"You're still there..." the girl sounded confused as she said the words, and anger welled up in Godric again.

"Of course I'm still fucking here," he was trying to keep it calm, and failing. "Somehow," he paused there for effect before saying, "The door became locked. But only after something collided with my balls, and then cut away my keys with a knife!" There was silence on the other side, and Godric shouted, "Maybe it was the fucking ghosts!"

Still silence came from the other side.

"Are you still there?" said Godric, with a twinge of fear he'd scared her away.

"You tried to break it down..." said the girl. "You didn't..."

"Didn't what?" he growled.

Silence.

Minutes passed before the harsh, thudding click rang out behind him—Godric started and spun round.

A section of wall between the bookshelves shifted and a small ridge rose to leave a shadow across the paneled wood. Godric approached it.

Within came a light stomp of a shoe on stone, and another click rang out from the far side. In the distance a door slammed.

"Are you there?" he called out.

Nothing. His eyes skittered about the outline of the passage like a maddened rat before hauling it fully open. It glided on smooth hinges.

But Durst was unable to step in. Too scared the door would shut on him if he did. That he'd never get it open again. Trapped within a narrow, curving trench of rough brick. Seven feet tall but the dusty floor stood only two feet wide and rambled on for ten feet. Halfway down this length another passage stretched out to the side. On the far side there was a crack of bright light. The exit was open too.

"Ada?" he called. No response came. "Ada!" he shouted it this time, but still no response.

Fingers tapping against his side, he glanced back at the regular door. He tried it one more time—still locked. Godric cringed and turned back to the passage, bit his lip, and went for it with a shaking step.

The moment his foot met the floor something all too expected happened. The walls contracted. They bit down on him, jagged brick grabbing at his shirt like teeth while spiders began descending from the roof on strangling fiber-wire to dance in his hair. Roaches swarmed up his ankles. Their sharp feet prickling like needles—biting him! Durst tried to raise his hand with a sharp intake of breath to defend himself but collided with the constricting walls, and in a terrible moment he realized he was hyperventilating. His heart toeing 150.

With a gasp Durst threw his head back to the way he'd come. The hidden door begin to drift closed on him. Panting he threw himself back into the records room.

Legs became tangled in the tight walls and he went down hard. Heart still racing he scrambled and crawled along the floor until his feet were free, and then slammed the hidden passage shut with a desperate boot. A hand shot to his head to brush away the spiders, and another to his legs to crush the roaches, but there was nothing there.

There never had been.

Ada's voice came once again from the regular door.

"What happened?"

Godric didn't answer at first, and just stared at the roof, his breath slowing.

"Did you open that passage?" Godric finally said.

"Si," said the girl, and after an almost breathless pause she added, a deep confusion evident in her tone; "You didn't use it?"

"No," said Godric. "No, I bloody well didn't."

"Why?"

"What?" he growled.

"Why didn't you use the passage? I-it sounded like you fell."

Godric didn't answer, though he'd like to have told her to go fuck herself.

"You..." she started haltingly, her voice worried, confused. "You really didn't know about it? Never used it before?" Godric didn't answer.

After several minutes of silence, her voice came again, quieter than ever, "W-what will happen...?" but it fluttered out. She began again instantly, louder and with more confidence. "What will happen if I unlock this door?"

"What?" said Godric.

"What are you going to do?"

All of Godric's anger vanished when he realized she was asking if she would be in danger if he was let out.

"Why did you attack me?" he asked flatly. "Why lock me in here?"

"T-to test you..." came the halting response. "To see if you knew to use that... Secret passage... But you... You didn't. I really thought you would"

"And if I did?"

"Then I'd know for sure it was you... Though, I already was sure, wasn't I? I was so, so sure. I just needed proof—evidence," her voice was quavering, almost sorrowful. "The proof of such a test... But you failed. Or passed rather—I don't know!" she shot. "It really wasn't you then..."

"The person who locked you in?" asked Godric, a little outrage on the outskirts of his voice. "You assaulted me merely to find that out?"

"Oh..." she said, and then repeated the word, "Assaulted."

It hung in the air before she continued, "Yes—but you see I was so sure. Um. I will explain everything—and there's more than you think! Much more. You will understand my actions if you just let me explain," she almost choked as she said it. "But you have to promise me—"

"Promise you what?" Godric shot.

"Promise you won't hurt me... Or yell at me... Or... Or something."

Godric exhaled, and then said, "I wouldn't do that—won't do it, I mean."

"Okay," said Ada. A silent minute passed, as though she were gathering her courage, and then the door unlocked with a loud click. "You can open it yourself!" she shouted.

