I imagine it’s what like living underwater would be like—ya’know, if people could breathe underwater like fish. If you find a row between shelves that is uninhabited by others, you can almost believe that you’re all alone in the world with nothing but yourself and the greatest thing in the whole wide world—books.
I’m not much of one for novels. Especially novels that are geared towards teenage girls like myself. Twilight can bite me. No pun intended. I don’t want to hear about brooding emo guys whose shell some adorably awkward—yet stunningly beautiful girl—has to break open just so he will date her. I don’t need anyone to save me by professing their love for me, but especially not some basic guy who thinks driving a fancy car and having floppy hair is a personality.
Mysteries, specifically, unsolved mysteries, is where it’s at for me. Have you ever heard of the Lost Colony of Roanoke? You probably have. It was the basis of a season of American Horror Story. Of course, you’ve heard of the Loch Ness Monster, The Zodiac Killer, Jack the Ripper, Area 51, the Lost City of Atlantis, the Mary Celeste, Bigfoot, the Bermuda Triangle. They’re all super famous unsolved mysteries that still baffle, well, everyone who cares about unsolved mysteries.
But what about Pascagoula’s Phantom Barber? In June of 1942, some dude in Pascagoula, Mississippi would break into homes and…cut people’s hair. Especially blonde girls. Crazy, right? My fingers trailed along the spines of books as I smiled and walked along, looking for something new to read. This guy—emboldened by Army blackout regulations due to the war—would just sneak into houses to cut hair. He didn’t steal anything or commit any violent or savage crimes otherwise. He just wanted to take people’s hair. That’s messed up, right?
How about Dighton Rock in Berkeley, Massachusetts? It was found around 1680, covered with odd scrawled symbols and pictographs—and no one has deciphered it yet. Just like the Zodiac Killer’s messages. What about the Wow! Frequency? It was a 72-second radio signal, seemingly beamed from space, and no one knows the why, how, or what. What about the Hollow Wych Elm? Or the Voynich Manuscript? The Big Grey Man? The Tunguska Event? Robert the Doll? The Vanishing Triangle missing women? The Sodder Family House Fire? There are so many events in history that are not necessarily alien or supernatural in nature, that no one can explain.
I live for those mysteries.
One day, no matter what I have to do, I will have a job where I can travel all over the world and see all of these places where these things happened. I don’t really expect to find anything…but maybe I will? Maybe I’ll be the chick who finds out the answer to at least one previously unsolved mystery. Or maybe I’ll just be the strange woman who traveled around the world and wasted her time and money rubbernecking all of these odd tragedies. Who knows? But at least I won’t be stuck in the same town I was born and raised in, living a few miles from the high school I graduated from, wondering why I never did anything exciting with my life.
Like my mom.
In the entire Long-Moore High School, I’m probably the only student who checks out books about unsolved mysteries—unless someone has to do a report over one or something. So, you’d think that there’d be at least one book I hadn’t read yet that was available to check out. However, as I scanned the shelves, walking up and down the cocoon-like aisle, I couldn’t find a single book I hadn’t read at least once. My mind was wandering off, questioning whether or not Mom or Brian had money so that maybe I could order a new book on Amazon or something, when my eyes landed on a book I’d never seen before. I stopped in the middle of the aisle, staring at the book a few steps away, my heart in my throat as joy spread through me.
My finger trailed along the spine of the books as I stepped to stand in front of the book, my finger landing on its spine as I came to rest before the new book. Untold Mysteries by Rian Libra. A simple plain black cloth cover with gold lettering on the spine. When I removed the book from the shelf, there was no artwork on the cover, no blurb on the back, and no synopsis or summary on the inner cover or inside the back cover. In fact, there wasn’t even a biography for the author.
How odd.
With a shrug, I realized that I wasn’t going to find any other book in the entire mystery section that was new—at least to me—so I tucked Untold Mysteries under my arm and scooted down to peek around the end of the aisle. Mrs. Clark’s desk was unoccupied, except for herself. Frankie was long gone, thank goodness, so I made my move. As I stepped out of the aisles that surrounded the circular room, some freshman-age kid looked up from his homework at one of the tables. His eyes wandered from my feet, up to my head, then to other places. And the little jerk smirked. He even had the nerve to look me in the eyes when he did it.
I can’t help that my backpack accidentally hit him in the head as I walked by, but it did. What’s done is done. The kid was wise enough to hiss through his teeth in pain and return his attention to his homework as I continued walking towards Mrs. Clark’s desk, completely unbothered. If anyone had seen my backpack hit the kid in the back of the head, I could have gotten into trouble. Principal Vernon is just as stringent about the zero-tolerance policy on violence. However, I could easily have claimed that it was an accident. It’s not like the kid undressing me with his eyes was going to say otherwise, right? Guys usually won’t admit to an authority figure that they were leering at girls, so it was unlikely that the kid was going to tell on me because he’d be in trouble as well. That made me feel secure in my decision to thump him upside his head.
Mrs. Clark looked taken aback as I stepped up to her desk and pulled the book out from under my arm.
“Hi, Mrs. Clark,” I whispered as I began to place Untold Mysteries on her desk counter.
She glanced at the book, and a great gust of breath escaped her throat as she held her hands out, pushing the book back towards me. I frowned, confused by her behavior. Was she not going to let me check out the book? I always returned books on time, paid late fees, and treated the books with respect. Confusion, laced with anger, started to rise in me as she spoke.
“That book belongs to the Wyatt Public Library, Marisol.” She shook her head. “I swear, I don’t know what is going on in this library today.”
Crap. I really wanted to check out a book.
“Oh.” I glanced down at the book in my hand as it hovered at the edge of the desk. “I guess that means—”
“Just take it home.” She leaned forward, exasperated. “When you’re done, return it to the Wyatt Public Library. Just be good to the book, and don’t make me sorry.”
“Oh.” I smiled, tucking the book back under my arm. “Okay.”
“You kids.” She shook her head in disbelief. “If this turns out to be a prank…”
“I don’t know what you mean?” I frowned.
Mrs. Clark didn’t respond. Instead, she shooed me away with a fluttering of her hands before turning back to her computer to resume her work.
Apparently, there was some type of unsolved mystery going on in Long-Moore High School’s library. Of course, I only had fifteen minutes until my next class, so I didn’t have time to question Mrs. Clark further. Of course, her body language let me know that she was not open to questions or further interruptions—unless someone wanted to check out a book that actually belonged to the library. With another shrug, I turned on my heels and headed towards the sliding doors. At least I’d have more time to read the book since it didn’t belong to Long-Moore’s library. I could just return it to the Wyatt Public Library whenever I was done.