A Study in Charlotte (Charlotte Holmes, #1)(28)

There was a rap at the door. “Jamie?” I heard Mrs. Dunham say. “I brought you a cup of tea. And some cookies.”

I let her in. She looked a bit dotty, as usual, with her crooked glasses and frizzy hair, but the cookies were chocolate chip and still warm.

“You’re the only one in the dorm that stayed in tonight,” she said, handing me the steaming mug. “I thought I’d come say hi. I know things have been hard for you lately.”

“Thanks,” I said, embarrassed. “I needed to finish some homework. Writing a poem.”

She made a sympathetic noise. “Any luck?”

“Nope.” She’d brought me English breakfast, and the steam fogged up my glasses. Right then, I wasn’t sure who was more of a cliché, me or her. “Any advice?”

She hummed, thinking. “I’ve always liked that Galway Kinnell poem. ‘Wait, for now. Distrust everything, if you have to. But trust the hours. Haven’t they carried you everywhere, up to now?’” She had a fine voice for reciting poetry, deep-timbered and slow. “Doesn’t that just make everything better?”

“It does,” I said, and wished it were true.

Behind her, in the doorway, a girl appeared.

“Are you ready, Watson?” It was her strange, fantastic voice, even smokier than usual, and Holmes stepped into my room.

I blinked rapidly. She’d done something with her hair. Instead of its usual glossy fall, it was tousled, in unfinished-looking ringlets. Her dress looked nothing like I imagined. It looked, in fact, like the night sky. I could see why Lena had coveted it: the cut of it brought my eye to certain places I’d tried to avoid looking at.

“You look very nice,” I said. It was true. She also looked disturbingly like a girl. Hailey had been made from plastic and wet dreams, and everyday Holmes was all exact angles, but this . . . whatever this was, it was something else entirely. I wasn’t sure if I liked it. From the way she shifted her weight from one heel to the other, it seemed Holmes wasn’t sure either. What plot was she brewing?

“Hi, Charlotte,” Mrs. Dunham said. “Jamie didn’t tell me you were coming.”

“Yes, I’m sure he forgot,” she said. “We’re in a bit of a hurry. The dance is nearly halfway done.”

“We are, and I—ah—” I was wearing my glasses and a pair of Highcombe sweatpants.

With an expressive sigh, Holmes began rifling through my drawers. “Braces,” she muttered. “Or as they say here, suspenders. I know you own the ridiculous things. Here.” She tossed them to me, and kept looking.

“So you want me to wear them? Or you don’t?”

“Oh, do, it’s your thing, with the leather jacket and the—yes, here we go, a skinny black tie, and your nice shirt, and the trousers you wore on the fourth day of school but that haven’t reappeared since then. Dark wash. There. Socks, and your oxfords.” Mrs. Dunham scurried out of the way as Holmes buried me in a pile of my own clothing.

I looked down. “You’re trying to make me into a hipster.”

“I don’t have to try.” Holmes tapped her wrist where the watch would go. “Time, Watson.”

“You really can’t be here while he’s changing,” Mrs. Dunham said.

Holmes put a hand over her eyes. “I am counting down from one hundred.”

“Thanks for the heads-up,” I said, sorting through the clothes she’d given me.

“Ninety-nine. Ninety-eight.”

We were out the door with three counts to go.

From across the quad, I could see the union all lit up for the dance. Each time the doors opened, I heard a bit of a song I couldn’t quite place. On a bench sat a boy and girl holding hands; he was whispering in her ear. Nearby, a cluster of shivering girls admired each other’s dresses.

“Are you going to tell me why we’re here?” I asked Holmes, holding the door open for her.

She paused on the threshold. “Not yet,” she said, and went in.

Sherringford was a small enough school that we could all fit into the union’s alumni ballroom. (Apparently, the school went bigger and fancier for prom. Tom was sure that this year’s would be on a yacht.) The theme had something to do with Vegas; the first thing I saw as we entered was a string of blackjack tables, manned by real casino dealers in green-and-white livery. Holmes sidled over, only to make an affronted noise when she saw they were playing with Monopoly money. I was more interested in the chocolate fountain that burbled in the corner, crowded by people holding out skewered marshmallows. Otherwise, there were all the usual trappings: a punch table, strobe lights, a DJ. Bored-looking teachers were “chaperoning,” which meant they mostly chatted together in pairs. Out on the dance floor, girls swayed in dresses the colors of Christmas ornaments. We’d won the football game earlier, so the mood was victorious. As I took it all in, Cassidy and Ashton from my French class brushed past us. Cassidy looked lovely, and Ashton looked exactly like one of the Thundercats. I’d never seen such a radioactive-looking tan.

What I noticed most of all was how many students had been pulled home. There couldn’t have been more than a hundred of us on the dance floor. Still, everyone seemed like they were having fun—no one thinking of the murder, or their safety, or anything except for the ABBA song that had just begun.