by Madelyn Alt
You, me, and old Bertie. Old Bertie being Boiler Room Bertie, the nebulous spirit resident who liked to dart around the library’s antiquated boiler room as a glowing blue ball of light. Marcus had let me in on Bertie’s existence last December. I couldn’t say I’d been champing at the bit for a personal introduction.
“Ohhh…Are you sure that you wouldn’t rather have Devon or Joe? Or Liss? Liss would probably be your best bet.”
“Maybe so. But I asked you.”
It was the soft tone that got me. That and the implied preference for my company. Even though I knew he was probably just trying to reassure me, help me to feel comfortable with all the spooky stuff. “All right,” I said, reluctant but not wanting to hurt his feelings by refusing him when he was trying so hard to help. “I guess it wouldn’t hurt for a little while. You said mostly Bertie just shows up as bright blue orbs, right?”
Orbs were okay. Nonthreatening. Benign, even. Orbs I could handle…so long as they didn’t follow me around. No stalking of the N.I.G.H.T.S. fraidy cat allowed.
“Right. So you’re in?”
I laughed. “Yeah, I’m in. I’ve always liked the color blue.”
“Bertie will be glad to hear it.”
“What time do you want to go?”
“How does now sound?”
Another glance down at my less-than-appropriate ensemble. “Um—”
The knock at my door nearly sent me into spasms.
“Marcus?”
“Maggie?”
I clutched the phone tighter to my ear. “Is that you out there?”
“You were expecting John Wayne, maybe?”
“Well, I wasn’t expecting anyone yet!”
His laugh crackled through the earpiece. “Knowing your feelings toward spirit activity lately, I didn’t want to give you the opportunity to duck out the back before I could get here.”
“Marcus, I live in a basement apartment. There is no back door.”
“And that makes it sooo much easier to find you,” he drawled in a voice as smooth and sweet as honey.
I opened the door without a thought, giggling despite myself. Marcus stood on the doorstep, mirroring me perfectly with his phone at his ear. We stood for a moment on either side of the threshold, grinning at each other.
“You are a nut,” I told him, swinging the door wider.
“And you are a closet exhibitionist. That’s quite the getup you’ve got going on.”
I looked down at myself, bare legs, frowzy robe, bunny slippers, and all. “Whoops, sorry!” I backed toward my bedroom, all kinds of embarrassed. “I’ll just go change now.”
A smile played about the corners of his mouth. “No need to apologize, sweetness. You’ve got great legs. In fact,” he called after me as I closed the bedroom door, “if you’d like to go like that, I’m all for it. Don’t think you have to change for me.”
Margaret Mary-Catherine O’Neill, what do you think you’re doing, girl? I heard the chiding tones of my conscience inside my head, as I so often did, speaking in the voice of my late grandmother. Your boyfriend goes off to do his civic-minded duty, and you take up with the first man who sweet-talks you? You should go to confession.
Later, Grandma, I answered as I dug through my dresser drawers for a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, I have things to do. Besides, I wouldn’t really call Tom my boyfriend. Prospective boyfriend, maybe. And I’m not taking up with Marcus. He’s just a friend.
A man who looks at you that way? That’s no friend. Didn’t your mother tell you to watch out for men like that? All long legs and soft eyes and sweet nothings. What are you going to do with a man like that?
It was probably better not to answer a question like that, even to a girl’s own conscience. Some things are better left unsaid. And besides, I wasn’t going to do anything with a man like Marcus. He was a friend. F-R-I-E-N-D. And he was taken, and so was I. I just felt comfortable with him, that’s all. He had somehow managed to get me to open up to him in a way I didn’t with many people until I had known them for a very long while. Besides, even if he was free, and I was, too, I wouldn’t be so stupid as to risk something special like that.
Not me.
