Pointing Fingers

The professor’s constant droning hums in my ear. The hastily stifled yawns of students and the occasional snicker of laughter are the only other sounds in the room. My eyelids begin to droop and I have to pinch myself to stay awake. 

“And thus, the gallant and valiant king was interred. Scores of people attended his majestic funeral, during which his eloquent will was read. He bequeathed the majority of his land to his daughter, which was very unusual for the time period they lived in. But that is a story for another day! You’re free to go home now,” Mr. Benne finishes. 

I shoot up out of my chair and speed toward the exit. However, before I can get out of the door, I hear someone call my name.

“Luna! I would like to speak with you briefly. Can you spare a few minutes?” my professor asks. 

I groan inwardly. I really, really want to go home. But I suppose I should just get it over with before he gets angry.

“Yeah, I have a few minutes,” I sigh.

“Lovely. You can take a seat at my desk; I’ll be down there in just a second.”

I silently make my way to the chair and watch as the rest of my classmates file out. Some of my friends give me a sorry look as they leave. I nod at them gratefully and wait for the professor. 

“So, Luna,” he begins once the lecture hall is empty, “Your grades have dropped greatly in the past few months. When you started this class, you maintained straight A’s with ease. What happened? I see you dozing off in class and doodling on your paper.” 

“I, um, this class is fairly easy for me. I know the majority of the content already, so I’m just bored,” I lie.

“Oh, really?” Mr. Benne raises his eyebrows, “then why are you failing my class right now? During our meeting at the beginning of the year, you claimed you loved this class and that it provided hours of enjoyment for you.” 

Oh crap. I forgot about that meeting. 

“Um… I’ve also been very busy lately with my other classes, and I haven’t been getting much sleep, so I have trouble staying awake,” I claim. It’s not entirely a lie. 

“Hmmm… Alright. I suppose that sounds reasonable. Even so, I ask that you put some priority into this class, too. What we learn here can be very beneficial to your personal life.”

Mr. Benne’s blue eyes meet mine and pierce into my soul, seemingly reading my mind. He stares at me for a long moment, evaluating me in his eerie way.

“I, uh, I should really be going,” I stutter, “I have, um, a meeting to attend.”

Without waiting for his response, I rush out of the room and to my dorm. I live with one other girl, Lucy, but we’re not that close. We don’t spend a whole lot of time together because she takes a bunch of extra honors-level courses and doesn’t get back till eleven o’clock at night. So I have the space to myself for the most part, which is nice, because that means I have a decent chunk of time to myself. I’m planning to use that time to think about what Mr. Benne said. I can’t shake the lingering feeling that he knows something about me I don’t want him to know… 

I rummage around in my backpack for the key to my dorm and listen to the sounds of the dorm building as I search. I hear mirth leaking from one room, presumably at a funny joke or movie. I hear two or three people wrangling about something or other (I specifically hear, “Cats SUCK!” and “Well, all dogs do is BARK AND BARK MORE!) and more clamours from another room as a bunch of boys chant about some football game they’re watching. When I find the key, I let myself in. I put my bag on my bed and make myself a cup of coffee before taking a piece of paper and a pen out of the drawer under the sink. I didn’t lie to Mr. Benne about having a meeting to attend. I’m just going to be out later than he expects me to be. I scribble down a note to Lucy telling her that I’m going to be out late tonight and that she shouldn’t stay up for me. I grab my coffee mug and the note and walk over to Lucy’s room. The door is closed, which I find a bit odd because she usually keeps her door open, but I don’t think much of it. I push open the door and gasp.

Lucy is lying prostrate on the floor, her brown hair spread out in a perfect circle around her head. Her arms lie in an “x” on her chest and her legs lay perfectly straight in front of her. Her eyes are closed and her skin is deathly pale. I process all of this in less than a second and stand in numb shock. I feel my coffee mug slip out of my hand and the hot liquid splash over my feet. My mouth hangs open in a silent scream. What happened here? I force myself to glance around the room. Lucy’s room is in perfect order, her backpack neatly placed next to her desk and her bed sheets neatly made. Nothing seems out of place. The curtains are open, letting a cool breeze into the room. The notebooks on the desk and neatly stacked and organized. My eyes fall back on Lucy. I take a closer look at her face and notice something I didn’t see before. She’s wearing makeup. I have never seen Lucy with makeup on the whole time I’ve known her. Her lips are painted blood red against her pale skin and her eyelids are an ashy gray. Why did she put on makeup? I notice something else. She holds a bouquet of small, white flowers in her perfectly folded hands. And she isn’t breathing. I drop to the floor and force myself to keep sucking air in and out and in and out. I have to go. I need to go to this meeting. I need to talk with the people there. We have a covert reason for our meeting. To anyone who stumbled across us, we would appear to be having a normal meeting about stocks. But we actually do something very different. We actually summon demons and angels and the spirits of the dead and I think my professor knows about that but none of that matters right now. Someone killed Lucy and made her look pretty and added flowers, for goodness sake. These people at the meeting are the only ones who can help me. Even if they don’t want to, I am the puissant leader of the group. I have the most power and I can make them listen to me. I speed through the hallways of the dorm building until I get to the room we said we would meet at. I rip open the door and slam my hands down on the table. Twelve pairs of eyes stare at me in shock.

“My roomate is dead,” I begin.

A collective gasp fills the room.

“And the murderer took the time to make her pretty and clean her room and give her flowers. I need to find out who it is and make sure they don’t do it again. If we work together, we will become an unassailable group.” 

Twelve heads nod at me, and we delve into plans to solve this mystery.

:~:

After hours of brainstorming ideas, spurning plans, and yelling at each other, we finally think of something. We decide the best way to find out who killed Lucy is to talk directly to her. Why we didn’t think of summoning her spirit before, I don’t know, but here we are. Of course, she may not have been dead long enough for her soul to reach the Underworld, but it’s always worth a try. After a few minutes of chanting and humming around a circle of candles, we hear a whoosh of wind and feel the room temperature drop by 20 degrees. I open my eyes and see Lucy’s pale face in front of me. I smile in relief.

“Who killed you, Lucy?” I whisper, “We’re going to get revenge.”

Lucy doesn’t show any emotion. Instead, she slowly raises one thin finger and points it directly at me.

“It was you, Luna.”