Dust bound Ledger

I. Hall of Pages

No one ever stole from Loretta Hall's bookshop, but there's a first time for everything, and this was it.

Nestled beneath an overgrown maple at the edge of Grady Hollow Square, Hall of Pages was stitched together from creaks, dust, and the scent of cedar-ink ghosts. Locals said every book in the store knew its place — that Loretta had a knack for finding the story each reader needed, sometimes before they realized they needed it. It was as if she had a hidden sixth sense, which only she knew was there to utilize.

She didn't advertise. She didn't do inventory. She remembered.

So when the red ledger vanished, Loretta noticed immediately. She felt somehow that somebody had taken it.

It had sat in the local history alcove for decades, tucked between Appalachian Shadows and a warped copy of Folk Rhymes from the River Teeth. The ledger was bound in worn crimson leather, frayed at the corners like a mouth trying to smile. There is no bar code. No price tag. There is no title on the spine.

Its proper name — Dispatches from Hollow Creek — was etched inside the cover in her grandfather's hand. It was a special book with a dark history all its own. Mysteries always made Loretta nervous.

He had vanished forty years ago, the same night Hollow Creek turned black.

Loretta kept the book as both an heirloom and a warning. It was never cataloged. It was shelved quietly and trusted to stay put.

Until now, it had somehow vanished, and the why was very unsettling.

II. Ledger Gone

She ran her fingers along the empty shelf three times. Her fingers made contact with some light dust.

The camera was ancient and temperamental, recording in a sepia blur and ghostly lag. Still, it showed enough: 10:02 pm., a thin man in a soot-dark coat lingered beside the shelf. He didn't reach for anything. He didn't even appear to move. He was standing there, perfectly still.

But in the final frame, the ledger was gone.

Loretta printed the image and pinned it above the register with a thumbtack that refused to sit flat. No caption. Just the figure and the sense that something had been taken improperly — not just the book, but memory itself.

She didn't notify the police. It wasn't that kind of theft.

Instead, she spent the evening pacing the shop, listening. The floorboards creaked in patterns she didn't recognize. Somewhere in the store, she swore she heard scratching — gentle, rhythmic, like someone writing in reverse. There was some unforeseen force at work, but it wouldn't stay that way for very long.

III. Whispers

That night, the shop murmured.

Books shuffled. A trail of wet footprints appeared between Local Lore and Unusual Cartography. A strange dampness settled on the register keys, and the back room began to smell faintly of river stones.

Behind the counter, carved into the old pine in shaky strokes:

He still writes.

The message hadn't been there earlier.

Loretta locked up early.

She sat in her apartment above the store and brewed tea she didn't drink. She pulled down the box of clippings, maps, and theories she hadn't touched since college — the materials no one wanted her to speak about.

Loretta's family had a fixated obsession tied to Hollow Creek. Not only had Hollow Creek bring nothing but discomfort, there was also a silent type of embarrassment that went throughout town whenever she passed by.

She also knew about the stories her grandfather told her about before he disappeared without a trace. There were about timelines that looped weirdly. History didn't flow correctly, they unspooled in their own order.

These stories told of a creek that would always remember who got too close.

IV. Return

She went to Hollow Creek at dawn.

The water wasn't flowing. It sat heavy and still, dark as shuttered ink. Loretta stood at the edge with boots sinking into damp moss, staring down at a surface that didn't reflect her.

The trees that lined the area of the bank sort of leaned in a different way than she remembered. The angles were sharply symmetrical and were like a curated memory.

And right there, located beyond the many cattails, lay the missing ledger.

It was half-submerged, but somehow, its pages remained intact.

Loretta got down on her knees, her heart thudding in her ears, as she worked to pull the book free. She could feel the leather was very slick with lots of silt. It almost felt like the ledger was pulsing faintly, and to her, it was like holding on to an object that had a heartbeat. When she looked inside, and beneath the original entries, she did find something new there. It was a fresh line that was in her own grandfather's handwriting.

Chapter 8: The reader was found. Now, a story returns.

The ink shimmered faintly as if still drying. The following page was blank but humming.

Loretta turned toward town — and saw him.

The man from the camera. Thin. Dust-streaked. Ledger tucked under one arm again, despite her holding the book herself.

He didn't run.

He disappeared behind the trees, leaving no trail but a lingering note in the air, like the page of a song unfinished.

V. Ledger Rewritten

Loretta reopened the shop with trembling fingers.

She placed the ledger on the shelf it belonged to — not out of fear, but reverence. Customers returned with strange requests:

"Do you have a book about things that rewrite themselves?" "Something about rivers that remember?" "Anything that feels... pulled from me?"

She gave them books. Some she didn't remember shelving. A few books bled ink at the edges. One whispered when closed.

And the red ledger?

It stayed.

Pages began rearranging themselves.

She documented the entries: names she hadn't heard before, dates that hadn't happened yet, and memories she didn't recall having. Customers returned days later, describing chapters they swore they'd read as dreams — nightmares that felt older than sleep.

One woman cried beside the register and whispered, "This remembers me."

Loretta understood.

VI. Closing

She left the final page blank.

There was only a pen placed beside it.

It wasn't priced at all.

Nor did it provide any detailed explanations.

People who needed it found it — she no longer questioned how. Some stayed longer than they meant to. Some came back changed.

And at night, the shop breathed differently.

Shelves adjusted. The register blinked. The old cedar steps groaned not with age but anticipation.

And from Hollow Creek, new chapters flowed.

Loretta sometimes dreams of her grandfather's voice.

It always ended the same way.

You are part of the ledger now.