October 2025 - Long List

Thwap! The sound lanced through the silent shop. I was already on edge, stocking used paperbacks by the waning light coming through the front windows. The shoddy electrical had failed again causing me to lock up a few minutes early. Was it possible I wasn’t in here alone?

I peeked around the corner at a glacial pace and found…no one. On the floor a thick volume had fallen from the nature shelf. I hefted the tome and noted the photo of a blue-footed booby standing on the back of a large, craggy tortoise, On the Backs of Tortoises: Darwin, the Galapagos, and the Fate of an Evolutionary Eden. “Catchy,” I mumbled while reshelving the book.

Out of the corner of my eye, a wispy light danced. Spinning to my right, I caught sight of what looked like a gossamer sheet of fabric drifting around the end of the shelf.

I hustled down there, breaking a cold sweat, and jumped into the center aisle. There floating about a foot off the ground was what I can only describe as a translucent ballerina. She was browsing the books.

She tipped another off the shelf. I inched forward and picked up her horror selection, Fire Starter. “Uhm, fine choice ma’am,” I said, unsure what to do. She pirouetted away as if in a rush; I kept pace.

Her search for titles became more fevered. Another book hit the floor. Getting Away with Murder a YA selection. Then, bang, thud, two more off a highlights table Curious George and The Man in The Yellow Hat and The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo.

The ghost did a deep plié and then a grand jeté that rocketed her toward the ceiling. Mid-air she stopped and spread her arms, and with toes pointed artfully at the floor 10 feet below, she glissade’d over the storage loft’s railing and out of sight.

I pounded up the staircase, wheezing the last three steps. There on the top stair was an old local newspaper. The headline: Historic Theater Burns, Three Fatalities, Foul Play Suspected. I could tell by the buildings on either side in the cover photo that the theater had been where the bookstore stood now.

The firm knock on the front door jolted me from my wonder. As I approached the glassed-in front, I could see a man outside in a yellow work shirt and matching ball cap, carrying a tool bag.

I opened the door tentatively, “Yes?” I asked. While taking in the logo of a tortoise riding a lightning bolt on his work attire.

“I’m Grady with Evolution Electric, here about the outage.”

When he extended his hand for a shake, I noticed the wyvern tattoo crawling up his inner arm.

Thinking about the ghost’s choices, I panicked, slamming the door on the bag. It smashed to the ground, filling the air with the odor of gasoline, as he ran.

I left that Sunday’s newspaper in the loft, Bookstore Employee Cracks Decade Old Arson Case.