” she said. “But maybe they were hiding out somewhere. In a closet or in the bathroom.”
Arnie removed his glasses. He polished the lenses on his shirtsleeve and cast a look of doubt in her direction.
Stella glanced away from his searching gaze. “I walked around and checked all of the doors and windows. Nothing appeared tampered with.” She returned and grabbed her coffee. “Even the vault was closed up. So... now I’m wondering, what if I wasn’t dreaming?”
A rush of thoughts surged through her like a storm wind. All of this started after she burned the journal. Had that triggered some kind of avalanche of, dare she think,magic? The words were popping up triple time, plus the agonizing ones sprang out without warning and seared her from the inside with a message she didn’t understand yet. Now she was seeing people in the library who supposedly weren’t really there? First Peter Pan, Helen of Troy, and Ichabod Crane in the archives, now these two teenagers.
Arnie walked toward her. “Hey, kiddo, you look stressed.” He slipped on his glasses. “Maybe you weren’t dreaming. Some people believe the library is haunted. I’m not one to discount unusual sightings.”
Ghosts? Was he serious? Although that was a better explanation than Stella believing she’d caused some sort of chain reaction of magical doom. Her forehead scrunched. “By prankster teenagers?”
Arnie laughed and shook his head. “I don’t know that I’ve heard anything quitethatspecific, but who’s to say it’s not?”
She pulled her fingers through her unruly hair. “You’re just trying to make me feel better about losing my marbles.”
Arnie slid back his shirtsleeve and checked his watch. “Library opens in an hour. Clean up your party scene here, and you can shower at my house. Use your key. I’ve already set out clean towels. There’s also a pan of biscuits staying warm in the oven. Jelly’s in the fridge.”
Stella’s chest warmed, and not because of the coffee mug cradled in her hands. Even if she were losing control of her life, she wouldn’t lose Arnie. Along with Percy and Ariel, Arnie had been one of the remaining constants in her life for as long as she could remember. “You’re too good to me.”
“Not possible,” he said, making a shooing motion with his hands before walking off.
By midmorning a constant crackle of energy, like an electrical undercurrent, slowly built beneath Stella’s feet, causing a tingle to zing up and down her spine. She felt anxious in her skin, like she had an itch out of reach and below the surface.
As she shelved books, more than a dozen buzzing, quivering words akin to a swarm of bees waited for her on an empty shelf inthe self-help section. Like winged insects, they flew toward one another and formed sentences. Stella’s body flooded with the familiar ache of needing to write. These words wouldn’t be satisfied with being seen. They craved to be inked on a page.
A library patron had left behind a brown paper napkin emblazoned with the logo from the coffee shop up the street, so Stella grabbed it and pulled a pen out of her back pocket. The words buzzed around the shelf, levitating in an undulating motion. She wrote them down.
Meet me in the dark,
when the world has fallen still.
Our love will burn bright.
