He blinked when Noble stared blankly at first, before slowly asking, “Wouldn’t it be faster to talk to the owner…or just ask the ghost what her name is?”
Ollie wrinkled his nose. “Okay, but…that would take more planning, and require me to leave my library more than I possibly want to. Also, I don’t think the waitress ghost realizes I can see her, and I’m not sure how to get her attention without looking like a weirdo.” On realizing what his words could imply, he quickly added, “Not that I don’t like leaving my library with you.”
Noble barked out a laugh. “Is my little Hermit Baby coming out to play?”
“I am not little,” he huffed. Okay, he was little, since he was technically below average height at five foot five, and he may have also been very thin, but like, he wasn’t little, little!
“Not denying the hermit part, I see.”
“What’s wrong with staying inside?”
“Nothing, nothing at all.” Noble winked. “Especially if you’re staying in with me.”
Ollie giggled. “Then it’s a good thing you are my favorite person to stay inside with.”
Jahla weaved through the empty rooms and halls of the Cross Heritage Private Library, her shoes hitting the polished wooden floors hard as her heart raced from the effort. She didn’t know why she was running, only that she had to keep going.
Oddly, while she saw no one, it sounded as if there was both someone running by her side, and an unknown person chasing her from behind. Chasing…yes, she was being?—
Jahla jerked awake,her alarm waking her ass up, as it did almost every damn day. Staring at the ceiling of her bedroom, she heaved a sigh as the dream clung in her mind.
“Oh, that better not be a premonition. Halloween is a big enough pain in the ass on its own,” she said with an exasperated groan.
Ollie stood backwith a wide smile as he watched Madame Ro Coco animatedly read a story about pumpkin patches and trick-or-treat to his reading circle. The kids seemed to be hanging on to her every word, their wide eyes amazed as they excitedly answered every question she asked.
Madame Ro Coco was basically dressed up like a frilly rococo-style pumpkin. Her green corset, with frilly leaf sleeves, had leaf bows down the center, and the top layer of her very full and wide skirt was green with white frills along the edges, it parting at the center, leaving a wide gap to show off the frilly pumpkin-orange underskirt with a large jack-o-lantern face. Her hair was the same orange as her skirt, and she had piled it high on her head in a rococo style, with leaves and vines intricately threaded through it, her long pointed nails completing her outfit.
Makeup-wise, Madame Ro Coco had a full face on, with a bright-green shadow and painted on leaves on her eyelids, and a stark cat-eye. Not to mention, dark-red lips, deep contour, and highlights that could likely be seen from far away.
As much as he wanted to stay and listen, he couldn’t. He had too much to do. Mainly, he needed to check on everyone who was part of the various haunted tours going on throughout the library, to see if they were running out of candy or not. Because he was the candy jester.
As the candy jester, his costume consisted of puffy pants that gathered at the ankles and ended with black frills, his left leg orange and his right a black and white diamond pattern, while his top had long puffy sleeves that gathered at his wrists with more black frills, the right half black, and the left orange and black diamonds. Around his neck was a frilly orange jester collar, and his right shoe was black while the left was orange. The tips of his curled shoes, along with the twin points of his black and orange jester’s hat, had bells on them, which meant he jingled with each step he took. It really just meant people heard him coming, and helped alert staff that he was there to either check on their candy or refill.
He wasn’t sure how it was for other libraries, but with their proximity to Salem, Halloween was the busiest night of the year for the Cross Heritage Private Library.
Sighing, Ollie turned and hurried towards the back of the Young Reader’s section, to begin his check on the teen ghost tours that were going on throughout floor one. He had to at least nod in greeting to anyone who noticed him, which usually was most people as he jingled…
There were a total of thirteen different spooky tours taking place across the various floors of the library, each with six or more stops. Some were for adults only, and others were for all ages. There was, of course, a break schedule that alternated, usually keeping it so nine were on while four took a break.
Ollie had everyone reading for the tours dressed up like hooded grim reapers, from the librarians and assistants to the cleaners, Elias, and even Noble. Gothic lanterns hung from the tips of their scythes, while books filled their other hands as they read spooky stories.
Well, the scythes were in holders next to them while they read. They usually only held the scythes when they took the group to the next person. Either way, after each story, they’dgive out candy to those who listened, adult or not, so he needed to make sure everyone stayed fully-stocked. Though, thinking of candy, he probably should send someone out to check on the police-run Trunk-or-Treat that was happening in the far right corner of the parking lot.
One by one, Ollie checked on each person on floor one, putting a check next to the person's name in his pocket notebook if they needed their orange pumpkin candy buckets refilled, based on them giving him a thumbs up or down, before moving on to the next person.
Ollie held back his giggle when he spotted Red, with his tiny witch hat on, and a small lantern in his mouth, being followed by a group of teens. The cat was in charge of giving a silent tour of the displays. It had taken a lot of convincing, but eventually, he had gotten Red to agree to the task.
Having circled around to the center of the floor, he found Winnie—the last person he had to check in with on that floor—by the small scarecrow and pumpkin patch that was across from the stairs leading up to the second floor. The display took up the corner to the left of the front stairs. She appeared to be at the beginning of the next break for the tour group she was in, obviously having just returned from taking a group to the next person.
While everyone that was part of the tours had to be dressed as a grim reaper, their robes did not have to be the traditional black ones. And as Winnie had been with them for five years now, she’d had time to get a custom one. It was made of dark-green velvet, with the bottom of her robe and sleeves spottily fraying and turning to thin lace, giving it a cool distressed look.
Jahla was there too, at her web and spider-covered half-octagonal-shaped circulation desk, with its carved sides, talking to a few people and checking out books. But he ignored her aside from waving before turning to Winnie.
“How’s your candy holding up?” he asked Winnie, as she placed her scythe in the tall weighted stand next to her.
“Getting low.”
Ollie smiled sweetly as he put a check next to her name. “Right, could you do me a favor?”