Just to reassert with my overactive worrywart of a conscience that I was not trying to be anything more than reasonably put together, I dug out my oldest and most shapeless oversized sweater to wear over my tee and surveyed the results in the mirror over my dresser. My hair was a bit unruly after the shower (definitely not enough frizz serum!), so I dragged a comb through it, then twisted the lot of it and pinned it up on the back of my head with a few hair clips. As usual, the finer pieces at the front slipped from their moorings, but I was satisfied with the result. At least I didn’t look like I’d just rolled out of bed.
Marcus was standing in the middle of my living room when I came out of the bedroom. My remote was in his hand, pointed at the TV, which he was watching with interest. I glanced at the screen and froze.
“So. I take it you’re a big Magnum buff.”
Busted! “Um, why do you say that?”
He slanted a knowing glance my way. “Because you have at least fifteen other VCR tapes labeled Magnum, P.I. in addition to this one.”
I made a face at him. “All right, you caught me. Yes, I like Magnum, P.I. He’s funny. I like Hawaii. Higgins is hilarious. Great characters. Lots of action. What more can you ask for in a TV show?”
He sauntered over to the rest of the tapes stacked on my bookshelves and squinted at the labels with great interest. “Yeah, I can see there’s lots of action and great characters. ‘Hot Hot Hot Magnum.’ ‘OMG Magnum.’ ‘Dear God in Heaven Magnum.’ ‘Ha-cha-cha Magnum.’ ‘Sigh-worthy Magnum.’ ‘Be Still My Heart Magnum.’”
Flushed with embarrassment, I gave him a cool stare. “And your point is?”
He smirked. “That’s kind of like a guy saying he reads Playboy for the articles, isn’t it?”
“Very funny.” I decided changing the subject was probably the best approach. “So, does Marion know we’re stopping in tonight?”
“Nice save, Mags. Yes, Aunt Marion knows. She’ll be there to unlock the doors for us.”
Marcus drove us over in his old beat-up pickup truck—much warmer than the back of his motorcycle. The springs on the bench seat were going out, giving me a faint bobble-head feeling, but his radio worked a lot better than Christine’s, which made it all worthwhile. We spent the short ride listening to the musical stylings of the latest British import—my kind of music, all soft rock, sensitive imagery, and driving drumbeats—until we pulled up beneath the tree canopy in front of the library. Marion’s old VW Rabbit was already there in its usual reserved spot. Marcus parked directly behind her and switched off the ignition.
“Ready?”
I nodded.
He grabbed his backpack out of the back seat and hurried around to my side to hold the door, which I’d already flung open.
“Hello, you two!” Marion greeted us at the double doors, holding them open while Marcus shouldered his way through with his hands full. “Good Lord a’ Livin’, you’re packing for bear. What all did you bring?”
“What, this? Oh, most of this isn’t for ghost-hunting. It’s my knife stuff. My truck doesn’t lock up too tight, and I’ve been hit by teenagers once too often. If I have it with me, it goes where I go.”
Ooooh. Knives. Hoping to ward off another lengthy monologue, I reached around Marcus and gave Marion a warm hug. “Hello, Marion.”
“Hey there, girl. Marcus told me you’d be coming.”
“Oh, he did, did he?” I asked, giving Marcus a sidelong glance.
Marcus grinned. “I said I thought you’d be coming with me.”
“So he’s been hustling you, hey?” Marion chuckled and shook her head. “My pit bull of a nephew. Marcus has a way of getting what he puts his mind to.”
“Mind over matter, Auntie. Mind over matter.” He threw his left arm around his aunt and his right arm around me, and escort
ed us into the library.
The Stony Mill Carnegie Public Library was one of my favorite places in the whole world. A unique, bell-shaped brick building that had been updated over the years with a nonmatching glassed-in portico that housed the entryway, the library had been an important part of Stony Mill’s downtown area since its inception in 1907. The only full-time librarian, Marion ran the library with a deft and capable hand, not to mention a near photographic memory when it came to a given patron’s reading tastes. She still remembered the time I took out Judy Blume’s Forever without my mother’s permission—and she had kept my secret all these years. There was something unapologetically subversive about her at times, despite the fact that she was a regular at St. Catherine’s. Maybe that was why I liked her so much.
