Dead Beautiful

  “However, the role of the board isn’t only to protect students. It is also a way for us to begin training young Monitors for what they may face in the world outside of the Academy. After Gottfried, almost all Monitors go on to continue their work in the greater world. It is understood that Monitors are a rare breed, and trained Monitors are even rarer, and Gottfried is one of the few schools that teach a very specific set of skills to those who are perceptive enough to understand how to use them.”

  “Do the Undead know about Monitors?”

  “They are educated about people with the ability to sense death. They are not, however, educated about the Board of Monitors. That would create an environment of fear and resentment at the Academy.”

  “And Headmistress Von Laark is a Monitor?”

  “Yes.”

  “And all of the professors?”

  “Correct.”

  I gripped the telephone. “So the headmistress and the Board of Monitors could have killed a student?”

  “Only if the student was Undead, and had violated the one rule that both humans and Undead share: Do not kill.”

  I let the receiver drop to my shoulder as Minnie’s drawing flashed through my mind. The Board of Monitors had buried Cassandra as punishment for taking Benjamin’s soul. Minnie had been right all along.

  “So it’s okay if the headmistress or the Board of Monitors kills an Undead? That isn’t right.”

  “Which is why Gottfried exists. To teach the Undead not to kill. And to teach the Monitors to use their skills only as a last resort.”

  But that isn’t what happened to Nathaniel, I thought. Brandon Bell was a Monitor. That’s how he knew what Eleanor had become. And he exacted punishment on Nathaniel without knowing if he was guilty. “That doesn’t seem right,” I said.

  “Who can really say what’s right and wrong?” my grandfather said.

  “So it’s just the professors and the board? Or are there others?”

  “There are others, though Monitors are extremely rare. Usually only a few are admitted every year. Sometimes only one. And even then, there are levels of talent in Monitors, just like there are stages of being Undead, which is why we administer admissions tests. The level of sensitivity toward death varies. Often a mediocre Monitor will be able to sense a bird carcass hidden in a bush a few feet away, which is something that a normal person could probably sense too. But they wouldn’t be able to find the dead bird across campus. Only the most talented Monitors are elected to the Board of Monitors, where they are educated and extensively trained. Otherwise, it’s like giving a loaded pistol to someone who is unable to shoot properly.”

  There was a long silence as I considered everything my grandfather had just told me, trying to work it out in my head. “So the Monitors protect and kill the Undead?”

  “Monitors are hunters. But they’re also like judges. They have the heavy responsibility of deciding whether an Undead is harmless or harmful. If the latter, the Monitor puts that person to rest. That’s why the Monitors can’t be replaced by actual police. Because only a select few have the ability to sense death. You being one of them.”

  “Me?” I said with wonder. Memories began to crowd my head, memories of all the unexplainable moments in my past; things I had done but couldn’t explain, things that had happened to me that didn’t make sense and never seemed to happen to other people. Was it possible that the reason behind all of it was that I was a Monitor? Yes, I wanted to say. Yes, I was different. I had always been different.

  “Renée, you have all of the traits that are characteristic of a Monitor.”

  “But I can’t be. I mean, I’m just me. Renée. I don’t have any special sixth sense.”

  “You found your parents, dead, in the redwood forest.”

  “That was luck. I saw their car on the side of the road. It was coincidental.”

  “When you first came to this house, you played croquet with Dustin and found a dead bird on the edge of the lawn.”

  “The ball rolled to it. It wasn’t me. I’m just bad at croquet....” My voice trailed off as I remembered my first Horticulture class, when I found the dead fawn. Or how I’d found the dead mouse in the library. Or how I always seemed to find myself in the crevices of my room, staring at a dead spider or insect.

  “You’ve always been drawn to death. It’s as if you can sense it. There were hints early on. Your mother told me about how, as a child, you would wander around the yard, always returning with some sort of dead insect crushed in your tiny fist. During one of my visits when you were six, you found a mouse caught in a trap behind the refrigerator. It smelled wretched; it must have been decaying for days, but it didn’t seem to bother you. You picked it up with your bare hands and presented it to us just before dinner. Your father wanted to throw it out, but you insisted on giving it a proper burial. Sepultura, as we call it. You did the same with all of your pets.”

  “Sepultura?” I repeated. The second cause of death in Cassandra’s file.

  “Interment. The preferred method of putting the Undead to rest, at least in these parts. That’s another reason for many of the rules at Gottfried—to protect the Monitors while they do their work. The no lights after curfew rule, for example, was designed for this specific purpose.”

  I no longer cared about the meaning behind the school rules. “But I didn’t know. If I were a Monitor, shouldn’t I have known, instinctively?”

  “Underclass Monitors, such as yourself, take one training class per year, through which the faculty is able to assess their skill sets. For you, that class is Horticulture.”

  “Horticulture?” I repeated, going over all of our class exercises. The burials, the soil, the graveyard, the medicinal plants, the snow topography.

  “And like yourself, they are not told of the existence of the Undead, but are left to discover it on their own. The process of discovery is incredibly important, as it distinguishes a truly excellent Monitor from a capable one. Information as shocking and disturbing as the existence of the Undead is not something one can merely be told; it has to be felt thoroughly and utterly. This is why I resisted telling you about it, as much as I wanted to.”

