"Yes sir, they were all in the library… Rupert Giles, the two teachers, the Summers girl, those friends of hers… that Xander Harris nitwit and the Osbourne weirdo… plus Willow Rosenberg and the Chase girl… the one whose parents… died… Oh, and another man I didn't recognize, but he seemed to be someone Giles knew… yes sir… I will definitely keep my eyes open… Thank you, sir."
Principal Snyder hung up the phone and allowed himself a small, mean smile.
Buffy looked over her shoulder, then slipped into the alley behind Willy's Place. She was dressed for patrol: dark hooded sweatshirt, black leggings, sneakers. She surveyed the darkness for a moment, then, determining that nothing was amiss in the dim, dank passage, moved quickly past the overflowing garbage cans beside the back door. She tried not to think about what got thrown into Willy's trash.
A few paces past the door was a boarded-up window. The Slayer glanced around again, then took a piece of paper, folded small, out of the pocket of her hoodie. She wedged it between the splintered plywood and the weathered brick, then, with a third and final sweep of the alley, traversed the remaining distance and came out onto the street. With a jolt of surprise, she realized that April Fool was only a couple of blocks away.
Buffy sat on the swing, absent-mindedly kicking her feet. The voice from behind her was expected, but still sent a small shiver up her spine.
"I thought I was supposed to contact you."
She kept her eyes straight ahead. "Sorry, but I kinda needed to talk."
"About what?"
The Slayer sighed. "Are you gonna be a big baby, or are you gonna come around where I can see you?" She passed through a few small arcs of the swing "Besides, you didn't have to come. You could've ignored the message." She looked up at the stars before Angel appeared in her peripheral vision.
"Okay, you're right. I could've, maybe should've, but I'm here, so, what's up?"
She finally looked at him. "I need to know what you think. There's too many moving parts for me. The Reverend's fighting Trick every night, we think the Seal is headed to town, you gave us the name of that professor at the U, the Watchers' Council is blown up, literally, now Giles's friend is here and talking about some sort of spell that's needed to use the Seal, how does the Reverend fit into all of this, is he anything to the Mayor, prom queen candidates are going to the hospital, does that have anything to do with… " She shook her head. "It's all like a suicide."
"What?" Angel took a step forward, his voice rising.
"What?" Buffy responded, then shook her head. "No, I mean a Suicide, like at summer camp, when you'd get the snack bar to put all the soda flavors in one cup. It sounded awesome, but it just tasted like… nothing. That's where my head is. I've got all this information, but it makes no sense, it's just a blob." She looked at him. "What's going on?"
Angel shrugged. "I don't know. What's that about prom?"
The Slayer rolled her eyes and waved a hand. "It's a whole thing… a couple of the queen candidates have been attacked."
"Bad?"
"Both ended up in the hospital."
Angel tilted his head. "That's pretty bad."
The Slayer flicked a nail at the chain supporting the swing. "And now Giles and his friend think that it might be part of some plan to increase psychic energy to activate the Seal… Oh, I forgot, we also found out that the two new teachers at school are Knights of the Cross?"
"The Chevaliers?"
Buffy looked annoyed. "Is there, like, a Yellow Pages for all these guys so I can keep them straight? I mean, the Order of this, the Brotherhood of that…"
Angel looked deep in thought. "The Knights are involved."
"That's what I said. Is it good or bad?"
"Little bit of both. They're pretty powerful in their own right, but it also means they're scared… wait, two new teachers?"
"Yeah. So?"
"Don't they hire teachers in the spring?"
Buffy shrugged. "Willow said they got hired late. Something about two teachers leaving at the last minute."
"But they were still hired before you came back… before Trick was here… before I… Shit."
"What?" The Slayer's voice rose; she gripped the swing's chains tightly.
