My Renaissance to Early Modern class let out after an hour and a half of the professor discussing Annunciation scenes in Dutch art. Despite liking the professor, he’s one of the best lecturers I’ve had for a history class and really does a good job immersing you in the material, I was the first to leave. Staying behind to ask the professor questions about the lecture just isn’t really my thing.

As this class lets out at noon, I have some free time before I need to get to work. I don’t work every day, especially since I’m a full-time student. They’re even paying for my degree, which is a nice perk that lets me save my educational benefits for later or pass them to a relative if I really want. It’s a nice, brisk fall day, and I take time to enjoy the walk to my car.

Although it’s a bit out of the way, I stop at a restaurant, more of a pub really, in the historical district of an old mill town for lunch. The main street is lined with old storefront, filled with atmospheric bars, antique shops, and the odd boutiques that come and go in historical districts. This specific bar's claim to fame is their beer selection. They have hundreds of different beers, all bottled, with new seasonal selections added every day. The burgers are also delicious, sourced from a local butcher in the small town on the other side of the river. The food and beer are more than enough to make up for the thing in the corner.

As I’ve said, I’ve always been sensitive to the paranormal. Before beginning my current job, and the extracurriculars I’ve been doing, this was more likely to manifest as chills, or odd feelings on the back of my neck. But exposure to the paranormal just seems to beget more and more awareness of it in day to day life. Growing up I’d be scared of the tiniest bump in the dark, whether or not it had a supernatural cause or was the far more often noise of the house settling. I’m not exactly sure if acclimatizing to seeing the unusual is a positive or not, but it does add a whole new depth to visiting historic sights.

This town in particular seems to have these things scattered all over. It makes sense, in a way. It’s one of the oldest towns in the state, and has seen everything from the expansion of the railways, to Civil War, to fires and floods. As more history occurs in a spot, the more emotion, feeling, birth and death end up attached to the place and the more likely it is that the unnatural will begin to occur.

They usually appear as a dark haze that often seems more solid when viewed from the corner of my eye. Normally when they’re right in front of you they seem more transparent. Unless you stare at them too hard. Don’t do that.

It’s not likely to be able to directly harm anything, but just observing it seems to give it more energy. And there’s always the risk that the remains of consciousness behind the spirit, for that’s what they are, will have been particularly malicious or have an extreme hatred towards whatever caused its demise. Even if not, observing them and giving them more energy seems to make things more likely to occur. Which can be downright annoying to explain.

I don’t need to explain, necessarily. But it’s almost a force of habit to apologize when something goes wrong and I feel responsible for it. I’ve already been told I apologize too much, and that’s just when it’s something the other party can see. Me apologizing after glasses mysteriously get knocked off a shelf when no one could have realistically caused the issue is the number one way to stick out in a bad way. They can’t prove it had anything to do with me, but getting labelled as that weird girl that paranormal events keep happening around just seems like it’d rub me the wrong way.

So I keep my eyes to myself. It’s a good habit to be in anyways. My medium-rare burger is delicious, and I make sure to enjoy the one beer I allow myself. I have numerous reasons to limit how much I drink, the most prevalent one being the fact that it’s not even 1400 yet. Plus, despite how much people push “train as you fight,” getting drunk while armed is never a good idea. And then there’s the fact that I have work soon, and I have to drive there.

That said, if you drink 100 different beers at this place they’ll put your name on a plaque, and give you a discount card. So, as much as it pains me to act as irresponsible, I’m obligated to order one and make my way ever closer to the modicum of fame I’ll allow myself to possess. I finish my meal, get the bartender to check off the beer I had, pay my check and leave, all while ignoring the thing in the corner.

There’s still some time to kill before work so, rather than finding a café to sit and work on homework in, I browse through some of the shops lining the main street. A new-ageish shop across the street from the bar is fun to browse, in a cynical sort of way. It’s crammed full of various fairy-themed statuettes, and other knick-knacks. Anyone who’s done research into the lore on fairies knows they don’t normally appear cute and innocent, and that encounters with them are not a walk in the park, but I assume they sell well since they stock so many of them.

