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

[eversomuchfun]

[I see,] says Sherlock. [I wonder if I should hang around the afflicted sink. She can't exactly drown me.]

[cross_and_bow]

[Good idea. Here - you should be carrying squares anyway -] She unclips her chain and shakes four of the coins into her hand and presses them into his, then clips the chain back on. [I'll go around and see if she's in the room she appeared to go to, though I'm not betting on it.]

[eversomuchfun]

[Right.]

He kisses her cheek quickly, just because he can.

[cross_and_bow]

She flashes a smile at him and she's off at a run.

That wall leads to a science classroom.

The ghost is not there. Or at least is not visibly there. "Minnie?" Bella tries. No luck.

She heads back into prom, scanning the crowd for that face, that dress.

[pythbox]

No sign of either.

[cross_and_bow]

Okay - headcount. People were only admitted in pairs. Is there an even number of people in the room?

[pythbox]

Yes, not including Juliet.

[cross_and_bow]

[Is the coast clear by you?] Bella asks Sherlock. She goes to check the other bathroom; if two people have gone to the bathroom at the same time that would also yield this mathematical result.

[pythbox]

There is, indeed, someone in the bathroom.

She's not wearing her mask anymore, and she's a little translucent now, with dark bruises on her neck.

"What are you doing?" she wonders.

[eversomuchfun]

[Yes.]

[cross_and_bow]

[Found her. Girls' bathroom.]

"Looking for you. I want to talk to you," Bella says to Minnie, spreading her hands in a nonthreatening gesture. (Wand's tucked into her sash, coins around her waist, she's not nonthreatening, just looking that way.) "Can we talk?"

[pythbox]

"About what?" she asks, folding her arms.

[cross_and_bow]

"About how prom has been unreasonably fatal for the last eighty-five years or so."

[pythbox]

She tosses her hair again.

"What's it to you?"

[cross_and_bow]

"I don't like it when people die," Bella says.

[pythbox]

"That's nice," she says sarcastically.

[cross_and_bow]

"It's true. What do you want?" Bella says. "What are you hanging around for?"

[pythbox]

"I didn't like it when I died," she says.

[cross_and_bow]

"I don't like it that you died either," Bella says. "It was shitty. I'm really sorry that happened to you and I wish it hadn't."

[pythbox]

Her outline flickers.

She frowns.

"What do you know, anyway? It's been like a hundred years."

[cross_and_bow]

"There's old newspaper articles," says Bella. "About what happened."

[pythbox]

"Yeah?" She flickers again, then solidifies further. "What do they say?"

[cross_and_bow]

"They say your date strangled you and then drowned you in a sink. And then the ones after that say that people have been found dead one way or the other at prom, if they come alone, since then. Why would you do that? Why wouldn't you just go after the guy who hurt you?"

[pythbox]

"I can't find him," she snaps.

[cross_and_bow]

"He's probably dead now," Bella says. "If he's not he'd be a hundred years old. You couldn't find him even then? Did it take a while for you to become a ghost?"