A Properly Unhaunted Place Read online

  para mis sobrinos Suzanna Moxie y Brady Guillermo

  —W. A.

  1

  ROSA AND HER MOTHER MOVED into a basement apartment underneath the Ingot Public Library.

  “This is nice,” Mom said. “This will do fine.”

  Rosa said nothing. She said it loudly. Rosa was not impressed with the basement apartment, or the library above it, or the town of Ingot. She missed their old place in the city. She missed having windows. She missed looking through those windows to see a place that was not Ingot.

  Her new bedroom was bigger than her old one, but without any outside view the room still seemed smaller. Someone had tried to fix this by installing a fake window frame and painting beautiful landscapes of forests and lakes on the plaster behind it.

  Rosa closed real curtains over the fake view.

  This was not home. She could unpack her stuff and spread it around, but that would not make it home. This was just an underground room she happened to be haunting.

  Rosa went back into the living room. She didn’t find much life in there, either. Mom lay flopped across the couch, which was in an awkward place. It blocked the way to the kitchen. Rosa wanted to shove it into its proper place, but it properly belonged in the city, in their old apartment, directly adjacent to the huge central library. Rosa couldn’t shove it that far. She couldn’t even shove it away from the kitchen because her mother had fallen asleep on it.

  Mom looked defeated. She also looked content with her defeat, and that was worse.

  Rosa climbed over her mother, who stayed asleep—or at least pretended to sleep—and left the apartment. She didn’t bring her tool belt. She didn’t even know where it was. That didn’t matter, though. Not here.

  She went upstairs to explore the Ingot Public Library.

  Nice old building. Rosa closed her eyes and smelled the familiar, musty, dusty smell of old books given time to think. Then she opened her eyes and let herself wander into odd corners and unusual nooks. That quickly brought her somewhere she wasn’t supposed to be.

  “This is Special Collections, dear,” said a woman with wispy hair, white gloves, and aggressive eyebrows. “This is where we keep very old books, maps, and historical records. You need permission to be here. You need to sign the form on the clipboard. And children aren’t allowed at all, even if they do sign the form on the clipboard. Children’s books are through that door, down the hall, and in the far corner. Please don’t touch anything on your way there.” Her voice tasted like honey dribbled over raw rhubarb.

  “I live here,” Rosa said. She did not want this to be true, but it was, and she felt indignant to have to explain it. “We just moved in. My mother is the new appeasement specialist.” Librarian appeasement specialists always lived inside their libraries, or at least next to their libraries. They had to be on call at all hours.

  “Ah,” the other librarian said. She took the time to make eye contact now. “I see. Though I’m not at all sure why such an esteemed specialist has chosen to work here, in Ingot.”

  “She just needed a change,” Rosa said.

  Silence stretched thin between them.

  “Ah,” the librarian finally said. “Well then. Hello. Welcome. I’m Mrs. Jillynip. Pleased to meet you. But please don’t come and go through this part of the collection. Not without gloves.”

  Mrs. Jillynip went away without bothering to learn Rosa’s name. Then she watched Rosa sideways to make sure she didn’t touch any of the maps. That made Rosa want to touch maps. She wanted to jump up and down on a big pile of maps. But she didn’t. Instead she tried to leave by way of a spiral staircase in the corner of the room.

  “Not there!” Mrs. Jillynip snapped. Then she took a breath and tried to be more civil. “Please don’t ever go up there.”

  “Why not?” Rosa asked.

  “Because nothing’s up there. And it isn’t safe. The whole staircase might come down. Then the Historical Society would be angry with you. Plus you’ll probably break both of your legs. Children’s books are that way.”

  Rosa turned around and went that way. She passed through the children’s section. It had more dusty, creepy, glass-eyed stuffed animals than actual books, so she left to explore the rest of her new library. She noticed all the places where haints, ghosts, revenants, specters, the spirits of the living, and the spirits of the dead would collect themselves if this building stood anywhere other than Ingot. She spotted all the little things that would probably offend them, or enrage them, or send them howling in between the bookshelves in the very small hours of the night if this were any other library in any other town.

