Lost in Ordinary

Amelia Stein never thought her life would stray far from the small library in Saintsville. She’d always been one for stories, but the way she saw it, they were meant to be confined to the pages of dusty books and not the life of a lonely librarian. Saintsville was just the place for someone wearing the cloak of the mundane. It was quiet, and you knew whose mailbox was old and rusty just like you’d know whose dog would bark all day after someone was careless enough to ring the doorbell. That’s exactly why it felt strange when, one Wednesday afternoon, Mrs. Charger’s famous apple pie lay abandoned on her windowsill, untouched, with her back door swung open ever so slightly. You see, Mrs. Charger lived right across Amelia. She’d wave hello, ask about the latest thriller, and even sportingly argue about the best ways to catch a cold in winter—every time Amelia came back from the library. And now she was gone. Amelia poked her head inside the open door, her heart a tentative drummer in the cage of her ribs. “Mrs. Charger?” she half-whispered, half-hoped. Only silence greeted her. Mrs. Charger’s well-organized room was neat, but on closer inspection, not orderly – a clue waiting to announce itself the minute someone looked. The kitchen, littered with sugar-coated memories of small gatherings, now bore open secrets. An old diary lay cracked open on the countertop. It was penciled with notes, dates, cryptic symbols, and seemingly innocent but persistent entries talking about 'They' and 'Time.' Amelia knew she shouldn't have been reading it, but Mrs. Charger wouldn’t mind, not now anyway. Then it hit Amelia—a past conversation. Fragments really. Mrs. Charger once mentioned her younger years with the strange people she called 'the seekers.' Seeking what, she never mentioned. But now, the symbols, the entries, the talk of 'They'—it all felt alive. She spent the rest of the day turning those mad scribblings over in her mind. The symbols danced around her like an unsolvable puzzle. Then Amelia realized, some of them matched an odd pattern etched onto some library books that, honestly, nobody really borrowed these days. Dusty, forgotten, but there. She unearthed them next morning. The same cryptic story, written over the years by different hands, marred some pages. Amelia traced the lines on the faded beige paper until they seemed to breathe. Each story, each symbol spoke of dark corners of this quiet town she never suspected, of forces that seemed fantasy until Mrs. Charger wasn’t there. Until that mystery leaped from page to reality, and Mrs. Charger had disappeared. Feeling impulsive, Amelia started reaching out to the insular folks who like Mrs. Charger had lived here long enough. Secrets were buried deep, kept comforted and wrapped up like worn winter coats taken out but not really ready for a full airing in the cold light of reason. As a librarian, she knew where to look, how to coax tiny slivers of truth into the open. She found out, for instance, that Saintsville was built upon far older ruins, that its quaint streets bore the burden of ancient whispers and forgotten clans. She found unsettling truths in kind voices that had hidden their edges, lulling innocuity. That Mrs. Charger, just an ordinary woman on the surface, had ties with those who dabbled in things better left untouched. And, against her will, Amelia got entangled in this web—a part of her even thrilled, as she pieced together what’d led her here. As her days muddled into more visions of coded messages and half-glimpsed figures at dusk, she yanked herself back from the deep well of discovery long enough to realize a more profound truth: Saintsville wasn't filled with boring ordinary lives. Each face, mundane or alive with age, dressed a story. Mrs. Charger's story enlisted her, possibly unwillingly but entirely necessarily. And then, *rumor of her return*—some said they’d seen a silhouette passing through, a voice heard whispered but not caught for more than a moment—a ghost reunion on the edge of sight. Armed with newfound bravery and a hard-won grin that hinted at a life beyond the library, Amelia scouted through locked thoughts and silent hearts. She realized then—Saintsville spun more stories than she'd ever find in the pages of those dusty books.