Sand, Ashes, and Other Things That Didn't Belong

The librarian stood in the aisle, having drawn a book halfway out of its place, staring into the shadows of the shelf behind it. Noah waited a few moments before he dared to break the silence of the library: “Chris?”
Chris turned to him, removing her hand from the shelf. After a moment, she held it out to him instead and Noah approached and handed her the book. She flipped through its old pages, skimming its contents, until at last, she glanced back to him. An approving smile touched her face. “Good. You’re getting fast.”
“Yeah. I’d be faster if you’d let me shadow you more often.”
Chris’s smile quirked. She shut the book and passed it back to him. “Alright. Now return all five, just where you found them.”
“All six.”
“Well now you’re just messing with me.”
“I had to find them all, Chris, there’s definitely six.”
Amusement barely masked, she waved him off. “No idea what you mean. Now hurry up.”
Noah made a show of an exasperated sigh as he turned – but before he could make his way down the aisle, he stopped, turning partway back. “Is the sigil okay?”
“What do you mean?”
He extended the hand not holding the book to point to the spot on the shelf she’d been lingering at. “The sigil there.”
She watched him from the corner of her eyes. “Very good.” With a quiet laugh, she broke her gaze. “Yes, the sigil’s fine. All of them are. I was just lost in thought.”
“About what?”
“Nothing for you to worry about.” She waited a moment as Noah still stood there, dark and examining eyes on her. “... Well? What are you waiting for?”
“... Right.” Noah lifted the book closer to his chest, taking a few steps backwards before he finally turned around and disappeared further into the library. 

He stood in front of the door. It was no larger than any other door, in truth the same type you’d find in the rest of the house, if not for its knob being set perfectly at its middle, and the fact that from this side of it, he could see the locks. The door felt massive. Noah reached out and began to trace them. The locks were thinly carved into the door’s wooden flesh, deep enough that he couldn’t see where they ended, though he knew they had to end before reaching the other side. From there, the pattern he would have to trace would be reversed, with no markings to guide his hand. Even with the markings, there was no deciphering an order from the web of sigils. Finally, he finished, and he lowered his hand.
“Not quite,” said Chris.
Noah whipped around. “You scared me!” Aggrieved but composing himself, Noah adjusted his tone as Chris laughed, stepping out of the aisles. “Where have you been?”
“One last round of the sigils. Sorry to keep you waiting. Here.” Noah hesitated, then stepped aside to let her through to the door. She reached out, stopped, and looked to him. “See if you notice what you had wrong.”
There was no way for him to tell if he had it right or wrong without her. His hands did not do what Chris’s did to the library. When Chris traced the pattern he had only been imitating, the pattern traced her back. There were no mechanical locks spanning the wood, and still things turned and loosened at her touch, at her blood, and Noah watched.
Finally, she finished, and lowered her hand. And the lock clicked.
“I saw it,” he said.
“Good.” 

When the door opened, Ray stood up from the spot by the window she’d been waiting.
“Hello, Ray,” Chris greeted as she approached.
“Hello, Chris.”
“What do you have there? Actually, just a moment.”
As Chris turned to begin locking the door, Noah did not watch, moving towards Ray instead. “What is that?”
Ray moved the note away from him and closer to herself. “It’s not for you.”
“Hand it over.”
“No. I found it first.”
“I was busy.”
“So you don’t get to pick up the mail, library boy.”
“Both of you,” warned Chris, looking over her shoulder, hand halted mid-movement. She watched their silence for a moment, then turned back and continued the locking as if she’d never stopped. “Thank you.”
With their sister’s back turned, Ray stuck out her tongue, Noah gave her a dirty look, and he’d stalked off to the living room couch by the time Chris finished. “Alright,” she said to Ray. “What do you have for me?”
Ray held the note out. “A client came by.”
“Ah.” Nodding, Chris unfolded it. “And here I was hoping for an early night. I should pay them a visit.” With a melancholy sigh, she looked down at Ray. “Will you two be okay without me tucking you in?”
Ray giggled and, from the couch, Noah rolled his eyes.
“No? Well, good luck then. Here, you can keep this.” Before Ray could protest, Chris had already handed the note back to her and crossed the living room towards the coat rack. “Noah’s in charge,” she said, and shut the door.
Noah gave Ray a smug look. She folded the note into a perfect little square, flicked it into his forehead, then disappeared down the hall.

...

Chris moved around the living room like a ghost in the dead of night, a pale figure leaving a drifting trail of cigarette smoke. It marked her path as she made her way from wall to wall between the spots that hid the house wards. She knelt at one by the front door and, a bit too late, realized she had already checked it. It, like the rest of the runes in the house, was completely fine. Of course. Rubbing at an eye, Chris straightened up, turned around and spotted the figures watching her from the hallway.
She startled, dropping the cigarette and stumbling backwards onto the couch. It took a moment to recognize them – she breathed a laugh, hanging her head. “You two,” she told Noah and Ray, “scared the absolute hell out of me.” Noah was the first to come all the way into the living room, holding out a hand for her that she waved away, standing herself up, fixing her glasses. “Shouldn’t you both be in bed?”
“What about you?” answered Noah.
“I’m an adult and this is my house.”
“Ray says you were up like this yesterday, too.”
“... Ah.” Chris looked to Ray, lowering her voice. “The floors are so creaky, aren’t they? I’m sorry if I woke you.”
Ray made a gesture somewhere between shrugging and shaking her head. “I mean, it’s… fine. But… are you okay?”
“You ask silly questions, little one. Of course I’m okay.” Her teasing smile provoked a matching one from Ray, though nothing such from Noah. She met his critical eyes for another few seconds before raising her eyebrows. “Well, now that you’re both up, did either of you see where my cigarette went?”
Noah wrinkled his nose, taking his cue to walk off. Ray pointed at the ground near the foot of the couch, then took off after him. Chris bent, wiping irritably at the little burn it left in the carpet, and when she straightened up, she found Ray still lingering in the hallway. Further behind her, she could just barely make out Noah in the bedroom doorway. Ray spoke up after a moment. “You’re gonna go to bed too, right?”
“At some point, yes.”
Ray stayed put, fidgeting with the wall.
“Something else, Ray?”
“Well, would you… want to build a blanket fort?”
“Ah,” said Chris, “a devious trick to distract me, I see.”
“No,” interjected Ray as suspectly as one could interject. “I mean, distract you from what?”
Chris’s gaze flickered across the living room. “... Fair enough.”

