AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Totally, dude.”
“Whoa, check out that staircase.”
Bee allowed herself a small smile. The young crew’s enthusiasm for the house’s interior features of crown molding and paneled walls boded well for the production.
She opened the doors right at nine. Several Monday morning regulars—the widowed Mr. Mitchell, a young mother with three-year-old twins, and Ray Berry, the father of Bee’s friend Grace and a part-time library assistant—waited to come inside.
After she greeted them warmly and gave them a concise and self-deprecating explanation for her odd clothing, she went to retrieve several thrillers she’d set aside for Ray.
One of the other librarians, Peter, was scheduled to arrive in an hour, but given how busy things were, it would likely be lunchtime before Bee could go home and change.
Not that anyone seemed to care about her clothes—all the patrons who wandered in were more intrigued by the TV crew’s activities than checking out any books. Though the producers had assured Bee that the shoot would be as “unobtrusive as possible,” the whole town was curious about it.
Bee more than welcomed their inquisitiveness. The more positive attention the library received, the better for her cause.
As much as the people of Bliss Cove loved the historic Victorian mansion, they had begun siding with Marilyn Lawford, the real estate agent and town council member campaigning to move the library to the heart of downtown.
Marilyn had been stacking up the reasons like bricks in a six-foot-high wall. The Gardenia House was falling apart. The upkeep and repairs had become astronomically expensive. The library’s location on an isolated stretch of the coastline, a good two miles from the boardwalk, proved inconvenient and often inaccessible for many town residents. At best, the Wi-Fi was spotty, to say nothing of the unreliable cell signal. The ancient card catalogs and check-out system remained archaic. And don’t even get her started on the dusty oldbooks…
To rectify all those faults, Marilyn had proposed the town purchase a large parcel of land in downtown Bliss Cove to build a brand-new library—renamed the Bliss Cove Media and Technology Center—that boasted state-of-the-art facilities.
Of course, as a real estate agent, Marilyn would broker the land’s sale and earn herself a hefty commission in the process—a fact most people seemed happy to accept.
As for Bee’s library? Well, the town council would vote to shut it down and sell both the land and the house. Whoever bought it would likely demolish it, while the earned profits would all go toward the new Media and Tech Center.
Bee hadn’t believed Marilyn’s idea would ever gather steam—until it did. She’d spent weeks campaigning and trying to convince people to support the old library and put funds toward a renovation to no avail.
Earlier this year, an anonymous donor had given the library enough money for a gorgeous new Airstream bookmobile. Bee had put that to great use by delivering books to rural communities lacking their own libraries. But in their support of the progressive and unique bookmobile, the Bliss Cove residents now felt even more like the actual library was an antiquated relic of the past.
No amount of campaigning had changed their minds. Then one night, when Bee had been channel surfing, she’d stopped on an episode ofHex or Hoax?on the Explorer Channel, and an idea had sprouted.
If she could get the Explorer Channel to film an episode of their wildly popular ghost-hunter show at the Bliss Cove Library, the publicity would surely garner enough support and love for the Gardenia House to thwart Marilyn’s efforts to shut it down.
After three months of communication, the producers had agreed to bring their team and crew to Bliss Cove and spend a week filming a paranormal investigation at the library in late October.
Bee was thrilled. No one would want to or dare to demolish the old house if the world knew it was truly haunted.
She just needed to prove it…on camera.
