Nothing but Ghosts Read Online Free PDF

here’s the thing: We’re understaffed this summer, Julia and I. We haven’t taken much more than a cursory glance at this gift, and so far I can’t report a rhyme or reason to it. It’s as if someone tossed an attic’s worth of papers into however many boxes were required, then drove it all here to us in the dark and disappeared before we could ask questions.”
    “I don’t mind,” I say.
    “There are seven boxes, Katie.”
    “It’s not like I have to get all my research done today.”
    “Here is what I’m thinking, then. I’ll set you upin a study room—we’ve got plenty of spare ones in summer. You come in when you can and come to circulation for a key, and you can do your investigating on your own. All I ask is that you leave the boxes neater than you find them. Organize as you go, if you would, by dates or by themes, whatever seems best, and when you’re done, lock up, give us the key. Let us know if you stumble onto something big.”
    “I will,” I promise. Ms. McDermott studies me for a moment, pulling her fingers through her hair. She balances on top of her fabulous shoes. Then she continues down the hall, stops at a door, turns the lock with the key that hangs from the ribbon around her neck. When she flips on the lights, I’m beside her. I see a room full of cartons, boxes, books that have escaped their bindings.
    “You have just been introduced to the library’s dirty laundry,” she says.
    She walks toward one long folding table, where theseven boxes sit, each one marked, as promised, LOCAL LORE . “This is it,” she says. “I’ll have them transferred to a study room tomorrow. Bring your own paper. Use pencils only. Be careful, as you can never tell what treasures might be found.”
    “This is awesome,” I say. “I mean, like, totally unexpected. Like I didn’t really think that I would find this much.”
    “Remember something, Katie,” Ms. McDermott cautions. “History is never absolute truth. It’s parcels and string and suppositions. It’s what you make of it.”
    “Okay.”
    “Miss Martine is a legend around here. Things have been rumored and whispered. But before she was a legend, she was just a girl, and after that, she was just a young woman. “
    “I guess so.”
    “Don’t come to any quick conclusions is what I’msaying. Whatever you’re searching for, don’t be too quick to find it.”
    “Thank you, Ms. McDermott.”
    “Tomorrow,” she says, “we’ll be all set up for you.”
     
    “You know, Babe,” Dad says when I finally walk in, an hour late at least, probably more, “you shouldn’t keep your personal chef waiting. Did you know, for example, that roast beef cooks itself, even after you remove it from the oven?” Dad has his jewelry of many eyeglasses around his neck, his thickest pair high on his head. He’s way overdue for a haircut. Dinner has been sliced, scooped, served. He has removed his apron.
    “I didn’t know.”
    “We’ve lost our pink center.”
    “I’m sorry, Dad.”
    “You’ve got a phone,” he says. “You could have called.”
    “It won’t happen again.”
    “I should hope not.”
    Sitting down to a meal all sweaty and muddy is not my idea of polite. But if I go upstairs to shower and change, I’ll leave Dad waiting longer. Gingerly, I pull out my chair.
    “Were you having tea with Miss Martine?” Dad asks.
    “You’re funny,” I say. “Ha-ha.”
    “Or a date with one of those Santopolo boys?”
    “Yup. Dressed like this. I’m such a turn-on.”
    “So where were you, then?”
    “At the library, with Ms. McDermott.”
    “You stood me up for books?”
    “That wasn’t my objective.”
    “What were you thinking?”
    I slice into the roast beef, pushing a portion into the pillow of mashed potatoes that Dad has made from scratch, judging from the looks of the counter behindhim. “There was this weird thing that happened at the estate today. Something that went down with Old Olson.”
    Dad’s face goes from