“This is stupid,” declared Noah as he watched the assortment of pillows pile onto the ground between his and Ray’s beds.
“Do you get paid to say that?” Chris tossed one last pillow onto Ray.
“We’re getting too old for this.”
“Probably true. Are you getting in or not?”
Noah thought very hard about this before begrudgingly sliding off his bed and onto the plush layer they’d made of the floor. Side by side, Noah and Ray watched the blanket fort get assembled above their heads, both drifting off well before it was finished.
Before sunrise, Noah felt it when Chris woke beside him. She got to her feet, almost stepping on him as she ducked out beneath the blankets overhead. Blearily, he propped himself up, and in the low light watched Chris approach the door they’d left ajar and push it open, peering both ways into the corridor. Finally, she shut the door as quietly as she could, keeping her hand on the knob.
When she turned around and saw him looking at her she jumped. Hand over her heart, she flashed him an annoyed smile. “Stop doing that.”
“What’s wrong?”
Her smile fell, as did her shoulders, and she ran a hand over her face. “Nothing, evidently. Just a bad dream.”
The irritated look he gave her earned a pillow thrown at it as she ducked back into the fort. He dragged it over his head as she lay back down between them.
Chris did not go back to sleep. The librarian stayed awake the rest of that night, watching the door. 

…

“The library is closed.”
Ray and Noah listened in from the hall, just outside the living room. They were to stay out of sight of visitors – most believed the Librarian had no family to speak of, and if she did, certainly not two little siblings, still children. It was information that could be used against her by someone desperate enough. For the same reason, neither Noah nor Ray were able to open the library door – Chris’s blood remained the only blood that could.
There were no rules against eavesdropping, though, so long as they didn’t get caught.
“I’m sorry?” the visitor said, a well-trusted guest that Chris might have called a friend under different circumstances.
“Don’t be.” Chris sat in her armchair, leg crossed. “I’m not letting anyone in right now.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Me neither. Not yet. So, naturally, until it’s handled, the library will stay locked.”
“Until what’s handled?”
“I’ve made my decision.” The client stared and Chris held their gaze unflinchingly, resting her head on her hand; Until her eyes began to drift closed.
The silence drew on. Finally, the client spoke up: “Chris?”
With a sharp breath, her eyes opened and she stood. “I’m sorry,” she breathed, rubbing at her eyes.
Watching Chris pace toward the window, the client almost didn’t dare continue: “Chris, if I may ask…?”
“What is it?”
“Are you… sure the library is safe under your care right now?”
Chris stopped pacing, then looked over her shoulder. She smiled. “Oh. Oh, of course, go on. Please let me know your opinion on what’s best for the library.”
“You know I didn’t mean it like–”
“Because I’m sure you know much better than me.”
“Chris, I–”
“You may call me the Librarian.”
“I’m only–”
“And I am keeping the library locked.”
“...”
Once again, Chris held their gaze, then looked away with a sigh. “Right. Leave.”
“What?”
“I’m sure you know what leave means.”
Hearing the client stand, Noah and Ray scrambled down the hall and into their bedroom. The sound of the door shutting echoed over the sound of Chris following to lock it. Finished, she rested her arm against it and her forehead against her arm. And she rested there. And she rested there… When the twins crept around the corner, the floor creaked with their movement, and Chris woke with a start. She glanced back at them, straightened up, and walked past without saying anything more.

…

Hearing Chris cry out in the other room fired panic through Noah’s veins. On the other side of the room, Ray was also awake and bolt upright in bed. They locked eyes and waited as silence returned to the house. Chris had taught them that in case of any danger to stay right where they were. No further sound came. Then Ray leapt off the bed, running for the hall, and half a second later, Noah was chasing after her.
Their bursting into the bedroom made Chris shout again, knocking back against the headboard.
Ray stumbled to a halt. “Chris?”
Gripping the doorway too tight over her shoulder, Noah asked, “What happened?”
Chis aggrievedly rubbed where her head had struck the wall, still struggling to catch her breath. “Nothing,” she said when she finally did. “I just… thought I saw…” Her eyes searched the room, to the window, to the corners, to the hallway behind them... Against his better judgement, Noah looked over his shoulder. Nothing. When he looked back, her eyes had stopped searching, blinking, unfocused. “Am I still..?” Her eyes drifted shut before she could finish.
“Chris?” Ray said again, more worry striking through her tone, and Chris jolted at the voice, but looked over her shoulder instead of at Ray. Standing up, she almost lost her balance, grabbing the foot of the bed to keep herself up, and Ray hurried to help her. Chris turned to her and barely got out a warning: “Wait–”
Noah should have noticed the sigils etched along the floor sooner – too late, Ray stepped over the ink scrawl. A spasm shot up her leg and through her spine, seizing her in place. She began to wail, a piercing sound, and Chris hastily traced the gesture in the air to dismiss the sigils.
Nothing happened; Ray kept screaming. Noah turned to Chris, watching her try again, and again, nothing happened. Swearing under his breath, Noah clambered onto the floor to the edge of the circle and began scraping away the ink with his nails, finger protesting with violent numbness until finally the wards let down and Ray collapsed in a heap.
“Shit,” mumbled Chris, kneeling beside her as Ray struggled for enough breath to sob with. “Shit, shit, shit… Shh, shh, it’s alright, you’re alright little one, shh...”
Noah turned his eyes from the sigils to Chris. “They’re not drawn properly.”
Chris’s jaw tensed and she didn’t look his way. “Shh…” 

