Forty-One After Midnight (Completed)

Chapter Twelve

The ghosts weren't hurting us so we didn't bother going back to our dorms anymore. Every night we'd sneak off to the library and hide out in there until everyone else had gone to bed. When they did, Jane would come visit us and we'd continue our meeting. Now though, we had two more people. All together that was fifteen if you didn't include Jane. We only needed twenty six more. This was going to get interesting.

It was the weekend tomorrow and we were all very thankful for that. No classes meant that we could research all we wanted. While Kyle, Courtney, I waited for the others I read more of Helena's journal. I came across nothing particularly of interest though. Only a few pages about her crush on Daniel.

Mrs. Reeves showed up before everyone else.

"I need you to look for some records again. Think you can do that?"

"For who?"

"A kid named Daniel Lewis."

"Yeah sure. Is that it?"

"For now."

Mrs. Reeves left for a little bit and the rest of our group showed up a little later. After 10:00pm Jane finally showed up.

"Got anything for us?" I asked her.

She pointed at Kelsey. Kelsey froze where she was standing and her eyes got wider. Jane then gestured for Kelsey to follow her out the door. Kelsey seemed hesitant, but we convinced her everything would be alright. After they left, Mrs. Reeves came back. She was wheeling a large cart in with her.

"I was going to look through the entire thing, but I figured it would be much faster if I just brought the whole thing down for all of us to look through. There are thousands of files in here and they aren't even in alphabetical order," she said.

They were all numbered folders though. That was probably their method. They most likely didn't even bother to learn the kids' names. They must have been numbered somehow.

"They do go in order of number though," I told her. "Maybe we can find out that way. All we would need to know is the kid the number belongs to."

Ten minutes later Kelsey and Jane walked back in. Kelsey was shaking and holding onto something that looked like a little brown, wooden box. She walked over and set it down on the table we were all still sitting at.

"This," she said, "was hidden in a classroom under one of the tiles."

I took the box from her and opened it up. Inside was a page from a book. It was old and torn. The only words I could make out said something about the dead and sacrifices and a page number that was written down. Page 641.

"What do you think this is from?" I asked.

"A book obviously."

Everyone looked at Laney. I rolled my eyes.

"I meant what book."

"I don't know," Kyle answered. "Could be any book."

"Why was I the one that had to go find this?" Kelsey asked.

I looked over at Jane who pointed to the little box and then at Kelsey.

"Are you trying to say that Kelsey was once the girl that put this there?" I asked.

Jane nodded.