  Ingot was not haunted. Ingot was the only unhaunted place that Rosa had ever heard of. The Ingot Public Library did not need an appeasement specialist. It had nothing to appease—nothing but Rosa.

  She moved unappeased through the library stacks until she found the public bathroom. The sink fixtures inside were all copper, polished in some places and stained green in others. Each mirror had a small shelf underneath it, just like mirrors are always supposed to have, but the shelves stood empty. No coins. No pebbles. No candle stubs. A candle would have been especially helpful. Ghosts could use them to rest, or to pass between boundaries. Lit candles could also make nasty smells disappear, and would have been helpful in this particular bathroom.

  Rosa washed her hands. Then she took a pebble from her pocket and set it on the mirror shelf. This was a decent way to say thanks to a mirror—and to anything likely to lurk inside a mirror. It was also a way to greet lost relatives.

  “Hi Dad,” she said, even though he wasn’t there.

  A blonde girl pushed the bathroom door open. She gave Rosa a funny look. Rosa ignored her intensely and left the bathroom. She needed to leave the building. She hurried through the front lobby and half-ran beneath a portrait of a man with a long, elaborate mustache—Bartholomew Theosophras Barron, founder of Ingot Town. Mr. Barron’s painted eyes looked into the distance in a self-important way. They didn’t follow Rosa as she rushed outside.

  She went without her tool belt, without matches, chalk, or salt, without any proof of her family profession but another pebble in her pocket and a little copper medallion of Catalina de Erauso, Rosa’s patron librarian, around her neck. The medallion showed de Erauso holding a sword above the Latin inscription MEMENTO MORTUIS. “Remember the dead.” There was nothing special about the pebble.

  It felt wrong to leave the building without her tool belt. Rosa left anyway. She sat on the library steps and decided she was angry. She liked that decision, even though she knew it wasn’t right. Sadness slowed her down. It made the air feel thick to move through and heavy to carry in her lungs. But anger was fuel she could use to move faster. She would rather be mad—at Mom for the move, and for taking a job that didn’t really need her, and for needing such a clean and brutal break away from their proper work. She would rather be mad at Ingot for its odd, unnatural emptiness of everyone except for the living. So she decided that she was.

  The town stretched out in front of her. She could see most of it from here. Old houses clustered close together, some in good repair and others run-down and peeling. Mountains surrounded Ingot on all sides like the rim of a bowl or a bucket.

  Bright green light flashed briefly in the foothills. Rosa stared at the spot where that green flash wasn’t anymore. Then a knight in full armor came striding down the sidewalk, and she stared at him instead.

  2

  JASPER WORE HIS SQUIRE COSTUME and followed his dad to the fairgrounds. He would rather have worn a T-shirt and jeans, and changed into this fashionable burlap outfit after they arrived at the fairgrounds, but Jasper’s father liked to tour around town in full armor—a walking,
talking, extremely public ad for the Renaissance Festival.

  Jasper did not enjoy strutting around as an anachronistic advertisement, but his father did. Very much. The man stood tall and took up space around him while he walked, armor clinking like a cowboy’s spurs. He drew all eyes to himself. Jasper moved in his shadow, haunted his footsteps, and was perfectly okay with the fact that knights got more attention than their squires.

  A girl came running at them from the library steps. Jasper didn’t recognize her, even though she looked to be about his age—which was eleven as of last Tuesday. He knew every other eleven-year-old in Ingot. He didn’t know her. But she seemed to recognize both of them.

  Jasper’s father paused and removed his helmet.

  “How may we be of service?” he asked. His voice was a bass drum with a fake British accent. He spoke every word as a beat meant to carry, a sound you could feel in the bones of your face. Jasper could always hear his father’s voice from elsewhere in their large house. It passed through walls, doors, and headphones.

  The girl’s look of wonder and recognition drained right out of her.

  “You’re not a ghost,” she said, clearly disappointed.

  “I am not,” Dad agreed. “Ingot is not known for hauntings. I impersonate Sir Morien, Black Knight of Arthur’s court and table. My squire and I are bound for the Renaissance Festival—the largest and most splendid celebration of its kind to be found anywhere in the world.”

