McMaster University - 1973
Richard Hamill hadn't entered the library on an April 23rd since that first strange occurrence three years earlier. He'd always feigned illness or booked that week off work, whatever it took to ensure he wasn’t around.
He knew enough to have determined that the specter he'd seen on the top floor of the library that April night in 1970 was that of Professor Marshall Emerson, Shakespearean scholar. There were enough clues and Hamill was a competent enough researcher to be able to hone in on the quote from The Tempest he’d heard the ghost utter, the significance of the date and the section of the library that had been disturbed.
But it wasn't any of the research or clues he'd put together that made him confident in his decision.
It was that portrait in the archives section of the library, down in the depths of the basement which he'd spotted the next day that clinched it. All those other clues were mere window dressing.
He barely glanced at the portrait when he walked past the first time. It was hung above a cubicle leading to the back of the archives – but a second after he passed it, he stopped, and the peripheral glance of the man in the photograph was enough to set all his hairs on end and give him a sinking feeling in his gut.
When he stepped back to look directly at the photo of Marshall Emerson he knew immediately. That had been the man he'd seen the night before on the top floor of the library; a man who had been dead for years.
Richard knew enough not to mention his suspicion to anyone. But he’d kept his ears open for any disturbing stories or tales, and jotted down anything that was even slightly out of the ordinary, just in case it had something to do with Emerson's ghost.
He kept his notes on these matters as well as the tons of research he had done on the man's life in a secret file that he simply labeled Prospero's Ghost.
And he was working on a note within that file on the second night he'd witnessed the apparition. He'd been sitting in the cubicle below Emerson's portrait, a cubicle he'd become rather fond of over the years despite that heavy feeling in his gut he experienced when he'd first seen it.
As he was making a quick note about a part-time student who had reported the Shakespeare collection on the top floor having been found strewn about the floor when a distinct chill encompassed the room.
Out of the corner of his eye, Richard saw a figure standing before him. When he glanced up, nobody was there, but he heard, very clearly, the following words in a gruff deep voice: "Knowing I loved my books, he furnished me from mine own library with volumes that I prize above my dukedom.”
Richard paused only a moment before responding, almost by rote, since he immediately recognized the line as one the character Prospero said in Act I Scene ii of The Tempest. Once he started studying Marshall Emerson he, in turn, studied the bard's works in detail, particularly that one play – the swan song of Shakespeare and apparently Emerson as well.
"Would I might but ever see that man!”
The response from the gruff voice was immediate. "Sit still and hear the last of our sea sorrow.”
The chill immediately withdrew from the room and Richard was alone again.
He didn't have to make a note about this newly discovered fact.
Marshall could be pacified with the right words, the right response. Now he only needed to discover what the right response would be to rid the library of Prospero's Ghost forever.
Aksara