The Girl Who Wasn't There

by Nick Clausen

  For the first time since Rebecca disappears, Andy stops by the library. He looks up at the red building. It looks completely the same: friendly and inviting. He has been riding past it almost every day, but hasn’t had the nerve to really look at it, much less go in. Even now the thought scares him a little.

  But he needs an answer to the Lisa Labowski paradox, so he puts the bike in the rack and strides towards the glass doors. They greet him with their old, familiar hiss as they glide open.

  Andy steps inside the entrance and stops to close his eyes for a moment, inhaling through his nose. The atmosphere is exactly as he remembers it, and it brings the same feeling of security and peacefulness it always has. Andy can’t help but smile.

  I’ve been so silly. Why was I afraid of going in here? It wasn’t like the library caused Rebecca to disappear.

  He proceeds to go inside and sees Regan—or Libraregan, as she calls herself on social media—by the desk, busy sorting out returned books. A couple of girls Rebecca’s age are sitting by the computers and an elderly man is reading a newspaper in the armchair in the farthest corner.

  Andy goes to the desk and says: “Hey, Regan.”

  Regan turns around with a look of surprise. “Andy? Heey!” she beams at him. “Great to see you! It’s been so long—got to be a new record.”

  “I know.” Andy smiles shyly.

  He notices Regan is about to ask him something, but then seems to think better of it. Something unsaid passes between them, and her smile fades a bit. Of course Regan heard about Rebecca, but did she also hear how it happened? Does she know it was Andy’s fault? If she does, then she doesn’t say it. Instead, she asks: “How are you holding up?”

  “Okay, I guess,” Andy says with a shrug.

  Regan is pretty young for a librarian—no more than twenty or twenty-one, if Andy had to guess. She’s not much taller than Andy and wears glasses too. But unlike Andy, Regan is very thin. She has a tiny pigment spot on her right cheek bone where the skin is noticeably brighter than the rest of her face. It reminds Andy of a teardrop and gives Regan a look of eternal sadness—although she smiles most of the time. Yet Andy has always sensed a loneliness from her, very much akin to his own, and he’s pretty sure she doesn’t have a boyfriend; she’s in love with books, just like Andy.

  “So, what did you read this time?” she says, her smile returning, as she goes on sorting books.

  Andy finds the book from his bag and shows it to her. “It’s called The Wendigo. It’s really cool.”

  “The Wendigo? Don’t think I’ve heard about it … who wrote it?” She takes the book from Andy and opens it. “Algernon Blackwood … huh, what an old-school name.”

  “I know,” Andy says. “I never read anything else by him—did you?”

  “I think I’d remember a name like that, so no, I probably haven’t.” She hands him back the book. “Is it a horror story?”

  “Yeah, and it’s freaking scary. Definitely too scary for you, Regan.”

  Regan puts her hands to her sides. “I’ll have you know I’ve read several horror books in my time, thank you very much. In fact, I recently finished Pet Sematary … and now I have to sleep with the lights on for the rest of my life.”

  Andy sniggers. Then he remembers why he came. “I need to ask you something, Regan.”

  “Sure.”

  Suddenly, Andy doesn’t know how to put the question. Somehow, “Are dead people allowed to borrow books?” doesn’t really seem like the right way to go about it.

  “It’s just because … uhm … I found this note … here, let me show you.” He leafs through the book till he gets to the last page. The receipt isn’t there. Then he remembers he put it in his pocket. Or was it the bag? “Eh … give me a second,” he mutters and begins rummaging for the note.

  “Do you mind me helping the gentleman behind you, Andy?” Regan asks, and Andy looks back to see the old newspaper guy standing in line with an impatient look on his face.

  “Yeah, sure,” Andy says, scurrying aside. He keeps digging for the library receipt, but he can’t find it anywhere. “Damnit,” he murmurs, scratching the back of his head. How can he put the question to Regan if he doesn’t at least have the note proving Lisa Labowski was dead at the time the book was lent out?

