The old man tossed the key to me as he looked me up and down, checking me out.
“Close your mouth,” he said curtly. “You look like a stupefied trout.”
I snapped my mouth shut.
The guy was short and chubby and had to be at least seventy years old. He was mostly bald but had a horseshoe of snow-white hair that wrapped around the back of his head from ear to ear. He even had big, bushy sideburns that spread halfway down his cheeks. He wore wire-rimmed glasses, and if only he’d had a white beard and a sack of toys, he could have passed for Saint Nick. He didn’t seem all that jolly, though. Rather than a red suit, he wore gray tweedy pants with a vest to match and a white shirt that was rolled up at the sleeves.
“Better,” he said. “Have to say, you’re a wee bit younger than I expected.”
He spoke with the slightest hint of an Irish accent.
“How did…how did I…?” I whispered, barely able to get the words out because my mouth was as numb as my brain.
“What’re you trying to say, boy-o?” the guy snapped. “How’d you get here?”
I nodded quickly.
“The Paradox key brought you here, of course.”
“The what?”
He pointed to the key in my hand.
“The Paradox key. Works on any door. Always brings you right here.”
“What is here?” I asked, looking around at the deep aisles lined with old books.
“What does it look like?” he asked impatiently. “It’s a library. I call it…” He paused for dramatic effect. “The Library.”
He looked to me for a reaction.
I didn’t give him one.
He sniffed and said, “Fine. Not exactly original, but it fits.”
I held up the key and gazed at it with newfound wonder.
“So any door I use this on will magically bring me into a library?” I asked, as stupefied as the trout he had mentioned.
“Not any library. This library. I need to put these down; me arms are screaming.”
He hurried past me toward a wooden table that sat at the end of one long aisle of bookshelves. He dumped the stack and caught his breath.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“Ain’t that obvious?”
“There’s nothing obvious about this place except for the name you gave it.”
“I’m the librarian. Everett’s the name. I’m guessing you’re Marcus O’Mara.”
“Wha—? How do you know me?” I asked, upshifting into the next gear of confusion.
The old man, Everett, broke out in a mischievous grin. “You learn all sorts of things in the Library. Let me show you around.”
Everett walked off but stopped when he realized I wasn’t following.
“Nothing to be afraid of here, Marcus. You can leave anytime you want.”
“Nothing to be afraid of?” I said, incredulous. “I just stuck a key into my bedroom door and got transported to another place. That’s a little bit scary.”
Everett chuckled. “S’pose so. I forget that coming here for the first time can be a tad…unsettling.”
“That’s one word for it. I can think of a few more. Have I gone crazy?”
“I’m not one to judge. But this library is as real as rain, so if you’re a wee bit mad, it’s got nothing to do with this place.”
“I think I’m going to leave now,” I said, backing toward the door.
“Ain’t you the least bit curious about where you’ve landed?” he asked.
Truth was, I was hugely curious. Besides, if this was a dream, the old guy couldn’t hurt me. Right?
“I am,” I said tentatively.
“Now we’re talkin’!” he said enthusiastically, and motioned for me to follow him.
I took a quick look back at the door to judge exactly where to go in case I had to make a quick getaway. It was an old-fashioned, heavy wooden door, as opposed to my normal, modern bedroom door. I sure hoped my house was on the other side of it. I clutched the key and followed the old man.
The Library looked like something out of the nineteenth century. There was a musty smell, as if the books had been there a very long time. The shelves were wooden, and the lights hanging from the ceiling were gas-burning flames.
“Did I go back in time?” I asked.
“Time has little meaning here,” Everett replied.
That wasn’t the answer I wanted. It only made the place feel eerier.
He walked behind a long, highly polished wooden counter that was probably the circulation desk. There were several stacks of old books on top. As Everett talked, he checked the title page of each book and divided them into piles.
“The collection is divided in two,” he explained. “No Dewey Decimal system here.”
He gestured to my right, where several aisles of books stretched deep into the darkness. There had to be multiple thousands of volumes, all with red, black, or brown leather bindings. None had the colorful paper jackets that you see on modern books. They looked as though they belonged in some stuffy old library where Charles Dickens hung out.
“Those volumes are all complete,” he explained. “Every one of ’em has an ending.”
“Don’t all books have endings?” I asked.
“Not all,” he said, and gestured to the aisles on my left. There were fewer books on that side, but there still had to be thousands.
“The stories contained in those volumes have yet to be completed.”
“You mean they’re, like, cliff-hangers?” I asked.
“Some,” he replied as he continued sorting his books. “But they weren’t intended as such. These stories were all meant to be finished, and someday they will be.”
“Why would you put unfinished books in a library?”
“Because the stories in ’em haven’t played out yet,” he explained as he gestured for me to follow him down one of the aisles of unfinished books.
I looked at the rows of books with renewed wonder.
“You mean they’re not made up?” I asked.
“Not a one. All these stories actually happened. Some are still happening.”
“But if there’s no ending, why did somebody write them?”
Everett looked back at me and winked.
“Because stories need to be finished,” he said, and walked on.
My brain was hurting.
“Your answers don’t make sense.”
“Aye, that’s the crux of it,” Everett said. “These stories don’t make sense. That’s exactly why they’re here.”
“Still not understanding,” I said, getting frustrated.
