The Librarian and The Ledger of Shadows

Lizzie flipped the library's open sign to closed, with a small sigh of relief at finally being on her own. This was absolutely her favorite time of day because Thelma, the Head Librarian, had gone home, leaving her alone with her creaking library cart and only a few more books to shelve. Then she would inspect the library desk and bathrooms, making sure no one was hiding out in the restrooms. (This happened on occasion, but with vigilance, they were discovered and removed from the building.) 

The town library's silence always felt like a warm blanket, or perhaps a well-worn cardigan, soft, gentle, and familiar, smelling faintly of Constant Comment tea and old books. 

Lizzie crossed her arms and sighed. She felt a bit sidetracked tonight, one of those feelings when you think something out of the ordinary is about to happen, and not in a good way. She would have to stop worrying about the state of the library and just move on with her library cart. So there she was, shelving the books… as boring and insignificant as it was, she still enjoyed her role at the library. 

The few books she had left to shelve were mainly leftovers from the afternoon rush of students and the local retirees. The retirees tended to be a bit loud, probably all in need of new hearing aids, but Lizzie was not about to interfere with her older patrons. They had earned the right to stand anywhere they wanted. Well, almost anywhere. 

She maneuvered her cart toward the Fantasy section in the back of the library. The shadows here seemed a bit denser, and the air colder. Normally, she enjoyed this aisle, a smorgasbord of dragons, trolls, fairies, elves, heroes, villains, and epic quests she could read about from the safety of her comfy bed. 

But tonight something felt off. A draft whistled through the stacks, where there had never been a breeze before, even with every heavy library window locked tight against the winter chill. Lizzie shivered. She watched a ghost-hunting show on TV, and she actually believed in ghosts, kind of, so she couldn't rule out a ghost enjoying her library as much as she did. Lizzie had nothing against ghosts, as long as they didn't move books around or try to flush paper towels down the toilet. 

She stopped the cart and looked up at the stack in front of her. On the top shelf sat a book that didn’t seem to belong. It looked hefty and chunky, bound in leather so dark it might fool someone into thinking the shelf was empty. The tome had no Dewey Decimal number on its spine, which was quite unusual.

Mistakes like these were rare, if not nonexistent, in her library because she valued order and precise categorization. She couldn’t just leave it there, like a neon sign saying she wasn't doing her job. 

She moved her cart aside, found the library ladder, and, returning to the stack holding the rogue book, set the short ladder right under it. She believed she could reach the upper shelf if she stood on her tiptoes. 

The ladder was a rickety wooden thing held together by duct tape and a prayer to the book gods. It was labeled with a sign that read... 

KEEP OFF! ONLY TO BE USED BY TRAINED LIBRARIANS. ASK IF YOU NEED HELP. WE ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE IF YOU TAKE A DIVE OFF OF THIS LADDER. IF YOU IGNORE THIS WARNING, YOU WILL HAVE YOUR LIBRARY CARD SHREDDED AND BE EJECTED FROM THE PREMISES!

Super-reinforcing duct tape was the ever-present fix for objects falling apart. Thirty-one or more layers must have been wrapped around the ladder's frame. She nudged the ladder with her foot. It felt stable, and it looked stable, and she was determined to reshelve that offending book. Lizzie knew she wouldn't sleep after she got home, worrying about that strange book. Lizzie sighed again. 

She had climbed that ladder dozens of times, and she was still in one piece. Lizzie stepped onto the bottom rung. First step, good. Second step, also good. She relaxed a fraction. The book looked closer now, so she stretched out her arm. Her fingers brushed the air, just inches away from the leather spine. She placed one foot on the third step. For a heartbeat, the wood held. Then came a sharp, splintering CRACK! The ladder lurched sideways. Lizzie gasped, but quickly snatched the rogue book and locked her fingers around it.

If she went down with the ladder, the book would go down with her. A proper, particular librarian always puts the books first, so if she landed alive in the emergency room, she would still have a duty to the library. She was conscientious, and there was no time for a pity party.

Then she was falling backward, her world turning upside down. It was too late to save herself, but she was still determined to hang on and save the rogue book. She fell into the Fantasy stack that was behind her, her head hitting a shelf. Lizzie's glasses flew off, but she held on to the book. 

The weight of the book pressed against her ribs as she lay inert on the floor, trying to catch her breath. But was she really on her library floor? Come to think of it, this floor felt totally different. Not that she had ever lain down on the library floor per se. But it was comfy and squishy. Lizzie thought that she most likely had a traumatic head injury that was manifesting itself with vivid hallucinations. She would just shut her eyes for a few moments.

Now she had to worry about Workers' Comp, whether the library had decent insurance, and whether it would cover MRIs or CT scans. Would it cover hospital bills and weeks or months at a rehabilitation center, trying to learn to walk again? Who would call 911 for her? No one, that's who. Unless she could communicate with that ghost she thought was lurking around the stacks, though it probably lived so long ago it wouldn't even know how to use a cell phone, or any phone for that matter.

Or was it most likely a slight concussion causing slight hallucinations? Those would go away once she rested enough on the lovely, oh-so-comfortable library floor. Except it didn't feel like the library floor. Still, Lizzie just needed a minute to regain her dignity, wait out the head trauma, and get right back to shelving that offending book.

Then rhythmic breathing reached her ears, making the skin on the back of her neck prickle. A shadow stretched across her closed eyelids, blocking the light. Lizzie opened one eye slightly and squinted up at the looming shadow. She was definitely not alone on the floor. 

The shadow shifted, and Lizzie felt whoever or whatever was casting it was right next to her. She squeezed her eyes tighter and hoped that if she didn't open them for a few more minutes, whatever it was would fade away. 

“Hello, human."

