The Half-Ghosts: Aether's Half

Ch. 3: The All

Hemmett cracked open the door to The Haunted and shimmied through, and I came after. Strange way to enter, but he swore up and down our parents couldn't detect us if we went through doors. I had my doubts.

"Come on, Reid."

I pulled on his hand, and my haunting ghost friend slid through the open space as well. Well, almost. Well, okay. He went through the wall a little. Reid isn't as substantial as Hemmett and I.

"Crux it! Now they'll know we're here," said Hemmett.

"Sorry."

Reid's face fell. His glasses slid down his nose as he studied the place on the floor where his feet didn't quite touch.

"Why don't you stick a mattress in it?" I snarled at Hemmett.

How dare he make Reid feel bad?! We'd only come so he could look at the books, and already Hemmett had started acting like Mr. Royalty again. Sometimes Hemmett expected Reid to bow down, and that really got on my nerves.

If I even have nerves.

"They won't really detect us just because we touched a wall," I assured Reid. I pulled on his hand again, drawing him deeper into the maze of the bookstore. All the mortals had gone home, and most of the light had gone from the sky, leaving only a ghost or two circling the tin ceiling. We waved to one called Hannigan, a real regular.

"He won't call them, will he?" Reid's hair stood up and his eyes widened. He looked spooked.

"Hannigan? Never. He's been haunting around here since we were babies. He knows us," I said.

I glanced up at Hannigan to make sure. Sometimes he does get bored and causes a commotion, but tonight he only shrieked a few times and took another languid turn around the ceiling.

"Say, this is unparalleled," said Reid, catching sight of the stacks by the light of his glow. I knew he'd love it. He whisked to the first shelf and started scanning, making little hmmm and mmmm noises when he found books he liked. He's just so adorable!

"Didn't he see the bookstore last time? At the séance?"

Hemmett, as usual, had no clue. He'd curled up and actually fallen asleep after we entrapped the Bellum, so he'd missed some things.

"How could he see the bookstore while we were having a séance, Hemmett? Do you generally browse while you summon?"

"Sure, I do both all the time."

Sarcasm. Hemmett doesn't do either. His reading interests encompass the comics section of the deadzines, and his summoning abilities top out at manifesting a spectral sandwich. Although lately, he's been having visions--ever since I told him to open his mind and remove his mental block--so he may be a little bit of a seer.

"Look at this!" Reid poked the spine of a tall, crumbling book. He stood under a handmade sign that read "Ancients."

"Oh, be careful in that section," I said. My parents never let us play in there when we were littler. Something about how the books had too much potential for devastation. I never knew what that meant.

"Those books have too much potential to be devastating," said Hemmett, holding up his hand in warning.

"That's not what they said. It was 'too much potential to be devastated.'" Ha! Hemmett hates it when I correct him.