had died before my grandmother, and by the time I’d inherited the house from her, she’d lived alone there for years, with no one to check her more…esoteric…of interests.
She hadn’t been a hoarder in the traditional sense, but she’d never met a book she didn’t need to own. The library did have a few shelves, built into the walls on two sides of the room, but they were completely obscured by the piles and stacks and boxes of books taking up every open bit of floor space.
There was no order to them, and walking among the stacks, I always felt like I was exploring some labyrinthine cave, stalagmites of books sprouting up from the ground wherever they chose. Sometimes, I swore they were growing down from the ceiling, too.
When I’d first moved into Edgecliffe, I’d told myself I was going to do something about it. Seven years later, I still hadn’t.
On Infinity Falls, Aggie’s character lived in a house with a portal to another dimension in her parents’ garage. I wouldn’t have been surprised to discover one had sprung up in the library here, and I couldn’t shake the sense that if I wandered too far back amongst the towers of books, I might get lost for good.
The only section of the library that wasn’t taken up by piles of books was the area right in front of the fireplace. Two large, wingback chairs covered in maroon velvet faced a saggy, chartreuse velvet couch across a large, marble coffee table that was edged in gilded scrollwork.
A rich carpet in shades of purple, gold, and forest green lay on the floor over the old, oaken boards, threadbare in places where generations of feet had trod across it. A ship in a bottle graced one side of the ornately carved mantle above the fireplace, an intricate but mercifully malfunctioning cuckoo clock on the other.
There was something comforting about the room. The weight of years that felt foreboding in so much of the manor rested easier here. In the rest of the house, I felt like an impostor, a child dressing up in his grandfather’s clothes, pretending to be an adult.
Maybe it was the disarray of the library that made it feel less intimidating. The imperfection of all the books stacked higgledy-piggledy on top of each other reminded me that I wasn’t the only part of the world that was a mess.
The library smelled like old leather and dust, and some of the maple and cinnamon candles that Hadley had sent in a previous care package. Light filtered in from the multi-paned stained glass windows on the far wall, flowing through the forest of books like something alive.
I’d left my laptop in here last night, when I’d googled myself instead of sleeping, and I sank onto the sofa, picking it up and flipping open the lid. I paused for a moment, thinking of what exactly I was searching for. Outside, the bare branches of a birch tree scratched against the leaded windowpanes.
The trouble was, I didn’t know Gus’s real name, or age, or anything useful. How did you search for someone who was a complete mystery?
I started by checking major news sites. If there were a high profile shooting, or abduction, or other kind of criminal incident, it should be easy enough to find. But there was nothing.
I narrowed my search down to progressively more local sources until I was checking the Birch Bay Record, reading through the police blotter, looking for any indication, any disturbance that could have been connected to Gus.
Still nothing. Not even any kids getting arrested for mooning their neighbors or driving their cars too loud at night. I guess even teenage crime nose-dived when the weather got cold enough.
Gus was a ghost. The opposite of a ghost, actually. Because ghosts had pasts. Gus had to have one, somewhere, but I’d be damned if I could find it.
And what does that mean for his future?
I pushed the thought away. Gus’s future was none of my business. He was in shock today, but surely by tomorrow, he’d see reason, and let me take him to a hospital.
I still couldn’t quite believe I’d let him stay. But something about Gus tugged on a part of me that I’d buried for too long. I didn’t just want him to stay. I found myself wanting to kneel at his feet, to worship him with my hands or mouth or any part of my body he’d allow. To swear to protect him, like some