Dead Beautiful

  It seemed a little superfluous, but I nodded anyway. “Okay.”

  “Shhh!”

  I rolled my eyes and stepped inside, trying to be as quiet as possible. The ceilings were unfathomably high, and rows of books lined the walls, reaching all the way to the top. I had known that this many books existed in the world, but never before had I seen them all in one room. As I walked deeper into the library, past study tables and card catalogs, the light grew dimmer and the musty smell of preserved leather and papyrus emanated from the walls, giving me the comfortable feeling of being in a museum.

  I walked down the main corridor, trying to find a place to sit. Oil lamps lit the hallway in a flickering yellow light. The library was moderately crowded; every table was occupied by at least one student. The floors were covered in a plush red carpet, and other than the sound of pages turning, it was completely silent. I kept going, pulled in one direction by a force outside of me: up one flight of stairs, down an aisle and through a set of double doors that opened into the northern wing. I had no idea where I was going or what section I was in, though it was clearly one that wasn’t frequented by many students, as most of the tables were empty. I walked to the back, passing enormous shelves of books, until I found a table overlooking the campus. I was about to sit down when I heard voices whispering from the other side of the bookcase. Gripping my papers to my chest, I tiptoed to the shelf and peered through the gap between the books.

  “Board of Monitors erat.” Gideon DuPont’s voice was deep and cold. He was wearing a black suit and tortoiseshell glasses, his auburn hair combed and parted to the left. He leaned back in his chair, crossing one leg over the other. He was sitting with Vivian and Yago. Stacks of books were piled on the table around them. I tried to read the titles, but they were too far away. I stepped closer, kneeling down to get a better look, when I saw a dead mouse curled up on the floor. I caught my gasp just before it escaped my mouth. But not quickly enough. Gideon, Vivian, and Yago all turned in my direction. I covered my mouth with my hand to muffle my breathing. I was worried they might come over and find me crouching below the books with a dead mouse, but to my relief, they continued their conversation, this time softer. They must have assumed that no one could understand them anyway, considering they were speaking in Latin. And it was true—I had no idea what was going on, but judging from the way they’d reacted, I knew it was something secret.

  “Quis id fecit?” Vivian asked, her voice full and commanding. She was wearing a tailored suit, with a ruffled white bow tied through her collar.

  “Non scio,” Gideon replied.

  Yago interrupted. “Puto Headmistress Von Laark esse.” He was wearing a light blue oxford shirt and a white linen blazer. His tie was uneven and loose around his neck.

  “Erant alii,” Vivian interjected. She sounded vicious. “Nonne quid illa puella adferret meministi?”

  “Brandon erat. Brandon Bell,” Gideon said. Vivian attempted to interrupt, but Gideon continued. “Atque modus ad eum castigandum per Eleanorem sororem eius est.”

  I gasped at hearing what sounded like Eleanor’s name. Thankfully, Yago coughed at the same time. What were they talking about? All I had been able to make out was Board of Monitors, Headmistress Von Laark, Brandon Bell, and probably Eleanor. Vowing to pay more attention in class, I glanced at the dead mouse. It was partially decayed and covered in dust. It must have been there for weeks.

  Wiping the dust from my knees, I stood up with the resolve to finally begin studying. But when I turned around, I was face-to-face with Dante. Startled, I backed into the shelf, knocking off a book. With an almost inhuman agility, Dante caught it before it hit the floor. He put a finger to my lips. His skin was cold to the touch, a chill that seemed to seep into me. He quickly pulled away, and I shivered as my breath turned to fog. I looked up at him, wondering if he noticed it too.

  “Renée.” My name escaped his mouth almost soundlessly, as if it were a secret that he had slipped into my ear. Around us, books towered to the ceiling, and he lowered his head to mine, his dark hair falling across his face. I felt his eyes travel across me, reading each part like a word in a novel. No one had ever looked at me that way before. My chest grew hot and flushed with embarrassment, and I started to respond when I heard Gideon stop talking. He must have heard us, because it was followed by the sound of a chair creaking as someone stood up.

