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“Mrs. Lynch,” I said frantically. We ran downstairs and snuck out the back entrance into the cemetery. With barely enough time to say good-bye, I ran to the dormitory.


By the next morning, the magic of the night in the chapel seemed like nothing more than a dream, and the reality of Eleanor having been gone for over a week made me so nauseated that I barely had an appetite. I was stuffing books into my bag after Philosophy when Miss LaBarge approached me. “How do you feel about tea?” she asked.


I hesitated. Mrs. Lynch had already questioned me three times about Eleanor, and I wasn’t up for it anymore. “I... I—”


“That’s what I thought,” she said with a smile, and held the door for me as we walked to her office. It was on the third floor of Horace, in the east wing. I wiped my feet on a mat outside of her door that read, welcome friends, and entered. The room was covered in books. They were stacked on shelves, lying in piles on the floor, propped up against the windowsill, tucked behind the door. I sat in a Victorian armchair as Miss LaBarge busied herself over a platter with dishes, cups, saucers, and a teapot.


“I don’t know where she is,” I blurted out before she could say anything.


“Madeleine?” she said, her back to me.


I stared at her, confused. “No. Eleanor. She’s in our class.. ..”


Miss LaBarge turned around and smiled, holding out a plate of tea biscuits. “Of course she is. Madeleine, as in the cookie.”


“Oh...right. Thanks,” I said, turning red.


She held up a creamer. “Milk?”


I nodded, and she poured it in my cup and sat in the armchair across from me. “Sorry,” I said. “It seems like every time someone talks to me these days, all they ask about is Eleanor.”


She frowned. “I’m not interested in your involvement with Eleanor’s disappearance, which I assume you had nothing to do with,” she said, sipping her tea, “but in your involvement with a certain someone else, who also has a proclivity for making himself scarce.”


She had a confusing way of speaking, and it took me a few seconds to figure out what she was asking me. “Who?” I asked, confused.


“The boy from the lake.”


I stopped chewing. “Oh...he’s just a friend.”


She picked up her saucer. “Ah, boys. Always problematic.”


“There’s no problem,” I said quickly. “There’s nothing going on.” “It didn’t seem that way,” she said, clasping her hands over her knee. “But you needn’t tell me that. I am a professor, you are a student, and I understand that we have to operate under the contrivance that nothing romantic is going on with you and this boy, as the Code of Discipline decrees it.”


I swallowed.


“However, if there were something going on, say, as more than friends, I want you to feel comfortable coming to me if there are any...complications.”


Was Miss LaBarge telling me that if I wanted to talk about Dante with her, I could? “There aren’t any complications,” I said. “With our...friendship.”


Miss LaBarge gave me an earnest look. “Good,” she said. “Good. Just making sure.” She nibbled on a cookie. “So tell me what it is that you wanted to talk to me about.”

I wanted to remind her that she was the one who had brought me here, not the other way around, but instead I blurted out “The Gottfried Curse” before I realized the words were leaving my mouth.


Miss LaBarge coughed and set down her cup of tea, the china clattering against the saucer. “Sorry,” she said, wiping at her blouse with a handkerchief. “You caught me off guard.”


“So you know about it?”


“The deaths, yes.”


“The heart attacks, you mean.”


Miss LaBarge narrowed her eyes. “I presume you’re implying that they were somehow unnatural and that Eleanor is part of the pattern.”


I gazed at her in awe. “Yes.”


“Renée, I know it’s a comforting idea to think that when someone dies, it’s for a reason, or that someone is responsible, but sometimes these things just happen. After all, we are just humans. We can’t control life and death.”


It was supposed to make me feel better, but even the thought of Eleanor being dead made me feel queasy.


“However,” she said as I looked away, “we can control the way we react.”


I gave her a confused look.


“Descartes once said that instinct trumps all. Follow yours,” she said, and winked.


I set down my tea. She was right.


The next morning in the boys’ dorm, I lingered in the shower, letting the water pound against my back as I tried to figure out what I should do. Instinct, I repeated to myself. What did my instinct tell me to do? But I couldn’t think of anything that might help me find Eleanor or figure out what was behind the heart attacks. By the time I turned off the water, all of the girls had cleared out. Clutching my towel and shower caddy, I stepped into the hall.


The boys’ dormitory was eerily still. I glanced down the stairway. There was no one there. Without thinking, I ventured into the hallway. It was lined with doors, all wooden and perforated with slanted shingles, like in a psychiatric hospital. I walked past, running my fingers along them until I found myself standing in front of one door in particular. It looked the same as the rest: no one else would have been able to perceive its irregularity, yet for some reason I couldn’t walk past it.


66F.


I glanced around me. If the boys’ dorm was the same as the girls’, there wouldn’t be any locks. I knocked lightly, and when no one answered, I turned the knob.


The room was immaculate, the kind of clean you only find in an expensive hotel room. Or at least one side was. The bed was tucked and made, with no creases or lumps; the books in the shelf were arranged in alphabetical order, and when I opened the closet, it was full of suits. Antique suits, all hung, starched, and color coded in varying shades of gray, black, and brown. Gideon DuPont. I poked one, as if to make sure he wasn’t hiding inside, then jumped back when the hangers jangled on the bar. There were no photographs, no paintings or prints, no mirrors. The room had four windows, two overlooking the lake, two overlooking Horace Hall. Light streamed in, casting hazy beams across the wooden floor like invisible dividers, cutting the room in half. The other side of the room was the complete opposite of Gideon’s. I didn’t know who his roommate was, but I imagined that they didn’t get along. Dirty clothes were piled in wrinkled clumps; ties hung on the bedposts, crumpled papers surrounded the base of the trash bin. I approached Gideon’s desk.


I didn’t know what I was looking for when I opened the drawer, but I assumed I would know when I found it.


I went through everything: his books, his notebooks, even his Code of Discipline. If there was anything that implicated him in Eleanor’s disappearance, I couldn’t find it, because all of his class notes were written in long, sweeping Latin. After I went through all the drawers in his desk, shuffled through all of the books on his shelf, and crawled under his bed, which was strangely free of dust or bugs, I gave up. All the girls had probably left by now, which meant that the boys would be returning to the dorm soon.


I quickly tried to rearrange his things, hoping he wouldn’t realize anyone had tampered with them, when I accidentally knocked over the bottles of fancy colognes that sat on his dresser. Getting down on all fours, I started picking them up, smelling each as I went. They were strong and pungent, and I winced and held the bottles away from my face. Why did he have so much cologne anyway? I bent down to pick up the last of them when I saw something brown sticking out from Gideon’s pillowcase.


Forgetting about the cologne, I pulled it out, only to discover that it was a file folder. And not just any file folder. On the cover it said: Eleanor Bell.


I blinked, unable to believe what I was seeing, but when I opened my eyes it was still there. I opened the folder and flipped through. It was her personal file. I glanced back at the door. I could hear voices floating up from the open window. The boys were coming back. Without wasting any time, I reached into Gideon’s pillowcase to see if anything else was inside, and to my surprise, there were two more files, both brown, both with names printed on the front:


Benjamin Gallow Cassandra Millet


I stuffed them into the bundle of my wet towel and replaced the pillow and the last of the cologne. Shutting the door behind me, I scurried downstairs, trying as best as I could to conceal the folders.


The boys were pouring into the foyer as I left. They stared at me and whistled while I pushed through them, my wet hair dripping onto my collared shirt. Yet just when I thought I had made it out without getting caught, I bumped directly into Gideon as we walked through the double doors. I froze, clutching my towel and the folders to my chest. Gideon glared at me and brushed off his shoulder where my hair had left a wet mark. The doors swung together, bumping me out and him in. Thankful for the act of fate, I ran back to my room to dry my hair before class.


When I got back, I slammed the door and sank to the ground. Unable to contain my curiosity, I dumped out the contents of each file and flipped through the pages, skimming for anything of interest. Each file was embossed with a giant Gottfried crest in blue and gold ink, and began the same way:



ELEANOR BELL





Height: 5’5”





Weight: 115 lbs





Hair Color: Blond





Date of Birth: June 5, 1994





Origin: Maryland





Parents: Cindy Louise Bell, no occupation; Gareth Aaron Bell, lawyer; DIVORCED





Siblings: Brandon Bell, Monitor





Status: MONITOR




Attached were Eleanor’s transcripts, letters of recommendation, records of detention and work details, and her admissions application package, which included a personal statement about her parents’ divorce and some sort of scorecard, which I assumed was from an admissions test. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary except for her status, which read “Monitor.” It must have been a typo; Eleanor wasn’t on the Board of Monitors. Otherwise, there were no notes on the margins, no plans hatched on the back in Gideon’s handwriting. Disappointed, I flipped through the rest of the files.


Cassandra’s was much thicker than Eleanor’s, stuffed with documents regarding the death of her family in an avalanche. I skimmed through them until I found her official Gottfried records.



CASSANDRA MILLET





Height: 5’4”





Weight: 110 lbs





Hair Color: Blond





Date of Birth: November 21, 1990





Origin: Colorado





Parents: Colette Millet, ballet teacher; Bernard Millet, hotelier; DECEASED





Siblings: George Millet, Pauline Millet; DECEASED





Status: NON MORTUUS, DECEASED





Primary Date of Death: February 14, 2005





Secondary Date of Death: May 15, 2009





Primary Cause of Death: Skiing accident





Secondary Cause of Death: Sepultura




I read her status again, my mind racing. NON MORTUUS, DECEASED. What did it mean? Non Mortuus translated to “Not Dead.” But if she wasn’t dead, why would they list it, and why would she have two causes of death, the second of which translated to “Burial,” each on different dates and in different years?


I turned the page. Suddenly I was face-to-face with Headmistress Von Laark. It was a drawing sketched in charcoal, and showed her standing in the woods, at the head of a deep hole. The Board of Monitors stood solemnly beside her, all staring at Brandon Bell, who was holding the limp body of Cassandra Millet in his arms as he lowered her into the pit. The edges were darkened with the night sky. In the corner, the sketch was signed: Minnie Roberts. I shuddered. Even in pencil, the scene was haunting.

CHAPTER 10

The Stolen Files


THE SEARCH FOR ELEANOR CONTINUED FOR A week, but they found nothing. Her bag, her books, and all of her things were in our dorm room. The beams of their flashlights occasionally flickered through my window, and I watched them dance across the walls as if they were looking for Eleanor in her bed. It was coincidental that the flood in the basement had occurred around the same time as her disappearance, though no one thought the two events were related, since I had told everyone that Eleanor had been safely in our room that night. Besides, the water level was still too high for anyone to access the basement. So instead they taped up posters around campus and Attica Falls, plastering the entire area with Eleanor’s face. Underneath it read one word: missing.


Her parents flew in separately, her mother a tall, elegant blonde in riding boots and a slim black jacket; her father a suited corporate lawyer who talked to everyone as if he were interrogating them. They bickered like children, blaming each other for Eleanor’s disappearance; though they were surprisingly kind to me. “Eleanor spoke highly of you,” Mr. Bell said. “She said you were one of her closest friends. Am I correct to believe that you helped her with her grades in Horticulture?”


I gazed at him, confused. “I, um...no, I only gave her a few pointers. She didn’t need much help.”


“Modest, too,” he said, looking me up and down. “If you were leading the search, where would you look?”


“The basement,” I blurted out.


He didn’t speak for a long time, until he put his hat back on and buttoned his coat. “They said she couldn’t be in the basement.”


I shrugged. “It’s just a hunch.” “Eleanor was right about you.”


I gave him a questioning look.


“You speak your mind.”


But I seemed to be one of the few people he didn’t despise. He marched around campus, his son, Brandon, beside him, his ex-wife, Cindy, and his two assistants trailing behind, ordering the rangers, the townspeople, the professors, even the headmistress around, all of whom he accused of being incompetent and lazy. Yet even with more people, the search yielded nothing. Slowly the parties disbanded.


Campus affairs seemed to go back to normal, or as normal as they could have been with a sixteen-year-old girl missing. Everyone was scared, and even though there was no proof, it was hard not to project Benjamin’s fate onto Eleanor. Mrs. Lynch seemed almost excited. She patrolled the halls and conducted random room searches with the kind of enthusiasm born from years of putting up with children who deserved to be disciplined, but rarely were. A scandal like this would merit a punishment she could only have dreamed of.


I sat through my classes, hardly paying attention as I tried to smother my imagination. Somewhere out there, Eleanor was in trouble. I felt useless, and Professor Lumbar’s lecture about ancient forms of declensions was hardly enthralling enough to take my mind off of it.


“What can Latin tell us about ourselves?” she asked, her giant body housed beneath a tent dress. She wrote a word on the board in large, slanted cursive: Vivus eram.


“There is a form of ancient Latin called Latinum Mortuorum, which can only be spoken in the past tense. It doesn’t have any other tenses. You couldn’t say, ‘I am alive’; only ‘I was alive.’ It was spoken by children, often orphans. For them, the present, the future—these realms of time didn’t exist. Instead they spent their lives looking backward. In essence, living in the past.”


I stared at the board, copying down the phrase. It was difficult to leave the past behind. First the death of my parents, and now Eleanor’s disappearance. Maybe it was my way of trying to relieve the guilt I felt about my parents, that finding Eleanor would somehow make them come back.


How could I not be haunted by the past when death was looming so close to me? I was alive.


That night I called Annie, and told her about Eleanor.


“Why don’t you go to the police?” she asked.


“They were here. Plus, what would I say? That someone is killing people by giving them heart attacks, and that Eleanor was probably the next victim?”


“It does sound pretty ridiculous.”


“I know. And I have no proof.”


“Have you told anyone?”


“Just Nathaniel and Dante.”


“You’re still talking to that guy?” she said.


“Dante? Of course I am,” I said defensively. “Why wouldn’t I be talking to him?”


“The last time we talked you thought he was some sort of mutant.”


“Oh, right …” Thinking back to our previous phone conversation, I was almost embarrassed at how angry I had gotten at Annie. “I’m sorry, An,” I said. “All these things were happening that I didn’t understand, and nothing seemed fair.”


“And now everything makes sense?” She sounded skeptical.


I laughed. “Definitely not. I think I just changed. I like Dante. I like him a lot.” I wanted to tell her everything about him; I wanted to describe the way he looked at me, the way his voice sounded when he spoke in class, each word like a tiny piece of a sprawling love letter written only for me. But I knew she wouldn’t understand.


After we hung up, I sat in my room and listened to the muffled sound of girls laughing through the walls. How could they laugh when one of their friends was missing? With nothing else to do, I decided to clean my room. The recesses beneath my bed were treacherous at best. Large stacks of papers and books crowded the floor, surrounded by dust bunnies. I began to sift through them, when I saw the book I’d bought from Lazarus Books. It was lying on its side beneath a pile of notebooks and folders. I wedged it out and wiped off its cover. Attica Falls. Its woven ivory binding was slowly unraveling along the edges. “The Gottfried Curse,” I thought. I had spent so much time worrying about how the curse related to my parents and Benjamin and Eleanor, that I had totally forgotten about the only part of the article that related to me. Literally. I stood up and paced the room until I found myself picking up the phone and dialing my grandfather’s number. Dustin answered.


“Winters residence,” he said stoutly.


“Hi, Dustin,” I said softly, feeling suddenly very much like a little girl. “Is my—”


Upon hearing my voice, Dustin interrupted me. “Miss Winters?” he exclaimed warmly. “I’ve been wondering when we were going to hear from you. Calling about your winter travel arrangements?”


“Um, no, I actually wanted to talk to my grandfather. Is he there?”


“I’m afraid he’s away,” Dustin said. I imagined his forehead wrinkling as he said it. “Until next week, I’m afraid. Is it an emergency? Maybe I can be of service.”


I hesitated. “No, it’s fine—it can wait. Thanks, though.”


“But we’ll see you for the holidays, yes?”


I nodded. “Yeah.”


“Excellent. I’ll be picking you up next Friday. And you can talk to Mr. Winters when you get home. He wouldn’t want me saying it, but he’s very much looking forward to seeing you again. As am I, of course. It will be such a joy to have a young person around the estate again. I fear we have all become statues.”


I laughed. “Okay,” I said slowly, not sure how to respond. “See you next Friday, then.”


I was about to blow out the candle and go to sleep, when I heard something hit my window. I got out of bed and looked outside, only to find Dante standing in the path below. I opened the window and leaned out.


“What are you doing here?” I asked.


“Come down,” he said.


I looked behind me again. “I can’t! I’ll get caught.”


“Mrs. Lynch is gone. I saw her leave for the headmistress’s office ten minutes ago.”


I threw on a pleated skirt and sweater, and checked my appearance in the mirror, clipping my hair to the side with a barrette.


Dante was waiting for me by the path in just a shirt and tie, no jacket. He was leaning on a lamppost, his hair swept back from his face, save for a few loose strands that blew in the wind. Without saying a word, he wrapped his hand around mine and led me through the green. The night was gray and foggy, the moon barely visible beneath the clouds.


“Where are we going?” I asked, trying to keep up with his long stride. Slowing down, he looked at me and smiled. “Trust me.”


We stopped in front of the chapel, its massive stone buttresses leaning beneath the weight of the steeples. I let my hand slip from his as he walked ahead of me. Along the archway over the door, dozens of white flowers were blooming from gnarled vines. I gazed at them in awe. I had never seen them during the day.


“Moonflowers,” I said, remembering them from the night-blooming plants class in Horticulture.


Dante smiled and held open the riveted doors, which, surprisingly, were unlocked. With delicate footsteps, I stepped inside.


The chapel was lit by dozens of candles all arranged in a line between the two aisles of pews. I picked one up and cradled it in my palm, glancing back at Dante with a surprised smile. He nudged me forward, and I followed the candlelit path into the belly of the chapel.


It was dark and shadowy, with the faint smell of musk and rosewater. The candlelight reflected off the stained-glass windows, covering the floor in a dark mosaic of blue and purple light. The ceilings were vaulted and covered in peeling frescoes of clouds and angels and beautiful women with long, flowing hair.


The candles led to the back of the chapel, behind the altar, and up into a narrow spiral staircase. The wind rattled the windows, and I looked back at Dante, who was just steps behind me. His fingers grazed the ends of my hair as I climbed, watching our shadows dance across the stone.


We emerged at the top of the steeple, where a ring of candles wrapped around a giant bell in the middle. I stepped outside, the cold air refreshing on my cheeks. In front of me was the entire campus, now small, and behind it the forest and the rocky peaks of the White Mountains disappearing into the clouds.


“It’s beautiful,” I uttered, though it hardly described what I felt.


“You like it?”


I turned to face him. “I love it.”


Dante studied me, his face almost sad as he gently ran his fingers down my arm. “Renée, I—”


I looked up at him expectantly, curling my hands into the sleeves of my coat.


Dante’s eyes searched mine. “I can’t lose you.”


My voice trembled as I stepped closer to him. “Why would you lose me?” I said with a faint smile.


He raised my hand to his lips and kissed it. We sank to the ground, surrounded by candles, and listened to the wind.


“If you could have anything you wanted, what would it be?” Dante asked as I rested my head against his chest.


“To have my parents back.”


“If I could give that to you, I would,” Dante said, kissing the inside of my arm, making it feel like dozens of white flowers were blooming across it.


I turned to him. “Then a kiss. A real kiss.”


Dante ran a melancholy hand down my cheek. “I can’t.”


“Why?” I asked, my face inches from his as I drew him closer. He leaned in, unable to help himself. I felt his hand on the back of my neck, pulling me toward him until our lips were nearly touching. The air fluttered in my lungs, and I closed my eyes, letting my body go soft in his arms. I couldn’t think or feel anything except his arms knotting themselves in my hair, grasping at my neck as if it were clay. And then suddenly he pulled away. “I can’t—” he said. “I can’t trust myself around you. I can’t help myself.”


“I trust you,” I said softly.


“Renée, what if I hurt you? I would never forgive myself.”


“You won’t hurt me, I know you won’t,” I said, raising my hand to his face. He pressed it against his cheek.


“You don’t understand. You don’t know what I’m capable of. I’m afraid to touch you, in case I break you; I’m afraid to talk to you, afraid you’ll realize that I’m a monster. But every day you’re still here.” He gazed at me. “I can barely control myself when I’m around you. I have to have you. I have to keep you.”


“You do have me.”


He spoke slowly. “Renée, I need to tell you—”


But before he could finish his sentence, I saw a person walking down the pathwaytoward the chapel below us, carrying a lantern.

