The library is actually a little unnerving after dark - Austin can’t remember ever being there past closing, when the lights are off and the whole building is silent. A cold breeze rolls through and ruffles his hair, and he startles a little, but it’s not an unfamiliar sensation. Probably not from a library ghost. Or rather, not a malicious library ghost.
“Hey, Aust,” Richard says, materializing out of thin air. “How come you’re still at work?”
Austin sighs. “I promised Channery I would stay overnight. Apparently the library has a ghost problem.”
“It’s not…me, is it?” Richard’s eyebrows furrow in earnest distress. “I come sometimes to read over people’s shoulders. Pages are really hard to turn on my own, so -”
“No, it’s not you. People feel…watched, back in the stacks I think. I’ve felt it before, too, but there’s never anything there when I look around.”
“It’s not your friend? The one in the cemetery across the street?”
“I don’t think so.” Austin pauses. He’s fairly sure Mac isn’t the one giving library workers the creeps, and she doesn’t leave the cemetery as far as he knows. But there was that incident with her channeling the lake, before Landis got arrested. So maybe…
“Maybe I should talk to her, though,” he says. “See if she knows anything.”
“If you don’t have any other leads, it’s worth a shot,” Richard agrees.
Austin glances at the clock on the wall. Nine thirty. Walker isn’t here yet - he didn’t say when he would show up, just that he would eventually. Heading across the street for a bit might not hurt, especially since he hasn’t visited Mac in months. Not since getting out of the hospital, he realizes, a little mortified.
He shrugs his coat on and leaves through the front door of the library, locking it behind him with the key he got from Channery. There’s probably no harm in leaving it unlocked, or even propping the door open with a rock, but on the off chance that someone decides tonight is a great night to rob the library, Austin doesn’t want to be held responsible for it. He pockets the key as he hikes up the small hill that the cemetery sits on, jumping over the low wall that surrounds the plot and making his way towards Mac’s grave.
Mac isn’t there when he and Richard reach the grave, but she appears within a matter of seconds, grinning.
“Austin!”
“Hey, Mac,” Austin says, looking down at his shoes a little sheepishly. “Sorry I haven’t been over in a while.”
She laughs. “Don’t worry about it. I heard you got stabbed.”
“How’d you hear that?”
“I eavesdrop on Channery and the other library workers sometimes,” she says, with a little shrug. “They always have all the good gossip on what’s happening in town. So, how’d you get stabbed? And who’s your friend?”
“I was investigating the lake on the edge of town, and got possessed, and tried to kill some people,” Austin says, as nonchalantly as he possibly can. He hasn’t been telling most people that version of the story, for obvious reasons, but Mac - being a ghost and all - will probably understand. “And, uh, this is -”
“Richard Jones. Austin’s father,” Richard interrupts, sticking out a hand for Mac to shake. She does. Austin watches in fascination - he’s never seen two ghosts physically interact like this before, but their hands don’t pass through each other like a ghost’s and a human’s would do. Which makes sense. Probably.
“I’ve heard a lot about you from Austin,” Richard tells Mac warmly.
“Same here,” she says. “Although I kinda thought you were alive.”
Time to change the subject. Austin clears his throat awkwardly as both ghosts turn their heads to look at him. “Mac, do you know anything about the library being haunted? By someone who isn’t you, I mean.”
Mac screws up her face in thought, the long scars running from eyebrow to chin on the left side bunching up against each other as she frowns. “I don’t think so. Well - I haven’t really seen any other ghosts there. But before I died, I know there was a rumor about the place being haunted. Like, weird cold spots, and people feeling like they were being followed. I just figured it was a publicity thing.”
“Maybe it’s not a ghost,” Richard says.
“What else would it be?” Austin asks. “Cold spots and people feeling watched or followed - that sounds like a ghost to me. I can’t think of anything else that does that.”
“I’m just saying, if no one has actually seen it, then you can’t prove it’s definitely a ghost.” Richard takes off his glasses and cleans them on his shirt. “Just be prepared for anything, Austin. It could be another possession situation, like with the lake.”
“This is nothing like the lake,” Austin says, and means it. The library doesn’t give him anywhere near the feeling that the lake did - that horrible feeling of not being in control of his own surroundings, of his own body. Plus, the library - or whatever’s inside it - never directly communicated with anyone. Or demanded human sacrifices. Which is probably good. Don’t need Bitty dismembering bodies and leaving them in the basement.
“It could be a ghost that doesn’t know they’re a ghost yet,” Mac suggests. “The first couple of weeks I was dead, I was pretty confused about what was going on. Maybe nobody ever told them they’re dead.”
She could be right, Austin thinks. But if they’ve been around for a while, or at least since before Mac died, they have to know they’re dead. Right?
“I guess it’s possible,” he says aloud.
“I can help you check it out, if you want,” Mac offers. “I mean - as long as I’m not intruding or anything. I was just thinking, maybe it might help to have more people on the lookout for anything strange. I don’t know how much help I’ll be if it doesn’t end up being a ghost causing the trouble, but…”
She trails off. Austin looks at her and sees genuine excitement in her face, a glimmer of hope, the expression of a budding detective who hasn’t gotten to solve anything in months. He can’t deny Mac the opportunity. It would crush her, and he still feels bad about not coming to visit her in such a long time.
“Of course!” Richard says, before Austin can even open his mouth. “The more the merrier. Right, Aust?”
“Yeah,” he agrees quickly. “Of course you can come, Mac. You’re probably better at this stuff than I am, anyway.”
In fact, Richard and Mac are both more qualified to deal with this than he is, and Austin can see by the grins on their faces that they both almost certainly know it. But maybe Richard is just excited to be interacting with a ghost that isn’t a member of Paper Museum, or to be out and about in general. The apartment has been getting pretty cramped these days, with five ghosts and three humans, and Austin can’t quite tell how Richard feels about Landis’s dead bandmates encroaching on his territory.
The rumble of a car pulling into the library cuts Austin off from that particular musing, and he looks over his shoulder in time to see someone parking the most garish orange vehicle he’s ever seen in his life - it’s a convertible, too, with the top up. That has to be Walker.
“I gotta get back,” Austin mutters, turning and taking a running jump over the cemetery wall. He almost falls stumbling down the hill, but makes it back to the door before Walker does, fumbling the key out of his pocket.
“Who’s that?” he can hear Mac hissing at Richard, but Austin forces himself to tune out the ghost chatter as Walker walks up.
“Hey,” Walker says, looking exactly as disheveled and bored as he did earlier in the day, “what did I miss?”
Austin shrugs apathetically. “Oh, nothing much. Ready to hunt some ghosts?”
mac saying she thought richard was alive and then austin immediately like “WELL BETTER CHANGE THE SUBJECT” made me snort out loud