by Andris Bear
Shaking her head, she shouted, “I can’t hear you.”
Taking Evangeline’s inability to hear personally, Mimi set her tea on the table hard enough to slosh some of it over the side. She fisted her hands on her ample hips, then marched across the room. “I said I trust you!”
The volume at which she imparted her trust had Evangeline’s eyes widening. She nodded that she got the message. Loud and clear.
A grunt preceded Mimi’s, “Why don’t you shelve the return cart and then catalog the nonfiction section?” She crossed her arms, challenge written all over her.
Evangeline inwardly groaned. Nonfiction made up a large portion of the library. Cataloging it would take hours, if not the whole shift or more. Whether from showing up late or making her boss scream in her face, it was her lot for the day.
“My excitement abounds,” she murmured, leaving Mimi to scowl after her as she approached the overflowing cart of book returns.
It took her a while to organize the returns before putting them away. She’d rather organize fifty carts than dig into the assigned nonfiction punishment. Er, project. Then again, she’d rather eat razor blades than catalog several hundred books that were already fully cataloged.
She stared at the long wall of shelves waiting on her to do her thing. Her thing that needn’t be done.
A child’s squeal pierced the quiet. Evangeline glanced up to see a mom with a handful of kids walk through the glass doors. One in a stroller and three to roam free.
“Bless her six ways to Sunday,” a voice said beside her. “I will be avoiding the children’s section today.”
Evangeline looked Carrow, a co-worker and friend, over. Though Carrow was pushing mid-twenties, she appeared no older than fifteen. She was tall and lanky with brown hair she liked to wear in braided pigtails. And freckles. Lots of freckles. She reminded Evangeline of a brunette Pippy Longstocking.
They had become fast friends when Evangeline started at the library. Being she was new to Whisper Grove, she was grateful for Carrow’s friendship, in and out of work.
“I counted four, so she probably needs a solid blessing.” Evangeline watched the mom and crew disappear behind a row of shelves. Turning her attention to her friend, she said, “I didn’t realize you were working today.”
“Mimi called me in because someone didn’t show.”
“The first time I’m late in the three months I’ve worked here….” Rolling her eyes, Evangeline pushed out a hefty sigh. “I’m sorry she called you in.”
Carrow shrugged, twisting her mouth into a wry smile. “I can break from plotting world domination to make a little extra cash. Was that your car I saw sitting on the side of the road?”
“Ugh,” Evangeline mumbled, rotating her head on her shoulders. The kinks remained. Maybe even knotted tighter, if the tension in her spine was any indication. “I hit a truck this morning.”
She still didn’t understand how he appeared in front of her. Yes, she’d checked her phone—a no-no—but there hadn’t been another vehicle on the dang road when she’d glanced down. She was sure of it.
“You hit a truck?” Concern pinched her brows. “Are you okay?”
“Other than complete mortification? I’m fine. There wasn’t much damage, but my stupid car wouldn’t start after that. I had to walk here.” Lifting her right foot for inspection, she added, “Managed to twist my ankle on the way. At least nothing else can go wrong.”
“It’s not even noon yet,” Carrow helpfully mentioned as she inspected Evangeline’s swollen, purplish ankle. “Never issue a challenge to the universe to make things worse—it’ll accept.”
She walked off, leaving Evangeline with an impending sense of doom. She lifted her gaze to the ceiling—which was really the floor of the second level of the library. Not exactly home base for the universe, but hey, desperate times—and whispered, “I take it back.”
But the universe was a sadist that had accepted the challenge she’d unwittingly offered. The rest of her shift not only got worse, it also dragged on for a week and half. Okay, slight exaggeration.
But it sure as hell didn’t feel like it.
The mom unleashed her kids on the unsuspecting bystanders in library. The oldest, a boy, ran up and down every single row on the first floor, sideswiping anyone who dared browse in his way. The middle kid disappeared to God only knew where, and the youngest on two legs, a cute little cherub with blonde pigtails, started randomly pulling books off the shelves as she tried to keep pace with her racing older brother.