I guess a slight correction, according to some sources, is that “walks in the park” in relation to the fae usually ends in missing persons cases. There’s a lot of debate on the topic, according to some of what I’ve picked up at my job. The fact that the National Parks Service does not keep a public missing persons list should be concerning to the average person, but maybe people just don’t know enough to be concerned? Though there’s plenty of other reasons I could imagine people going missing in the woods, it’s not exactly my specialty, or even my problem.

One thing positive to say about this shop is they have a selection of herbs for sale. They don’t have anything too outrageous, but they have some of the mainstays to cater to the wicca crowd that stores like this seem to attract. A fair amount of the herbs they feel are effective have gained that reputation through centuries of what used to be seen as common knowledge, and even for the ones that don’t have the same provenance, the power of belief can be strong all on its own.

Eventually, it gets close to the time I should be heading to work. Technically I just need to put in a certain amount of hours a week, with no set time for me being there. It’s a super-flexible schedule that’s perfect given my status as a full-time student. It’s even better than the brief time I was doing PRN work as a certified nursing assistant. That was convenient with being able to pick and choose shifts as I pleased, but I really wasn’t thinking through things when I picked that as a job. The combo of back injuries and having to take care of mobility-impaired elderly is something I should have realized was a bad idea.

Even with the flexible schedule, I prefer working in the afternoons. Things just get more crowded at work when I’m there during the day. I like being able to take my time with my tasks, and quite frankly I prefer not having to interact with my coworkers too much. All things considered they’re a rather odd bunch. They have to be, given the materials the archive stores. On some level, deep down, I’m almost afraid that my job will warp me into being a weirdo like them. I may have my quirks, but I still am a completely ordinary, functional member of society.

But while afternoons are all fine and dandy, if I don’t leave early enough I’m forced to deal with a much worse situation than dealing awkward hellos with some coworkers. The most infuriating thing about living and working in the Baltimore-DC area, according to anyone who lives here, is the traffic. I’m just thankful that the archive is located on the extreme outskirts of DC, being far closer to the Baltimore beltway.

But it’s still a majorly built-up area full of commuters, and a direct confrontation with bumper to bumper traffic is sure to push the limits of my self-control to it’s absolutes. The real reason for my lunch detour is to take advantage of the back roads. I’d rather add time to my trip and not deal with traffic than power through a traffic jam fighting the urge to curse whoever caused it.

Thankfully I manage to find a parking spot. We don’t have a lot of employees working at the archive, but we also don’t have that big of a parking lot. Having a car is important though. Digging through my purse, anything electronic is taken out and placed in my center console. Anything that can record, connect with the outside world, etc. is prohibited. Not that it’d make a difference. Some of the documents do weird things to electronics. It’s at the point where they have to keep the computers and landlines in a Faraday cage. Still not sure how that stops the paranormal stuff affecting them, but if it works it works.

Putting on my badge, I head towards the security booth, waving towards the guard. He’s a new guy, but he’s already seemed to have acclimated to the job.

“Good Afternoon Amy.”

“Afternoon, Jeff.”

Despite the casual greeting, he gives off an air of tension. From what I understand he had recently gotten out of the army, a former MP. There’s a fairly large percentage of veterans working here. Not that there’s a specific rationale for it. Just federal hiring practices give priority to veterans, even more so to disabled vets. The policy almost makes me feel like a diversity hire in a way, except that I know they had other reasons for hiring me. But at the end of the day the fact that I had been in had been a factor in me being hired. I had to have gotten on their radar somehow.

A glance to my hip makes it clear that Jeff is aware that I’m carrying, but this also is the norm. Kind of. Honestly, most the other archivists and librarians working here tend to be the biggest shut-ins and have an innate fear of anything other than their books and scrolls. But legally, if we have to courier documents to another location at least someone needs to be armed. And as one of the archivists recently out of the military I was encouraged to get my carry permits.

In a way it’s almost a job perk. While on paper Maryland is a “May Issue” state, actually getting a carry permit is like pulling teeth unless you’re a doctor, lawyer or realtor. Or if you’re servicing a politician either monetarily or orally. It seems like a travesty to me, but considering the nature of my work it took no time at all for mine to be approved. I pray I never need to use it but hey, if I have to go into the city for some errand or another it’s good to know I can defend myself if I have to.

Through the gate I go, starting another shift managing the arcane, magical, or just plain weird documents of the National Archive’s forbidden archive facility.