Uncertainty (27 page)

Callie was still manning her cart, sorting the new editions into categories. They looked mostly like swoony historical romances, with beefy guys on the covers holding up swooning damsels. Callie was dressed casually, with an orange and green striped scarf over a thin sweater, her hair loose around her shoulders, looking young and quite pretty.

"Hello again," she said. "Did you find what you needed?"

"Can you check on a book for me?" I asked.

"Sure." She pushed herself over to her computer terminal. "What's the title?"

I gave it to her. She typed it into her computer, and scrolled through the results.

"You're sure that's the name?" she asked, frowning at the screen.

"Positive." I was starting to panic a little now. "I've read through it a few times, but it was a reference book, so I couldn't check it out. I need it for a research paper. And I have a deadline coming up."

I hated how much better I was getting at lying, how much smoother the fibs came out now. I worried that I'd get lost in between them, and not be able to recognize the truth.

"Oh. Well, according to this, there's no record of a book by that title."

"None at all?"

"No. It doesn't look like any of the libraries around here carry it, in fact. Definitely not Hell's."

"How is that possible? Could it be a mistake?" I said, grasping at straws. "It was an older book, at least from the eighties." But I knew she was telling the truth. The book had vaporized, the only copy, for all I knew, in the world.

"Well, all of the titles should have been cataloged when they got here, just like I'm doing now. Even the older ones would have switched when they swapped out the new system. It's possible it got lost in the shuffle, though. Sometimes we go through and do fund-raising sales of old books, too."

I nodded, dejected. Other Worlds was exactly the type of book I could see them clearing out, a space waster.

"I'm sorry, honey," she said. "What was it about?"

"Ghost stories," I said quickly.

"Well, there are quite a few in the horror section," Callie said.

"I know. This one was just really informative."

"Are you interested in ghosts yourself?" She sat back in her chair, getting comfortable.

"Yeah, I always have been. I'm a big scary story buff." That is, until the stories became real.

"My grandmother and my mother were all about that kind of thing. My Nana was very religious — we couldn't speak the Lord's name in vain and had to go to church every Sunday for hours. She believed in exorcisms and purification and bad spirits. She even kept a vial of holy water around her neck, but that was after she'd gone a little senile, right before she went into the old folks'."

"What do you think?" I was curious. I hadn't heard many adults talk about that kind of stuff, other than Corinne, who I didn't classify as normal.

She shrugged, playing with the ends of her scarf. "I don't really know what to think. Like you said, I'm open to the possibility. I was certainly raised with it being a god's honest truth, but then I went off to college and saw the world for myself. I suppose I think there are things we aren't meant to see, that we wouldn't understand."

That made sense to me, although it frustrated me, too.

"There are some far-out types that come here, though," she said, smiling as if to some private joke.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Well, sometimes people ask me to help them find information. Most of the time, it's just general stuff, the names of landmarks, or political speeches, whatever. But once or twice a week, we get these people with napkins full of scribbled notes, who think everything is part of a vast conspiracy. They research through all the old books looking for signs."

"That sounds like fun."

"It keeps work interesting," Callie said.

"Are you still coming back to work at school?"

"I'm already back," she said, smiling. "This is actually one of my last days here at the library until next summer. I'm just helping out until my replacement can take over."

After I humored her by taking a look through her book cart, I went back to the stacks, and checked out other paranormal books. There were titles covering a wide variety of subjects — hauntings, magic, fairies, metaphysical spirituality. But nothing like the one I'd lost. There were so many books there, and not one was of any use to me.

At least I knew that I hadn't imagined the book, and I was glad I'd shown it to Theo when I did. Wandering aimlessly for a while, I killed some time, not wanting to go home before I had to. Plus, I stubbornly thought that if I just looked hard enough, it would bring the book back.

An unfamiliar woman's voice came over a loudspeaker, causing the remaining patrons to pause in irritation. "Attention, everyone. The library is closing early today for an educational conference. Please bring your check out items to the front counter. Thank you for visiting your Hell library."

I sighed. My hands were empty, but I still took my time getting up to the front. I was one of the last people left in the place. Looking outside the front windows, I saw that the sky had become overcast, like it would probably start raining soon.

I thought I might ask Callie for a ride. But as I turned around, I only saw unfamiliar women behind the desk, swinging on their coats and chatting amongst themselves. Callie was already gone. I didn't want to text either of my parents; it was bad enough they didn't know I wasn't at Theo's.

Rain was beginning to sprinkle the sidewalk. I stopped at the bottom of the steps and looked forlornly back at the library, but the lights were shutting off, one by one. Sighing, I started off on foot towards home. I wasn't going to melt, after all.

The sky was full of gray and purple clouds, making everything much darker than it should have been on a September afternoon. The weather had taken a turn for the worse, and I could tell by the humidity and the speedy clouds that there was probably a tornado watch for our area.

There had been quite a few people out earlier, strolling and walking their dogs. Now the streets were empty. A toddler was pulling his tricycle up the walk, and his mom scurried out to help him rush inside. The raindrops grew bigger, marbles instead of salt grains.

As the seconds passed, a funny, paranoid feeling crept over me. I ignored it at first, until it grew so strong that I couldn't anymore. It felt like someone was watching me, the same feeling we'd all felt in the chamber down below Dexter.

Looking over my shoulder, I couldn't see anyone. Still, the notion remained. In the houses lining the streets, all of the windows were covered by curtains and closed blinds. Traffic had died down, and the neighborhood in which I was walking had almost no cars.

