Books of the Dead by Morris Fenris

right?” Jeremy said in his thick English accent, he was fond of Nora, and it was apparent.
    He must have tried to contact her like me, Merly told herself.
    “She is with her family,” she said with little assurance and hoped that would console him.
    Before she received a response from him, Mr. Summers announced that he was leaving for the day.
    Jeremy called Merly to one side and asked her again, “Did she contact you?”
    The right answer to the question was unknown to Merly. What would she say? Either that Nora didn’t even inform her before leaving or that she left her phone behind. Jeremy would surely know that as he must have tried contacting her.
    She didn’t get to complete her sentence when Jeremy said, “I tried calling her, but no one answered. Didn’t she take her phone with her?”
    “No, she accidentally left it behind,” Merly said without knowing if it was the truth. Nora could have left it behind purposefully and Merly didn’t have the true answer.
    “Did you contact her family? You said she is with them.”
    “I didn’t want to bother them,” she said sheepishly hoping not to get caught in her lies.
    “But the holidays just got over, and she decided to visit them now?” he interrogated her further.
    Merly was saved by Jeremy’s phone ringing in his pocket. He looked at it then muttered something, which Merly didn’t understand, and then said, “I have to go” and left abruptly.
    This left Merly confused, and she stopped in the hall and stood there thinking how many lies she needed to make up before she could escape from this situation.
    It was almost noon and still there was no news from Natalie. Merly felt dejected and sad. She thought about calling her up, but decided it was better to give her some time. Merly didn’t want to come off as nagging and bothersome, and sat by herself quietly. Some of the students came up her and asked about Nora, and Merly went on repeating the same thing. No one seemed to believe that Nora went on a holiday right after the beginning of the semester, but the truth remained that Merly was as oblivious as rest of them. She had no one to rely on or to trust. Merly knew that she will have to wait until Nora contacted her, but convincing others about that was the biggest problem.
    Merly decided to go and talk to Mr. Stevenson again to see if he came up with any news, but she saw no one at the library and only the grim-looking assistant looked at her questionably. Before he could say a thing, Merly backed out. She wasn’t in the mood to carry on a conversation with him, and decided to head back to the dorm. Though she knew that her decision would make her miss the last class, yet heading back to the dorm seemed like a better idea. Merly didn’t wait to inform any of her classmates before walking back to her dorm.
    She found Mr. Clove, the postman, walking near their building.
    He stopped upon seeing Merly walking towards him. “Ah, good that I saw you here. There is a letter for you,” and handed her a neat brown envelope with her name clearly written on it.
    “A letter for me?” she exclaimed.
    Merly was clearly surprised. Her mother would call whenever needed, and the few friends she had contacted her through email. She flipped the envelope over to see who it was from, but found no name written on it. A feeling of déjà vu rushed over her. She knew what a letter with no name signified and who it is from. The unknown sender strikes again and Merly was not mistaken. After Mr. Clove took his leave, Merly opened the envelope to find a black sheet of paper. On it was written in golden ink, “Meet me in the library” in bold fonts.
    She flipped the paper to see if anything else was written on it, but found nothing. The piece of paper contained nothing except those five words.
    What should I do? Merly questioned herself. Nothing other than the time or day was mentioned on the paper. She knew it was not from Natalie and concluded it was the unknown sender who