"Got a Christmas card from Jimmy Carter," I told my wife.
She frowned. "What the hell kind of mailing lists are you on?"
We were at Wendy's, on Bellefonte Avenue, because they had a fundraiser going for my son's Cub Scout group. The Cubs always gave me the urge to drink heavily, unlike when I'd actually been one, but I could spare the money. Our son Paul was sitting with us, playing with his kids' meal toy.
"It's happened before," I said. "I got one from him a couple of years ago. It's actually not all that big a stretch. Carter helped establish a church here in Lock Haven in 1968; I've written about that. He's always been very open about the fact that he loves Lock Haven---Once called it his favorite place in the world. It's not a huge stretch to imagine he might keep up occasionally with the biggest local historian."
"Well, that's pretty cool," said Michelle. "What are you going to do with it?"
"My scrapbook, I think," I said. "Can we stop by the grocery on the way home? I need a nine-volt battery and some scratch pads."
When we walked into the house afterward, I started unpacking the groceries. "Got an experiment to do about Yetis," I told Michelle. "If you smell smoke, don't get all excited. I got it under control."
"I think I won't ask."
"Probably that's good."
I set the steel wool and the battery down on the table. "Hey, Paul, you wanna see something cool?"
"Yeah! What?"
"I gotta test this before I show Teen Paranormal," I said. "It's a trick for staying warm when you're Yeti hunting. Now, these are both common household things. Never try this without Daddy, never." Paul is usually pretty good about those warnings. I pulled at the steel wool, thinning it out a bit. Then I touched it to the battery terminals, and it flared up with some very satisfying sparks.
Paul gasped, impressed. "Whoa! Can you do that again?"
I brushed the terminals with the steel wool again, and it flared up more. I'd done this before, but not as much since I'd been a kid---Adulthood held sadly few opportunities for starting fires, I'd found. This still worked the way I remembered it.
"One more time,": begged Paul.
I burned a segment of the steel wool, and he smiled. I said,"Maybe we'll try that out at Kettle Creek sometime."
"Yeah!" agreed Paul.
So I was sitting among the decorations when my phone buzzed. Zach had been in a frenzy, as he is every year at this time, decking the halls. And the shelves. And the desks, and everything else. I picked up the phone.
"Lou? It's Barb, from the Renovo branch. You're going to think I'm crazy."
I laughed. "Oh, I doubt that."
"Well, some weird stuff was going on. I didn't know who else to call."
"I get that a lot."
"It's always at night. Just last night, four balls fell off our Christmas tree---All in a row, like someone planned it. In line, they all rolled to one of our patrons. She's terrified now. She's in the medical field; it's not like she's not credible. We hear voices, and something that sounds like a baby crying. Always at night. This is crazy."
"I've heard worse."
"Really? Those Christmas balls were really weird...."
"Let me look into it a little. I'll do some digging, and then get back to you. Maybe I can get up there, do a little looking around."
"That would be great," she said. "Thanks."
I started doing what I do.
Usually you start with a title search. But I couldn't run clear down to the courthouse, and there were workarounds. Someone had written a series of thick books on the history of Renovo, where they'd listed every building and every incident---Great work. I cracked open the first one.
In a little while, I had a list of the pertinent people, and a timeline. The Renovo Library had been founded in 1968. It's thought that ghosts can haunt a place where they had a lot of fond memories; they don't necessarily have to be haunting the spot where they died. I considered all the people who might have fond memories of the local library, and abandoned that line of thinking immediately.
Previous to being a library, it had been a series of garages and car dealerships, all evidently on the same complex. I compiled a list of the owners, two of whom were named Jones and Baker. Fuck. I checked the card index without finding much of anything there. Two others were named Barlock and DeShong, and I had better luck.
I took a moment to check my e-mail. I had a newsletter in there reporting a Bigfoot sighting in Montgomery County. I forwarded that one to Resurrection Casey with instructions. Merry Christmas, Casey.
I checked obits against the cemetery index. In 1922, Barlock had lost a nephew at birth, and in 1941, the six-month-old baby of DeShong had died of pneumonia. I pulled both obits, though I thought DeShong was the better bet. From memory, it occurred to me that that Renovo Library was along the river, which put it right on the Sinnemahoning Path that the Native Americans had used.