  “Let’s go,” Dante mouthed, and picked up my bag.

  I tried to keep up with him as he wove through the maze of bookshelves. “Where are we going?” I whispered when we were out of earshot.

  “Somewhere...less crowded,” he said, even though the rest of the library was virtually empty.

  We stopped in a dimly lit reading room, with doors on either end and stacks and stacks of books. We stood behind one, waiting in the shadows to make sure no one was coming.

  “What happened back there? My lips, they were so cold all of sudden.”

  He gave me a confused look. “They were?”

  Maybe it was just in my head.

  “What were you doing there?” I asked.

  He looked down at me, considering how to answer. “Studying. What were you doing?”

  “Studying,” I said quickly.

  “On the floor, in the dark?”

  I bit my lip and reached for my bag, which he was still holding. But as I did, it dropped to the floor and all my papers scattered across the carpet.

  “Oh God, sorry,” I said, as we both bent over to pick them up. A few of my pencils had rolled across the aisle, and I went to collect them when I saw Dante looking through my papers. Blushing, I tried to grab them from him, but he waved them out of my reach.

  “‘Life After Death,’” he said, reading the title of my essay. “Of all of the myths, that’s the one you’d want to believe in?”

  “Don’t read that!” I said, grabbing at it.

  He looked at me with curiosity. “You don’t believe in an afterlife?”

  “I don’t mean in the religious sense.”

  He gazed at me. “You mean in the literal sense,” he murmured pensively. “People coming back to life.”

  I looked at my feet. I knew it was juvenile, but that was exactly what I wanted to believe in. “I miss my parents,” I said quietly. It was a slightly pathetic disclosure, but it was the truth.

  Dante’s face softened. “I bet we have more in common than you think,” he said, handing me the stack of papers.

  I took them and shoved them into my bag. What did that mean? That he missed his parents? Or that he wanted to believe in an afterlife, too? At least he didn’t think I was ridiculous or stupid, which he would have if he had seen my Latin homework, which had a giant C+ scrawled over it in red.

  “Oh, and about your Latin homework.”

  My face dropped. “You saw it?” I wanted to die.

  “You know, I’m pretty good at Latin. I could help you.” He leaned against the bookshelf, his sleeves rolled up, revealing veins that outlined the muscles on his forearms and disappeared underneath the cuffs of his shirt.

  “How am I supposed to know you’re good at it? What if you’re just trying to sabotage my grade?” I said, with a hint of sarcasm.

  He laughed. “There isn’t much to sabotage. But you did walk in on my class, Advanced Latin. Isn’t that enough to convince you?”

  “Prove it,” I said before I could stop myself.

  Dante gave me an amused look. “What do you want me to do?”

  “What were they saying? Gideon and Vivian and Yago.”

  Dante studied me, half of his face obscured in the shadows. “I don’t know.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Yes you do.”

  “They were talking about the Board of Monitors. Something about who did what. I couldn’t hear anything else.”

  I wasn’t sure if he was telling the truth or just trying to placate me. “I don’t believe you.”

  He leaned in until his face was inches away from mine, so close I could feel hi
s loose hair brushing against my cheeks. He stared at me with an intensity that could only have been born from extreme desire or hatred, but for a moment I didn’t care. I closed my eyes and waited for what would come next.

  “You don’t trust me,” he whispered into my ear, his breath surprisingly cold.

  I shuddered. “No.” Around us, the oil lamps flickered and dimmed, signaling that the library was closing.

  “But you are talking to me. Does that mean we’re on for Latin?”

  I meant to say no, but for some reason the word “Okay” came out of my mouth.

  Neither of us said anything for a long time; instead we stood there uncomfortably, each considering what we had agreed to do.

  Finally Dante spoke. “Meet me in the foyer of Horace Hall next Friday.”