Angel looked at her, eyes narrow. "That means this has been in the works a long time. This isn't just Spike grabbing at whatever was close by to mess things up… this isn't..." He swallowed. "This isn't me acting out. This has been planned." His eyes clouded for a second, then his attention snapped back. "I don't think the prom thing is related to the Mayor's plan. The date for prom is set, and they had no way of knowing whether or not the Seal would be here. It'd be stupid to waste that kind of effort, and Trick's not stupid. The Seal isn't here… I've been watching the docks, and he's definitely expecting something, or planning something, but it hasn't happened yet. The professor makes a kind of sense now." He turned away, then looked over his shoulder. "You can tell Giles I'll keep an eye on the docks. When the Seal arrives, I'll let you know."
"What about the professor guy? We thought maybe keeping an eye on him would tell us when it gets here."
Angel nodded absently. "Yeah, that's a good idea. I'll watch the docks, you guys watch the prof, both ends'll be covered… and we can find a way to keep them apart." He squared his shoulders. "I gotta go."
"Wait," Buffy said. "How does the Reverend fit into all of it?"
Angel sighed. "I don't know... he's the odd man out. Maybe he's a wild card. Maybe he's not part of it at all."
The Slayer's lips pursed. "Would that be good or bad?"
Angel shrugged. "I don't know." He turned and strode into the night. "I'll be in touch."
After he disappeared, the Slayer whispered softly to herself. "Speaking of wild cards, how do you fit into it?"
"So," Willow said, "Angel thinks this has nothing to do with… the other thing?"
Buffy rolled a pencil across the desk. She was in the computer lab with Willow. The school day had yet to begin and a steady stream of students passed by the open door. "Yup. He doesn't think they're connected at all, which means we can try to stop this without worrying about the other." She looked pensive. "I think Cordelia might be right… or at least in the neighborhood of right. What if this is a ghost, or a vengeful spirit, maybe the shade of a former prom queen? It can happen." She shivered as memories of the previous spring washed over her. "And we know who the most likely victims are."
Willow nodded. "Fallon… and Harmony."
"Uh-huh."
"Harmony already has guards," Willow pointed out.
"True, so she's probably safer, even if their job is to stand around in khakis and sunglasses and scare away whoever Harmony thinks don't belong at the club." She shook her head. "They wouldn't stand a chance against a ghost, but, y'know, why pick the hard target first?"
"So, are we going to follow Fallon around?"
Buffy shook her head. "I can't see any way that doesn't end up looking stalkery. We need to stop reacting and make something happen, so here's the deal. I want you to go into 'net girl mode and look up everything you can about ghosts."
"Uh, Buffy, you do know that every culture has ghosts, right? And that every one of them has different types of ghosts, and different lore, and different beliefs about what ghosts are and how to get rid of them–" A noise at the door startled them and both girls clammed up. Indali Patel stood in the doorway, a sheepish look on her face.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you guys. I left something in the printer yesterday afternoon. If I could just get it…" She raised her eyebrows.
"Sure," Willow said, "no problem."
Indali hurried across the room to the printer desk and grabbed a sheaf of papers. She retraced her steps and paused in the doorway. "Again, sorry," she said.
Willow waved. "See you in class." As Indali disappeared, the teenage witch turned back to the Slayer.
"Saying 'look up everything you can about ghosts' is like saying… 'look up everything you can about religion'. Where do you start? Where do you stop?"
"I get it." Buffy picked up the pencil and began drumming on the particle-board surface of the desk. "But is that really true? Are there different ghosts, or just different ways of dealing with them? Is a ghost in England any different than a ghost in, I don't know, Mexico?"
Willow nodded. "I think I see what you mean… the ghost isn't any different, it's the cultural milieu that changes."
"Yeeeeaaahhhh, that's it, assuming milieu means what I think it does." The Slayer gave her friend the fish-eye for a second. "Anyway, we need something solid to work with… what about the description of the ghost? Long black hair?"
Willow grinned. "That's funny. 'Something solid' when you're talking about a ghost."
"Sure, I'm the secret love child of Joan Rivers and Richard Pryor. Is that anything that helps us?"
Willow looked extremely doubtful. "No… but we've got a supply closet and a bathroom. I could look for ghosts trapped in places like that. Is there anything else I can use to narrow the search?"
