Hi again! Thank you for the reviews!
I've decided to stop writing Echo's dialogue in mixed italics/bold. It was getting annoying. I'm sorry if any of you really liked it.
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Chapter 37: Library
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Danny was not expecting a library. He wasn't a very studious person, nor a great reader, his status as a polyglot, and as a massive space nerd aside... Okay, yeah, that didn't sound realistic even to him. Still. Libraries were more Jazz's thing. He had thought the number of books in the bedrooms had been impressive. It was just... Where did they all come from? They couldn't have all fallen through natural portals. There were too many.
The way the tall shelves grew into trees did explain why the wisps considered the place a good resting spot. Wisps liked forests and wooded areas. He hoped that there were human-suitable rest areas as well. Other than the armchairs, which did look very nice. Still, they weren't really the kind of thing that you'd want to sleep on. At least, not for more than a cat nap.
The wisps were still leading the way, though, so they must have some other area in mind.
There was a noise, like a muffled protest. Danny turned. That didn't sound like it came from any of his classmates, or one of the adults.
"Did you guys hear that?"
Before anyone could reply, a white-haired figure stumbled out from behind a bookshelf, tripped over its own feet, and fell, face-planting on the mossy floor. Everyone stared as the person laid face-down on the floor for several seconds. Suddenly, the figure leaped up, covered his face, shouted, "No, no, no, I messed up, let me try again," and then retreated back behind the bookshelf.
Everyone stared.
"That was a different one," observed Sarah.
"Was it?" asked Mia, squinting. She had taken her remaining contact out last night.
"Yeah, this one had different clothes," said Sarah.
"He could have changed. It isn't that hard," interjected Tiffanie.
"Yeah, but his hair was different," said Hannah.
"Stop pushing me!" came a voice from behind the bookshelves. "I'll go out when I'm ready!"
"Isn't this your thing, though?" asked another voice. "Like, why you exist? The whole less intimidating, more social thi-"
"More social doesn't mean much when I'm modeled after someone totally inept. I said stop pushing me!"
"You know, we can hear you," said Danny. He wasn't terribly amused by being called totally socially inept by someone who a) fallen on his face immediately after appearing, b) was currently hiding behind a bookshelf, and c) was technically a representation of his subconscious.
The voices fell silent, then one of them snickered. There was a sound like someone being slapped, and the snickering stopped.
The person hesitantly emerged from behind the bookshelf. His hair was straight and white, cut in a square bob. A few strands of it were braided. He wore large round glasses whose lenses glowed blue. He was wearing clothes reminiscent of those worn in the Lands of Ice, a Realm near the Far Frozen, a pale blue loose tunic and wide pants decorated with spreading-ice patterns. He wore no shoes, which made the trip earlier even more impressive.
"H-Hi," he said, bobbing his head nervously. "Um." He blushed bright, fluorescent green. "I-I'm, um. I'm Fractal. It's nice to meet you?"
"Who were you talking to?" asked Maddie suspiciously.
"Um. Echo. But he's not there anymore," he added quickly. "I'm, um, I'm here to show you around. We thought that you might like it if you had someone to show you around who you could speak to? And to, you know, act as a guide? I mean, we would have had Echo do it, but that would have been a disaster, because he doesn't like you very much. You probably knew that though." He giggled nervously. "So, uh. What do you say?"
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Astraea had never been entirely sure how Adrestia was related to the family. The fact remained that she was. She possessed the family nose and hair, and was involved heavily in the family business, such as it was, although she had avoided the family curse of blindness. She also had four arms, but that was an exceedingly common trait among those ancient ghosts that the Ancient Greeks had called gods. Hardly worth mentioning.
Astraea knocked on the door to Adrestia's lair. The door was yanked open, Adrestia leaning on the lintel. She had her hair pulled back into a ponytail, and a pair of headphones hanging around her neck. Her clothes were tight fitting, and Astraea suspected that they were black. Her club hung heavy off her hip, and she had a can of lime soda in her left hand.
