and we are conscious of a long town history

[cross_and_bow]

Prom arrives.

Bella wears her indigo dress and her indigo heels with their straps that go all the way up her calves, and she nukes Sherlock some breakfast, and she waits.

Comments

[poeticterms]

"Hello, Minnie," says Jarvis.

[cross_and_bow]

Bella smiles. "My phone's not particularly fancy, but some people nowadays have phones that cross with books a little bit almost like the machines that go on the internet," she says to Minnie.

[pythbox]

"I've seen those," she says, nodding.

[cross_and_bow]

"You seem like a nice person. I really don't understand why you'd kill people, even if you've been stuck in a really annoying situation for a very long time," Bella says to Minnie.

[pythbox]

"I get mad," she says, crossing her arms in front of her and rubbing her hands along them above the opposing elbows. "I just get mad, that's all."

[cross_and_bow]

"At people who go stag to prom," prompts Bella.

[pythbox]

Minnie nods unhappily.

[cross_and_bow]

"Because... they can't get hurt the same way you were?" guesses Bella.

[pythbox]

"I don't know," she says frustratedly.

[cross_and_bow]

"Has it been this way since you died? Were you ever that angry before?"

[pythbox]

"I don't..." She falters, then shakes her head. "I don't think so. Except that night. I was that mad then, for sure." Minnie shivers.

[cross_and_bow]

"I bet. If anything could make somebody mad enough to kill it'd be getting murdered."

[pythbox]

"I was mad before then," she says. "I dumped him in front of everybody and chased him into the bathroom and then," she swallows, "it turned out he was madder."

[cross_and_bow]

Bella nods solemnly. "He's probably dead," she says.

[pythbox]

"I guess," says Minnie. "It doesn't seem to make much difference."

[cross_and_bow]

[Giles, isn't there any way to - to unghost her? Not make her deader, but less dead?] Bella asks helplessly. [She is a perfectly nice person with some magically boosted anger-triggers attached to her and she was murdered when she was sixteen, it's appalling.]

"I'm sorry," says Bella.

[pythbox]

[...I'm not sure,] says Giles. [But I think I just found her boyfriend's obituary.]

A pause; then, [Yes. David Banks. Died November 5th, 1933.]

[cross_and_bow]

"My other friend found David's obituary," Bella says quietly. "He died on November fifth. 1933."

[pythbox]

"Good riddance," says Minnie, scowling.

[cross_and_bow]

[Cause?] Bella asks Giles. Jarvis presumably already heard over the phone what she told Minnie and knows that he can stop looking.

[pythbox]

[Vampire.]

[cross_and_bow]

"A vampire got him," Bella adds. Normally she wouldn't tell anyone this, but Minnie is already herself a ghost. [Any evidence he turned?]

[pythbox]

[None.]

Minnie grins.

[cross_and_bow]

"Feel better?" Bella asks her. [Thank you so much.]

[pythbox]

"Much," she says, and she twirls around, her outdated dress floating through the air.