This was just a fun little experiment writing a "Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark" style story.
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The Librarian's Dilemma
There was an old book on one of the back shelves in the
library. One of the high-up shelves that the geriatric janitor didn’t bother
with anymore. It was too much trouble, and no one had checked out those books
in years anyways.
“Perhaps it was just an old, forgotten diary. Why else would
it be tied shut with a black velvet ribbon?” thought the janitor.
But the library records held the truth. The old ledgers knew
exactly how long it had been since the delicate bow had been untied and that
creased leather cover lifted. Sixty years since it that little girl had last
turned the book in.
The librarian had always had a bad feeling about that girl.
Something sinister about her flat, black eyes. And that book had been there
each time, had been a part of it all.
But that had all happened so long ago. The boys that had
drowned had been gone so long, their old classmates had children of their own
by now. All three of them were forgotten, nothing more than a memory of a few
drops of blood on the frozen pond on the grounds.
The librarian, now matronly and gray, was the only one who
also remembered that the mysterious book had been returned each time. That
girl, her dark eyes pretending at innocence, would come in to check the book back in in the morning after each tragedy. The librarian had taken the book in without
thinking about it much at first. She’d remembered seeing it on the back shelves,
after all. It was only after the library had closed after the first drowning
that she realized the book had never been in their catalog to begin with.
After the second boy disappeared under the ice, the
librarian made the connection. She hid the book away on a higher shelf, out of
sight and behind the locked glass cases, where the little girl wouldn’t be able
to get it. But it still happened again. The book got checked in, and the next
day’s newspapers were full of tragedy. A third drop of blood on the ice.
And the little girl was back for more the very next day.
What else could the librarian do? She’d tried hiding it.
Even under lock and key, it had not been enough to keep the book away from the
girl. Destroying a book was a step too far. The librarian couldn’t even force
herself to consider it. But she couldn’t allow another child to fall victim to
this girl.
So instead, the librarian made the girl disappear. The cycle
seemed to have ended. But that book was still back there somewhere, on an old
dusty shelf waiting for someone to get curious.
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Copyright KR Holton, 2024
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