fandomhigh | Library, Thursday (12/4)

Entry tags:

library

Library, Thursday (12/4)

Whatever strange feeling was going around had gotten to Cosette, too; she'd chosen not to take her usual early morning walk today out of a nebulous sense of unease. It was just as well (in one sense, at least) that she hadn't, since this way she managed to catch the radio broadcast, and . . .

No, after that there wasn't a question about her coming in to open the library this morning -- not that there ever really was, but even if nobody else got the idea to come look through the books for clues as to what was going on this time, she was prepared to spend her entire shift doing that herself. Even if the sisters at the Petit-Picpus hadn't been the sort to go in for exorcisms or the like, there had been a few books in the convent about the subject and when secular reading material was strictly forbidden you had to read what you could or be incredibly bored.

Or more bored, as the case might be. The point was that whatever had happened on the radio this morning reminded her of a few chapters in those books.

So there were plenty of tables and chairs available, and Cosette would make sure there was plenty of coffee available all day if people needed it; in the meantime, she was trying to round up all the books she could think of on ghosts or possessions or paranormal phenomena in general for easy access (and yes, occasionally this meant literally herding them out of the stacks). Except for the Time-Life ones, which were being very quiet and not volunteering themselves, thank you very much, Mr. Constantine.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Let the booky nerdface convention begin, in the appropriate subthreads.

For the part of the day where you might need the coffee to wake up.

Rapunzel had been fretting. It wasn't exactly unusual behavior for her, all things considered -- when something felt bad and wrong and off, like things did now, here, she usually...worried for awhile before taking action.

Which was why it had taken until she heard the radio broadcast for her to come to the library. Part of her was still unconvinced that she'd be able to find anything -- but then again, this summer, she'd managed to help with the evil carnival thing, so...maybe?

In any case, she found herself a little spot at a table and grabbed a pile of books. She'd probably go for the coffee eventually, but for Rapunzel, it was still sort of a last-resort beverage.

Okay, so going from the week's podcasts, it seemed like they were dealing with ghosts. And that wouldn't have seemed so bad (hadn't the dead come back to life for a weekend just awhile ago or something?), the way that Sparkle had just changed on the air seemed...disturbing. To say the least.

So she'd pulled out all of the books on ghosts and possessions to see what she could find. Maybe something useful would jump out at her?

She'd been working her way through the smaller books at the top of the stack in front of her, but under the circumstances not even Cosette could maintain that much patience before going for the bottom of the stack and the fairly voluminous tome with The Big Book of Exorcisms: 101 Ways To Rid Yourself of Pesky Spirits stamped on its spine.

Honestly, she'd thought that one was a joke, but the book she had been going through turned out to be a compilation of stories of faked possessions, the last one of which had something to do with someone pretending to be possessed by a demon and his accomplice posing as a priest who claimed to be too distracted by not having the money to repair his crumbling church until a pair of rich drunks exposed their scheme.

That was the point at which she sighed in frustration and set that book aside.

Granted, skimming the first several chapters or so of The Big Book of Exorcisms didn't do much to dispel her initial impression of it, since some of the rituals detailed in it were just utterly bizarre.

Fine. She'd work her way through all 101 chapters of this thing if she had to. Which would explain why at one point she got up and did an awkward, slow-motion runthrough of what looked like the Macarena in reverse and sat down again, shaking her head.

"Well," she said with a sigh, once she'd skimmed her way through to chapter 50 and decided to take a quick break, "this doesn't seem to explain much but it does seem to give us a number of --" bizarre -- "things to try."

Edited 2014-12-04 17:42 (UTC)

Fifty chapters later, the notepad in front of Cosette was filled with (admittedly very neat) handwritten notes about aspects of the various rituals, such as:

Salt
Holy water
73 blank dominoes made of soapstone
Chalk
Conch shells (to blow)
Incense
Jell-O?????
The juice of 1 winter melon, harvested at sunrise on the first day of autumn
Punching ghosts in the face???

The list was much longer than that, and even more eclectic, so it was a bit of a relief when she got to chapter 100 -- titled Call (650) 555-2368 -- to find just a picture of three men with the word "GHOSTBUSTERS" and the phone number from the chapter title on it.