The heavy canopy of ugly clouds spilled even more rain, driving harder into the ground. The birds around me squawked, taking off angrily into the air and bumping into one another, feathers cascading down like twirly bird seeds.

I heard footsteps behind me. I knew I did. But I'd just looked back there, and found myself alone. Where was Jenna? She used to appear all the time when I was out. Why did she have to keep to herself? Not like it would stop anyone from pursuing me, but I would feel safer.

I turned, feeling silly in my paranoia. A figure in a hooded coat was walking several yards back. My heart leaped into my throat. Fear shredded my rationality. I turned and started to jog. The rain began to pour in earnest. I heard the hooded stranger speed up behind me.

Chancing one more glance, I saw that he or she was definitely sprinting towards me, gaining speed. A ski mask was beneath the hood, obscuring everything but their hate-filled eyes.

Cutting through the nearest lawn, I dodged to the side of a slide and childrens' toys, praying I wouldn't trip, like the cliche went. I came out to my street, feeling a second of fleeting safety until I realized that my house was still in the distance

I could hear the huffing breaths of my pursuer through the drenching rain. I passed all the houses of my neighbors, salvation within just a few more steps. My lungs ached for more air, and I almost choked sucking in moisture as I gasped.

Flying up our driveway, I felt air push against my back. The person chasing me gave a final burst of speed. I felt the brush of fingers against the back of my shirt.

Bursting through the front door of my house, I slammed it shut behind me, half-sobbing and half-choking.

"Ariel! What in god's name are you doing?" Claire squawked. She was drying off a dish with a towel, her mouth a perfect O of surprise.

I chucked off my soggy shoes, then ran to peer out of the window above the couch, sitting up on my knees and pulling the curtain back.

"The carpet! You're dripping water...you're going to make a mess on my slipcover." Claire continued to ramble with increasing irritation, but I ignored her.

I expected my pursuer to start banging on the door. But there was no one on the street. The rain had already begun to let up to a slow drizzle. I looked back and forth down the road, but only a few cars sloshed by.

Jenna was sitting on the couch beside me, a subdued, dreamy expression on her face.

"Where were you?" I asked her angrily. She never seemed to be around when anything important was going on.

"I was here," Claire said, misunderstanding that I meant my invisible friend.

"Taking a nap, brat," Jenna said in annoyance. "Why do you look like a wet rat? Not your best style." She looked down at my drenched clothes pointedly.

"Someone just chased me home," I told both of them, standing back up. My heart was beating too hard for me to sit still. I was still worried that whomever had chased me was going to come storming in the house.

"What are you talking about?" Claire asked incredulously. "I thought Theo was driving you home. You walked?"

I pushed my sopping wet hair back, glaring at her. Every time I talked to her now I had to repeat myself. She never caught anything the first time around.

I opened my mouth, ready to explain again.

"Holy crap. Why was Wick in jail?" Jenna exclaimed beside me.

Craning my head at the TV, I took a sharp intake of breath. Warwick's face filled the screen, sneering with huge, haunted eyes. The unexpected image caused me to swallow the wrong way, coughing and sputtering.

"Oh my god," Claire whispered. The dish in her hands fell to the carpet, and broke neatly in half.

I sat on the hard bench at the police station, watching Hugh and Claire argue with the desk clerk. Claire had insisted we run up to the station as soon as he got home, basically rushing him out of the house before she could explain. It was the first time I'd seen her in public without full makeup in years.

They had flanked the desk clerk, and were firing questions faster than she could answer them. Not that she seemed to have any answers. That didn't stop my parents from talking in circles, until they were red in the face.

Pen doodles covered the wooden bench in different colors. It reminded me of the cubbies at school. Years worth of scribbling, from bored, anxious people, biding their time just like I was now. There were others waiting in the police station, and all of them were taking great interest in the entertainment of my parents.

"Why weren't we notified?" Hugh asked, banging his fist on the front counter so hard that a cup of pencils rattled beside it. Two policemen, hands on their hips above their gun hostlers, had strolled over and were now listening Hugh. "Our daughter was almost shot last year. A courtesy phone call is the least you could've given us."

"If you'd like to file a complaint, I have some forms I'll need you to fill out," the desk clerk said. She pushed herself away, wheeled over to a cubbyhole full of papers, and returned with a handful of forms.

Hugh snatched the papers and slapped them down on the counter. "You bet I've got a complaint. Robert Warwick, who is currently on trial for murder, just broke out of prison, and no one bothered to warn us."

Hugh's way of saying Warwick's name contained no casual hint, no sign that he had been close friends with the man for over a decade.

"Are you talking about the Warwick case?" Another man, in a double-breasted suit, asked the question as he strolled over.

"Yes!" Hugh said exasperatedly. He'd had to repeat his whole story to every person he encountered in the station.

The newest man had the air of someone who dealt with upset people all day long, a kind of bedside manner. "Can I help you? I'm Michael Stauner, the detective in that case."

I felt so disconnected from the scene, it was as though I was watching it on TV. None of their words stirred any emotions within me. I leaned forward on the bench, elbows on my knees.

"When did Warwick get out of jail?" Claire asked.

"At least 48 hours ago," the detective told her calmly.

"Forty-eight?" Claire repeated, her eyes bugging out.

"Yes, ma'am. But it could have been longer than that. There was apparently a mix up in the inmate tracking, and they're not exactly sure when he got out. It could have been up to a week ago. He apparently slipped his identification bracelet off, switched it with another inmate. He's lost quite a bit of weight 
—"