Chris knelt by Ray’s bedside, gently caressing her cheek. Ray didn’t look at her, trying to breathe along to the strokes of her thumb until her chest stopped shaking. She did look, though, when the hand stopped moving.
Ray seized Chris’s wrist and Chris snapped back awake, hissing in pain and pulling her arm away to rub at the nail marks. “Ow! Ray…” When she saw Ray’s expression, Chris smothered her irritation and sighed, returning her hand to Ray’s face. “I’m sorry, don’t worry, it’s alright.”
She stayed there until Ray’s breath had evened. Though she showed no sign of falling asleep, Chris stood, ran a hand over Ray’s hair one last time, and left her side.
Noah was waiting in the doorway for her. She followed him into the living room where she lit a cigarette. Noah took it straight from her hands.
“... Excuse me?”
“Tell me what’s going on and you can have it back.”
Chris’s smile wasn’t amused. She held out her hand.
“... I’m fucking serious.”
“I see that.” She kept her hand out.
Noah stewed for a moment, then put it back, repeating, “Tell me what’s going on.”
She blew out smoke with a breath she tried to keep steady. Then, “It’s nothing you have to worry about.”
“Motherfucker.”
“Watch your temper, Noah.”
“This is important, Chris, you need to tell us if something is wrong or–”
“Nothing is wrong!” Immediately, Chris cringed at the volume of her own voice. She took care to lower it again, to keep her thin smile; “It is impossible for something to be wrong.”
They held each others’ stare. So intently, Noah saw Chris’s breath stutter. And the sheen of sweat on her forehead. And her eyes flicker. And finally, she broke his gaze, and she looked over her shoulder.
There was nothing else in the room. Chris stepped back towards Noah, still searching, and Noah thought to take her shoulder. Instead, he took an uncertain step away. “Chris…”
“It…” She shook her head. “It can’t do this.”
“Please. What are you talking about?”
“I don’t know. Nothing’s ever been inside before.” 

…

Noah noticed Ray watching him from the hallway. He raised a finger to his lips and returned to his task. While Chris slept on the couch, arm over her eyes, Noah finished moving aside the living room baseboard.
He was most practiced with ink, but the fundamentals were the same for carvings. The material the sigil was laid in changed the effectiveness, but the lines would be identical to the measurements from the runebooks at his side, just with the addition of a depth component. Ray crept closer and knelt beside him to get a closer look as he worked, not with carving tools, simply with the pages of the book and a rule. Though she had never taken to the art like he had, she was still mesmerized by the method of the movements. Check the page, measure the line, mark it down, measure again, verify, check the next line.
She watched until he took the last measurement and lowered the ruler. He marked it off in the notebook, hand smudged with ink, then took the second measurement. He went to check it off, but his pen hesitated, eyebrows drawn. He lifted the ruler again to take a third measurement.
Chris shot upright and he dropped the ruler. Ray and Noah stared over their shoulders as she took slow ragged breaths, then raised a hand to wipe her mouth. She stared for a moment at the blood from where she’d bitten her tongue. Then her eyes turned to them. Even without her glasses, she looked between the twins and the dislodged baseboard. “What are you two doing?”
Noah’s concentrated confidence left him. “I…”
“We were just checking.” He blinked as Ray piped up for him.
“You shouldn’t touch those.”
“I’m not,” returned Noah, voice found. “I just wanted to make sure that–”
“That what?” Chris cracked a smile that didn’t break the unsettling look in her eyes. “That they’re all working?”
“Yes.”
She turned her head. “I’ve checked them already.”
“I know.”
“Many times.”
“I know.”
“Did you think you were going to find something I couldn’t?”
“No.”
“Then why are you messing with the sigils?”
Noah held his tongue.
“Hm?”
“I thought,” he said, “that maybe you weren’t in the best state to check properly.”
For a moment, Chris’s expression went completely blank. Then, her eyebrow twitched and she breathed a laugh. “Okay. Alright. Tell me, Noah, what did you find, then?”
Noah didn’t answer, looking away, grip on the ruler turned white-knuckled.
“You didn’t find anything, did you?”
He managed to turn his gaze back to her, burning, and muttered, enunciated, “I didn’t find anything. The house is fine.”
“The house is fine,” Chris echoed. “This is my house, Noah.” She replaced her glasses. “Neither of you are to touch it again, understand?” Blood from her bitten tongue touched the corner of her smile. “It is my house, my charge, my library. And the house is… fine…” The smile that had grown across her face faltered with those words. And again, she echoed like an empty room. “The house… is… fine…” She dragged both her hands through her hair, pushing it back from her scalp. “... Oh god.” Slowly, she lowered her hands and stared down at them. Neither of them could remember ever seeing them shake before. “It’s not in the house.” Unsteadily, she pushed herself up and almost stumbled towards her room. Noah and Ray didn’t follow. The bedroom door locked.