I hadn’t expected so many affirmatives, and was at a loss for what to say. “So you believe me? Why didn’t you tell me earlier? After the séance?”


“I didn’t know you were looking for your parents when I ran into you that night,” he said, almost to himself. “You were in your pajamas, which caught me off guard. And you looked so surprised to see me; I couldn’t tell if you were happy or upset. I remember holding your hand and running through the rain; the way the water collected in droplets on your eyelashes. I couldn’t believe you were real. I still can’t.”


“You remember that?” I whispered.


“I remember everything.”


I looked up at him, and he moved closer. I shivered. Raising my hand to Dante’s face, I coiled my fingers around the back of his neck and pulled him toward me.


We met halfway, my neck arching up to meet his. But just as our lips were about to touch, he pulled away and kissed me on the cheek.


His face was inches from mine. “Why won’t you kiss me?” I asked, my voice betraying more despair than I intended.


When he finally spoke, his words came out slowly. “Because I’m afraid of what might happen.”


“What could happen?”


“That’s what I’m worried about—I don’t know.”


Not knowing what I was doing, I let my hand fall down his cheek. Dante pressed his finger to my lips, as if to stop me, but instead let his hand pass over them and roam down to my collarbone, guiding me toward him. His touch tickled my skin, like dozens of snowflakes falling and melting. His eyes were trained on mine.


“Renée, wait, there’s something you need to—” Everything happened at once. I closed my eyes, feeling his breath dance around my lips. Then voices emerged from the distance, floating toward us, followed by the sound of footsteps thumping against the frozen earth. And then light.


I pulled away from Dante and froze. A flashlight shone on us.


“Stand.”


I shielded my eyes and squinted into the glare. It was Miss LaBarge, her cheeks rosy from the cold. She shone the light in my face, and then in Dante’s.


“What was about to happen just now?” she asked him, her voice sharper than I had ever heard it.


“Nothing,” he said. “Nothing.”


She shone the light in his face for a few more seconds before turning it off.


“You shouldn’t be out here tonight. Or any night, for that matter. No students are allowed outside during the search, only professors. You know that.”


I stepped forward to explain, but Dante gripped my hand, holding me back.


“I’m sorry, Professor, it was my fault. I asked her to meet me here.”


Miss LaBarge gazed at him. “Fault is a slippery thing.”


Dante nodded, and I sat very still. I could hear the footsteps of the rest of her party walking in our direction. Miss LaBarge glanced around. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t see you. Get back inside. And don’t let me catch you again.”


Dante reached for my hand, but I stopped him, remembering the note Nathaniel had written to me earlier. There was only one way to get into the headmistress’s office to find those files. I couldn’t sneak in, I had to be sent there. And what better time than now, when the headmistress was clearly distracted? “Wait, no,” I said. “I don’t want you to pretend you didn’t see us.”


Both Miss LaBarge and Dante gave me confused looks.


“Send us to the headmistress’s office.”


“Renée,” Miss LaBarge said, “you don’t want this.”


“Yes I do.”


Miss LaBarge looked behind her shoulder. “You realize you could be expelled.”


At that point I didn’t care. What I cared about was Eleanor. My parents. The Gottfried Curse.


“Go,” Miss LaBarge ordered, pushing us away from her.


Dante tried to pull me with him. “Renée, what are you doing?”


“Getting us information,” I said, and coughed.


From the bushes, I heard people fumbling around. “What was that?” Professor Lumbar said loudly as she pushed through the brush and ran toward us. Miss LaBarge shined her flashlight on us just as the professors emerged through the trees, their faces shrouded in darkness, their eyes gleaming at us through the glare. Mrs. Lynch stepped forward. “Good work, Annette,” she said while staring at me with a pleased grin. “Got you.”


“We have to distract her,” I said to Dante as Mrs. Lynch dragged us to the headmistress’s office. “I need to get to the filing cabinet.”


Dante studied me, then nodded. “I’ll try.”


The headmistress met us outside her office, emerging out of the shadows in the hall.


“Renée, Dante,” she said. “Come.”


Once inside, she walked past the wall of bookshelves, running her fingers along the bindings as she sat in the leather chair behind her desk. She didn’t speak for a long time. Dante and I stood in front of her, trying to think of a plan. Finally she spoke, her tone firm and rather agitated.


“Be seated,” she said, picking up a Siamese and dropping it into her lap. She rapped her fingers on the desk. “You look cold. Would you like a cup of tea?”


“Yes, please,” Dante and I said at the same time, almost too quickly.


Headmistress Von Laark glanced between the two of us, and smiled as she unlocked the china hutch on the far wall. “If my memory serves me correctly, this is the second time you’ve both been here this semester,” she said, her back to us as she poured our tea. “Sugar?”


“No thanks,” Dante and I said simultaneously.


Just before the headmistress closed the doors of the hutch, I noticed two filing drawers at the bottom. I watched them disappear behind lock and key. In order to get into the files I had to get her out of the office, a task that seemed more and more impossible the longer I thought about it. It would only take an emergency for her to leave us here unsupervised, and considering that we were already in the middle of an emergency, our chances were slim.


One of the cats emerged from behind her desk and walked toward Dante. Curling around his legs, it began to meow and paw at his pants. As he tried to shoo it away, the other Siamese leaped down from where it was sitting on the bookshelf, and after sniffing around Dante’s chair, also began to claw at his pants.


“Romulus! Remus! Behave yourselves,” Headmistress Von Laark barked, and reluctantly the cats retreated behind her desk. I gave Dante a questioning look, but he avoided my gaze. “Miss Winters and Mr. Berlin, found together outside, after dark by the lake. How very romantic,” she said with no hint of a smile. “What do you have to say for yourselves?”


“It was my fault,” Dante and I blurted out at the exact same time.


“I asked him to meet me so we could try to find Eleanor,” I said, just as Dante said, “I asked her to meet me so we could join the search.”


The headmistress pondered our situation for a moment. “Since it seems I cannot deem who is more in the wrong, and since I can’t have you wandering the school grounds anymore tonight while the search is going on, and since I don’t want to let you out of my sight while I get my work done, I’m going to have you alphabetize my library.” She turned over the hourglass on her desk. “Now.”


There must have been hundreds of books, all out of order, some so old and tattered that it was difficult to read the words on the binding. “I’ll find all of the A’s,” Dante said. “You work on the B’s.” I nodded, and we set off while the headmistress sat behind her desk, glancing up at us every so often as we worked. The hutch with the filing cabinet was just a few steps away; the two cats walked around it, backs arched, as if reading my thoughts.


I could go to the bathroom, I thought. I could cause a commotion, which would draw the headmistress out. Then I could return and check the files. It was a flawed plan, but it was a plan nonetheless.


Trying to be as inconspicuous as possible, I walked past Dante. “Find the key while I’m gone.”


He grabbed my elbow. “What are you doing?” Ignoring his question, I turned to the headmistress, but before I could speak, there was a knock on the door. “Enter,” the headmistress commanded.


The door swung open, and Mrs. Lynch stepped inside, pulling Gideon DuPont by the arm. “I found him trying to sneak into the girls’ dormitory. Meeting a girl,” Mrs. Lynch added.


Gideon gave her a cold, heartless glare filled with spite, which transformed into amusement when he rested his eyes on Dante. How could Dante have ever been friends with such a hateful person, I wondered.


The two cats sauntered toward Gideon and clawed at his pants. Gideon didn’t seem to notice; his eyes were trained on Dante.


“Have him wait outside,” the headmistress said. “And watch him.” Mrs. Lynch nodded, while Gideon kicked Romulus and Remus off his legs as he backed out the door. The headmistress tsk-tsked, but the cats didn’t respond. Frustrated, she stood up and made the sound again, but they were intent on Gideon. “Close the door behind you, please,” she called out to him, betraying the slightest hint of anxiety. “Don’t let them out.” Gideon looked up and smiled. With deliberation, he slipped out of the room, leaving the door ajar, and the cats followed, their tails disappearing into the hallway.


Trying to hide her anger, the headmistress threw open her desk drawer and pulled out a string and two tiny muzzles. Turning to us, she said, “Keep working. I’ll return shortly.” And with that she was gone.


Without hesitating, I ran to her desk and grabbed her keys, trying each until I found the one that fit the hutch. Throwing the drawers open, I flipped through the files. I checked under M for Millet, but Cassandra’s file wasn’t there. I checked again, and then under C, but it wasn’t there either. Confused, I tried G for Gallow and then B for Benjamin, but his file was missing too.


Frantically, I went through the rest of the files, looking for anything. Minnie Roberts’s file was gone too, as was Dante’s and Eleanor’s. And to my surprise, so was my own. From the door, Dante coughed loudly, looking at me and then the door. Swiftly, I closed the file cabinet and locked it, returning the key to the desk. Nothing. There was nothing.

It doesn’t mean I abducted her.”


Unexpectedly, the knob on the door turned and the door swung open. I threw myself out of the way just before Mrs. Lynch stormed into the hallway with so much force that she didn’t even notice me pressed against the wall behind her.


I met up with Nathaniel and told him about Eleanor and what I saw as we walked to Philosophy.


“So the last time you saw her was after Grub Day?” he asked.


I hesitated. I had lied to everyone in order to hide the fact that I’d spent the night at Dante’s. But someone had to know the truth. I needed Nathaniel’s help. “No. It was actually the morning of Grub Day.”


Nathaniel looked confused. “What? But why did you tell everyone that—”


I cut him off. “I spent the night with Dante,” I said quickly. “Please don’t tell anyone.” Nathaniel went silent. “So you don’t know when she disappeared?”


I shook my head.


“This is bad, Renée. Really bad.”


I swallowed. “I know.”


“Well, if we assume that whatever happened to her happened on Grub Day, then it couldn’t have been Professor Bliss. I even saw him later that night patrolling the boys’ dorms, so either way, he’s safe.”


“Why do you think it happened on Grub Day?”


“I mean, think about it. It’s perfect. Everyone is in town, including most of the professors and the Board of Monitors. So the real question is, who wasn’t in Attica Falls that day?” But the question was impossible to answer. There were far too many people, and besides, we hadn’t been keeping track.


“Do you think it could be...” My voice trailed off.


“The Gottfried Curse?” Nathaniel said, finishing my sentence. “Maybe.”


When we walked into class, Annette LaBarge was sitting on her desk, her legs dangling freely like a child on a swing. A glass of water sat by her side. Unlike my other professors, she taught everything as if it were a story.


“A long time ago, we used to believe that people were made of two things—the body and the soul. When the body died, the soul lived on and was cleansed and reborn into someone new. The idea was explored by many, though namely in Western culture by Plato, and then René Descartes.


“Descartes was a famous philosopher in his time. He was obsessed with death—he wrote about it incessantly. He even claimed to have discovered the path to immortality. He was going to reveal his secret in an essay he claimed would be his lifetime achievement, and which he worked on up until his death. He called it his Seventh Meditation. When he died, people believed that his death was a hoax, an experiment. They thought he had found a way to cheat death and become reborn.


“That, of course, was never proven, and Descartes was never heard from again. All that remained were his papers. People combed through them, searching for the Seventh Meditation, but they only found six, none of which contained anything about the key to immortality.


“After everyone had given up hope, rumors began to surface that they had found something buried beneath the foundation of his house. Descartes’ Seventh Meditation. But the book was banned just before it was released. According to rumor, all copies were immediately burned, as were the men who had printed it. And before it could even be read, the book was gone, along with all of its secrets.” While she spoke, I looked out the window, and watched the branches of the trees sway in the wind. A boy ran into Horace Hall holding a messy stack of papers, clearly late for class. A maintenance worker shoveled snow along the edge of the green. The flood, followed by Eleanor’s disappearance, seemed to fit with all of the other “accidents” that had been reported on in the article from The Portland Herald. And if Eleanor’s disappearance was related to Benjamin’s, then there was a good chance she would soon be found dead of a heart attack.


“We do, however, have glimpses into what his final work contained, facts that scholars have gleaned from other books published back then. In the Seventh Meditation, Descartes stated that children couldn’t die. He said that, unlike adults, the bodies of children only appear to be dead. After ten days, they wake up and live again, soulless. According to Descartes, children stop rising from the dead at the age of twenty-one. Some philosophers speculate that this is why the age of twenty-one now embodies the idea of adulthood.”


If I had only found a way to get to those files in the headmistress’s office, I might have found some piece of information that would have helped prevent whatever had happened to Eleanor. Quietly, I tore out a piece of paper from my notebook.


We have to find a way into the headmistress’s office


I folded the note, and when Miss LaBarge wasn’t watching, I passed it to Nathaniel. He gave me a cautionary look, as if he knew what I was planning to do and didn’t approve. Nonetheless, he scribbled down a response and passed it back to me.


I don’t think you need my help doing that.


I immediately felt stupid. Why hadn’t I thought of it before? I didn’t have to break into the headmistress’s office; I just had to get into trouble and be sent there. I had no idea how I would get to the files once I was inside, but I would deal with that later. Satisfied, I crumpled up the note and slipped it into my pocket.


After classes, the investigation for Eleanor began. One by one, we were called in for questioning. Solemnly, we watched each girl walk downstairs to Mrs. Lynch’s quarters. A door slammed. After fifteen minutes it reopened. And then the next name was called. No one spoke after their interview. With Eleanor missing and Mrs. Lynch arousing suspicions among the student body, the atmosphere in the dorm was grim.


Finally it was my turn.


“Winters!” Mrs. Lynch’s voice echoed from downstairs. On the way down I passed Minnie Roberts, who had gone in before me. I tried to say hello, but she kept her head bowed.


Mrs. Lynch’s quarters were strategically positioned right next to the entrance so she could hear anyone sneaking in or out. When I got there, the door was slightly ajar. I knocked. When no one answered, I pushed it open.


Mrs. Lynch was sitting in an overstuffed plaid armchair, her stubby feet resting on a matching ottoman. She was scribbling notes on a yellow legal pad.


“Shut the door,” she said without looking up.


The room looked like something a grandmother might live in. It had a low ceiling, dingy floral curtains, and a shag carpet. It smelled like potpourri and mothballs. The walls were decorated with pictures of lighthouses, which, upon closer examination, were not paintings, but needlepoint.


Finally Mrs. Lynch stopped writing and looked at me. “Miss Winters.”


There was nowhere to sit, so I stood in the middle of the room.


“Eleanor Bell has been missing for what seems to be two days now. You are her roommate, correct?”


I nodded.


“Eleanor never went to Attica Falls on Grub Day.”


“She said she was going to the library.”


“And did she return to the room that night?”


“No,” I said. “Wait, yes. Yes she did.”


Mrs. Lynch gave me a suspicious look. “In your short time here at the Academy, you have garnered quite the reputation for troublemaking.”


I gave her a confused look. “What?”


“Called to the headmistress’s office three times.” “But the first time I hadn’t done anything—” I tried to say, but she continued.


“Caught severely out of dress code; breaking curfew with a boy; blatantly disobeying the authority of professors...”


“But that was all really just one time—”


“Talking out of line,” she said with contempt. “Where were you on Grub Day?”


“I was in Attica Falls. People saw me there; you can ask Nathaniel Welch. I was with him.”


“Where were you that evening?”


I hesitated. “I was in my dorm room, studying.”


“And what were you studying?”


“Latin,” I said quickly.


“And Eleanor was there that night?”


“Yes,” I lied.


“And you can produce no other witnesses of your whereabouts that night?”


“It was after curfew. We were alone in our room.”


She put down her pencil and clasped her hands together on her lap.


“Miss Winters, where is Eleanor Bell?”


“I... I don’t know.”


She sighed and then jotted something down on her pad. “I think you do.”


“But I don—” But she cut me off before I had a chance to respond.


“And you said that she wasn’t”—she picked up her pad, referring to her notes—“No, forgive me, that she was in your room that night?”


I swallowed and nodded.


“Yet conveniently, no one else saw her. Or you.”


I shifted uncomfortably, staring at a persian cat that had sauntered into the room and was glaring at me from the windowsill.


“So really you have no alibi for the night after Grub Day.”


“I do, but—”


“And you didn’t report her disappearance until today because you weren’t sure she was gone.”


“I would have, but—”


She jotted down one last note and shut her pad. “That will be all.”


By twilight, the search parties came. Professors and school administrators flocked to the green with flashlights and flares. They looked odd outside the context of class. Their casual clothes, boots, and raincoats made them look puttering and old, exposing the fact that they were vastly outnumbered by a campus full of teenagers.


The Board of Monitors was supposed to regulate the students, watching the dorms and making sure that everyone was in by curfew, but did so halfheartedly. After dinner, I lingered outside the dining hall until everyone else filed outside. When the path was clear, I started to walk back to the girls’ dorm, but then quickly changed routes and jogged toward the green.


Students weren’t allowed to participate in the search. “Too dangerous,” Professor Lumbar had said. They didn’t care that Eleanor was our friend, and that we cared about finding her just as much as they did. It seemed like everyone was gathering on the lawn except for the people who were closest to her. Even a few people from town had been recruited for the search. I crouched behind a tree and watched. Together they huddled beneath the evergreens as the sun set on Gottfried Academy, until all that could be seen of them were the yellow beams of their flashlights reflecting off the fog rising from the lake.


The search was led by the headmistress herself. She wore a long overcoat and carried a lantern, a two-way radio, and a bag of flares.


“Friends,” she bellowed. The crowd grew silent.


“Thank you for leaving your families to help us here tonight. It’s a tragic day for everyone when a child goes missing, especially when it’s a member of our own small community. If anyone hears any information regarding Eleanor Bell’s whereabouts or the manner of her disappearance, please alert me or one of the professors immediately.


“To make the most of our time, we will break into groups. Each group will search a different area. Miriam, Edith, and Annette will take Horace Hall. Lesley and I will search Archebald. William, Marcus, and Conrad will search the edge of the forest....”


As she called out the names, each party broke off and began to comb the campus grounds looking for Eleanor. When the lawn had emptied out, I slunk out from behind the tree and jogged toward the lake. Dante was exactly where he said he’d be, leaning against one of the spruces, his hands in his pockets. He was perfectly preppy, crisp yet rough around the edges in a shirt and tie, a Gottfried scarf draped over his blazer, and his hair pulled into a messy knot.


We sat by the lake, against the back of a large rock.


I hugged my knees. The calm water reflected the night clouds.


“What do you do when you don’t know what to do?” I asked, staring into the darkness.


Dante followed my eyes to the outskirts of school, where we could see dim flashes of light bouncing off the trees and buildings. “I follow my instincts,” he said, touching my shoulder.


I tossed a pebble in and watched the ripples dilate until they reached the shore. What were my instincts telling me? “I think Benjamin and my parents were murdered. I think Cassandra was too.” I said it quickly, in case it sounded ridiculous. I told Dante about the séance, about how I had tried to summon my parents but only found him, Gideon, and Vivian on the lawn; about how Eleanor had tried to summon Benjamin but got Cassandra, too. “And I think the same person got to Eleanor. I don’t know why or how, and I don’t have any reason to think any of these things other than a feeling. A really bad feeling.”


Looking at my feet, I waited for him to react, but instead he stretched out his legs and leaned back on his elbows. “Do you really believe in that stuff? Séances?”


I looked up at him, my eyes watering in the wind. “I want to.”


“You want to believe in ghosts? In monsters?”


“I want to believe that things don’t have to end,” I said, looking away, but Dante didn’t let me.


“I want to believe that too,” he said.


“Do you think Cassandra is dead?”


Dante hesitated. “Yes.”


His frank answer somehow disturbed me, and a series of questions escaped my mouth before I could process them. “What? How? Why? Who do you think—?”


“Slow down,” he said. “One at a time.”


I paused to compose myself. “Do you think Benjamin was murdered?”


“Killed, yes.”


“Do you think it’s related to my parents and the deaths in the article?”


He thought about it. “Yes.”

We barely spoke during class. The sky was overcast, and Professor Starking switched off the lights and turned on a projector. Suddenly an image appeared on the wall. It was a photograph of outer space, of a rust-colored cloud of dust cresting upward like fingers.


“The Pillars of Creation,” Professor Starking said. “This is what stars look like before they’re formed. They’re called celestial nebulas.”


He flipped to the next slide, and then the next—each of different nebulas, their otherworldly forms projecting onto the darkened wall of the Observatory.


“What did you want to tell me?” I whispered to Dante.


