Ghost Stories of a Librarian: Number 13

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.”

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.