In this chap­ter, two boys, Jim and Will, find them­selves in the library on a Sun­day night amidst an eerie still­ness pierced only by the sounds out­side where a car­ni­val is tak­ing place. Laid low in the bush­es, they feel a sense of trep­i­da­tion as Will express­es a fear of the library, wor­ry­ing that their fathers might not be who they used to be once with­in its con­fines. The pres­ence of the ancient vol­umes seems to har­bor unset­tling secrets, height­en­ing their anx­i­ety. Jim, need­ing to dis­pel the heav­i­ness weigh­ing on them, impul­sive­ly begins bang­ing on the library door, dri­ven by a desire for warmth and com­fort afford­ed by the books inside.

Once admit­ted, they nav­i­gate through the desert­ed cor­ri­dors, recall­ing past adven­tures. They rem­i­nisce about places they had hid­den, their pre­vi­ous explo­rations, and how they sought safe­ty in church­es and tall trees. The pas­sage of time since dusk has built antic­i­pa­tion, lead­ing them to tip­toe through the library, whis­per­ing as if it were a sacred space. Their inher­ent fears man­i­fest as shad­ows dance around the stacks.

They reach a small room where Will’s father, Charles Hal­loway, has laid out var­i­ous books. After a moment filled with appre­hen­sion and a shared pal­lor of dread, the boys recount the dan­gers they encoun­tered: a strange light­ning-rod sales­man, fore­bod­ing pre­views of a storm, and the allure of an omi­nous car­ni­val that recent­ly rolled into town. As they unearth the dark mys­tery of the car­ni­val, Charles’s con­tem­pla­tion deep­ens, reveal­ing a sin­is­ter con­nec­tion to past occur­rences that sug­gest a cycli­cal pat­tern of dread tied to Octo­ber.

The nar­ra­tive weaves in omi­nous ref­er­ences to “the autumn peo­ple,” invok­ing a sense of fore­bod­ing as Charles reflects on a tract he read in youth, warn­ing that these beings emerge, sea­son after sea­son, per­pet­u­at­ing fear and con­sum­ing souls. This prompts a seri­ous dis­cus­sion among them about their identities—are they mere­ly sum­mer peo­ple, or do they har­bor a deep­er con­nec­tion with the encroach­ing autum­nal spir­it? The return of the car­ni­val evokes thoughts of its his­tor­i­cal pat­terns and the endur­ing cycle of dark­ness, leav­ing them to con­front their fears head-on—the impor­tance of con­nec­tion, trust, and the loom­ing threats above. Ulti­mate­ly, Charles resolves to assist them in unrav­el­ing the mys­ter­ies at play.

Wait­ing ai