The Oakhaven Public Library was a fortress of silence.
I pushed through the heavy oak doors at 4:48 PM, the brass handles cold enough to burn my palms. The air inside was stagnant, a suspended breath of dust, binding glue, and the vanilla-sweet scent of decaying paper. It was a smell that used to comfort me, promising worlds where the monsters could be closed inside a book cover.
Now, it smelled like a tomb.
The lobby was empty. The fluorescent lights overhead buzzed with a dying flicker, casting long, jittery shadows across the linoleum. Outside, the fog pressed against the tall, arched windows, turning the world beyond the glass into a shapeless gray void.
“Mrs. Gable?” I called out.
My voice didn’t echo. The books absorbed it, drinking the sound like dry earth drinks rain.
There was no answer. Just the rhythmic thump-slide of a book cart being pushed somewhere deep in the stacks.
I walked toward the circulation desk. My hand was in my bag, fingers wrapped around the spine of the 1999 Oakhaven Middle School yearbook. It felt heavy, radioactive.
I reached the desk. It was unattended. A stamp pad sat open, the ink drying. A half-finished cup of tea sent a thin ribbon of steam into the air. Earl Grey.
Thump-slide.
It was coming from the Reference section. The dead end.
I moved past the desk, my boots squeaking faintly on the floor. I tried to walk softly, but the silence here was possessive; it noticed every intrusion.
I rounded the corner of the biography aisle.
Mrs. Gable was there. She was shelving books with a slow, methodical precision. Pull. Align. Push. She didn’t look up as I approached. She looked exactly as she had the day I arrived—a fixture of the town, as permanent and harmless as the water fountain.
“We close in ten minutes, Elara,” she said, her voice dry as old parchment. She didn’t turn around. “Unless you’re here to return a book? You have a history of keeping things past their due date.”
“I’m here to return a memory,” I said.
I pulled the yearbook from my bag and slammed it down on the top of the metal book cart. It hit with a sound like a gunshot.
Mrs. Gable paused. Her hand hovered over a copy of Great Expectations.
“You lied to me,” I said, my voice trembling with the adrenaline of the drive. “You told me the Sandman was a myth. You told me Elias Thorne was a ghost story.”
She slowly turned to face me. Her spectacles magnified her eyes, making them look huge and watery. “I told you what the town believes, dear. That’s a librarian’s job. To curate the narrative.”
“You curated a lie,” I snapped. I flipped the yearbook open to page 42. The Seventh Grade.
I pointed to the girl in the second row. The girl with the stringy hair and the sad, hollow eyes.
“Lily Gable,” I said. “Your daughter.”
Mrs. Gable looked down at the photo. Her expression didn’t change. It was a mask of polite disinterest.
“She moved away,” Mrs. Gable said. “In 1999. To her aunt in Spokane.”
“No,” I said. “She didn’t move. She went into the woods.”
I reached into my pocket and pulled out the other photo—the one from my mother’s attic. The one showing Elias and the girl in the yellow raincoat holding hands in the mud.
I slapped it down on top of the yearbook.
“That’s Lily,” I said. “And that’s Elias. They weren’t just myths, Mrs. Gable. They were playmates. And you knew.”
Mrs. Gable stared at the photo. A small, wistful smile touched her lips. It was the most terrifying thing I had seen since the tea party in the woods.
“She looks so happy there,” she whispered. “She hated school, you know. The children were cruel. They called her ‘Stinky.’ They pulled her hair. But in the woods… in the woods, she was a queen.”
“Where is she?” I demanded. “Is she helping him? Is she the one who drugged the deputy?”
Mrs. Gable finally looked up at me. The glassiness in her eyes hardened into something sharp and cold.
“Lily is safe,” she said. “She’s safe from people like you. People who take and take and never give back.”
“People like me?”
“The Hill Toppers,” she spat the words. “The Vance girl. The Ice Queen. You think you were the only lonely child in Oakhaven? You think you were the only one who needed a friend?”
She took a step toward me. I took a step back, hitting a shelf.
“Elias didn’t choose you because you were special, Elara. He chose you because I pointed him to you.”
The world tilted.
“What?”
“He was a stray,” she said, her voice gaining strength, vibrating with a dark pride. “A feral thing living in the mud. He came scratching at the library back door one winter, looking for warmth. I let him in. I gave him food. I gave him books.”
“You fed him,” I whispered.
