Gethsemane

Dust motes danced in the light that fell from a window under the ceiling. The library wasn't busy. It was a forgotten little place, unlike the city library. The city library wasn't really a library any more. It was more of a computer hub, a place for bored schoolkids to go and play computer games or stare at screens instead.

This wasn't like that. This was an old-school library: Filled with volumes of all kinds. It had a musty smell of paper. Librarians wafted through like monks. The atmosphere was hushed. Nobody ate at their desks while pretending to study. Monk-like. Cave-like. Filled with people who in other lives were scholars completing illumined manuscripts for the benefit of society.

I had a piece of paper in my hand with an idea for a story written on it. I had no idea where to begin. Where to look. What to read.

I stood in the foyer considering my options. I sighed, must have done audibly.

'Can I help you?' a clear voice rang out from the desk. 

Startled, I looked up. The voice didn't seem to fit. It had come from a librarian with a shock of silver-fox hair, shot through with a fine-grained blue that was clearly by design. It cascaded over the librarian's red-lipsticked face, which threw a smile in my direction. As she pushed a pile of books aside, I noticed a forearm of tattooes slide up under her sleeve and disappear. She looked like she should've been working in a music retailer that exclusively sold extreme metal, rather than a library. I almost laughed at the similarity between the two. Different type of nerds, same skills.

'Actually, you can.' I wandered over, handed her my piece of paper. 'This is for a new writing project. I'm really fucking lost. Plus,' I leaned over and lowered my voice. 'I've got a disturbing tendency to lose myself in irrelevancy.'

The librarian laughed, hooting hilarity. 'Mate we're all like that.' She grabbed the paper, chewed her bottom lip. 'You know, there's some obscure work by a Jewish author named Gershom that is probably the best place to begin. You know, with this kind of supernatural kind of thing?' She put the paper down and walked over to the computer in the corner of the desk. Tapped it. Clicked a button. Pointed. 'This.' She clicked the mouse and a printer under the desk spat out a slip of paper. She tore it off and handed it to me, waving over her right shoulder towards the far reaches of the library. 'You'll find this section way over there under the window.'

I looked down at the reference. It was Beyond the Ashes: Cases of reincarnation from the Holocaust. The author, Rabbi Yonassan Gershom. 'Huh.' I stated.

'I know,' emphasised the librarian. 'But if you're planning to go into the realm of strange information appearing in strange places, this is a fabulous place to start.' She shrugged. 'If nothing else, you'll be inspired in new ways.'

I grinned. 'Thanks!' 

I made my way over to the far corner of the library, hunting for the volume. When I found it, I discovered that the light I'd spotted when I walked in was shining on the unimpressive black spine of this exact book. I opened it at a random page. I read:

'Don't be disappointed if you are not successful on the first try.'

I snorted with a giggle. How apt. 

Suddenly someone tapped me on the shoulder. I leapt out of my skin. Nobody was here when I walked over. I whirled around.

A group of Hasidic Jews, maybe so many as thirteen of them, was standing behind me. They appeared to be talking together, all at once, but in whispers so quiet that I could barely hear them. The person who had tapped me on the shoulder smiled. His eyes burned into me. I shifted in discomfort. After an eternity, he pulled a notepad out of his top pocket, and gestured for the pen I held. I passed it to him. He stared at me for a moment longer, then rapidly sketched something that filled the entire page. Then he tore the page off the notepad, and handed it back to me with the pen. 

He nodded, and walked past. I watched him go, the group of Jews trailing along behind him. They moved past the shelving, turned right into another hallway, and disappeared.

I looked down at the fist in which I'd taken the paper. The paper had disappeared. On my palm was etched a drawing of such intimate detail that I wouldn't be able to see it without a magnifying glass. I rubbed it with my forefinger. It didn't budge.

Spooked, I made my way back to the desk.

The library was empty.

The librarian looked up as I walked past, but she was no longer lovely and rockin'; she was dour and plump, bursting out of the fit-and-flare dress that the sparkling young lady had worn so stylishly. The tattooes on her forearm were a webbing of wrinkled skin and veins.

Confused, I rushed over to the self-check-out, borrowed the book and left, stuffing the book into my satchel and skipping in my haste.

Rushing out the door, I ran headlong into a diminutive Pixie.

'About time!' she shouted, grabbing my hand. 'This way!' Her size belied her strength. She pulled me along a street I'd never seen, much less walked along to get to the library that morning. She yanked me around corners, hauled me up and down stairs, and almost dragged me along a dusty hidden track in an olive grove, until we came face-to-face with an ancient tree. I was exhausted and flopped down on the ground, my satchel trailing along behind me. She let go of my hand and moved around behind me, shoving me in the back. 

'Hang on,' I protested, trying to twist against her immense strength. I scratched at the loose soil in a feeble escape attempt. Fallen olives squelched under my knees.

'No time! Just go.' She shoved me, hard.

Raising my hand to protect myself from headbutting the bark, the tree disappeared and I fell.