Rowan Ashford wanted to know the name of every ghost. He kept a list in his head, one line for each strange book that turned up on the return cart. No one ever checked them out. They just appeared, spines warm, pages smelling of old smoke. He shelved them and waited for the next. His morning at home was quiet. He drank cold tea on the porch and watched his crooked front door, now straightened and repainted by his neighbor Karma. The empty house beside his stood dark and purple-trimmed, its sunroom windows cracked. A raccoon had once climbed through his bathroom window and camped in his tub. He still checked the tub before work. The old gothic library sign creaked when he arrived. Fairy lights glowed along the towering shelves. He rolled the returns cart down the local history aisle, where every date was wrong and half the books hid under geography. He liked fixing that. It was small, but it was true. He reached for a dark tome near the bottom of the cart. Silver runes wrapped its cover. He had never seen it before. When his fingers touched the spine, the book slid out of his hand. It did not fall. It rose. The tome floated at eye level, turning slowly. A green light bled from its edges. A voice came from inside the pages, thin and dry, like someone speaking through paper. "Read me," it whispered. "Read me and know them." Rowan's mouth went dry. He looked down the aisle. He was alone. The fairy lights dimmed, then flared. He should have called someone. Instead he reached up and opened the book. The pages flipped on their own, fast, then stopped. A photograph lay pressed inside. It was old, brown at the corners. Seven people stood before a building he did not know. The same seven people. The same missing building from the unlabeled photo he had studied for months in the history section. But this photo had a difference. Here, one figure looked straight at him. A tall, thin man in a green coat, with a tiny braid tied in a pink bow. The man's mouth curved into a small, knowing smile. As Rowan stared, the smile widened. The book snapped shut. It dropped into his hands, cold now, silent. Rowan turned the photograph over. Ink had appeared on the back, wet and fresh. Two words: "Find us." He stood in the empty aisle, heart pounding. The list in his head had a new line. But this book had not just given him a ghost to name. It had answered his oldest question with a second copy of a photo that should not exist. And it had shown him a living face. He slipped the photograph into his pocket. Wherever that vanished building had stood, someone in it was still watching. And now they wanted him to come.