“I can’t tell you here,” he replied, studying the images. “It’s too important.” In the blue light of the projector, his face emerged out of the darkness like a ghost. I tried to imagine what it was he wanted to say to me. He’d profess his undying love. Renée, he would say, I love you. Run away with me. We’ll go north into the wilderness and live desperately, dangerously. And I would say yes. Or maybe that’s not what he had planned at all. If it was, why couldn’t he just say it here, in the darkness of the Observatory? Things said in private were usually bad things: things that were too shameful, too embarrassing to declare in the light of day, in front of other people. If he loved me, wouldn’t he want to tell me as quickly as possible? I self-consciously adjusted my skirt. Maybe he’d changed his mind. It had been dark in his room last night; maybe now he could see flaws he hadn’t noticed before—blemishes, the scar under my chin, the way my ears always seemed too large.


Professor Starking stepped back to admire the nebula projected on the wall. “At first glance, they may seem strange and alien,” he said. “But all of us are made of the elements you see here. Their beautylies in confusion. It gives them a kind of energy that fully formed stars don’t have.”


While the slides were shifting, Dante inched closer to me and slipped his hand into mine. I trembled at his touch, his palms cool and dry.


Neither of us dared to look at the other. Instead, we remained stoic, keeping our eyes trained on the pictures. I shifted closer to him, pressing my leg against his. To the rest of the class we looked like a boy and girl sitting side by side. But beneath the surface, everything within me was trying to burst out into a swirling cloud of particles, ephemeral and constantly changing, like stardust.


By curfew Eleanor still wasn’t back. It was unusual: she always came back before lights-out, but I was too excited about meeting Dante to dwell on her absence. She was probably in the library, asleep in one of her books, or out working on the school play for the Humanities department. I would see her when I got back tonight, and then I could tell her everything.


I sat on my bed, hovering over my books but not looking at them. Instead, I was gazing impatiently at the clock, counting down the minutes until I would see Dante. When the hands finally reached 10:45, I opened the flue, pulled myself into the chimney, and began to climb down to the basement. I was still wearing my school clothes—a herringbone skirt, black tights, and an oxford shirt with an overcoat on top to keep me from getting sooty.


The climb didn’t seem so bad now that I had something to look forward to at the end. I was so anxious to see Dante that I barely noticed the cobwebs and dust and crumbling brick. But when I reached the bottom of the chute, something wasn’t right.


The flue was only partially open, just enough for me to squeeze my body through. Instead of the normal hissing sounds that the furnace gave off, it was completely silent. In the distance, I could hear water trickling. And then drips, like a faucet leaking into a bathtub full of water.


I climbed down a rung, and then another, until I was almost completely out of the chimney. But as I lowered my foot to the last rung, my leg became submerged in water. I pulled it back and leaned out the bottom of the chute to see what was going on.


The entire basement was flooded with water, which had risen to just feet below the ceiling. I sighed, only now remembering what the maintenance workers had said to Mrs. Lynch outside the girls’ dormitory. The water was dark and placid, barely rippling from the disturbance of my foot. The hanging lights reflected dim yellow orbs in its surface, like beams of flashlights shining up from beneath. For some reason I felt pulled to the room, as though an invisible force were towing me down. I scanned the basement, searching for some way to get outside, but it was useless. Reluctantly, I climbed back into the chimney. My left shoe was soaked, and squeaked as I ascended, each step taking me farther and farther away from Dante. When I got back to my room I called his landline, but the phone rang and rang and rang, and I went to bed imagining him waiting for me in front of the chapel, leaning against the stone beneath the gargoyles, his face slipping into the shadows.


It took ten days to drain all of the water from the basement. The Maine winter crept up on us early, preserving the entire campus in a thin layer of ice. It was early December and the ground outside was hard and impenetrable, so they pumped the excess water into the lake, using long floppy hoses that trailed across the pathways like the arms of a jellyfish. Every morning I stepped over them as I walked to class, unaware that the water inside was freezing, preventing them from emptying the basement sooner. If it had been eight days, or even nine, things might have turned out differently. But numbers are strange and uncontrollable; they operate under their own set of rules. And as I would soon discover, ten was an entire rule unto itself.


In the meantime, we used the boys’ bathroom every morning at eight a.m., and every evening at eight p.m. But the problem in the basement was more than just an inconvenience. It meant that I could only see Dante in class. The basement was the only way out of the dorms at night, or at least the only way that I knew of.


But let me start from the beginning. On the night that I discovered the flood, I had trouble getting to sleep. I paced around my room, staring at the fireplace, waiting for Eleanor to climb through it, but she never did. Eventually I gave up and collapsed in my bed. Pulling the covers over my head, I fell asleep, dreaming about Dante and our night together, and hoping that he was dreaming of me too.


But the flood was just the beginning of a strange chain of events that was taking place at Gottfried.


Eleanor didn’t come back the next morning. I woke up from a dream only to be sobered by the sight of her unruffled bed. I immediately went next door to Maggie and Greta’s room. Maggie opened the door with a yawn. She hadn’t seen Eleanor since Grub Day, which was already two days ago. I went to see Bonnie and then Rebecca, and finally Genevieve. They hadn’t seen her either.


The last door I went to was on the first floor of the girls’ dorm. It was my last resort, and I lingered in front of it for a moment before building up the gumption to knock. But just as I raised my fist, the door swung open. I gasped and jumped back.


Mrs. Lynch’s squat figure greeted me, her short hair making her look more like a man than a dorm mother. She looked me up and down. I checked my outfit, making sure all of my buttons were buttoned and buckles snapped, worried she was going to reprimand me for being out of dress code.


“Yes?” she said, eyeing me with a quiet distaste.


In a low murmur, I informed her of Eleanor’s disappearance.


“What do you mean she’s missing?” she said sharply when I was finished.


“She wasn’t here last night or this morning.”


Upon hearing this news, Mrs. Lynch threw on a scarf and coat. “Why didn’t you report it sooner?” “I... I thought she was at the library.” Which was the truth.


Mrs. Lynch slammed the door. “Come,” she said, already four steps ahead of me.


I trailed behind her as she walked to Archebald Hall, asking me questions the entire way. When was she last seen? Did she have any reason to run away?


I didn’t know. Maybe yesterday? And as for running away, she hadn’t packed up any of her things, and even if she had tried to leave, there was nothing beyond Attica Falls for miles.


Our destination was the headmistress’s office, but she was exiting the building just as we were entering. The headmistress was dressed in a long luxurious coat, plush and blue with a deep hood. Her snowy hair fluttered in the wind, making her look like an aged nymph. “Headmistress Von Laark,” Mrs. Lynch called out. “This young lady has something to tell you.” After I finished, the headmistress addressed Mrs. Lynch. “Inform her parents immediately, and make a call to the ranger’s office. In the meantime, I’ll dispatch a search party.”


The headmistress then inspected me, her blue eyes icy and unreadable.


“I can help,” I said, verging on pleading. I couldn’t shake the feeling that Eleanor’s disappearance was somehow my fault. If I hadn’t stayed with Dante, if I had gone home that night or reported her missing earlier, maybe it would have been different. “I want to join the search.”


“Certainly not. You are to go to class and focus on your studies.”


“But she’s my roomma—” I tried to protest before the headmistress cut me off.


“You are dismissed.”


“Where were you?” said Dante, appearing out of nowhere in the hallway and pulling me beneath the stairwell. “I waited.”


“I tried calling but you didn’t pick up,” I said softly. “The basement in the girls’ dorm is flooded. There’s no other way out after curfew.”


Dante frowned. “I was worried something had happened. When you didn’t show up I waited outside the dorm trying to find your window, but they were all dark. By the time I got back to my room, it was so late that I didn’t want to call, in case Mrs. Lynch heard.”


I meant to apologize to him, to explain how I had tried to meet him last night, but instead I blurted out, “Eleanor’s gone.”


“What do you mean?” Dante asked, leaning over me against the brick, his brow furrowed in confusion.


“She never came back last night. I don’t think she was there the night before, either. I... I don’t know if she ran away or if she was kidnapped, or I don’t know what. I mean, where could she go?”


“You’d be surprised. There are a lot of places to go in this school if you don’t want to be found.”


“But what if she does want to be found?” The thought made me feel sick.


“Then she’ll be found,” he said pensively, though his mind was clearly somewhere else. “When was the last time you saw her?”


“Just before Grub Day. She said she was going to skip it and go to the library to study.”


Dante raised his eyes to mine as he pulled his bag over his shoulder. “I have to go.”


“What? Where? Do you know something? Do you know where she is?”


Dante shook his head. “If I did, I would find her for you.”


“I know,” I said softly. “When can I see you again?”


“We have class together in three periods,” I said, confused.


“Alone, I mean.”


I bit my lip. “With the basement off-limits, meeting after curfew is basically impossible. Maybe during study hall? I can meet you outside the Megaron after dinner.” His tie dangled in front of me, and I twirled it around my fingers.


The bell rang, signaling the start of class, and the sound of footsteps pounded on the stairway above us. “I’ll be waiting,” Dante said, and smiled.


During lunch, Mrs. Lynch and Professor Lumbar searched our room. When they found nothing, they searched it again. It felt odd watching them going through my underwear drawer, tossing around Eleanor’s things. They even confiscated Eleanor’s notebooks, though after reading them they found nothing of interest except illegible scribbles and pages and pages of love notes written to Professor Bliss.


Mrs. Lynch confronted him about it just before fourth period. I was walking down the hall when I saw them in his classroom through the window in the door. I crouched outside and watched as Mrs. Lynch handed him Eleanor’s History notebook and crossed her arms.


Mr. B. flipped through it, reading the notes slowly. Suddenly he dropped the notebook and stood up, gesticulating wildly with his hands. They got into an argument. I pressed my ear against the door and listened.


“If you have an explanation, now’s the time,” Mrs. Lynch threatened.


Professor Bliss claimed he had no idea the love notes existed. “Eleanor was my student. Nothing more. It isn’t abnormal for a teenage girl to have a crush on her teacher. These things happen all the time.

CHAPTER 9

The Flood


I WOKE UP THE NEXT MORNING TO A DIFFERENT world. Outside, everything was dusted in white. It was the first snowfall of the season; the unexpected kind of snow that drapes itself over the ground like a blanket, covering street signs and burying cars. I blinked. Last night couldn’t have been real. But it must have been, because there was Dante, lying beside me. His eyes were closed. Asleep, he looked statuesque, as though his features had been carved out of stone. I held out my hand, my fingers quivering as they grazed his cheek. Suddenly, his eyes opened. I gasped and pulled back my hand.


He smiled. “Did you sleep?”


I nodded and stretched my legs like a cat. “Did you?”


He propped himself up on an elbow and played with a lock of my hair. “I never sleep.” I rolled my eyes. “You must’ve slept at least a little.”


He traced his finger around my elbow. “Let’s get you back to campus before they realize you’re gone.”


Instead of going through the main gate, Dante walked me to a street on the edge of town. Because he was a day student, he was allowed to go on and off campus as he pleased. I, on the other hand, had to be more careful.


“How do I get back?”


“There are two ways. You can try to sneak past the guards at the gate, but they practically sleep with their eyes open, and there’s a good chance you’ll get caught.”


“What’s the other option?”


Dante hesitated. “It isn’t pleasant.”


I looked up at him expectantly. “That’s okay.”


Dante didn’t look particularly excited about it, but he nodded and took my hand.


We stopped in front of a run-down house with a dirt driveway lined with overgrown shrubs, now covered in. We kept to the edge of the yard, crouching low behind the bushes. Behind the house, the yard expanded into a white field surrounded by a circle of naked trees.


“Where are we going?”


But just as the words left my mouth, we stopped. In front of us, shrouded by a crab apple tree, was a stone well. Its narrow mouth was covered by a wooden board. Dante wiped off the snow and tossed the board on the ground.


“Remember those tunnels from the article?” he asked.


I nodded, my cheeks growing red from the cold.


“This is one of them. It leads to campus, beneath the pulpit of the chapel. I found it by accident when I was wandering around out here last summer. Supposedly there are dozens of others, but this is the only one I know of.”


I peered into the well. The hole was dark and narrow, just large enough for a body to fit through. A warm draft emanated from somewhere inside its recesses. I couldn’t see to the bottom. “Is there still water in it?”


“It was never a well,” he said, wiping his hands together. “It doesn’t even run deep. You just have to climb a few feet down and then it curves and opens into a tunnel.”


It looked like it could crumble at any minute, and the fact that it had been built in the 1700s merely affirmed my doubts. I kicked the ground with my shoe until I found a pebble beneath the snow. Picking it up, I threw it into the well. It didn’t make any sound.


Frowning, Dante gazed at me, deep in thought. “You’d better climb in or you’ll be late for class.”


I looked up at him with surprise. “You’re not coming?”


Dante shook his head. “I don’t go underground.”


I gave him a strange look. “What do you mean?”


“It’s a childhood thing. Bad experience.”


I hesitated, wanting specifics, but then nodded. After all, it was just a tunnel, right?


Dante rummaged around in his bag. “Take this.” He handed me a candle and a box of matches. “You might need it. When you’re down there, just walk straight. Don’t take any turns.”


I pushed a lock of hair behind my ear. “I’ll see you in class, then?”


“Yeah. But in case we don’t get a chance to talk, meet me in front of the chapel tonight? Eleven o’clock?” “Why wouldn’t we have a chance to talk?” I asked, trying to hide my bewilderment.


“Just meet me in front of the chapel. I have something to tell you.”


I nodded, and Dante helped me into the well.


A makeshift ladder was made out of bits of stone sticking out of the well’s interior. “Bye,” I said, and began climbing down. With a worried look, he watched until I disappeared into the darkness.


The well was murky and constricting. I couldn’t see anything, and I barely had enough space to bend my knees. I climbed slowly, unsure of what would meet me at the bottom. A few rungs down, my foot hit dirt. I struck a match.


In front of me was a cavernous tunnel, big enough to stand in. The walls were made of caked dirt, which crumbled off under my fingers like chalk. It smelled faintly of mulch. Feeling around in the darkness, I struck another match and lit the candle. Every so often I felt a cool breeze coming from the opposite wall, where the tunnel forked off to the left. I pressed myself closer to the wall, trying not to think about what would happen if I got lost. Finally, it sloped upward, and I came to a dead end. Blowing out the candle, I pulled myself into the damp air of the chapel.


I emerged below the pulpit, through a corrugated grate.


The chapel groaned and wheezed as the winter wind blew around its steeples, and I could hear bats chirping from the stairwell. Light filtered through the stained-glass windows, casting red shadows across the floor. Not wanting to linger any longer than necessary, I snuck through the pews, my footsteps echoing off the vaulted ceilings as I unlocked the dead bolts and stepped out into the November morning. In the snow, the Gottfried campus was transformed into a sprawling, pristine landscape. Each tree, each cobblestone, each blade of grass was frosted in a delicate layer of white. A group of boys passed me on the way to the dining hall, and I checked my watch. It was almost eight a.m., and I still had to shower and get through all of my classes before I could see Dante again. Buttoning my coat, I ran across campus, replaying the events of last night over and over in my head.


When I got to the dorm, I opened the door only to step into a big puddle of water. Startled, I jumped back to discover that the entire first-floor foyer was flooded. I ran upstairs, where I found girls crowding the hallways. Everyone looked sleepy and irritated, the freshmen complaining about the wet carpets in their rooms. I wandered through the crowd, looking for Eleanor, pushing past throngs of girls wearing robes and slippers, nightgowns, flip-flops, and oversized T-shirts. Finally I spotted Rebecca. She was standing in the corner with Charlotte, Greta, Maggie, and Bonnie.


“What’s going on?”


“There’s no running water,” Rebecca said.


“What happened? The entire first floor is flooded!”


“We don’t know,” said Maggie. “Lynch is on her way up now to tell us, I think.”


“Have you seen Eleanor?”


Maggie shook her head. She hadn’t put her contacts in yet, and seemed self-conscious in her glasses. “We figured she was with you.”


“Oh,” I said nonchalantly, not wanting to let on that I wasn’t in my room last night. “Maybe she’s still in the room.”


“Or maybe she’s with Genevieve,” Charlotte said. Her hair was pinned around her head in rollers. She was clutching a loofah and shower caddy with dozens of shampoo and cosmetic bottles inside. “She wasn’t in our room this morning when I woke up.”


“She probably had an early Board of Monitors meeting,” said Maggie, almost bitterly. “She’s never around anymore.”


Charlotte shrugged and started talking about her plans for winter break, when the door to the hallway swung open. Mrs. Lynch bounded down the hall, her heels clicking on the wood floors.


“Girls,” she shouted.


Everyone quieted down.


“It seems there’s been a plumbing malfunction in the bathroom. It’s likely that one of the pipes froze overnight and burst. Maintenance should be here within the hour to fix it and drain the water from the first floor. In the meantime, Professor Bliss has generously offered us the bathroom in the boys’ dormitory. He’s in the process of evacuating them as we speak.” Professor Bliss was their dorm parent.


A murmur ran through hall.


“So get dressed and gather your toiletries. We’re heading over in fifteen minutes.”


Stepping into the boys’ dorm was like walking into a parallel universe. The layout of the building was exactly the same, but the walls were painted a deep shade of maroon, and the sunlight seemed to dodge the windows, creating a shadowy atmosphere that would have been more fitting in a cigar shop. Everything smelled faintly of leather. A pair of dirty gym shorts dangled over the banister.


The boys’ bathroom was in the western wing of the second floor, just like our dorm. The door to the showers was propped open, and steam billowed into the hallway. Eleanor hadn’t been in our room when gone back to get my towel and soap. Her bed was completely undisturbed, the pillows puffed and the covers folded and tucked. So where was she? I walked through the rows of showers, listening for her, but all of the voices belonged to other people: first years, second years, third years, but no Eleanor.


After I showered and got changed, I dawdled outside the bathroom door, waiting to see if she’d come out, but after the last girl left, I gave up and went downstairs, out into the white, wintery morning.


When I got back to the girls’ dorm, Mrs. Lynch was standing on the stoop with four maintenance workers. They were all at least a foot taller than her, and dressed in periwinkle coveralls that were soaked from the waist down.


I slowed as I passed them.


“Something went really wrong with the pipes down there,” one of the men said in a gruff voice, wiping the sweat off his temples. Gray stubble climbed up his neck, and a grease-stained rag hung out of his pocket. “It’s impossible to tell where the leak is coming from. We’ll have to shut off the water in the building and drain it. In the meantime, you’ll have to make do with space heaters and the fireplaces. We’ll work on getting enough wood.”


I lingered on the top step to wait for Lynch’s reply, but she must have noticed I was listening, because she glanced up at me and glared. Not wanting to get into any more trouble, I hurried through the doors and went back to my room, unable to shake the three words that kept running through my mind: The Gottfried Curse.


I didn’t tell anyone else about the curse or my night with Dante. I would have told Eleanor, but she never showed up for Latin. Or Philosophy. In fact, she didn’t go to any classes at all. I sat taking notes while Miss LaBarge scribbled something about Descartes on the board. Every so often I forgot that Eleanor wasn’t there, and leaned over to whisper to her, only to be met with an empty chair. But I didn’t think much of it. Finals were coming up in a few weeks, and Eleanor’s grades were terrible. She’d been skipping meals all semester to go to the library.


Without her, classes dragged by, and I grew frustrated with her for being gone when I had so many important things to talk to her about. Eleanor would surely have a theory about the heart attacks. “Radiation below the school grounds,” she might say. “Or a mass murderer equipped with a new kind of weapon that induces heart failure.” And the cloth in both my parents’ mouths and Benjamin’s were used as gags. Maybe they were electrocuted. Maybe someone was out to get Gottfried students. But why them in particular? Nathaniel was right: there was no such thing as curses. Only people and science. So that’s what I focused on, watching the clock, counting down the minutes until the last period, when I would see Dante in Crude Sciences. Last night seemed like a dream, except I could remember every detail—the way my stomach fluttered when he kissed my neck; the way the books fell at our feet, making us stumble around them; the way our bodies left a crescent-shaped crease on his bed. I unwrapped each memory like a gift, letting Dante’s velvety voice envelop me while I drifted off in class or waited on line in the dining hall. It didn’t matter that Professor Lumbar was in a particularly bad mood or that Professor Chortle made us solve proofs for an hour and a half.


When fifth period rolled around, I walked to class anxiously, inspecting my reflection in the windows before opening the door to the Observatory.


