Chapter Four Hundred and Seven - Off the Books

“What can you tell us about this ghost?” Amaryllis asked.

Pecorina frowned and gestured vaguely towards the fallen stack of books. They rose up, and the books carefully slotted themselves back into their spots on the shelves. “This has been an issue for... well, some time now,” she said.

“You’re haunted?’ Caprica asked.

“I’m not haunted. The store is,” she said. “And by a very persistent and clever ghost.”

“Aren’t ghosts usually easy to get rid of?” Calamity asked. “Smack them with something magical and they’re done for, no?”

“That’s usually the case, yes,” Amaryllis said, before turning to Pecroina. "And you're clearly not lacking when it comes to magic. So, why is your store still haunted?" she asked, her tone turning a bit leading.

Pecorina crossed her arms. “This isn’t a normal ghost. Obviously. If it was, then I’d have squished them between two books long ago. Everyone in Inkwren knows better than to try and mess with my store. Even the academies respect me.”

“Are you that strong?” I asked.

She grinned. “I’m a Bibliomancer. The more books I have, the stronger I am.” She made a little gesture to the stacks and stacks of books all around us. “It’s a rather uncommon class, though there are a couple of us in Inkwren. We can pull magic and enchantments directly from the books themselves. I have a million books and ten thousand spells as long as I’m in my shop.”

“Wow,” I said, genuinely impressed. It did sound like a very cool class.

Not one for me, though. It sounded like she’d need to lug around all of these books with her if she ever wanted to go on an adventure, and that seemed terribly inconvenient. I couldn’t imagine myself dragging a heavy chest full of books through a dungeon or something.

"So, you are strong," I said. "But I guess that's not enough to banish this particular ghost?"

Pecorina rubbed her little nose. "Correct. It won't die," she said. “I’ve smashed it, fired a library of spells at it, and even found books on exorcism and ghost hunting and cast spells specifically designed to get rid of more powerful undead. But it keeps coming back.”

“Is it harmful?” Caprica asked. “Other than knocking down bookshelves?”

"Knocking down bookshelves is harmful," Pecorina contested. "New books lose value even from something as minor as a scuffed corner, whereas old books are fragile and can't take the abuse. Mashed pages, split bindings, I've even had covers break off entirely. This ghost is costing me money, to say nothing of the fact that someday, one of those bookshelves is probably going to fall on someone."

I considered it for a moment, then shrugged. “We could try, I guess.”

“Especially if it means a discount,” Amaryllis added.

Pecorina snorted. “I’ll drop the price on whatever you purchase today by half. How does that sound?”

That sounded like a fantastic deal. “We’ll do it!” I said. “Amaryllis, do you think my magic would work? I could hit the entire store all at once.”

“Whoa now, wait one moment,” Pecorina said. “You won’t be getting any discounts if you blow up my store. What sort of magic are you talking about here?”

“Cleaning magic,” I said. “I have it at Master, or S rank. It’s really strong!”

“Master-ranked Cleaning,” Pecorina said. “That’s a new one. Not the first Master Rank magic I’ve ever seen, but definitely one of the stranger ones. I suppose that won’t harm most of my books. But, at the same time... I’d rather you didn’t just go around blasting it without a care. Some of my books here are ancient, and they might not take kindly to any magic, others have intricate spellwork woven into them, which might fray if exposed to overwhelming amounts of cleaning magic.”

I nodded along. I didn’t know enough about magic to tell if that was entirely correct. I could somewhat direct my Cleaning magic to target some things and not others, so I was pretty sure I could avoid damaging anything--but would it work on crumbling, possibly suspicious magic? I wasn't sure. Besides, it would probably be rude to second-guess the expert on ancient books.

I looked to my friends. “I’m down for a bit of ghost hunting,” I said.

“Sure,” Caprica replied. “We don’t have much else planned for the rest of the day.”

“If we don’t succeed in a reasonable amount of time, then we might have to give up and just buy the book outright,” Amaryllis said.

Awen just nodded, happy to help, and Calamity shrugged. “I’m a decent hunter, you know. But I’d never hunted a ghost before. Let alone hunted in a bookshop.”

Pecorina seemed happy with our choice, which is when she dropped her ultimatum on us. “Well, I can’t have you five gallivanting around my shop all day. You’ll be bothering my actual clients. So how’s this, if you can’t find and rid me of the ghost, then I’ll increase the price on the book instead.”

“That doesn’t seem fair,” I said.

She shrugged. “My shop, my rules,” she replied.

I pouted, but she was kinda right, even if it was patently unkind of her to increase the price just because we might not be able to hunt the ghost down.

Pecorina wasn’t entirely unfair though. She led us up to the second floor where there was a section on ghosts and the supernatural. (Which was weird. Why was magic by itself was not considered supernatural, but ghosts and such were?) She said that we could peruse it at will, and Amaryllis and Caprica immediately started doing just that.

