Dead Beautiful

  “Here at the Academy, we believe that limitations challenge the mind. Gottfried has a series of regulations that we hope all of our students will abide by during their stay here. While this is slightly out of procedure, I would like to use this time to reiterate a few that are especially critical after the events that occurred last spring.”

  A murmur floated over the benches. What happened last spring? I wondered, leaning over to ask Nathaniel.

  “Someone died,” he whispered. “A first year named Benjamin Gallow.”

  “What?” I asked. “How?”

  But we were interrupted by the headmistress’s booming voice, as she recounted the rules.

  “First: boys are never permitted to be in the girls’ dormitory, and vice versa. Second: leaving the school grounds is strictly prohibited and punishable by expulsion. And third” —the headmistress paused to brush a cluster of white hair away from her eyes—“under no exception is anyone allowed to enter into a romantic relationship of any nature at this academy.”

  What? I glanced around me, incredulous that they would even think of banning dating. But no one else seemed fazed. The sun was setting behind the library. Almost simultaneously the lights in every building on campus went out, leaving us to the purpling twilight.

  “And, of course, let me emphasize that there shall be no use of artificial light after sunset, with the exception of candles. In this world, darkness is always looming on the horizon. At Gottfried, instead of avoiding the dark, we meet it head on. As headmistress, I urge you to do the same with your studies and with every obstacle you face in the future. Do not accept the confines of the world as you perceive it. Instead, look for what you cannot see. There are universes among us, within us. Our only way out of darkness is to learn how to see without light.”

  The crowd was silent. Crickets chirped lazily from the grass around us.

  “And now, in the time-honored tradition of the great thinkers who came before us, let us cast away everything we know and attempt to see the world as it really is.”

  The headmistress closed her eyes and bowed her head. Everyone followed, and I did the same. Then she began to speak in a language that was far different from anything I’d heard before. It started as a low murmur, and gradually grew into a chant. I opened an eye and tried to catch a glimpse of Dante, but all I could see was the back of his neck. It was a beautiful neck, smooth and lean beneath the collar of his shirt.

  But my thoughts were interrupted by a voice tickling my ear. “Bring us death,” said Nathaniel, barely audible.

  I gasped. “What?”

  “That’s what she’s saying: ‘Bring us death so we can study it. To capture the mind of a child is to gain immortality.’” His voice cracked, and he swallowed self-consciously. “‘So that when we die, our minds live forever.’”

  I stared at the headmistress. It seemed a little morbid for a high school motto. In my old school, the principal didn’t even give a welcome speech, let alone hold some bizarre nighttime ritual.

  “It’s Latin,” Nathaniel said, pretending to keep his eyes closed like everyone else. “She’s saying that even though our bodies will die, our achievements will live on forever.”

  “Shhh,” hissed a voice from the section across from us. A prim and preppy girl glared at us, then shut her eyes.

  “That’s Genevieve Tart,” he said quietly. “She’s a junior. And she hates me.”

  “Why would she hate you?” I asked.

  “My presence annoys her.”

  “Did she tell you that?”

  “No, I can just tell. She barely speaks to me. And she thinks my name is Neil.”

  “That’s ridiculous. How can you know she hates you if she doesn’t speak to you?” I asked in a strained whisper.

  “Shhh!” Genevieve said again, this time to me.

  Nathaniel stared at his feet. “See?”

  Before I could respond, a boy from the farthest section of the benches stood up. He was tall and athletic, with a face strikingly like Eleanor’s. Her older brother, I realized.

  He walked through the rows of his section with a military strut until he stopped behind a girl and tapped her on the shoulder. She was slender and rosy, with almond eyes and straight black hair.

  Once tapped, she walked down the rows and tapped a short, bony boy, who made his way to the third-year benches and tapped a girl with freckles and red hair. She tapped a serious-looking boy who made his way to the back, directly toward me.

  He stopped at our row, and I closed my eyes and waited. But the tap never came. Instead, he touched the girl across from us. Genevieve Tart rose and gracefully made her way down the aisle.

  The six students lined up in front of the podium, their heads bowed and eyes closed.

