Sitting in his usual spot --- a lounge chair beside an isolated window, feet propped up on its matching foot stool, Shadow was reading Stephen King’s Misery quietly, composedly. Behind a thin curtain, the afternoon light lit up his small area; dust particles drifted about his space as he flipped onto the three hundredth and eighteenth page. It’d been a relatively calm day. The library had been quiet, peaceful, unshaken by the rest of the house and the reserved spirit had been thankful.
Only other presence he’d sensed was that of The Familiar --- the ghost of a woman, he presumed, seemingly enigmatic and detached like himself, whom Shadow had grown accustomed to. For years he’d felt her presence in the library... outside it as well, but only on three or four occasions over the past decades. The woman was known, even though the reticent spirits had never actually exchanged pleasantries… and in some ways, it was nice. An unspoken bond the two shared. Shadow kept his distance, the woman kept hers, and it was appreciated.
Finishing the last page of the novel for the hundredth time, the tall spirit finally looked up. Green hues drifting across the room, he thought of yet another book to read. As he was particularly in a Stephen King type of mood this fine afternoon, a small smirk became him --- before he ghosted from his seat and into the Horror section. Eyes skimming across the row of books, he spotted Stephen King’s Pet Sematary and slipped it out, before teleporting back into his seat to begin.
About a quarter of the way through the first page, Shadow’s attention was suddenly taken away when he heard a soft voice emit from an aisle a few away from the one he’d just been. Shadowed gaze shifting toward the noise, a pause as he realized from just whom it’d come from. The Familiar. A straightening of his back from its relaxed position, the quiet ghost’s expression changed --- a small furrow in his brows. Never in all the years had he been called by the spirit of the woman... this wasn’t at all expected, and it showed in his look. A brief shift down to examine the floorboards, he thought over her request.
Placing the book down on the end table beside him, decidedly, Shadow ghosted from his place in his seat once more and appeared a few feet away from her, rather, visible. At the end of the aisle she inhabited, he stood as a statue, watching over her. Silent, starting conversations were never his strong point. It was a funny thing, even if he’d attempted it, he didn’t exactly know what to say to the spirit of the woman he’d become so familiar with. Perhaps a simple, ‘Hello’, would’ve sufficed... but it never left his lips. For the first time seeing her, he simply allowed the moment to fall in silence --- hopefully his willingness to make an appearance at all had said enough.
