Cristine Reyes | [patched]

Shelves. Not the metal ones from upstairs, but heavy, dark-wood shelves that seemed to have grown from the floor itself. And on those shelves: books. Hundreds of them. Thousands. Bound in leather and cloth and what looked like woven roots. Their spines bore no titles. Instead, they had symbols: eyes, keys, doors, and in one case, a small, sleeping fox.

“What happens now?” she asked.

Cristine folded her arms. “You’re the janitor’s ghost?” cristine reyes

—A Friend

The stairs groaned under her sensible shoes. The air grew colder, then damp, then strange—thick with the smell of paper and earth and something else. Something sweet, like overripe fruit. Shelves