Valek is sitting on his knees on the ground. He turns his head towards me. I can see blood coming out of his eyes. He looks fierce. The doctor comes in through the door on the right side.
"You have only one minute to live, Linda or should I say you are going to die after a minute." He gives a wicked smile and shifts his eyes towards Valek. Valek pounces on me to attack.
"Wake up Linda!" As soon as I heard this voice, I opened my eyes and sat up straight that very instant. Valek was standing beside my bench.
"You screamed in your sleep like a dying witch, saw a nightmare did we?"
"Yeah, no it was nothing."
I breathed heavily. It was almost afternoon. The sun was on top of us.
"I slept this long?"
"Yeah, I didn't mean to wake you up early."
"How long have you been up?"
"Three, four hours, maybe."
"What have you been doing since then?" I ask Valek while yawning.
"Thinking."
"Thinking what?"
"Thinking of how to help you without my powers."
"Why won't you use your powers?"
"Because I don't have any left now apart from opening my wings and closing them."
"What do you mean? Does it have something to do with that meeting with your father?"
"Yeah, he took away my powers."
"But why would he do this with you?"
"We have our personal differences."
"Your wings have healed then, I guess."
"Yep, they are as good as new."
"There is no mark on your face or arms now. How did they fade away this fast?"
"I am no normal spirit Linda. I am the son of death. Magic runs in our blood. But I couldn't heal while I was exhausted."
"Did you have a fight with your father?"
"Sort of something like that, but you don't have to think much about that because I have got a plan."
"What plan?"
I got off the bench and stood up. I moved my legs up and down to stretch them a bit.
"I can't help you, but I know something that can."
"I'm sorry..something or someone?"
"Something."
"And what that something is exactly.?"
"It is a book."
"A book is going to get me my life back, not a bad idea at all," I said sarcastically.
"Be serious."
"I am serious Valek. It is just that I can't get over the fact that son of death is helping me and now a book is added to those unbelievable facts too."
"Linda."
"Ok, sorry continue, please Mr. President."
"This book is an ancient magic book. It was written even before humans were created."
"So basically, you mean to say that dinosaurs wrote this book. Well, that is so great it must contain so much useful information like if tyrannosaurus rex actually liked to eat meat or not."
"Linda..seriously…zip it," Valek said angrily.
"Ok, fine tell me what this book is?"
"This book was written by my dad."
"A book written by Death?" I asked excitedly.
"Yes, if you want to put it that way."
"That sounds creepy....I love it. Where is that life giving book, then?"
"It is in a safe place."
"Let me guess is it buried away somewhere or..or…maybe in the depths of the ocean, you could fly right in and bring it above the surface like a kingfisher."
"No, it is in the city library."
"What? An ancient magic book written by Death himself is in the city library. What is the fun in that? It is so lame."
"I am not here to take you on a fun adventure Linda, I am here to give you a new life."
"Yeah, whatever."
"Do you want a body or not?"
"Yes, yes, I want it."
"Good then. Let's go."
"Where?"
"Do you act this dumb or are you actually this dumb?"
"Maybe both I never thought about it much."
"We are going to the city library to get that book, stupid."
"Do they allow spirits there?"
"No."
"Yeah, I was kidding and you ruined the joke."
"No, I am serious he doesn't allow me there."
"What do you mean by he?"
"The book keeper in the library."
"How does…he…who."
"Oh, I didn't mention that book is guarded by a spirit, did I?"
"What spirit now?"
"He is the keeper of all magic books and he is working under dad so it is going to be tough for us to get the book."
"So how do you propose we get it?"
"Not we…you," he said while pointing his finger towards me.
"Me?" It seemed as if he just said me.
"Yes, you. You are going to get the book. Don't worry tons of spirits go every day there. People don't call the section 8 haunted for no reason," he said with a smile on his face.
"Don't they travel to afterlife after they die? I thought I was the one in a million case."
"Yes, they do, but we don't have a library in heaven, so they have to come down here."
"What?"
"Linda..uh..There are some strange spirits who want to wander around before they go, some haunt people others read books blah blah. But you just focus on what you have to do ok?"
"But how will I do this? How will I know the book or the spell?"
"Linda just go in Section 8. You won't have to read the whole book anyway, just read the locked chapters, the spell will be in one of them."
"Are you sure?"
"Damn sure. Now can we proceed?"
"Yes, maybe."
"Don't be nervous Linda, I told you with feet like yours, you could beat anyone."
"I don't want to have to beat anyone. Can we please just go?"
"Sure."
We started walking through the garden, towards the main street.
"As long as I remember, the library must be about two streets away," he said while walking on the sidewalks.
I followed him through the market. There was a heavy crowd of people there.
"I don't understand why are we walking and not teleporting to there?"
"Seriously Linda, can you act as a 65- year old, if you ever reached that age. I don't like this as much as you. If I had my powers I would have teleported myself there and then only you would have had to walk on your own with the trumpet you have fitted in your mouth and I would have been at peace."
"Fine, whatever."