The voice was deep, with a strange musical lilt. Lizzie took a few deep breaths to calm herself. She should have taken that yoga class to learn how to de-stress. Her heart hammered against the book she still clutched like a life preserver. She must have taken quite a knock to the head and seen things that simply weren't there. Nothing is there, nothing is there, she whispered. Then she cracked open her other eye to peek at the shadow. 

Except it wasn't a shadow anymore. It had morphed into a man, not just any man, but the most gorgeous guy she had ever laid eyes on. What a magnificent hallucination. What a total waste that he isn't real, because he looked less like an average person and more like he belonged on a movie poster. Wait... was he an extra in Pirates of the Caribbean? He looked a bit familiar. 

His ears tapered to elegant points, and his hair was as dark as ebony. It had been braided into an elaborate style, with doo-dads and shells intertwined. It looked good on him, too bad he kept going in and out of focus. 

He hovered over her with a wicked-looking knife at her throat, and after another evaluation of the situation, she believed that if she stayed perfectly still, with her eyes tightly shut, the situation might just resolve itself. Concussions were no joke.

Lizzie quite liked hunky guys who looked like elves or pirates, as much as the next gal, but only those who weren't holding a sharp dagger to her throat, obviously wanting to decapitate her. 

Terrible manners. He is not real, he is not real, he is not real, Lizzie chanted under her breath. He is a figment of my overactive imagination. I probably do have a concussion. Brain damage could not be ruled out. 

But, being an inquisitive type of person, she really wanted to ask who he was and what he was doing in her library, holding a knife to her throat. The knife felt cold and sharp, but this was her library, and no one was going to cut her throat without her permission. 

Lizzie's eyes snapped fully open. The guy wasn't smiling, and his striking emerald-green eyes were glowing with a faint, predatory light, so he didn't look quite so hunky anymore. 

“Are you a Silencer?” he hissed, his voice low and gravelly. “Did Malakor Vane send you to finish the job? Speak, human, or I’ll see if your blood is as dull as your clothes.”  

Wide awake now, Lizzie was taking in her surroundings. Her brain tried to process the data, but it was currently dealing with a mythical being threatening her life in a room that looked like a gothic cathedral had a baby with Sherwood Forest. The walls were stone, crumbling and draped in thick, damp clumps of moss. Rotting scrolls piled in the corner, like forgotten laundry. 

“I don’t... I don’t know a Malakor,” she stammered, her voice sounding thin and reedy. “And my clothes aren't ugly. They’re practical for a librarian from Wisconsin. I just fell off a ladder, so who cares what I'm wearing?" If this is a concussion hallucination, my subconscious has a very expensive taste in set design and elven anatomy.

The elf narrowed his eyes, but he didn't put the dagger away. “Wisconsin? Is that a province of the Shadowlands? You have the look of a commoner, yet you carry the artifact.” 

He was gazing intently at the book propped on her stomach. Lizzie looked down at the dark book she still held; it was no longer just a dull black. It pulsed with a rhythmic golden light seeping from the edges of the leather cover and radiating through her fingers. It felt so warm. So strangely, perfectly warm, and the book was shivering? It beat in the exact same tempo as her frantic heart. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. 

“I didn't steal it!” she blurted, her stubborn streak finally kicking in despite the terror. “It was on the top shelf, and it was misfiled. I was just trying to put it where it belongs, because we're very big on proper shelving here.”

The elf’s expression shifted from murderous intent to profound confusion. He leaned closer, his ivory skin shimmering in the archive's dim light. He reached out, not to touch Lizzie, but to hover over the book. Golden light flared,and  a soft hum vibrated through the air. 

“It has bonded to you,” he whispered, more to himself than to her. He pulled the dagger back a few inches, but he didn't lower it completely. “The Ledger of Shadows doesn't bond to humans. It doesn't bond to anyone since it has been dormant since the Great Burning.”

“Well, whoever you are... it looks like your dormant book has resuscitated itself." Lizzie was fully awake now. "It’s making my ribs vibrate, and I have no idea what the Great Burning is." She sat up slowly, trying not to meet this stranger's eyes. She was always a sucker for green eyes. 

The movement made her head throb, reminding her of the collision with the Fantasy section. “Where am I? This isn't my library. We don't have moss covering our floor." She doubted that even their janitor would know what to do with the moss. Did you rake or vacuum moss? If Lizzie didn't know, then neither did the janitor.

“You're in the Ruined Archive of Aetheria,” the elf answered her. His voice was slightly arrogant and formal, yet weary. He stood up in one fluid motion, frowning down at her, as if she were a particularly rare species of beetle he had just discovered. Lizzie had to crane her neck back until her vertebrae popped just to keep him in view. At barely five feet, she was used to looking up at people, but this guy seemed to stretch all the way to the vaulted stone rafters.

“If you truly aren’t a spy, then you’re something much worse,” he told her, his emerald eyes fixed on her. “You’re a catalyst, and now it seems I’ve been tasked with protecting you and the book.” 

He inhaled sharply. She smelled like tea and cinnamon, so why was she holding the realm's most dangerous book? Lizzie blinked again, her dark brown eyes taking in the silver filigree on the man's armor. The stone ceiling she gazed at was extremely high, and there was no linoleum or ratty carpet, no noisy cart, and not even wreckage from the worn-out, now-broken ladder. It must have stayed back at the library. Too bad she hadn't. Only the book's pulse and the green-eyed stranger remained, who seemed to think she was about to end the world. Lizzie didn't want to be blamed for starting Armageddon. 

“I really should have stayed in the Biography section today,” she muttered, still grasping the Ledger. “The worst thing that happens there is a disgruntled ghostwriter or bad editing." 

This was not turning out to be a good day.