Featured by @fright for AAPIHM.
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A librarian gets sucked into a web of horror as she investigates a century-old disappearance in the new town she has moved into.
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Yvaine Agan had always led a quiet life and had expected to do the same when sh...
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It was a queer-looking bottle.
It had a long protruding neck and a thick, roundish base and a cork was fitted tightly at its mouth. A thick layer of dust covered its body giving the semblance that it had not been touched for years. Inside the bottle was a piece of wrinkled, yellow paper. A message in a bottle it was, in a sea of books. And as Yvaine touched it a chilling voice spoke into her ears.
"Mina died that night..."
Chills ran down Yvaine's spine. Was she imagining it or was the bottle saying that this Mina, whoever she is died? But was it even possible for a bottle, an inanimate object to speak?
"Oh my goodness," Amberly muttered under her breath, breaking the trance of Yvaine. "Now, where did that come from?" Her eyes were bulging out of their sockets like two large dinner plates.
"It is an eighteenth-century glass bottle if I am not very wrong," Yvaine said. She gulped down nervously choosing not to say anything about the voice she clearly heard. "I have seen similar bottles in museums. Don't understand what it is doing here."
"An antique!" Amberly clapped her hands in joy, ignoring the stares the last few readers were giving her. "What are we to do with it, Miss Agan?" she asked.
"Well, a bottle is not much use in a library." Yvaine traced her fingers upon the glassy surface, layers of brown dust clinging to her fingertips. It was smooth and cold. Cold like a block of ice but thankfully she heard no more voices. "However, the paper inside might be a good addition to our archives. I will have a look at it."
"Will you take a look at it now?"
"No, Miss Wood," Yvaine smiled at Amberly. "It is almost closing time. I am going to take this bottle home with me and see what is in it."
"Oh," a dejected look marred Amberly's babyish features. "You would tell me all about it tomorrow, right?"
"Sure I would," Yvaine replied. She looked once more at the bottle in her hand, before returning to her seat, the whispers already out of her mind.
Her eyes trailed over the entirety of the bottle and the paper stuffed inside it. A message in a bottle, like the ones she had read about in the stories during her childhood. A burning curiosity chewed away at her stomach. What was written on the paper inside the bottle?
***
The evening had settled firmly down upon the town of Andrasville when Yvaine returned to the château. Her footsteps clicked against the whitewashed concrete walkway as she made her way to the main door. A handbag hung from her left shoulder and a key was held in her right palm.
The château had a sombre quality to it. In the darkness, its slate shaded walls seemed to have become a part of the gloom and the night. Tall trees surrounded it from almost every side, their leaves rustling in the warm summer breeze. At the far end on the southern side was a little pond which appeared to be a silken cerulean blanket at that hour.