“I raised him,” she corrected. “His own father threw him away. But I saw his potential. He was a blank slate. Pure. He didn’t understand the cruel rules of this town. He only understood loyalty.”
She reached out and touched the spine of a book on the cart.
“When Lily… went away… I was lonely. And Elias needed a purpose. He needed a Princess to save. So I told him about the girl in the Glass House. The girl who was trapped by a Dragon.”
My stomach churned. “You sent him to me.”
“I gave him a story,” she said simply. “Boys love stories. I told him if he saved you, he would be a Knight. I gave him the script, Elara. The Sleeping Beauty. The Tea Party. I read them to him in the basement while he ate soup out of a can.”
“You groomed him,” I said, horror washing over me. “You turned a traumatized boy into a weapon.”
“I gave him a family!” she shouted, her composure cracking. “I was his Mother! Not that drug addict whore by the river. Me! I taught him how to be quiet. I taught him how to watch. And when you left… when you abandoned him…”
Her face twisted into a snarl.
“I was the one who picked up the pieces. I was the one who held him while he cried for you. For twenty years, Elara. I kept him hidden. I kept him safe in the tunnels. I fed him. I clothed him.”
“The raincoat,” I realized. “The yellow raincoat. It wasn’t mine. It was Lily’s.”
“He likes to wear it,” she said softly. “It makes him feel close to her.”
“Where is Lily?” I asked again. “If she’s safe, where is she?”
Mrs. Gable looked at me with pity.
“She’s in the earth, dear. Where nothing can hurt her.”
I stopped breathing.
“She died?”
“She fell,” Mrs. Gable said, her voice devoid of emotion. “In the ravine. 1999. It was an accident. But I couldn’t let them take her. I couldn’t let them put her in a cold box and forget her. So Elias… he helped me. He made her a bed in the roots. He keeps her company.”
I backed away, my hands shaking.
“He’s keeping her body,” I whispered. “In the cellar.”
“He’s a good boy,” she said. “He takes care of things.”
“He’s killing women, Mrs. Gable! He’s murdering them and gluing teacups to their hands because he thinks he’s playing a game you taught him!”
“He’s punishing them!” she screamed. “Becca Trent? She tormented my Lily! She made her life a misery! And Sarah Miller? Her uncle is the Sheriff who refused to look for my daughter when I said she was missing! They all deserve it! This town deserves to bleed!”
She was mad. Not the theatrical madness of Elias, but a quiet, festering rot that had been growing in the silence of the library for decades.
“I’m going to the police,” I said, turning to run. “I’m going to tell them everything.”
“No,” she said. “You’re not.”
I heard a click.
It was a small sound. Mechanical. Distinct.
I froze. Slowly, I turned back around.
Mrs. Gable had reached into the pocket of her cardigan. But instead of a handkerchief or a stamp, she had pulled out a gun.
It was an old revolver, the metal pitted with rust, but the cylinder was full. The lead bullets looked dull and heavy.
She held it with a steady hand. She wasn’t trembling.
“The library is closed, Elara,” she said.
“Mrs. Gable, put it down.”
“You came back,” she said, shaking her head. “I sent you that letter to scare you away. To make you run so Elias would forget you. But you came back. You had to be the hero.”
“You sent the letter?”
“I wanted to protect him from you,” she said. “You break things. You broke Julian. You broke your mother. And now you want to break my boy.”
She gestured with the gun barrel toward the back of the library. Toward the door marked ARCHIVES.
“Downstairs,” she commanded.
“No.”
She cocked the hammer. The sound echoed in the silent room.
“I will shoot you right here,” she said. “And I will tell the Sheriff you broke in and threatened me. Who will they believe? The nice old librarian? Or the fugitive suspect?”
I looked at her eyes. There was no hesitation there. Only the cold, hard logic of a mother protecting her monstrous child.
I raised my hands.
“Okay,” I said. “Okay.”
I walked toward the archive door.
“He’s waiting for you,” she said as I passed her. “He’s very excited. He says the Wedding is tonight.”
“He’s not coming here,” I said. “He’s at the Sawmill.”
Mrs. Gable smiled.
“The Sawmill is for the public,” she said. “For the show. But the real party… the real party is always at home.”
I opened the door to the basement. The smell of vinegar and mold rose up to meet me.
I walked down the stairs, the darkness swallowing me. Behind me, I heard the heavy thud of the door closing, and the distinct click of the lock turning.
I was back in the dark.
But this time, I knew who held the keys.