  “So you think that I’m some sort of...killer?”

  “Not a killer, a Monitor.”

  “Monitors still kill people.”

  “Monitors only kill things that are already dead. The instinct is genetic. It runs in families. It was your great-great-great-grandfather, Headmaster Theodore Winters, who created the Board of Monitors. He was also the man who planted the great oak. In essence, it’s literally our family tree. Every generation of our family has been connected to Gottfried since then; most have served as Monitors, even after graduating from Gottfried. Your mother and father included.”

  “My parents? But they were teachers.”

  “How do you think they died? They didn’t just happen to stumble across a few Undead children. It’s a mystery to others, but it’s no mystery to our kind. The cloth. The coins. They’re tools—tools to put the Undead to rest. Putting two coins on the eyes of the dead is a burial ritual devised by the Greeks. According to them, the dead would use the coins to pay the boatman to cross the River Styx into Hades. The cloth was used for mummification.”

  “Are you saying that my parents were Undead?”

  “No, no; that is impossible. Remember, only those under the age of twenty-one can become Undead. What I’ve concluded is that they were on the trail of a feral Undead, seeking to put it to rest. They were unsuccessful, and their target took their souls.”

  “But why was the cloth in their mouths?”

  “To prevent their souls from leaving their bodies just before the Undead performed Basium Mortis. Just as mummification keeps the dead body from rising, it can also keep the soul of the living from leaving the body. Your parents put the gauze in their mouths themselves, though perhaps they did not act fast enough.”

  The information was overwhelming. My parents were killed by an Undead? That
alone was difficult to accept, but what was even more troubling was that I thought I’d known everything about them, when really, I knew nothing.

  “Why didn’t they tell me?”

  “Your parents wanted to give you a chance at a normal life. That’s why we had a falling out. I disagreed. Not about your having a normal life, but about them hiding your talents from you. You can’t run away from who you really are, and you can’t change it. And why would you want to? You have an extraordinary gift. That doesn’t mean you have to use it, but the choice should be yours, not your parents’.”

  I considered everything he had told me. Was that why I felt so strange around Dante? Because I was a Monitor, designed to kill him? “So I’m... I’m supposed to kill the Undead?”

  “Not all of them. But some.”

  “But I don’t want to kill anyone.” I said, thinking of Dante.

  “They are killers. Some of them, at least. They often don’t understand the situation that they’re in, and depending on their age and how bright they are, many don’t even realize they’re dead. All they know is that something is different. Food doesn’t taste good anymore. They can’t sense changes in the weather. There’s an emptiness that wasn’t there before—an emptiness that they’re constantly trying to fill. It’s instinct. Like an animal looking for food.”

  “But if it’s instinct, then why should we interfere? If it’s a part of the cycle of nature, then why can’t we just let it run its course?”

  “Nature also created us. And first and foremost, nature values life. Without life there would be nothing. What’s worth more? A child’s life, or the life of the Undead, who already had the chance to live?”

  I thought about Dante and the person who had his soul. Who’s to say that that person’s life was more valuable than his? How could anyone compare the value of two lives?

  My grandfather interrupted my thoughts. “Renée, this is what you were born to do. It will always be inside of you, no matter how much you fight it. Any talent can be used for both good and evil. If you think it’s unfair, then use your talents to make it fair. Work with what you have.”

  “Are you saying I’m supposed to train to kill the Undead? Even if I wanted to, which I don’t,” I stressed, “I wouldn’t know how.”

  “There are a number of options. One way to ‘kill’ an Undead, so to speak, is to completely destroy its body. Fire, explosion, etcetera. Though I find that method to be a little messy and hard to control. The fire spreads, and suddenly you have the California wildfire situation.

  “An alternative method is to capture the Undead and bury or embalm it by force. Your parents were fond of that method. It’s far more difficult and dangerous, but they found it the most humane.”

  I swallowed. I didn’t want to do any of that.

  “Of course, there is another option.”

  I twisted the telephone cord around my finger, waiting.

  “Teach them how to value the lives of others. The way that Gottfried does. The way that your parents did, as ‘teachers.’”

  “And you? You’re a Monitor too?”

  “It’s in our blood. In your blood.”

  “A Monitor,” I repeated softly.

  The realization came over me quickly, and when it did, I collapsed back into my chair. If Dante found his soul somewhere and tried to take it back, I would have to kill him. And if he didn’t, he would gradually waste away. Any way I looked at it, the outcome was the same. I was destined to watch him die.

  My grandfather was saying something, but I wasn’t listening. Cutting the conversation short, I told him I had to go. And throwing on a coat, I climbed into the chimney.

  CHAPTER 18

  The Gentlemen’s Ballet

  I RAN DOWN THE HALL OF THE BASEMENT AND slipped out the fire escape and into the cool New England night. I had to talk to Dante. Once outside, I snuck around the building and was about to run onto the path when someone whispered my name.