  He glances towards the desk, where Regan is still talking with the old man. Andy looks down at The Wendigo, flipping through the pages absentmindedly, just to double-check if he by chance put the receipt in somewhere else, when a certain paragraph catches his eye. It’s the one where the man is pulled from the tent. Andy immediately feels his skin begin to prickle, and he can’t help but read the passage one more time.

  What happens next is the most curious and inexplicable thing Andy has ever experienced.

  The line is changed.

  Of course that’s not possible.

  Words printed in a book can’t change; they’re ink on paper.

  But the line has changed nonetheless.

  And it’s no subtle change, either. Had the wording been only slightly different, Andy could have explained it by him simply not remembering the line correctly. But the words he reads now are nothing at all like the ones he read last night.

  The line, as Andy recalls it, went:

  »Oh! Oh! My feet of fire! My burning feet of fire! Oh! oh! This height and fiery speed!«

  But now it’s only one word:

  »hello«

  Andy is dumbfounded. He reads the word twice over, then a third time, spelling it out, scrutinizing every letter.

  He’s not reading it wrong. And there’s nothing wrong with his eyes, either. The new word is really there. It shouldn’t be, but it is.

  I must be at another place in the story …

  He reads the paragraphs leading up to the line, but he’s not in another place. The man is awakened in his tent, and just as he shoots out through the opening and disappears into the night, he screams out in distress, that disturbing line which …

  Which now is completely wrong.

  “Andy?”

  He jerks and spins around, almost dropping the book.

  Regan—who is no longer talking to the old guy—is looking at him with an uncertain smile. “Are you okay? I heard you muttering to yourself.”

  “There’s … there’s something wrong,” he croaks. “With the book.”

  She looks at The Wendigo in his hand. “The one you just read? What’s wrong with it? I thought you said you liked it?”

  “Yes, well, it’s … I’m just …”

  Regan eyes him patiently.

  For a crazy moment, Andy considers the possibility that she is the one playing a trick on him. She was holding the book in her hands a moment ago—could she have switched it for another one?

  Of course she couldn’t. This is the same book.

  “There’s an error in the text,” Andy says. “Look.”

  He shows Regan the page and lets his finger run down the text until it reaches the line. They both read it.

  Andy gapes.

  Regan frowns. “Well, it does sound a bit odd, I’ll give you that. Burning feet of fire, what’s that mean? I don’t think it’s an error, per se, but I agree it’s a weird way to phrase it.”

  Andy attempts to moisten his lips with a dried-up tongue. “Yeah, very weird,” he manages.

  “That book really did a number on you, didn’t it?” Regan asks, squeezing his shoulder. “You look like you saw a ghost!”

  Andy murmurs something about him being very tired due to the fact that he was up all night reading. Regan laughs heartedly and says she knows exactly what he means; she usually refers to the phenomenon as a “book hangover.” Then she goes back to sorting books.

  Andy is just standing there for a minute, discretely holding the book at arm’s length, as though it is something poisonous. He goes to row B to put it back on the shelf, when he suddenly gets the urge to look one more time.

  Why would you do that? a voice in his mind immediately objec
ts. What could you possibly have to gain? If the text is normal, there was no need to check in the first place. If it’s changed again, then there must be something wrong with your head. Do you really want to know if you’re going crazy?

  The voice makes a good point, but Andy looks anyway. His curiosity gets the better of him. He opens the book once more and finds the page.

  The line is changed again. But to something new this time.

  »afraid?«

  Andy slams the book shut, shoves it in a random place on the shelf and leaves the library in a hurry, not even bothering to answer Regan, who says his name from somewhere. As soon as Andy is outside, he grabs the bike, jumps on it and rides home as fast as he can.

  DAY 54

  Andy naturally concludes the library must be haunted, and he swears to never go near it again, ever. Instead, he begins to spend his free time at home in his room.

  Ever since Rebecca disappeared, Andy has avoided being in the rest of the house as much as possible, only leaving his room to eat or go to the bathroom. He just can’t take The Silence—that’s how he thinks of the word, with a capital S.