"Maybe Oz was onto something, maybe 'roller skate' was about the way the ghost moves. That any help?"
"Lots of ghosts float or glide, but I'll make it part of the search. Anything else?"
Buffy shook her head. "No… I mean there was dirt on the floors…"
"Jen was in a janitor's closet."
The Slayer shook her head and gripped the pencil. "No, I don't mean a dirty floor, I mean dirt on the floor… enough that Xander and I noticed it. It looked kind of like someone had spread it around the door." She frowned, her eyes working from left to right across the desk. "And I noticed that the bathroom floor was really dirty… I didn't think much about it at the time."
"Okay," Willow said, "I'll look for ghosts who love dirt… or are scared of dirt, or something with dirt." She jotted a reminder in her binder. "Then what?"
"Well," Buffy said, "here's where it gets dangerous. We need Cordelia's help."
Willow considered this for a long moment, then carefully asked, "What do you mean by 'Cordelia's help' and why do we need it?"
"We want whoever is behind this to try again, but we need to control the horizontal and the vertical. We can do that with Cordelia."
"You're asking her to be the bait? Why would she would go along with that? I mean, she pretty much hates us now."
"Does she hate us more than she loves prom? More than she would love the chance to be prom queen?"
Willow's entire posture radiated doubt. "Do you think that they'd add her to the ballot? It's pretty close to prom and Harmony would have a fit."
"Will, she doesn't need to be on the ballot; the idea that she might be just needs to get into the gossip mill. It'll spread like wildfire."
"Yeah, that's true, but this seems a little... shady." Willow looked skeptical. "Okay, let's say Cordelia agrees. What then?"
Buffy shrugged. "Then... we lie in wait for the bad guy... girl, knock 'em out, and capture the ghost."
Willow rolled her eyes. "Yeah, sounds easy, but I don't have a proton pack."
"What?" The Slayer looked startled.
"You know, like in Ghostbusters?"
"Oh, yeah." Buffy scrunched up her nose. "Then I guess you'll have to invent one, Egon."
"What's up, Willow?" Indali dropped her backpack on the table. "You look really intense."
"Oh, I'm just doing research," Willow muttered, tapping keys.
"Research about what, ghosts?"
Willow's fingers froze and her eyes grew wide. "Ghosts? Why would you think that?"
"Oh, I heard you and Buffy talking about it this morning, just as I was at the door. Kinda caught my attention, not that it was really weird or anything."
Willow laughed a little too loud. "Yea, that…I'm, uh, I'm helping Buffy with a project for… for English. It's about folklore… she's not really gifted at research, you know?"
"Relax, you'll blow a gasket." Indali giggled. "Besides, ghosts aren't that weird."
Willow looked quizzically at Indali. "You believe in ghosts?"
Indali shrugged. "I don't know if I'd say I believe in them, but… if you look through the lens of something like, say, string theory, they're not far-fetched." She unzipped her backpack and pulled out a pen and paper. "We know that something happens to human beings at the moment of death that causes them to weigh less, right?"
"Yeah, the twenty-one grams issue," Willow replied, turning away from the monitor.
"Okay, what if 'death'..." Indali drew on the paper "...is really a transfer of energy, from this plane of existence to another?"
"You mean, like another dimension?" Willow asked.
"Yeah, whatever terminology helps us process. So, this energy is supposed to pass from this dimension, reality, plane to another one, but something stops it. What do we have? Misplaced energy, that doesn't belong here, but can't get where it belongs. Is it really out of the realm of possibility that it might continue to manifest in this plane, but in a different form?"
"You have to accept the existence of other… layers," Willow said.
"Layers… I like that." Indali tapped pen on paper. "Yes, but lots of scientific progress occurs when someone realizes that something impossible exists, then tries to find the explanation for it. And there's plenty of mystery in science. Is light a wave or a particle?"
Willow nodded. "And gravity works, but we don't know what it is."