…

“What are you doing?” whispered Ray.
“What does it look like I’m doing?”
“You know that kind of stuff could kill me.”
“Considering you’re still alive, no, we don’t know that.”
“Well, we don’t know it’s safe, either. Chris warned you.”
“Well Chris isn’t fucking here right now, is she?”
They both went quiet for a moment. They used to take the blanket fort down every morning, but it was obvious Chris didn’t care anymore – about the living room being neat or about morning, asleep or awake at whims other than the sun’s – so now it stayed up. Sometimes, from where they sat among the pillows, they could hear a shout, whispers or curses, something falling over from her room. Now it was silent except the groaning of the house when the wind blew. The sound put Noah on edge as much as any other.
“It’s still Chris, you know,” said Ray.
Noah shook his head, looking determinedly towards the exorcising circle etched on the floor in front of him.
Ray watched him put the chalk back against the ruler, etching lines into the floor. “If this would work, she would have tried it already.”
He slammed the chalk down. “Well, she hasn’t or it didn’t. What the fuck else do you want me to do?”
Ray shrunk away from where she’d been leaning on his shoulder. “Sorry...”
Noah looked away from her and rubbed the bridge of his nose, “No, I’m sorry, I just…”
“Thank you.” Her voice was weak enough to break.
They were both quiet, watching Noah nudge around the broken chalk. The wind blew, the old house groaned, and Noah screwed shut his eyes until the noise passed.
Ray’s eyes drifted to the clock just barely visible beyond the drapes of the fort. “Happy birthday,” she whispered.
Noah looked over. He made to say something, but found his throat screwed up too tight. Instead, he moved a bit closer to her, and she put her head back on his shoulder and he put his onto hers. She felt his slow breaths as he tried to find his voice. And when he finally did, “Happy birthday to you… Happy birthday to you…” Ray held back a laugh. Feeling her shoulders shake, Noah broke off with an annoyed smile. Then, from the other room, Chris cried out. Noah flinched. “Happy birthday dear Just twins,” he sang weakly over the echo, then waited a moment. Only silence.
“Happy birthday to us,” Ray finished.
Noah pushed the chalk away with his heel, smudging the circle. “So what do we do?”
“Maybe it’ll go away on its own.”
There was a joke in Ray’s voice, but Noah didn’t take to it. “So you think we can’t do anything?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“If we can’t help, who will?”
“Her. Ideally.” Ray swallowed. “But… I know. I know what you mean. What do you think it is?”
“I don’t know. I assume it wants into the library, though.”
Ray shifted. “Maybe it’ll go away if it gets what it wants.”
Noah scoffed, and with stubbornness Ray found comforting just this once, said, “If she lets it into the library, that’s how we’ll know it’s not Chris anymore.”

It was around then that Noah took to sitting in front of the library door.
The sound of the faucet running carried through the walls of the house. Back against the door, he listened intently until it stopped. Then he listened to the uneven footsteps across creaking floorboards, moving towards him.
Hair pushed back from her forehead by sweat, faucet water still dripping down her chin, Chris looked exhausted. When she stared at him, sitting in front of the library’s door, her eyes were almost uncomprehending. “What are you doing?” she asked at last.
Noah took a steadying breath. “No. I should be asking you that.”
“You know what I’m doing. Get up, Noah.” She waited, and when he didn’t, she shut her eyes. “Move.”
Noah answered: “I’m not letting you in.”
For a moment, Chris said nothing, then a smile cracked her face and she hung her head. “You're very brave, Noah,” she said. “I know what you think you’re doing, but I'm going to need you to trust me." She looked up. "It’s trying to keep me away. It doesn’t want me in there. That’s how I know there’s something inside it doesn’t want me to find.”
“... No.” Noah shook his head.
“That’s why you have to let me through now.”
“No, Chris, it’s tricking you.”
Her smile faded, and again that look in her eyes like there was something she didn’t understand. “... Oh. Oh, I see.” Her smile returned, though not to her eyes. “I get it.”
Noah’s shoulders braced. “What?”
“You’re scared, but I’ll wake up eventually.”
Noah's breath shook. “Chris, you are awake.”
She moved towards him. “I’ll wake up eventually or I’ll die.”
Unbidden, Noah rose to his feet and he shouted: “You’re awake and I’m not letting you through!”
“Or what?” She came close enough that she was looking down at him but not touching him. “What will he do to stop me?”
Noah stood in front of her, and with each passing moment, his breaths became heavier, and shakier, and Chris’s smile grew – until, finally, it faltered when she saw the tears welling in his eyes. Sighing, she brushed a hand over his warm cheek. “I know. I know,” she whispered, “but trust me. It will be okay.”
“No,” he managed, barely able to speak at all.
“Trust me.” Gently, she moved him aside, and he did not stop her, and began to unlock the door.
All Noah could do was hold back his tears. It didn’t matter in the end. Chris was facing away from him when she shut the library door behind her.

...