Possibilities.
I walked upstairs to Children's. Jim, our new County Librarian, was covering.
"When do you usually go up to Renovo?" I asked.
"Van's in the shop, won't be until Thursday morning," he said. "Why? You got something you want to send up?"
"Yeah. Me. I got something to look into up there, and I may want to ride along if that's okay."
"Sure. I usually leave in the morning."
"We ride at dawn!"
"I don't leave until nine-thirty."
"We ride after dawn. I'll bring the coffee."
"So, I hear the Wayne Township book is out," said Dave, the Highland Cemetery manager, sitting in the Pennsylvania Room.
"Finally," I agreed. "I got done with the drafts of that years ago. Finally, seven years after I was asked to write it, they're getting around to publishing it out there. Honestly I thought it would never happen."
Behind me, from the shelf, I heard an odd noise: Ping! Ping! Ping! Something metal, starting at the top of the room and traveling down.
Dave frowned. "What was that?"
It happened again, the dropping pinging noise. I said,"Dave, I'm gonna ask you to vacate the room calmly."
He stood up, and we walked out. I walked to the back room, and asked Mel,"Seen Zach?"
"I think he's up on three."
"We need him," I said. "Tell him to bring caution tape. We got another shelf about to collapse in the Pennsylvania Room."
Ten minutes later, we had the doors roped off and blocked with chairs. Zach said,"How did you know the shelf was about to collapse?"
"Recognized the sound," I said. "I been through this once before, about two years ago. I could hear the bolts pulling loose from the wall."
Dave looked at the tattered orange cloth Zach had tied across the door, and patted me on the shoulder. "Those come off your ankle?"
I laughed. "I actually have a couple like that, assuming Paul hasn't taken them. The bad news is, now I need a cemetery index out of that room."
My old friend Chris walked in. Looking over the barricades, he said,"Whoa. What the hell is going on here?"
"I'm going in," I said. "Cover me."
"What the---"
I low-crawled in, beside the chair and under the orange ribbon. Carefully, the shelf swaying on my left. I rolled and reached up, grabbing the Chapman Township Cemetery Index. I tossed it up, over the barricade, and Chris caught it outside the PA Room. I crawled carefully back out and took the book from Chris.
"Thanks."
"What's wrong in the Pennsylvania Room?"
"Got a shelf that's not quite as upright as it should ideally be."
I sat down at my desk and looked in the cemetery index. Little Paul DeShong's obit listed him as buried in Hyner, but there was no mention of him in the cemeteries anywhere in Chapman Township. Which meant that the baby was buried in an unmarked grave.
I found Tracey in the stacks.
"Hey, Tracey," I said,"Got a question."
She smiled. "Of course."
"If I wanted to donate a book in memory of someone, specifically for Renovo, would I take that to Barb up there? Or would it go through you first?'
"Bring it to me," she said. "Fill out the form and specify that you want it in Renovo."
"That's what I needed," I said. "Thanks."
The weather outside was frightful. And not in a good way.
I biked downtown to Subway and got a sandwich, and bought some Christmas cards at the dollar store. On my way back, I stopped in Triangle Park.
Triangle Park, creatively named after the triangle shape it formed, was fifty years old. It was basically the center of Lock Haven, and at the moment, it sported a Christmas tree, Santa's hut, and colorful lights. Recently, there was also a little free library in there, too---A wooden hut full of books that anyone could take.
I looked through the children's books and selected one called The Little Knight. It was a cute little book, involving a dragon that was sad because everyone was afraid of it, and it turned out everyone realized he wasn't so scary after all.
Perfect.
I tucked it into my coat and rode back to the library.
I rode up with Jim in the library van, armed with my bag of ghost-hunting stuff, my pocketknife, and my "Yeti For Action" sweatshirt. We got there about ten AM, and I walked into the building to find Renovo Barb and her assistant in the small main office.
"Thanks for coming," said Barb. "I know it all sounds so crazy...."
