They step up to the dining hall’s entrance, and Director Minaro scrutinizes them closely. “You truly look like you are from another time,” she says, studying William’s outfit.
“We are,” says Lorena. “I’m Juliet, and he’s Romeo.”
“Wonderful,” says the director.
“Those costumes are exquisite,” says their history teacher as she takes their photograph. “William, I would love to take a look at those threads sometime. They look authentic.”
“Certainly,” he says, then he and Lorena enter the dining-hall-turned-ballroom, which has been decorated with glowing jack-o’-lanterns, cottony spiderwebs, and fake trees wrapped with fairy lights. A machine blows wispy white steam that clings to the floor, and headstones pierce through the fog, giving the impression that they are partying atop decomposing corpses.
Lorena keeps turning her head as if she is searching for someone, probably her friends. William traces the naked slope of her neck, so temptingly close and unprotected.
When he lifts his gaze, she is watching him through the mask.
He finds that he must resist the impulse to rip that mask away from her, so he can see her full face.
A new song starts to play from the speakers, a slower number than the previous one. On the dance floor, a few couples come together and start to sway at a daring proximity.
Driven by a foreign impulse, he asks, “Shall we dance?”
She takes a moment to answer, as if the question has thrown her. “Um—okay.”
He cannot tell if that was a statement or a question, so he offers his hand for her to decide. He hears the breath she sucks in before she rests her palm against his.
And palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss.
He shakes his head as the Shakespeare line interrupts his thoughts, and he leads her onto the dance floor. Classmates part for them, and once they are face-to-face, William lowers his mask.
He rests his hands on her hips, and Lorena removes her own mask to clasp her fingers around his neck, finally revealing her face.
The effect is like removing one’s sunglasses and peering at pure light. She glows in a way that makes it hard for him to look at her directly.
A midnight sun.
This was a mistake.
The thought is an arrow that pierces his delusion. What is he doing playing nice with his dinner? He should not have asked her to dance. He should not be letting her decide when he gets to drink. He should not be at this school, pretending to be a student—
“What’s wrong?”
She is looking up at him, her fingers barely touching around his neck. If she were not in heels, her hands would probably reach only his shoulders.
“I am not sure I should stay here any longer,” he hears himself say. “I need to be hunting down answers.”
“Oh.”
He expected relief, or even happiness, to flit across her face, but instead she looks… concerned? Disappointed?
“Where will you go?”
“Boston.”
“What about the LUB? That secret timeline map? Are you sure there’s not more for you to find in there?” she asks.
“It has been weeks since that discovery, and I have run out of places to look.”
There are more couples crowding the dance floor now, and William notices that some people are holding each other even closer than the two of them. Like a rhythmic hug.
It feels to him like his hands are acting of their own volition as they slide past Lorena’s hips and circle her waist. She holds her breath as his nose hovers by her forehead, and she fails to exhale for so long that he fears she has died.