  Jasper waved. Sir Dad produced a brochure and held it out in one gauntleted hand.

  The girl didn’t take it. She crossed her arms and looked him over critically. “King Arthur lived in the fifth century—if he lived at all. Which he probably didn’t. Your getup looks like something fifteenth-century-ish.”

  Oh no, Jasper thought. He found another one already. They hadn’t even reached the festival yet, and Dad had already stirred up an argument of historical nitpickery with a total stranger. Jasper’s parents had spent all morning arguing over the word “caddis” and whether it meant cobwebs or belly button lint. Either way, doctors used to use the stuff like Band-Aids to staunch small wounds. Both parents had agreed on that part, at least. But they still spent all morning bouncing linty and spidery theories back and forth across the kitchen table. Mom was very nearly late for the opening ceremony at the fairgrounds—and Mom was the queen, so she couldn’t be late. Jasper had tried to convince his knightly father to skip their walk around town, but Dad insisted. “We must awaken sleepy Ingot and remind them that our summer revels have begun,” he had said, even though everyone already knew. The festival was huge, and pretty much the only thing that happened here.

  Sir Dad grinned, delighted to have the historical accuracy of his costume called into question. “Well noticed. And clearly well-read.”

  “I’ve always lived in libraries,” the girl said. “And I’ve read about a Black Knight who tied people to trees, but never . . .”

  “. . . but never a black knight?” Dad finished. His smiling teeth looked bright beside his dark skin. Dad always used extra-whitening toothpaste.

  Here we go, Jasper thought. He loves this part.

  “Clearly, you have only ever seen abridged versions of the Arthurian tales. Sir Morien was the son of a valiant English knight and a Moorish lady of North Africa. His deeds of valor were well documented. In the fifteenth century. And anyone who can recognize the age of my armor in an offhand way should obviously accompany us, so this admission ticket is yours to spend.”

  He added a ticket to the brochure and held out his hand again. She hesitated, then took both.

  Sir Dad put on his helmet and continued to march down the sidewalk.

  Jasper and the girl followed him. They crossed Main Street and headed south on Isabelle Road, toward the fairgrounds.

  “Hey,” Jasper said without the accent he would be using later.

  “Hey,” said the girl. “What’s your name?”

  “Jasper Chevalier. Yours?”

  “Rosa Ramona Díaz. I just moved here.”

  “Into the library?”

  “Yes,” Rosa said. “Into the basement of the library. We don’t have any windows. I’m pretty sure that violates housing code. Apartments are supposed to have windows. Maybe I can force them to move us somewhere else.” She dug a pebble from her pocket and rolled it around between fingertips.

  “It’s a nice old building,” Jasper said, just to say something nice. “Not enough comics, though. Or science fiction. How come you’ve always lived in libraries?”

  “My mom is Athena Díaz.” She paused and glanced at him. Maybe he was supposed to recognize that name. He didn’t. “The appeasement specialist.”

  “Ah,” he said.

  “The ghost appeasement specialist,” she added.

  Jasper felt suddenly, desperately curious. Until that moment he had only asked questions to make a conversation happen, but now he asked because he actually wanted to know. “Your mom is a ghost hunter?”

  Rosa sighed. “No. I mean yes, she is. And she’s the best at it. ‘Hunting’ just isn’t the right word.”

  “But she does banish ghosts, right?”

  “No!” Rosa said, loud enough to make Sir Morien pause and glance back at them. She lowered her voice down from a shout. “Not banishment. Never banishment. Pretty much the opposite. Hauntings don’t just go away. Or at least they shouldn’t.”

  This topic was clearly upsetting. I should stop asking about it, Jasper thought. Whenever folk moved to Ingot from elsewhere, they tended not to talk about why. It usually involved a haunting, one that they really didn’t want to confront, so instead they all came to a place without ghosts.

  But he couldn’t stop himself from asking. “What did your mom do, if not hunt or banish?”