  “The tapping of the new Board of Monitors,” Nathaniel explained. “Model students.” His voice betrayed a hint of bitterness. “They make sure everyone keeps the rules.”

  “How are they chosen?”

  “They’re picked by the faculty. It’s really difficult to get. There’s this test you have to pass, but no one knows what it is, and the Monitors won’t say. That’s probably why they were chosen. They’re suck-ups.”

  Headmistress Von Laark stopped chanting and left the podium. She approached the first boy from behind and tapped him on the shoulder. “Brandon Bell,” she announced in a commanding voice.

  She moved quickly down the line. “Ingrid Fromme.

  “Schuyler Soverel.

  “Laney Tannenbaum.

  “Maxwell Platkin.

  “Genevieve Tart.”

  Only juniors and seniors could be tapped, Nathaniel explained. Brandon, Ingrid, and Schuyler were fourth years, and were on the board last year. The third years were Laney, Maxwell, and Genevieve. The headmistress pursed her lips, dark red and elegant. “Board of Monitors. Tonight I bind you to Gottfried Academy. From this moment on, the student body is your body. The student voice is your voice… .”

  The moon rose large behind the trees. Headmistress Von Laark lifted her head and gazed around the lawn.

  “And now,” she bellowed, “let us wake.”

  One by one the Board of Monitors opened their eyes and raised their heads. All of the students followed suit. The night sky was clear. The reflection of the moon rippled in the lake, and a cool breeze fluttered above, rustling the leaves.

  The headmistress removed a small knife from the podium and cut a deep slit into the bark of the tree. Thick red sap oozed out. She dipped her fingers into it and tapped each Monitor on the forehead, smearing a crimson streak just above their eyes.

  Then she spoke in Latin, her voice booming across the green.

  Nathaniel translated. “‘Blood from the oak tree, blood from our founders, resting in the roots beneath. May our minds be deciduous, constantly being reborn.’”

  The headmistress stopped speaking and turned to the new Board of Monitors. They looked frightening, almost biblical, with the sap dripping down their foreheads. I had never heard of a tree that bled red sap.

  “Gottfried Academy, I present to you the Board of Monitors. In celebration, I would like to invite you all to join us in the Megaron for the first-of-the-year feast.”

  And with that, the headmistress walked past the board, and one by one they filed off the green and back toward the dorms. The professors followed. No one clapped. No one spoke. The wind blew overhead, making the campus feel vacant.

  Once they were gone, everyone stood up. I glanced back at the front row, but Dante wasn’t there. Only Eleanor, talking to a group of girls. The rest of the students had already begun to head to the Megaron, which apparently meant great hall in Greek, for the feast. Everyone except for Nathaniel, who was hanging around the benches, as if he were waiting for something.

  “Are you going to the feast?” I said finally.

  Looking slightly surprised, he straightened his posture.

  “Yeah.” He fidgeted with the buttons on his shirt. Suddenly he slapped a mosquito off
his arm.

  “Do you want to sit with me?” I asked. He was a bit weird, but seemed nice and sort of funny, and since he hadn’t left with friends, I was pretty sure he didn’t have anyone to sit with.

  He perked up and pushed his glasses closer to his face. “Really? I mean, yeah, sure.”

  We met up with Eleanor and her friends at a table in the Megaron. Eleanor’s friends were just like her: pretty, rich, and carefree. I wasn’t sure who was more surprised—the girls upon seeing Nathaniel trailing behind me, or Nathaniel upon realizing that he was sitting with some of the most popular girls in our year. Even though I tried to pay attention while everyone was catching up, I couldn’t help glancing around the dining hall, hoping to spot Dante beneath one of the iron chandeliers. But all I saw were the faces of strangers.

  Then suddenly I heard his name. I turned back to the table, where all the girls and Nathaniel were staring at me, waiting for me to answer.

  “Right, Renée?” Eleanor probed.

  “What? Sorry. I was just looking at the, um, the Board of Monitors table.”

  “I was just telling them that you got Dante Berlin to talk. I think he even laughed.”

