Full Moon

The moon was full.
The moon was always full when these things happened. That’s how it worked. Every time the moon was full, a werewolf bit the bullet or a vampire woke up and smelled the garlic or a dragon found the prince that had been hiding under his bed. It was just how these things went. Like clockwork, nearly. I mean, some people set their calendars to it—
You know.
Anyways, the moon was full on the night that she moved in.
It was, people thought, a little odd for a full moon. After all, nobody died. Someone always died on the full moon. Someone was always a monster, whether or not they actually knew it.
She came at the stroke of midnight.
People had been waiting by their doors for the telltale scream of monster-death that usually accompanied the bell, ready to burst out of their homes in bewilderment-that-wasn’t.
Dong, went the clock-tower. Twelve times, and nothing happened.
Oh, people thought. That’s odd. Nothing happened.
At least it wasn’t me, people thought, as they went off to bed from an uneventful night. That was the worst part of having a monster infestation you could set your schedule by. Not all monsters knew they were monsters. Sometimes, you didn’t know the signs until you were killed with a silver bullet. After all, only werewolves would die from a silver bullet wound.
Unless you were, you know, mortal or something.
But nobody talked about that.

Days later, people would talk – they’d say she came in a silver wagon, pulled by a silver horse that only appeared at night. They’d say that, when she first stepped from the coach, she was draped in diaphanous sheets of moonlight. Her hair was black and pale and sheer, draping over her, her lips full and red and her eyes were stars.
The little boy who’d really seen it said, wait a second, it was nothing like that. She came in a brightly-colored wooden wagon, pulled by a good natured-mule. She’d let him feed it oats…
And she was wearing diaphanous—
No, he said, she was wearing a hoodie and jeans.
But nobody ever listened to the boy who’d really been there. The problem with really being there is, you always know what really happened.

Liberis had grown up in a place called the Library. She did not, despite what people wanted to believe, have full red lips or diaphanous silver robes or, in fact, silken pale black hair. She wasn’t sure that that was even possible.
Liberis had earthen-brown hair. Her skin was spotted with pockmarks and freckles, her clear eyes dotted with glasses. She wore loose leggings and a short skirt. She wore a belt, with various writing utensils stuck in it. She wore combat boots and, occasionally, mukluks.
Sometimes the boy who’d really been there came by and talked to her. One time he asked her what she did for a living.
“I’m a Librarian,” she told him.
He frowned, because she didn’t look like a librarian. Librarians were mean old ladies who said “Shh” whenever your shoe made a noise on a wet floor, who squinted a lot and charged you a dime for coming in after twelve with a late book…
He told her this. She laughed. It sounded like pages turning.
“Not that kind of librarian.”

People wondered what on Earth she was. Nobody had ever seen someone like her before. They didn’t know what to think of a girl who didn’t wear a dress. They didn’t know what to think of someone who spent every afternoon on her porch, telling stories to the local children after school, when every sensible person in the world was working.

People began to talk.

People said she was a witch. At the full moon she turned into a black cat and went out charming everyone. She’d kill them all if they didn’t get her first!
No, said the boy who’d really been there. She’s not a witch, she’s a librarian! She told me so!
But nobody listened. Everyone was too excited for the next full moon. Hopefully it would make up for the last one.

“It’ll be fine,” Liberis told him when he came to warn her.
No, she wouldn’t! Everyone knew that someone had to die on the full moon!
“Not me,” she told him. “Librarians don’t die.”
He frowned again. Two years ago the librarian had gotten a wooden stake through her heart, and most everyone was pretty sure she was dead.
“It’s okay. Hey, you wanna see a secret?”

People began to talk.
Surely, they said, she’d used witchcraft to escape through the fireplace. Surely she’d flown off on a broom and gotten away – surely she was a witch! Surely—
That’s not how it happened at all, said the boy they’d found in her house, shaking his head. She’s a Librarian. She’d put her wagon and her donkey back into their book, and then she’d slipped into a different book, the one she never let me read stories from. And now she’s home.
But nobody ever listened to the boy that was really there.