Chapter 2: The library comes alive as Al runs his fingers along leather-bound spines, each book pulsing with unnatural warmth until Eilidh pins him against the shelves, her fiery hair spilling over him like liquid sunset - but the deeper their bodies entwine, the louder the castle's whispered warnings grow between their moans.
The cold damp of the chamber had seeped into Al’s bones, a deep and patient chill that no amount of pacing could dislodge. He finally found that one blanket was electric and he switched it on. It worked, he warmed up, but the noises, the odd smells, still disturbed his sleep. At one point he thought he heard a scream, but then nothing. He wasn't sure but maybe he was dreaming. The imagined pressure of a thousand silent stares from the portraits in the hall didn't help. By the first grey light of dawn, he gave up, pulling on his jeans and a sweater that still smelled faintly of airplane.
He needed to get out of this room, find something in this crumbling monument that wasn’t dust and ghosts. And maybe some breakfast?
He found the library by accident, taking a wrong turn down a corridor he hadn’t noticed the night before. The door was immense, of dark, scarred oak, and it yielded to his push with a groan that spoke of long disuse. He almost immediately saw another, half-open door on the other side of the room, leading into the Great Hall from last night's entrance.
The air that washed over him was different. It was still cold, but it was a dry cold, carrying a complex scent of aged leather, crumbling parchment, and the faint, sweet tang of polished wood. There was no smell of neglect or dirt, just that of forgotten knowledge.
The room was cavern, a cathedral of books. Towering shelves, two full stories tall, reached up into a vaulted darkness, their contents restrained by the ancient wood shelves. . Ladders on brass rails stood sentinel at intervals, and a mezzanine level, accessible by a spiral staircase of black iron, offered access to the second tier of literary history. Light, filtered and diluted by grime, flooded through a massive arched window at one far end, while a row of skylights in the high ceiling, intact but filthy, added to the illumination of millions of dust motes that danced in the sunlit air.
Al walked slowly down the center of the room, his footsteps muffled by a threadbare Persian runner. His fingers trailed along the long narrow tables that stood between the runner and the shelves. Books were everywhere, bound in every conceivable material: cracked leather, faded cloth, even what looked like vellum. Many of the titles were stamped in gold leaf that had flaked away or inked in scripts that were barely legible. He crossed to the shelves and began to look at the titles. Histories of clans he’d never heard of, treatises on alchemy, volumes of poetry in Gaelic.
He stopped before a particularly large folio, its leather cover tooled with a complex, spiraling knotwork. Without thinking, he pulled it from the shelf. It was heavier than it looked.
And it was warm.
He almost dropped it. The warmth was faint, a residual heat like a stone that had been sitting in the sun. He laid it on a nearby reading table, the wood scarred with ink stains and the ghosts of countless elbows. As he opened the cover, the binding crackled, and a puff of dust, smelling of cinnamon and age, rose into the air.
The pages were handwritten, the ink a faded brown. The script was elegant, flowing. He couldn’t understand a word of it—it was all in Gaelic—but as his eyes scanned the lines...he felt them. Not in his 'brain' as such, but (maybe?) his mind? He felt the meanings and a low hum started in the back of his mind. It wasn't a sound, wasn't words. It was a vibration. A whisper of… excitement? Longing?
“It’s a book of border ballads,” a voice said, soft and clear. Al jumped, slamming the book shut. The warmth against his palms vanished, replaced by the expected cool of old leather. He whirled around twice, looking for the voice, but there was no one in sight. Then, from the mezzanine above, came a soft, musical laugh.
A woman descended the spiral staircase ten feet away. She was his age, with hair the color of autumn leaves and sparkling green eyes. Her hair was pulled back into a loose braid, and she wore practical, sturdy clothes—woolen trousers, boots, a thick cardigan. She carried a small, soft-bristled brush and a microfiber cloth.
“Sorry,” she said, a faint smile touching her lips. “Didn’t mean to startle you. You must be Alistair. The lawyers emailed me you were coming. I’m Edith Pringle. I’m here on a grant, cataloguing the collection.”
“Al,” he said, his heart still thumping. “And you… you can read this?” He gestured to the book.
“Some of it. It’s mostly tragic romances and bloody feuds. The usual.” She came to stand beside him, and he caught a scent of flower-based perfume and fresh air. Nothing like the books in the ancient room. She looked at the book, then at him, her head tilted. “You felt it, didn’t you?”
He hesitated. “Felt what?”