  I blushed. “Yeah, I mean, it wasn’t a serious conversation or anything. He was actually sort of rude.”

  “Everything is serious with Dante. He never smiles or laughs,” said Greta, an athletic redhead.

  “He didn’t seem that bad,” I said, taking a bite of pasta. “He did have a sense of humor...kind of.”

  “He was different around you,” Eleanor said. “Actually, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him talk to anyone for as long as he did with you. Since last spring, that is.”

  “What do you mean ‘last spring’? What happened?”

  Rebecca, a lithe girl with short black hair, interjected. “No one really knows,” she said, leaning on her elbows. “Just that Benjamin Gallow died. He disappeared, and then a few days later they found him in the woods. Dead.”

  Eleanor interrupted her. “You’re telling it completely wrong.” She waited until she had my full attention, and began. “So it was the middle of spring term, when one day Benjamin just didn’t show up for classes. Benjamin was the kind of guy who had no idea how hot he really was. He was a straight-A student, the best épée fencer on campus, and was friendly to everyone, even the cook staff. Basically everyone liked Benjamin, and Benjamin liked everyone. So when he didn’t show up for class, we all thought he was sick. Only he wasn’t in the dorm that night.

  “The school searched everywhere. They questioned his friends, his roommate, his girlfriend, practically everyone who knew him, but nobody had any idea where he was. And then they finally found him.”

  Eleanor gazed around the table dramatically, her eyes glistening with excitement.

  “He was in the forest. It was a Monday; I remember because I was wearing my pink-and-blue headband, the one I always wear on Mondays. We were outside in Earth Science when we saw them carrying Benjamin’s body through the gates. Dead, of course. I remember they’d thrown his coat over him so none of us could see his face. All we could see was one of his arms swinging below him while Professor Bliss and Professor Starking carried him to the nurses’ wing. It was so pale it was almost blue.”

  The table went uncomfortably silent, the din of silverware clinking against plates blurring into white noise around us as we all imagined Benjamin’s arm dragging lifelessly across the green.

  “But the strangest part was that nobody could understand what caused his death,” Eleanor continued. “He wasn’t harmed in any way. No scratches or bruises or anything, so it was obvious that no one had attacked him or murdered him. And he didn’t have anything with him, so it wasn’t like he was trying to run away. When the nurses examined him, they said he died of a heart attack, and that there was no other possible cause of death.”

  I froze. “Wait,” I said, my heart beginning to race. “He died of a heart attack?”

  “Yeah. It did seem kind of bizarre at first. A fifteen-year-old dying of something like that. But that’s what happened.”

  Images of my parents flooded my mind. The car, the woods, their lifeless bodies. “Did they find anything else? Like anything out of the ordinary? On his body, maybe?”

  She gave me a confused look. “I don’t think so....”

  “They didn’t find anything out of the ordinary but a dead kid,” Rebecca added sarcastically, biting into a cherry tomato.

  Eleanor rolled her eyes.

  “So what does Dante have to do with it?” I interjected.

  Eleanor gazed at me as if it were obvious. “Dante was the one who found him.”

  I stopped chewing.

  “No one could understand how Dante discovered him. It was in such a remote location in the forest that the chances seemed nearly impossible.”

  I could feel myself begin to sweat.

  “Afterward, there were rumors that Dante had killed Benjamin. That’s how he knew where he was.”

  “But why would Dante do that?” I said, trying to steady my voice.

  “Well,” Eleanor said, taking a sip of water, “Benjamin was dating my old roommate, Cassandra Millet.”

  “Wait,” I said. “I thought we weren’t allowed to date.” I paused. “Why aren’t we allowed to date?”

  Eleanor gave me a perplexed look. “Well of course we’re not allowed to date. The school thinks it distracts from our academics. I guess that’s the way they did it back then—brother and sister schools. Same with the dress code. No short skirts or bare shoulders. But that doesn’t mean no one dates. You just have to be discreet about it. Anyway, Cassandra was adorable: creamy skin, these huge green eyes, flowing golden hair—a little Aphrodite walking around campus. Everyone loved her. Even Dante. They were best friends—both part of the same group. The Latin Club. People think Dante was in love with Cassandra and killed Benjamin to get to her.”

