"Don't be silly," they told me. "The library can't be haunted."

I shook my head in despair. I knew what they were thinking of: our cheerful local library, with its bright children's section, computerised catalogues, and more bestsellers than you could shake a pen at. It was the least haunted-looking building imaginable.

And it was nothing like the library I meant: the one with shelves that filled the space, stacked high with coverless books, ethereally-lit colonnades marching from doorless wall to doorless wall.

"That's not what I said," I told them. "I said the library is haunting me."