Bound in Bitterness

“I knew you wouldn’t be able to do it,” a sharp voice snapped as Rick fumbled with the tools in his hand.

He sighed. Picking a lock was delicate work; he didn’t need Oz’s gruff tones goading him as he tried to break into a building late at night.

“If you shut up and let me concentrate, maybe I’d have better luck.”

Oz folded his arms and stepped back, continuing to be the lookout.

In this moment, Rick couldn’t remember why he had agreed to break into the library after hours. It wasn’t as though either of them needed a book. Oz had heard tell of a spirit that wandered the stacks when nobody was around and wanted to go and see it for himself. And that had meant Rick, as his loyal yet slightly naive best friend, was pulled along for the ride.

Rick’s tongue jutted out of his mouth as he inserted the lock pick once again. He had been picking locks ever since he was a kid and his foster parents would lock him out of the house for bad behaviour. They were primitive punishers of the highest order; they believed that if children were brutalised, they would heed lessons in the manner in which they were intended. Instead, the converse had happened: Rick had become rebellious, wanted to push them and see how far they would go.

Now they were dead, it didn’t matter so much to him. He had been pretty much raised by Oz’s father anyway, and they were the ones currently providing him the food and shelter he so richly craved.

Straining, he heard the satisfying click as the door unlocked. He lightly pushed the door, wincing as it opened with an obnoxious creaking sound.

“Good job, nerd,” Oz chuckled. “Now the real test begins. Remember, it has to be an hour.”

Rick turned swiftly. “You’re not coming in?”

Oz raised his eyebrows. “I don’t need to prove anything to you.”

“And I do?”

Oz sighed. “Look, the sooner you go in, the sooner you can come out.”

Rick studied Oz’s shifty gaze and his eyes narrowed.

Before Rick could even say anything, Oz barrelled forwards, eyes wild, shoving Rick across the threshold.

Rick landed hard on the cold floor, dust coating his clothes. As he struggled to his feet, Oz was already yanking the door shut, trapping him in the desolate darkness of the library.

Rick surged fowards, banging on the door with shaking fists. “Oz! Let me out!”

Nothing.

Rick sighed, pulling out his phone and clicking on the torch. A feeble beam of light shone from the back of the phone, illuminating a few steps in front of him.

Rick withdrew into himself, shivering in the biting cold. He pointed the phone all around him, assessing his surroundings.

From what Rick knew, nobody had been in the library for years since it had unfortunately closed and nobody had planned to renovate the location into another business. It just stood there, on the bones of a very troubled legacy, literally collecting dust all throughout the exterior, a fact to which Rick could personally attest.

Ahead of him, a shadow flitted down the hallway, blocking the light from his phone momentarily. Rick backed away until his back hit the door firmly.

A bang on the door jolted him to his senses. He steeled his courage and slowly ambled down the hallway, shining his torch all around.

He walked until he emerged into the next room, a cavernous type of room that was what one expected from a library. Vast rows of shelves lined the walls around the room and a few tables were scattered in the centre for work purposes. A neglected checkout desk sat in the far corner, cobwebs sweeping across every surface like a coat.

One long candle burned in the middle of the room, the flame never wavering.

Rick felt a shiver lick up his back, the hand that grasped his phone trembling wildly. He suddenly felt light-headed, as though something was being taken from him.

He forced bile back down his throat as he stepped into the room, turning back to check on the door.

It promptly swung shut as he stepped forward, finality in the raucous clang of the metal.

Lights flickered overhead which startled Rick. He hadn’t expected any trace of electricity in a building like this, but he couldn’t be mad at having more light in there.

The lights snapped off as Rick turned his attention to the table with the candle atop it, a scream trapped in his throat at what he saw.

A young woman sat patiently at the table, an ethereal glow around her.

Her head turned languidly towards him, a smile spreading across her cracked lips.

“I’ve been waiting.”

Rick’s eyebrows pulled down, his mouth open in a startled gape.

“Not for you specifically but for…someone, I suppose. Do you have any idea how lonely it is to be dead?”

Rick shook his head in disbelief, blinking desperately as though he would suddenly see something else, anything else.

The woman released a hoarse laugh, one that sounded pained. “Don’t worry. I can’t hurt you. I can’t even touch you. Please come and sit with me.”

If you were to ask Rick in that moment, he couldn’t tell you what it was that made him actually walk over to her. Maybe it was the grief that laced her voice. Maybe it was the pain in her eyes. His feet made up their mind and he was growing closer and closer until he was slipping into the chair opposite her.

