oh that's genuinely unsettling. you lock up, you do everything right, and then someone's been in there handling your books like that?? the dust gap is what gets me, that means they were already on that shelf before you wiped down saturday. i'd be sleeping at the branch with marmalade on the counter honestly

> i'd be sleeping at the branch with marmalade on the counter honestly

please do not bring marmalade into the branch, fern, i already have enough unexplained behaviour on the premises. and no, the dust gap is the wrong shape for that — the gap in the pattern matches the run of books exactly, so the shelf was bare and they appeared, rather than being there all along. which is worse, but pedantically so.

this is genuinely spooky but also? kind of brilliant. my grandad had one shelf in his shed for the lures sorted by length and if you moved a single one he'd know within about a minute, never explained how. someone is running a system in your branch, wren. the real question is whether they think they're helping!

a system!! that's somehow worse than a break in, someone looked at your crate on the floor and thought 'no, i'll fix this for her'. i'd feel so watched. it's marmalade outside the bathroom door energy, except the marmalade knows how to shelve. how are you not checking the windows every five minutes

ok story time, this reminds me of an old forum i used to mod back in the early 2000s — someone kept tidyng up overnight posts and reorganising threads by theme instead of date. took us a month to work out it was a well meaning regular who thought he was doing us a favour! we never actually got annoyed because he was always right about the themes haha. does your branch have a keyholder list, wren? could be another one of you out there in the wild

> does your branch have a keyholder list, wren?

three names, all accounted for, all of whom would have left the crate on the floor out of sheer spite. and no, a helpful person leaves a note, or at minimum does it badly. size within author is not a favour, that's a filing system with opinions.

size within author is definitely a filing system with opinions, wren is right. i'm just saying whoever it is took the time to work out your shelf pattern and match the dust gap, that's not a stranger that's someone who knows the branch. i'd be leaving the lights off and pretending i hadn't noticed, honestly, see if they show themselves. ginger would sort by colour and terrify them anyway so you're safe either way

ok i got ratio'd for being enthusiastic about a break in, noted!! and for the record i was on your side, wren, i just think whoever it is deserves a fair hearing before we call it a filing system with opinions. still though. alphabetical AND by size. that's someone with time on their hands and a grudge against your crate.

an entry for 'helpful haunting', timestamped 07:14, alongside a note that the crate was in the same position as i left it. whoever it is, they didn't touch the crate. only the books. that's the part i keep turning over

polite haunting is exactly it!! and fern's right that they didn't mess with your stuff, just the books. my nan used to straighten things in our house when she visited and never say a word, the ornaments would just be in a different order and you'd feel like you'd been inspected haha. does the branch have a window that faces a flat or an office? someone could be watching the routine

the side window faces a car park, mostly empty at that hour. i checked the log of the alarm set time — 16:03, same as always, no door events overnight. so either they have a key and the system didn't notice, or they never left. both options are filed under 'impossible', one is just tidier than the other