“There’s a murderer in the stacks.”
Shannon looked up. There it was again, that whisper, that susurration that travelled down the shelves of books until it found its way to her desk—she could not pinpoint its source, but she thought it came a long way, because she was stationed in a section that was buried behind and between many other sections. That was one of the benefits of working at The Haunted Library—most of the time people got lost before they found their way to her desk, even if she gave them directions, and she was left alone, able to shelve books and catalogue new titles in peace—although if she was honest, she spent most of her time reading. After all, how could she recommend books to patrons if she hadn’t read them? The logic was unassailable.
Shannon pushed her chair back from her desk as the whisper tickled her ears once more. Had some unruly teenagers found their way onto her floor? Arcane and Occult Matters, that was her specialty, and younger folk usually got distracted before they reached it, seduced by the horror books (a specialty of this particular library) or short stories or comic books, all of which were closer to the entrance, and all of which had their own librarians.
Or had, once. But something had happened lately, some gradual change had crept upon the place slowly, and she almost didn’t notice, until one day it came to her.
The librarians were disappearing.
Gladys was first, Gladys of the tortoiseshell glasses and kitten heels. She worked in historical fiction, and would always bring a flask of rum to the weekly librarian meetings, which had started as business affairs, but then gradually morphed into an after-hours gossip and tippling session. Shannon suddenly realised that it had been weeks since she’d attended one of the meetings, weeks since she’d even seen one of her fellow staff members. What had they discussed last time? She ran a finger down the page of her notebook, sifting through the entries. The volunteer policy for new ghosts, the brand refresh that included a grinning skull inside the ‘H’…
Ah, yes.
The sign out the front. It was a stone carving, worn by years of rain and wind and spectral storms, and Management thought it was dated. “Come up with something new,” one of the executives had said to Shannon at a chance meeting in the lunchroom. “Something more youthful!” he added before shambling off to a meeting, and she’d made a note to mention it, and the librarians had some preliminary discussion, but then Gladys had disappeared.
“Helping a researcher with a project,” Ruth said, but when Shannon went to find Ruth later to ask about the details, she couldn’t find her. Soon afterwards Nathaniel vanished, and Tatiana. Were any of them left?
Shannon looked down at her watch, wondering what day it was, for she’d lost track—she’d been reading a tome about alchemy, and totally forgotten about the outside world, and the fact that, above the great vaulted library roof, there was a sky with a sun and a moon that rose and fell. Then she remembered that her timepiece wouldn’t tell her what day it was, only the hour.
Five ‘o’clock.
Time to leave, to go home; that’s what she used to do, but lately it seemed like such a bother to wend her way through the rows of shelves that instead she remained at her desk, made a cup of tea, and stayed for the night. Nobody ever came to check on her; in fact, she didn’t think she’d seen another human for days.
Review by E. Kirshe
The process for writing The Tethering was a little strange and not something I would necessarily repeat. The idea for The Tethering came from a little boy waiting in a window for a girl to come back. I don’t really remember why that image came to me, but I needed to find out more about the boy. I wrote a scene and then another scene, and after a lot of revisions and changes, The Tethering was born. In projects since The Tethering, I’ve kept much closer track of what I’ve written so I don’t rewrite the same information ten times. I’m still finding the process that works best for me.
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