Page 22 of Unruly
“I don’t know for sure, but I get the feeling it won’t. I’ll leave my card. Should something happen again, please don’t hesitate to contact me.”
“You’re taking that book with you, right? I don’t want it here.”
“I can take it, but I assure you there’s nothing wrong with it now.”
“A lot of the pages are ripped out. I’ll have to find another copy anyway.”
I nod, handing the book back to Borja.
“You didn’t see anything at all?” Borja asks.
Professor Carole shakes her head. “No, but again, I was under my desk for most of it.”
“Fair.”
“How did you know to come here?” she asks. “How did you know I was in trouble?”
“We were at the bookstore where you purchased the book, and we were told by…” I pause, but considering her recent experience as well as the subject of the book, I suppose she can handle the truth.
“By?” she says.
“By the spirits who inhabit the store. They told us you bought the book, and we had a sense that there was an entity attached to it.”
“So, what you’re telling me is the spirit world is real.”
‘“Quite.”
“Don’t you already believe that?” Borja asks. “You bought a book on spiritualism.”
“I teach the history and trends of the subject. The book in your hand is said to be one of the authorities on the topic from the early twentieth century. I’ve had my suspicions about what resides on the other side of the veil, but until today, my experiences have been easily explainable. Not anymore.”
“Tell me about it,” Borja murmurs, glancing at me.
“We’ll go now,” I say. “Again, do call if anything else happens.”
“I will. Thank you.”
We turn to leave, but she stops us.
“Could it have hurt me?”
I frown, nodding. “Yes, but fortunately it seems you weren’t its target. We’ll find it and take care of it.”
Professor Carole looks down at my card. “Okay. Be careful.”
“We will be.”
Borja and I leave, silently walking together until we’re outside and out of earshot of people, then he excitedly grabs my arm, stopping me on the sidewalk.
“Holy shit, Farnsworth. It ripped through her office like a hurricane.”
“Yes.” I tap the book in my hand against my palm. “But since it’s not in the book, I fear it was just using it as some sort of avenue to get back to the Above. It’s going to be harder to track down than I hoped.”
“We got this.” Borja smiles. “What do we do now?”
“We read this book and research it to find out if there’s anything specific that attracted the Horror to it. That information may help us understand where it went next.”
Borja scrunches his nose. “That sounds boring.”
