Chapter 4: Old Ladies and Dungeons
By: Hope
After a few more seconds of Gaia waiting impatiently at the desk, the old woman lifted her head up and put on a fake smile. "How may I help you sweetie?"
This old lady probably was used to saying those things to her 8000 grandchildren that would come over every holiday and she would read them stories, tell them about her and how their parents were when they were their age, maybe she thought that Gaia had a grandmother (presuming that the one in Russia isn't dead) just like that. Or maybe Gaia was just thinking too much.
"Where can I find Christina Richman?" Gaia asked, once again looking impatient.
"Hold on one second dearie." The old woman smiled again while slowly pulling her glasses over her eyes from where they were resting on her head. She moved her chair over to a small computer screen and began to slowly type in the name. "I'm sorry hunny, how do you spell that?" She asked, turning back to Gaia. But Gaia was already gone, determined to find her her own way.
The one good thing about the NYU library was that it was so big that they had to have signs pointing in almost every direction, thus slowly leading Gaia down a dark stairwell to Christina's office. It had taken her a few minutes to find the place, but it was probably better than having to spell out Christina's name 10 times to the librarian. Although she had expected something strange, Gaia was still surprised that there was a part of the library like this, it seemed more like some dungeon from medeval times then some under-used offices. Along with the sudden coldness of the new area, (which sent a shiver up Gaia's spine.) there was a damp smell too it, like there had been some sort of water leak and no one had bothered to clean it up.
Gaia turned a corner and found herself in a long hallway, full of white, square looking doors on either side of her. She slowly proceeded down the hallway, carefully reading the sign of each door, making sure that she wouldn't pass the room by accident.
Gaia had reached the dead end of the hallway when she had finally reached the door with the label of "Christina Richman" on it. She lightly knocked on the door, looking to her left to make sure that no one was following her there. Boy, was she paranoid.
"Yes?" Gaia heard a voice come from inside of the room. "Come in, please." Gaia slowly opened the door and found a small cubicle looking room with a big brown desk, a laptop and some random paintings that were hung on the walls.
There was a small looking woman sitting at the desk. She had glasses on and looked at her computer screen, furiously typing away on the keyboard. She had blonde hair, wrapped up in a neat bun and looked as though she had just recently gotten out of college. "How may I help you?" She asked, finally looking up from her laptop but continuing to type.
"Hi, i'm Gai--I'm Mary Moss." Gaia said, not knowing if the woman would have been willing to give her the information if she had thought that she was someone besides Mary.
Christina stopped typing and stood up, looking at Gaia, studying her. "Hello....I'm very sorry about - - -"
"Yea...well, you said that you had something to show me?" Gaia asked, not wanting to be distracted from what she was there to get.
"Yes...yes, I suppose I do." Christina said as she bent down onto the floor and opened a drawer in the desk. The shuffling of papers were heard and then Christina popped up from under the desk, holding a very large packet. She gave Gaia a weak smile and handed them too her.
Gaia took the papers and started flipping through them. She was half-expecting to find out that it was some sort of sham, or really bad joke but everything seemed authentic enough. Half of the pages were encripted, but that wouldn't give her too much of problem.
While still looking at the papers, Gaia began to walk out the door of the office but found that Christina was still looking at her, as though she had something else to say. "Is there anything else?" Gaia asked, annoyed that she would have to wait even a minute longer until she was able to decode the papers. The woman hesitated for a second, considering her words. "I'm very sorry for your loss." She said.
"So am I...." Gaia stated under her breath as she made her way out the door.