More than one patron gave them the side-eye—one even made the sign of the cross—and though Evangeline did her best to ignore the exuberant trio, their high-pitched shrieks made the vein at her temple thump to tempo.
After two and half hours of the unsupervised circus, Evangeline was plotting their mother’s demise for allowing them to run wild.
The pounding of running children sounded an instant before the boy raced around the corner. Before she could think better of it, Evangeline snatched him by the arm and pulled him to a stop. Hunkering down to meet his wide, blue eyes, she said, “This is a library, not a zoo. Do not run. Do not yell. And do not touch the books!”
“Hey! Get your hands off my son.”
Of course, the child’s mother chose this moment to pay attention. Evangeline placed her at around thirty as she stomped over to them, her face a mask of indignant outrage. Straightening, with a heavy exhale, Evangeline met her gaze.
“I wouldn’t have had to stop him if you had,” Evangeline stated. She wasn’t usually so short tempered, especially with children. But her head was pounding, her ankle was throbbing, and her stomach was growling. Her patience vanished an hour ago when the “cute little cherub” wiped snot on the wall. Not to mention that her brisk walk into work left her smelling like the wrong side of a camel. And she was ready to spit like one.
“Evangeline.” Mimi’s terse tone stopped her cold. “Meet me in the office.”
Evangeline hesitated, her indignant outrage blazing hot and ready to fry. Instead, she spun on her heel as Mimi apologized to the angry mother for her “appalling behavior,” and rushed to the office, slamming the door behind her. Not that Mimi wasn’t correct, but Evangeline also wasn’t wrong. Except for touching the kid. Probably shouldn’t have done that.
Running her palms down her face, she wondered what was wrong with her. She wasn’t acting like herself. She didn’t feel like herself. Nothing was going right, or even normal. In a nutshell, the day was ass from top to bottom.
“I’m in the Twilight Zone,” she muttered, pulling out a chair to sit at the break table. Before she could, Mimi thundered in and shut the door.
“Don’t take this personally, but what the hell is wrong with you?” she demanded.
Slumping, Evangeline ran a hand through her hair. “I’m sorry, Mimi, really. Without going into every miserable detail, let me just say it’s been a bad day and I lost my temper. It’s no excuse, I know.”
Mimi regarded in her silence for a long minute, and Evangeline sent up a prayer she still had her job. She loved the library, loved their patrons, even loved, in the form of tolerated, working under Mimi. The thought of losing it twisted knots in her stomach.
“All right. Everyone has bad days, but honestly, this better never happen again. You cannot grab a child like that,” she said, and then added under her breath, “Even if he is a holy terror.”
“Thank you, Mi—”
Lifting her palm in the air, Mimi cut her off. “Don’t thank me. We have a pick-up order for some history books that are archived in the basement. You’re going to pull them.”
“The basement?” Evangeline swallowed a gulp. Having been built in the late 1800s, the library was one of the oldest buildings in Whisper Grove, and though the first and second floors had been modernized, the basement was a relic of that time.
She had only descended those stairs once, but she didn’t relish doing it again. It was a cold and musty, and the light
ing wasn’t much better than winding through the mildewed stone columns with a candle. She didn’t know anyone who liked being down there.
“How many books?” she asked, calculating how quickly she could get in and out.
“Thirteen.” Mimi pulled a note from the pocket of her muumuu, then held it out to her.
Oh, good, an unlucky number. Because she needed more unlucky. Evangeline took the note, scanned the scribbled titles, and drew in a fortifying breath. “I’ll get them now.”
Skirting around her boss, she left the office and turned down the short hall that led to the restrooms and the stairs. There were two doors leading to staircases—the one on the right went up to the second level. The one on the left, marked ‘Staff Only,’ descended into the basement. Between the two was a small hatch-like door that opened the library’s dumbwaiter.
At least she wouldn’t have to carry thirteen dusty books up the stairs.
