Thin green ghosts with bow-ties bussed martini glasses to the ghosts of Autolycus and Dula’s finest authors. Women in gowns from antiquated eras chatted with men in fedoras and tuxedo vests. None of them had feet, but rather short, clear ghost-like tails. A skeleton played a baby grand piano merrily in the corner, a cigarette burning bright in his mouth and a top hat on his head. Beside him, there was an enormous collection of manuscripts laid out on racks. They were labeled, “Post-Mortem-Scripts” and emblazoned with the names of the deceased.

“Wow,” Janus gasped. “They’ve even got legendary Snazz pianist Billy Bones to play here. My daddy books him for all our parties.”

“More importantly,” May cut in. “How are we going to make it past all those ghosts. We’ll be caught for sure.”

Mena patted her friend on the back. A look of resolve was on her face. “No time for negativity, May. I thought you wanted to help us save the world this time.”

May swallowed hard and looked nervously towards the door. “I do, but how?”

“I’ve got a fantasti-wastic idea,” Mena exclaimed.

Mena stood on the tips of her toes and whispered to Janus. The pixie-reaper gave a sly, bony smile. May simply looked at them confused.

The door to the party creaked open with a groan as sickly as a murmur from a living cadaver. Everyone’s attention was drawn to what emerged. An even more peculiar noise followed.

“Whoooo whoooo whoooo!”

Three new ghosts haunted the library. They were draped in white bedsheets with small dark holes cut out for eyes. One of the ghosts raised its bedsheet arms and swooped through the library, whoooing even louder.

“We’re ghosths” the swooping ghost lisped.

“Oh great,” one of the authors muttered. “Who invited such pedestrian specters?”

“No one will win any awards for their cliched existence,” a female author said snootily over a cup of ectoplasm. “This is truly plebian writing.”

Mena ignored the cutting words of the authors and zoomed beside them with her friends. Suddenly, a brilliant idea crossed her mind: She’d ask them about the entity plaguing the Unwritten Kingdom. “So, do you guys know anything about a ghost writer?”

Everyone turned to Mena, and with subtemperate glares, they all raised their transparent eyebrows at her. “Really?” the female author asked, her frilly glasses framing her rolling eyes. “Do we know any ghost authors?”

Mena giggled awkwardly, realizing her mistake. “Uh, so uh, who’s your favorite author? Mine’s Melina Penwell. Famed romance author of Love In The Days of Magic.”

“Penwell?” the female author screeched. Her eyes turned ectoplasmic green and she pulled her fingers down her cheeks. “Oh, how I loathe Melina Penwell. If only I had added a third person to the romance and made it a love triangle like she did. I’d be raking in the jems. Instead, I died miserable and destitute!”

The female ghost screamed bloody murder, cursing Penwell some more. A ghost in a fedora casually sipped a glowing green martini. “You know,” he began. “It’s hardly a plot twist but I don’t believe you guys are ghosts.”

“Whooo!” Mena exclaimed raising her sheets higher. “What do you mean? Whoo!”

Janus and May lifted their bedsheets and whooo’d in unison.

“Ghosts don’t exclaim ‘whooo’ after everything,” the author responded. “What do you think we are? A bunch of moaning crybabies?”

“Well, you sure like to whine about your manuscripts?” Janus said wryly.

It was time for the fedora ghost to start howling. His fingers protruded straight at Janus and he screamed, “That’s all authors. Whoooo!”

A third ghost muttered, “Seriously can we Doris over here. The spirits are starting to get restless.”

Mena swallowed loudly as the scariest ghost she had ever seen materialized out of nowhere. With rotten-blue-green skin, trench deep wrinkles and purple glasses with stringed pearls on them, Doris could strike fear into anyone…especially those with overdue library books. With her enormous disembodied hands, Doris ripped the veils off the three girls. Mena and Janus backed away cautiously, but strangely enough, May stood firm.

Doris seemed surprised at May’s resolution, but hovered ever closer to Mena’s best friend with a menacing scowl.

May puffed out her cheeks and scowled back at the ghost. “Hurt my friends,” she said, in her deep voice. “And the edits get it.”

An uncertain rumble emerged from the ghosts, but they all gasped in sheer terror when they realized May had whipped out a bottle of ink. She carefully unscrewed the top, aiming to hurl it at their table of their updated manuscripts.

“Our death’s work!” one woman ghost shrieked.

“That’s right,” May said with an uncharacteristic swagger. “Anyone whoo again, and no mortals will be reading it.”

As if challenged by the uppity mortal girl, Doris made a grab for the ink, but it was too late. May chucked the bottle of ink. It spilled out in the air, shiny, black and able to stain everything it touched.

Everyone whooo’d in horror, but the ink went right through the table.

“It’s see-through?” May exclaimed in her low voice.

Janus shook her head. “I’ve been trying to tell everyone. You can’t amend writing from beyond the grave.”

Doris eyes bugged out and she shrieked. All three girls screamed and ran down the aisle. As May jogged beside Mena, Mena whispered. “I’m so impressed May. You didn’t show any fear.”

May’s chubby dimples rose at the ends of her mouth. “This librarian ghosts got nothing on my mummy. She’d make a ghost wish they were dead twice.”