When Godric pulled the door open Ada was leaning against the far wall of the staff hallway, hands pressed behind her back, chin lifted to watch him with careful, bloodshot eyes. She was frowning, worn-out lines all over a freckled face that seemed to be shaking with an energy that would send her skittering away down the hall at the first false move on Godric's part. Instead, he just exhaled, and stood in the doorframe, staring back at this odd, terrified girl. Whatever might have brought her to kick him seemed a thousand miles away from those blood-shot, close-to-crying eyes.

"I made a mistake," was the first thing she said.

"Yes," Godric nodded. "You did."

She spoke again before the silence could become acute, "I thought it was you... Harassing me. And I was scared of you, so, so scared."

"Why?"

"Steve made sure of that," she muttered. "I couldn't go on working with you looming over me every night, could I? I had to do something. Especially considering why I'm here..."

"Wait, what did Steve tell you?"

"That you're on probation here..."

She avoided his gaze, her eyes lowered even more to her own shoes. "Steve said you've been accused of sexual harassment, and that worse was thought of you but there was no proof. He said he knows that sometimes you go to the north end of town to pick up the battona. That you visit the sleazy naked club in the North... That you were banned too..."

"What?" Godric's face was red, had to suppress himself from growling.

"Today, at the coffee shop. Steve said the police came to visit you at work and delivered an official caution in the past. And said you got in trouble last summer for something with a different summer student, but nothing was actually proven. Said it happened in a camera blind spot. But it was still expected to be true by most of the staff... And that's why you work nights now... Alone. Said that for my own safety it'd be best to assume it was true and not work nights... But I need the extra time..."

"That's not true," said Godric. "I swear that isn't true. None of it."

Ada nodded, and then said, "And with the knocking on the walls and door these last few days, and those drawings shoved under the door. Bad, bad, obscene things."

That hit Godric like a slap, "What?" he said, but she raised a hand to silence him, and he yielded.

"I reported it of course, to MacLeod but he didn't do much—couldn't do much rather. Because the cameras can't see that door... So they couldn't see who it was... And Steve was so friendly and concerned. Told me about that secret passage—an escape route, he called it. For if you ever tried to..." she fell silent for but a moment.

"But what he was saying didn't make full sense to me!" said Ada. "I was scared of you yes, but your manner didn't seem exactly predatory the few times I saw you, but I told myself I couldn't judge by that. Still can't..." She paused and glanced at Godric, but he said nothing, and let her continue.

"And once Steve told me of the passage—hinted there were others—I became convinced they must have been utilized when you locked me in." she stopped herself, glanced at him with an almost tearful eye, and then said, "When someone locked me."

"And whoever locked me in must be the one harassing me, so I thought this all up. This little trap. That if I locked you in, and then you used the passage to escape? Then it was you. All of it... Had to be. And then I could be rid of you. I was certain it would work... I never considered... Never really thought... I even locked the door of the room that passage leads too. I was so sure you'd come through, howling and ready to..."

"You mean have me fired?" Godric said it darkly.

"Si," she confirmed. "Maybe arrested even. Out of my hair either way." She grabbed a strand of the chestnut curls as she said this, and let it go with a flick of the wrist.

"Oh..." said Godric. "Sometimes I get the feeling no one in this museum likes me very much."

"But my test didn't work..."

"No."

"Now I'm wondering... How much else was Steve lying about? About you, I mean."

"All of it," Godric said. "He made all of it up."

"Yes... I think I see that now. It's very probable. That he made up much of it..."

She fell quiet for a few minutes, and then brought her hands around from her back. One held a small pocket knife—the blade glinting in the light—the same one she'd used to steal his keys. The other held two things. The first was his HR file, and the other was his ghost journal.

She folded the knife and stuffed it into her jacket pocket and said "I have mace in there too." She almost laughed. "I wasn't sure if should kick you or mace you, but you were facing the wrong direction..."

Godric said nothing.

She met his eyes then, and said, "I wasn't just sitting on my hands while you were in there. I dashed upstairs and went through your locker. Used your keys to get at another set of keys that let me into the filing cabinet to see your file with Human Resources."

"Oh..." said Godric as though he'd been deflated. He didn't care she had the file, but the fact she had his notes about the disturbances embarrassed him deeply. That couldn't help her opinion of him.

She pointed at the HR folder, "It's clean—no issues and average performance reviews—Steve really did lie about that, and if that was a lie, did he say any truth at all? And then this?" she raised the journal.

"Did you read that?" said Durst.

"Yes. Some of it."

"I see," it was a sigh as much as a sentence.

"If you don't hate me..." she paused as though he was supposed to say something, but she continued when he remained silent. "I think we need to have a frank chat about these so-called ghosts, and about Steve too..."

"Yes," said Godric."Maybe we should."

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