Much to Victoria's relief, the remainder of the school day was blissfully uneventful, and at 3:15 the bell pealed loudly, releasing everyone for the day. She quickly made her way to her locker, swapping her class materials for her purse and cell phone. She paused for a moment to check her phone, and there was a new message from "Mom" received at 9:33 this morning. Mr. Simmons had obviously wasted no time in informing her parents of her unfortunate situation.

Hey sweetie, just got off the phone with Mr. Simmons

Just want you to know you're not in trouble. Your

dad or I will pick you up at 5 <3

"Thanks, Mom." she whispered, smiling at the illuminated screen, then shoved the device in her purse and made a beeline for the library.

Of all the places on the old high school campus, the library was Victoria's favorite. There was just something about it that felt...cozy. Like a safe place where someone could just relax and forget about the world on the other side of the door. It added to the charm that the librarian, Lilly Guthrie, was an absolute delight.

She was an elderly woman, at least in her seventies--if not eighties, with a skip in her step and a sparkle in her eye that belied her age. She was surprisingly quick-witted and always ready to make a joke out of anything. She was on a semi first-name basis with everyone, preferring to be called Miss Lilly; Principal Harkness and Vice Principal Simmons being the only ones who preferred to call her by her surname. She was every bit the typical sweet old granny--if every typical sweet old granny was once a groovy, free-spirited, tree whispering teen during the Summer of Love. Every new freshman class speculated that she was a witch, and that she guarded some evil magic that was contained in the books. Miss Lilly, of course, made a game of it, and would play right along and torment some of the more naïve students, sometimes with a little upperclassman assistance. She could be quite the cheeky devil around Halloween.

Victoria pushed open the large, heavy library door and stepped inside. The scent of parchment, old and new, filled her nostrils, and exhaling, felt a calm settle over her. She strode through the room, stopping at the librarian's desk, where a cute, handmade sign that read "I'm with my books" stood propped in the center.

"Miss Lilly?"

No answer.

Turning from the desk, she made her way to creep down the aisle between several rows of bookshelves. The only sounds to be heard were the soft hum of the computers on the far wall and Victoria's own heartbeat thumping in her ears. She had gone halfway down the aisle, and still she saw and heard nothing.

"Miss Lilly?" She said, a bit more tentatively this time.

Still nothing.

Ok, this feels weirder than normal, she thought as the silence stretched on.

"Victoria! You really need to do something about that car of yours." The old woman said loudly, chortling at having caught the girl off guard.

Victoria yelped and stumbled backwards at the woman's sudden appearance out of nowhere. "Thank you for the heart attack, Miss Lilly, I hadn't had one yet today." She said humorously, trying to bring her heart rate back to normal.

Lilly chuckled good-naturedly, "Oh I'm sorry dear, you know I can't help myself." Composing herself a little, she huffed, "I guess we'd better get to it then. Come on." She scuttled back up the aisle to a little closet behind her desk, from which she removed a broom, dustpan, a half-empty box of construction grade garbage bags, and a pair of yellow rubber gloves. These she handed to Victoria, motioning for her to follow, which she did without protest.

"The office I'll have you do is small enough. It used to be the old custodial office if I remember correctly. It really shouldn't take long to clean up, but who knows how long it's been since anyone's actually been down there or what's even in it at this point. All you need to do is sweep up and get rid of the junk. If it looks important, put it in a pile and I'll take a look at it afterwards. Or Monday, or whatever. Everything else just bag up and leave in the hallway." Lilly said as they continued through the door at the far back corner of the library.

They rounded a corner to the left and came to a small unlit staircase. Descending several steps, the librarian felt along the dark wall until she found a switch and flipped it, snatching her hand back to brush the cobwebs from her fingers. Old, dim light surged weakly from the hall below. The bottom of the stairs led to a long corridor, from which several smaller hallways branched, lit only by the fixture by the stairs and the narrow basement windows along the ceiling.

This place looks like it was abandoned a hundred years ago and you remember when it was used? How old are you Miss Lilly? Victoria mused to herself.