There was silence in the house that lasted for days.
Noah had been left alone there, and so he spent his time sitting on the ground across from the door, knees to his chest, fingers tangled through his hair.
When Ray finally came back, he didn’t even look up. “What about you?”
Ray stopped moving, still around the corner and out of his sight.
“Where have you been?”
Ray took a moment to find the nerve to answer truthfully. “Anywhere else but here.”
He made a sound almost like a laugh and shook his head.
“... Well,” said Ray, spite creeping into her voice, “has she come out yet?”
“What do you think?”
“Then what do you need me for?”
“Not fucking leaving her alone.”
“She’s in there and we’re out here, Noah.”
Noah lowered his head towards his knees, curling in on himself tighter.
“... And besides, if she doesn’t find anything…”
“She’ll find something.”
“... Right, but if she doesn’t, what are we supposed to do anyway?”
“What, so now you don’t trust her?”
Ray bristled. “That’s not what I said. Look, either way, there’s nothing we can do as long as we’re out here.”
“Then you’re running off and leaving her to fucking die in there.”
“Oh, please, Noah. What are you going to do if she’s already dead?”
Noah shot to his feet. “The fuck did you just say?”
The library door opened and slammed shut.
Chris had to try the last lock three times before her hands hit the right pattern. Noah and Ray’s eyes followed it and followed her when she crumpled into a crouch in front of the door, breaths coming in ragged pants.
For a moment, neither of them dared to do anything. Finally, Ray took a tentative step forward. The floorboard creaked and Chris went completely tense and still and Noah held out an arm to stop her. She shot him a glare that he returned as he shifted to his feet. Trying to keep the nerves from his voice, Noah said, “Chris?”
Just barely, she shook her head.
“Chris, what did you find?”
She kept shaking her head and, wordlessly, she rose to her feet.
“Chris!” When Noah shouted, Ray’s arm flew out to block him this time at the same moment Chris raised a hand and traced a sigil in the air and the defense went up. Noah went pale and next he spoke, there was no sound. Chris kept the sigil extended as she turned and, without so much as looking at them, walked past them and down the hall. He mouthed her name once more but Ray’s arm kept him still until the door closed and he felt her drop the sigil. He didn’t say her name again.
“... I told you so,” said Ray.
He pushed her arm away from him. “You didn’t tell me shit.”
“She didn’t find anything.”
“Shut up.”
“And if there’s nothing in the library, what are you going to do?”
“Shut up!”
“Look, I’m sorry, okay?”
He whirled on her. “You fucking should be.”
Involuntarily, she took a step back. “Excuse me?”
“You don’t fucking care what happens to her.”
“That’s not true.”
“You don’t care about her at all.”
“Stop it.”
“You never fucking have.”
“Shut up!” Screaming it tore her throat. For a moment, they stood face to face, shoulders heaving. Then Ray stepped back and turned her head down. “... You know? Fine,” she whispered, then took another step back, then ran. Her footsteps became distant and faded away, leaving Noah alone again in the room in front of the library doors.

...

....

....

All her dreams were about the library now.
How much of it was now its doing and how much was just her mind playing it over and over and over again?
She’d found it hours or days or weeks in – it was impossible to tell time in the library as it was impossible to tell time as it pulled her in and out of sleep. Wedged between two thick hardcovers, the journal was so thin she almost tore it taking it out. Doubtlessly, it had been sitting there all but forgotten, untouched, unrequested. With papers jagged and ratty covered in handwriting scrawled by shaking hands, its cover just read:
WHAT I KNOW ABOUT THE TERROR
A journal written by an author who had never named himself, an informational account that devolved into the barest coherence. This was everything that seemed to exist about it, a nameless terror by many epithets; The one the author used was Chime.
Chris read it three times but, in truth, the third was only to prolong the inevitable.
There was no mention of how to escape it. The journalist, evidently, did not.
There were no answers in the library.
And Chris had slid her hands under her glasses and covered her tired eyes wondering if she could just stay in the library forever and pray it might at least be peaceful, and she had ran her hands up her forehead and to her scalp, and when her fingers ran into her hair, they dislodged sand.
And when she had looked up the shelves were all empty and in the place of every book was only rows and rows of grey sand. Every book but the journal.
And then Chris had woken up.
She knew she had left the library after that, but all her dreams were about it now.
She should’ve known. She should’ve known she’d bring it inside with her. She had already known, hadn’t she? And still...
She’d wake up and still be screaming by the time it dragged her back into sleep. Even in her dreams, her throat was so dry it was bloody and it was always cloyed with sand. The smoke didn’t help either, the thick smoke that plagued her no matter where she was, the constant knowledge that something was burning, and she knew exactly what was burning.
What used to be an unsettling empty wall in her dreams was now the library door hanging open and something was inside. Once the door was sealed but smoke was leaking out anyway, smoke that grabbed at her hands as she tried but never managed to open the door. Once she was inside and all the shelves were burning but she couldn’t move, falling through the floor, watching her charge fade into the distance until the light burnt out entirely. And always, always, the lingering fear that she wasn't dreaming the smoke, that it followed her so because it was real, the library burning, the whole house burning, while she was trapped here, laying in its hands.
Nightmare after nightmare, each a reminder that she could be there, putting an end to it all, but instead, she was here. The house was falling apart and there was nothing she could do to stop it. She was the collapse.
She could stay awake just long enough to fall out of the bed before it drew her back in again. She had to crawl to the door, bit by bit. It let her move quicker once she was in the hall, moving towards the kitchen, fumbling through a drawer for the book of matches. It hovered over her still, heavy enough to drag her back again at any moment. Then, when she got to the library door, it went away.
For a moment, she wondered if she was still dreaming. This relief, a reward for her cooperation – at a cost.
Matches in one hand, the fingers of the other slid across runes carved so carefully into the cold wood. Guided by her tracing, responding to her blood, there was a shift. The few mechanics made no sound, muffled by the library’s silence, but she could feel every way the door unlocked. When the last of the binds released, she shoved. The door swung inwards with a long, heavy creak. Blood running cold, Chris pulled the door closed behind her and locked it.

