The first—the reference to the play and the invitation to meet up after the show—was an obvious one. Almost too obvious. But the second?
Archimedes knew the play wasn’t the thing.
Was the play a decoy? Was the real prank happening somewhere else? Somewhere Archimedes—one of history’s greatest mathematicians—would likely be? Do the math . . . I couldn’t be in two places at once.
The cop already had the auditorium covered, so I followed my gut to the math department at the far end of the school on tiptoe, pausing every few feet to listen.
I ducked under the stairwell where I could see most of the wing, and since I wasn’t sure what I was looking for, I waited. The ad just said “find me after the show.” I checked the clock above the fountain. Ten. The show was ending. After the show was now. I squatted low, my breathing shallow. The wing was quiet and still.
The second hand crept slowly over the face of the clock, and each passing second I felt more and more like an idiot for being there. My knees began to ache where they pressed against the cold tile, and a cramp pinched my calf. I shifted positions, stretched my legs, checked the clock again. The whole thing was probably a complete waste of time. I wasn’t even sure I was in the right place, or what I would do if I spotted someone, or exactly what I thought they might be doing, but I stayed put, remembering what had happened to Emily. If there was a chance something like that could happen again, I couldn’t abandon my suspicion and walk away. I urged the red hand of the clock forward with my mind, wanting to get this night behind me.
By eleven o’clock, I was sure the audience was long gone. The actors were probably washing off their stage makeup and heading to the after-party. The cop was probably shaking his head, chalking the wasted night up to a paranoid girl.
I stepped out from under the stairwell, stretched, and scanned the dark passage. All closed doors.
With the exception of one. Room #112. My AP Physics class.
It was barely cracked, but I kicked myself for not having noticed it sooner. I eased it open, listening. The room was silent. Pitch-black. The hair on my neck prickled.
I reached inside and flipped a switch. The fluorescents flickered to life, turning lumpy shadows into recognizable shapes. Chairs stacked neatly upside down on tables, the blackboard wiped clean, trash can empty.
Everything neat. Nothing out of place. Except one chair.
Mine. It rested on the floor, flipped over as if someone got up in a hurry. I walked over and saw my desk.
Jagged deep letters were carved into the wood. You lost the gold crown.
Better luck next time.
Goose bumps rippled over me. The last message on my desk led to a dead cat on my doorstep. And that message was only in ink. This one had been carved in angry-looking purposeful lines, deep enough to splinter the wood. And this time I had no doubt it’d been left for me.
You lost the gold crown.
I paced, filtering through memories of lectures and texts, sorting what I knew about math and Archimedes.
Archimedes’ Principle was based on the story of a gold crown. He’d written his Treatise on Floating Bodies after discovering he could determine the weight of a gold crown by measuring the volume of water it displaced.
So what? What did that have to do with anything? Or with the play? What could the gold crown possibly have to do with . . . Hamlet?
My brain worked fast, outpacing my pulse as it divided out all the factors until just one common denominator was left. A chill raced down my spine. There was a floating body in Hamlet . . . Ophelia.
I took off at a run, my footsteps echoing back at me down halls that seemed to go on for miles. I flew around the corner of the gymnasium and slipped into the girls’ locker room. The door closed behind me and I waited, winded, while my eyes adjusted to the dim yellow lights. I headed for the moist hot scent of chlorine until the concrete gave way to rubber floor runners.
When I came to the door, I took a breath before inching it open.
The light around the Olympic-size pool was a steamy green. Watery lines danced on the ceiling, refracted light from below the pool’s surface. I stood, listening. The huge space was silent, as if the water muted all the sound except the ragged breaths I couldn’t quiet. I stepped slowly toward the pool, scanning the bleachers for shadows or movement.
“Marcia?” I called quietly.
My own voice came back in soft echoes.
“Marcia, are you here?”
I perched on the curved lip below the diving boards, beside the depth markings . . . twelve feet. I looked down the length of the pool, following the lap lines that wavered like long black threads, marking the distance to the opposite end of the pool. Except for one, which seemed to stop, disappearing prematurely into a blur of shadow by the far wall.
My skin prickled as I rounded the corner of the pool. The shadow in the water grew as I neared, a dark mass floating above it. As my feet picked up speed, the shadow cleared, the dark mass becoming black tendrils of hair, drifting like cobwebs over a pale face and tangling between purple lips.
“Marcia!” I ran to the edge.
Her eyes were closed, as if she was sleeping. She lay on the shallow bottom, mouth open and legs spread, her big cotton dress billowing up around her. Her gray fingers reached for the surface but didn’t quite touch.
I dropped to my knees and plunged both arms into the water. Her hand was cold and slippery and didn’t grab back. The dress, flowing and weightless below the surface, clung to a drain at the bottom of the pool. I pulled hard, but the dress was like an anchor, weighing her body down.
“Come on, Marcia! Please!” I dropped my grip to her wrist, leveraging all my weight. Her elbow scraped the lip of the pool. Then her head broke the surface, heavy hair tipping her head back on her neck. First her nose, then eyes, then lips. Then her face emerged, blue and green under the light. I pulled again, catching her underarm on the concrete. Her head rolled toward me, water spilling from her mouth and draining down her chin.
I whispered frantically, begging her to wake up, begging her dress to stop fighting me, but the harder I pulled, the more I was losing her. I looked at her wrist, feeling her frail joints strain. Her wet sleeve fell back, revealing a mark.
A number.
Through the water, the number eighteen appeared, clear and dark against her forearm like a blue tattoo. I stopped breathing, unable to move as her wrist slipped through my fingers. I watched her mouth and nose slide under. Watched the number drift slowly to the bottom, her sleeve stuck stubbornly in the crook of her elbow, dark hair floating above her.
I covered my mouth with my sleeve, icy streams of pool water trailing down my chest.
The locked exterior doors rattled on their hinges.
“Marcia? Are you in there?” came muffled voices from the other side.