  “Renée.” I jumped, and then relaxed when I saw Dante waiting for me in the shadows by the stoop. “I looked for you in the nurses’ wing, but you weren’t there. Are you okay?” Putting a finger to my lips, I glanced around and pulled him behind the building.

  I told him everything. Well, almost everything.

  “But what I still don’t understand is why Gideon killed Eleanor,” I said. Dante thought. “Last spring, when Gideon suspected Cassandra was dead, he was furious. He wanted revenge....”

  “So he went and found the files,” I murmured, “to see if she had been buried, and if so, to find out who did it.”

  Dante nodded. “He found something in the files. Some sort of evidence.”

  My shoulders dropped when I realized it. “Minnie’s drawing. Her testimony. She said that Brandon Bell was the one who did it.”

  “Killing Brandon would have been very difficult, considering he’s a Monitor, so Gideon decided to kill his sister,” Dante said. “But he didn’t just kill her. He purposely turned her into an Undead, the one thing he knew Brandon wouldn’t be able to live with.”

  “Brandon understood what had happened to Eleanor,” I continued, “and wanted to punish the person who killed her. He found Nathaniel with Eleanor’s diary and the files, and assumed it was him, then buried him to make an example of him to all the other Undead. Revenge,” I said. “Just like a Greek tragedy.”

  “Brandon is losing it,” Dante said when I was finished. “He’s doling out his own personal justice.”

  Neither of us spoke for a long time. Finally, I broke the silence.

  “We have to tell someone.”

  Dante surveyed the lawn. “You have to stay here.”

  I shook my head. “No I don’t. Why would I do that?”

  “It’s not safe.”

  “But it’s safe for you?”

  “Renée, I’m already dead. But you...you’re mortal. You could get hurt.”

  I took a breath. “Actually, that’s not completely true....”

  That’s when I told him that I was a Monitor. That practically everyone else in my family had been one too. After I broke the news, I closed my eyes, not wanting to see his reaction. He was silent for a long time. Finally, he bent over and kissed me on the forehead. “I’ve always liked you the way you are, and still do.”

  But just as the words left his mouth, a hand grabbed my arm. And it wasn’t Dante’s.

  “Caught in the act.”

  I gasped. Dante and I turned to see Mrs. Lynch smiling behind us. She was gripping me so tightly that I could feel her fingernails pressing into my skin.

  “To the headmistress’s office.” She could barely contain her excitement.

  I shook my head. “No, please, we can expla—”

  Dante cut me off, taking my hand. “Mrs. Lynch, I made Renée meet me here. It’s my fault—”

  “How valiant of you,” Mrs. Lynch said. “But I highly doubt that.” And with that, she tightened her grip on my arm and dragged us toward the headmistress’s office.

  Archebald Hall was empty and dimly lit now that it was after hours. All of the secretaries had gone home or retreated to their quarters. I gazed at the portraits hanging on the walls as Mrs. Lynch led us into the office, her heels pressing softly into the carpet. She rapped twice on the door, and the headmistress opened it.

  “Caught these two again, outside after curfew,” Mrs. Lynch said.

  “Thank you, Lynette,” the headmistress said, gazing at Dante and me, her eyes placid. “Come in.”

  She shut the door behind us. “Please, make yourselves comfortable.”

  The two chairs that were normally in front of her desk were gone. So instead, we stood in the center of the room while the two Siamese cats circled in and out of Dante’s legs.

  Headmistress Von Laark sat behind her desk and folded her hands. “It seems as though fate has brought us together tonight. I was planning on summoning you both anyway, but your continuing disregard for the Code of Discipline seems to have done my job for
me.”

  I shifted uncomfortably.

  “Do either of you know why I wanted to see you?”

  “No,” we said simultaneously.

  She leaned back in her chair.

  “Nathaniel didn’t kill Eleanor,” I blurted out. “It was Gideon DuPont. He killed her to get back at Brandon for burying Cassandra. He was the one who stole Eleanor’s diary and wrote all those notes in it. And he took the files.”

  The headmistress put on the pair of glasses hanging from a chain around her neck. “Really?” she said, seeming genuinely surprised, though not at all disturbed—as if I had just told her an interesting fact about the migration patterns of flamingos. “I’ll make sure to let the professors and the Board of Monitors know.”

  Dante and I exchanged confused looks. Why didn’t she seem to care?

  She tapped her fingers on the desk. “Normally I don’t take an interest in the personal lives of my students. My role at Gottfried and with the student body has always been an academic one. But you two”—she waved a hand between us—“your relationship has captivated me.”

  “Us?” I said slowly. “Why us?” I didn’t understand. Beside me, Dante inched closer until our hands were almost touching.

  The headmistress ignored my question. “I have been watching you closely, Mr. Berlin, after what happened last spring. And with a name like Winters, I of course wanted to keep an eye on you, too,” she said, looking at me. “So when I discovered that you were romantically involved...well, that was a shock, to say the least. And an interesting turn of events. That’s the brilliant part about being the headmistress. You spend the year thinking you’re in control of your students, that you have to do everything yourself, and that nothing can possibly surprise you. And then something like this just falls into your lap.”