 The library was windowless. No light crept in from anywhere. She almost left the lights off, knowing she could navigate the library just fine in the dark. Maybe it would be best if she saw nothing. But to what end? She was no coward – or was she? She flipped the light switch.
Bulbs hanging overhead flickered on, spreading across the space, across shelves of tomes and journals and bindings and nothing else – she was alone in the library. She started to move through the aisles, knowing exactly where she was going. The bulbs didn’t light the very edges of the room, leaving just enough darkness that something could be standing there, watching her. She stopped and turned to the dark. “If you’re so ashamed,” she said to it, “stop just standing there and do something.” Nothing tried. But nothing looked away.
The book was not where it should have been, but just where she’d left it, lying on the library floor. Though it lay open to one of the many blank pages near its end, Chris could still read what it had told her: Death was the only way out.
But it had other plans for her.
Lifting the journal from the ground, her grip tightened around the pages – not in fear, but in some sort of anger. It, unlike anything before it, had gotten so far into the library and still it wanted more – and still she was considering giving it more. Wasn’t she the librarian? Wasn’t this the library? How could she let herself be backed into a corner?
A chill so dire it vanquished the anger ran up her spine then, bursting into a raw dread that seized her body, until she could no longer move, no longer think about anything else:
She was not alone in this corner.
A floorboard creaked on the other side of the library. A moment passed. And it hit the lightswitch.
Darkness. The sound of sand scattering across the floor. Then only silence. Chris found the will to pull out a match. She struck it.
The library shelves were not where they were supposed to be, askew as if the walls had shifted, all empty, like the place had been ransacked, leaving only loose pages and old covers scattered around. In the match’s dim light, she couldn’t see any walls, leaving her in a void inhabited only by the desolate fragments of the library, herself, and the single thin journal still sitting on the ground in front of her. A wind blew through the space that should have been still and the papers around the room rattled and the grey sand that covered the floor shifted past her ankles and the match blew out.
Crunch. Crunch. Footsteps in the stand, just behind her, making its way past her right side, stopping just in front of her. Shift, rustle. It picked up the book from at her feet. Silence. It was just in front of her. Chris struck the next match.
Grey sand had poured from the empty shelves and in front of her Noah held the journal. He looked up at her, match lighting his dark eyes enough to see his pupils contract. “You’re not really going to do this, are you?”
Sickness washed over her. “Noah…” She squeezed her eyes shut, fighting it back. “Stop it. Stop it, I’m here, do you want me to do it or not?”
Sand shifted and Ray’s voice said, “Are you really sure?” Chris kept her eyes closed. “You gave up so easily. Maybe just a little longer. Maybe a lot longer. How long do you think it would it take–?”
“No!” The word clawed itself out of her, forcing her eyes open, only to find the match had burnt out. “No. I can’t. Please.” She managed to get her fingers on another match. With a burst of light, Chris was looking down at herself, almost unrecognizable for the sick sheen to her face and the terror and anger in her eyes, heels scraping through the sand, scrabbling back against the bookshelf that rocked precariously. Digging into her throat, burning like the match and the feeling in her head, Chris snapped, “Fine. Fine then! See where it gets you. I’ll kill myself before you get anything from me!” She dropped the match and stamped it out barefoot, almost relieved for the dark. “Maybe that’s it,” she whispered. “Maybe that’s what I should do.”
And her own voice, close by her ear: “Good idea. Then what happens?”
“Then I die here. Nobody finds my body. Maybe Noah, someday. … They’d understand. Eventually.”
Her own voice, not her, continuing her sentence: “Noah might even take over the library someday.”
Before it had even finished, her stomach had turned. “Right.” She took her next match, stared into the dark where it should have been in her hands. “... Maybe he could do better than me.”
“Do what?”
Chris waited a long time before striking the match. It stood so close to her that the fire caught onto its face. The white skin of its nose and mouth burned and blackened and died to embers as quick as paper revealing the greyish sinews beneath. Chris’s breath shuddered in her chest like the flame in front of her. “Just the one?”
“Just the one,” it echoed.
“And you’ll go?”
“Mm-hmm.” It pushed up its glasses, gesture hiding the open part of its face. “Away forever.”
“From them, too?”
“Of course. There’s always others.”
“I don’t believe you.”
It lowered its hand and smiled. “So wise, librarian. Do you still think that’ll help you?” Something was wrong with its smile, but the match went out, and in the dark, it continued. “You’d like a sigil, wouldn’t you? I truly hate to part with such a secret, but once the book is gone, it’ll be yours to do as you wish with.”
Chris lost her breath. Yes, she’d like it, the relief at the idea of true protection could almost make her weep – and at the thought, she felt her eyes brimming with something. Not tears, though. With sand. Her fingers closed around the last match and she struck it, lighting the shelves buried in the grey sand so high it trapped her to her knees. With the last of the authority she had, Chris said,  “I want the sigil first.”
Far too soon, the last match burnt out. For a moment, Chris’s shaking breaths were the only thing that pierced the silence. It was so dark she might’ve been alone if she hadn’t been able to feel it still standing there.
The discarded pile of matches burst into flames at their feet, and cast like a ghost by the eerie light, it gave her a serene smile, one of her own. “Alright, librarian,” it said. “I oblige.”