Adrestia grinned. "Well, if it isn't my favorite cousin? What brings you to my doorstep today?" She took a step back, waving Astraea in.
"It's work, I'm afraid," said Astraea, a little sheepish.
"When isn't it?" asked Adrestia. She collapsed on the couch, while Astraea perched on an armchair. "So, who is it that you want me to drag in? Robber? Debtor? Someone who attacked the wrong person? Or a child? Or, heaven forbid, a murderer?"
"I know that things have been slow on the serious charges front lately, but, well," she offered up the papers she was holding, "if this case pans out, that might change."
"Oooh. So you want me to track down the perpetrators?"
"Not quite yet. I only have one witness right now. I'd like you to track down the people on page five, then, if and only if, their accounts lend credence to the initial report, the humans on pages six and seven, but only if they're on this side of the border. Remember, they're humans, and most of them are just witnesses, so be gentle. We don't want them dead and gone before they can testify."
"But just dead is fine, huh?"
"No, Adrestia. Alive. We want them alive."
"Uh-huh. Right. It's okay if I can bring my crew?"
"Which crew?" asked Astraea suspiciously.
"The Gracious Ones. This is their thing. Family disputes, broken promises, you know."
"If you can promise that they won't rip the suspects to shreds, then sure."
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Fractal lead them. A few shelves in, they had gotten to a place where there were channels for water cut in the floor. They followed the channels up to their source, a waterfall that spilled down from a raised area. The books here were arranged to form vibrant rainbows.
Jack and Maddie were less than pleased about this whole arrangement. But they were trying. For Danny and Jazz.
"Fractal?" asked Jazz. "How do you you have these organized?"
"Y-you mean the books?" said Fractal, as he lead them over a footbridge and to a set of stairs leading to the raised area. "They aren't really organized at all, really. Really. Maybe you can help me out with them sometime? I haven't had a lot of time to work with this, and some of these don't even fall into a well-defined Dewey Decimal System class. I mean, what category would you put a treatise on how certain kinds poetry can physically affect both ghosts and the Ghost Zone? Psychology? Health? Science? Religion, perhaps? Should you just make a new class? Then there's so many of them, and I just haven't had the time to read them all. I only know what a fraction of them are about!"
"I don't think so," said Maddie coolly, before Jazz could reply. "We won't be coming back."
Fractal looked back, tilting his head quizzically. "Is-isn't that for Jazz to decide?" He turned back around and hurried on. "We just have the stairs left!"
"Danny," said Maddie, "do you think that this is safe? Following him, I mean."
"As safe as following the wisps."
"And the nervous act?"
"It isn't an act," said Danny crossly. "He's being nice to us, be nice to him."
They climbed the steps to the upper level. There was a series of pools there, feeding into the waterfall, surrounded by leafy, tropical plants. There were a number of small, round tables scattered around, and, farther on, several small stone cabins. A razor-thin crescent moon hung low on the horizon. All in all, it looked a bit like a resort. Except, like all the other rooms here, the cabins lacked actual doors.
Why was this next to a library?
"Hobbies," said Jazz.
"What?" said Danny.
"You asked that out loud," said Jazz. "He probably associates his hobbies with relaxation."
"Oh, yeah. That makes sense," said Danny.
"Feel free to take a swim," called Fractal, before waving them off and disappearing into one of the houses.
A beat of silence. "He doesn't actually expect us to go swimming, does he?" asked Paulina. "We don't have swimsuits."
"Also, there's a waterfall," said Kwan. "That's, like, bad luck."
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"So," said Echo, leaning against the cabin's inside wall. "They haven't brought it up yet."
"No," wailed Fractal, collapsing onto a table, "they haven't. Why is talking to other people so hard?"
"Don't ask me."
"I don't think they like me very much," said Fractal.
"Don't be silly. They like you. Who wouldn't like you? Except Jack and Madeline, but they're trash, so you shouldn't worry about what they think."