I followed him as he led us to the library. I tried to remain silent while walking which was impossible by the way. After walking for a half hour straight we finally reached the library. It was a huge building. The place didn't seem like haunted at all. I mean like loaded with spirits like me.
"I can't go inside."
"What do you mean by that now?"
"I told you the keeper is working under my dad. I am not allowed to go inside. Especially not after what happened yesterday."
"You want me to go to a haunted library all by myself? Are you insane or what?"
"It is not haunted Linda, there are spirits just like you in there. Stop acting like a human and go. You will fit right in."
"How the hell am I supposed to go in? It looks like it's locked."
"Linda, the doors are never closed for a soul," he said while staring at me.
"Ok, fine, I am going."
"Yeah, listen, listen if anyone asks your name just say that your name is Anne John. Don't tell your real name no matter what."
"Yeah, alright, I guess. But how will I know which book is it?"
"You will find only one magic book in there."
"And what about the locked chapters? How will I unlock those?"
"Just say 'apertum' it will open up ok?"
"Ok, yeah. I'm good. Apertil? Right?"
"No Linda it's 'apertum'."
"Right. Apertum apertum."
I kept rehearsing the word while I started walking towards the main door of the library. It was closed. I looked behind my back and saw Valek standing about 20 feet away from there. He signaled to me to go inside. I put my hand over the door's handle, but my hand went right through it.
I again looked towards Valek and nodded my head while pointing towards the handle to tell him I couldn't open it. He waved his hands signaling to me to go right through it.
I had never walked through a door before, so I felt quite uncertain about it. I took a deep breath and put my hand on the door. My hand went through it over the other side. I closed my eyes with my hands out in front of me and walked right through the door.
I opened my eyes as I got in. There were countless sections and large racks in the library. Books and books could be seen everywhere the eyes went. I started searching for section 8. Maybe the library was closed because not even one person came in sight, not even the library attendant.
I walked towards the left side, passing through sections 5 then 6 and then 7. After that I saw section 8 at the very end of the library. It gave me actual creeps even though I was a ghost now myself.
As soon as I walked towards section 8 and turned right to go in it, I saw hundreds of spirits. Some were sitting on chairs reading books. Some were standing and looking for books in the racks. It was like a library of ghosts.
"Name?" A spirit came towards me asking this, with a large book and a pen in his hands. The word KEEPER was written on his arm like a tattoo.
"Uh, what?"I asked nervously.
"I said name?" His look gave me goosebumps.
"Oh it.. it's Anne John."
He moved his pen downwards on his book, while looking through some list.
"Ok, you can go in."
"Thank you," I said.
He seemed very sarcastic. I walked past him towards the racks searching for the book. I didn't know where to look so I just kept dragging books right and left out of haste.
"Hey! May I help you in finding the book you want?"
A young girl's spirit was standing beside me with a bunch of books in her hand.
"Um, yeah, I was looking into something ancient like very much ancient, preferably from the dinosaur period."
She started laughing at my last line.
"You are funny, but yeah, I have something for you. Come with me."
"Sure."
I followed the girl's spirit to a smaller shelf in the corner. There was only one book on it.
"This book was written by Death himself. You can read this. I've got to go now, I need to read these books before I go to the spirit world...so see you."
"Yeah, ok bye and thanks."
"No problem."
After saying this the girl went away.
The book was about 5 inches wide and 12 inches long. I opened it up. It seemed like any ordinary book with yellow pages and a hard cover. There were a lot of spells written inside it.
I opened the table of contents page to go through all the topics. I thought the book must have been written in blood with a dragon's scale, but it was simple like any other human-handwritten books. I saw the chapter of human souls transfer. I turned over the large rusty pages to open page 857 where the spell was written, only to find it completely empty.
"Why is it empty?" I thought to myself while turning the page again and again to see if I missed something then I remembered Valek talking about locked chapters.
"He told me to say something to open them," I mumbled to myself.
"Apipli no no, aperti no what was it….yes apertum," and as soon as I said this, words started appearing on the page. I didn't read it. I just tore the page, folded it and grabbed it tightly in my hand.
I closed the book and looked around if anyone had seen me doing that. All the spirits were busy reading their books. I started walking towards the entrance door to get out of this library when the keeper leaped in front of me.
"Leaving?"
"Uh, yes. I am thinking of going to a comic store. There are more books of my type there."
"Well then, have a safe ride to the spirit world after." He smiled for the first time since I had arrived there.
"Thanks," I replied with a smile as well and almost ran my way out of the library.
Valek was standing in the same spot I had left him. His eyes sparkled when he saw me from a distance and waved his hand towards me. I ran towards him out of nervousness and joy too.
"Here," I handed over the piece of paper to Valek.
He opened it up.
"What the hell?"
"What happened? Don't tell me this isn't the spell you were looking for."
"No this spell is right, but this is in another language."
"What do you mean another language?"
"It is an ancient language and only 2 people in the world know this."
"One is your father and the other one?"
"My uncle."