  I nodded, and without saying anything else, we snuck down the corridor and stairs and out into the cool Maine air.

  When I got back to the dorm, Eleanor was sitting on her bed, combing her hair in the candlelight, a textbook open on her lap. When she saw me, she put down her brush.

  “Where were you?” she demanded, a worried look on her face.

  “Where were you?” I asked, angry with her for deserting me at dinner.

  “Auditions lasted longer than I thought. I couldn’t leave. I figured you’d understand.”

  I dropped my bag on the floor and collapsed on my bed. “I do. What are you studying?”

  “Um, math,” she said, as if it should have been obvious. “We have our first quiz on Monday, remember?”

  “Oh, right,” I said. I had forgotten about that.

  “What were you studying?”

  “I wasn’t,” I said with a sigh. “I saw Dante in the library. And Gideon.”

  Eleanor’s face brightened with curiosity. “Tell me everything.”

  She curled up across from me on my bed, and I told her about Gideon and Vivian and Yago; about Dante and my essay and Latin.

  “And they mentioned your brother’s name too.”

  Eleanor sat up with surprise. “What? Why would they be talking about Brandon?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know...but there’s more.” I hesitated, unsure of whether or not I should tell her since I wasn’t exactly sure if I had heard correctly. “They also mentioned you.”

  “Me? I don’t even know them. It’s probably because Brandon hates them. And they hate Brandon and the Board of Monitors. It’s a known fact.”

  I bit my lip. I thought Eleanor would be disturbed upon finding out that they were talking about her and her brother, but she didn’t seem fazed. “I don’t know. They definitely seemed like they were up to something. And Dante seemed to be spying on them too. But why?” I said, almost to myself. “I have to find a way to get it out of him. It’s not like I can ask Gideon.”

  Eleanor gave me an incredulous look and shook her head. “I cannot believe you’re obsessing over Gideon when Dante Berlin just asked if he could tutor you in Latin.”

  I shook my head, smiling. “So I take it you don’t think they’re up to anything....”

  “They probably are. They’re always up to something. They wear three-piece suits to school and only speak in Latin and lurk around the darkest parts of campus. But what could they really be up to? And more important, who cares? Dante Berlin asked you out. This is epic. Epic!”

  “But there’s more...”

  Eleanor shook her head. “What? He asked you to run away with him to Transylvania or wherever he’s actually from?”

  I laughed. “No. When he brushed against me, his fingers were freezing, and when he put them to my lips, my breath went completely cold.” I looked at her nervously, hoping she wouldn’t think I was going insane, which I already knew was what Annie would think. And for good reason, too. It was unreal.

  “What do you mean ‘cold’? Like you were inhaling cold air?”

  I nodded.

  “That is weird. I don’t know. Maybe you were just nervous being that close to him—I mean, anyone would be —and thought your breath went cold, when it was probably just a draft or something.”

  The library was kind of cold. And Dante said he didn’t feel it. It must have been my mind playing tricks on me.

  We heard Mrs. Lynch walking past our door, her yardstick clicking behind her. Even though we were allowed to talk after curfew, there were no locks on the doors, and it was better not to give Lynch an excuse to punish us. Eleanor squeezed my ankle and hopped off the bed. While she pulled her class notes out of her bag, I slipped under the covers with my math book. But when I opened the pages, the words and numbers blurred until all I saw was Dante. So I lay there, imagining him in front of me so that I could study the contours of his face, the texture of his smell, the fluctuations of his voice, until all I would remember for my math quiz was the way I felt when he whispered my name.

  CHAPTER 6

  The Forgotten History

  LATIN WASN’T SO BAD WHEN YOU WERE LEARNING it from the most beautiful boy in school. The next Friday I met Dante in the foyer of Horace Hall for our first tutoring session. He was sitting on a radiator, which was on even though it was still September. It was Maine, after all. His hands were shoved in his pockets as he leaned against the thick blue drapes behind him, gallant in his solitude. My insides fluttered. After running a hand through my hair and adjusting my skirt, I approached him.