"Oh!" she blurted out, and reached for her phone only to realize that -- gasp -- she'd left it in her room this morning. (Now that was definitely a sign that something was wrong.) "Has anyone got a phone? Perhaps we can give this number a call."

The number, as it turned out, only led to a recorded message saying that it had been disconnected for non-payment, so there went that possibility.

How annoying.

Well, there was one chapter left in the book, so she might as well read it, and while the idiomatic expression "the kitchen sink" as a phrase (and a chapter title, in this case) eluded Cosette the spell text gave her a good idea of what it meant.

"To free the possessed, to banish all evil spirits, and a chant of protection . . . how thorough! This one ought to be worth a closer look," she decided, and jumped up to go make a few photocopies of the chapter.

Elsa had woken up to listen to the morning's radio broadcast fairly early, mostly because there was a chill in the air that bothered even her, and she wanted to know what in the world was going on.

... The broadcast didn't actually help her feel any better about anything, no. So in she was, and flipping through books about spirits and ghosts, reading anything in any language that she could comprehend on the matter. It didn't seem as though there had been too much damage done out there yet, but the sooner they could put an end to whatever that was, the less damage they could expect, right?

She had brought tea, enough for everyone, and coffee as well for those who were less tea inclined. It seemed like the least she could do to help.

Stark had been feeling somewhat uneasy for days now. Something felt off. In his experience that usually meant something was off.

When he'd heard the radio while eating breakfast he decided something most assuredly was wrong. And what was wrong, he was reasonably certain, was something he might be able to help with.

That was how he ended up at the library. He had been here long enough to know this was the place to be during this sort of situation.

What he knew of spirits (which was plenty) wasn't necessarily going to be applicable here. When he sent someone to the other side they stayed there. At least as far as he knew. So he had grabbed a book at random and had it open in front of him. He was occasionally muttering unhappily at the text.

For the part of the day where you might need the coffee to stay awake.

Several hours (and one impromptu nap) later, Kathy had several pages full of notes and nothing that seemed like it was an answer to their problems. She wasn't even sure how useful any of this information was, considering half the texts contradicted the other half.

Deciding that more caffeine was needed before she thought about opening a thick book about the history of Victorian seances, Kathy grabbed a small pamphlet called "My Exorcism Sucked: What Went Wrong?" to read while she downed a can of soda. Even if it wasn't all that useful (C'mon, who suggested 'repeat incantation in a silly accent' as a viable option?), it might help clear the cobwebs from her head.

The wrong feeling from yesterday had gotten even stronger, a backbeat to every thought in Anders' head. He couldn't think of where else to start, so he went to the library and settled into a quiet nook with a pile of books from the library's collection, and a few more eclectic selections from his own.

Stark did not, in fact, need the coffee. But he had a cup that was almost more sugar than coffee anyway.

He hadn't found anything useful yet. He had in fact come across texts stating that ghosts and spirits were entirely fictitious and had rolled his eye so hard he'd nearly sprained something.

After some consideration he picked up a book entitled The Complete Idiot's Guide To Protecting Yourself From Stuff That's Not Supposed To Exist. Sometimes the mildly insulting books were the most helpful.

"What," Stark asked the book, "is a Xyberian Soulslug? And who is exorcising them?" They weren't in the Uncharteds, as far as he knew. Or here. As far as he knew. And yes, he was talking to the books now.

"Oh. We need salt. Do we have salt? Of course we do. Lots of salt?" He wasn't so sure about that. Maybe at the diner?

"Salt," he said to no-one in particular, "salt it says can temporarily repel most of them if they attack. Throw it. Or shoot it."

He made a note of this and marked his place with a large and shiny bookmark. It was the most useful information he'd come across all day.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Library, Thursday (12/4)

Research!

Research: Morning

Re: Research: Morning

Re: Research: Morning

Re: Research: Morning

Re: Research: Morning

Re: Research: Morning

Re: Research: Morning

Re: Research: Morning

Research: Afternoon

Re: Research: Afternoon

Re: Research: Afternoon

Re: Research: Afternoon

Re: Research: Afternoon