The Ghost of Winn Peterson

15. Vicar

Filled now with the influence of alcohol and that nasty, bitter feeling one gets when they overhear something about themselves, Vicar fell all too easily into a state of remembrance of his ruined past. Thinking once more on the peculiar group of students, he replayed the last day they'd all seen him, the last day he'd let them have their way of the library before he'd burnt it to cinders.

"No, dammit! She gave us nothing to work with!"

"...Pardon, but if you could just quiet down a little - "

"You knew there would be nothing of worth, it's only a story about love and family and the weather, above all things."

"Yes, well, we had to try, didn't we? No less disappointing, that."

"Really, I must beg you to lower your voices, there are other guests in the library."

"With all due respect, where are they?"

Vicar had been through quite the rough week. Suffering from the sort of cold that inflicts its unfortunate owner with a raucous headache and a never-ending bought of sniffles, concentrating on his translation of Les fleurs du mal into English for the French class's final assessment proved nearly impossible. His frustration with the Latin students could not have been more understandable. Refusing to quiet themselves, they'd been at whatever their next argument was for nigh on three hours consecutive, scaring off whoever else had been unlucky enough to seek out the quiet and isolation of the library for a spell. Vicar was not an easily angered man, but he was running on an extremely short temper when he was so rudely answered by the student with the glasses.

"Well now, you would know if you'd adhered to even the first rule of a library - Silence!"

The exertion of having yelled for one of the only times in his life brought on a wave of dizziness and coughing. Once he'd recovered, he collapsed into a chair nearest the table and scowled at the appropriately concerned students. "It really isn't that hard to argue in whispers," he added.

"Sorry," came the lame reply for the bespectacled lad, and his friends had the decency to share his shame.

"It's just rather difficult, isn't it," asked the smallish woman, whose features looked so alien to this part of the world. Her eyes were bright and peaked into tight corners, freckles danced mischievously across her nose and the tips of her lips. "No closer to any answers have we come, and where else to find this nonsense than in literature?"

The eldest student leaned forward and added his piece, looking decidedly out of place with his gray-peppered hair. "Science forbids it, religion condemns it, and morals quake at it. Who in this world is free to think upon the horrors of such a crime, if not an author?"

Vicar held his hand to his head and groaned.

"I'm buried in books all day, in languages ever-changing and ever-difficult. If you could," he begged, eyes squeezed shut, "please, speak as though you weren't writing a paper." Everybody had the sense to blush.

"Have you come across anything that shares the veil of life? That exposes the ways to contact the dead and peer into their - well, see what they have to say?" Airs of importance were of the highest priority for the students. It was proving difficult to limit their forced speech, so well-practised in each other's company, for comprehension of one not used to their ways.

Appreciating that it had finally dawned on the lot to ask someone who lived and breathed books for something they acknowledged could only be found in them, Vicar raised his hand and sniffed weakly.

"Nothing short of blatant fantasy," he replied, knowing very well that he didn't have their answer. Their disappointment was audible.

For some time, they all bickered about there being something out in the world, some way of reaching beyond this veil of life, until they all grew tired of talking in the same circles as they had an hour past. Vicar remained where he was, sure that as long as he sat and sneezed at the table, they would be reminded of their need to keep quiet. Eventually, he was left alone with the elvish woman, who had seemed the most reluctant to leave the library. Once she realised that Vicar wasn't moving from his seat (little did she know that he would remain there until he fell asleep, as the pressure of standing would be too much for his headache), she nestled into her own chair, just barely fitting her feet to the ground.