“The books. Some of them… hum. Especially to someone with McCullen blood. Hamish says it’s the stones. Actually, he says its the blood, soaked into the stones. This part of the castle--the Hall and this library-- is built on the oldest part of the foundation. He swears the memory of the place gets into the vellum and the ink.” She said it so matter-of-factly, as if discussing the damp.
“Hamish mentioned that. The stones remembering.” He looked around the vast room, the countless volumes. “So this is… what? A library of memories?”
“Something like that.” She hesitated. "But, isn't every library? Every book?"
She held his eyes in her gaze. It was direct, intelligent. “That one you’re holding… it’s mostly songs about stolen kisses and lovers separated by war. It’s one of the more… resonant ones.”
He looked down at the book, then back at her. The strange hum in his mind had quieted, but in its place was a different kind of energy, a simple, human curiosity. She was beautiful in a way that had nothing to do with polish and everything to do with substance.
“So... you’re not scared of the whispering stones?” he asked. "Or would that be unprofessional?"
Edith laughed, a warm, genuine sound that seemed to push back the shadows at the edges of the room. “I’m a historian. We live for whispers. It’s the silence that’s terrifying.” She reached out and gently opened the book again. Her fingers, next to his on the page, were slim and capable. “This line here,” she said, her voice dropping slightly as she traced the Gaelic script. “It roughly translates to ‘my heart is a fortress that only your key can unlock.’ A bit cheesy, really.”
He wasn’t looking at the text. He was looking at the curve of her neck, at the way a stray strand of hair had escaped her braid. The dust motes seemed to dance around her like a halo. The silence in the library was no longer oppressive; it was intimate, charged.
“Maybe cheesy just means we didn't know them the way they knew each other,” he said, his voice softer than he intended.
Her eyes met his, and the professional curiosity in them deepened into something else, something more personal. The air between them grew still. The only sound was the soft, almost imperceptible sigh of the old building settling around them.
"Maybe they... knew each other... personally." He leaned in, just an inch. A question. She didn’t move away. Her lips parted slightly.
In an instant, the temperature dropped. Not gradually. It took a plunge, as if a door to a freezer had been flung open. Al’s breath plumed in the suddenly frigid air.
The whisper returned, but it wasn’t in his mind this time. It was a physical sound, a sibilant hiss that seemed to come from the books themselves, from the very stones of the walls. It wasn’t excited or longing. It was hungry.
Edith gasped, her hand flying to his arm, her grip tight.
"What the hell...?" Al couldn't help himself. “Did you hear that?”
Before he could answer, a book flew from a high shelf. It didn’t fall; it was hurled, spinning end over end before slamming against the opposite wall, its pages fluttering like a wounded bird. Then another. And another. A rain of ancient volumes began to tumble from their perches, a chaotic, violent storm of paper and binding.
Al pulled Edith against him, shielding her with his body as a heavy genealogy tome thudded to the floor near their feet, spraying torn pages.
The whispering coalesced into a single, intelligible word that echoed through the cavernous space, a sound woven from dust and despair.
“Mine.”
The library door flew open with a crash that shook the walls.
Hamish stood framed in the doorway, his face a mask of stark fury and something deeper, something like fear. He held his walking stick not as a support, but leveled like a blade. His eyes, wild and wide, scanned the room before locking onto them.
“What did you do?” he roared, his voice cutting through the hissing chaos. “What in God’s name did you stir up?”
The falling books ceased. The whispering stopped as if severed by a knife. The silence that rushed back in was deafening, thick with menace.
Hamish strode toward them, his boots crushing scattered pages. He didn’t look at the destruction. His gaze was fixed on Al, then on Edith, still held tightly in Al’s arms. His expression shifted from fury to a grim, horrified understanding.
“It feeds on passion,” he hissed, his voice low and urgent, each word clipped. “Joy, rage, sorrow. But especially that.” He jabbed a finger toward the space between them. “It’s a spark on dry tinder. You think you’re the first to feel a quickening in this room?”
He stepped closer, his weathered face inches from Al’s. The smell of pipe smoke and cold earth clung to him.
“Ewan,” Hamish whispered, the name a sacred and terrible thing in the quiet. “He brought a lass here once. A MacLennan from the village. The stones… they drank their laughter. They tasted their young love. And when it was at its sweetest, that’s when they took him. They always take what they love most.”
He looked from Al’s stunned face to Edith’s pale one.
“It’s not just memories in this stone,” he said, his voice dropping to a gravelly whisper. “It’s hunger. And you’ve just given it a taste.”