Professor Starking bustled in behind me just as the bell rang, carrying a box of films and a messy pile of papers.


Dante was already sitting at our bench, his tie crisp around his neck and his blazer slung around the back of his chair. I approached slowly, watching him from a distance. A lock of hair dangled in front of his face as he wrote something in his notebook.


I walked up the side of the aisle until I was just behind him, and looked over his shoulder. He was writing notes in Latin. Suddenly I felt nervous, as if everything I’d ever wanted in my life was on the verge of happening and I only had to reach out and take it. But just as I lifted my hand, Dante grabbed it without looking away from his notes. I gasped. He turned to me, and with the beginnings of a smile, he brought my palm to his lips and almost imperceptibly kissed it.

“Take this instead,” I said, handing him the book as I sat down. “Turn to chapter seven.”


When he finished reading the article he was silent for a long time.


“Did you know about this?” I demanded.


“About the Gottfried Curse? No.”


I searched his face. “You know something,” I said, my hair blowing around my face, tangling with my scarf. “You knew that there was something off about Benjamin’s death and you wouldn’t admit it. Here’s proof. My parents and Benjamin and all those other people who died of heart attacks at Gottfried. It’s all the same.”


Dante took my hand. “Come with me.”


The inside of 46 Attica Passing was dimly lit by wall sconces and had patchy red carpeting on a staircase that zigzagged up the building.


“What is this place?” I asked, running my hand up the banister.


“A boarding house.”


I glanced up at the numbers on the doors, and then at Dante.


The stairs creaked under his feet. “I live here.”


We walked up three flights of stairs and then turned down a hallway. It was narrow, with floorboards that were warped and uneven. Dim lamps hung from the ceiling, filling the hall with hazy yellow light. His room was toward the end. There were doors on either side of his, but it looked like no one had lived there for decades. He fished around in his pocket for a key.


His room was freezing. Both of his windows were wide open, letting in the thin November air. He turned on a small desk lamp.


“When I found Benjamin Gallow, he had already been dead for days,” Dante said. “His face looked older, like he had aged ten years. His tie was balled up and shoved in his mouth. That’s all I know.”


“His tie was in his mouth?” Just like my parents and the gauze. Sort of.


Dante nodded.


“Like a gag?”


Dante said nothing.


“Who do you think did it?”


“I don’t know. He might have done it to himself. People do odd things when they’re afraid.”


“What do you think scared him?”


“Death,” he said quietly. “Isn’t that what scares everyone?”


I glanced around his room. It would have been cozy if it hadn’t been so cold. It was clean but cluttered, with stacks of novels and stationery and encyclopedias coloring the walls. Piles of piano music sat on a side table by the window: Schubert, Rachmaninoff, Chopin, Satie, and dozens of others I had never heard of.


Beneath the window was a modest bed, with one pillow but no sheets or blankets. Across from it was a wooden desk, upon which lay an open book with a pencil lying in its crease. Next to it was a box of salt, three cinnamon sticks, and a handful of shells and rocks. Dante didn’t protest when I picked them up, turning them over in my palm. “Were there coins around his body?” I asked as I wandered through his room.


“No,” he said, watching me examine his belongings. He seemed surprised at my interest in such small, mundane objects. Of course they were only interesting to me because they were his.


A small collection of cologne and deodorants were gathered on his dresser. And at the end of the room was a bookcase. I tilted my head to read their titles. Rituals, Spells, and the Occult; Arabic Number Theory; The Metaphysical Meditations; The Republic. Some were in English, but most were in Latin.


“When I found my parents, they were surrounded by coins,” I said softly, tracing my fingers across the worn spines. “And there was gauze in their mouths. The police said it was a hiking accident. That they died naturally. But I just don’t see how that could be.”


“Renée,” Dante said softly. He was standing behind me, his voice filled with yearning. He took a step toward me until he was so close I could feel his knees graze the back of my legs. “I believe you. And if I knew how to help you, I would. That’s why I brought you here. So you would know me. Trust me.”


“Why?” I said, blinking back memories of my parents dead in the woods. “Why me?”


“When I’m around you, I feel things....” His hair tickled my collarbone. “Things that I haven’t felt in so long.”


Every muscle in my body tightened.


“Like what?” I whispered.


He ran his fingers through my hair. “Warmth,” he said. I could hear him breathing.


My voiced trembled. “What else?”


He reached his arms around me and slipped my coat off. It dropped to the floor, and he laughed when he realized that I had worn two cardigans beneath it. Slowly, he unbuttoned them. He inched closer and leaned in. “Smells,” he uttered into my ear and buried his face in my hair. A draft blew through the open window, and I shivered. I felt his hand on my shoulder as he brushed the hair away from my neck.


“Tastes,” he said, and kissed my neck so gently that I could barely feel it.


A prickling sensation budded underneath my skin and began to travel down my body. I leaned into him, and he let his hand slide down my arm. His fingers were cold, and my skin quivered under his touch, cooling and then warming, as if an ice cube were being rubbed across my body. He slipped his palm into mine, entwining our fingers together. I turned to him. “What else?”


He gazed at me with a yearning look that almost seemed sad. “Pain.”


Raising my hand to his face, I touched his lips. As he kissed each of my fingers, I closed my eyes, feeling his hand on the small of my back.


“Desire.” He tightened his grip around me and kissed my collarbone. I ran my hands through his hair, pulling him closer, and raised my lips to his. But he turned his head and pulled away before we kissed. Surprised, I shrank back from him.


Then he pressed his body against mine, pushing me against the bookcase. It banged against the wall. The books on the top shelf clattered to the floor. His hands roamed across my body, tangling my tank top.


My body felt soft and watery, like my insides were melting. “Dante.” I hardly noticed his name escape my mouth. “Dante.”


The entire room blurred around us until the only thing I could see was Dante. Suddenly I felt weak. I couldn’t see, I couldn’t feel, I couldn’t smell. Everything tangible seemed to be slipping away from me.


“Stop,” I said softly. “Please stop.”


He let go of me, and I folded onto the ground. “What’s wrong?” he asked, kneeling beside me. Fallen books surrounded us, their pages open and fluttering in the draft.


I searched for the words but I couldn’t find them. How could I possibly explain the dozens of contradicting ways he made me feel? “It’s too much,” I whispered. “My legs... I can’t hold myself up.”


Dante went rigid as he stared at me with alarm, but his face softened when he realized he was frightening me.


“I... I don’t know what’s happening to me,” I said, my voice cracking. “What’s happening to me?”


He pressed his forehead to mine. “Please, don’t leave yet. Just lie with me for a little while.”


He led me to his bed, pulling a coat over me, and I curled up beside him.


“You make me feel alive,” he breathed.


And we lay there together until the sun rose, Dante resting his head on my chest, listening to my heart beat.

“Other than that she’s close with Dante Berlin. The headmistress is highly interested in them.”


Brandon interjected. “Well, obviously. He was friends with Vivian, Gideon, and Yago. He was probably in love with Cassandra too, just like Benjamin.”


“Was friends with,” Schuyler emphasized.


“It doesn’t matter,” said Brandon, cutting him off. “My point is that we don’t know what he’s capable of. Just like Cassie. Just like the rest of them. If Renée were smart, she’d stay away from him.”


Genevieve laughed. “That’s the problem. When it comes to Dante, no one can think straight. Don’t worry, though. If the headmistress is right about her skills, I’m sure Renée can take care of herself.”


The waitress came with our food. She slid our plates across the table and left us with a handful of minijams and a bottle of ketchup, but I wasn’t hungry anymore. Why was the headmistress asking about me and Dante, and what did Genevieve mean by my “skills”? She must have meant in Horticulture, because it was the only class that everyone seemed to compliment me on.


Brandon stood up. The rest of them followed. As he walked by our booth to the door, he gave me a sideward glance. I quickly stuffed a piece of omelet into my mouth.


“What just happened?” Nathaniel asked, tucking his napkin into the top of his shirt like a bib, and I remembered that he hadn’t heard any of it. When I was sure no one was listening, I recounted everything.


“What did they mean about Cassandra and the rest of them?” I asked. “And why should I stay away from Dante? What is he capable of?”


Nathaniel looked troubled, though admittedly he almost always looked troubled. “I don’t know,” he said. “And neither do they. That’s the point.”


I rolled my eyes. “You’re a genius. Have I ever told you that?”


“No, really,” he said. “If they don’t know what Dante is capable of, it means he hasn’t done anything yet. And neither have the rest of them. It’s Cassandra that’s the problem, because clearly she did something.”


“But what?”


He shrugged. We finished eating, and the waitress came back with our bill. I watched her impatiently as she counted out the change. “Thanks,” I said when she was done, and grabbed Nathaniel by the arm. “Come on. We’ve got to find them.”


But when we got outside, the Board of Monitors had disappeared. “Why is the headmistress interested in me?” I said. “And Dante?” Nathaniel said nothing. “Maybe,” I said while we walked, “the headmistress also thinks something weird happened to Benjamin and Cassandra. She probably thinks Dante knows something since he used to be friends with them and was the one who found Ben. And she’s interested in me because she thinks we’re dating.” I had to be more careful, I told myself.


“Are you dating him? Like, it’s official?” Nathaniel asked, staring at me, his blue eyes magnified through his thick glasses.


“I...well, we haven’t really talked about it. But I think so. I mean, we spend a lot of time together.”


“Why isn’t he here today? Doesn’t he live here?” Nathaniel asked earnestly.


I didn’t know why we weren’t meeting until five. “Oh, he has studying to do,” I said quickly.


We walked down the street, toward a small row of stores, when I bumped directly into Brandon Bell.


“Renée,” he said.


I looked up at him, his sandy hair a short, military version of Eleanor’s. “Oh, hi.”


“Have you seen my sister?” he asked. Eleanor had introduced us a few times, but the encounters had been brief and unpleasant. Brandon had a way of making every conversation sound like an interrogation.


“I...uh...no, she went to the library instead.”


He gave me a suspicious look. “Is everything okay?”


“Yeah...sorry, I’m just...well, I have to... We have to go,” I said. “See you later!” Grabbing Nathaniel by the shirt, I pulled him into the alley. A rickety wooden sign with chipped blue paint bore the name lazarus books. I pushed open the door, and we both stumbled inside. “Well, that went well,” Nathaniel said. “Not conspicuous at all.”


The bell over the door chimed as it slammed shut, and an old man emerged from a room behind the counter. He had a round face with a ruddy nose and a salt-and-pepper beard. He propped his elbows up on the counter. “Schoolbooks are in the back.”


“That’s Conrad Porley,” Nathaniel told me as we walked to the back of the store. “People say that he won’t sell a book to you if you rub him the wrong way. And I don’t know about your theory that the headmistress and Board of Monitors are hiding something about Cassandra or Benjamin,” Nathaniel added. “Why would the school cover up a death? They didn’t cover up Ben’s death.”


“But what about what Minnie Roberts said?”


Nathaniel stopped walking. “She said that the headmistress and the Board of Monitors killed Cassandra. Come on, even you have to admit it’s a crazy idea.”


“Do you have a better one?”


“Benjamin died of a heart attack, Cassandra transferred, and Minnie Roberts is crazy.”


“What fifteen-year-old dies of a heart attack in the woods? And what about what Eleanor saw in the séance?”


Nathaniel shook his head. “I thought we already went over this.”


I sighed. I guess he had a point. “But that still doesn’t explain why the headmistress is so interested in me and Dante.”


“Well, you did get into some trouble, didn’t you?”


“Just once,” I said, thinking of getting caught with Dante after the séance. And then I remembered the dress-code incident on the first day of class. “Okay, twice. Maybe you’re right,” I conceded, and turned to the check out the store.


Unlike normal bookstores, each section was categorized not only by genre, but by subject matter. One shelf read Puberty. The one across from it read Pet Saves Owner and Dies, and beside that were sections titled: Superhero Origin Stories, Babies, Death in the Family, and Girlfriend in the Refrigerator.


I scanned the walls and walked toward Nathaniel. He was a few rows away, looking at a book in the section on Vampires and Zombies. But before I got to him, a section title caught my eye. Boarding School. I crouched down to read the titles. There were a lot of novels and a few nonfiction books on prestigious prep schools, but there wasn’t anything on Gottfried Academy.


I approached Nathaniel, who was flipping through a teenage romance about vampires. I wasn’t really interested in zombies or vampires, but with nothing else to do, I knelt beside him and looked at the titles, pulling one out every so often. Most of them were horror stories with fangs and gravestones and bandaged, faceless monsters on the cover. I was growing bored, my eyes going in and out of focus, when I spotted a book that stood out from the rest. It had a plain ivory binding, with letters so faded they were barely legible.


I pulled it out and cradled it in my lap. It was thick and dusty. The cover read: Attica Falls. I opened it, my excitement mounting as I flipped through the pages. It had a full chapter on Gottfried Academy, which was more information than I had ever seen on the school, and it had pictures. It must have been shelved in the wrong section accidentally. Satisfied, I tucked it under my arm and brought it to the register.


Mr. Porley coughed into his arm. “Interesting choice,” he said in a gruff smoker’s voice.


“I’m new to the East Coast.”


“Up at the Academy, I’m guessing?” he asked, taking me in. He had large hairy hands and wore suspenders, as if he had been either a fisherman or lumberjack in some former life.


I nodded.


He opened the book cover and charged me ten dollars, half of the price asked. “Seems you have some luck about you. This one’s out of print,” he said, before putting it in a paper bag.


I thanked him and left with Nathaniel at my heels.


With nothing better to do, we walked to the end of the street until we reached an abandoned house. It was white and crooked, with a wraparound porch and pillars that looked half eaten by termites. I tested the steps with my foot to make sure they wouldn’t collapse before Nathaniel and I sat down. A few groups of students ambled past us, chatting and sipping cups of something hot and steaming. Down the street, Professor Bliss was smoking a cigarette outside the general store. I opened the book and flipped through it, skipping over the chapters on the history of Maine, the founding of Attica Falls, and the natural wonders of the White Mountains, until I found what I was looking for. Chapter 7: Gottfried Academy.


I began to read while Nathaniel looked over my shoulder. Some of it I already knew—the Academy’s role in the Revolutionary War, its transformation from a religious to a secular school...but just when I was beginning to accept that there was nothing more to Gottfried than a superficial history, one page caught my eye. On the bottom right was a photograph, a normal black-and-white image of Gottfried Academy, and one that I normally wouldn’t have glanced at twice if it hadn’t been for the familiar face staring back at me.


“That’s...that’s my grandfather,” I said in awe.


Nathaniel pushed his glasses closer to his face and squinted. “Which one?”


I pointed to a tall broad-faced man in a suit and vest. His hair was darker then, his glasses thinner. He was standing in front of the Gottfried gates with a school scarf draped around his neck, smiling and looking almost nothing like the dry curmudgeon I’d encountered last summer. The caption read: Headmaster Brownell Winters, 1974. Below it was a newspaper article, reprinted in the book from The Portland Herald.


The Gottfried Curse


July 7, 1989
By Jacqueline Brookmeyer



After nearly one hundred calamity-free years, a fire ravaged the forest surrounding Gottfried Academy, the preparatory school located near Attica Falls. The school is known not only for its stringent classical academics, but for its proclivity for disaster. Since its founding in 1735, Gottfried Academy has been plagued by a horrific and unexplainable chain of tragedies, including disease, natural catastrophe, and a string of accidents of the most perverse and bizarre nature. These recurring events have brought attention to Gottfried Academy, attracting a series of enigmatologists who have attempted to understand the causes and patterns behind the disasters. All of them died under suspicious circumstances, until 1789, when the disasters stopped. But has this phenomenon, coined locally as “the Gottfried Curse,” truly been buried?





It began in 1736 with an outbreak of the measles and mumps. The school was originally founded as a children’s hospital by Doctor Bertrand Gottfried, who attempted to ward off the epidemic. Despite his efforts, more than one hundred children perished. Rumor has it that the doctor built catacombs beneath the hospital grounds to bury the children and contain the infection. Three years later, Bertrand Gottfried mysteriously died. His body was found in the lake by a groundskeeper, his death apparently caused by heart failure.




I paused and stared at the words. Heart failure. “It can’t be,” I murmured. “What?” Nathaniel asked over my shoulder.


“Bertrand Gottfried died of a heart attack. Just like my parents.”


“He was old,” Nathaniel said. “It’s not the most bizarre way to die.”


“It is if they find you in a lake.”


“Maybe he was swimming when he had the heart attack,” Nathaniel offered.


“Or maybe it wasn’t a heart attack.”


“Turn the page.”



Though none of the catacombs were ever discovered, they are purported to have been the beginnings of the subterranean tunnels that still run beneath the premises. All previous headmasters, including the newly incumbent Headmistress Calysta Von Laark, have refused to comment on this matter.





After the death of Bertrand Gottfried, the hospital stopped accepting new patients and closed its doors to the outside world. For a decade, no one came in or out, save for a weekly groundskeeper, who delivered groceries and supplies from the local general store. Yet, just as suddenly as the hospital closed, it reopened. This time, as a school. The head nurse at the time, Ophelia Hart, ascended as the first headmistress. She named it “Gottfried Academy,” after its founder.





Over time, the infirmary’s tragic history was forgotten, and students began to filter in. The disasters continued like clockwork. The unexpected collapse of the building that is now the theater, in 1751; the nor’easter of 1754; the tuberculosis epidemic of 1759; and the food-poisoning incident in 1767. Ten years later, the school was partially destroyed during the Revolutionary War, which was followed by a series of disasters culminating in the chemistry lab accident of 1789.





But what was origin of the curse, and is it really over? Some believe that it’s the area itself. Others believe it was Bertrand Gottfried. “Everything started to happen after he died,” local Esther Bancroft said. “He wasn’t a doctor, he was a sinner. Lord knows what he did to those children. And then they killed him, and his soul is trying to tell people to stay away. Stay away.” But others blame the curse on Gottfried’s first headmistress.





“It was that woman,” local Hazel Bamberger, 84, claims. “That nurse that started the whole god-damn school. Ophelia. She was with that Doctor Bertrand, not like normal doctors and nurses are, but closer. After he died, she became the first headmistress, and that’s when everything started. That’s why it’s always couples that die. She’s seeking her revenge on people in love.”





Although some might not believe Bamberger’s theory, there is one more disturbing coincidence that even the townspeople aren’t aware of, and that is the manner in which many of the people died. According to confidential police files, which were leaked by an ex-Gottfried professor who wishes to remain anonymous, more than half of the deaths at Gottfried were deemed heart attacks.




I put the book down and turned to Nathaniel. “This is it,” I said, gripping the page because I didn’t know what else to do with it. “This is the proof that connects my parents to Gottfried. To Benjamin. To everything.”


Nathaniel said nothing, allowing me my moment.


“But why?” I said almost to myself. I had to tell Eleanor. And Dante.


“I don’t know,” Nathaniel said.


“What time is it?”


“Four thirty.” Half an hour till I met Dante. It seemed like ages from now. I turned the page.



So how was it that so many students died of heart attacks at such a young age? And was the school covering up the deaths with claims of disease, war, and natural disaster? To this, many people have answers—conspiracy theories, stories bordering on the supernatural—yet even the most fervent believers are unable to explain why the curse unexpectedly stopped.





The Second Autumn Fire, which occurred this May, was the first unexplained tragedy since 1789. Even Headmaster Brownell Winters, who has held the post for nearly seventeen years, was left speechless, as he refused to comment on the fire’s origins or circumstances. It consumed the entirety of the north forest, now known as the “Dead Forest,” turning the treetops completely orange—hence the name, the Second Autumn Fire. It then spread across the wall, ravaging the Gottfried Library. “A real tragedy,” local bookstore owner, Conrad Porley, said. “All those books gone forever.” The books destroyed included the few written about Gottfried and its history.





To the surprise of the members of the Gottfried community, Headmaster Brownell Winters has not participated in the investigation, nor has he attempted to rebuild the library. In early June, just weeks after the fire, he stepped down from his position as headmaster and left the school. When asked about the Gottfried Curse, his only response was, “There are no such things as curses; only people and their decisions.” As for what he meant, that, along with the cause of the fire, remains a mystery.




I turned the page to read more, but there were only illustrations and photographs. The first was a drawing of men plunging children into the lake, the same lake that was still in the center of campus. The caption read: Doctors cleanse infected students, 1736 outbreak of measles and mumps.