She opened the basement door, flicked the light switch, and peered down the crooked, winding staircase. The bulbs on the ceiling flickered and buzzed. She could practically hear suspenseful theme music playing as she debated a decision that would probably lead to a broken neck at the bottom of the staircase.
“Good times,” she muttered, taking the first step.
Chapter Four
“The first step is the hardest.”
The mantra was crap, but Evangeline repeated it on a loop as she descended the creepy stairwell. By the time she reached the bottom, the fine hairs at the nape of her neck stood on end, and her pulse pounded like a herd of wild horses.
The urge to bolt up the stairs pressed on her spine. Rather than give in to the impulse, Evangeline braced a steadying hand on the wall and took in the basement.
Thick stone columns, placed approximately ten feet apart, ran the length and width of the basement. Support beams between them crisscrossed the ceiling. What little lighting there was came from strands of lightbulbs nailed into the beams.
Evangeline tried to convince herself they were like strands of Christmas lights—only without the pretty colors.
Or Christmas cheer.
Or light.
The bulbs emitted a low electrical hum as they flickered intermittently. Through the flashing, Evangeline noticed the shelves were on the far side of the cavernous space. She counted fifteen rows, floor to ceiling, running perpendicular to the wall.
The other half of the space was dusty boxes and obsolete office equipment. And deep, dark shadows.
Yanking her attention from the darkness, she squinted against the dim light to scan the list. The good news was Mimi miscounted—there were twelve items, not thirteen. And they were in order by genre. Wasn’t her luck just perking up?
Her gaze snagged on a title. “The Vanishers?”
Curiosity piqued, she read the next several lines.
The Burning of the Grove
A Bewitching History
Wicca for Dummies
Harnessing Your Inner Witch
“How fitting these books are down here, in the most terrifying basement I’ve ever seen,” she muttered, scanning the rest of the titles. Each one had some sort of reference to witchcraft. A shiver slithered down her spine even as she chuffed at the absurdity of it.
Witches. Ha.
With a final glance at the door to the upper floor, Evangeline headed toward the shelves. Every inch she moved from the stairs felt like a mile. Pushing her jitters aside, she read the scrawled handwriting on the ends of each row as she passed by, searching for the corresponding numbers.
The first two books were in the same aisle. She quickly pulled them, then hurried over to set them in the dumbwaiter.
“Only ten more to go,” she said, needing to break the oppressive silence. It was as if the air was breathing down her neck. Moving to the next row, she pulled another book from local history, and then placed it with the others.
The other nine would be found in the occult section… in the darkest, farthest corner of the basement. She stared into the shadows, her imagination conjuring reason after reason why she shouldn’t go over there.
The lights flickered an instant before going out.
Her breath froze in her lungs. The silence blasted in her ears. She whipped her head around to the stairs. All she saw was the sliver of light seeping through the crack under the door.
It might as well have been light-years away. The basement was disorienting with lights. Without, it was a foreign country at midnight. Just as she decided inching her way to the exit was her only option, the lights returned, annoying buzz and all.
She slumped with a relieved exhale, wiping a palm down her face.
Motivation renewed, she checked her list before marching to the last rows. She wanted to get the books and haul ass. Naturally, she had to lean in close and squint to see the Dewey call numbers. It took forever, but she worked her way down the list, setting book after book inside the dumbwaiter.
Pausing at the end of the row, she checked her final set of numbers, then started down the aisle.
An eerie whistling filled her ears. It wasn’t loud, but it was high-pitched, reminding her of a howling wind whipping through a narrow tunnel. She paused, more confused than alarmed, and glanced around for the source.
Her gaze landed on a door in the far corner at the end of the shelves. Huh. What an odd place for a door. Had it been there the whole time?
The howling stopped as quickly as it had started.
She swallowed.
The door fit in perfectly with the rest of the basement—old, worn, and looked like it came from a medieval dungeon. It had a levered bar that fit into a groove that kept it shut. Something about it made her want to get the hell out before she couldn’t.
