Suck My Life (Sucking Dead #1) - Andie M. Long Page 0,49

the residents there and their families had been there a long time and they were resistant to newcomers. They made the witch very unwelcome. Especially the family of the man who she’d had the unsuccessful date with. The mother and the man took her rejection very personally and made it their mission to refuse her application and the others happily accepted everything they said about her.” She broke off.

“They called me a thief and a trickster. Brought shame on my name when I’d lived by my witch oath to do no harm. Anyway, back to the story. They drove the witch away, watching as she left under the sign which had looked so welcoming, and as she left, the witch declared that seeing as they’d been the opposite, that’s how they could stay. That even if they fell in love, it would never work out because any love affair would not survive. They wished to reject newcomers, so from then on there would only be descendants but no new residents.”

Jenny looked upset as she recounted the story and I imagined that to be victimised as a young witch would have been very damaging to her mental health. I reached out and squeezed her hand.

“The witch was leaving when she met Death at the bottom of the hill. Not your Death, one from before him,” she stated.

“So the previous Death saw you but I’m guessing mine never has?”

She nodded. “Interesting that you call him yours.” She quirked a brow.

“You just stick to telling your story.”

She smiled. “Death asked the witch why she was so sad, and she told him everything. He said he knew how it felt to be rejected and how deeply it affected a person and he asked her if she had anywhere to go. Not to go into details but home was no good place for the witch to return to. He offered her residence at The Home of Wayward Souls. When she explained how she didn’t think she’d be able to cope with the constant wailing, he told her to take care of the libraries. That there he would be happy for her to put a spell on the turrets to have peace. That he had inherited books he didn’t know how to care for. So that’s what she did. She took on the library and made it her own. Made one of the turrets her quarters and in return she put an enchantment on Death’s own bedroom so he could have a place where he could only hear the wayward in an emergency.” She closed her eyes.

“Oh you know it’s me. I can’t keep doing this third person crap. Anyway, even so, one day he came to find me to say he could do the job no more and he would be moving on. That’s when your version of Death arrived. He accepted me as having come with the place and never questioned me or my comings and goings.”

“That explains your position of The Librarian, but how does Lawrie know you?”

“Even though I’ve been here for many years. A short time ago, I passed away. In The Book of the Dead I would just have appeared to Death as Jennifer Sullivan, witch, from London, I guess. It obviously didn’t tell him of my status of The Librarian. And so I stayed as a wayward soul; someone who lived a good life, but placed a curse. Then I met another spirit here and fell in love. It made me realise that it was time to let go of the library and move on. But I needed to find someone who could take my place, because my love of books was as real as my love for a man. I could not allow the libraries to go into disrepair. For some reason, I could still appear in a solid form.”

“Like Spence.” I said my thoughts aloud.

She nodded. “I decided to hang around bookstores and see if I could find someone who loved books as much as I did. And of course, there I met you. I enchanted both you and Cathy to think I was human and that I’d been given a job there. That’s why they could find no record of me when I disappeared.”

She gave me a wistful smile. “You were perfect. No one significant in your life. Not very happy. But you absolutely loved books to the point of obsession. All I needed to do was work out how to get you interested in the