“Follow this, lad. There are forces at work in this world that we know little about. Situations come up all the time that defy the normal rules of science and nature. Strange things. Oddities. Unexplainable phenomena. The people whose stories are in these books have found themselves in situations like that. Sound like anybody you know?”
“Well…yeah. I’ve been dealing with some strange stuff lately.”
“Indeed you have.”
Everett walked to the end of an aisle where there was a wooden podium with a single book on it.
“When there’s a chance of finishing a story, the book gets put right here.” He put his hand on the book and said, “I know what’s been happening to you, Marcus. I know you were being haunted and how you got the Paradox key.”
“How?” I asked, stunned.
“Because I read the book, of course,” he said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. He picked the book up, flipped to the last page, and read:
“NEVER, EVER COME UP here again, do you understand?” Lillian Swenor scolded.
“I won’t have to,” her son, Alec, replied. “I gave the key to Marcus. I think it’s where it belongs now.”
The two looked to Marcus O’Mara, who stood over them, trying to catch his breath. He lifted up the Paradox key and held it in his open hand.
“I don’t know what that key is,” Mrs. Swenor said, “or why it’s so important. But your father wanted Michael to give it to you, so it’s yours now.”
“Thank you,” Marcus said.
“Promise me one thing?” Mrs. Swenor asked.
“What’s that?”
“Be very, very careful.”
Michael Swenor had delivered the key as he promised his best friend he would. The Paradox key was finally where it belonged.
Everett looked up at Marcus and said, “Sound familiar?”
“How is that possible?” I exclaimed while sparks flew through my brain. “It happened just a couple of hours ago.”
“I told you, time has little meaning here.”
Everett glanced down at the open book and said, “This was Michael Swenor’s story. Now that it’s complete, this book can go to the other side of the Library and…”
His voice trailed off as his expression grew dark. He flipped over the last page of the book, then flipped it back again, as if searching for something.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
“I don’t quite know,” he said, his eyebrows pinched with concern. “I’ve been following this story. I thought for sure it would end once you were given the Paradox key. But I’m not seeing the two most important words.”
“What words are those?” I asked.
“The end. That’s what we’re always working toward here. The end.” He snapped the book shut and added, “Oh well, so much for my powers of prediction. Seems as though Michael Swenor’s story isn’t quite done yet.”
He placed the book back on the podium.
“So what does that mean?” I asked.
“It means your days of being haunted aren’t done either,” he said. “Sorry.”
I backed away from the old man and banged into a shelf of books, knocking several onto the floor.
“No, I don’t want anything to do with this!” I shouted at him.
“I’m afraid you don’t have a choice, Marcus,” Everett said with a shrug. “There’s more to Michael’s story, that’s for certain. What we don’t know is how much more.”
“Yeah, we do,” I said. “I know exactly how it ends. Marcus O’Mara leaves the story, you get the key, and Michael Swenor gets to rest in peace, never to bother anybody ever again. Especially me. The end.”
I threw the key at him, and he caught it awkwardly.
“You can’t make up an ending,” Everett said. “This ain’t fiction. It has to play out for real.”
“Says you,” I shot back.
When I got to the door, I grabbed the knob but hesitated for one long second, fearing that when I opened the door, I’d be stepping into the nineteenth century and would get run over by a horse and buggy or something. I closed my eyes and pulled the door open to see…
…my bedroom.
“Yes!”
I jumped through and slammed the door behind me.
“Marcus!” Mom yelled from the other side. “Please open the door.”
I immediately pulled the same door open again to see…
…my mom standing there in the hallway. My hallway. The Library was gone.
I was totally confused. I must have been in that library for at least fifteen minutes, but there was my mom, standing at my door, peeved, as if we were still in the middle of the argument we were having when I first got home.
“We need to talk,” she said, obviously upset. “We can’t sweep this under the rug.”
Was it true? Did time have no meaning in that library? In “the Library”?
It took everything I had to pull my head together and focus on my mother.
“Uh, yeah. You’re right. Absolutely. Just not now, okay? I’m not, uh, I’m not feeling so hot.”
“Fine,” she said with a resigned sigh, and backed away. “But we can’t let this go.”
“We won’t,” I said, and closed the door.
I thought for a second, then yanked it open again to see…
…the hallway. I closed the door again, then quickly reopened it to make sure. All was back to normal. I closed the door for the final time and backed into my room. I was shaking, probably from nerves or adrenaline or maybe just plain fear. What had happened? I wanted to tell myself that it was my imagination, or that I had been given some kind of hallucination-causing drug. As unlikely as either of those explanations was, they made more sense than a key that could open any door into a mysterious library full of unfinished paranormal stories.
I decided then and there that I’d never set foot in that place again. It didn’t matter that I was the star of some cosmically written, unfinished drama. Mine was one story that would never be finished.
Besides, I had no way of getting back there. I had thrown the key at Everett. Maybe that was the end of Michael Swenor’s story. Once I gave up the key, the tale was complete, and I could live happily ever after, ghost-free. Yeah, that sounded good.
I went to my bed and plopped down hard. All I wanted to do was sleep and maybe have a dream that made sense, like realizing I was at school wearing only underwear, or having to take a test I never studied for. I didn’t even bother putting on my pajamas. I just rolled over onto my side, ready to welcome the Sandman…
…and found myself staring square at the Paradox key.
It lay on my pillow, inches from my nose.
It was mine, whether I liked it or not.
And, whether I liked it or not, it looked as though my part in this story wasn’t done.