Below it was a photograph of my grandfather. He was standing in front of Archebald Hall, a forced smile on his face. Two women were standing on either side of him, their hands clasped behind their backs in stiff poses. They were younger than my grandfather. The first woman I didn’t recognize, but the second I did. She was tall, with a narrow face, sharp eyebrows, and graying hair. She was wearing a housedress. The caption read, From left to right: Professor Cordelia Milk, Headmaster Brownell Winters, Professor Calysta Von Laark, 1988.


The picture had been taken one year before the fire. I stared at my grandfather’s face, trying to comprehend the idea that he had once been the headmaster of Gottfried.


I stared at the pages, the words blurring into gray. What had been the cause of the heart attacks at Gottfried Academy, and what did it all have to do with my parents, who had been three thousand miles away when they died? I flipped through the rest of the chapter, looking for more information, but there was nothing else of any interest. I stared at the book, frustrated that it didn’t have more answers. The rest of the chapters were about Attica Falls —the weather, the town’s setting, the demographics of the inhabitants. No wonder the book was out of print.


“Do you think there really is a Gottfried Curse that’s causing the heart attacks?” I asked Nathaniel. If there was, why would my grandfather send me here?


Nathaniel shook his head. “It’s probably just a story made up to sell newspapers. And even if it’s true, nothing’s happened in twenty years. Everyone knows Gottfried is the safest school ever. I mean, we’re surrounded by a fourteen-foot wall, and we have more rules than the military. It’s like your grandfather said: Curses aren’t real. Science is real. People are real. Statistics are real.”


“What about the heart attacks? You can’t tell me you still believe it’s a coincidence. My parents, Benjamin, and now this...”


Nathaniel gave me an apologetic shrug. “I don’t know.”


Students were gathering at the end of the street, getting ready for the walk back. “Better go,” Nathaniel said as he stood up and brushed off his pants. I didn’t move. Instead, I stared into the book, at my grandfather’s photograph.


“Are you coming?”


I hesitated, not wanting to tell Nathaniel that I was meeting Dante. I didn’t want to draw any more attention to us. “I just...need a minute. To think.”


“I’ll wait.”


“No, go ahead. I’ll catch up.”


“There’s no curse, Renée,” Nathaniel said as he picked up his things. “It’s just—life.”


The sun began to set, splitting on the horizon like a yolk. Tucking the book under my arm, I walked down the street until I reached number 46. It was a dilapidated building that looked like a hotel from the 1800s. Dante was waiting for me, leaning against a porch pillar.


“You look worried,” he said, taking my bag.

“Just like your parents.”


I gripped the receiver harder, trying to restrain myself. “It’s not just about my parents. It’s about people dying. It’s about uncovering the truth.”


“Renée, it’s okay that you miss your parents and are confused about their deaths. I mean, it’s hard—”


“No, it’s not okay. Like I said, it’s not only about my parents. Why does everything have to be about my parents?”


I could hear Annie’s breathing on the other end of the line. “Because they died. And it’s not fair, I know. I miss them too; we all—”


“No,” I said, interrupting her. “You don’t know.” And I hung up the phone.


What do you call a secret society that’s not a secret? In Rome they were called the Illuminati. In Greece they were called the Pythagoreans. And at Gottfried they were called the Board of Monitors. According to the Code of Discipline, their official duty was to “represent the voice of the student body to the faculty.” As Gottfried’s version of a student government, they were supposed to “keep the order and preserve peace among the student body.” But the most we’d ever seen of them had been at the Fall Awakening, when they were tapped. They didn’t monitor the halls or discuss school decisions with us. In fact, they never seemed to do much of anything at all.


Yet I always saw them together, whispering as they passed each other in the dining hall, or walking in a group across campus at night because they were the only students allowed out after curfew. But if they weren’t performing their appointed duties, then what were they doing? Everyone knew that they held private meetings, but no one knew where or what for. Charlotte told us that Genevieve would disappear for hours at a time without an explanation. “Terrible things might happen if I tell you,” she said. We all assumed she was joking, but she never smiled when she said it.


Grub Day was the only real day that the Board of Monitors had a defined responsibility, which was to escort everyone down on our first trip of the year to Attica Falls. It was also the only day of the semester that we could wear clothes out of dress code, which would have been more exciting if I hadn’t had to wear three layers to combat the subzero November temperature.


Dante had called me the night before. “Meet me at 46 Attica Passing at five p.m.” He wouldn’t say why. I wanted to ask why so late, but didn’t, for fear of sounding too nosy. So I wrote down the address and went to sleep.


The next morning I woke up to frost on the windowpanes. It was early and Eleanor was still sleeping when I pulled my suitcase out from beneath my bed and unfolded my old pair of jeans. I hadn’t looked at them in months, and when I put them on, their worn fabric flooded my mind with memories of California. But when Eleanor woke up, she pulled on nylons and a skirt, then piled her books into her backpack.


“What are you doing?”


“Going to the library,” she said with a sigh.


“But it’s Grub Day!”


“Oh,” she said. “I totally forgot about that.”


“How could you forget?”


“Other things on my mind, I guess.” She pulled her hair into a ponytail, fluffing it in front of the mirror nervously, and shoved all of her books in her bag, trying not to make eye contact with me. Finally she looked up. There were circles under her eyes. “Look, I’m basically failing Math and History. I’ve been going to see the professors for extra help, but I’m not getting better.”


“Can’t you take a break? Just for one day?”


She shook her head. “If I want to do anything after I leave this place, I have to get my grades up,” she said, slinging her bag over her shoulder. “Eat a pancake at the diner for me,” she said, trying to smile.


“Okay. I guess I’ll see you at dinner? Or are you going to skip that too?” It was meant to be a joke, but it came out a little harsher than I intended.


She shot me a guilty look. “I’ll try to make it.”


Outside, the sky was gray and overcast. Everyone was lined up at the front gate. The Monitors were positioned around the periphery, herding us down the winding road that led to Attica Falls. I wedged myself in until I found Nathaniel. He was standing behind a few girls from my floor: Bonnie, Maggie, Rebecca, Greta, and the twins, April and Allison, who wore matching corduroy pants, sweatshirts, and pom-pom hats, a Gottfried scarf tucked under each of their coats.


“You were great in Horticulture the other day,” Allison said to me as we walked. “I don’t know how you manage to identify the different kinds of soils. They all look the same to me.”


“Oh, it’s easy,” I said. “You just have to smell it. The soil with the most minerals smells kind of like metal.”


“You guys are in Horticulture?” Bonnie asked. “I’ve always wanted to take that class, but it’s so hard to get into. I love flowers, though.”


“Really? I didn’t even have to apply,” I said pensively. “We’ve only learned a little about flowers. So far it’s been more about soil biology. A lot of stuff about root systems.”


“What do you do if you don’t learn about plants?” Rebecca asked.


“We learn how to plant things, not about the plants themselves.” I tried to explain, but they didn’t seem to understand. “The other day we did learn about the soil that produces medicinal plants,” I offered.


Save for the twins, all of the girls gave me confused looks. I guess it did sound kind of silly when I put it that way, but they didn’t know what it felt like to bury something where you knew only you could find it. They didn’t know what it felt like to know exactly which location had the best soil for a certain flower, which minerals rendered weeds edible, which rock deposits gave moss antibiotic properties. I shrugged and kept walking.


Attica Falls was the only town within walking distance from Gottfried. It lay just beyond the campus and was comprised of one main street, Attica Passing, that branched off into side alleys lined with grungy stores, dilapidated houses, and barns. There was a general store, which sold groceries, hunting and camping equipment, and small gifts like balsam fir, locally made maple syrup, and fruit preserves. Across the street was a gas station that only dispensed diesel, and was used primarily for purchasing cigarettes, lottery tickets, and bags of ice. And then there was Beatrice’s, a diner.


Once we got to Attica Passing, everyone dispersed, and Nathaniel and I loitered around the street, deciding where to go first. That’s when I spotted Eleanor’s brother, Brandon, walking into Beatrice’s. Without thinking, I pulled Nathaniel into the restaurant.


Beatrice’s was a dingy old diner that served pancakes all day. They also served other things—eggs, corned-beef hash, meat loaf, and a variety of dishes made with canned tuna fish. Our waitress was in her early forties. She had bottle-dyed red hair sculpted around the top of her head in a way that defied all laws of physics and probably required half a bottle of hair spray. A plastic name tag that read Cindy was pinned to her left breast pocket.


She looked us up and down and then walked us to a table at the other end of the restaurant.


“Actually,” I said, “can we sit over there?” I pointed to the booth on the other side of the wood paneling from Brandon Bell, who was sitting with the rest of the Board of Monitors.


“Fine,” the waitress said with a sigh. She tossed our menus on the table and read out the daily specials in a monotone that was too fast for us to understand, then disappeared behind the double doors of the kitchen.“What are you doing?!” hissed Nathaniel. “Stalking the Board of Monitors?”


“If Cassandra is dead—”


“Which she might not be,” Nathaniel added.


“—and if the school knows, and is covering it up by saying she transferred, then the Board of Monitors might know.”


“And you think they’re going to talk about it out of nowhere, right here at Beatrice’s?”


“Well, we’re not going to hear anything by sitting on the other side of the room.”


The booth was sticky with syrup and grease, its upholstery cracked down the middle, revealing a spongy yellow interior. I took off my jacket and mittens, and sat down. A wood panel was the only thing that stood between our table and the Monitors’Their voices were muffled through the wood. I leaned over and pressed my ear against it. Nathaniel did the same, but to no avail.


“I can’t hear anything,” he mumbled. “What are they saying?”


I put a finger to my lips. Nathaniel gulped down his water, held the empty glass against the panel, and listened through it. “I don’t know,” he said. “I can’t make it out.”


“Oh, give it to me,” I said, grabbing the glass from him.


A junior named Max Platkin was talking. “I would kill,” he said, “to get out of that class. It’s so boring. The prof is practically dead anyway. She can barely sit up straight.”


The table laughed. I gave Nathaniel a shocked look, until I processed the rest of his sentence, and then rolled my eyes.


“Well, next year you’ll be a senior and you can finally opt out of Latin,” Ingrid said. I imagined her tossing her silky black hair over one shoulder.


“Yeah, plus, the headmistress wouldn’t like that,” Schuyler joked. “Killing professors isn’t exactly on the menu.” But just as Schuyler finished his sentence, our waitress approached and pulled a skinny green pad out of her apron. We sat up straight and looked at our menus.


“What do you want?” she said, chewing a piece of gum and not seeming to notice or care that we were eavesdropping on the booth next to us.


I scanned the menu, eager for her to leave. “I’ll have an omelet with sausage and cheese. And an orange juice.”


She scribbled down my order and looked at Nathaniel.


“Just water. And granola.”


“No granola,” she said. “Just pancakes, eggs, hash, or tuna.” She waited with her hand on her hip while Nathaniel flipped through the menu.


“White toast?”


Cindy nodded. After she left, we resumed our positions by the wood paneling.


“She keeps talking about Renée Winters,” Genevieve said, with a hint of disgust. “Asking me to keep an eye on her and her boyfriend.”


I almost gasped when I heard my name. Nathaniel gave me a questioning look, but I ignored it. “Who is she?” asked Schuyler.


“She’s a sophomore,” Genevieve continued. “Apparently she’s the best in her Horticulture class.”


“She’s my sister’s roommate,” Brandon added.


“I spent some time with her in October. She seems nice, but forgettable,” Genevieve said. I glared at her through the wall.

Mrs. Lynch gave a stiff nod and stepped outside.


“Please,” said Headmistress Von Laark, “have a seat.”


I sat in an upright leather chair across from her, staring at her brooch, which looked something like a bear. On top of her desk sat an hourglass filled with white sand, a globe, a stack of papers, and a small pile of books. Behind the desk, a narrow spiral staircase was carved into a stone wall, probably leading down into the bowels of the building.


Headmistress Von Laark smiled. “So, you snuck out after hours to meet a boy?”


I swallowed and nodded. “Just a friend.”


“How did you get out?”


I couldn’t tell her about the chimneys, or they’d block them off for good. “I waited until Mrs. Lynch was on a different floor.”


The headmistress gave me a curious look. “I see. And you ran away when she saw you?”


I nodded. “But I didn’t mean to. I wasn’t thinking. It was dark and rainy. I couldn’t really see her.” I paused. “Please don’t expel me,” I said softly.


The headmistress laughed. “I would have done the same thing.” The second Siamese cat leaped onto her desk. “Have you met my darlings?”


“No, I don’t think so.”


“This is Romulus.” The cat sauntered across her desk, meowed, and curled around the hourglass. “And this is Remus,” she said, stroking the cat in her lap. “Aren’t they handsome?”


I nodded. “Very.”


The headmistress leaned back in her chair. “So, tell me about this Dante Berlin.”


I must have looked puzzled, because she continued, “You two are dating, no?” “No. We’re just friends.”


Von Laark put a finger to her lips. “Hmm,” she murmured. “Are you sure?”


I swallowed. Even if the headmistress had somehow found out about us, the best I could do was deny it. “Yes.”


She gazed at me pensively, her blue eyes fixed on mine. “Professor Mumm tells me you’re excelling in Horticulture. She says you’re the best student she’s had in at least a decade.”


I blushed. “It doesn’t feel that way. There’s still so much to learn.”


She clasped her hands on her desk. “You’re just like your mother. Very modest.”


“You knew my mother?”


The headmistress nodded. “I was a professor of Philosophy here when your mother was a student.”


Questions flooded my head. What was my mother like? What were her friends like? What did she look like? And had the headmistress also had my father as a student?


“Incredibly sharp, your mother. Your father too. And ambitious. You never would have guessed they were from wealthy backgrounds. Always so humble.”


“My father was wealthy?” I didn’t know. His parents had died when I was a baby, and I had only met my four aunts, who were each fussy, overweight, inclined to hats, and generally auntlike.


“Why, of course. You weren’t aware? The Redgrave fortune. Redgrave Architects? They specialized in custom-made foundations, cellars, enclaves, wells, and so on. Quite artful, actually. Tragic that it’s a dying form.”


“I... I didn’t know. He never told me.”


“Robert was a private boy,” she murmured. “Clearly you take after him. Professor Mumm told me that just last week you identified the only form of shrivel root in the field, and were also able to identify the appropriate soil and plot for it to be planted in.”


It was true.


“Very impressive for someone your age,” remarked the headmistress.


“Thanks.”


“Well, I suppose if you have nothing else that you want to tell me, we have nothing more to discuss today.”


She waited a moment, but when I said nothing, she smiled. “Go then, and enjoy your youth.”


Grateful for the reprieve, I stood up. Something about her demeanor was unsettling. Maybe it was her cats.


“Oh and, Renée, tell me, when is your birthday?”


I turned just as the headmistress put on a pair of reading glasses.


“August twentieth. Why?”


“A Leo,” she said, smiling. “How fitting.”


Just before I turned, a file on her desk caught my eye. It was a manila folder partially covered in papers. It was labeled Dante Berlin. I thought back to the day I’d met Eleanor, when she’d told me she’d asked her brother Brandon to check my file in the headmistress’s office. Quickly, I glanced around the room, looking for a filing cabinet. I didn’t see one, though I knew it had to be there somewhere.


“Is there something wrong, Renée?” the headmistress probed.


“No,” I said quickly. “Nothing.” And I stepped into the hall.


To my surprise, Dante was sitting outside on a bench, in a collared shirt, his blue tie loose around his neck. I wanted to stop and talk to him, but knew I couldn’t in front of the headmistress. We made eye contact as I passed, and Dante gave the beginnings of a smile when the headmistress poked her head out the door.


“I’m ready for you,” she said in a firm voice.


I walked by slowly, and as Dante stood up, our hands brushed against each other, his skin cold against mine. The door shut behind him, and I was left alone in the hallway. There was a folded piece of paper on the bench where Dante had been sitting. I flattened it out to find the following words written in Dante’s neat handwriting:


Meet me in front of the library at 7 p.m.


Folding the note into my pocket, I left for class.


“I talked to Minnie,” Eleanor said as she closed the door. I was sitting at my desk, trying to read the footnotes of The Iliad in the dim light of my candle.


I sat up straight. “And?” She hefted her bag onto the desk. “Disaster.”


“What happened?”


“I cornered her in Art. We were working on portraits. I made sure to sit next to her so we would be partners. While I was sketching, I asked her about what happened last spring with Cassandra. That was my first mistake. She got all weird and hunched over, and her face wouldn’t stay still.... It ruined my portrait.”


“What did you say to her, exactly?”


“I just asked her, ‘So what really happened last spring with Cassandra?’”


“A little more tact, Eleanor!”


“Well, I wanted to cut to the chase. She’s not exactly easy to talk to. And besides, I thought she wanted to talk about it.”


“Not to us. She probably thought you were making fun of her.” “Well, I wasn’t, obviously. But now what do we do? There’s no way I can ask her again. She practically ran away when the bell rang. She didn’t even show me the portrait she drew.”


I thought for a moment. “I saw Dante’s file when I was in the headmistress’s office. It was on her desk. She didn’t give me a detention, but she suspects that we’re a couple.”


Exasperated, Eleanor collapsed onto her bed. “Can you please pry your mind away from Dante for just a minute and focus on the problem at hand?”


Ignoring her, I continued. “Do you think everyone has a personal file?”


“I know they do,” she said, staring at the ceiling. “My brother told me.”


I looked behind me to make sure Lynch’s feet weren’t outside the door. “Even dead people?”


Eleanor gazed at me with wonder. “Ingenious! They wouldn’t just throw them away.”


Even though the validity of the séance was suspect, looking up Benjamin’s and Cassandra’s folders couldn’t hurt.


“I didn’t see a filing cabinet, but it’s got to be there. We just need to get into the office.”


Checking the clock, I put on my jacket and grabbed my bag.


“Where are you going?”


“The library,” I said, omitting the fact that I was meeting Dante there.


When I got to Copleston Library, Dante was waiting for me by the entrance, leaning against a stone pillar. A book bag was slung over his shoulder.


“Fancy meeting you here,” I said. He smiled and took my bag, and together we went inside. He led me upstairs to the third floor, which was relatively empty, and set our bags down on a wooden table by the window. I told him about the headmistress and how she had asked me about him.


“The headmistress didn’t mention you at all,” he murmured, gazing at me pensively. “She asked me about how I was feeling and about how my classes were going, then let me go.”


I thought fast. Should I tell him about the séance, about how Cassandra might actually be dead? What if I was wrong? Unlike Eleanor, I decided to go for the tactful route.


“Do you still talk to Cassandra?”


Dante paused and then bent over to open his bag. “Not much,” he said, his back to me.


“But you’ve talked to her since she left?”


He straightened. “Why do you ask?”


“I thought you were friends with her.”


“I was.” “So you still talk to her?”


He hesitated. “No, not really.”


“Not really, or no?” I asked, growing frustrated.


“No,” he finally conceded. “I told you, things sort of fell apart last spring. None of us keep in touch anymore. Would it be a problem if I did? You seem disturbed by the idea.”


“I’m not jealous,” I said defensively. “If that’s what you’re implying.”


“Right,” he said.


There was a long silence. Was he being intentionally vague, or did he actually not know? Judging by the way he treated his ex-friends here, it didn’t seem out of the ordinary for him to cut off Cassandra too.


“So what do we do now?” I asked, assuming his invitation to the library had some sort of mysterious ulterior motive.


Dante gave me a confused smile. “Study, of course. What else does a person do in a library?”


I blushed. “Oh, I... I don’t know,” I said, fumbling my words in embarrassment. I pulled a book out of my bag and opened it in front of me.


“It’s upside down,” Dante said with a smile, as he tilted back in his chair and tapped my book with his pencil.


“Right,” I said, even more mortified as I flipped it around. And in the light of the oil lamps, we studied together until curfew.


What did it feel like to be dating Dante Berlin? Every time he looked at me, it was like he was seeing me for the first time. Every time I got close to him, he inhaled deeply, as if he were trying to absorb as much of me as possible.... Everyone stared when we were together on campus, pointing when our hands grazed against each other’s in class. “They’re looking at us,” I muttered to Dante as we walked through the library together, trying to block my face with my hair. “I don’t blame them,” he said, pushing the hair away from my face. I blushed. I was as much in awe of us as everyone else was. Every night Dante waited for me during study hall outside the dorm, and every night I met him. He always took me somewhere different—a walk around campus, the library, Horace Hall, the lake. And every night I sat by the window, thinking he wouldn’t come, but then there he was, his tall figure like a pale ray of light in the darkness. Every time I saw his face, it seemed even more beautiful and complex than the day before. Every time he touched me, I shuddered and felt all of my warmth, all of my sensation being pulled toward him. It no longer mattered that I didn’t understand the way I felt around him, or the way he felt around me. One touch from him and everything inside of me blossomed with emotion: excitement, nervousness, anxiety, desire. I had never been in love before. Was this what it felt like?


