Chapter 1
Dean knocked his fingers on the desk to get the attention of the pale goth woman wearing headphones and texting furiously on her phone. She looked up irritably, raising her eyebrows at him.
“Yes?” she drawled before flicking her eyes back to the device.
“I would like to look up something in the archives for an article I am writing,” he bit out, clenching his fist in frustration.
“The archives? You will need Martin for that. I don’t do that old stuff, and it is super creepy down there,” she said without a hint of irony as she fiddled with one of her skull earrings. Looking as if she was ready for Halloween months early.
“Where can I find Martin?”
“Children’s section,” she answered, already tapping away and nodding distractedly towards the back right of the library.
“Right. You have been so helpful, Dean muttered, storming off in the direction she had pointed.
He wasn’t in the mood for angsty students or spending a lengthy time in some dusty archives at the university; that was more Sam’s role, but Sam was being a dick sulking over his lost laptop.
The children’s section was surprisingly busy. He shook his head incredulously, marveling that so many people still came to libraries. He couldn’t help thinking again about how Sam would fit in here better than he did.
It was clearly storytime, an animated British voice was reading a story about rhythmic Pirate story. He walked around the edges of the crowd of adults surrounding a carpet full of rugrats looking to see if he could find anyone that looked as if they had a nametag.
The story ended with laughter and soft applause as the kids noisily clamored to their feet. “Now, now, now,” a male voice sounded above the din. “What do we all say?”
“Thank you, Miss Martin,” the children chorused, and Dean spun to see a small woman with a sizeable teal pirate cap jauntily sitting atop a mane of chocolate curls surrounded by hugging kids.
“Thank you all for coming,” she said cheerfully. “I hope I will see you all again soon.”
He stayed on the edge of the crowd waiting for a chance to speak to her, but one of the dads was lingering, and it looked as if she was uncomfortable, so he decided to step in.
“Sorry to interrupt Miss Martin,” he began, and her eyes caught his pleadingly, and he could see that she was more than uncomfortable with the leering man.
“I was told you were the one to see about accessing the archives,” he said, stepping closer.
“Oh yes, we have an appointment, don’t we? So sorry to keep you waiting. Please excuse me, Mr. McGuire.” she said, stepping backward as he grabbed her wrist forcefully.
Her eyes lit up angrily, and she yanked her wrist away. “I have to get back to work,” she said vehemently, spinning and stalking away to the elevator with Dean following closely behind her.
“See you around,” the man said with a cruel laugh as the elevators closed.
“He seems nice,” Dean said sarcastically.
“Ugh,” Hermione said with a shudder pressing her fingers to her temple as the lift started its descent.
“I am so sorry that I involved you with that little charade, but he won’t take no for an answer, and he only seems to respect other people’s time, other men’s time. Not mine. Misogynistic Muppet.”
“Muppet?” Dean guffawed. “No need to apologize for that creep,” he said through his laughter. “I am sorry you had to deal with him, though. Does that happen often?”
“He is getting bolder. I haven’t been here very long. He was just a bit too friendly initially when he had his kid with him, and it wasn’t so bad. I thought it was a cultural thing; Americans are friendly. He didn’t bring her in today, though. Who comes to a kiddie story time without their kid?” she asked with an exasperated roll of her eyes.
“I should report him,” she said angrily, the feather on her ridiculous costume hat bobbing as she nodded to herself.
The elevator opened into a cramped space with a low ceiling. The overhead fluorescent lights blinked into life with their presence illuminating rows and rows of metal shelving.
Goth girl was right; he thought this place did have a creepy vibe.
“Oh my gosh, how rude of me; I am Mia Martin by the way,” she said, reaching out to shake his hand.
“Dean Winchester,” he said, forgetting the name he was supposed to be using.
“So what are you researching, Dean?”
“I am writing a story about what happened at Crawford Hall, and I keep being told that it is haunted, so I was curious about what else has been reported on it over the years. Some students also mentioned that a girl committed suicide about 30 years ago, so I would like to find out if that is true or not,” he said, his confidence wavering as he looked at the rows and rows of boxes.
“How do you find anything down here?” he asked incredulously.
“It is a lot, especially since the historical and genealogical societies merged a few years ago, and we house their collections here. I think the move was inspired by the same alliance in Philadelphia, but our town doesn’t have the resources for a whole other library. The best place to start would be to check the local Springfield newspaper and the Black and White, that’s the student-run paper on campus; we have them on microfiche back here. Have you ever used one before?” she asked, leading him further into the stacks.
“I have,” he confirmed as he followed her winding path and admired how her pencil skirt clung to her as she walked.
“Fantastic,” she said with a kindly smile. “I know many people prefer using the internet these days, but that can ignore entire swathes of data that have not been digitized yet. Many resources are only available on microfiche or as original documents.”
“The library collection here, for example, comprises family genealogy, diaries, and manuscripts; church, cemetery, and bible records; books, clippings, and on local and county history, the Revolutionary War, and historic architecture; postcards, photos, videos, atlases, and maps whatever the society deemed valuable enough to preserve and collect either through donations or through estate sales. They might not ever get digitized. The cataloging system is also still paper-based -- the university has not approved the budget to get it digitized yet,” she rambled on passionately.
“Sorry, you are a reporter. Of course, you know that,” she said, a faint blush staining her cheeks.
“Anyway, it can be a bit overwhelming to navigate at first, but as I mentioned, I haven’t been here that long, but I find that it is logical once you know how to navigate it. I can help direct you to what you need, or if you want, I can show you how it all works if you prefer to work alone?”
“I don’t. I am normally with my brother. But he is being a jerk right now, so it’s just me,” he said bitterly.
“Brothers. Can’t help loving them and wanting to throttle them at the same time. Especially when they are being stubborn brats.” Hermione laughed, taking off her hat and shaking her curls free.
The sound of the elevator opening and closing echoed in the quiet.
“I wonder who that is?” she murmured, leaving the hat on the table.
“I best go check, but I will be right back. The building was built sometime in the 1920s. She said, indicating the section of metal drawers dedicated to that decade. The ‘70s are a bit further that way.”
“Got it, thank you,” he said, absently fiddling with the fluffy white ostrich feather on the hat as she left.
He began searching through the drawers but soon heard muffled voices.
There was a scream and a loud crash, and Dean ran toward where the commotion. He found the librarian standing angrily with her hands on her hips over the jerk from story time, who was lying knocked out against a shelf surrounded by fallen boxes and papers.
“I told you to leave me alone,” she hissed at the unconscious man. “Now look at this mess.”
“Mia, are you ok?” he asked, stepping out of the shadows.
“I am fine,” she said, startled; she readjusted her cardigan. “He slipped,” she offered weakly in explanation.
“Slipped,” Dean said incredulously, looking at the mess.
“Um, yes. Mind that banana peel; I wouldn’t want you to slip, too,” she said, pointing at a bright yellow banana peel lying absurdly in the middle of the aisle.
“He slipped and slid into the shelf and hit his head,” she said, not meeting Dean’s eyes as she knelt down and gathered some of the pages strewn about. “Could you please go to the front and tell Darla? I am just going to clean up a bit. Perhaps you should go. I am sure you don’t want this drama throwing off your investigation. I can help you tomorrow if that works,” she said.
“I don’t want to leave you down here alone. What if he wakes up?”
“He won’t. He bashed his head very hard. I doubt he will wake up soon or even remember a thing,” she said unworriedly.
Dean scrambled over to check on him and agreed with her assessment.