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“Interesting move,” I say almost sarcastically, as Margarethe moves one of her knights behind the pawn stalemate the game had once again come to. I deliberate over my next move while she watches me.
“Why do you keep coming back here?” The question breaks me out of my thoughts.
“What do you mean?” I inquire with a curious tilt of my head.
“You’re back here every day,” Margarethe elaborates. “Surely you still have a life waiting for you outside these walls. Friends, family, people that care about you? Are they not suspicious of how much time you’re spending here?”
I scoff at this. “The family I have might as well be dead, for all I care; you know that. They’ve never given two shits about me. As for friends, well, none of the fine, upstanding, rich-people students here would ever be caught dead conversing with the likes of me, someone from the middle of nowhere who got in on a mere scholarship.” Margarethe nearly flinches from the amount of venom in my tone. “Besides, it’s not like I want to be friends with them anyway. None of them are good people.”
“Did you make that judgement after getting a feel for them, or is that just the prejudice talking?”
Margarethe raises an eyebrow at my silence, and I respond by moving one of my knights the same way she did. After a moment, I realize she’s still waiting for an answer, and won’t make her move until I give her one. I stare at her and continue to say nothing. She takes my silence for what it is and sighs.
“Avery, you of all people should know better than to judge people based on prejudice.” She moves her other knight to mirror the first. I already see where this game is headed; it’s happened before. It happens every time.
“I don’t need you to lecture me on this,” I half-heartedly spit back. “I don’t need any other friends anyway, not when I have you.” I move my other knight to mirror hers.
Margarethe’s reaction is disappointing, if not unexpected. I’ve seen it before. She shakes her head and sighs, doesn’t make eye contact and her face takes on a pained expression. “It’s not healthy for you to be so attached to me, Avery.”
“Do we have to have this discussion today, too?” I whine, as Margarethe makes her next move, this time using a bishop.
“We should,” she answers. “You need to make friends with people other than me.”
I mirror her move again. “They won’t understand me.”
She makes the same move on the opposite side of the board. “You’ve never given anyone the chance to.”
I follow suit. “No one wants to, especially not these people.”
She moves a rook. “You don’t know that. I understand.”
I mirror her. “You’re like me. They’re not.”
She repeats the move with her other rook. “I can’t stay here forever. You’ll have to move on eventually.”
I mirror her again. “I’ve already lost you once, I’m not losing you again.”
She looks up from the board. “You can’t keep holding onto me, Avery.”
I look her dead in the eyes. “I refuse to let go of you, Margarethe.”
“Even at the cost of your soul?”
“What?”
“Every day you visit me, your soul becomes more and more corrupted by the energy of the dead and the curse of this library. The living are not meant to interact so much with the dead.”
“You visited this library when you were alive.”
“I never visited every day, and I only visited for about a year before I died. You’ve been here every single day for the last three years. I’m surprised you haven’t fallen ill or died yet.”
“I technically haven’t fulfilled the requirements of the curse to take your place, so it doesn’t affect me.”
“But you don’t have an answer for the corruption of your soul from hanging around a dead girl for so long.”
I sigh, defeated for the moment. “No, I don’t. If I did, it would probably be something really depressing, like having an already broken soul rendering me immune to the effects of the dead.” A humorless laugh escapes me at that thought. Margarethe just looks sad, and a little pained. Usually she would have started the cascade of us taking each other’s pawns across the board by now, but maybe she’s taking pity on me, or too lost in her own thoughts to care about our game.
“Really I would think you’d welcome my company,” I say into the silence. “I can only imagine how lonely it is to be trapped here all the time.”
“And who’s the one keeping me trapped here, hm?” Margarethe snaps at me. “You are. By refusing to make yourself next in line for the curse, you keep me trapped in the world of the living with you as my only reliable source of interaction with another sentient being.” Her tone softens and becomes sad. I get the sense that if ghosts could cry, Margarethe would have tears in her eyes. “I can’t keep doing this Avery. I need you to let me go; set me free.”
“No!” I stand up abruptly. “I can’t lose you. If I take your place, I’ll never see you again, and I’ll be stuck here for who knows how long! I won’t do it!” My face feels wet, and I realize I’m crying.
“Avery, this isn’t healthy for either of us, and we both know it,” Margarethe counters, standing up as well. “I know letting go can be hard, but you have to do this.” After several moments of silence, she sighs. “It is possible that I could visit you here from time to time, or at the very least send messages once I’ve crossed over.”
“Really?” I perk up at this.
There is a fond smile on Margarethe’s face as she gives me a nod of affirmation. “Yes. Jeanine was able to send me a few notes during the lonelier years of my tenure. I’m sure I could do the same for you.”
“Promise?” I hold out my hand, looking her dead in the eyes again.
“Promise.” She meets my gaze, then takes my hand and shakes it. Her hand feels cold and slightly wet, but it’s not exactly solid. It’s not an entirely unfamiliar feeling, but it’s still slightly unsettling. I take my hand back as soon as the shake is done.
“You’re cold,” I say by way of explanation.
“I know,” she replies with a slight laugh.
Taking a deep breath, I make my decision. I stand up and walk to the far side of the library, Margarethe following behind me. We stop in front of the shelf hosting the tethers of every ghost that has haunted Varrell Library. I undo the clasp on the bracelet I wear on my right wrist and thread it through the matching one on the shelf. Margarethe's bracelet and mine now sit intertwined on the shelf of tethers. Once I walk out of this library, I will have sealed my fate.
“Thank you, Avery,” Margarethe says again.
I nod in response. It's begun to rain. We remain in front of the shelf, but turn to face the window. We stand in a comfortable silence tinged with melancholy, two best friends listening to the rain hitting the windows and watching the raindrops run down the glass.