Whispers.

It was my turn to shelve the books again.

I didn’t mind the task itself, strolling the aisles of the dusty library, but I disliked doing it while the library was open. Spending time in the stacks was a quiet refuge for so many, and I didn’t want to come galumphing in with my squeaky cart in the middle of it.

So I waited until after closing time, after my coworkers had packed their bags and said their goodbyes, and then I set to work, filling the cart with books returned, sorting them by their dewey labeling, and taking a last big swig of my cold coffee before tossing the little paper cup in the bin.

The aisles were dark and quiet. So quiet, I felt, if you listened closely, you could hear the whispers of each story, begging to be opened and heard. I skimmed my fingers along their cracked, mylared spines, lingering over my favorites. I hummed a little as I worked, completely in the zone of numbers and filing.

As I turned the corner of the next row, the wheel of the library cart caught on a bump in the carpet. The cart slipped out of my fingers and bumped into the corner bookshelf, shaking loose several of the books and spilling them onto the floor. I sighed, and squatted down to start picking them up and start reshelving.

I worked quickly, until there was only one book left on the top shelf of my cart. It was thin and black, with a small black strap wrapped around it. There was something else different about it, that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. As I picked it up I noticed its soft, almost fabric-like exterior. There was no preservation plastic on this book, which meant it wasn’t one of ours.

“How strange” I thought, but I wasn’t too alarmed. It was probably just a student’s notebook they had placed on the shelf by mistake. College kids were always the first ones in the library when it opened and the last out when it closed.

I tossed the black book onto my cart, intending to keep it up front at the information desk in case someone came looking.

“Wait, Open it! ” a voice behind me whispered.

Startled, I turned around and stared at the empty hall.

I rubbed my eyes, I must have been staring at pages and numbers for too long.

My heart didn’t believe my brain, however, and it paced a little quicker as I worked.

I finished shelving my stack a little quicker than normal, until the only book left on my cart was the little black book.

I grabbed the handles of the cart and began to push, when my fingers grazed the edges of the book. I winced, and snatched my hand back towards my body. It was scorching hot.

“What the hell?” I muttered as I rubbed my fingertips.

“Please, don’t ignore us” a voice whispered, harshly. The same voice I had heard a few minutes before in the stack. I whipped my head around, officially spooked.

“Who’s there?” I yelled, my voice shaky.

“Open the book” the voice stated, confidently. “Don’t worry, we’ve cooled it off.” another voice chimed in, almost musically.

“Where are you? Can’t you just come out and talk to me?” I asked, wiping the sweat from my palms on the thighs of my jeans.

“We can’t come out, we’re trapped” The voice replied, “Please, open the book, you’ll begin to understand” she pleaded patiently.

I took a deep breath, what was the worst that could happen? It was just a book.

I gripped the cover of the small, black book. It was not nearly as searingly hot as before, but I still felt a warm glow under my fingertips.

“Please, you can do it” a third voice urged, “open it.”

I pulled back the cover and heard the familiar crack of the spine and the book floated open.

I stepped back, suddenly overpowered by the smell of an english garden. Wisps of air floated upward, spiraling as they rose; lavender, rosemary, sage. The wisps floated with a purpose, flying together, then apart, then together again, until they formed the floating images of three women.

I sank to my knees in disbelief. “Who are you?”

The center figure glowed as she spoke, “We are the forgotten characters” she began. “We are the women who were brought to life by the authors who created us.”

“I don’t understand” I croaked.

The woman on the left floated forward, her eyes dreamy and clear against her blurry figure, “We were written once, created and molded, loved and developed by our authors”

“They breathed life into us” the third woman chimed in, her voice ringing like church bells. “And then they left us to die.”

“Why?” I asked “what happened?”

The woman in the center, floated forward, and lowered herself down, her knees grazing the carpet in front of mine. Her hands reached out to mine, I looked down and saw them touching.

“You can’t feel me, can you?” She asked, her eyes warm and bereaved.

I shook my head no.

“That’s because my author gave up on me, and she gave up on herself.” her brow furrowed as she spoke. “She created me, she loved me, even. She gave me a beautiful personality, and history and mission, but then she abandoned me.”

“Why?” I asked, meeting her eyes.

“Your human world, it’s cruel.” the others nodded behind her. It told my author that she wasn’t good enough, that I and our story weren’t good enough, and that she needed to give up on us and do something else, something more practical.”

“My author heard the same thing” the smallest woman muttered, “and she started to believe it, until one day, she just stopped writing me.”

“My author stopped writing me too.” the third figure whispered, whipping a tear from her eye. “She said she was no good, and I was a waste of time, and she stopped.”

I felt a heavy pull in my chest, and took a deep breath, “what happened to you when they stopped writing?”

“We became trapped, here, like this” The smallest woman shrugged and motioned to the space around her.“We’ll be trapped forever, like this, the shells of characters, until someone tells our stories.”

“Please,” The figure in front of my breathed “help us, please, tell our stories so we can be set free.”

“We need to be read, please.” the last woman pleaded.

“What makes you think I can tell your stories?” I asked “I would really love to help you, but I’m not a writer, I'm just a librarian.”

“You don’t need to be a writer to tell our stories, you just need to listen”

So, I listened.

The spirit women gave me the black notebook and we began to fill it with their stories. They talked, urgently at first, and all over each other, and I wrote. They cried as they described their families. The smallest one rolled on the floor laughing as she told me all of the predicaments her author had gotten her mixed up in. The first woman danced as she told us her hopes, and her dreams. I wept as I listened to their stories of love and heartbreak, and I shook with laughter as they shared their mishaps and adventures.

Each woman told her story, and I watched in amazement as her figure began to glow, and begin slowly, to be filled with color. Each line, each sentence, darked her color more, until each woman was as bright and beautiful as a Picasso.

Hours went by. My fingers cramped, my back stiffened and my leg felt entirely asleep at one point, but I didn’t mind. I needed to tell these stories.

Light trickled into the basement of the library as the final woman finished her tale, and I put down my pen. We stood in a circle, eye to eye. The smallest one took my hand, her palm soft and strong in mine. “Thank you, for writing us, and for bringing us back to life.”

“Can we ask you one last favor?” I nodded, as if in a trance “Give our stories a home, here in your library, and make sure someone reads us.”

“I will, I promise”

“You’ve been so kind, we’d like to give you a token of our gratitude.” The others nodded, “look in the book.”

I picked the small, black book up off the floor, a little more worn than it was twelve hours ago. An envelope felt out, and I caught it before it hit the ground. I opened it, and in what felt like the hundredth shock of the evening, found it to be full of money. It had to be at least twenty thousand dollars.

“What? Where did you get this? I can’t take this!” I exclaimed. “This is life changing money.”

“You’ve changed our lives”, the smallest woman uttered, “it’s the least we can do.”

They hugged me tightly, and all at once. “We’ll miss you?”

“Where are you going?” I asked, perplexed.

“To get on with our stories, and you need to get on with yours.”