Chris woke up.
The room felt much too bright and she stumbled into a bookshelf that rattled at the unprecedented impact and, staring at the ground, vertigo slowing, she could make out the dim outline of the book still at her feet.
Then there came the dread, the powerful, sickening dread, the feeling that came knowing it was in the room. Paralyzed by its presence, she could do nothing but listen as its footsteps, tangible, heavy, made the floorboards creak. A faint patter ran beneath it, sand spilling out across the floor, until it went completely silent, standing just behind her. A breath, right against her neck: “Sit.” She did so. “Hold still.” She had no choice. The fear held her in place, kept her from even turning to look, even as it brushed aside her hair, even as she felt her skin prickle with chill, even as she felt the cold pressure of a tool she couldn’t place dig into her skin and start to drag. Slowly. A circle, long lines crossing it. The larger shapes hurt the worst but the finer patterns stung already raw skin. A thin stream of blood crawled slowly down her back beneath her shirt, but she didn't dare to move even to shudder.
The last numb lined pulled taut. When its hands went away from her then, so too did the terror. It was still there, just behind her, nothing could make her forget that. But it whispered, “There. All done,” and she knew it was.
In answer, Chris reached for the book. The pain in her neck throbbed rapidly, and a newfound rush of adrenaline was the only thing that brought her to her feet. Her heart had the ghastly impression of being hollow despite the speed at which it raced.
“How long,” it said conversationally, “do you think it will take you to copy and carve that sigil into the ones you want to protect?”
Her tense grip loosened on the book.
“Do you think you can work faster than me? In this state?”
Leave us alone, she thought now that it couldn’t hear her. Get out, get out – look at what you’ve done already? What’s one book for it, for making you go away?
“One book,” it echoed.
It watched as she began to move around the library and, one by one, let down the sigils. All the ones secreted away in places only she knew that kept the books safe from harm. Her head ached.
When she finished, the terror extended a hand to her, holding one more match. Chime cast no shadow as the pages blackened, cracked, and curled. It still had Chris's face, but it was collapsed, sand trailing where skin and bone had caved in. It knelt and the sand began to rise like it was being pulled back together by string, rebuilding the lips, just enough for it to blow: The ashes of the journal scattered. Its eyes tracked up towards her. “Rest well tonight, librarian.”
Its eyes did not leave her even as they hollowed into pits of sand and its form began to fall apart. What remained of its face sloughed away, breaking into dusty clouds and crumbling onto the floor, sinking through cracks in the floorboards, until, at long last, the dread disappeared entirely, and the only things left out of place in the library were the sand, the ashes, and the librarian.

…

...

...

Noah wasn’t asleep. What was he supposed to do? Ignore it, hope it would be gone by morning? He would never admit it, but he’d tried. It hadn’t worked. So instead, he stood awake, just beyond the library door. Something was inside and Chris was in there with it.
He leaned his head onto the cold wood. In the silence of the late night, all he could hear was the incessant beating of his own heart. The presence of whatever was in there had kept him almost too afraid to move from his bed, but he was sure that if the door was open now he would go in without a second thought, if for no other reason to make sure she was in there, to make sure he wasn’t all alone in this house, empty except for himself and that thing.
And as he thought so, it left.
For a moment, it felt as if something touched him, then the dread lifted entirely leaving a chasm in his gut where it had once been. He backed away from the door just as it began to open. Chris slipped out as soon as she could fit and turned to close it before she could notice him. She relocked the door, this time on the first try, an automatic action, then just stood there, trembling arms against the wood like she was forcing it shut. Her head hung, then fell.
“Chris?” Noah whispered.
She startled and looked over her shoulder with the horrified look he’d come to expect – but then, incredibly, her gaze relaxed, and it was Chris again. “Noah,” she murmured, and it felt like the first time in ages. “Hi. How long have you been waiting out here?”
Noah tried to say something, but just as soon knew that if he opened his mouth he’d cry, so simply shook his head rigidly instead. Sorrow swept Chris’s face and she managed to leave the door to wrap her arms around him. He stood in place, struggling to breathe, but didn’t raise his arms for her until her weight started sinking into him. “Wh– Hey!”
She took in a sharp breath, some but not all of the weight lifting from him. “Sorry,” she mumbled. “I’m... very tired.”
“Come on,” he muttered, and did his best to keep her on her feet until they reached her room and she fell gratefully into bed.
Noah stepped away, but Chris raised a hand to stop him. “Wait. Come.” He moved up to the side of the bed. She beckoned him closer. He took a tentative seat. She lifted her arm, took his shoulder, and pulled him down to wrap her arms back around him. Her eyes were barely open, but they were absent of fear, the familiarity of her lucid gaze almost more than Noah could bear. She brushed a hand that still shook over his forehead and through his hair. “It’s over,” she said. “You’ll think less of me, Noah, but…” She closed her eyes. “It’s done.”
“What happened?” Chris’s eyes stayed closed. “Chris?” Only then did Noah reach his limit and start to cry. “Please,” he sobbed, but kept his weeping quiet so he wouldn’t wake her up. 

…

So this was the librarian, was it?
It took Chris more than a day to get out of bed and stand here, in front of the bathroom mirror, instead. Noah had been long gone when she woke up and the house had been silent as she lay there thinking that even sleeping forever wouldn’t be enough. She had laid there long enough she had gotten used to the pain at the back of her neck that pulsed with her heartbeat, though now, when she prodded at it, it sent a burn coursing up and down the rune. She didn’t know if Noah had seen the blood drying her shirt to her back. Neither did she know if she wanted him to have seen it.
With a cold wet towel, she wiped once at the blood, then stopped, trying to remember what the point was. Whether or not he’d seen it, there would be questions. Who was this person, cleaning and dressing this wound, to answer them?
Food helped alleviate some of the weakness, but as she brewed a cup of coffee, slowly as if she didn’t trust her own movements, the weakness felt less like recovery and more like an aftermath. She stood in the kitchen drinking it. But even then, she felt the library door watching her from the other room.
It was a relief when Noah came home. Carrying bags of groceries, he stopped when he saw her. She gave him a smile, faint but genuine. “Good morning. Or evening, rather.”
“... Yeah.” He set the groceries down, then fidgeted in place a moment, unsure what now to do with his arms. “How are you?”
Mischief, touched by something less jovial, wound its way through her smile. “... Alive.” Noah nodded and swallowed. As he struggled to find his words, Chris struggled to keep the smile on her face. She hid it behind a sip of her coffee and, before he could ask anything, she asked, “Where’s Ray?”
Noah went still. His eyes flickered up to hers then back to the floor, a grim look setting across his brow.
Chris lowered her cup. “... Noah?”
“I don’t know.”
Any colour in Chris’s face drained and she set the mug on the counter. For a moment, her eyes no longer saw anything, and she stood silently except for her uneven breaths – then she shook her head, snapping out of it, and left the coffee to get a jacket. “Come with me.”
Noah did not follow. Chris would not find Ray. 

