My gaze found Paco's as I slammed the cup down onto the reception desk. I knew this voice, and I had never heard it in as much distress. The coffee sloshed over the polished hardwood, but I ignored it and sprinted towards the back of the library. Paco's heavier steps followed on my heels.

"Conny, is everything alright?" My heart drummed in a staccato rhythm against my breastbone and made me disregard the rule of no shouting in the library. When I didn't get an immediate answer, I feared the worst. "Conny?"

The first two aisles to the left and right were empty and in the third I saw only a senior customer with a hearing aid who didn't even turn his head to look at me. But in the last aisle, a figure lay motionless on the floor amidst a heap of scattered books and several metal shelves. I slowed down, taking in the destruction, petrified.

"Conny." Paco overtook me and slithered to the floor on his knees beside her prone form, reaching for a pale wrist and placing his fingertips on the vein to check for her pulse.

At the gentle touch, my colleague's eyes fluttered open, but she didn't move. A thin thread of blood ran down her temple where a book or a shelf must have hit her. With a groan, she reached with her free hand for the nasty bruise.

"Ouch, that hurts."

At her words, relief turned my legs into jelly, and Paco's deep sigh told me he felt the same.

"I'm sure it does—I fear you might have a concussion. Please look at me, Conny." He moved his digit left and right in front of her face. As far as I could tell, her eyes followed the movement without a problem and her pupils were wide but the same size.

Paco came to a similar conclusion. "I believe you were lucky. How did this happen?"

"I don't know." She flinched when she touched the injury again. "I wanted to place a book on the top shelf and of a sudden, everything came tumbling down."

I glanced at the light above us—realising only now we were in the classics section—but it didn't waver. Still, I had my suspicions. No use mentioning ghosts, though, not while my colleague was hurt for real. "Conny, do we have a first aid box somewhere?"

"Yes, it's in my office drawer." She groaned and tried to sit up. "Let me get it."

"No, Lynn can go for it. You must take it easy. Let me help you." Paco stabilised her arm and helped her move away from the destruction to lean her back against an undamaged shelf to the right.

Impressed by his calm demeanour and competence, I shook out of my current state of shock and turned on my heel to fetch the first aid kit. In my rush to the office, I passed three women chatting in the sitting area, oblivious to the accident. How they could have missed the ruckus was beyond me.

Of course, Conny's office desk had six drawers, and I had to open them all until I found the white box adorned with a bright red cross in the last one, hidden beneath a neat stack of papers. I dropped them onto the desk with shaking hands and tucked the box under my arm to hurry back, picking up Paco's abandoned coffee on the way. Perhaps this was more needed than the first aid kit.

In the meantime, Paco had assisted Conny to stand up and was about to lead her towards the sofa with small and prudent steps, an arm around her back. "Careful, don't move too fast. You need to rest."

"Don't fuss so much, I'm fine." Her pale complexion told another story, and she leaned on Paco's supportive arm.

The ladies gasped at the sight of the blood and made room for her. "Oh dear, what happened?"

I recognised the speaker, a dark-haired woman in her fifties, as one of the library regulars and offered her a small smile. "A shelf toppled over. Please don't go to the last aisle. It might still be dangerous."

The woman volunteered to block the site with a few sitting cubes, and I thanked her—glad she made the other two help her. While they carried sitting cubes to the back, Paco pressed his wounded charge down on the couch and sat next to her.

"Let me check that wound, please." When Conny shrank back, he glanced at me and offered me his place. "Or let Lynn check it. We must assure it isn't too deep and doesn't need stitches."

I pressed the coffee into Conny's shaking fingers and sat down beside her to inspect the injury on her temple, brushing her blood clotted hair aside as gently as possible. The cut was about three centimetres long and not too deep, but the surrounding tissue was swollen and turning purple.

Paco dug a bottle with disinfectant from the first aid box and I dabbed some onto the wound. Conny flinched.

"Sorry, it always stings. The cut doesn't seem too deep, but I think it will be best if you show it to a doctor or a nurse anyway, just to be sure, since the bruise is swelling fast and looks nasty."

"If you want, I can drive you." Paco dug a car key from his pocket.

Conny's gaze drifted from him to me. "But it's still early. We need to finish here first."

"I can do that by myself. It won't be a problem. Just fetch your things and let Paco drive you to the doctor. I can also call Amber, just in case it's getting late."