To her relief, they only proceeded as far as the first dark hallway, where Lilly fumbled for another cobweb-laden old light switch. The electric buzz of the old, yellowed wall fixtures echoed loudly in the narrow, and previously soundless, space. They continued to the end of the short hall where they stopped before an old wooden door that looked like a relic from another time and that hadn't been opened in ages. Lilly produced a typical staff key ring, the kind like the old spiral telephone cords, and from it lifted a not-so-typical key. The older woman held up an antiquated, black skeleton key to the muted light, as if checking to make sure she had the right one, before inserting it into the equally aged warded lock. The rusted insides of the lock ground as the key turned, ending with a dull metallic thunk.

The old wooden door creaked loudly in protest as it swung open, possibly or the first time in decades, into a tiny, windowless office. The librarian stepped into the dark room, searching for yet another light switch, which was predictably covered in cobwebs. Victoria giggled inwardly as Lilly flipped the switch, stiff with dust and disuse, and the brittle hanging fixture in the center of the ceiling flickered to life, dust-dimmed light filling the tiny room. Victoria took this moment to take in what would essentially be her workspace for the next hour and a half.

Dust, a lot of it; a thick blanket of the stuff covered every surface. Boxes of varying sizes and contents and a half-dozen rickety wooden folding chairs stood stacked along the walls in three of the four corners of the room. The fourth held a large, empty wooden bookshelf, tucked behind which was a literal antique fire extinguisher.

I'm sure that will be very helpful in the event of a fire, Victoria speculated as she continued to scan the room.

A worn, simple wooden office desk sat in the center, stacked with several more dust-laden boxes, Behind it on the wall a tiny shelf was mounted, home to two long dead plants of unknown species or origin that would have probably turned to dust at the mere thought of touching them. Situated on the left wall towards the back of the room was a brittle-looking slatted wood door. Several of the slats were cracked in the middle.

Lilly crossed the small space, careful not to let her clothing touch anything, and carefully unlatched and opened the closet door. Years of immobility caused it to stick slightly as she did, jarring one of the cracked slats loose and sending it clattering to the floor in a poof of dust, causing her to gasp and Victoria to visibly flinch.

Lilly looked from the splintered pieces of wood on the floor to Victoria, pointing down at them, "Hey wanna clean that up for me?" Her face was serious only for a second before breaking into a wide grin as she chuckled, leaning to peek inside the tiny closet. She spun around and shuffled back to the door, pointing behind her, "There's only one box in there. Well, I'll let you get to it then. Like I said, it's all most likely garbage, but if you come across anything you're not sure of just leave it on the desk and I'll worry about it. Want me to leave the door open?"

Victoria leaned around the old woman, looking out into the eerie, poorly lit, and unfamiliar hallway.

"Uh, no thanks." She replied nervously, "I'll close it behind you."

"Okay dear, but I'd leave it cracked a bit. Wouldn't want that old door to stick shut and you be stuck in here, now would we?" She finished with a sly smile and a mischievous twinkle in her eye. Turning, she made her way back up the hall to the corridor and back up the stairs.

Now alone in the dirty little cubicle, the outright creepiness of the place began to weigh on her, settling like a shawl over her shoulders. Shivering, she set the cleaning supplies on the desk and pulled her phone from her purse.

"No signal. Of course there's no signal, I'm in a dungeon."

Sighing, she opened her playlist and turned on some music, cranking the volume to distract from the silence and the unsettling feeling that she wasn't alone. Laying her phone carefully on the box of garbage bags so as not to coat it with filth, she grabbed the broom and dustpan and got to work.

It really was quick work, to be honest; the old janitor's office was really no more than a large closet itself. She made fairly quick work of the floor, moving smoothly to begin opening and deciding the fate of the contents of all the boxes. She started with the smaller ones on the desk, giving herself a place to put anything of import she might find. There were close to a dozen boxes stacked around the perimeter of the room, so to save time, she decided to just open them and if nothing looked important at first glance, it was destined for the trash.

"Not my fault if people can't put important things in safe places." she reasoned.