…

The knocking usually went away on its own. It did this time, too, though from where she lay on the couch, she saw Noah walking away from the door. Chris shut her eyes. “You should stop talking to the visitors, Noah.”
“Someone has to.”
“There’s a sign. Anyone who comes for the library should, I hope, be able to read.”
“The sign’s been gone. For a while now.”
“Oh. Suppose that explains why the knocking’s gotten so incessant.”
Even with her eyes closed, she could tell Noah’s were on her. “People are getting… concerned, Chris.” It wasn’t concern in his tone.
“I know.”
Noah waited only as long as his patience would allow before he said, “You’re going to have to unlock it eventually.”
Chris ran her hands over her face.
“You’re the librarian.”
“I am, aren’t I?” she mumbled into them.
“So open it again.”
“I can’t.”
Voice low, Noah enunciated each word: “Why not?”
She lifted her head just slightly, looking somewhere in the distance through the gap between her fingers. “... I can’t...”
“Right. I’ve gotten the impression.”
His words, through gritted teeth, stung, and Chris turned her head away. “I’m sorry, but you don’t understand what…”
“I understand enough. And I’ve given up on getting an answer.”
Chris’s fingers pushed into her hair. “If I did…”
“Just… open the library again.”
“I can’t. It’s the same thing.” Noah fell silent and Chris kept shaking her head. “Unlocking the library is the same as answering.”

…

Noah was asleep the night she finally did.
Something felt wrong in the house even before he saw the library door, wide open, totally still, as if it had always been that way but as disturbing a sight as an open wound. Even from the threshold he could see Chris propped against a shelf, head slumped back against the wood, pale eyes still open.
The library felt bigger with every step he took inside. He reached her and he knelt, looking on the dead face of the librarian. No fresh wounds, no blood nor bruising, no sign of poison nor of asphyxiation. He found the scars on their neck, unmistakably runes but so long healed over.
His eyes stayed on them, but unlooking; Instead, he slowed his breaths and listened – for an intruder, for the library to whisper him its secrets, any sign of life other than himself, but the library held its tongue in an all-encompassing silence. When his ears began to ring with it, he took her body and he brought it to its bed. He placed her glasses on the bedside table, shut her eyes, carefully pulled white sheets over her face.
There, looking over the body, the horror that had been just behind him finally moved to touch him. The feeling seeped through his clothes and then his skin and Noah lowered himself to sit, hands finding the ground, as with the fear came the feeling of being horribly, dreadfully alone.
From where he sat, he could feel the open doorway that wasn't supposed to be there. The library was a gaping mouth that made the house too big, that swallowed all sound, that pulled every shift and breath towards it to vanish. The antithesis of a presence, just around the hallway corner. Noah rose unsteadily back to his feet.
Even as he shut the great door, he could still feel it, waiting. The hollow space watched him as he went to the kitchen and took a knife from the drawer, as he returned to Chris's bedroom and slipped her hand out from under the covers, just her hand, all he could bear. It was cold. With attentive precision and a steady grip, he dug the knife into her palm until it drew blood. The hand twitched. He dropped the knife. The blood spiraled down her fingers and blotted the sheets, but it did not move again.
Noah slicked his fingers with the last librarian's blood and reached out to the library door.
It dried on his fingers the moment he touched it, leaving no trail of the pattern he drew. With each movement, he felt an answer, exactly like he'd imagined and entirely unfamiliar, resistance – a resistance that finally released as he lowered his hand and the lock on the library door clicked shut.
Like a hushed breath, a stillness fell over Noah and the house. Beyond the locked door it was even stiller, the journal so thin you could hardly notice it missing, and the ashes long since drifted into dusty corners.

…

The bloody stain on the bedsheet blackened with age, but Noah would never announce that the librarian was dead. That didn't protect him.
He could feel it in the house before he heard the floorboards in the hallway creaking. He had been almost asleep on the living room couch when the dread washed over him, stopped his breaths, forced his hairs on end. The shifting of mattress springs. A low thump. Then the sound of something being pulled across the floor. He couldn't move, nerves screaming, not even to move his eyes from the hall. The door to Chris's bedroom began to drift open.
Chris pulled the body, still tangled in bedsheets, out of the bedroom. Gently, she set the corpse's shoulders down onto the ground – and just as slowly turned to look right at Noah. The fear became almost too strong for him to think, heart beating out of rhythm, as she smiled – it smiled – and began to move towards him. "Hi, Noah," it said in Chris's tranquil voice. Kneeling in front of him, it brushed its unwounded hand through his hair and down the side of his cheek, sand falling where it touched him. “Did you think I'd forgotten you?” Behind it, Chris's body began to break apart, dissolving into chunks, sand that kept falling, disappeaing through the floorboards like she'd never really been there. “Don't worry,” it assured him, and the fingers by his cheek fell apart, its face collapsing inwards. “I won't.”

...

The book would have warned him it was known to be relentless.