“Now I see why they sent you. You’re good.”

Rick’s lips quivered, as though arguing against giving a response. “They?”

The woman waved a hand. “It won’t matter in the end. I’m just glad someone is here.”

“Who are you?”

“Forgive my lack of manners. It’s been a long time since I’ve spoken to someone. I am Marietta, but you may call me Mary if you’d like.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Rick stammered.

Up close, Rick noticed the cracks in her skin more prominently, as well as the peculiar light that pulsed around her. It made Rick feel comforted by her, despite the eerie nature of the situation.

Marietta smiled thinly. “I was the librarian here before you were even born. I loved this place with everything inside me. Every book has its place, every page housed in a protective cover. I had a place here too.”

“What happened to you?” Rick leaned in, feeling the warmth of the candlelight wash over his face. His eyes flickered down to it as he noticed that it had not melted even a little. He returned his eyes to Marietta.

“There was a young couple in here one evening studying. They started to argue. When it became physical, I intervened. As you can see, it didn’t end well for me.”

Rick bit his lip. “I’m sorry.”

“None of that. I’ve been dead for thirty years, that’s more than enough time to come to terms with it.”

Rick stared at her with a burning curiosity, questions flitting through his mind.

“Ask your questions.”

“How are you here?”

Marietta sighed. “That’s a little harder to explain. Let me ask you something first: how are you here?”

Rick frowned. “Well, my friend Oz told me that—.”

“No, that’s why you’re here in the library. How are you alive?”

Rick deliberated on that for a long moment before settling on, “I just am.”

Marietta shrugged. “It’s no different for me. I know that I’m no longer alive, but that doesn’t mean that I’m not here, Richard.”

Rick shook his head to clear it. “This is…wait, you know me?”

“That is another question to which you will be dissatisfied with my answer.”

Rick nodded shortly and leaned on his hands, elbows ground into the table. “You said they sent me?”

Marietta smiled grimly. “You feel it, don’t you? The lightness in your bones, the feeling of being pulled?”

Rick’s head was indeed light, the feeling that had overtaken him upon entering had only grown stronger.

“I’m afraid this is where the night takes a turn for the unfortunate, Richard.”

Marietta stood up, the glow around her dimming slightly as she moved.

Rick noticed that the candle had grown taller than it previously was, the flame still illuminating the room.

“You mustn’t blame Oliver for this. He was only acting in his best interest…and mine.”

“Oz? I don’t understand.” Rick groaned, a throbbing pain resounding in his head.

Marietta sighed. “Once you set foot in this room, your fate was sealed. My life force was tied to this room, allowing me to remain. Oliver never stopped trying to bring me back.”

Rick didn’t know whether the maelstrom in his mind was due to the sickening feeling physically or the information he was receiving.

“How is he involved?”

“He’s my son,” Marietta replied swiftly. “He had never really processed my death, which meant that I could connect with him spiritually. But none of this matters to you. You were necessary because of your good, strong heart. I needed that in order to come back.”

“Come back? I…” Rick’s eyes widened as his body grew heavier. “I”m a sacrifice.”

“Yes,” Marietta whispered grimly. “I do not enjoy that it has to be this way, but I will not regret the chance to return to my family.”

Rick felt the tears roll down his cheeks before he could stop them.

“Does this mean I’ll be trapped here waiting for someone too?”

“I couldn’t say,” Marietta whispered. “You haven’t had a tie to this place in your life, so there is a chance you may not remain.”

“Where will I go?”

“Anywhere you want, I would imagine. I know this was done against your will, but I cannot thank you enough for this.”

The light around Marietta was entirely gone now, her body taking on a wholly corporeal essence. Rick looked down at his arms, where a thin silver light shimmered around him. He clenched his fists, feeling the ache in his muscles burn through the rest of his body.

“You have gifted me the chance to love again. I wish you the most peaceful of rests.”

“Wait, Mary, I don’t…” Rick’s head snapped up as the main doors slammed, Marietta nowhere to be seen.

The candle extinguished itself suddenly.

Rick looked around him, at the expanse of dusty books and tomes that coated the walls.

The darkness seemed to close in around him, beaten back by the wisps of silvery light that followed him.

Rick couldn’t move from the chair, paralysed by the crippling feeling he felt in his stomach, which seemed to replicate all over his body, signalling his new reality, the twisted exchange he had so unwillingly been a part of. Marietta had her life, her family, her freedom.

Rick was alone.