She emptied her coffee and touched her temple with a probing finger. "Perhaps you could drive me home instead? I'm developing a headache."

Paco and I exchanged a desperate glance, and I gave it another try. "You should see a doctor, Conny, just to make sure you're fine. And perhaps he will prescribe you something against the headache."

In the end, it was the eldest of the helpful ladies who convinced her. "Look, I used to be a nurse, and I'd say this wound needs professional cleaning. No stitches probably, since it's straight enough to be taped. But you should do it as soon as possible to avoid getting an ugly scar. It will only take a few minutes, and you'll feel much better with an adequate dose of painkiller."

Conny caved in, and I helped her stand up before I fetched her purse and coat from the office.

While the nurse guided her arms into her coat with professional ease, Paco scratched his chin.
"Just wonder how this can have happened. The only thing that seems plausible is that one of those kids sabotaged the shelf and set a trap for whoever took a book from there."

I had my doubts, remembering the accident had happened in the classic section, of all places. But Cat and Luca weren't corporeal enough to manipulate the shelves, were they? And why should they? "Possible, but why would the kids do this?"

The ex-nurse shrugged. "Boredom, or pure malice, you never know. Probably they thought it would be funny. Please take care while driving, young man, and make sure your colleague gets some rest."

Paco nodded. "I will, thank you. Lynn, I'll come in early tomorrow to fix the shelves. Please ensure no one goes into that section, just in case there is another trap set for an innocent visitor."

"I don't intend to risk anything, promise. And Conny, please take the day off tomorrow. I can manage these few hours without you."

"I'm sure I'll be fine after a night's sleep."

Paco shook his head. "Let's see what the doctor says first. Lynn is a big girl and I'll be here to help here clean up the mess."

He pressed my shoulder in a silent promise and took Conny's arm to guide her out of the library. Together with the three ladies, I watched them leave. "Thanks for your help. I doubt we would have gotten her to see a doctor without you."

The nurse nodded. "I can understand that she doesn't want to make a fuss, but I'm sure the doctor will tell her to stay at home for a few days. Even if it is only a mild concussion, it's better to remain prudent."

"I agree. Thank you so much for your help. Can I do something for you? Would you like tea or a coffee?"

The dark-haired woman smiled. "That's kind of you, but we don't want to make your day harder than it already is. I'd just like to check out this book, if you don't mind." She held out a romance novel, the cover decorated with a man with more abs than I thought anatomically possible, and I felt my face blush.

After checking out the loans of the three ladies, I made the promised call to Amber, glad I had noted down her number the other day.

"Hey, Amber, Lynn speaking. Listen, your mum had a minor accident."

A gasp and a pause. "No—what happened? Is she fine?"

At least her voice remains even, no sign of panic. "A shelf broke and hit her in the head. It's nothing grave, just a nasty bruise, but Paco took her to the doctor for a checkup. She might be late tonight, and I promised I'd let you know."

I had no clue how to interpret the silence on the other end and feared the worst. But she took the story in stride.

"Thanks for calling. I guess it's best if I prepare something for dinner and hope she turns up soon."

If I had a daughter one day, in a future I didn't even dare imagine, I hoped she would be as level-headed as Amber. "That's an excellent plan. Although she might not be hungry if she has suffered a concussion—and she should probably rest as much as she can."

"Don't worry, I'll send her to bed early."

"Thanks, and tell her she doesn't need to come in tomorrow. I got things covered at the library and Paco said he would drop by to help me fix the shelves. I'll call you in the afternoon to see how she fares, if this is fine for you."

"Sure, and I'll see that she sleeps in. Thank you, Lynn."

We chatted a bit more until I cut the call, convinced Amber was in charge and that the small family would be fine.

A glance at my phone told me I still had a few minutes before the usual after-work rush of visitors started. So I checked the classics section to ensure our helpers had done a good job of sealing it off. They did, building a veritable wall of sitting cubes in front of it. I only added a cardboard sign telling people to stay out of the corner.

On my way back to the reception, I collected the abandoned first aid kit in the sitting area, packed in the disinfectant Paco had used, and stowed it in Conny's desk. With a sigh, I picked the papers I had scattered on the desktop earlier and pushed them back into a neat stack to place them atop of the kit. The door chime announced visitors, and I rushed to close the drawer when my gaze fell on the title printed on the top page. The short phrase in bold letters sent a jolt through my body with its simplicity.

"Luca's Dream."