Chapter 15
ENCHANTMENT! AT THE LIBRARY
Effie
The morning of her next shift, Effie opened the library door with trepidation. She’d begun bracing herself every time she unlocked the library doors, preparing for disaster and disarray. But apparently the ghost had taken the night off. The books remained neatly shelved and the toys in the children’s section, well, remained somewhat neatly put away. And hopefully still sanitized, although if Theo came in, maybe she’d put him to work on that delightful job.
Overall, things were quiet. Students wearing massive headphones crammed for upcoming exams, enthusiastically highlighting their reading materials until whole textbooks turned yellow. Bowow and Bruce were glaring at each other over their paperbacks. Derek and George, the chess players, silently moved pieces in the game they’d restarted after the ghost had upended their last one. An exhausted mom whisperedGoodnight Moonon repeat to a half-asleep infant. Agnes Audri, a retired elementary-school teacher, was making paper flowers at one of the group tables. Willamina from the bank, one of the library’s major donors, was poring sadly over a set of tarot cards. Shaking her head, she’d gather them up, then pull a new set of cards, hoping for better news.
Effie knew how that went. She made a mental note to offer some upbeat book recommendations to Willamina before she left. After all, knowledge was empowerment.
Although with today’s absence of ghostly destruction, and the dearth of callers demanding to know about the sleep habits of blue whales or the number for the local pizza shop, she’d been productive. She’d finished adding clear protective contact paper to what felt like a hundred picture books for the kids’ section, and had moved on to one of her favourite jobs: repairing some of the well-loved books in that collection. The town patrons had differing ideas about the care and upkeep of the library’s books, and it wasn’t uncommon to find candy bar wrappers used as bookmarks, or rude marginalia that had to be dealt with, or even entire board books gummed together with sticky food that Effie couldn’t begin to identify. Once, after finding mushrooms growing out of a volume on mycology, she’d set up a display on how not to treat a library book. The mushrooms, after an expert at the college had confirmed that they weren’t poisonous, had made quite a nice stroganoff.
Humming along to some golden oldies on the record player, Effie taped up a few spines and set aside some older editions for more involved repairs at the desk downstairs. There she could repair freely and without the risk of prying eyes noticing the thin streams of sparkling green that accompanied her.
As Effie picked up a tatty Poe collection that should probably go on the ever-growing weeding pile – a stack of books that had outlived their usefulness at the library – a slip of paper fell out.
She unfolded it, curious. She’d found all sorts of things in books, and even had a corkboard on the wall displaying the best of them: a butter knife, a friendship bracelet, a postcard from Latvia, a flattened four-leaf clover, some foreign paper currency and several photos of Very Good Dogs.
Hmm. A poem. She perused it, trying to read the chicken-scratch handwriting.
‘What do you have there?’
Effie almost dropped the note in surprise.
It was Theo, again. He had a preternatural ability to appear over her shoulder, like an extremely good-looking Nosferatu. Today, he was dressed as usual in a simple, well-fitting outfit. Effie could smell the fragrance of the morning on him: crushed leaves, the richness of petrichor, and the spicy hint of the vibrant asters that burst from the planters lining the library.
He set a coffee from The Winged Monkey on the counter. It was markedEbby.
Doing her best to pretend that she wasn’t completely unmoored by his proximity – or the fact that they might just have an in-joke – Effie handed him the note.
‘Youhaveto stop sneaking up on me. If I didn’t like coffee so much, I’d throw this cup at you,’ said Effie. ‘So, Mr Poetry Scholar, tell me your thoughts on this poem.’
Theo grinned. ‘I actually minored in poetry during college.’
‘You did not.’ She knew he was interested in poetry, of course, but not that he took it so seriously. To be honest, she’d assumed that the poetry-toting thing was mostly for aesthetics.
‘I’m even most of the way through a master’s. Just an online thing I’m doing around work, though.Wasdoing around work.’ He turned the poem around and around in his hand, as though it held all the answers to the world. ‘I’m on a sabbatical. While I figure this whole situation out.’
Effie nodded slowly. She’d been right to assume that he was only here temporarily. Theo had probably only thrown himself into his Friends of the Library membership to keep himself occupied until it was time to head back home.
‘It’s a shame you didn’t arrive a few months earlier,’ she mused absently.
She could’ve kicked herself for saying it aloud. So much for her famous self-control.
Theo raised an eyebrow. ‘Oh? You wish I’d arrived a few months earlier?’
Coughing from surprise, Effie had to take a sip of hercoffee. How were attractive people soconfident? Theo had the same type of glamour and charm that Bonnie had been doused with. It was something that helped you walk through the world with ease, knowing that things would always go your way, that people would be nice to you. It was like every time they rolled a die, a six was guaranteed. Meanwhile, when you were an Effie, the die rolled off the table and got lost under a cupboard.
‘I mean that the poetry lecturer at the college had to fly back to Germany for a family emergency,’ she explained. ‘Otherwise you could’ve sat in on the classes. I honestly don’t know who else they’re going to find to fill the spot. This town is hardly famed for its rich poetic heritage. We tried to fund a poet laureate position a few years back, but no one applied.’
Theo nodded thoughtfully. ‘I see. Well, if I can’t darken the doors of the college, I guess I’ll just have to make this place my local for now. My horoscope said something about books being my future.’
Glancing up over her latest cowboy romance, Bowow grinned. Presumably she and Theo shared a star sign.
‘So,’ Theo said as he passed back the poem, ‘since I’m here, do you need any help from your newest Friends of the Library member?’
Effie bit her lip. There were always tasks that needed doing, even if she preferred doing them alone and with the help of magic. But catching Theo’s sparkling green-eyed gaze, she figured that perhaps it wouldn’t hurt to do things the traditional way. Just this once.