“So, Aunt Marion, what do you have for us?”
Marion led us through the library, back toward her office. Our footsteps echoed across the hardwood floors, which gleamed beneath the dim glow of the security lights. I’d never been in the library after hours before, but I was discovering that the building held much less attraction for me without the lights on. The tall shelves, the many aisles that ended in pools of darkness, the strange sounds coming from unknown sources…
I heaved a sigh of relief once we were safely within the four walls of Marion’s comfortable office, a place that called up images of books, tea, and cozy sweaters. Ah, sanctuary.
“Sit down, you two. I just brewed a fresh pot of coffee. Anyone up for a cup?”
“Love one,” Marcus said as he slouched down in a chair, all jutting knees, lanky legs, and big boots.
Marion handed me a cup before I had a chance to say anything. The heat from the drink burned its way through me, steadying my hands and fortifying my nerves.
“All righty, then.” Marion opened up her laptop, clicked through the opening screens, and then turned it toward us. “Remember, Marcus, that I told you I was working on some new and improved ways to try to draw in donations for the library?”
“The website and webcam?” Marcus nodded as he took a sip from a heavy-duty mug with the words Book Fiend emblazoned on one side in fancy script. “Yeah. Great idea, considering the library’s history.”
“Right. Well, ever since the webcam was installed, Bertie the Ghost has been making himself known even more often. It’s almost as though he knows the camera is there, and is acting up accordingly.”
I’d heard of spotlight hogs, but that was ridiculous. “What is your take on Bertie?” I asked Marion.
Marion poured herself the last cup of coffee from the pot and carried her delicate porcelain teacup and saucer to her desk. I was surprised it wasn’t leopard print.
“Bertie,” she said, “isn’t something that I believed in at first. The librarian who left her post to me, lo, these many years ago, asked me if I had a strong constitution. ‘Why?’ I asked her. ‘Because we have a presence in the basement.’ Well, of course I thought she was just trying to scare me. You know, to leave her mark on the place. And for a while it was easy for me to pass off the things we and many library patrons were experiencing. You know. The cold spots. The uneasiness. The sounds. The feeling that someone was there, even when we were the only ones in the building. All of that can be passed off as overactive imaginations getting away from us.”
“What changed your mind?” I asked.
She set her cup down and looked me square in the eye. “Because I saw him. What is it they say in Ghostbusters? ‘A full-torso vaporous apparition’? Only once, after all these years. I was sitting here at my desk one night four months ago, filling out federal grant paperwork for the upgrades to the multimedia room. It was getting late; I didn’t want to advertise the fact that I was here alone, so the only lights I had on were the one at my desk and the security light at the end of the hall facing me.” She nodded toward the open door to her office.
I followed the line of her gaze and shivered. The security light was on at the end of the hall, just like that night she was describing. “Go on.”
“Not much more to tell, really. I was just sitting here, scratching away on the papers, and I happened to look up.” Her eyes grew distant, remembering. “He was standing right there, just behind the water cooler. He was dark, but not a shadow. Definitely human in shape. And I could have sworn…” She took a deep breath. “I could have sworn that I saw eyes. Red eyes. Glowing eyes.”
At this Marcus sat up straighter. “Red?” he said, a frown pinching his brow. “You didn’t tell me that.”
Marion cocked her head to one side. “Does that make a difference?”
He didn’t say anything for a moment. “I’m not sure.”
And if Marcus wasn’t sure…I shuddered involuntarily.
One thing I had always admired about Marion was that, like Liss, she was absolutely unflappable, and this situation was no different. “Well, as soon as you know something, you just let me know whether I should worry or not. Otherwise, I’ll trust that I’m in capable hands.”
Marcus scratched something down on a notepad he had pulled from his backpack. “Aunt Marion, think back to that moment. I want you to close your eyes and picture it in your mind.”
Marion did as he asked, leaning her head against the back of her chair.
“Now, can you remember what made you look up?”
