River of Shadows (Underworld Gods 1)

For three, pretty sure I just saw a ghost glide past from one end of the library to the other.

“What?” Death asks, staring at my face.

“Is this library…haunted?”

“Oh. Yes. Very much so.”

My eyes widen. “By who?”

“By whom, you mean? And it doesn’t matter. It changes all the time. It’s haunted by the dead. I don’t see them anymore, though I did when I was a young boy.”

“But why is the library haunted, of all places?” I ask.

“It’s the Library of the Veils,” he says patiently. “You know what the Veils are, don’t you?”

I give him a look like no, I don’t know shit, remember?

He grabs my hand again and leads me to the black velvet couches under a stained glass rose window. I sit down and he pulls a book off the shelf, handing it to me, the snow from outside the window causing colors of navy and eggplant to bleed through.

“This is a volume of The Book of Souls from 1946, your time, your world,” he says.

I flip it open and gasp. The page is moving like I’m looking at someone’s home videos played on mute, an image of a man drinking beer on the beach superimposed on the paper. The man smiles and then the scene changes to him driving down an oceanside highway, holding the hand of a pretty woman with a 60’s hairdo. At the top of the page, it says Emanuel Courier: December 12th—July 8th 1965.

“Every person that has ever lived is in the Book of Souls, even if they only lived for but a minute,” Death explains as I watch the scenes unfold on the page, the life of Emanuel Courier. “When you die, your entry is complete. Nothing more to be added. You see, Hanna, when I said that I knew you, I meant it. You told me that you scroll the TikTok at night and that you like tiny prickly plants, but I already knew that about you because it’s already playing in your own entry in the book.”

My god. Has he really been able to watch my whole life like that? “I need to see my entry!” I exclaim. I flip through the pages but all I see are the lives of people who were born in 1946.

“Why? You’ve lived it, haven’t you?”

“For the same reasons we take photos and videos. So that we don’t forget.”

“Don’t you think it would be for the best if you did forget?” His voice lowers. “You’re not going back to that life.”

I nearly growl. I hate being reminded of that. “I want to see it.”

“Maybe some other time,” he says firmly. “The last thing I want is for you to yearn for what was.”

“And you don’t think I’m not already doing that?” I shout, getting to my feet.

He takes the book from my hands and snaps it shut. “I was just showing you something I thought you might appreciate,” he says sulkily, turning around and sliding the book back on the shelf. “Each book is organized by date of birth, then by world, and they’re constantly being filled and updated.”

That last bit of information distracts me enough. “How many worlds are we talking here?”

“There are…a lot. Tuonela oversees them all. You think Sarvi came from your world originally? I assure you, unicorns did not. This land, this library, is the meeting place for the Veils, the thin shrouds that keep one world from bleeding into the next.”

It’s all too much. All these books filled with all the lives that ever lived across the universe. No wonder the damn library is so big, it’s not like he’s collecting all the special editions of Dickens or something. Each book, one person per page, constantly refreshing, like an Instagram story that keeps going and going, all the way until their death when there’s no more life to add.

“Why do the ghosts haunt this place then?” I ask. “Shouldn’t they be in the City of Death?”

“Not all that come to Tuonela come willingly,” he says gravely. “Sometimes denial is stronger than death. Those spirits feel the souls in here, in these very pages, and they’re somehow comforted. I try not to judge them, even though it is my job in the long run to bring them to the city. Instead, I harness their energy so at least they’re good for something.” He gestures to the glowing white sconce on the shelf above him. “They power the lights,” he adds proudly.

I’ll admit that’s pretty genius, but Death doesn’t seem like the type who needs his ego stroked anymore. “So, what’s the floating book out there? Is that haunted? Is that the book of your life?”

Another dry chuckle. “The Book of Runes. The most powerful book in the realm, perhaps in all the realms.”

Oooh. So that’s the Book of Runes. I look over my shoulder, staring at the floating hardcover. Rauta is still lying on the floor beneath it, but this time keeping a red eye on me. “Why is it so powerful?” I ask.