Among the Ghosts by Amber Benson

Author:Amber Benson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aladdin
Published: 2010-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

Catherine Alexander

Whenever Noh had a problem that she didn’t know the answer to, she would ask her dad for help. When he didn’t know the answer, he would direct Noh to the only place in the whole world that did have all the answers to everything: the library.

Noh loved the library in her town. It was bigger than the fire station but smaller than the grocery store. It was made of warm brown brick, and it always seemed to be inviting you inside when you looked at it.

She had spent many a rainy day ensconced in one of the large, overstuffed armchairs that littered the science section, reading up on weird diseases and perusing whatever fiction tome had happened to catch her fancy when she wandered through the literature section. She had made her way through all the Anne of Green Gables books and every Jane Austen novel she could find while sitting in those overstuffed armchairs. Just thinking about their lopsided gray cushions put a smile on her face.

So that’s how Noh found herself standing in front of the giant, carved wooden doors that led into the inner sanctum of New Newbridge’s library. If she knew anything at all, it was that somewhere inside the library waited her best chance at cracking the mystery.

Noh pushed open the door with a loud creeeak that almost gave her a heart attack. She felt like she was in one of those scary black-and-white monster movies her dad liked to watch late at night when he thought she was asleep—except this was real life, not TV.

The space was much bigger than she’d imagined—three ominous-looking rooms in total—and chock-full of dusty old books that looked like no one had touched them in a thousand years. She closed the door behind her with another loud creeeak, but this time she was prepared for the sound, so it didn’t make her heart do somersaults again.

The library seemed empty, with a fine layer of dust on everything.

“Hello… ?” Noh called out, even though under normal circumstances she wouldn’t have made any sounds louder than a whisper in a library.

No one answered her. Not even the squeak of a mouse or the crunch of a shoe sounded in the emptiness. Noh took this as a sign that it was okay to enter. Her thoughts were that if someone wanted the place to be off-limits, then they’d have locked the doors.

Noh tiptoed across the front entryway, her shoes making little squeak-squeak noises as they moved across the dark blue marbled floor. Noh thought that there had to be some kind of pattern built into the marble, but the slabs of dark blue and green were so squiggly and strange that she just couldn’t make out their code. She wondered if she were to climb the large circular staircase that stood against the back wall up to the second floor, if she would be able to see whatever picture the marble spelled out.

Taking the rickety wrought-iron stairs two at a time, Noh made it to the second-floor landing in less than ten seconds.

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