  Before Rebecca, his parents would no doubt have noticed how Andy isolated himself.

  Mom would have asked him if he was feeling okay, would have checked his forehead with her cool palm.

  Dad would have come into his room, sat down on the bed next to him and asked him if everything was okay.

  But those kinds of things are in the past now, and his parents are simply drifting through the days, hardly noticing anything. Andy will sometimes imagine them going on like this, growing more and more distant, talking less and less, until they completely lose the ability to speak or recognize anyone around them. Or maybe they will even begin to grow transparent, simply fade away like ghosts, until one day, there will be nothing left but the occasional creak of a floorboard from Dad’s office or the faint smell of Mom’s perfume. No one would be able to explain exactly what had happened, only Andy would know that The Silence had finally swallowed up both his parents.

  Still, there is one other thing besides food and bathroom visits which can make Andy venture out of him room, and that’s Tweety. When Rebecca went missing, Andy took it upon himself to feed and look after her parakeet. Whenever he enters Rebecca’s room, he’s greeted by a squawking voice: “Hello, ugly!”

  “Hello, Tweety.”

  Tweety reminds him in many ways of Rebecca, and Andy suspects that parakeets adopt the personality of their owners just like dogs will. As Andy steps inside and closes the door behind him, the bird gives a whistle and flies up on its perch. He hesitates for a moment, like he always does, looking around the room. Everything is neat and tidy. The bed is made, the floor is clean, not a trace of dust or laundry. It’s almost like Rebecca moved out and the room is now waiting for a new occupant.

  Andy dislikes the thought, and besides, it’s not true; Rebecca will come home, of course she will. No one else will move into this room.

  “Most children who run away from home get found within twenty-four hours,” Andy recalls one of the officers telling his parents. “In rare cases, it takes up to a week.”

  The word, which the officer discretely avoided, and which no one has said aloud yet—at least not when Andy was listening—is of course, “kidnapped.” Although Andy hasn’t heard the word uttered, he can sense it lurking in the air all around him, immersed within The Silence. And behind it, buried even deeper, lies another word—a much, much worse one.

  For some reason, Andy is reminded of the nightmare he had recently about Rebecca being taken by the wendigo, and his stomach tightens. What if it wasn’t merely a dream, but some sort a warning? He once saw a documentary about twins who were able to sense each other’s pain and distress even over great distances. Perhaps he and Rebecca have a similar connection?

  “Hey, you!” Tweety calls out, pulling Andy from his train of thoughts. “Whaddaya looking at?”

  Andy goes to the cage and pours seed into the bowl.

  “Bon Appetit! Bon Appetit!” the bird squawks and begins eating.

  Andy stands for a moment and studies it, the shiny green feathers and the gleaming orange eyes. “What do you think, Tweety? Will Rebecca come home?”

  “Becca!” the bird answers and stops eating for a moment, as though it genuinely remembers.

  Andy feels his heart speed up. It’s silly, he knows that; of course the bird doesn’t know who the word refers to, it simply repeats what it’s heard.

  “Becca!” it says again.

  “Is that a yes? Do you think she will come home?”

  The bird eyes him intently for a moment, then it says: “Hello, ugly!” and resumes eating.

  Andy bites his lip, his gaze growing distant. “Up to a week,” he mutters, not even aware he’s speaking aloud. “Seven days.”

  It’s almost two months since Rebecca disappeared.

  DAY 57

  Of course Andy can’t avoid the library for the rest of his life; he needs something new to read. And after only a couple of days, The Silence is getting on his nerves.

  Besides, it isn’t really the library that scares him, it’s the book. Or rather, the strange, changing line.

  The notion which he has been trying to ignore is that the line wasn’t just a random thing, but a meaningful message addressed to him. Not any reader, but him, Andy Wisler.

  Andy has been going over the scene in his head several times. It really was exactly as though the book was talking to him.

  No, not the book. The message came from someone else.

