“Everett!” I called out to the old-guy spirit who was the curator of the strange library.

My call echoed back from the dark recesses of the ancient room. Nothing had changed since I’d been there the last time, which was no surprise. The place looked as though it had been around since the 1800s, so why would I expect anything to be different after a week?

Several gas lamps hung from the walls and gave off a warm, flickering light. Everett said that time had no meaning in the Library. I guess that’s why there were no windows. Seeing the sun move across the sky would definitely mean time was passing. But that made me wonder: What exactly was outside? Where was this library? Outer space? Limbo? The Twilight Zone?

To my left were multiple aisles of polished wood shelves filled with thousands of unfinished books…the reason the Library existed. To my right were the aisles of books that had been finished by the agents of the Library. There wasn’t a speck of dust anywhere. Did that mean Everett walked around with a dust rag and a mop? Or was that the job of other spirits? Or if time truly didn’t mean anything here, maybe dust didn’t have the chance to settle. I had no idea.

I walked quickly to the circulation desk, expecting to see Everett perched on his stool reading.

He wasn’t.

Maybe he was off dusting somewhere.

I was suddenly feeling very alone.

“Everett!” I called out again, louder.

“Easy!” he bellowed from directly behind me, making me jump. “You’ll wake the dead.” He chuckled and added, “Then again, I’m already up.”

Everett looked to be in his seventies. He was short and balding with a horseshoe of white hair that looped around the back of his head. His cheeks were covered with bushy muttonchop sideburns, and he wore wire-rimmed glasses so delicate that the lenses looked as though they were floating in front of his eyes. He had on gray tweedy pants, with a matching vest over a pure-white shirt that had the sleeves rolled up. Like the Library, he looked like he was straight out of the 1800s.

And, oh yeah, he was a ghost.

“What’s with the key?” I asked. “It got hot. Is that some kind of Bat-Signal to get me to come here?”

“You could say that,” Everett said with his slight Irish accent. “I had to do something to get your attention.”

He waddled to the end of one of the aisles where a wooden podium stood. It was the podium that always held the next book that needed to be finished.

There was a small red volume resting on top.

“Yeah, well, I’ve been…busy,” I said, staring at the unopened book.

“Busy? Or maybe you’ve just been scared,” he said with a wry wink.

“I wasn’t! I was just…just…Okay, I was scared. So what?”

“No shame in that, lad. This is still new to you. But something came up that needs our attention, so I thought it wise to give you a wee bit of a nudge.”

“Is it about Lu’s missing cousin?” I asked, hopefully.

“No.”

“Theo’s fortune?”

“No.”

I deflated.

“Did you even look?”

Everett frowned. “Take a look around, boy-o. Do you have any idea how many volumes I have to wade through?”

“No.”

“Neither do I. But there are plenty! I’ve been searching for your friends’ stories, I promise you. But I’m a spirit, not magical. It’ll take some time.”

“And time means nothing here, right?”

“Right you are, but I did come across something that appears to have some time sensitivity. That does happen every so often.”

He put his hand on the red book and patted it a few times.

“A new story?” I asked.

“Not just new. It’s now. This isn’t about something that happened in the past. The events chronicled in this book are happening right now. Today, in your time. That’s why it can’t wait.”

It was crazy how spirits were everywhere, observing strange events and documenting them to create these books. It made me incredibly self-conscious about going to the bathroom.

“Give me the highlights,” I said.

Everett picked up the book and flipped through the pages.

“It concerns a school in Massachusetts. Coppell Middle School. It’s an understatement to say the folks there have been going through a spell of bad luck, but that’s about the size of it. Here, read a wee bit.”

He handed the open book to me and pointed to a paragraph that read:

Since the school year began, a series of accidents have occurred that go beyond what could be considered normal. It started out innocently enough. A cart full of glassware went tumbling, though no one was anywhere near it; windows cracked and shattered for no apparent reason; a grease fire broke out in the cafeteria kitchen. At first none of the incidents were serious. Nobody was hurt. But the accidents grew worse. An electrical transformer blew up, knocking out the school’s power; a climbing rope in the gym snapped while a boy was halfway up; and a groundskeeper lost control of a riding lawn mower that leveled an entire rose garden.

“Glad I don’t go to that school,” I said.

“Aye, and it gets even worse. A young lady driving by the school suddenly swerved and drove her vehicle onto the property, through a glass door, and straight into the dining hall during lunchtime. She was completely rattled, as you might imagine. Said it was like the car had a mind of its own.”

“Dining hall?”

“Cafeteria. Whatever it is you call it. Spare me your criticism.”

Everett grabbed the book back and waddled down the aisle, headed for the long circulation desk.

I followed right behind him.

“That’s some seriously bad luck.”

“Aye. And now it’s risen to a whole different level. They were having a sports gathering in their gymnasium. A pep rally, I believe it’s called. With no warning or apparent reason, a whole section of bleachers collapsed.”

“Oh man. Did anybody get hurt?”

“No one too badly, thank goodness. There’s a pattern here. The severity of the events is escalating. Quickly. What’s happening at that school goes beyond the logic that governs normal events. In my mind, that elevates it into something else entirely.”

“A disruption,” I said.

“Aye. Something is happening there, Marcus. Something wrong. I fear it’s only a matter of time before someone is seriously hurt, or worse.”

“What do you think’s causing it?” I asked.

Everett dropped the book onto the circulation desk and said, “That’s where you come in.”