"Oh, I've heard way worse than this," I said. "About ten years ago, right here in Renovo, there was this guy who was clearly on crack." I set down my bag and began strapping my leg rig on. "Besides, I got a few photos of Red Hill on the way up. I'm hoping to get an article out of that for the Pennsylvania Wilds. Is there a hot spot, someplace where a lot of activity happens?"
"Over in Children's," said Barb. "Right by the wall."
"Let me go take a look," I said. "I'm going to set up a recorder and let it run a while."
A woman came in to return books. She looked at me and said,"I loved that article you did on the haunted places up in Bitumen."
"Oh, thank you. I appreciate that."
I went to the shelves in the Children's Library and turned on my recorder. "Renovo Library, December twelfth, ten-ten AM. Lou." I set it down and let it run, which is not the usual EVP but the best I could do under the circumstances. I got out my camera---The good one---And turned it on.
And it immediately went dead.
"Hunh," I said. "That's unusual." I walked back into the office. "It's thought that a lot of the time, ghosts suck batteries. I'm a little surprised; my batteries just went dead."
"We probably have some here," said Barb.
"I'll just go to the backup camera," I said. "That's good enough."
I got out the smaller camera and took some photos. Walking through the library---Which was nice, but not as big as ours---I clicked a lot of angles. Then I got out the EMF detector and the laser thermometer, and did some tests around the building.
I love this kind of thing; it makes for great conversation at the holiday table. How's your job going, Lou? Oh, just great, Aunt Catherine, I checked an old building for a dead baby last week. Pass the potatoes.
The EMFs held remarkably steady for an old building; the electricity was all staying in the places it was needed. The temperature was not paranormal, but was interesting---I found about a ten-degree shift between the floor and the ceiling, where usually that's only three to five degrees.
"I know you write for the Record," said Barb. "My husband was wondering if he could do an article on this for the Express."
"Oh, sure," I said. "I do some work for the Express, too. That'd be no problem." I got a folder out of my pack. "Brought you some stuff. Here's a copy of my research on the building. It was built about 1900, and started as an ice house. Then about 1923, it was bought and changed into a garage. During that time, one of the owners lost his son---Little Paul Maynard DeShong, six months old. I feel he's the most likely to be your ghost."
"Oh, that's sad," said Barb.
"According to the obits, he's buried in Hyner Cemetery, but doesn't have a marker. I don't know for sure if he ever did. But sometimes, the lack of recognition can cause a ghost to act up. So I brought you something. Merry Christmas." I got out the book and gave it to her. "I donated this book to you guys, in memory of Paul DeShong. Tracey already has it in the system, and there's a label in the cover with his name on it. Hopefully this helps."
"Thanks," said Barb. "I'll keep you updated."
"Definitely," I said. "And otherwise, I'd suggest you basically adopt the kid. Make him your mascot. Talk to him, leave a few toys out overnight occasionally. Ghosts want attention too."
Barb grinned. "We can do that."
"I'll come up again sometime, when I can," I said. "Happy holidays."
"Guys, I got you all Christmas presents." I handed out small survival bracelets to the Teen Paranormal kids, who sat around the table in the Sloan Room. Kayla, Krystianna, Austin, Olivia, Koti and her mom Barenda, and the new kid Devon all took the colorful bracelets and slipped them on.
"I'm gonna wear this forever," said Kayla, looking at the compass on it.
"I love these things," said Krystianna. "At home I have one of the ones with the little blade on it."
"Lou doesn't trust us with those," Kayla said, elbowing her.
"Tonight we're learning about Yetis, drawing from the lesson on Bigfoot last time," I said. "Yetis tend to be spotted in cold areas, so obviously you're going to need to learn some outdoor survival, as well."
"Once when we were looking for a Piper plane crash, my dad and I got lost and built a shelter," Krystianna said. "He said it was a learning experience."
"I like that," I said. "In the cold, obviously you're going to need to start a fire. Now, don't try this at home, okay? But this is one method you can try."
I set the nine-volt on the table and shredded the steel wool a bit. Then I touched the steel wool to the leads, and it flared up with some pretty impressive sparks. The kids all gasped.
I grinned.
"Who wants to try it?"
