Wake Not the Dead

CHAPTER 17: THE LIBRARY

    Shivering, we found the Library. At least I shivered. Mom seemed to dry off instantly. My teeth were chattering so bad I was afraid my lips would fall off.

    As it turned out, the library was the single spot of color on the barren field landscape. Too bad it was black.

    “This is the l-l-library?” I asked staring at the giant black cube. “Does it have a f-fire?”

    “Yes. To both questions, actually. But you won’t need the fire once we go in.”

    Mom approached the cube. It was the size of an elephant. A very square and black elephant.

    Mom walked up to the seamless obsidian wall, nonchalantly humming a little tune. Then without stopping, she walked into and through the cube. I was left with nothing except my chattering teeth. I clenched my jaw tighter and quickly echoed the melody while walking forward.  I closed my eyes tightly and braced for impact fully expecting a flattened nose. Walking steadily, warmth radiated from the song and feeling surged back to my fingers and toes. Suddenly, light began to filter through my eyelids, pinking my closed lids. Cracking one open, I saw something that made me snap both eyes wide. I gasped. If the cube had appeared elephantine in size from the outside, it was leviathan on the inside and covered floor to ceiling  books. The room cast a warm glow my mother in the middle looking more solid and real than I remembered even in life.

    Quickly, I pat my clothes. Completely dry. Neat trick.  I turned behind me and saw . Beautiful books.

    She swept her arms widely.

    “This is the library.”

    I nodded dumbly.

    Mom smiled and stepped aside to reveal a stooped old man.

    “And this if Virgil Bowser, the librarian.”

    Virgil was a scribble of a man. Shuffling quietly forward his held out a weathered hand. He didn’t shake my hand so much as pinching few of my fingers and wiggling them back and forth.

    “Pleased to meet you,” he said, rasping quietly. His voice was soft and feathery with age. To my mother he said, “Lillibeth. It’s been so long. So good to see you again.”

    “Virgil here has been a friend of mine for a very long time. We’ve spent long hours here solving difficult problems,” Mom explained.

    I glanced at the shoulder-level bookcases brimming with books and topped with glowing lamps. Floor to ceiling bookcases wrapped around the perimeter complete with a ladder hooked onto a rung from the top of the bookcase. Turning back to Virgil, I gave him a long look. He should have been checked into Shady Acres decades ago.

    “Are you dead?” I asked him. No sense beating around the bush. If I was meeting anyone in Death, the issue of their mortality should be the first order of business.

    “Lexi!” Mom scolded.

    Virgil only laughed and waved his hand dismissively.

    “Oh, no, my dear. I’m alive but I was much younger when I started here as the librarian. Times passes slowly in Death, in or out of the library. I’m something of an anomaly, being alive in Death. I’m suspended somewhere between Life and Death. I don’t even need to eat.”

    I raise my eyebrows at this. Not eating? Could be pretty convenient, I thought as I remembered rushing out the door with a microwave burrito shoved in my mouth, the steam burning my lips.

    Virgil continued. “I was chosen when I was very young to dedicate my life here—protecting the books. A sacrificial lamb of sorts to care for a literary flock. But my sad tale is for a rainy day and cup of cocoa.”