She pulled enough of the old contents out of the boxes by hand that she could hold the large black bags with one hand and dump the remaining contents with the other, breaking down the boxes and adding it to the growing refuse pile. She wasn't sure what to do with the wood folding chairs so she stacked them neatly against the wall in the corner she found them in, humming along to the music as she went along.

Finishing the last few things along the back wall, including disposing of the long-spent flora, Victoria turned to give the small room a cursory scan, nodding in self-approval. Only one small box remained, containing a handful of old football and lacrosse trophies; she decided those were for someone else to decide the fate of. Satisfied with her work, she pulled off the grimy rubber gloves to check the time. She'd been cleaning the room for a little over an hour, and her punishment would be over in less than thirty minutes.

"Thank god! I'm going to need a shower after my shower for this." she said to herself as she examined her clothes, which had streaks of dust and grime from anything and everything she had touched.

She was just dragging out the last bag of garbage, when she remembered the box in the closet. Backtracking into the room and closing the door, she stepped to the broken door and reached for the handle when a previously unnoticed detail caught her eye. The broken slats of the door were just slightly angled outward, like the force that caused it had come from inside.

Yeah let's not think about that. Just get this last box and be done, she thought, not caring to ruminate on the possibilities.

Hesitantly, she pulled the door open, and inside on the floor was a single, plain box, taped on all sides. "This could be something interesting." She mused as she reached down to pick up the box, finding it surprisingly light. Straightening and turning away from the closet she shook it lightly, hearing what sounded like a single object slide around within. She set the box on the desk and proceeded to gently break open the cracked and brittle tape, carefully opening the flaps to peer inside.

The contents caused her to gasp softly. It looked like a book, bound in red leather, with gold metal around the edges. And not a speck of dust. Nervous tension was replaced with captivated fascination as she reached slowly to extract the book for closer inspection.

It was beautiful. The cover was a thick, deep red leather, thicker than any she'd encountered, yet it was almost velvety to the touch. Delicate but detailed gold filigree had been meticulously worked over and around all the edges. Elegant, scrolling vines in gold relief adorned the front, over which was a jet black stone-inlaid silhouette of a dragon; a tiny, sparkling red gemstone marking its eye. The clasp was an incredibly detailed set of dragon claws, which she fumbled with for a few minutes before managing to release the golden talons. Opening the cover, she discovered that the object she held was not a book, but a box containing a secret, hollowed out compartment in the center. Her eyes fairly bulged at its contents.

The small recess was lined with plush, shiny velvet of deep indigo, upon which was nestled a stunning gold pendant on a thick gold chain. At its center sat a large, red, oval stone, held in place by a set of golden claws.

"Something interesting indeed." She whispered aloud, unable to take her eyes off the remarkable treasure she now held. Gingerly, she scooped the stone from its elegant resting place, setting the box back down on the desk. All she could do was stare at first, captivated by its sheer beauty and seemingly extravagant nature. "How would something like this end up here?" She asked herself as she ran her index finger down the length of the stone's smooth surface.

For an instant, she thought she saw a flicker of something in the stone, like a faint shadow she couldn't even be sure she'd seen. Bringing the gem closer to her face, she squinted into its scarlet depths. Maybe it was just the way she was standing under the light, but she could almost swear that the stone looked brighter, and yes, it did look like something was moving. It looked like...smoke? Yes, swirling smoke that began to decrease in transparency and roil wildly. The lamp above her head began to flicker loudly, and Victoria realized she wasn't squinting to see the stone better, but because the stone was indeed glowing. It continued to grow in intensity until it shone so brightly that she had to shield her eyes. The air had begun to spin into a whirlwind around the tiny room, summoning a tornado of dust around her. There was an immense sound like an explosion and an intense flash of bright red light.

And she was gone.

The light ceased its flickering, the air resumed its stillness, and the dust resettled about the room. An unassuming old woman stood at the end of the hall, observing the events. With a knowing smile and a slow nod, she waved her hand toward the room, and the door faded away, as if it were never there.

* * *