I hope this version of "Number 13" brings you good luck -- or, at least, not reaching for the Lucky Lager!
“…His back was now to the door. In that
moment the door opened, and an arm came out and clawed at his shoulder. It was
clad in ragged, yellowish linen, and the bare skin, where it could be seen, had
long grey hair upon it.”
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| Photo Credit:Hampton Lamoureux
|
When I first started working in libraries,
it was generally believed that computerization would eliminate roughly half of
all library jobs. That hasn’t happened – yet – because automation allows staff
and patrons to do things they weren’t able to do before – like put books on
hold for pick-up. Nowadays, most libraries process tens of thousands of
“holds.” Walk into any branch location and you’ll see shelves of them, awaiting
their reader (or listener or viewer).
But as books don’t shelve themselves,
someone has to go and find them and put them where the patrons find them. I was
at such a task, computer print-out in hand, when I came across the following
request:
TROLEMAND
0.13.666 FRA
It was a totally unfamiliar title, but,
despite popular belief, library staff don't know the names of every book in
the collection.
I was alone in the building, which wouldn’t
be open to the public for a few more hours. I walked over to the start of the non-fiction
shelves…and stopped dead.
I knew the floor arrangement like it was
the back of my hand and I knew – I knew – that on that part of the floor, I
should be looking at three long stacks of five bays each.
But there were four long stacks, one more
than what should have been there.
I gave my head a shake to see if it would
clear my mind – were there only three units right there? I was sure there were
only three -- but now there was definitely four.
And then it came to me what had happened.
“How
do you like that,” I said to myself, “they’ve decided to add a whole new
shelving unit and couldn’t be bothered to tell me – and I’m supposed to be the
Branch Librarian!”
I was miffed and getting angrier by the
second. “Is there anything on them,” I muttered; if staff had been shifting
books onto the new shelves without anyone bothering to tell me – well, there
were going to be a few people throughout the organization who were going to be hearing from me.
The shelving unit was completely loaded;
four of the five shelves were three-quarters filled, with only the bottom
shelves empty.
“So what exactly did they shift over here,”
I sputtered, snatching a title at random.
The book in question was bound completely
in soft, warm black leather, the only decoration being the word:
TROLEMAND
in bright, yellow, Gothic script, along the
spine.
“Well, speak of the Devil,” I said – but hopefully
not out loud; talking to yourself is a bad habit you can get into went you
spend a lot of time working alone. I
opened it to see what it was all about– and found myself confronted with text
in a foreign language, possibly German, or maybe Scandinavian. I did a quick
scan of the title page, but the only words I sort of understood were a name,
probably that of the author: Mag. Nicholas Francken.
Wondering what our
collections development people were up to buying something few people could
read, I put the volume under my arm and moved off in quest of the next item. I
had a lot of titles to track down on my list and no time to think about
anything other than the task at hand.
I had just completed my first pass through
the holds list when staff began arriving for the noon opening to the public. I
told Chris, the senior clerk how far I had got with the list and was about to
head off for my own lunch when I asked “When did the new shelving unit arrive?
I know it wasn’t here yesterday.”
Chris smiled, but raised her eyebrows. “New
shelving unit?”
“Yes, a whole other row, right at the start
of the non-fiction, the 001s.”
“A new unit?”
As it was obvious she didn’t know what I
was talking about, I told her to follow me. I strode over to the non-fiction,
ready to triumphantly point towards the strange new section…
It wasn’t there.
“I’m sorry,” Chris said, striving hard for
politeness, “but I don’t see anything different. “
I wasn’t really listening to what she was
saying; instead, I was busy counting the rows of stacks: one – two – three –...
Three lines of non-fiction stacks – same as
always.
“Maybe if you ate something…” Chris said
solicitously.
I couldn’t argue. If I was seeing things,
perhaps soup or a sandwich might offer a cure.
When I got back after my break, my
attention was immediately taken up by all the routine matters that crop up
during the working hours of a busy, branch library. As a result, it was already
mid-afternoon when, noticing one of the staff had the holds list in their
hands, I asked “Where you able to find everything?”
“Oh yeah.”
“Say, did you see that strange book, in
German or Scandanavian? Heaven knows why collections saddled us with it.”
“It’s in German?”
“I’m not really sure what language it’s in.
It was called Trolemand, or something like that.”
I saw her giving the list a quick scan.
“Trollman, you say? I don’t see anything like that on the list.”
“Here, let me see.”
She watched me with an “I told you so”
expression on her face as I ran my finger along the list of titles, many of
which I remembered.
It wasn’t there.
I took a look through all the processed
holds for the strange black book, but it was nowhere to be seen.
I looked in the online catalogue: there was
no entry for Trolemand.
I began to think I had been working too
hard and vowed to take the night off. If I ate a good dinner and drank a glass
of wine (or two), followed by a good book and a good night’s sleep, I was sure
I would be alright again.
Alas, it wasn’t to be.
I decided on steak with sautéed mushrooms and
garlic mashed potatoes, washed down with Shiraz and I was just heading for the
kitchen when I realized I’d left my book (Collected Stories of M.R. James)
sitting on my desk. As I was eating alone, a good meal without a good book was
simply unbearable -- and so it was off in the car and back to the branch.
It was twilight when I headed out and since
it was an evening when the branch closed at 6 pm, the building was in darkness
when I arrived. I let myself in the main entrance, turned off the security
system and was heading towards my office when I noticed out of the corner of my
eye…once again there were four rows of stacks where there only should be three.
I thought it might be a trick of the light,
but when I moved closer, I realized there was nothing wrong with my eyes – but
possibly something wrong with my mind.
