Ms. Calder noticed the missing book at 2:17 p.m.
This was not remarkable in itself. Books went missing all the time. Students forgot to check them out, lost them under beds, dropped them in bathtubs, fed them to younger siblings. Once, memorably, a boy had tried to convince her that a paperback had simply dissolved.
What made this different was that the book had never existed.
Ms. Calder adjusted her glasses and stared at the empty space on the shelf.
The label was still there.
**LOCAL HISTORY — MARROW / VOL. II**
She frowned.
She had reorganized this shelf three weeks ago. Alphabetized, cross-referenced, dusted. She knew what lived here the way other people knew their neighbors.
Volume I. Volume III. Volume IV.
No Volume II.
That wasn't possible.
She checked the catalog.
No record.
Not checked out. Not archived. Not lost. Not destroyed.
Just… absent.
Ms. Calder did not panic. She had been a librarian for twenty-two years. Panic was for people who worked retail during the holidays.
Instead, she did what she always did when something didn't make sense.
She looked for patterns.
---
Earlier that day, a group of students had come in together.
That alone was unusual.
Teenagers did not travel in groups to the library unless:
1. Forced
2. Fleeing weather
3. Up to something
This group had not been forced. It was sunny. That left option three.
She remembered them clearly.
Alex Mercer—responsible posture, eyes always moving like he was counting exits.
Maya Lin—quiet, sketchbook, watched everything like it might say something important if she waited long enough.
Sam Ortiz—too much energy for a library, apologized to furniture when he bumped into it.
Lena Brooks—smiling, but alert, like she was listening on multiple frequencies.
Jordan Pike—already annoyed at the concept of fiction.
And Riley. New kid. Guarded. Eyes that kept drifting toward the windows.
They hadn't done anything wrong. That was what bothered her.
They'd just… lingered.
Maya had asked about old maps of Marrow.
Alex wanted building permits. "Just for a project."
Sam had asked—very politely—if the library had ever experienced "structural inconsistencies."
Ms. Calder had laughed at that. "Only emotionally," she'd replied.
He had not laughed back.
---
She left the circulation desk and walked to the computer in the back, the one that accessed archived town records most people forgot existed.
The screen hummed to life.
She typed:
**SERVICE ROAD**
Nothing.
She tried:
**CIVIC BUILDING**
Results flickered—then vanished.
Ms. Calder's fingers paused above the keyboard.
"Well," she said to the empty library, "that's rude."
The lights flickered.
Just once.
She waited.
Nothing else happened.
She exhaled slowly. Old wiring. The building was nearly as old as she was.
Still.
She stood and went to the window.
From here, she could see part of the service road cutting behind the school grounds, half-hidden by trees and weeds. It had always been empty. A forgotten strip of pavement going nowhere.
Something rose behind the trees.
Her breath caught.
A building.
Not tall enough to be dramatic. Not strange enough to scream for attention.
Just… there.
Ms. Calder blinked.
The building blinked back.
No, she corrected herself firmly. Buildings do not blink.
She leaned closer to the glass.
It looked old. Institutional. Familiar in the way dreams were familiar—pieces borrowed from real things, assembled wrong.
"How long have you been there?" she murmured.
The question felt inappropriate the moment she asked it.
She glanced around the library, half-expecting someone to be watching her.
No one was.
The building did not move.
But she had the distinct, uncomfortable sense that it had heard her.
---
That evening, Ms. Calder stayed late.
This, too, was unusual. She liked her routines. Liked going home at a reasonable hour. Liked knowing what came next.
Tonight, she wandered the stacks instead.
She ran her fingers along spines, grounding herself in the solid, reliable weight of information.
History did not change. Stories stayed where you put them.
Except—
She stopped.
Another gap.
This one smaller. Subtler.
A slim paperback missing from the fiction section.
The label read:
**UNFINISHED**
No author listed.
She frowned. She didn't remember cataloging a book like that.
She pulled the shelf list.
There it was.
Title only. No publication date. No ISBN.
Status: **REMOVED**
"By whom?" she asked softly.
The answer, when it came, was not a voice.
It was a feeling.
Like remembering something sad and being relieved you'd forgotten it.
Ms. Calder straightened.
"No," she said, aloud this time. "That's not how this works."
The lights dimmed slightly.
Not threatening. Not dramatic.
Just… attentive.
She laughed under her breath, because if she didn't, she might start assigning meaning where none existed.
"I'm very tired," she told the stacks. "And I am not entertaining metaphors tonight."
The library remained silent.
But when she turned to leave, she noticed something new taped to the bulletin board near the exit.
A flyer.
Plain white paper. Black text.
**REMEMBER WHAT WAS HERE.**
No signature.
No date.
Ms. Calder stared at it for a long time.
Then, carefully, she took it down and folded it into her pocket.
---
The next morning, Alex Mercer found her waiting outside the library doors.
This alone set off his internal alarms.
Ms. Calder smiled at him. "Good morning."
"Morning," Alex replied cautiously.
She studied him—not accusing, not suspicious.
Just curious.
"You were looking for buildings yesterday," she said.
Alex stiffened. "For a project."
"So you said."
She leaned closer, lowering her voice. "If you were looking for something that didn't exist… would you know how to tell the difference?"
Alex swallowed.
Behind him, the others arrived, slowing when they saw his expression.
Sam waved. "Hey, Ms. Calder. Great library yesterday. Very… shelf-y."
She almost smiled.
Almost.
"I don't think adults notice things as quickly as you do," she said instead. "But that doesn't mean we don't notice at all."
Maya's fingers tightened around her sketchbook.
Jordan spoke carefully. "Are you saying you've noticed something?"
Ms. Calder met his gaze.
"I'm saying," she replied, "that Marrow has always been very good at forgetting."
She stepped back, unlocking the doors.
"And sometimes," she added lightly, "forgotten things don't like being ignored."
She ushered them inside like nothing was wrong.
Like she hadn't seen a building where there shouldn't be one.
Like she wasn't already wondering how long it had been watching her back.
---