If they weren’t trying to quietly escape Doris’ wrath, Mena would have applauded her friend. Instead, she patted her on the back. May bared a proud smile for her first moment of usefulness.

“This way,” Janus said, running to the far end of the bookshelf. She directed them to an important looking door framed by two ceramics pillars. A label above them read, “Ancient Magic Section.” The three entered.

Darkness surrounded them. It was even thicker than the previous room, spited only by a few dimly burning candles. They allotted them enough light to see the first few shelves but not much else. The bookshelves seemed to rise to the top of the ceiling, or at least as far as they could see. They were tall and proud, and built of a creamy marble. On the other hand, the books themselves smelled like dust so ancient it had already decayed and reformed a thousand times over.

“Wowie zowie,” Mena exclaimed. “How in the world are we going to find what we’re looking for in this massive menagerie?”

“Well, we better do it fast,” Janus remarked, already creeping into the bookshelves. “They don’t call her “Deadly Doris, for nothing.”

A loud “Shhhhhhh” echoed throughout the room, causing the candles to flicker. An icy chill to traveled throughout the room directly through Mena’s spine.

“M-m-miserable magicaps,” Mena shivered. “Why couldn’t she be called ‘Delightful Doris,’ instead?”

Mena eased towards the bookshelves, but Janus’ voice gently called to them. “Oh and watch out. Some of these books fight back.”

Everyone combed the Ancient Magic section as quick as they could. Mena’s eyes scoured the bookshelves, fighting against the dimness. There were leather bound-books wrapped in chains, rocking back and forth, books with eyeballs at the center that turned invisible when you looked at them, and books that hovered on bats wings, but none that bore a resemblance to her book.

At the far end of the bookshelf, however, there was finally a book that made Mena go, “A-ha!”

With its cover of warm brown leather and a center gem gleaming in rainbow, it was a perfect twin to her book on the bookshelves. Mena immediately picked it up, and much to her surprise, it spoke back to her. Its voice was rather bothersome and nasally. “Welcome to Zany Zacharia’s book of Zappy Zingers.”

“Whuh?” Mena said, shaking her head in confusion. “Aren’t you another version of my book?”

“Sorry kid,” the trickster’s voice laughed. “I jinxed this book so it would camouflage itself into someone’s ideal book rather than this fol-de-rol.”

The cover quickly changed to a man grinning mischievously. He wore a pink and white jester cap and bore the same dark skin and frizzy hair as the headmaster. “Gemini?” Mena exclaimed, nearly dropping the book.

“Third uncle, five times removed,” the snappy man responded back, and added, “Mainly because I was so annoying.”

The book flapped open, and Zacharia sang merrily. “Now repeat after me, ‘Walter Warlock wins Walnuts with a walrus on Wednesday.”

“I don’t have time for this,” Mena whispered, but the book kept talking loudly.

Mena realized there was only way out. She repeated his phrase back at him, “Walter Warlock wins walnuts with a walrus on Wednesday.”

“Louder,” the man laughed. “I can’t hear you.”

Mena raised her voice to a yell. “WALTER WARLOCK WINS…”

Zany Zacharia raised his voice too. “Hey now, that’s too loud. You’ve gone and woken up the scary librarian.”

Mena turned around and screamed. Doris was right behind her. So were May and Janus, now trapped in green bubbles of ectoplasm. They floated with helpless looks on their face. Mena tossed aside Zany Zacharia who exclaimed, “Ouch,” as he hit the floor.

She grabbed her own book and slowly backed away as Deadly Doris grew ever closer. “Please don’t hurt my friends,” Mena cried. “We mean no harm.”

Doris lowered her glasses with a seething look, like Mena had turned in a seven-year overdue library book. “Other than crashing the Undead Writers convention and making so much noise you woke up the whole library?”

“I’m sorry,” Mena cried, her head bobbing frantically. She had nowhere to run. “We came to find out more about this book.”

She held up the tome and much to her surprise, Doris’ expression softened, but only a little.

“Why this book is from Dula’s antiquity,” the librarian ghost remarked. “From 555 B.J.R: Before Jester Royalty. You know, if you wanted to learn more about Dula’s greatest authors, you could simply look them up in the Dularectory at the front of the library.”

Mena gave a sharp exhale. Doris added, “Like regular students.”

“I’m sorry,” Mena said, feeling a bit relieved. “We’ll do that.”

Janus and May nodded in agreement from their ectoplasmic bubbles.

“Good,” Doris said with a smile. “Now leave.”

“Thanks ma’am,” Mena said, but unfortunately, the young witch kept talking, and the talking became blubbering. “I promise we’ll never do it again. I promise on our lives. We’ll be good girls. You have my word I…”

Doris’ head swelled to an enormous size. Her eyes cracked red with veins, and her large mouth opened, displaying rotten teeth and maggots. “LEEEAEAAAVE AND NEVER RETURN AT NIGHT!”

As ghostly spittle flew all over Mena, May and Janus, the three hightailed it out of the Ancient Magic Section. They were thankful for their newfound knowledge and vowed never to have a midnight rendezvous in the library again.