“Ah, I think I’m just going to wander a bit,” Awen said. “I think she might have some books on mechanics and airships that I might want to look at. I have a few on the Beaver but sometimes I wish I had better references to work with.”

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“Okay,” I said. “In that case, I’ll wander around too. Maybe I can corner that ghost on my own, then blast it with Cleaning magic.”

“I’ll see about hunting it down myself,” Calamity said.

And with that, we split up, exploring different sections of the store. I went upstairs, eyes darting between dusty tomes in the quietest corner of the maze-like store where I had to hold my ears down so that they wouldn’t get caught in the cobwebs. It was hard to resist the temptation to just Clean everything.

As I navigated the maze-like store, I felt a sudden chill run down my spine. Turning around quickly, I saw a book floating in mid-air before it dropped to the floor. "I think I found our ghost," I muttered to myself, and started to charge my Cleaning magic, focusing on not damaging the surrounding books.

The ghost might have sensed my intent, because it immediately fled, disappearing through the shelves.

The chase was on!

Well, it was on at a slow and respectful pace. I wasn’t going to start running around and screaming while in the middle of Miss Pecorina’s shop. Instead I walked in the direction I’d noticed the ghost moving in.

As I walked deeper into the labyrinth of books, I could feel a distinct shift in the environment. It was colder here, the air felt denser. A book lifted itself off the shelf and dropped to the floor right in my path. Somewhat hesitantly, I knelt down and picked it up. The title was How to Deny Home Intruders, A Guide, which might have been a message.

I paused, my heart pounding. "Hey there, ghost," I said, trying to keep my voice steady and non-threatening. "I'm Broccoli. We need to talk. I promise, I won't hurt you." I’d hurt an undead friend once. It wasn’t going to happen again.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then, the book I was holding was yanked out of my hands and flew back onto the shelf. A moment later, another book flew off the shelf and smacked onto the floor just before my toes.

The book opened, then the pages started to flick by, faster and faster until all of a sudden, it stopped and the book came to rest, opened for me to see.

The page it stopped on had a chapter titled, The Importance of Mutual Respect. I couldn't help but chuckle. "Alright, then," I said. "Let's have a respectful conversation. Um, I’m guessing you can hear me, then?”

Nothing happened for a long moment, then the temperature in the room dropped until I was shivering. A spectral head emerged from the bookshelf, icy blue and semi-transparent. It looked at me with glowing eyes, its expression unreadable. It was just the vague outline of the top of someone’s head, as if they were peeking out from around a corner. The form was too blurry and translucent to really make out any details, but there was a slight hint of glasses on the face, and something about the size suggested that they were young.

Or maybe it was a non-human-like race, and my guess was all wrong.

"Are you... um, the one who's been causing the trouble?" I asked, my voice shaky. I wasn't afraid, but I did feel a bit nervous. My experience with ghosts had mostly revolved around them trying to kill me. Well, most of the time. I’d met at least one nice ghost, and Orange was a spirit cat, which kind of made her ghost-adjacent.

The ghost didn't respond verbally, but it did move. It took a step back into the bookshelf, then a book flew off the shelf. Confessions of a Misunderstood Spirit. I took that as a yes.

"I see. So, you're not trying to cause problems, you're just... misunderstood? Alright, I'll try to understand then," I said. "Maybe we can be friends?"

The ghost slipped away, back into the bookshelves, but a moment later I saw it peek out to stare at me again, further away this time.

Curious, I started to follow it. I had to let my friends know too, but it was hard enough communicating now when it was just me and the ghost. I made sure my Cleaning magic was well-restrained and followed the ghost deeper into the stacks.

I continued to follow the spectral figure, moving deeper into the maze-like bookstore. The ghost seemed cautious, perhaps even a bit wary, but it didn't try to scare me off or attack me. Instead, it continued to lead me through the aisles, often disappearing into the shelves only to reappear a few steps ahead of me after a short pause.

After what felt like an eternity, we finally reached a particularly dark and musty corner of the store. The spectral figure hovered near a bookshelf filled with ancient, leather-bound volumes. It swayed, and a dozen books spilled to the ground.

“Uh,” I said as I started to read the titles, but these were all textbooks on different subjects, and unless it wanted to talk about math...

Then the ghost reached into the shelf with a spectral arm and pulled out a single book that didn’t seem to belong. Not a leather-bound tome, but instead a notebook that looked much younger, and more beaten.

I picked it up slowly, then flipped it open. Lavinia’s To Be Read List, the first page read.

Then there was a list.

A very long list, it went on for the first thirty or so pages of the notebook, with several dozen of the titles crossed out. Some even had little reviews, like “Okay,” or “Re-read when I forget,” and one said “Convince Thorne to read, she’ll cry.”

The notebook seemed pretty mundane otherwise, except for one thing. Some of the titles were crossed out with something that wasn’t ink. A faint, glowing line of something ghostly and spectral.

I looked up, searching for the ghost, but it was nowhere to be seen.

***