Capítulo 5: Chapter 5: Records

"Pencils down!" The shrill voice of the proctor rang throughout the lecture hall as the sound of scratching graphite faded to the gentle shuffling of paper against paper. Quiet murmurs sprang up in every direction as Alessa looked over at Janie to see how she had fared. Janie shrugged apathetically.

Alessa was about to relay her own expectations when the proctor's voice pierced the air once more. "No talking until all exams are turned in!" Alessa swallowed back her comment and returned Janie's shrug instead. They gathered up their textbooks and calculators and headed towards the front of the class to turn in their exams.

The open book didn't turn out to be as helpful as Alessa had hoped, but nevertheless, she still felt relatively good about her answers. It turned out that Alessa remembered more of the physics she'd learned in high school than she had thought. Despite last night's failed attempt at studying, she guessed that - depending on the curve, of course - she would probably wring out a B, maybe better. That was going to have to be good enough. She had other things on her mind.

Alessa and Janie turned in their booklets and filed out the door, swept in amongst the stream of students. Alessa hated these big imposing lecture halls with auditorium-style seating for 400 and their scratchy fabric seats with cramped little fold-out desks. She couldn't wait to get outside.

The moment they crossed the threshold, Janie began drilling Alessa. "What'd you get for number four?"

"The ball rolling off a ramp one?"

"Yeah."

Alessa thought for a moment. "12.4 meters."

Janie swore under her breath. "Hmpf. Hopefully they'll give partial credit."

Alessa replied with an optimistic shrug as they exited the building onto the quad.

"I can't believe Professor Liu is making us go to lecture today," Janie moaned. Janie wasn't the biggest physics enthusiast and she was taking the class just to fill a science requirement. Alessa had convinced her to transfer in a few weeks into the semester so that they could have a class together, so she felt partially responsible for Janie's dread. It did seem unfair that the university allowed professors to schedule class on the same day as the midterm.

"I know. I'm not looking forward to it either. But at least he didn't assign any homework."

Alessa and Janie commiserated on the injustices of midterm scheduling until they reached the library, Alessa stopping as she motioned toward it. "Have time for a little paranormal research?" she asked.

Janie smiled but shook her head. "I've got to go turn in that psych paper. But good luck! Let me know how it goes."

"Will do." Alessa and Janie parted and Alessa headed up the few steps towards the library door.

When she stepped inside, the musk of old books hit her immediately. It wasn't an unpleasant smell exactly, but it was a violent contrast to the fresh fall air outside. Alessa looked up and admired the tall vaulted ceilings and heavy wood rafters. The architectural details in the library were stunning, from the intricate woodwork in the moldings to the stained glass windows to the patterned tile floor. From the entranceway, Alessa could look up four stories straight with nothing to block her view except a grand old chandelier.

She headed to the information desk and the student behind the counter looked up with a smile. "How can I help you?"

Alessa wasn't quite sure what to ask for. "Hi. Um, I'm trying to learn more about the history of my sorority house?" She cringed at the uncertain inflection of her own voice. "I saw that a Mary Brighton was quoted as an expert in an article from The Burrow," - the university was overrun with references to the school mascot, and the campus newspaper was no exception - "and I think I read that she's a librarian here?"

"Yup! Ms. Brighton has an office up on the third floor. Just take the steps and make a right. It's down past the local history section."

"Thanks," Alessa breathed with a smile. She turned towards the large staircase on her left and headed up to the third floor, passing seemingly endless stacks of books on her way.

The dense hush of the library was broken only by the occasional peal of laughter from a table of student-athletes in the corner. One of them - a strapping, tan-skinned guy with neat black hair sporting a fitted windbreaker in ESU's colors - suddenly looked up, meeting Alessa's eyes as she passed. She thought she might have caught his lips curling into a smile before she looked away, cheeks flushing under the intensity of his gaze. He couldn't possibly be smiling at her, could he? She fought the urge to glance once more in his direction.

Reaching the office, Alessa noted that the door was open. Inside was a smallish older woman, gray hair pulled back in a severe bun, thick black glasses perched low on her nose, her neutral outfit neat but frumpy. Alessa almost had to laugh - Mary Brighton was a perfect caricature of a librarian, right down to the over-large tome she was patiently paging through.

Alessa knocked gently on the wall. The librarian pushed her glasses back to the bridge of her nose and looked up. "Hello, dear. What can I assist you with?"

"Hi. I was actually interested in learning more about the history of my sorority house, Z-E-Pi, and I saw that you were at the commemoration ceremony a few days ago?" Alessa tried not to be awkward. She didn't know what she was going to say if Ms. Brighton asked why she was interested. She wished she had thought this through a bit more.

"Oh, absolutely. 33 Mason Manor is one of my favorite properties on the campus. What did you want to know?"

Alessa wondered if it would be possible to avoid the subject of the ghost. She took a deep breath and hoped her reply was casual enough to not betray her lie. "I'm working on a project for my history class, about the lifetime of a building. I'm supposed to choose one building and write about all the notable people who lived or worked there." She looked at the librarian expectantly.