  “Appease. Calmed ghosts down if they got upset. Showed proper respect to keep them from getting upset. Kept really nasty ones distracted, and found a proper place for them to be. Like the combustible ones. She’d just settle those down in the fireplace. But she wouldn’t ever banish them. Libraries need to be haunted.”

  “Why?” Jasper asked.

  Rosa wasn’t sure how to answer, because it was just obviously true.

  “Ghosts are everywhere,” she said. “Usually. Though you might not notice them unless you annoy them. But hauntings just build up in some places. And those places need to have appeasement specialists on hand.”

  “Like libraries.”

  “Yes. Like libraries. Whenever you open an old book you read it along with everyone else who’s ever read that same book. You’re supposed to. Hauntings don’t end. Ghosts don’t ever just go away.”

  “Except here,” Jasper pointed out.

  “Except here,” Rosa sighed. Her words tumbled together before, but now she slowed right down and fiddled with the pebble in her hand. “So Mom will just handle the interlibrary loans here. All the books that people complain about. The ones they think are too haunted. They’ll pass through here to get unhaunted. Disinfected. Which is horrible. It shouldn’t even be possible. But Mom will make sure it happens anyway. That’s her only job now. Every library has to have its specialist—even if it doesn’t have any ghosts. Why doesn’t it? Why aren’t there ghosts in Ingot?”

  “There just aren’t,” Jasper said. “I don’t know why. Nobody does.”

  The two walked in silence for a bit and listened to Sir Morien’s armor clink, clink, clink ahead of them. Rosa looked around.

  “It’s nice,” she said, with effort. “The town looks . . . comfortable. Homey. Not uncanny. Canny.”

  They reached the edge of town. It didn’t take very long to get there.

  “The fairgrounds are this way,” Jasper said, pointing off to the right. “You can see the gates and some of the pavilions from here. And that’s my house, over the other way.” He pointed left.

  A wooden sign of a carved and painted horse hung above the mailbox at the end of the driveway.

  “You live on a horse farm?” Rosa aske
d.

  “I do,” Jasper said.

  “I always thought the words ‘horse’ and ‘farm’ sounded funny together. Like horses are plants and you grow a crop of them out of the ground.”

  “Oh, they are,” Jasper said, playing along. “Horses hatch out of pumpkins. Didn’t you know that? It’s why we carve the pumpkins in October. We have to let all the little horses out.”

  “Makes sense,” Rosa said. Then she got quiet.

  “Why do we really carve pumpkins?” he asked, because she clearly knew why.

  “To give wandering spirits a place to keep warm,” she said. “They can rest inside lanterns. Or move through the candles to get somewhere else.”

  Sir Dad led them off the road and across a long stretch of grassy, unpaved parking lot. Nearby fairgoers climbed out of cars and into costumes. Sir Dad paused to help parents push a unicorn-shaped stroller out of the mud. Then he moved through the steady stream of people that flowed toward the festival gates. He waved and shouted enthusiastic greetings. He paused to answer skeptical questions, and to insist—again, over and over again—that knights of North Africa did indeed ride through European legends of chivalry. I am Sir Morien, he said with every armored step. I have a place in this history. And he made that place as large as he could manage.

  All of that was fine and grand, but Jasper still wished he could help from some unseen distance. He would rather be backstage, hidden and secret, than standing in a spotlight—or even standing next to his father’s spotlight. But it was summertime in Ingot, and summer belonged to the festival. Squire Jasper had his duty to do. So he walked with Rosa in Sir Morien’s wake.

  3

  THE FESTIVAL STOOD AT THE far end of the field, up against trees and the base of the foothills. Rosa followed Sir Morien and Jasper the Squire though the grassy parking lot, and then up to towering plaster gates pretending to be stone. She handed over her admission ticket and got her hand stamped with a little pink skull and crossbones.

  Centuries smacked into each other on the other side of the gate. Wandering minstrels played classic rock on mandolins. A barista called out the virtues of Ye Olde Cappuccinos and promised to draw Jolly Rogers in the milky foam. Dozens of people wore eye patches, striped breeches, and stuffed parrots awkwardly stapled to their shoulders.