“I guess…a sense of movement, and when I turned my head, I saw a dark shape. A three-dimensional…something. Something with both depth and dimension, but not bulk or heft. I don’t know how else to describe it. I’m not a fanciful kind of woman. I’ve lived long enough and seen enough that not much scares me. And this didn’t really scare me, as such, but there was a difference to this shadow. It had substance, and something more.”
“What, Aunt Marion?” Marcus prodded. “What did it have?”
She was quiet a moment, trying to gather her thoughts. “Awareness,” she said at last. “And, maybe, intelligence.”
Holy Mary, Mother of God.
I watched, mouth hanging open, as Marcus shot to his feet and went to the end of the hall. He crouched down behind the water cooler. “Like this?”
Marion squinted at him. “Hmm. Taller than that. But not quite as tall as you.”
That was a comfort. Marcus clocked in at over six feet. Six feet of attractive and intelligent male was enough to make most women go weak in the knees. Six feet of intelligent shadow with glowing eyes? Yeesh.
“Did it do anything else?”
“No. He just looked at me. And I stared at him for a good long while. I couldn’t seem to get a really good fix on him. Every time I thought I saw a bit of detail, the shape shifted and I lost it.”
The lights in the office flickered, once, twice, then caught and held.
The security light in the hallway glared brighter.
“Marcus?” I said nervously.
He rose to his feet, as nonchalant and at ease as ever, and held his hands out, palms down, beneath the extra-bright light. “Electric,” he said.
Marion started. “Well, it had better not be, if that clown at Burlington Electric knows what’s good for him,” she said in a huff. “He’s checked our system three times, up, down, and sideways, and swears there is absolutely nothing wrong.”
Marcus shook his head. “Not electric that way. Just energy. The hairs on the backs of my hands are standing on end.”
“Oh.” Mollified, Marion’s prickle unpricked. “Oh, well, that’s all right, then.”
“All right?” I echoed, standing up. “Why is that all right? How can that be all right? How can any of this be all right? Geez, Marion, it’s not all right. You have a ghost in the library! Not balls of light or spooky noises, but an all-out, actual ghost!”
“Yes, but we knew that, dear.”
“But I thought you said he was in the boiler room!”
My outburst had the desired effect of shocking some sense into them. Marion fell silent. Marcus’s brows drew together.
“You know…”
“S
he’s right,” Marion finished for him. “I hadn’t even considered that. We’d always seen the evidence in the basement.”
“Which means he’s either on the move, or—”
“Or there’s something else here. Which the webcams I installed also seem to suggest. I just didn’t realize it.” Marion shook her head, frowning slightly. “Why didn’t that occur to me?”
“You mean the shadow and Bertie aren’t one and the same? That maybe there’s more than one spirit at work here?” I asked, deflated by the very possibility.
“Perhaps.”
I was okay when I thought we might be reviewing a bit of tape from a webcam, or even setting up recording equipment to log hours of silence for possible EVPs from the ghost world. But this…
The power spike in the hall drained away as though it had never happened. I nudged Marcus, but he was already watching the security light fade back to normal with interest.
“Aunt Marion, you did say you thought your webcams had picked up something. Can you show us?”
Marion eagerly complied, pulling her laptop over to herself and powering it up. “Most of the footage is nothing, of course. But take a look at this.”
She opened a file from within her video playback software and pressed Play. Marcus leaned closer to the screen. I had to make myself look.
The image on screen showed the children’s area, made plain by the reading posters, the tot-sized tables and chairs, and the proliferation of stuffed animals in evidence. Much of the room was in darkness, except for a security light near the lighted Exit sign.
“Whoa.” Marcus reached a hand toward the screen. “Play that back. Just back it up thirty seconds.”
Marion clicked as directed. The video played back, reviewing what we’d just seen. God help me, I couldn’t keep myself from watching this time.
I saw it, just as Marcus said, “There. By the door. Did you see?”
Something was forming in midair, or at least trying to. There was a shimmer in the space next to the door, mirage-like in appearance.
