BY Corey Farrenkopf
Most people don’t believe you when you tell them you work in a haunted library, which is fair.
You don’t believe anything unless you experience it first hand.
Patrons tell you you need to write a memoir about your time in the haunted library. It’s honestly
the only interesting thing about you, but the stories never seem that gripping when you write
them down. Out loud, at a party, they’re great, especially in relation to how much alcohol has
been imbibed. On margarita night, consider yourself the Crypt Keeper or Vincent Price.
The library claims the title of the oldest building in America housing a library. The front half was
built in the 1600s. Old Colonial. Wide pine flooring. You lead patrons on tours, pointing to
portraits hanging on the walls. A father. A mother. Three children. Any of which could be the
ghost. Two of them died on the property. You’re unsure how, but you make up a story each time
through. The experience would be boring otherwise. Gunshot. Wayward oxcart. The Black
Death.
Lights in the attic turn themselves on (the library shares a striking resemblance to the cover of
Amityville Horror in those moments). Doors open themselves when they are sealed tight. Hands
graze shoulders. Fingertips run along your collar (sometimes the grazing is a creepy patron, but
usually there's no one there.) Phone calls arise from the basement when the phone in the
basement has been disconnected for years. Cold patches. Orbs. All the stereotypes. They haven’t
screamed at you to GET OUT yet, but you’re sure that’s coming at a later date.
You even keep a little notebook in your office mailbox, instructing coworkers to jot down their
own encounters. You title it the GHOST BOOK. As a team, you fill page upon page. The
touching. The cold. The ceaseless phone calls. Your director leads fundraisers for overnight
stays, promising spectral interactions. She rakes in enough to furnish your entire programming
budget for the year. (Yes, people are cold. Yes, people get touched. Yes, it isn’t by other
patrons.)
Then one day you check the GHOST BOOK. Inside, there’s handwriting you don’t recognize.
How much longer?
How much longer for what?
You ask your coworkers. Did you write this? Whose handwriting? When? But no one has put
pen to paper.
The next day there is another question in the GHOST BOOK.
Do you lie?
Of course, you write below. Everyone does.
Not everyone. That is just something you tell yourself.
You are pretty sure it’s the ghost. No one on staff has owned up to the scrawl. Just because the
dead are terrible on the phone, doesn’t mean they’re bad at writing.
Ignoring the insult, you respond the only way you deem ethical. How can we set you free?
There’s only one true narrative in a ghost story and having a white knight complex doesn’t help.
The next day at work, there is no response in the GHOST BOOK. You go about your day,
ordering fiction, leading your tours, answering reference questions, always stopping by your
mailbox to see if something new has appeared, but nothing. The ghost is silent.
Then the weekend arrives. You tell your ghost stories at a party which is met with a few audible
gasps and a few groans. You’re starting to get tired of your own ghost story, just as the ghost
seems to have grown tired as well, which is concerning. What else do you have to talk about at
parties?
On Monday, the page is still blank. No one sees any orbs. No one is fondled at the circ desk.
Doors remain closed. The attic lights lie mute. Day after day, it’s the same. It’s almost as if you
don’t work at a haunted library at all. Just a regular library. No one will tell you you need to
write a memoir about that. And you find yourself a little sad. You only really have one
interesting thing about you, and now it seems that has fled. Who are you if you’re not the
librarian who works at the haunted library?
After another week, you go back to the GHOST BOOK and write, How can we keep you?
The next day, the writing has returned. Just get my death right. That’s all I ask. Remember. No
lies.
You are overcome with joy. You didn’t like the prospect of working in the standard library. You
need to cling to your unique attribute. You don’t want to be dull. It’s your truest fear.
And how is that? You write.
Bear is the only word that follows.
Which is awfully metal, but you don’t write that down. You doubt a ghost from the 1600s would
get the reference.
So from then on, when you give your tours, you will always tell the bear story. Sometimes you
give all the gruesome details, the guts and blood, the final haunting words. But sometimes you
leave the recollection vague. You’ve learned you have to know your audience. There are
expectations. There are desires. There is more than one type of ghost story. And you should
know that. You're living in one, and you can feel secure in your stable identity. For now anyway.
Someone else's ghost story eventually becomes your ghost story, every time.
Corey Farrenkopf lives on Cape Cod with his wife, Gabrielle, and works as a librarian. His work has been published in/is forthcoming from Electric Literature, The Southwest Review, SmokeLong Quarterly, The Deadlands, The Florida Review, Nightmare, Catapult, and elsewhere. His debut novel, Living in Cemeteries, was released from JournalStone in April of 2024. He is the Fiction Editor for The Cape Cod Poetry Review. To learn more, follow him on twitter @CoreyFarrenkopf or on the web at CoreyFarrenkopf.com