"They aren't trash. And I'm trying to get them to do something, so I need them to like me."
"Or you can just threaten them."
"You sound like Vlad."
Echo scowled. "I do not."
Fractal gasped, and suddenly stood up. "The cookies."
"Cookies aren't going to make them like you!"
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Danny collapsed gratefully into one of the chairs, and was considering taking off his shoes and socks, and dangling his feet in the water. He was having a fantasy about it, actually. He imagined that the pool farthest from the waterfall would be hot, and that the pools would become progressively cooler as they got closer and closer to the drop-off. He knew that real streams didn't work that way. Probably. They might if there was a hot spring, he supposed. But this was his lair, and streams should work the way he wanted them to. So there.
Nathan, Lester, Ricky, and Mikey had taken up pestering Valerie for her suit's detail again. They had been doing so off and on for the entire walk. They were the only ones persistent enough to keep at it. Even Hannah had given up after a dozen or so monosyllabic answers. (Are you government funded? No. Are you a secret agent for the UN? No. Have you ever met an alien? Have you ever been to space? No. Is your suit a spacesuit? No. Danny was annoyed by the last two, because the answers were lies and he knew it.)
Ashley and Rebecca were doing that thing where they hung onto the fringes of the A-List and nodded whenever one of the A-lister said anything. They'd been doing less of that since they'd wound up in the GZ, and Danny had begun to hope that the A-list was loosing some of its customary power, but, alas, it was not to be.
Elliot was doing the same thing, but Danny hesitated to say that Elliot was 'with' anyone. The (compulsive?) liar had alienated almost everyone in the school at this point. Danny felt bad for him, but he had done it to himself. Continued to do it to himself.
The A-listers, Paulina, Tiffanie, Star, Dash, Dale, and Kwan, were in a little knot complaining. Danny supposed that he should be glad that they were now comfortable enough with their situation to be complaining, to be acting normally, after being so scared for so long, but some of their complaints were irritating. They didn't like the food. There hadn't been any soap, shampoo, or conditioner in the bathrooms. The water had been cold. The rooms had been creepy. The outside balcony that looked out over solid white mist was spooky. The stairs gave them vertigo. Paulina wasn't wearing shoes for walking. Tiffanie's hair needed to be straightened again. They missed their families.
Danny would give them the last one.
What Mia, Sarah, and Hannah were doing, however, was much more frightening. They were comparing notes. Not that they were getting anywhere. Hannah's interjections on the subject of her research into secret societies, the Bermuda Triangle, and alien abductions was more than enough to keep them from getting to any real conclusions. Bless her. Danny thanked his lucky stars that only his class had gotten sucked into the GZ. If Hannah's older cousin Wesley, who was equally invested in conspiracy theories, but much more grounded and focused on ghosts, had come along, Danny's secret would have been blown out of the water.
Mr Lancer was watching over the scene with the air of a person who would very much like to fall over, but kept themselves upright out of a sense of duty. Danny was much more familiar with that air than he would like to be.
Sam, Tucker, and Jazz were seated at the same table as Danny. Maddie and Jack, lacking chairs were standing behind them. All five of them were... Asking Danny questions? Heck. He hadn't heard a single one, and now they were staring at him with some concern.
At that moment, Fractal came back out of the cabin with a massive platter of cookies. Truly, it was remarkable. It was almost as big as he was, and Fractal was the same size as Danny. How in the world had he fit it through the door? Had he even fit it through the door? Maybe he had phased it through a wall, or teleported or something.
Yeah. That made more sense. Danny tried to recall when in his life teleporting had become a possible answer to 'how did that fit through that door?' (Before he was ten, at least, although Maddie had wisely banned the use of the teleporter in the house after it had cut the old couch in half, and it had never worked long range.) He gave up. Maybe it had always been a possible answer.
Fractal placed the cookies carefully on the nearest table and shouted, "I give you cookies!"
Everyone stared. Fractal began to fidget.
"Do you... not like cookies?"
