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

[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?"

[pythbox]

"He never came back to prooooooom," she wails, the word stretching out into an unearthly howl. "Do you know how infuriating that is? I get one night a year to walk around, and I can't even get far enough from where I died to go to the other end of the gym!"

[cross_and_bow]

"That sounds really stultifying," Bella says sympathetically, hoping her wince looks like it has more to do with the ghost's plight than with her wail.

[pythbox]

"It makes me so mad," she grumbles.

[cross_and_bow]

"I bet. I'd hate being cooped up like that too. But he's never coming back to prom. Even if he's alive, he's been out of high school for many years now," says Bella quietly. "Can you - go on?"

[pythbox]

She scuffs her foot. It dips through the bathroom floor slightly.

"I don't know how."

[cross_and_bow]

"I don't either," admits Bella. The ghost books don't have how-tos from the ghost's perspective. "Maybe we can figure it out, okay?"

[Giles, you awake?]

[pythbox]

Minnie looks dubious, and flickers again.

[Yes?]

[cross_and_bow]

[I need to give the ghost instructions on how to move on. Help?]

"Would it help if you knew what happened to the guy who killed you?" Bella tries. "If I looked him up and said 'yes, he's dead' or 'he's in this nursing home' or - whatever?"

[pythbox]

[Of course,] says Giles.

"...yes," says Minnie. "Yes! Tell me!"

[cross_and_bow]

[Can you look up the dude who killed her, see what became of him, in the newspapers?]

And then she asks Jarvis the same thing, giving him all the details, and substituting "on the internet" for "in the newspapers".

"I'm asking some of my friends to help find out, now," Bella tells Minnie. "I'm telepathic so I can do that from right here."

[pythbox]

"Lucky you," grumbles Minnie, crossing her arms again.

[cross_and_bow]

"I'm just explaining that when they get the answers I won't have gone anywhere but that doesn't mean I'm making it up. I want to tell you the truth," Bella says placatingly.

[pythbox]

"Ugh," she says, but she doesn't do anything overtly hostile, or go anywhere.

Giles and Jarvis are quiet for a few minutes.

[cross_and_bow]

Jarvis ought to be faster than Giles for any number of reasons; she pokes him again first. [Any luck?]

[poeticterms]

[Not so far,] he says. [I haven't restored all my old connections yet. The Internet isn't quite such an open book to me as I'm used to.]

[cross_and_bow]

[Okay.] [Giles?]

"One of my friends is looking on the internet, and one of them is checking newspapers," she reports to Minnie.

[pythbox]

"What is the internet?" she asks, intrigued.

[Still looking,] Giles reports.

[cross_and_bow]

"It's - a lot of machines that act sort of like books crossed with phones and know how to talk to each other," Bella summarizes. "If you have a book-phone-thing you can find information that's on all the other book-phone-things."

[pythbox]

Minnie seems to find this explanation giggle-worthy.

[cross_and_bow]

"It's pretty cool," Bella says. "And useful for all kinds of things."