IV
“Don’t you dare,” I breathed. “Don’t you dare, don’t you dare, don’t you dare.”
As if by magic, he bolted into a sitting position, hacking away.
First, I couldn’t speak. Second, I launched myself at him for a hug-tackle. Third, I stopped short and screamed in terror. Fourth, I followed through on my second impulse, throwing my arms around him like a sister. Fifth, I smacked him with a breathless, “Wygate, you’re alive what happened how could you scare me like that I’m—going—to—kill—you!”
As you can see, I was a bit at war with myself. By “a bit,” think Helm’s Deep.
Wygate, still gasping, pushed me off and staggered to his feet. He went straight to Nuala. “My aura’s compromised,” he panted. “I’ll explain, but right now, before we even go somewhere safe, I have to know—”
“Mine is quite strong.” Nuala brushed her polished hair out of her eyes. I was too relieved, scared, and startled to interpret whether she and her husband were also. “Yes, I can shield us all in the aura within.”
I stood there and gaped while something in Wygate’s eyes loosened.
The next bit of conversation played like movie dialogue in which I had no part but to ping-pong my head among speakers and shout, “What?!” at the screen.
SEAMUS: “Where can we be safe?”
NUALA (firmly): “The library had a calm around it.”
WYGATE (eyeing his bookshelves inscrutably): “I know. Merry, grab your scarf. We’re going now.”
I reached for my snow gear automatically.
“No, just the scarf! The rest doesn’t matter, but never abandon Doctor Who paraphernalia.” He grinned.
“Seriously?!” I suddenly burst out. I actually screamed it, and everyone stared at me. “You want to make Who cracks? You haven’t explained anything!” I found myself quiet, making two simple statements: “Someone just tried to kill me. Why.”
He said nothing.
My face broke, and I sobbed with fear, “Why, if you want me here another second?!”
My throat felt raw. Wygate gently handed me the coat and gloves and mittens and muffs he’d told me to leave, then draped the scarf over his own shoulders. “Soon, I promise.”
“I don’t know anything about your promises,” I said, unsure whether to consider this sweet or to slap him again.
Frankly, he said, “You have a little something…” and touched his cheek.
I touched mine. No wonder everything was blurred; my eyes were streaming. Again! What was my poise coming to?
What happened next was miraculous. “All right, let’s go,” I said. “To the TARDIS!”
Seamus and Nuala looked at each other and shrugged.
As Wygate rushed to close the shop, I noticed his notebook making a teepee on the floor. I stared at it, remembering his offer to teach me the Tengwar, or Quenya if I was ambitious. “HECK YEAH!” I’d written back in his all-caps style.
Seemed like ages ago, yet he’d never begun lessons.
What did “I’M SORRY, MERRY” even mean?
I snatched up the journal and tucked it under my coat.
“Meredith?” Seamus asked over my shoulder. I jumped and whirled, but he was just holding the door open. “We’re finally off.”
The library was only a few blocks away, and the Sheehans didn’t seem keen to drive an American car any longer, so we hastened forward on foot.
 “So what happened to you? Why were you on the floor?” I wanted to ask about the notebook, but didn’t dare do more than press my hand over it.
Wygate checked his wrist for a watch, found none, and shrugged. “Unconscious, probably a full twelve hours. The Vespertilian couldn’t finish the job, perhaps because your compromise wasn’t genuine.”
“How did I ‘compromise’?” I tried to sound mocking, but my voice tottered like an old woman’s.
“You questioned my sanity on the ghost’s turf,” Wygate sighed. “It was enough to turn my aura ineffective around you and vulnerable toward the creatures.”
I leaped over a pile of snow and therefore missed my entrance when Wygate pushed through the library’s double doors. I hit the glass like an idiot, and that did not improve my temper.
I heard Seamus stifle a laugh and turned in time to see Nuala swat him. “Does Mr. Wygate never hold open doors?”
“Never once,” I said out of bitterness, pinching at my nose. This was not quite true. He’d never had to hold open a door for me before, so I had no idea if he usually did.
He reappeared on the other side of the glass, waving us in with an impatient look that let us know he had no clue what he’d done wrong.
I threw the door open in his face. He stepped back, startled. “So, you’re some sort of—what? You just protect people from ghosts, whoever happens to be in your employ at the time?”
Seamus sucked in air. “She really doesn’t know?” he said in a wondering tone.
Nuala swept into the library behind him and gracefully stomped snow off her boots. “You’re one to talk. You had no idea about Edwin, yourself, or me—no more idea than I had.”
“Can we really talk here?” I sighed. My head hurt.
“Over in the children’s section.” Wygate motioned us away from the windows and into shelves decorated with wooden trees, complete with knotholes that contained squirrels and owls.
My fingertips brushed a two-dimensional bird’s nest. I came to the library all the time, but it never ceased to impress me.
The four of us squeezed into the M’s through Q’s. I smiled at The House on Falling Star Hill by Michael Molloy, and that felt good.
“Guess what. That’s my favorite,” I said.
“Pull it if it will relax you,” Wygate urged. I did, hugging it to me, feeling the cover through the plastic. “And you should only say ‘guess what’ if you’re surprising me.”
“How could you have known?”
“Every book is your favorite, Merry.”
I paused and pointed down the shelf. “Not Bridge to Terebithia. Stop correcting my word usage and tell me what’s happening. Please. There should be a please there, shouldn’t there?”
Wygate nodded. “I’m sorry it’s taken so long. I had to be sure we were safe. Nuala?”
“It’s calm.”
Wygate’s voice dropped low even though the Sheehans could still hear every word, yet so intense he almost convinced me they couldn’t. “Merry, do you remember when I told you how you shine?”
I felt a blush rise. “I do seem to recall that…”
“I meant it quite literally,” he said, his voice completely unembarrassed.
“Oh.”
I saw Nuala press her palm to her nose and shake her head.
“I should have seen it sooner, but you only shimmered before you came into contact with Seamus.”
Seamus saluted me, once again a reminder of where I was. (In danger, unseen but not unsensed. One may miss the road signs, but it’s hard to miss the place.)
“You never spoke to him, never touched, but you noticed and conducted yourself in just the right way.” Wygate smiled.
Nuala touched my hand. “You shine almost as brightly as he does, now.”
“Pray tell what that means for me.”
Wygate also touched my hand, more briefly. “It means you’ll never be safe again.”