"Exactly. Newton's laws work, until they don't. If Einstein's right, then gravity doesn't even really exist as a thing, it's just the effect of curving space-time, and if that's right, then time could be impacted by gravity and space. Once you wrap your head around that, I mean, this–' she tipped the pen toward Willow "-if these layers exist, then it's just really advanced physics."
Willow considered this point. "So, if what we call ghosts are just stranded energy, why do you think they look so different? Why are there so many ways of getting rid of them?"
Indali doodled on the paper some more. "Well, the ghost… I'm still calling it a ghost… comes from a specific culture. We're all cultural products. People call me Indian, but I've lived in California all my life. If I went to Ahmedabad, I'd be as lost as you. If this misplaced energy has any consciousness, it only makes sense that it would be perceived according to the cultural, I don't know, mores it's familiar with."
"See, that's what I think," Willow said. "Like a liquid assumes the shape of its container.".
"Exactly." Indali glanced up at the wall. "Hey, I gotta go. This was fun. See you later?"
"Sure," Willow said.
Xander froze, the apple in his hand halfway to his open mouth. "What? You're going to do what?"
Buffy sighed. "We have to get Cordelia to help us."
"And why do we have to do that?" Xander asked.
"Because it's the only plan we have," Buffy replied.
"Well, call me irresponsible, but I think we need a better plan."
"We don't have time," Willow said.
"That's true," Oz said. "Time keeps tickin' away."
"And it's like algebra. We have to eliminate as many variables as possible." Buffy pulled back, amazement on her face. "What words just came out of my mouth?"
"An actual math reference!" Willow practically squealed. "I'm so proud."
"Everyone involved has to know what's going down. We can't ask a civilian to put themselves in harm's way. Is there anybody else besides Cordelia?" Slow looks were exchanged among the other three Slayerettes.
"Okay," Xander said, "given that you have decided to put your foot in this bear trap, what exactly is the plan?"
"We're down to two queen candidates. We put it out that Cordelia is going to replace one of them, then we watch and wait." Buffy and Willow leaned forward expectantly.
"Well," Oz said at last, "good plans are supposed to be simple." He nodded slowly. "Aren't all of the participants in a plan also supposed to know that they're part of it?"
Buffy and Willow exchanged looks. "Well, she will when we talk to her today… after school," the Slayer said. "I know it seems like a long shot–"
Xander dropped the apple onto the table. "It's a 'let's use an Apple computer to upload a computer virus into an alien ship' level long shot."
"Agreed," Buffy said, nodding. "But, remember, that worked."
"Who even picked the queen candidates? Will they put Cordy on the ballot, assuming she goes along with your… I hesitate to call it a plan?" Xander threw up his hands in disbelief.
Buffy spoke very slowly, as though to a very small child. "We don't need her to actually be on the ballot. We put that out there and let the school gossip take over."
Oz squinted. "Like a giant game of Telephone."
"Yes, like that." Willow smacked the table with her palms.
"Are you gonna tell me that you think that won't spread like herpes in this school? Huh?" The Slayer's challenging look went back and forth between the two boys. "Then we keep an eye on Cordelia, from a discreet distance of course, and, when Chris Hargensen makes her move, booyah, we take her."
"First," Xander said, "your Carrie reference is flawed. The person you're looking for is the Carrie in this scenario. Second, it's pretty sexist that you assume whoever's doing this is a girl."
"So… you think a guy is behind this? There's a boy in this school hiding in the girl's bathroom in a long wig, who cares that much about prom, about who's queen?" Buffy's eyebrows shot up as she stared holes in Xander's eye sockets.
"Well, no." Xander looked away.
Oz raised a hand. "Why do you think whoever it is will come after Cordelia?"
"We can't be sure," Willow replied, nodding. "But Harmony's already got bodyguards, and… " She bit her lip. "Cordelia already…" She chewed on her lip as she searched for the right words.
"There are already a lot of people who have it in for Cor, that it?" Xander asked.
"Yeah, but I was going to phrase it more gently." Willow shrank into herself.