Yet, she was also curious. It was a strange place for a door. It wasn’t as if it led outside. So where did it lead?
“Nowhere you want to go.” She couldn’t hold the shiver of fear running over her as she turned back to the task at hand.
The wind kicked in again. This time, hard enough to rattle the door. She swallowed a scream. It wouldn’t have made it past her heart in her throat anyway. Backing down the aisle, she kept her eyes trained on the shaking door. She didn’t know what she expected to happen, but wanted to see the bastard coming.
Help…
Evangeline wasn’t one to use the F-bomb lightly, but every variation of the word flew from her mouth in the space of ten seconds.
Screw the last book. She’d tell Mimi she couldn’t find it. Or it caught fire. Or grew legs and skipped away. Spinning on her heel, Evangeline all but ran to the dumbwaiter. A part of her mind was still rational enough to realize she was being ridiculous, but it was a small part.
The rest of her had skidded past terrified and into pissy because she had to pause mid-flight to raise the books to the upper level. But she’d rather sew her nipples together than return to the basement for them. If she didn’t get them now, they weren’t getting got.
Since it was a manual dumbwaiter, she had to pull a rope to raise the books. God forbid she could just push a button and run. She gave the rope three hard yanks, putting her full weight behind each one, before the click echoed through the shaft.
That was all she needed. She pivoted toward the stairs, and the wind howled—as if her escape infuriated it. Another chill slithered down her spine, spurring her to run as fast as she could.
She still had several yards to go when the wind gave way to instant silence.
Win…ther…
Fear pounded against her rib cage. She took the stairs two at a time, fully prepared to bust through the door at the top. That proved unnecessary when it swung open, and Evangeline plowed into Carrow instead.
“Jesus!” Carrow yelped.
Evangeline untangled herself, snatched the knob from Carrow’s grasp, then slammed the door. Even then, she felt as if something was in hot pursuit. Blowing out a heavy breath, she slumped against the wall. It was that, or her shaking legs would dump her on
her butt.
Carrow frowned. “What was that all about?”
Evangeline shook her head. “Have you ever been down there?” she asked through panting breaths.
“Oh, yeah. It can be creepy.”
Evangeline snorted. Clowns were creepy. Skeletons were creepy. Men in Hawaiian shirts were creepy.
The basement was a portal straight to hell.
“You okay?” Carrow asked, her eyes narrowing with scrutiny.
“Yep. I’m as ducky as a goose.” Unless she counted the fact she was losing her mind.
“Well, then you might want to get those books to the front desk. Mimi lost patience half an hour ago.”
Evangeline straightened. “Half an hour? I wasn’t even down there that long.”
“You were down there almost an hour.” Carrow reached out, brushing her fingers over Evangeline’s arm. “You sure you’re okay?”
“An hour?” she squeaked. If she didn’t end the day unemployed, it would be a miracle. Panic had her spinning to the dumbwaiter, lifting the lid, and then snatching the books. Clutching the stack to her chest, she scurried along the hall toward the front desk.
When she arrived, Mimi pinned her with an icy glare. “Did you get lost, Miss Winther?”
My sanity did.
Evangeline set the pile on the desk, righting the top several books as they slid sideways. Her gaze lifted to a tall blonde standing on the other side of the desk, then back to her boss. “Don’t tell me you’ve never gotten lost in the basement. I ran into Marco Polo down there.”
Mimi did not appreciate her attempt at humor. Her glorious muumuu rustled against her ample curves as she straightened her spine. Cocking her head to the blonde, she said, “I apologize for the delay, Miss Stone.”
Miss Stone paid Mimi no mind. Her ice blue eyes locked and held on Evangeline. Her assessment was cold and calculating. Evangeline decided on the spot she didn’t like her.
“Your last name is Winther? As in The Winthers?”
Uh…. How was she supposed to respond? It wasn’t like she was a Kennedy.