  The name trying to force its way into Andy’s mind is of course Lisa Labowski. But that wasn’t only not possible, it was also insane.

  Andy often reads books where the main character encounters something inexplicable, and usually the reader is given a rational explanation later on in the story, but sometimes … sometimes it turns out there aren’t any.

  That’s just stories. I’m not a character in a book. This is the real, boring world. And there is no such thing as books with changing lines.

  So, Andy makes up his mind to be brave and go back to the library. He decides to wait until Friday at five o’clock. At that time the library will probably be empty.

  He lets himself in with his password and begins by walking casually around the rows, making sure he’s alone. Then he takes his time checking out Regan’s newest display of popular books. Nothing really catches his attention, though, so he goes on to the rows.

  He keeps glancing nervously over at row B, but as the minutes pass by and nothing happens, the calming atmosphere of the many books makes him feel at ease. He even begins to smile to himself.

  God, I’ve been so stupid. I got scared by a brief moment of imagination. That’s all it was. I’ll bet I can go to the book right now and read the line and it’ll be exactly as it has always been.

  And he decides to do it. Just to put this silly thing to rest once and for all. He goes to row B and finds The Wendigo. He takes it out, leafs through the pages and finds the scene with the tent.

  The line goes:

  »Oh! oh! My feet of fire! My burning feet of fire! Oh! oh! This height and fiery speed!«

  Andy lets out a long breath he wasn’t even aware he was holding, and his shoulders drop down an inch. Apparently, he wasn’t quite as confident as he acted, but he’s still glad he looked, because now it’s confirmed.

  “It was just my imagination,” he mutters. “Nothing more than that.”

  He puts back The Wendigo and finds another book which looks promising: Solaris by Stanislaw Lem. He sits down in the armchair by the far corner, kicks off his shoes and makes himself comfortable.

  Andy reads the first chapter. He sits quietly and turns the pages, completely undisturbed and utterly absorbed by the story.

  Solaris is about a young astronaut visiting a space station on a foreign planet called Solaris. But as soon as he arrives on the station, it becomes clear that something is wrong. What remains of his c
olleagues still on the station are frightened and scattered and acting extremely weird. When the main character talks to one of them, the dialogue quickly turns odd as the colleague warns the protagonist of great undefinable dangers aboard the station.

  »Who could I see?« I flared up. »A ghost?«

  »You think I’m mad, of course. No, no, I’m not mad. I can’t say anything more for the moment. Perhaps … who knows? … Nothing will happen. But don’t forget I warned you.«

  »Don’t be so mysterious. What’s all this about?«

  »Keep a hold on yourself. Be prepared to meet … anything. It sounds impossible I know, but try. It’s the only advice I can give you. I can’t think of anything better.«

  »But what could I possibly meet?« I shouted.

  »lisa«

  Seeing him sitting there, looking sideways at me, his sunburnt face drooping with fatigue, I found it difficult to contain myself. I wanted to grab him by the shoulders and …

  Andy is so caught up in the story that he reads on another few lines before it finally dawns on him. He stares at the last line of dialogue. The way it’s written; no capital letters. No punctuation. And the name …

  Everything inside of him stiffens up, as though his body temperature has dropped way below zero. He stares at the name, feeling his skin turn to ice all over.

  It’s her again! his mind screams at him from someplace far away. She’s in this book, too! Get out of here! Run!

  He manages to get up on shaky legs while squeezing the book hard enough to crinkle the pages, afraid that it might jump on him if he lets go. Then, he drops it all at once, while simultaneously spinning on his heel and bolting for the exit. His elbow graces one of the shelves and knocks down a couple of books, but Andy pays no mind, he just runs as though his life depends on it, only slowing down as he approaches the glass doors.

  “Come on, open!” he cries out, as the automated doors take their sweet time gliding aside. They’re no more than a few inches apart when Andy leaps forward to squeeze through—but then, completely unexpectedly, the doors close again, almost pinning Andy’s nose. He stumbles backwards, taken aback, staring at the doors. “What? No, no, open! Open up!”