But Dante wasn’t the only thing on my mind. By the second week of November, almost all of the leaves from the maples and oaks around us had dropped off and were now floating on the surface of the lake like a carpet. Eleanor and I were still trying to find a way to get into the headmistress’s office to get Benjamin’s and Cassandra’s files. The possibility of Cassandra being dead too only made me more suspicious about Benjamin’s “heart attack,” and those files were the only chance I had to figure out how he really died. The only problem was that the headmistress’s office was impossible to break into, and if I got caught, I would most definitely be expelled. Usually when I didn’t know how to solve a problem, I asked my parents, but they were dead. So instead I called Annie.


“Remember what I told you about Cassandra and Benjamin?” “The two kids from last year?” she asked, her tone skeptical. “The one who died of a heart attack?”


“Yeah. Well, supposedly a heart attack.”


Annie didn’t respond.


“There’s a possibility that Cassandra might be dead too.”


There was a pause at the end of the line. Finally, Annie said, “How do you know?”


“Well, I don’t know for sure, but we did this séance a couple of weeks ago, and I tried to contact my parents, and I ended up meeting Dante, but that’s an entirely different story. The point is that Eleanor tried to contact Benjamin, but actually ended up contacting Cassandra.”


I waited for her excited response, but it never came. “So…?”


“So that means if the séance was right, Cassandra might be dead too,” I said, exasperated. “And that the school is purposely covering up her death by telling everyone that she transferred. I mean, why would they do that?”


“Maybe they’re not doing it. Renée, it’s a séance. I mean, everyone knows they don’t work. It didn’t even work for you.”


“I guess, but I summoned someone that night. Or at least I heard someone. And so did Eleanor. It couldn’t hurt to check, right?”


“Are you listening to yourself? Summoning? What happened to the sarcastic, skeptical Renée that I knew?”


I stared at the receiver in frustration.


“Is this about you missing your parents?”


“What? No. Well, yes. But it’s not only about them. If Cassandra is dead, that probably means that there’s more to Benjamin’s death too. It couldn’t be a coincidence that they died so close together.”

CHAPTER 8

The Gottfried Curse


MONDAY MORNING, MY ALARM CLOCK WOKE me from the best dream I’d had in months. The autumn sunlight streamed through the windows, and I stretched beneath the sheets, smiling to myself as Dante kissed my wrists, my arms, my shoulders, my neck. “I love you,” he said, running his fingers through my hair.


He leaned in, and all at once I opened my eyes.


Outside it was gray and drizzling, and the dream dissipated into the November mist. Across from me, Eleanor was still asleep, shifting beneath the blankets, her blond hair spilling over her pillow like corn silk. Everything that had happened now seemed like a dream. Eleanor and I had spent the entire weekend trying to piece together what had happened to Benjamin and Cassandra, but with no luck. Maybe today would be different, I thought as I got dressed and headed to class. But by second period we were just as confused.


“The last thing Benjamin remembered doing was kissing Cassandra. After that, everything was blurry,” Eleanor was explaining to Nathaniel. We were sitting in the back of class before the start of Philosophy. “So romantic,” she added.


Nathaniel groaned.


“Anyway,” I said, interrupting her, “since Eleanor had envisioned both of them at the beginning of the séance, she summoned Cassandra too.”


“Which means she’s dead!” Eleanor added loudly.


“Shhh!” I cautioned, glancing around to make sure no one heard. “Which might mean she’s dead,” I corrected. I still couldn’t figure out what had happened at the séance. I had definitely summoned someone—a man who I had assumed was my father. But then why hadn’t he been at the great oak like he’d shown me? Something about it didn’t seem right. “The séance didn’t exactly work for me, so we don’t actually know if it worked for you either.”


Eleanor ignored me. “But the craziest part is how she died,” she continued excitedly. “She was buried alive.”


Both Eleanor and I watched for Nathaniel’s reaction, but he didn’t seem as shocked by it as we were.


“Who did it?” he asked, biting his fingernails.


“She didn’t know. She had some sort of bag over her head when they did it,” Eleanor explained. “I wonder if it happened at school or somewhere else. The last thing she remembered was being brought to the headmistress’s office. After that it went black, until suddenly she was being carried somewhere outside. She was put into a wooden box that was then nailed shut. And then she heard the sound of dirt pounding on top of her until everything faded into nothing. But even if that was her last memory, it doesn’t mean that’s what did her in. I mean, Benjamin’s last memory was kissing Cassandra, and that had nothing to do with his death.”


“Did he say how he died?” Nathaniel asked.


“No. Every time I asked, he kept showing me the same scene of him kissing Cassandra. It was kind of romantic. That’s how I started thinking about her in the first place, and then suddenly I heard her voice in my ear.”


“But if she died, why would the school lie and say that she transferred?” I countered.


“Maybe they didn’t know,” Eleanor said. “Maybe she died after she transferred. Maybe she was summoned to the headmistress’s office just before she left, for transcripts or whatever. And then it happened.”


We both turned to Nathaniel. “What do you think?” we said, almost simultaneously.


Nathaniel pulled at his tie, trying to loosen it. “Why are you telling me all of this?”


“Because we’re not sure if we should believe it or not,” I said. “And you’re the smartest person we know.” Well, that wasn’t exactly true. Dante was the smartest person I knew. Nathaniel was really just nerdy.


“And because we know you won’t tell anyone,” Eleanor added in a low voice. “You won’t tell anyone, right?”


“I won’t tell anyone.”


Eleanor and I exchanged glances and smiled.


“Why don’t you just do another séance and try her again?” Nathaniel suggested.


Eleanor shook her head. “Proper séances only work on Halloween.”


“Either way, the séance sounds iffy,” Nathaniel said to Eleanor. “If it didn’t work the right way for Renée, you can’t trust what you heard either. But if I were you, I’d talk to Minnie Roberts.”


Our smiles quickly faded. What was he talking about? Minnie Roberts? The mousy girl who had dropped her bag in Horace Hall on the first day of classes? I turned to ask Eleanor, who put a hand to her forehead. “Oh my God. Why didn’t I think of that?!”


“Think of what?” I said.


Eleanor turned to me as if just remembering I was there. “Last spring Minnie exploded in the dining hall.”


“I... I remember hearing about that. You mentioned it,” I said to Nathaniel. “It was the night before finals,” Eleanor continued, running through the history quickly. “After Ben died, after Cassie left. Everyone was in the Megaron when Minnie burst in and started screaming about how Cassandra Millet was murdered by the headmistress and the Board of Monitors. She claimed that she saw them burying Cassandra just outside of campus by the woods. She’d been trying to tell the professors, but no one would listen to her.”


“What?” I said, incredulous. “The Board of Monitors?”


“Everyone in the dining hall went nuts, and the professors ended up carrying Minnie out and bringing her to the nurses’ wing.”


“That’s why everyone thinks Minnie Roberts is insane,” Nathaniel added.


“She still might be,” Eleanor murmured. “Rumor has it that her parents sent her to the loony bin last summer.” “Why would she come back?” I asked.


“Her parents are big-time donors,” Eleanor said. “They probably wouldn’t let her leave. I know mine wouldn’t.” She looked at Nathaniel.


“So you think she was telling the truth?” I asked.


Eleanor snorted. “No. Not the whole truth, at least. Why would the Board of Monitors and the headmistress bury Cassandra Millet alive? My brother would never kill anyone … let alone Cassie. Why would anyone kill her?” Her voice trailed off. After the séance, after Eleanor had finished telling me everything she’d seen, I questioned her for hours about her former roommate. Did she have any enemies? Was there anything out of the ordinary about her behavior? The same questions the police had asked me about my parents. And just like me, Eleanor had nothing new to add. Cassandra was beautiful, a straight-A student, no enemies, and no strange behavior; kind and generous to everyone she met. The least likely person to be murdered.


Just like my parents, I thought.


“She might not even be dead,” Nathaniel reminded us.


“He’s right,” I said. “I summoned someone, but I don’t think it was my father.”


“Either way, we need to ask Minnie,” Eleanor concluded.


When the bell rang, Miss LaBarge stood up and began talking about Plato and something about the soul and a cave, though I was barely paying attention. Halfway through class, her lecture was interrupted by two raps on the door. Without waiting, Mrs. Lynch flung herself inside, wearing a gray frock and loud square shoes.


“The headmistress wishes to see Renée Winters.”


Miss LaBarge put down her lecture notes and looked at me. “I suppose you have no choice.”


I gathered my things and followed Mrs. Lynch into the hall, glancing back at Nathaniel and Eleanor, who were giving me questioning looks.


“Out of your room after curfew,” Mrs. Lynch barked as she held me by the elbow. “With a boy. Outside without a pass. Running from a teacher.”


“You’re not a teacher,” I muttered, but if she heard me she didn’t let on.


“Better start packing your things,” she said with a sneer. “The headmistress has an extremely low tolerance for blatant disobedience.”


The list of rules I’d broken was longer than I thought.


Suddenly, the possibility of expulsion became frighteningly real. When I had first arrived at Gottfried, being expelled might have been the answer to all my problems. But now the thought was unimaginable, and not only because I didn’t have a home to go to. I loved my classes; I was leagues ahead of everyone in Horticulture, and I found Philosophy to be far more interesting than any of the classes I’d taken in California. For the first time in my life I was actually learning things that correlated to my interests. To my surprise, the classical subjects that Gottfried offered were far from outdated; in fact, I had a feeling they would be useful in the future, though I wasn’t sure how. Not to mention meeting Dante and Eleanor, and even Nathaniel. Yes, the only thing we shared was Gottfried, but now that my parents were gone, that was all I had.


The headmistress’s office was in the northern wing of Archebald Hall. Calysta Von Laark was standing by a tall stained-glass window, petting a Siamese cat on the sill. A second Siamese twined between her ankles. Her wintery hair was parted to the right and pinned up with a silver comb, a frizzy wave of short white tresses falling across her left eye.


When she saw us enter, she left the window and took a seat in a plum velvet chair behind her desk. Soundlessly, the cat jumped off the windowsill and followed her, leaping into her lap.


Spanning the wall was a giant mural of The Last Judgment by Michelangelo. The mere sight of the painting was frightening. Crowning the ceiling were angels sitting atop a bed of clouds, the paint peeling off of their chubby faces in rosy flakes. Below them, throngs of men, women, and children clutched each other, covering their eyes and hiding their half-naked bodies, their faces contorted in pain while they waited for the final fall. Demons carrying clubs and pitchforks pulled them toward the abyss by their ankles while they thrashed about in the air, trying to grasp anything that would keep them in the blue world behind them.


The floor was made of a dark marble. Words, engraved into the floor in Latin, circled the edge of the room and spiraled down to its center. I translated it roughly with the Latin I had learned from Dante. To capture the mind of a child is to gain immortality. It was the same phrase that the headmistress had recited at the Fall Awakening when she had tapped the Board of Monitors.


“Renée,” the headmistress said, stroking the Siamese. A heavy sapphire ring rested around her slender middle finger. “Welcome.” Her tone was surprisingly gentle. Behind her, a wood and glass hutch filled with what looked like golden walking sticks was partially obscured by her desk. Above each stick was a plaque with a nameplate and a set of dates. Could this woman have buried Cassandra alive? Now that I was sitting across from her, watching her pet her cat, the idea seemed preposterous.


Mrs. Lynch spoke up immediately. “She was outside past curfew with that boy Dante Berlin. And when I told them to stop, they ran away from me. And the girl is out of dress code.”


“She didn’t tell us to stop,” I blurted out, before realizing that I had admitted I was guilty. Sighing, I looked down to inspect my skirt. It wasn’t out of dress code.


“Untucked shirt,” Mrs. Lynch said. “And a run in the stockings.”


I twisted around to look at the back of my legs, only to see a long run inching up my left heel. “That’s not my fault!” I protested.


“Thank you, Lynette,” the headmistress said soothingly. “Would you give us a moment alone?”

In the cold night air, my body tightened. Goose bumps prickled across my skin, and I remembered that I was barely wearing any clothes. Immediately, I felt self-conscious, even though I knew no one was there to see me. Stupid Renée. Now I might freeze to death before I even made it to the green, and if Eleanor ever conjured me up in a séance, all she would see was me tiptoeing around campus like an idiot in my shorts.


But what else could I do? If my father was out there, I had to find him. I walked across campus, past the lake and through the trees, until I was standing in eyesight of the great oak. Its gnarled trunk looked thicker without its normal shroud of leaves, and its bare branches extended over the lawn like a system of roots. It was the exact same tree as the one that had flashed through my mind during the séance.


And then in the distance, two figures materialized out of the darkness by the Ursa Major statue. I squinted. It looked like a man and woman. It had to be my parents. Without thinking, I ran toward them. They seemed to be heading in the direction of the girls’ dorm. Maybe they were coming to meet me. A gust of wind carried the sound of the voices across the path, and I wrapped my arms around myself in the cold.


“Mom?” I called out as I approached. “Dad?”


At the sound of my voice they froze, then spun around. I realized, to my horror, that they weren’t my parents at all. Instead, I was face-to-face with Gideon and Vivian. “I ... I’m sorry,” I said, and backed away. “I thought you were someone else.”


Vivian looked wildly around her, as if caught in the midst of a crime. When she was sure I was alone, she whispered something to Gideon, and they both looked at me. Why were they out here at night in their antique suits, and what were they talking about, and why did they always look so angry?


It’s okay, I told myself. They’re just students. What could they do to me?


Gideon said something to Vivian in Latin, and she nodded and approached me. The sky rumbled with thunder, and I began to back away from them, when I felt someone directly behind me. A hand clamped over my wrist and pulled me aside. I recognized his touch immediately.


“Dante.” My voice was barely audible in the night wind. “Stay behind me,” he said, stepping in front of me, his voice low and authoritative.


“Friends,” he said, looking between Gideon and Vivian, “what are you doing out past curfew on a night like tonight?”


Vivian narrowed her eyes. “I could ask you the same.” It was the first time I had heard her speak English; it sounded clumsy and unpleasant.


Gideon came up behind her, his hand on the small of her back, and said something to Dante in Latin. Dante paused and then responded.


What had he said? Even though my eyes were trained on Gideon and Vivian, the only person I was aware of was Dante. He loomed in front of me, gripping my wrist as he spoke, my arm tingling as it grew cold, now a familiar sensation, and one that I was slowly growing fond of. It was uncomfortable, unexplainable, unsettling. The woodsy smell of his body tickled my nose, his shirt brushing against my back with every breath that he took. I shifted my weight until our legs were almost touching.


Suddenly he turned to me. “Let’s go,” he said, giving a sidelong glance to his old friends, who were walking away.


“What did you say to them?” I asked as we headed toward the girls’ dorm.


“Nothing. Just that you were here to meet me.”


But I wasn’t. “Why are you here?”


But Dante’s eyes were focused on something in the distance. “Someone’s coming.”


The front door to the girls’ dorm opened, and Mrs. Lynch stepped outside. She must have heard us talking, because she peered into the darkness.


We backed away to the safety of the trees, but a burst of lightning illuminated the campus. In a flash, Mrs. Lynch’s eyes met mine in a furious, gleaming glare.


“She saw me,” I whispered.


Thunder shook the ground below us, the sky cracked open, and it began to rain.


“Come on,” Dante said. I trembled as he took my hand, my fingers chilling as they curled around his.


We ran across the green, the rain pouring down on us as we splashed through mud and puddles until we reached Horace Hall. The double doors were locked, and as Dante bent over them, I squinted into the rain, waiting for Mrs. Lynch’s stocky figure to appear. “She’s probably on her way. What do we do?” I said, water dripping down my nose. But just as I finished speaking, the doors clicked and Dante pushed them open.


“After you,” he said, and we slipped inside, the doors locking behind us.


Horace Hall was different at night. Without students, it was so quiet I could hear the water dripping from my hair as Dante led me upstairs and into the darkened classroom where I normally had Latin.


“What just happened?” I asked, my lips quivering. “And why were you out there tonight?”


“I was following them.”


Dante glanced out the window to make sure Mrs. Lynch wasn’t coming, then turned to me. I must have looked surprised at finally getting a real answer from him, because he smiled.


“I figured you wouldn’t stop asking until I told you, so there it is. I was following them. And you,” he said. “Once I realized you were there.”


“Why?”


“I think they’re up to something. And no, I don’t know what. I’m just getting used to your questioning routine, so please take it easy on me.”


He was still wearing his clothes from school, his blue oxford shirt now soaked through and matted against his chest. He ran a hand through his hair, shaking the water from it.


His eyes traveled across my body, and a slow smile spread across his face, reminding me that I was in my pajamas. I pulled at my T-shirt, which was now transparent and clinging to my body.


“What?” I asked, trying to sound nonchalant.


He let out a laugh. “Nothing,” he said, shaking his head. “You seem to be out of dress code.”


“I didn’t realize we were going to class.”


“Well, as your teacher, I should make you write lines.”


I gave him a challenging look. “What do you want me to write?” He took a step toward me. “Cupido,” he uttered. His voice was full and rich, as if he weren’t uttering just a word, but a command.


I picked up a piece of chalk. “How do you spell it?” I asked, my voice shaking.


Dante wrapped his fingers around mine, guiding my hand. A prickling sensation climbed up my arm, and I shivered. “What does it mean?”


When he spoke, he was right behind me.


“The thing about Latin is that you can say so much more than in any other language. The words, the tenses. They’re different, they evolve—it makes it easier to explain what you’re thinking. Do you ever feel like you want to say something, but you don’t know how to say it?”


I nodded. Mostly when I was with him.


“Can I try something?” he whispered.


He turned me toward him, brushing his hand across my cheek, and played with the loose wisps of hair around my neck. His fingers tickled my skin, and suddenly I lost all of my words. I swallowed and nodded.


My heart began to beat faster, and everything inside of me began to tremble like the leaves of a tree rustled by an autumn breeze.


My legs moved without me, and I stepped closer to him until our legs were tangled. He grazed his fingers down my thigh, and with a sudden, almost uncontrollable force, pressed me against the blackboard, the slate cool against my skin. Lacing his fingers through mine, he pulled me toward him until our lips were barely touching. His eyes were ravenous as they crawled over me; something about him felt raw and dangerous; even if I’d wanted to push him away, I knew I couldn’t. I closed my eyes, waiting for the kiss, but it never came. His grip softened, and he ran his hand gently through my hairas he kissed my neck, my shoulders, my arms. I closed my eyes, my breath growing shallow as I felt his mouth against my skin, his hand on the small of my back, sending shivers up my spine.


“Renée,” he sounded out, as if he were learning my name for the first time.


I wanted to say something back, but I didn’t have the words to describe what I was feeling. I thought I knew what it meant to kiss, to touch, to embrace, but this was something that I’d never felt before.


I closed my eyes and raised my hand to his face, passing it over his nose, his eyes, his lips, memorizing the way they felt. He pulled me toward him, and without thinking, I leaned into his kiss.


But just before our lips met, he turned his head. “Not on the lips.”


Suddenly, everything inside me began to deflate. “What?”


“Do you feel different when you’re around me?” he asked.


I nodded.


“How?”


“My skin tingles and everything goes numb, like my body is starting to freeze. Do you feel it too?”


He took my hand and traced it down his arm. He closed his eyes. “Desire,” he breathed. “That’s what it means. And yes, I feel it too.”


I leaned against the blackboard, my chest warm and flushed. “Why...why won’t you kiss me?”


He let his hand slide down my leg, and I felt my insides melt. “I want to. I’ve always wanted to. But please, just trust me.”


“Why do I feel so strange whenever I’m near you?”


He leaned his forehead against mine, his hair brushing against my cheeks. “I don’t know.” Outside, the rain had let up. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get you home.”


Our fingerprints and chalky silhouettes were imprinted on the blackboard, smudging the Latin scrawled across it. Dante slipped his hand into mine, and together we escaped from the building, into the night. We didn’t speak. We didn’t have to. We both knew that some things couldn’t be translated into words.


