Overdue

Welcome to Tiny Hauntings—flash fiction stories from the world of Foxglove & Flame. In this one, Death waits patiently for a librarian to finish her story.

Ruth’s ghost sits at the reference desk of a long-forgotten library, the roof open to starlight, shelves full of books left to warp and mold, the floor giving way to branches, moss, and stone.

Death arrives just after midnight—tonight, he is young and handsome, with onyx eyes and hair. Tomorrow, he might be a cat; he has moods.

He rings the desk bell; the sharp ding echoes inside the quiet.

Ruth sniffs. “Must you?”

Death smiles. “I enjoy the tradition.”

He takes a seat beside her. They sit in silence, looking out the broken windows onto a playground with rusted swings and slides strangled by vines.

“You are my ending, then?” she says.

“I am everything’s end.”

“Pompous, aren’t you?”

“I’ve been called so, amongst other things.”

“I am finding my story difficult to finish.”

“Librarians rarely like unfinished things.”

“Pretty words. I’m still dead.”

“Yes.”

An errant cloud drifts past the moon, casting shadows across the collapsing walls.

“Damn, I miss coffee and being warm and my husband, Frank. Will I see him again?”

“Perhaps. Those sorts of things are not known to me.”

“Imagine that. Death isn’t in the know.”

Death smiles.

Ruth stands, a book in one hand, a pencil in the other. “Well, then,” she says, laughing. “Make sure you lock up before you go.”

Death watches as she weaves between the shelves until she makes her way across the playground and into the night. The last thing he sees is her whipping a long length of white scarf over her shoulder.

A mouse skitters across the desk.

Death wanders to a bookshelf, brushes moss from a book, and settles into Ruth’s chair. A catalog card floats from the pages to the floor.

He turns one page. Then another.

Outside, a swing sways gently in the wind while dawn gathers pale and slow at the horizon.