I stayed at Giles' place that night. So did Hawk. The next morning, I went back to the Sunnydale High School Library to talk to Willow, Xander, and Oz.
Giles worked in his office and left the main meeting area to me. I chose to talk to Buffy's three friends separately to get their independent perspectives on what happened the night before Buffy left home. I started with Willow. She was wearing blue jeans, orange tennis shoes, and a brown shirt with "Techno-Geek" stenciled across the front in green letters.
"OK," I said. "Yesterday you said you found a spell to restore Angel's soul?"
"Yeah. I was helping Buffy study for her Chem Final in Miss Calendar's room," she said.
I was completely confused already.
"Who is Miss Calendar? You mentioned her before."
"She was our computer teacher. She was really good. She was also Giles' girlfriend and oh yeah, she was also a gypsy."
"So you were helping Buffy study chemistry during your computer class?"
"Not exactly. Angelus killed Miss Calendar after she used a computer program to reconstruct the curse. Principal Snyder couldn't find a new teacher to take her place so late in the school year, so he kinda had me take over the class and let me work at my own pace in my other classes. So I spent most of my time at school this last semester in Miss Calendar's classroom."
"Well, Snyder said that you were an outstanding student," I said.
"Really?" she said, her face erupting into a big and infectious smile. "'Cause, you know, I really didn't get the feeling he liked me so much."
"I haven't really gotten the feeling Snyder likes anyone much," I said. "So how did helping Buffy study for her Chem Final result in you finding the spell to restore Angel's soul?"
The questions I was asking made me feel like I was Alice and had gone down the rabbit hole.
"Miss Calendar backed up the reconstruction of the curse on floppy disk, and it fell in between her desk and her file cabinet. Buffy found it when she dropped her pencil in the same place. I put the disk in the computer, and there it was."
"So then what happened?"
"Buffy asked me to try to restore Angel's soul. Even with Kendra here, the odds were against us, particularly with Angelus, Drusilla, and Spike all together and everything, and then they found Acathla and were going to wake him up and suck the world into Hell, big yuck, then Angel, I mean Angelus, sent this female vampire to our English Final and she took off her cloak and burned to death but before she did she said that Buffy had to meet Angelus in the graveyard at sundown or more would die."
"OK, I think I got that, sort of."
"So Buffy went out to meet Angelus, and Xander, Cordelia, Giles and I stayed here in the library and set out to redo the Gypsy curse and restore Angel's soul. Kendra was also here to guard us. We started the spell, but Angelus sent Drusilla and a whole bunch of other vampires to stop us and kidnap Giles, and one of them pushed a bookcase on me and I was knocked out."
"Where did you wake up?"
"In the hospital, I was unconscious for about four hours."
"And after you woke up, you decided to try again to restore Angel's soul."
"Yeah, from the hospital bed. Buffy was going to try to stop Angelus from waking Acathla. I had Oz and Cordelia help me, and I sent Xander to tell Buffy that I was going to try again, 'cause, you know, good Angel not so inclined to wake up a Hell sucking demon. This time we got through the spell. I don't remember the end of it, but I felt something go through me, and when I came back to myself, the Orb was gone."
"The Orb?"
"The Orb of Thessela. It's like a conduit through which Angel's soul traveled to him. It looks like a glass crystal ball, but when the soul enters it, and then travels to its host, it takes the Orb with it, and it vanishes."
I was pretty sure I wasn't going to really understand most of what Willow was telling me, so I tried to distill it to elements that I could understand.
"So because the Orb vanished, you're certain the spell worked."
"Yeah, pretty much. I just don't know if it was in time."