“Where were you?” Eleanor asked. She’d been pacing around the room when I climbed in through the chimney. “You’re soaking wet!”


“I was outside. And then in Horace.”


“Horace Hall? What were you doing there? And why did you run off like that?”


While wiping my face with a towel, I told her about my father, about Vivian and Gideon, about Dante and their conversation in Latin, about Mrs. Lynch, and finally about our time in the classroom. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, back up. You made out with Dante Berlin in Horace Hall?”


“Sort of...”


She gave me an expectant look, waiting for me to continue. “Well, was it good?”


I considered all of the events that led up to the moment in the Latin classroom. Why wasn’t my father by the tree, like I’d seen during the séance? And what had happened between Dante and his old friends? Why wouldn’t Dante kiss me? It was confusing and frightening and unexplainable and surprising. And strangely wonderful. It didn’t even matter anymore if I liked it or if I didn’t like it. I felt something...something too delicate and ephemeral for words. “It was unreal.”


“So you thought you were going to see your parents, but instead you found Dante and Vivian and Gideon?”


I nodded. “I don’t know why my dad wasn’t there, though.” “Maybe you got the location wrong. Or maybe it wasn’t your dad that you saw.”


“It was definitely him. I mean, who else could it be?”


Eleanor shrugged. “I don’t know.”


I thought Eleanor would offer some absurd suggestions or ask me to recount every detail like she normally did, but instead she sat at her desk and looked out the window.


I wiped my cheeks with my hands and began to wring out my hair, when I noticed her standing in front of my bed. “What?”


“Now you’re supposed to ask me about my night.”


A wave of guilt passed over me. I had been talking about myself and my problems all week. All month, in fact, never once asking Eleanor about how she was. “Right. Sorry. I’m terrible. What happened?”


Eleanor sat cross-legged on my bed. “I summoned Benjamin Gallow.”


I was pulling a sweatshirt over my head when her words registered, and I froze. “And?” I asked, my voice muffled through the cotton.


“And there are complications.”


“What do you mean?” I asked, fumbling with the arm and head holes until I finally forced my shirt on.


“Well … I don’t think I did it right, exactly. First I was thinking of him, but then I was thinking of him and Cassandra, and then I was thinking of Cassandra even though she wasn’t dead, and then I sort of summoned both of them.”


“But that’s impossible. Cassandra isn’t dead; she transferred.”


“Not according to her.”

Eleanor nestled herself between the girls and introduced me. “Everyone not in the know, this is Renée. She’s my roommate.”


Genevieve gave me a fake smile. “We know who she is. Why do you think she was invited?” Then she looked at me. “The headmistress is always talking about you. She says you’re one of the best students in your year in Horticulture.”


I gave her a confused look. I hadn’t met the headmistress. How could she be talking about me? But Eleanor cut me off before I could say anything.


“And she’s dating Dante Berlin.” She smiled, her blue eyes growing wide as everyone in the room looked at me with new interest.


Genevieve cocked her head. “Really?”


I blushed. “We’re not dating. We’re just friends.”


Eleanor rolled her eyes. “She’s being modest. Dante is practically obsessed with her. He’s even tutoring her in Latin.”


“That’s not true. I mean, he is tutoring me, but it’s just because I’m terrible at it. And the headmistress couldn’t have said that about me. I’ve never even met her.”


This didn’t seem to bother Eleanor. “Professors talk. Maybe Professor Mumm told her about you.”


“And you shouldn’t be so sure that you and Dante are just friends,” Charlotte said, tossing her curly hair over her shoulder. “Latin is a Romance language, isn’t it?”


“Don’t be stupid, Charlotte,” Genevieve snorted. “It’s a Latinate language.”


Charlotte looked stung by her remark. “But aren’t the Romance languages based on Latin?” she asked.


“The language is dead,” Genevieve said with a hand on her hip. “Just like the people who spoke it.” A rigid silence fell over the room, and Genevieve stood up and cleared her throat. “Okay, is everyone ready?”


She opened a leather-bound book titled Talking to the Dead and began to call out instructions. “Sit in a circular formation. Position a candle in front of each person, thus forming two concentric circles.”


It took me a few seconds to realize what we were doing, but when I did, I had to suppress a groan. “A séance? Really?” I mouthed to Eleanor after we sat down. She was right; I did think it was stupid. Nonetheless, I couldn’t leave now. We sat in a circle around the candles. Eleanor was to my right, Genevieve to my left. Our shadows flickered across the walls.


“The sacrificial flesh, when burned, should form a triangle,” Genevieve read.


I pinched Eleanor.


“Ow!” she squealed. Genevieve squinted at her. She passed around a pair of metal scissors, and we each snipped off a lock of hair and held it over the flame of our candle until it ignited. Instantly, the room was filled with the stench of burning hair. Eleanor winced. I coughed and wafted the smoke from away from my face, but Genevieve didn’t flinch. Without asking, she took the top sheet from Charlotte’s bed and laid it on the floor. After all the hair had burned out of her candle, she took it and dripped wax across the sheet so that it formed a large triangle within the circle of candles.


Charlotte gasped.


“Relax,” Genevieve scolded. “It’s just wax; it’ll come off. Now, we all have to concentrate on our ‘object,’ or, in other words, the dead person, which Charlotte and I have decided will be the first headmaster of Gottfried Academy, Bertrand Gottfried.” Before she continued, Eleanor interrupted. “Why do you get to decide?”


“Because I organized it. And we have to see if it will even work.”


“But I don’t want to talk to him.”


“Do you have a better suggestion?”


Eleanor went silent. “What about a celebrity or something.” She winked at me. “Or how about Benjamin Gal-low?” Now I understood why Eleanor made sure I came. I gave her the beginnings of a smile.


Genevieve rolled her eyes. “What, so you can ask him how he died? We all know how it happened, Eleanor. He had a heart attack.”


There was a long silence as everyone tried to pretend they weren’t paying attention.


“You know, I don’t really want to talk to the headmaster either,” I said. “Can’t we all just pick our own objects?” I gazed around the circle for approval, but everyone avoided eye contact.


Genevieve sighed. “Fine.” Raising the book again, she said, “We each have to think of someone who died. Once you choose the person, you have to concentrate on them as hard as you can. The book says, ‘The object that you choose should be someone you were intimately acquainted with or know a great deal about. In order to conjure it from the dead, you must visualize your object in its entirety. Repeat its name in your head, and then once you hear its voice in your ear, silently speak your question.’”


Genevieve lowered the book and gave us a somber look. “Does everyone understand?”


“What if we can’t hear its voice? How will we know when to ask?” Eleanor said.


“If you do it right, it’ll work,” Genevieve said, dismissing her question. “Okay, now close your eyes and visualize your object.”


I closed my eyes and thought about my parents while Genevieve began to chant in Latin. I tried to imagine my mother sitting in the sunroom with a book in her lap, and my father eating toast while doing a crossword puzzle. But their images kept fading away from me. Sitting in Genevieve’s dorm room surrounded by candles and girls I barely knew, I felt so far away from my parents that it was hard to conjure any sort of tangible memory. It was as if they had ceased to exist in my mind as real people, and instead had become nothing more than the blurry idea of two people I had once met in a dream.


I opened my eyes and looked around the circle. Everyone else had their eyes shut, concentrating on their objects. I shut my eyes again and tried to focus, but the images of my parents kept darkening, becoming overshadowed by the one person who I couldn’t get out of my head since coming to Gottfried Academy. Dante.


I pictured him in the library, the way he’d pulled me through the stacks of books, his legs brushing against mine as we’d waited, hushed, in the dark. I blushed just thinking about it. Where was he right now? Probably in his room in Attica Falls, sleeping, or maybe reading. I wondered if he was thinking of me too.


Then a gust of wind blew through the open windows, rattling the shutters and rustling the papers on Genevieve’s desk. The candles flickered.


A whisper blew around us like an autumn breeze. The low murmur of voices filled the air, though none of us were speaking. My body acted without me, and I leaned toward Genevieve and cupped my hands around her ear as if I were about to tell her a secret. Then my mouth began to move against my own volition, the words coming out jumbled and strange. They were more sounds than words, eerie utterances that spilled out of me faster than I could process them. Even my voice was different—it was deeper, the pitches varying quickly and capriciously, as if coming from a different body. I tried to make it stop, to stop speaking, but I couldn’t control my lips or my tongue.


One by one, each of us leaned toward the girl to our left, perched against her ear like we were playing a game of telephone.


And then I felt something tickle my ear. Before I could turn to see what it was, a voice began whispering to me. It was Eleanor, but it wasn’t. Her voice was low and deep and sounded like it belonged to a man. My dad. I was so shocked that I completely forgot I was simultaneously whispering to Genevieve. The only thing I wanted to do was listen. All at once, a million questions crowded my head. I chose the most important one and concentrated on it. How did you die?


The voices stopped. All I could hear was Eleanor’s breath, deep and husky, on the back of my neck. And then a sound rolled off her tongue, which turned into another sound that folded into another. The words spilled into my ear like a flood. They were nothing but strange sounds that started as words but transformed into an echo of a place, a smell, a feeling, a taste that I once knew.


The ocean. I felt its sticky air clinging to my skin. I smelled the rain as it pounded against the asphalt and evaporated into steam. I heard the seagulls crying as they circled above the marina, the tide lapping to shore, and then a splash.


The image of a person thrashing in the ocean appeared in my mind. He was in the deeper side of the marina, past where the boats were docked. He was being pulled under by something, and was reaching out into the air, grabbing at nothing while the waves pushed him under. I thought it was my dad, but I couldn’t understand why he was drowning and where my mother was. But just as quickly as the image had entered my head, it vanished.


My mind was racing. Where are you?


All of sudden an image flashed through my mind. It was of an ancient tree with long sweeping branches. It seemed familiar. I focused on the image, trying to place where I had seen it. Somewhere in California, maybe, in the redwood forest, or at a friend’s house. For the first time in months I thought about places that I had taught myself to forget, but none of them matched the tree in the image.


Finally, Eleanor stopped talking.


At the same time, my mouth slowed until the sounds stopped. I regained control over my hands and pried them free from Genevieve’s ear. I tried to move my tongue, and to my relief I could move that too. Once separated, the other girls seemed to be experiencing the same disbelief I was. For a moment none of us moved as we pondered what had just happened.


Slowly, everyone began talking.


Bonnie heard from her grandmother, who had died four years ago. Charlotte had spoken to Kurt Cobain, and looked like she was about to faint from the shock of it. Greta was visited by her old tennis coach, and Maggie by Audrey Hepburn. I wanted to ask them questions, but I was still in shock over the fact that I had actually conjured my father from the dead. A few of them asked about my encounter, but I barely answered. I was still trying to figure out what had happened and what it meant—the marina, the drowning, the tree.


Lost in my thoughts, I gazed out the window. It looked out on the lake, which was surrounded by giant oak and spruce trees. And then it clicked. Amazed at how obvious it was, I stood up.


Eleanor approached me just as I was about to leave, and pulled me aside. “We have to talk,” she said in a tone that was so serious I couldn’t believe it was Eleanor.


I pushed my hair out of my face. “Can it wait till later?”


“Not really,” she said, studying me. “What’s wrong?”


“How can I get outside?” I asked, my knees brushing against each other as I shifted my weight and scoped out the room.


She gave me a strange look. “You climb down the chimney to the basement,” she said slowly. “Why?”


“It...it worked. It actually worked. I talked to my father. And I...well, I just have to go. I’ll explain it all later.”


“Do you know how to get back? Want me to go with you?”


“Don’t worry, I’ll figure it out. I’ll meet you back in the room. Okay?” I bit my lip.


“Sure,” she said, though I knew she was skeptical. “If you walk past the furnace, there’s a fire escape. It leads to the back of the dorm. The alarm won’t sound; it stopped working years ago.”


I smiled in gratitude. “Thanks.”


“Are you sure you don’t want me to go with you?”


I nodded and grabbed my things. “I’ll see you later.”


I shimmied down the chimney chute until I got to the basement. Squeezing my way through the fireplace, I lowered my feet to the ground. Steam hissed from the pipes lining the ceiling, filling the room with the soggy smell of laundry and mildew. I hid behind a large beam and surveyed the room to make sure Mrs. Lynch wasn’t lurking in the hall. To my left was the furnace room, to my right the laundry machines. In front of me was a long cement corridor. Everything seemed to be made of corrugated metal. There were rusty pipes everywhere, leaking a viscous liquid that left yellow stains on the floor. Otherwise the room was empty. I counted to three and ran down the hall, dodging the drips until I spotted an eroded metal staircase that led to a fire escape.

CHAPTER 7

Twisted Whispers


ACCORDING TO PROFESSOR BLISS, SOME CULTURES think that Fridays are unlucky, especially when they fall on Halloween, but what happened that Friday had nothing to do with luck. I’ve never been a superstitious person. I’m not scared of graveyards or curses. In fact, ever since my parents died, it seemed like I was drawn to death. Every word my professors uttered seemed morbid and ominous, and everywhere I looked things were dying: moths dangling in spiderwebs under the radiator, bees curled up on the windowsill, and the oak trees, now thin and naked, their leaves crunching under my shoes like beetles. But I wasn’t afraid. I didn’t believe in life after death, and I definitely didn’t believe in ghosts. That Friday was windy and overcast. The clouds hung heavy in the sky, their bellies black and swollen with rain. Gottfried didn’t do anything to celebrate Halloween. In fact, I think the school intentionally ignored it, which I found strange, though acceptable. The day had been eerie enough already. I had spent most of it indoors, waiting out the storm. Eleanor told her brother Brandon about the stolen diary, but there wasn’t much he could do except keep an eye out. The one thing he did know was that Mrs. Lynch hadn’t taken it. If she had, word would have gotten to him, since he was on the Board of Monitors.


“What did you write in it that’s so bad?” I asked Eleanor. “Everything,” she said. When I pressed her for specifics, she evaded my questions. “I just hope that whoever has it keeps it to themselves. If the stuff I wrote in there got around, I would kill myself.”


I still didn’t know who had passed me the note in History class, but something about the way Eleanor refused to talk about it made me sure she knew what the rhyme meant. All I knew was that 21F was Genevieve Tart’s room, though why we would go there was a mystery to me. Up until that point, I thought I was more or less a patient person, but Eleanor was testing my limits. “Does it have something to do with Halloween?” I asked, but she wouldn’t answer. “Come on, it’s Friday night, we’re supposed to do whatever it is the note meant any minute now. Why can’t you just tell me? I mean, what’s the big secret?”


“Why can’t you just wait and see?” Eleanor said, sitting on her bed in her school clothes with a book in her lap. A single candle illuminated the room. “Besides, if I tell you, I know you won’t come. And if you don’t come, we won’t have enough people. Plus, I think you’ll like it.”


“That doesn’t make any sense. If you think I’ll like it, then why wouldn’t I come?” “Because you’ll think it’s stupid. And you never like things at first.”’


“What do you mean?” I said, taking offense. “Of course I do.”


Eleanor rolled her eyes. “You didn’t like me. And you didn’t like Dante. And you didn’t like Gottfried.”


I sighed, but before I could respond, there was a tap on the wall over Eleanor’s bed. It was 10:45 p.m. We both froze and listened. There was another tap, then two more.


Eleanor’s face perked up. “It’s time.”


She opened her dresser and pulled out two candles. “Are you ready to go?”


Room 21F was on the fifth floor. We were on the third.


I gave her a skeptical look.


“Fine,” she said. “I’ll give you one hint, but you have to promise you’ll come.”


I nodded. “Suffice it to say, it has to do with Genevieve Tart and some of the other girls. They have these secret gatherings that no one gets invited to except for the girls that Genevieve thinks have potential. Whatever that means.”


“What do they do?”


“Each gathering is different. And sometimes people aren’t invited back. So don’t say anything ridiculous before you give it a chance.”


Defensive, I put a hand on my hip. “Why would I say something ridiculous? Do I say ridiculous things? And what if I don’t want to be invited back?”


Eleanor shook her head and pulled her hair back into a loose ponytail. “See, this is exactly what I’m talking about.”


“Fine. I won’t say anything impolite or rude. In fact, I’ll try not to speak at all. Now, how do we get past Lynch?”


Eleanor smiled. “You’ll see,” she said, and unbuttoned her skirt.


I looked at her blankly. “What are you doing?”


“I don’t want to get my clothes dirty,” she said, peeling her stockings off. “You should probably take yours off too if you don’t want to ruin them. It’s dusty in there.”


I raised an eyebrow. “In where?”


I thought the fireplace in our room was merely decorative, but as it turned out, it wasn’t. Eleanor threw the candles into a bag that she hung around her wrist. On the side of the mantel was an iron knob. Eleanor pushed it to the left, and the flue creaked open. A mixture of cold air and dirt gusted into the room. I waved it away with my hand, then peered up into the shaft. A sprinkling of soot fell on my face.


“Have you done this before?”


“All the time.” I was skeptical. She hadn’t done it all this year.


“It’s the only way,” she added, as if reading my thoughts.


Then, wearing just a tank top and a pair of pink underwear, she stepped into the fireplace and hoisted herself up. I watched as her torso, then her legs, and finally her feet disappeared into the chimney.


I stripped down and changed into my pajamas—a pair of shorts and an old T-shirt—then followed her. The chute was sooty and so narrow I barely fit inside. Metal rungs were nailed to one side, creating a makeshift ladder.


“Don’t fall,” Eleanor teased, her voice echoing against the brick walls.


I looked down. The shaft of the chimney ran all the way from the basement to the roof, connecting our room to the rooms above and below it. I let out a nervous laugh and tightened my grip on the rungs. Wisps of broken spiderwebs floated around the edges of the passage, getting caught in my hair. My knees scraped against the brick as I inched up.


We emerged on the roof. Dozens of other chimney stacks poked out around us.


“The ladders were for the chimney sweeps,” Eleanor explained, counting three stacks to the right, and then two down. “This one,” she said before climbing inside.


Descending was faster than going up. Eleanor counted to herself as she stepped tenuously down the rungs—15, 14, 13, 12—and then stopped.


“I thought Genevieve Tart was on the Board of Monitors,” I said. “Aren’t they supposed to follow the rules?”


Eleanor glanced up at me. A finger of soot was smudged across the right side of her forehead. “Exactly. Lynch would never suspect Genevieve.” Eleanor tapped the flue twice with her foot. After a moment, it creaked open. “And besides,” she said just before squeezing her body through the narrow hole leading to the fireplace, “this was her idea.”


Genevieve’s room was lit by candlelight. Seven candles were positioned in a broken circle on the floor, and seven girls were lounging about the room. I knew some of them from my classes; a few others were friends of Eleanor’s. The rest were juniors who I had seen around campus but never met before. There were legs everywhere—Maggie’s thin calves draped over a bed frame as she talked to Katherine; Greta’s athletic thighs crossed on the carpet, cradling a magazine; Charlotte’s pale knees, which she hugged while Rebecca braided her hair; Bonnie’s ankles, just visible beneath her nightgown as she opened the windows; and Genevieve’s long, tan legs, which stemmed from a pair of blue shorts.


“Finally,” Greta said, closing her magazine.


Eleanor wiped her hands on her thighs. “Are we the last ones?” she asked, lighting our candles and placing them on the floor with the others.


Charlotte nodded. Charlotte was Genevieve’s roommate. She had large eyes and banana curls that bounced when she walked. The walls above her bed were plastered with posters of actors and musicians, the most prominent being David Bowie, whose hollowed face stared back at me over the foot of her bed.


In contrast, Genevieve’s side of the room was pink and neat and bespoke an obsessive attention to order. Everything was placed in a careful arrangement: the makeup on her dresser in perfect symmetry, the notebooks and folders on her desk all organized by color, the photographs on the wall framed and centered.

Welcome back ÓMÓ SÓNGÓ(son of thunder)

Get well soon son of sango

I picked it up and flattened it out. In a loopy blue cursive, which didn’t look like Eleanor’s handwriting, it read:



When darkness falls and eyes stay shut





A chain of voices opens up.





Let wax not wane give breath to death.





Room 21F





Friday, October 31





11 p.m.





p.s. Shhh




I glanced suspiciously around the room to see who had thrown it, but everyone was focused on the board. “Did you write me that note?” I whispered to Eleanor.


“What note?” she mouthed with a grin, and held up an identical piece of pink paper with what looked like the same words on it. Putting a finger to her lips, she bent over her notebook and started copying the terms on the board.