An extra row of book shelves stood in the
semi-darkness.
I tried to resist the urge, but I kept moving
forward. The new shelving was full of books, with only the bottom row bare and
before I could stop myself, my hand shot out and grabbed a thin black book with
bright yellow letters on the spine: TROLEMAND.
And then suddenly it slid from my hand, as
if flicked from my grasp and I was running for the door, stopping only to lock
it behind me (and totally forgetting about the alarm system).
I had my cell in my jacket pocket, but I
was so rattled I called Phil from a pay phone in the nearby McDonalds.
“I think I might be losing my mind,” I said
by way of introduction.
“Oh, there’s no doubt about that,” came the
sarcastic reply.
Phil really did think I had lost it when he
heard I was calling him from Macs and wanted him to join me.
“It’s something at the branch, something
you’ve got to see.”
Half-an-hour later, I let my bemused friend
into the building, stopping to turn on all the overhead lights before heading
across the floor towards the start of the non-fiction stacks…where there were
three units, standing in rows.
“There was a fourth row here,” I whined.
“Did you turn the lights on?”
I shook my head.
“Darkness can play tricks on you.”
“I saw it,” I whined again, this time even
louder.
“Didn’t you tell me something about a
book?”
“Yeah, I dropped it, it should be…”
Of course, there weren’t any books on the
floor; there was nothing at all.
“Since neither of us has eaten and you
dragged me out here under false pretenses, I suggest we adjourn next door – and
the beer and pizzas on you.”
I wasn’t very hungry, but Phil made up for
my lack of appetite. He was thirsty too and by the time he finished wiping his
mouth, I was experiencing a distinct pain in the wallet.
“Are you still worrying about those
shelves,” he said as we left the restaurant.
“I’ll admit I might have miscounted,
especially in the dark, but that book I dropped, I know that happened. I wasn’t
hallucinating and…”
“And what?”
“Never mind – that I could have imagined.”
Phil had a smug – and well-fed – expression
on his broad, swart face: “Let’s just try an experiment, shall we? Let’s leave
the lights off and see, if that’s the right expression, if anything unusual
happens.”
Something did – no sooner had we stepped
inside when we heard what sounded like a party, or at least the buzz of many
voices talking.
“What the hell was that,” Phil said, obviously
and unpleasantly surprised.
“It’s probably just the cleaners.”
“Cleaners? With the lights out? It sounded
like, ah, chanting.”
“We’d better find out then – watch your
step.”
We moved cautiously into the unlit
building, staying close together and instinctively moving towards the beginning
of the non-fiction collection…where there were now four rows of stacks.
“There were only three here earlier, I know
there were only three,” Phil babbled.
“It’s worse than that,” I said, pointing to
the book lying on the floor.
Phil went impulsively to pick it up off the
floor – and as he bent over to retrieve it, a yellowed, skeletal arm slithered
out from the upper shelf, its blackened fingers scrabbled at his collar. My
friend suddenly became aware he was under attack and turning his head slightly
caught sight of the withered appendage – and unleashed a Herculean bellow
before flopping back onto the floor. I ran forward and did the unthinkable – I
took my hand and pushed all the books I could grab off the top ledge.
The arm was withdrawn so fast it vanished
and I was looking at a shelf with no books, no arm, no nothing.
Phil scrambled his feet and made a dash for
the door, careening into enough pieces of furniture that I was able to catch up
to him.
“We have to get to the bottom of this…” I
began, only to have him cut me off with “We have to get out of here!”
“Let’s turn the lights on. We’re probably
safe with the lights.”
This time, of course, we found the customary
three rows of stacks; the mysterious fourth row had completely disappeared and there
were no signs of TROLEMAND or any other books on the floor.
And that was basically the end of the
story. The mysterious fourth row of shelves never reappeared and eventually we
changed the floor plan of the entire building, completely relocating the
Non-Fiction, which I hoped would break the spell or curse or whatever caused
the problem.
Phil has chosen never to set foot in the
branch again, while I try to never work alone.
I try – but I’m not always successful. I
spent one blustery morning by myself, listening to the wind howling dismally
around the building, at times sounding like the wailing of the lost souls of
the damned – and once I was sure I heard faint discordant laughter off in the
direction of the non-fiction books – or, more precisely, in the area where the
non-fiction began, the 001s
.
I did not investigate.
One of my tasks that same morning was to
empty the book drop and begin checking in the returned items. It was unusually
full and as I sorted through the paperbacks, magazines and CDs, my hand
suddenly touched something warm, a thin black book with yellow lettering on the
spine.
Next thing I knew, I was standing outside
in the rain, swallowing great gasps of fresh air as if to cleanse both body and
soul. I hadn’t looked at the title of the book, I knew what it was the instant
my fingers touched it…And I didn’t want to touch it again.
Eventually I made myself go back inside and
when I checked, it had vanished.
Just out of curiosity, I decided to check
the catalogue; there was no record for TROLEMAND or for any Nicholas Francken.
Nothing – but I did get a hit for a Nicolas Flamel.
Being a good librarian, I decided to
investigate further and learned Nicolas Flamel had been a famous alchemist who
had apparently learned the secret of transforming base metals into gold; he was
also a character (along with the infamous John Dee) of a series of young adult
fantasy novels by Michael Scott.
Was Nicholas Francken also Nicolas Flamel?
If not the same person, was he also an alchemist, one who had gotten himself
into somewhat dubious company? I simply don’t know.
And I don’t want to find out.
The moral of the story: Library workers should never work
alone...especially in the dark.