"Okay, okay." Xander held up his hands. "Your chain of reasoning is flawless, whatever. I still think there's maybe a, what, twenty percent chance this works?" He looked at Oz.
The teen wolf shrugged. "I'll go thirty. Until they tell Cordelia about it. Then I put it at fifteen.
Buffy made a sour face. "Sometimes you two reallly are the dorkness, you know that?"
The girls huddled together in the hallway; some twenty feet away, Cordelia worked the combination to her locker. The looks Buffy and Willow exchanged were equal parts 'wish me luck', 'watch my back', and 'here goes nothing'. They walked across the intervening distance, and the Slayer cleared her throat. Cordelia jumped and spun around.
"Are you crazy?" she yipped. "Are you trying to give me heart failure?"
Buffy resisted the urge to shoot back 'If you had a heart'. That was a Xander move, and a Xander move was exactly what wasn't needed at the moment. Instead, she said, "Sorry, didn't mean to sneak up on you. Have you got a second?"
"For what?" Cordelia asked. She looked back and forth between them, her eyes narrowed.
Buffy took a shallow breath. "We want to start telling people that you are going to replace Michelle as a queen candidate."
Cordelia's expression would have curdled milk. "But I'm not. It won't happen."
The Slayer nodded, very agreeable. "True. We just want people to think you might."
"What's the point of that?"
Buffy paused. "Because then, we'll be able to catch whoever's doing this?"
Cordelia frowned, then her eyes opened wide. "Wait a minute," she said. "You want to use me as bait!"
Buffy rolled her eyes. "Well, sure, it sounds bad when you say it like that."
Cordelia stared at them, her mouth agape. "It's like tenth grade all over again. Like Marcie Cross. She was going to turn me into the Joker!"
"But she didn't," Willow said.
"What?" Cordelia lowered her hands and stared at the redhead.
"She didn't," Willow said, warming to the subject. "I mean, if you think about it, that's kind of our thing… almost getting killed, but not quite."
"Did you suffer a recent blow to the head?" Cordelia asked. "She did the whole monologue from The Princess Bride."
Willow held up her hands. "No, actually, this should give us more confidence in the plan. You know, the meddling kids always get away with it."
Cordelia pressed her hands to her eyes. "This isn't an episode of Scooby-Doo. This is real."
"Exactly," Buffy blurted. "This is real. Real people have been hurt, real people could still get hurt, maybe killed–"
"And you want me to be one of them!" Cordelia threw up her hands in the classic 'give up' gesture.
"No," Willow protested. "You'll be the one who saves them." She offered what she hoped was an encouraging smile. Cordelia whipped a compact mirror out of her purse and began studying her reflection.
"What are you doing?" Buffy asked.
"I'm trying to see if the word 'stupid' is written on my forehead," Cordelia snarked. "Because that's what I'd have to be to go along with this lame idea."
The Slayer brought her arms up, hands clenched. "Cordelia, we really–"
"Forget it, Buffy." Willow stepped between the other two girls. "She's not going to do it." The redhead shrugged. "I can't blame her. Prom's not that important."
"Oh, no," Cordelia said, "I'm not falling for that. I know what you're doing."
Buffy looked at Willow. "You're right. She doesn't owe us anything. We'll find another way… there's got to be another way." They turned and walked about ten feet before Cordelia spoke.
"Really? The walk away? You're doing the walk away? Have I never seen a movie?" They kept walking, slowly. Cordelia looked up at the ceiling and let out an exasperated 'Ugh'. "Wait," she said. Buffy and Willow turned. Cordelia glared at them, hands on her hips. "Don't think your little… skit worked, because it didn't, but… prom is important. I'm not saying 'yes' to your crazy plan, but… I'll talk about it."
Buffy and Willow looked at each other, then at Cordelia. "That's all we can ask," Buffy said.
Cordelia scowled. "Okay, but you come to Ms. Hollis's house tonight. Six o'clock… and we're just going to talk about it. I'm not agreeing to anything."
Buffy nodded slowly. "Understood. Six o'clock." She looked at Willow, who nodded. "We'll be there."
