Madeline smiled softly to herself as she made her way through the darkened public library. She deeply inhaled the musty smell of the books and reveled in the way their soft backs and curved spines seemed to swallow any sound.

"It's so quiet." She thought, "so peaceful and calm."

She slipped over to a podium, turning on her light and gazing at the book left open from the night before. "Oh good, nobody moved it during the day!" She gave a quiet cheer to herself as she leaned against the old, worn wood, slowly turning each page with delicate care as she finished reading it.

She lost herself in the adventure, in tales of knights and princes, queens and dragons. She imagined herself in the world of the book, a fearsome pirate queen, ruling the seven seas with an iron fist!

She didn't even notice as the sun began to rise, painting the closed window blinds a violent orange, or when that softened to a dull yellow. She barely reacted when the keys rattled in the door, letting the head librarian in to fix her early morning coffee before her assistants arrived.

Then the overhead lights flickered on and her misty form faded to invisibility, her internal glow swallowed up by the harsh fluorescents. In the light, her body could no longer interact with physical objects in the room. She heard the librarian coming closer and tried to position herself between the worker and the book she was so close to finishing!

Without even noticing she was there, the librarian walked right through her ghostly form, giving a little shiver as she felt a chill run down her spine. Seeing the book left out on the podium, the librarian closed it with a loud SNAP that Madeline felt in her heart as the book was picked up and carried away to be placed on a far off shelf.

Howling silently in sadness and frustration, she curled in on herself, becoming little more than a small ball of energy. Squeezing into the shadows of a shelf, she kicked at a book in frustration, nudging it off onto the floor with a thud.

"I never get to finish one," she sulked, and settled herself in for the long, boring day.