Some clairvoyant, she thought as she made her way inside, bribe in hand.
“Six hundred and eighty-seven,” barked a female voice.
Hailey spun around.
There stood the librarian, hands planted firmly on her hips, foot tapping impatiently. Mrs. Spitz looked like she’d just stepped out of 1960. She wore pointy, wing-tipped glasses, a beehive hairdo, and a boxy jacket with large buttons.
“Excuse me?” Hailey said politely.
“Six hundred and eighty-seven.” Mrs. Spitz articulated each syllable. Peering down her nose at Hailey, she thrust her hand out.
Hailey placed her offering into Mrs. Spitz’s outstretched hand and stepped back.
Mrs. Spitz opened the book, read a few lines, tested the binding, sniffed loudly, slammed the book shut, and said, “Follow me.”
Falling in step behind her, Hailey noticed a suspicious object protruding from the librarian’s back. And it looked an awful lot like a knife.
“Uh…Mrs. Spitz?”
The librarian whirled around.
“You have a…a…” Hailey remembered she wasn’t supposed to mention sharp objects.
“A what?” Mrs. Spitz demanded.
“There’s something wrong with your jacket,” Hailey said quickly, cringing as she nodded to it.
“Huh?” Looking over her shoulder, Mrs. Spitz tugged at the hem of her retro coat, which made the knife in her back wiggle up and down.
“I can never get this thing to lay right,” she muttered. “How’s that look?”
“That’s much better,” Hailey whispered, giving her a nervous thumbs-up and trying not to hyperventilate.
“Hmph. Still feels wrong.” Mrs. Spitz placed her hand on a bookcase in the reference section. “You’ll start on this shelf, here. Those books need to be shelved.” She pointed to a stack on a wooden cart next to the shelf, and then she shook her finger at Hailey. “Exactly six hundred and eighty-seven books to a case.”
Hailey gave her a blank stare.
“Oh, I wasn’t looking for a job, Mrs. Spitz, I came to find some information, and Asher said you had a message for me.”
“You’ll finish these, and then you’ll start on the Mysteries section in the 001’s with the books on Atlantis.” She shoved an armful of books into Hailey’s chest. “Six hundred and eighty-seven books per case,” she said again, and then she walked away.
Hailey wasn’t sure what to do, so she started shelving and counting and making sure each case had exactly six hundred and eighty-seven books. So began Hailey’s first day as a part-time library clerk at Bear Towne University.
It took her two hours to sort out one case in the reference section, mostly because every time she started counting, a poltergeist would shout numbers at her, and she’d lose her place. Over and over and over.
Finally, she gave up and worked on her original mission, which was finding a book on ghost traps. “And you’re the first ghost I’m going to lock up!” she called over her shoulder as she marched to the circulation desk.
There she encountered a problem. The place was deserted. There was no computer, no card catalog. Hailey slapped her hands against her legs and looked all around. How was she supposed to find a book in this place? Slumping into a wooden chair at a desk near the stacks, Hailey plopped her head against the bare wood of the table and squeezed her eyes shut.
When she opened them, she saw, unnervingly close to her face, a tiny inchworm.
Hailey bolted upright. “You’re a bookworm, aren’t you?”
The worm nodded.
“You wouldn’t happen to know where I could find a good book on ghost traps, would you?”
The worm nodded again, inched itself together and like a pebble out of a sling-shot, it flew off the table toward the stacks, skidding to a halt only moments later on the desk in front of Hailey with two books in tow—Modern Methods in Poltergeist ProcurementandTechniques in Crystallic Ghost Trap Calibration.
