Sherlock appears at the end of her driveway wearing an impeccable tuxedo and new shoes.

"Swanky boots," says Bella. "And a tux! Mind you don't spill."

"I also," he says cheerfully, "got you a corsage."

"Oooh?" She drives one-handed, offering her other wrist for corsaging.

She pulls it into her field of vision. "Oh, it's nice, you have good taste," she says approvingly. "I do like indigo."

"I am glad you approve."

"Will do."

"Yeah," he says, laughing, "I've heard that one before."

"No seriously you're like identical, I would know, I had such a crush on him, I had one of those magazine covers on my wall, and you look just identical. What's your name?" she asks.

"What's yours?" he inquires cheerfully.

"I'd like to know if either of our dates would object, first," he says.

"Pfft, I came with my cousin, he couldn't find anybody 'cause he waited till the last minute, and yours went and left you all by yourself, didn't she?"

"Then yes," he says, "why not."

The stranger tosses her hair carelessly over her shoulder. "He's around here somewhere," she says. "You?"

"He's dancing with some girl, but I don't mind," replies Bella.

"You sure he's your date?" she asks, with an odd edge to her voice.

"Yeah? He's my boyfriend as of months ago. He got me a corsage," Bella adds, holding up her wrist. "I don't mind if he dances with somebody else, he's going home with me after."

"Ooh," she says, looking approvingly at the corsage. "Pretty. Do I know this guy? What year's he in?"

"He's not a student," Bella says. "Why?"

She tsks and shakes her head. "Bad news, you know," she says.

"Bad news? What do you mean?"

"What is he, a dropout? You can get in trouble with those."

"Sort of homeschooled," says Bella. "Why are you concerned with my boyfriend's education?"

"You never know about those guys," she says vaguely.

"How does their being enrolled in a public high school help one know about them?"

The strange girl shakes her head, curls bouncing this way and that.

"...What's your name?"

"Minnie," she says.

"Minnie," says Bella, looking around and finding that there are no nearby witnesses, "are you by any chance a vengeful ghost who kills people who go stag to prom?"

"Certainly," he says, giving Kayli a final twirl and bowing over her hand as he steps back.

[She went through that wall,] Bella adds, and she describes what Minnie looks like, [presuming her appearance is stable, anyway. She talks like a person, up to the point where I got her name and asked her if she was by any chance a vengeful ghost - I don't know how reasonable she is, she laughed and backed away when I said that.]

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

[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.]

No sign of either.

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

Yes, not including Juliet.

[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.

[Yes.]

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

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

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

"That's nice," she says sarcastically.

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

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

"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."

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

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

"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?"

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

"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?"

"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!"

"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.

"It makes me so mad," she grumbles.

"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?"

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

"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.

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

[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.]

"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."

Minnie seems to find this explanation giggle-worthy.

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

"And people's phones these days," she says with a sigh of envy.

"Yeah, phones are neat!" says Bella. "Are you solid enough to hold stuff - d'you wanna see mine?"

"If I even try to touch it, it'll die," she says regretfully. "But you could show me!"

"Okay," says Bella, and she gets out her phone, and says to Jarvis, [Are you good enough at multitasking to not be slowed down if I call you by way of showing the Prom Ghost my phone?]

Prom Ghost claps with glee.

[Entirely,] says Jarvis.

"I'll call my friend who's looking on the Internet for stuff," Bella suggests, and she scrolls through her contacts and hits call and then sets it to speakerphone.

"Hello," says Jarvis.

Minnie beams.

"Hi, Jarvis," says Bella. "This is Minnie. I wonder if you'll be able to hear her through the phone? Minnie, you want to say hi?"

"Hi!" says Minnie.

"Hello, Minnie," says Jarvis.

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.

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

"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.

"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."

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

Minnie nods unhappily.

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

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

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

"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.

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

"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."

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

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

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

"Good riddance," says Minnie, scowling.

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

[Vampire.]

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

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

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

"D'you think you'll be less angry now, or did it not help that much?"

Bella nods slowly. "I have a little bit of magic," she says. "I'm going to try and see if it can un-angry you, okay?"

Minnie spreads her hands helplessly.

"Well," says Bella, "what would normally make you mad? My boyfriend is a vampire, if we can get him to make you mad then it's not such a big deal if you try to drown him..." [Have attempted to cure ghost's anger management problem with square, square went, require test subject to see if it worked before I can declare the case closed.]

"He doesn't go to Sunnydale, right?"

[I volunteer,] he says dryly.

[Thought so. Thanks!] "Right. Never has."

"Where is he, then?"

"He's been keeping watch at your haunted sink."

She grins, and disappears.

[Here she is,] Sherlock reports. [Not attempting violence.]

"...Okay, cool!" Pause. "But you're still here. And somehow I don't think the magic coins I have can revive the dead."

"Then what would you do?" asks Bella.

"Go places," she says, flinging out her arms dramatically.

"Sure, but, like, would you be doing mischief, making walls bleed and teakettles explode, spying on hot actors in the shower, whatever?"

"...Ooh," she says speculatively, when Juliet offers that last suggestion.

"I really cannot approve of spying on anyone in the shower, you see," says Bella. "But if you were going to be a well-behaved wandering ghost I could see if I could cut you loose."

"Not even a little, tiny bit of spying?" she wheedles.

"Only if you get to know them and ask for their permission first," says Bella. "Otherwise that is sketchy Peeping Tom behavior."

So does Bella.

He giggles helplessly.

"Face it, Sherlock, you're pretty edible," giggles Bella.

"Oh, I'm well aware."

"You are," sighs Minnie.

"Well, Minnie, if you can confine yourself to wheedling and not turning-invisible-and-lurking-without-consent, I think I can try freeing you from the prom," says Bella.

Minnie nods several times and tries to look as innocent as possible.

[Hey, Giles, I fixed the ghost's rage issues. Is there any particular reason I shouldn't un-confine-her-to-prom if I can do that with a square? She displays no interest in anything more nefarious than maybe spying on movie stars in the shower and seems willing to agree to not do even that.]

[...This is a little out of my depth,] Giles admits. [But, er, benign hauntings are possible... to my knowledge, no one's ever tried to reform one.]

Sherlock blinks.

"Well, hopefully that wasn't a dreadful mistake I just made," says Bella. "Wanna go enjoy the rest of the dance?"

"Do let's."

There is dancing! It's such fun.

They make a bit of a spectacle. But what is prom for if not showing off?