  “That seems a little extreme....” I said.

  Eleanor shrugged. “It’s just a rumor.”

  “So are they together now or something?”

  “Cassandra dropped out,” Rebecca said, shaking her head.

  “Or transferred,” Eleanor added. “Either way, she left the school.”

  “Maybe Cassandra killed Benjamin Gallow,” a girl named Bonnie offered.

  Eleanor shook the idea off. “Then they would have let the police deal with it. And I already said that the cause of death was a heart attack. How could a person have caused that?”

  For the first time in a while, Nathaniel spoke up. “Maybe she tried to kiss him,” he said in a small voice. “That would be enough to give me a heart attack.”

  Everyone at the table exchanged amused glances, and eventually the conversation drifted, leaving Benjamin and Cassandra’s mystery unsolved.

  After dinner we retreated to our dorm, where the girls dispersed to their rooms. Eleanor lit a candle and changed into a pair of pink pajamas. I wanted to read, and already forgetting the rules, went to turn on the overhead light. But there was no switch. There really was no light after nine p.m.

  “I still don’t see the point in all of these rules.”

  Eleanor shrugged. “The professors would probably say that it had something to do with our safety.”

  “But how do you do your homework without lights? How do you do anything?”

  “Candles. Your eyes will adjust. Just do your work earlier. Besides, why would you want to do homework at night when you could be doing so many more interesting things?”

  It was a nice idea, but I had a feeling that the headmistress would see to it that we wouldn’t be doing anything more interesting than homework. No wonder my grandfather liked this place so much. His ten o’clock curfew seemed reasonable in comparison.

  “Here,” Eleanor said. “Use this.” She opened her underwear drawer and searched through it until she found a half-burned candle. “You know, I always thought Nathaniel was sort of queer, like he gave me the creeps or something. But ton
ight he was really nice. And normal, in an abnormal way.”

  I nodded, but the boy I was thinking about wasn’t Nathaniel.

  “So Dante was...friends...with Cassandra?” I asked, trying to sound nonchalant as I ran a brush through my hair.

  Eleanor looked up from her journal, her eyes wide with excitement, as if she had been hoping I’d ask. “They were both in the Latin Club. Well, that’s what we called it because they were all in advanced Latin. Anyway, it was Cassandra, two juniors named Gideon DuPont and Vivian Aletto, a sophomore named Yago Castilliar, and then Dante. They’re all really smart, and kind of elitist. They know everything about the classics, they’re fluent in Latin, and they were always in the library together, whispering in it so no one could understand them.”

  Eleanor stood up to open the window, and then sat next to me on my bed. “Here, let me do that,” she said, and began braiding my hair.

  “After Benjamin died and Cassandra dropped out, the group fell apart. Well, not the entire group; just Dante. He had a huge argument with Gideon, Vivian, and Yago on the green after curfew. I could hear the shouting from my room.”

  I hugged my knees. “What were they saying?”

  Eleanor let out a laugh. “Who knows? It was all in Latin. The professors didn’t get there till it was over. After that Dante basically removed himself from the school. He stopped talking to everyone and moved off campus. I think he’s the only student at Gottfried who’s allowed to live in Attica Falls.”

  “Maybe he knows something,” I said, glancing out the window to the trees beyond the school wall.

  “Something about what?” Eleanor asked, tugging at my braid. “And hold still.”

  “Benjamin’s death. It’s not normal, the way he died. And Dante found him.” I turned to face Eleanor. “Maybe Dante found something on Benjamin’s body and didn’t tell the school about it. Maybe that’s what the fight was about.”

  Eleanor’s forehead wrinkled in confusion. “Find what on his body? What are you talking about?”

  “Like maybe a coin or something. Or cloth.”

  Eleanor gave me a strange look. “I mean, he was wearing clothes. And he probably had change in his pocket. Why does that matter? Benjamin died of natural causes. And who cares what they were fighting about? Their friend died, and Cassandra transferred. They were probably just upset.”