  “Aren’t you hot?”

  He looked confused and then saw me staring at the heater below him. “Oh. No, I didn’t even notice it.” He smiled and raised an eyebrow. “I guess I’m cold-blooded.”

  I laughed, and he took my bag and carried it while we walked. I figured we would study in the library, but the librarian was so strict about noise that it would have been impossible to actually talk. So instead Dante suggested we use an empty classroom in Horace Hall. “Are we allowed to do that?” I asked.

  He smiled. “As long as we’re quiet.”

  Dante led me to the classroom in which I had Latin. Before entering, he cracked open the door and looked inside. The room smelled faintly of Mrs. Lumbar’s perfume. “Come on,” he said, and we slipped inside.

  “It’s the declensions you’re having problems with,” Dante said, flipping through my notebook. “The amazing thing about declensions is that they give each word a personality. Depending on the other words it’s paired with, each noun or object takes on a different form and different sound.”

  A lock of hair fell in front of his face, and he pushed it behind his ear and looked at me. “So a word that might sound ugly could actually be beautiful when coupled with the right pronoun. It’s sort of like when two people bring out the best qualities in each other.”

  I blushed. He was talkative around me, even sweet at times. And even though I didn’t want to admit it, the only time I got close to forgetting about my parents’ deaths was when he was around.

  “Sorry,” he said, noticing that he’d made me blush, and handed my notebook back. “I’m not very good with words.”

  “That’s not true. I really liked your explanation. I think I understand a little more now.”

  “You understand more about me, or about Latin?”

  “Latin. Other than the music you like and the books you read, I hardly know anything about you. Your past.”

  Dante leaned closer, looking at my blue pleated skirt, my black stockings, my turtleneck. “What do you want to know?”

  “Where are you from?”

  He hesitated. “I’m from the West. The Northwest. British Columbia, mostly. We moved around a lot.”

  “You mean your family?”

  Dante nodded. “Me and my sister. My younger sister. That was a long time ago, though. She passed away in an accident. My parents, too.”

  “What kind of accident?”

  “Plane,” he said quickly.

  “What was her name?”

  He leaned back in his chair, giving me a level look. “Cecelia.”

  I tried to think of something to say. ??
?I’m sorry,” I said.

  Dante studied me. “It’s in the past.”

  “So then you came here?”

  “No, first I was moved to a foster home. I hated it; I knew I had to get out. And then I found Gottfried.”

  “Do you miss them? Your family, I mean.”

  “I honestly can’t think of a single real memory of them. It happened so long ago that they’ve faded away. I miss missing them.”

  He smiled, his face transforming into something soft.

  “Tell me about your parents,” he said gently.

  “They were teachers.” I stopped and pictured them—my mother and my father together in our house. Even though I missed them every day, I hadn’t actually thought about the way they were, about the way we were as a family, for weeks.

  “What else?” Dante said.

  I told him about the kind of people they were, about the way we lived in California, the way I was before their deaths. Dante didn’t take his eyes off me when I explained how they’d died, how I found them, how I came to Gottfried. And then suddenly we were back in the present.

  There was a long pause, then Dante leaned over and wrote a phrase in Latin on my notebook. Mortui in nobis vivunt.

  “What does it mean?”

  “The dead live within us.”

  I waited for him to say more, but instead we sat in an awkward silence.

  Finally he spoke. “Conversation isn’t easy for me. There aren’t many people I like talking to, so I don’t get much practice. But I like you. Listening to you, I mean. You see things differently than other people.”

  I blushed. I’d never been good at taking compliments. “How are you so good at Latin?”

  “I never used to be. I guess you could say I just woke up one morning and it clicked. You know how that happens?”

  I nodded as he flipped through my papers. We spent the next half hour going over the mistakes I’d made on last week’s homework. And then something unexplainable happened. As Dante turned a page, the corner cut into his thumb, slicing the skin. He pulled his hand away.