Over the next week, Olivia had great fun getting to know her “ghost.” The most common “paranormal” happenings were books finding their way to weird spots. And it seemed the ghost had a sense of humor.

      She couldn’t find the password to the office computer: A copy of Midnight Sun was sitting on the bathroom counter. Her mom called to pester her about meeting people her age on island, and she found a book called How to Make Friends as an Adult on her dinette table. She struggled to get the lock off the generator shed to check the machinery: A book called Oil was sitting on the top step to the basement. She ignored a series of messages from her ex, because she wasn’t sure how to reply: Where’s Waldo fell off a shelf in the kid’s section.

      But there were also moments she would hear footsteps upstairs, only to find it empty. There were times she felt like there was someone else in the room when she was alone. She’d walk into an empty room and find a globe spinning. A couple of times she almost thought she heard a voice or voices murmuring somewhere through the building which she could never trace.

      Olivia could not be afraid of this place, haunted or not. The library felt occupied, but it felt light, warm, and loved; it felt the way her room had back in college the year she roomed with her best friend. It was impressive how much light bled into this building. There were no trees blocking the sun, so light seemed to bounce off the sea and sand to fill the air. The only spot in the building that ever felt creepy or unwelcoming was the rare books room, and she knew that was because of the lack of natural light, the extra insulation deadening the sound, and the fact that the doors were always locked. Though the looming painting of the melancholy young man did not help. She had briefly taken it down, to glance at the back and see if it had any identifying information on it, but there was nothing except a date on the bottom left-hand corner: 1877. The only other information she had was what the mayor had provided that first day. He was a son of the family. She decided he was probably her ghost.