"Of course. I can help you with that. Just one moment." Mary Brighton closed the volume she'd been reading and Alessa was hit with a puff of that old book smell again. Ms. Brighton stood up. "Come with me."

She swiftly led Alessa back through the section she'd passed on her way here, pausing only to chide the rowdy table of athletes in the back. Mr. Tall Dark & Handsome from before winked an apology in Alessa's direction as they passed, the sparkle in his rich, dark eyes making her heart skip a beat. Realizing he actually had noticed her, she nervously tossed her hair, blushing as she mustered a quick smile before following the librarian deeper into the stacks.

A few moments later, Alessa was seated at an uncomfortable study desk in the back corner of the local history section. Mary Brighton had known exactly where to find all the old town records, dating all the way back to the 1700s. There was a thick book for every decade from 1760 to 1999, Ms. Brighton had explained, after which time the records became electronic. Alessa was worried she'd have to page through all 24 books to keep up the pretext for her research, but the librarian had given her a break when she mentioned that the house was built in the 1870s, knocking almost half the books off her list.

Alessa picked up the first book and paged through to get acquainted with the organization. She started with 1870 and skipped to the M section, scanning the page for 33 Mason Manor.

Nothing.

She tried 1871. Still nothing.

Alessa continued in this manner until she came across the first entry in 1878:

Mason Manor, No. 33. New Construction, completed October 14th on 148 acres. Owner: Albert B. Mason. Residents: Albert B. Mason & Elizabeth Mason, children Albert Mason Jr., 3, and William Mason, 1.

Now she had a start. If the young man she was seeing was from the 1890s, it could be Albert Jr. or William. She noted that the last name of the residents was the same as the address - she supposed they had named the property after the family.

Alessa continued reading. There was nothing more in the first book, nor in the second or third. It was in the fourth volume - 1900s - that Alessa had another hit:

Mason Manor, No. 33. New Owner, Albert Mason Jr., as of April 25th. Residents: Albert Mason Jr. & Martha Mason, children Isaac Mason, 6.

That entry was from 1906, adding Isaac Mason as another possibility. Alessa read for a few more moments, and found one more related record in 1908. The family had acquired another 40 acres of land adjacent to the property and there was an additional entry beside Isaac under the children, a one year old Josephine Mason.

If it was Isaac, the ghost she was seeing was probably from between 1915 and 1920. She knew from the Z-E-Pi article that the university had purchased the property in the 30s, so that left two or three volumes to go through to narrow down the possibilities.

She was beginning to think she wouldn't find anything useful when she came across an entry in 1917:

Mason Manor, No. 33. New Owner, William Mason, as of May 3rd. Residents: None.

She pressed through the rest of that volume and onto the next, not finding any additional entries until 1933:

Mason Manor, No. 33. New Owner, Eastern State University, as of September 4th. Residence converted for office use.

So in 1917, when Isaac Mason would have been 17 years old, his family vacated their home and transferred ownership of the property to Isaac's uncle, William. And judging by the fact that there was no entry stating it'd been converted to a residential rental or office space, it sounded like the house had stood empty from 1917 until the university acquired it in 1933.

Alessa tried to list the plausible explanations for this series of events in her head. She thought perhaps it was possible that the family had just moved away and sold the property to William. That didn't explain why he had chosen not to live there or at least to rent it out to another family, though she supposed that perhaps he was wealthy enough that an empty second home wasn't a concern.

Inspecting her notes, Alessa remembered something vague that the librarian said in the article that Janie had clipped, something about "the passing of a wealthy family." If Isaac's family had died, that could provide a sound rationale for why William didn't live there. Maybe the house was still damaged from whatever tragedy had struck them, or maybe William just couldn't bring himself to do it. It might have been too painful to be in the house where he'd lost his brother's entire family. And it would also explain why he eventually relinquished his family's farm to the university, since it wasn't going to do him much good sitting there abandoned.

Of course, with this little information to go on, it was impossible to know which of these theories might be correct, or if there was another explanation entirely. But Alessa had a hunch.

She felt fairly certain now that Isaac was indeed the ghost. He seemed to be the only possibility given that William and Albert had apparently lived well past their teenage years. It also seemed like an uncanny coincidence that all record of Isaac's family mysteriously vanished at the same time when Isaac would be the right age to fit the description of the ghost she was seeing.

Alessa circled the name Isaac Mason in her notes, then pressed her pen closed with a satisfied click.

She glanced up at the clock - only 20 minutes until her physics lecture, and she still needed to run home and grab her laptop.

Alessa briskly stacked the volumes of records and carried them back to the shelves, then snatched up her bag and headed toward the stairs, savoring the sound of Isaac's name as she turned it over and over again in her mind.

She'd have to make a mad dash across campus and back if she had any hopes of getting to the science building on time. But this had definitely been worth the trip.

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