The bell rang, and Monsieur Cann shouted, “Bonjour, mes petites,” and I realized that, for the first time in weeks, I was completely awake.
I spent the rest of the morning thinking about that conversation and what it meant for her. Charlotte Holmes. Because they couldn’t have been talking about anyone else. I was still mulling it all over as I walked across the quad at lunch, dodging people left and right. The green was choked with students, and so in a way, it wasn’t a surprise when the girl I was thinking about stepped out from what seemed to be an invisible door and directly into my path.
I didn’t run into her; I’m not that clumsy. But we both froze, and began doing that awful left-right-you-go-first shuffle. Finally, I gave up. Screw all of this, I thought mulishly, it’s a small campus and I can’t hide forever, I might as well go ahead and—
I stuck out my hand. “Sorry, I don’t think we’ve met. I’m James. I’m new here.”
She looked down at it, eyebrows knitted, like I was offering her a fish, or a grenade. It was sunny and hot that day, early October’s last gasp of summer, and most everyone had slung their uniform blazer over one shoulder or was carrying it under their arm. Mine was in my bag, and I’d loosened my tie, walking down the path, but Charlotte Holmes was as fastidiously put together as if she were about to give a speech on etiquette. She had on slim navy pants instead of the pleated skirt most of the girls wore. Her white oxford shirt was buttoned up to her neck and her ribbon tie looked as if it’d been steamed. I was close enough to tell that she smelled like soap, not perfume, and that her face was as bare as if she’d just washed it.
I might’ve just stared at her for hours—this girl that I’d wondered about off and on my whole life—had her colorless eyes not narrowed at me suspiciously. I started, as if I’d done something wrong.
“I’m Holmes,” she said finally, in that marvelous, ragged voice. “But you knew that already, didn’t you.”
She wasn’t going to shake my hand, then. I slid both of them into my pockets.
“I did,” I admitted. “So you know who I am. Which is awkward, but I figured—”
“Who put you up to this?” There was a flat kind of acceptance in her face. “Was it Dobson?”
“Lee Dobson?” I shook my head, bewildered. “No. Put me up to what? I mean, I knew you’d be here. At Sherringford. My mum told me that the Holmeses had sent you; she keeps in touch with your aunt Araminta. They met at some charity thing. Right? They signed the His Last Bow manuscript? It went for leukemia patients or something, and now they write emails back and forth. Are you in my year? I was never clear on that. But you’ve got a biology textbook there, so you must be a sophomore. A deduction, ha. Maybe best avoid those.”
I was babbling like an idiot, I knew I was, but she had been holding herself so straight and still that she looked like a wax figurine. It was so at odds with the commanding, freewheeling girl I’d seen at the party that I couldn’t make heads or tails of it, what had happened to her since then. But my talking seemed to calm her down, and though it wasn’t funny, or morbid, or witty, I kept on going until her shoulders relaxed and her eyes finally lost some of their sharp sadness.
“I know who you are, of course,” she said when I finally stopped to draw breath. “My aunt Araminta did tell me about you, and Lena, though it would have been obvious anyway. Hello, Jamie.” She extended a small white hand, and we shook.
“I hate it when people call me Jamie, though,” I said, pained, “so you might as well call me Watson instead.”
Holmes smiled at me in a closed-mouth kind of way. “All right, then, Watson,” she said. “I have to go to lunch.”
It was a dismissal if I’d ever heard one.
“Right,” I said, tamping down my disappointment. “I was going to meet Tom anyway; I should go.”
“Right, see you.” She stepped neatly around me.
I couldn’t leave it at that, and so I called after her, “What did I do?”
Holmes flung me an unreadable look over her shoulder. “Homecoming’s next weekend,” she said drily, and went on her way.