“Me? How? I can’t just go to Massachusetts.”

“Ah, but you can.”

He opened the book to show me a cream-colored card with dark lines that was glued inside the cover. It was the kind of card they used to use in library books to show the due date. Before computers, that is.

“All you have to do is check out the book.”

“Then what?”

“Then the book is yours for a while,” he said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “When you leave here, you’ll be a part of the story.”

“So I walk back out the door and I’m suddenly in Massachusetts and at that school?”

“Not exactly. If you walk out the door you came in through, you’d be back home. The door that gets you into the story is on the far side of the Library.”

It all sounded so mystically ridiculous, except I knew it wasn’t.

“Why didn’t I have to do that with the Boggin story?” I asked.

“Because you were already part of that story. This is different. You have no connection to the events happening in Massachusetts.”

My head was spinning.

“Okay, so I go to the school. Then what? I’m no detective.”

“That’s what your father said at first too, but he always found a way. Finished many of these stories, he did. Seeing how you handled the Boggin, I suspect you’ll do every bit as well.”

My heart raced. As much as I knew this was what the Library was all about, I wasn’t so sure I was ready to play along.

“I don’t know—”

“Look, lad,” Everett said. “You’ve finished one story already. Because of you and your friends, Michael Swenor’s spirit was put to rest and you stopped the Boggin from spreading more misery. You know how important our work is. Your father knew it too.”

“And he died for it,” I said softly.

“Possibly,” Everett said. “We don’t know that for a fact. But if there’s any hope of finding out exactly why he and your mother died, you’ll need to embrace the Library and how it works. Not just for the people you’ll be helping but for yourself as well.”

Ever since I discovered the Library, I knew that at some point I’d have to step up to the plate, enter one of the unfinished stories, and try to fill my father’s shoes. Now that it was really happening, I was having second thoughts. And third thoughts.

“My parents think I’m in the bathroom,” I said lamely.

Everett chuckled. “And when you step back into your house, it’ll be as if you never left.”

“But what if I’m in Massachusetts for a long time? Won’t I get tired? And hungry? I can’t just spend a whole bunch of time somewhere else and then pick up where I left off at home.”

“So take a nap and eat something!” Everett said with a touch of impatience.

I had this weird fear that I was about to pull a Rip Van Winkle and come back as an old man.

“You can step out of the story anytime you’d like,” Everett said, as if reading my thoughts. “The Paradox key will get you right back here.”

Everett reached under the counter and brought out an old-fashioned fountain pen. He held it out to me.

“What’s that for?” I asked.

“Sign the card,” Everett said, “and the book be yours.”

I looked at the pen, then at the book that contained an unfinished story about a middle school that was…what? Haunted? Cursed? Incredibly unlucky? Whatever the truth was, it was up to me to find it. Like my father before me, I was an agent of the Library.

I took the pen.

“Sign on the top line,” Everett instructed.

I leaned down, staring at the blank card. Nobody had checked this book out before. I was the first. This was crazy.

But I signed.

When I handed the pen back to Everett, he was smiling broadly.

“I remember the first time your father did that,” he said. “He looked about as nervous as you do right now.”

“That’s not comforting.”

“You’ll be fine. I know you will.”

“So what happens now? Do I take the book with me?”

Everett blew on my signature to dry it, then gently closed the cover.

“If you’d like, but I suggest you leave it here. We don’t want it getting lost like that other book.”

I knew exactly what he meant. The last book my father had been working on was a story about the Boggin. It never made its way back to the Library and my father and mother died. Somehow, some way, I had to find that book and finish their story. But not just then.

“So where’s the door out of here?” I asked.

“You mean the door into the story.”

“Whatever! Where do I go?”

Everett tucked the book under his arm and led me past more aisles of books and deeper into the Library. For a second I feared I’d get lost in the ancient labyrinth, but that was the least of my worries. We reached what turned out to be the final aisle, rounded the corner, and stood facing another wooden door that looked pretty much the same as the one I’d come through from home.

“So I go through and I’ll be at that school?”

“Aye.”

“And I can come back anytime?”

“Just use the Paradox key.”

I touched the key and pressed it against my chest. No way was I ever going to let go of that thing.

“No guarantees,” I said.

“There are never guarantees,” Everett said. “Especially when dealing with stories from the Library.”

I walked slowly toward the wooden door, feeling like I was walking the last few yards to the gallows. I stepped right up to it, reached for the doorknob, and stopped.

“What do I do first?” I asked.

“Up to you. But remember this: disruptions happen for a reason. When things go awry, it’s because someone caused it. Or something.”

“Like the Boggin.”

“Aye. It always comes down to people, Marcus. Living or dead. Somebody at that school knows why the disruption is happening. It could be intentional, or they may have no idea they’re involved. Ask questions. Be observant. The clues will be there.”

I nodded. Not because I knew what to do, but because I understood the full weight of my task, I grabbed the doorknob and twisted until the latch released and the door opened a crack.

“This won’t hurt, will it?”

“Not a bit,” Everett said. “It’s just like stepping through a normal door…and into another life.”

“Normal? Yeah, right.”

If I had taken another second to think about what those words truly meant, I would have slammed that door, run the other way, and gone home. But I was committed. I didn’t know if I had any hope of solving the mystery of the cursed school, but I had to give it a shot.

It’s what I was meant to do.

Before I could change my mind, I yanked the door open and, as the old spirit had said…

…stepped into another life.