While Mr. B. talked about cremation, my mind drifted from death and burials to the cryptic note and what it meant. Absentmindedly, I started doodling in the margins of my paper.


Renée, I wrote in cursive, and then again in bubble letters and then in the loopy handwriting of the mystery note. I drew a tiny picture of the moon above a lake. And then stick figures of people swimming in it. And then for some reason, I wrote Dante. First in print, and then in large, wavy letters, and then in all caps. Dante. Dante. DANTE. I had just finished writing, when I heard someone say my name.


“Renée?”


I shook myself out of my daze to discover that Mr. B. and the entire class were staring at me.


“Earth to Renée. The most primitive tombs. What were they called? ” he repeated.


I glanced at my notes for the answer, but they were covered in doodles.


“Dante,” I blurted out, reading the first word I saw. Immediately my face went red. “No, sorry, I meant … I meant dolmen.”


I winced, hoping I was right so that I would be saved from further embarrassment. Thankfully, Dante wasn’t in my class.


Mr. B. smiled. “Correct,” he said, returning to the board. He drew a diagram of a stonelike lean-to, which I recognized from the reading. I took notes and kept my head down for the rest of class.


After the bell rang, Eleanor and I walked back to the dorm. But when we climbed the stairs to our room, the door was ajar. We exchanged surprised glances and pushed it open. At first it seemed like nothing was different. But the papers in my desk drawer were out of order, my bookshelf was rearranged, and my dresser drawer was pulled slightly out. The same was true for Eleanor’s.


“Someone was definitely here,” Eleanor said, looking through her closet, which she claimed was messier than it had been; though I doubted it could get any worse than it was before.


There were no locks on any of our doors, but it was an unspoken rule that you never entered someone else’s room without permission. “Who do you think it was? Should we report it? Maybe it was Lynch. You know she doesn’t like me,” I said.


Suddenly Eleanor ran to her underwear drawer, as if remembering something important. She rifled through it, throwing its contents on the floor, and then sighed. “No. We shouldn’t report it,” she said, her back to me. “If Lynch wasn’t the one who took it, I definitely don’t want her trying to get it back, because then she’d read it.”


“What are you talking about? What’s missing?”


She turned to me. “My diary.”

“In that exact spot in the library?”


Dante straightened out his tie. “As I recall, you were there too.”


He was right. How had I happened to find them? It was a little coincidental. So fine, maybe he had a point. But there were other things that I still had questions about.


“They mentioned Eleanor and her brother. I heard that Brandon doesn’t like you, or Gideon. Why?”


“I don’t know. Maybe out of a personal distaste? Do you know why people dislike you?”


“Who dislikes me?” I said forcefully. I was a nice, considerate person. Why would anyone dislike me?


Dante grinned. “It was hypothetical.”


I blushed. “Oh. Well, how come you never talk to Eleanor, even though you sit next to her in assembly?” “She never talks to me.”


Frowning, I leaned forward. Was he mocking me? He had legitimate answers to all of my questions; questions that I was sure would force him to reveal the truth about Benjamin and his old friends. But what kind of admission was I expecting?


“Why do you live off campus?”


“I don’t like shared bathrooms.”


“Why are your hands so cold?”


“Poor circulation.”


Sighing, I pushed my hair out of my face and collapsed back in my chair.


Tapping his fingers on the desk, Dante gave me a pensive look. “There’s something else, isn’t there?”


“Why am I the only one you talk to?” I asked softly.


Dante hesitated. “Because you’re impulsive. And stubborn. And too quick to judge. You question everything and you can’t keep your thoughts to yourself, even when you’re wrong.. ..”


Incredulous, I gaped at him and was about to interrupt, when he cut me off.


“And you’re sincere. And searching. And challenging. Even when you’re angry, you’re so full of life that it spills out of you. You think that nobody understands you,” he said gently. “But it’s not true.”


My lips trembled, and I was unsure of whether I wanted to laugh or cry. “You didn’t answer my question,” I said, trying to hide the quiver in my voice.


Dante smiled. “I talk to you because you make me laugh.”


I told Eleanor everything. Which was that I had found out nothing. And upon her advice I put my investigation on hold. The only thing I didn’t tell her about was the last bit, partly because I wanted to keep it for myself, and partly because she wouldn’t let me get a word in edgewise. Eleanor had a crush on our History professor, Mr. Bliss, and couldn’t stop talking about him. So maybe he was young and sort of good-looking for a teacher, but in reality, he was closer to our parents’ age than he was to ours, and he smoked out the window before class, and he ate a weird sandwich every day for lunch that made him smell like onions.


“But it’s not just the way he looks,” Eleanor said, licking the oatmeal off her spoon. “It’s what he says. He’s brilliant.”


I rolled my eyes. We were in the dining hall, eating breakfast before class.


“Like that thing he said the other week. What was it?”


I shrugged and played with the crusts of my toast.


“Oh right, I remember,” Eleanor exclaimed. “He said, ‘The truth is generally seen but rarely heard.’ Isn’t that just so true?” A few months ago I would have agreed with it, but now I wasn’t so sure. Nothing that I had seen in the past month had seemed like the truth. How had my parents died? How had Benjamin died? I was beginning to doubt that the truth even existed. “Ironic that he said it out loud,” I muttered.


“You’re just in a bad mood because of your Latin test.”


She was partially right. I did get a C on my exam, but that was intentional and I wasn’t about to admit it to Eleanor. Regardless of Latin, I was still convinced that most of the things Professor Bliss taught us were made up. “Okay, so what about that time he told us that Napoleon was actually a little boy? Or his theory that ghosts actually exist?”


“He’s just a spiritual person,” Eleanor said. “And how do you know who Napoleon really was? You weren’t alive back then.” I sighed. Thankfully, it was time for class. And lucky for Eleanor, we had History.


Professor Lesley Bliss was in his late thirties. “Call me Mr. B.,” he had said on the first day. To my surprise, he was the same professor who I had walked in on teaching Advanced Latin on my first day of school. As a result, I thought he would be cold and brooding like the students he taught, when in fact he was exactly the opposite.


He was a grown-up boy, with a goofy smile and free-flowing hair that flopped in front of his eyes while he lectured. He always wore hiking clothes to class—zip-off pants and khaki shirts rolled up at the sleeves—which made him look like he had just come from digging in some exotic location.


“Burials,” he began, and approached the board, drawing several images in chalk. The first was a pyramid, the second was a funeral pyre, and the third was a coffin, just like the one I had seen on the board in Advanced Latin. I looked at it again. In Horticulture, we were also studying burials, though of course there we were using bulbs.


“Why do we bury our dead?” His nose was dented in at the bridge like a sphinx; the cause of which I could only imagine had been a freak archaeological accident.


I thought about my parents. They had requested in their will that they be buried side by side in a tiny cemetery a few miles from our house. “Because it’s respectful?”


He shook his head. “That’s true, but that’s not the reason we do it.”


But that was the reason we buried people, wasn’t it? After gazing at him in confusion, I raised my hand, determined to get the right answer. “Because leaving people out in the open is unsanitary.”


Mr. B. shook his head and scratched the stubble on his neck.


I glared at him, annoyed at his ignorance and certain that my responses were correct. “Because it’s the best way to dispose of a body?”


Mr. B. laughed. “Oh, but that’s not true. Think of all the creative ways mass murderers have dealt with body disposal. Surely eating someone would be more practical than the coffin, the ceremony, the tombstone.”


Eleanor grimaced at the morbid image, and the mention of mass murderers seemed to wake the rest of the class up. Still, no one had an answer. I’d heard Mr. B. was a quack, but this was just insulting. How dare he presume that I didn’t know what burials meant? I’d watched them bury my parents, hadn’t I? “Because that’s just what we do,” I blurted out. “We bury people when they die. Why does there have to be a reason for everything?” “Exactly!” Mr. B. grabbed the pencil from behind his ear and began gesticulating with it. “We’ve forgotten why we bury people.


“Imagine you’re living in ancient times. Your father dies. Would you randomly decide to put him inside a six-sided wooden box, nail it shut, then bury it six feet below the earth? These decisions aren’t arbitrary, people. Why a six-sided box? And why six feet below the earth? And why a box in the first place? And why did every society throughout history create a specific, ritualistic way of disposing of their dead?”


No one answered.


But just as Mr. B. was about to continue, there was a knock on the door. Everyone turned to see Mrs. Lynch poke her head in. “Professor Bliss, the headmistress would like to see Brett Steyers in her office. As a matter of urgency.” Professor Bliss nodded, and Brett grabbed his bag and stood up, his chair scraping against the floor as he left.


After the door closed, Mr. B. drew a terrible picture of a mummy on the board, which looked more like a hairy stick figure. “The Egyptians used to remove the brains of their dead before mummification. Now, why on earth would they do that?”


There was a vacant silence.


“Think, people! There must be a reason. Why the brain? What were they trying to preserve?”


When no one responded, he answered his own question.


“The mind!” he said, exasperated. “The soul!”


As much as I had planned on paying attention and participating in class, I spent the majority of the period passing notes with Eleanor. For all of his enthusiasm, Professor Bliss was repetitive and obsessed with death and immortality.


When the he faced the board to draw the hieroglyphic symbol for Ra, I read the note Eleanor had written me.


Who is cuter?


A. Professor Bliss


B. Brett Steyers


C. Dante Berlin


D. The mummy


I laughed. My hand wavered between B and C for the briefest moment. I wasn’t sure if you could really call Dante cute. Devastatingly handsome and mysterious would be the more appropriate description. Instead I circled option D. Next to it, I wrote Obviously! and tossed it onto her desk when no one was looking. Eleanor rolled her eyes, wrote something below it, and tossed it back to me.


Has he kissed you yet?


I wrote a one-word response and passed it back.


No!


She slid it back with a reply. I unfolded it in my lap.


What’s taking him so long? Maybe he doesn’t know how, and that’s what he’s so pensive about.


I smiled and scrawled back a response. I was wondering the same thing.


Maybe he doesn’t like me like that. I mean, I don’t even know that much about him. He deflects all of my questions. And he called me a “friend.”


Eleanor looked puzzled when she read my note. Out of the corner of my eye I watched her crush it in her fist and drop it into her backpack. Then she mouthed “Later” to me and focused on the board.


Just as Mr. B. turned to write something on the board again, a folded piece of pink paper hit my arm and dropped to the floor.

Eleanor looked at me for permission to divulge, and I shrugged.


“Can you keep a secret?” Eleanor asked him, lowering her voice seductively.


Nathaniel glanced nervously at Eleanor and then at me. “Of course I can. Who am I going to tell, anyway?”


“We’re talking about Dante Berlin.”


“Oh,” he said, not seeming very excited. “What about him?”


Keeping my voice low, I told him what had happened when he’d cut his finger. “Have you ever heard of that before?” If anyone would know, it was Nathaniel. He knew everything about science and math.


Nathaniel stared at me, his eyes magnified through his glasses. “I... I don’t know, Renée. Maybe you were seeing things.”


I shrugged. I probably was. So why did I want to believe so badly that I wasn’t? Nathaniel picked at his tuna. “What’s so great about him, anyway? So he doesn’t have any friends. Lots of people don’t have friends. Why does that make him interesting?”


“Oh, come on. Haven’t you seen him?” Eleanor exclaimed.


“It’s because he’s tall, isn’t it? Tall and the long hair.”


Even Nathaniel’s crude description made me want to see Dante again. Unfortunately, he never came to dinner, probably because he lived off campus.


“He’s really smart,” I murmured.


“And confident,” Eleanor added.


“It’s like he’s older than everyone else,” I said. “Like he knows what he wants and isn’t afraid of taking it.”


“What she’s saying is that he’s manly.” Eleanor grinned. “Though I think you meant colder, not older.”I laughed, but Nathaniel wasn’t amused. “There is one explanation,” he said.


Eleanor and I went quiet, waiting for him to continue.


“Cold skin, older than everyone else, withdrawn from society? The only humans who have those characteristics are dead.”


There was a long silence. Nathaniel was right, but Dante was a living, breathing, moving person. I laughed. “Are you implying that Dante Berlin is dead?”


Nathaniel blushed and looked at his plate, from which he had barely eaten anything. “I... I don’t know. It was just an observation.”


Eleanor smiled, twirling a ringlet of hair around her finger. “Dead beautiful.”


By the middle of October, the last of the trees had changed colors and the entire campus was blushing red and orange leaves. Every morning while I walked to class, the breeze would pluck them from their branches and carry them around campus, making them swirl around my feet like a flutter of monarch butterflies. After a month at Gottfried, things were getting better. My grandfather called to check in on me every so often, but our conversations were brief. I told him about my classes. Horticulture was quickly becoming my favorite. Surprisingly, it wasn’t about plants at all; and while we did spend some time learning the different species of flora and their climates, we spent most of our classes learning about soil, root and irrigation systems, and how to plant things. I was usually the best in the class, and I loved it.


I had made friends with several people, including some of the girls on our floor, who I got dinner with when Eleanor was busy. Brett and I were also becoming friends. I kept bumping into him outside the girls’ dorm or outside the lunchroom when Eleanor and I were leaving, as if he were waiting for someone; but he always walked with us. Although our discourse primarily consisted of light, insubstantial banter, it was okay; it reminded me of the way things had been with me and Wes, who I still hadn’t heard from. Annie, I had. We tried to talk on the phone every week, but the pauses in our conversations were growing longer and longer as we became more involved in our separate worlds. And my world was quickly beginning to revolve around Dante.


We kept meeting after the paper-cut incident, though he still wouldn’t admit that anything weird had happened. After only two weeks, I was getting A’s on all of my assignments, and finally felt like Professor Lumbar was warming up to me. I should have been ecstatic, but when I saw a big A scrawled on top of my latest exam, all I could think of was losing Dante. I clearly didn’t need tutoring anymore, and Dante would know that when he saw my grades. The problem was that I liked having an excuse to be around him. Friday had become my favorite day of the week because of our private sessions. Every time I looked at him, I discovered something new. A freckle on his neck or the white vestiges of a scar next to his left ear. And I couldn’t deny the bond I felt in knowing that he too had lost his parents. He was the only one I could talk to about it—he always knew exactly what to say and what to ask to make me feel better, and he knew so much about dealing with death that I was becoming almost dependent on his advice. It seemed like I had no other choice. So I began to purposely write down the wrong conjugations; I made grammatical errors and mixed up vocabulary words, and to my relief, my grades began to drop. Dante glanced suspiciously over my marked-up exam, bleeding with red ink, and suggested we start meeting twice a week. I happily obliged. I still wanted to ask him about Benjamin Gallow, about Gideon and his old friends and what had happened last spring, but that hadn’t gone over so well last time. So I settled on something easier.


“What was growing up in Canada like?” We were sitting in the Latin classroom, the candlelight casting shadows across the beamed ceilings.


“Cold,” Dante said, leaning toward me, his dark eyes glimmering. “And wild.”


“What do you mean wild?”


“My parents were ranchers. My father hunted wild game and sold the meat and pelts to traders, and my mother was a taxidermist. We lived in a farmhouse that was so far north there were more trees than people. The house was full of dead animals, but outside was even worse because there the bears and wild boars were alive. It would snow for weeks in the winter—big sheets of it piling up past the windows; wind so cold you’d freeze to death if you sprained an ankle while you were hunting or gathering wood. In a place like that, you’re constantly reminded of your own mortality; of the strength of nature, of how unforgiving it can be. It was humbling.”


I let my eyes fall across his body, envisioning him trekking through the wilderness, an ax in one hand, a shotgun in the other, a dead deer slung around his shoulders. What I would have given to be snowed in with Dante.


“Maine must seem tropical to you,” I joked lamely.


Dante laughed. “Not exactly.”


“Do you like it here?”


He thought about it. “I think it’s good for me.”


His answer was slightly disappointing. What I wanted him to say was something along the lines of, “I was miserable here until I met you.” Or, “You are the only thing worth studying at Gottfried.” Or, “Renée, you are the love of my life. I will follow you to the ends of the earth, carrying a deer on my shoulders that I killed with my bare hands just to prove my devotion.” Or, “I want to take you right now with my strong, inexplicably cold hands, and whisper sweet Latinate words in your ear.”


“And I think you’re good for me,” Dante said.


I blinked. Did he actually say that or was I merely fantasizing about him saying that? He leaned toward me, waiting for me to respond.


“What?” I said softly.


Dante rubbed the side of his neck. “I mean, I think this is good for me. Talking to you. I’d almost forgotten what it was like to have friends.”


Friends, I thought, my heart dropping. Right. “What exactly happened with them?” I asked gently. “You never told me.”


Dante scrutinized my face. “We just grew apart. Benjamin died and then Cassie...transferred. After that I realized I had different priorities from the rest of them.”


“What do you mean?” Annie and I were growing apart because we were apart, not because I chose to push her away.


“We all met in a Latin translation class. Back then we were attracted to the same ideas, about myth and lore, about morality, about how to be good people and make the right decisions. I’m still fascinated by all that, but I can’t say the same for the others.”


“But it didn’t have anything to do with Benjamin’s death?”


Dante considered how to respond. “No. Just a coincidence.”


Coincidences. There seemed to be a lot of those going on recently. “And I’m guessing it was also a coincidence that you found Benjamin in the woods?” Just like I had found my parents in the woods, I thought.


Dante crossed his arms. “Yes,” he said, as if it were obvious.


“It’s just too weird that he died of a heart attack in the woods just like my parents. Out of the blue.” I gave him a sidelong glance, hoping he would tell me something about Benjamin’s death that he hadn’t told the school.


“If you’re looking for incriminating information, I don’t have any. He was dead. In the woods. A heart attack, like they said.”


I studied him, trying to figure out if he was telling the truth.


“So why were you spying on Gideon that night in the library?”


“I wasn’t spying; I was studying.”

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.


I sat up in my seat. “Are you okay?”


“What are you talking about? I’m fine,” he said, his thumb hidden within his fist by his side.


I gazed at him and then at his arm. “Let me see your hand.”


Dante gave me a bemused look, but didn’t move.


“Let me see it,” I repeated, taking his arm. It was ice cold. Startled, I let go.


Dante studied me, waiting to see how I would react.


“Open your fist,” I said softly. “Please.”


One by one, he lifted his fingers until his palm was resting on the desk. I looked at his thumb, but there was nothing. No cut, no blood, not even a trace of a cut. Baffled, I picked up his hand. My fingers began to tingle, but I didn’t care. I held his thumb to the light, examining every angle. There was nothing.


I gaped at him. “You just cut yourself and it’s not there anymore.”


“I told you,” he said with a confused smile, “nothing happened.”


“But why did you pull away like that? Your skin, it... it started to bleed... I saw it.”


“Maybe the pen leaked.”


I picked up the pen and shook it. “It didn’t.”


Dante looked into my eyes. “Renée, you’re imagining things. How could my skin have healed that quickly? I’d have to be some sort of monster.”


Bewildered, I shook my head. That wasn’t what I meant at all. “I don’t think you’re a monster.”


“What do you think I am, then?”


That he was brilliant. That he was dangerous, but still made me feel safe. That he was different from everyone else I had ever met.


“Strangely perfect,” I said, before I could stop myself.


Dante looked at me with surprise as the words left my mouth. He didn’t reply for what seemed like ages, and I looked away in embarrassment, staring at my Mary Janes. “You must have a backward view of perfection, if that’s what you think.” He closed my notebook and handed it to me. “See you next week? Same time, same place.”


Mortified at my admission, I looked at him and then at his thumb. Had I had actually seen what I thought I had, or was Dante right?


“No one’s perfect, Renée.”


I nodded, but as I watched him stand up, I realized that everything that was wrong with him was right. His solitude, his callous reticence, his unpredictability—it only drew me closer—his flaws making him all the more real.


“I always knew there was something different about him,” Eleanor said, half joking, when I told her what happened. I tried talking to Annie about it, but she literally thought I was losing my mind. Was I feeling okay? Maybe I should see a counselor at school. She meant well, but it only frustrated me more. I saw what I saw, and Annie was treating me like a child. Eleanor, on the other hand, was exactly the opposite.


“I can’t believe I told him I thought he was perfect,” I said, lowering my fork. We were in the Megaron, eating dinner. “It just came out.”


“Well I guess he is sort of perfect, in a brooding, self-important kind of way. Which really makes him imperfect.”


“Or more perfect,” I said, just as Nathaniel walked up with his tray.


“Can I sit with you guys?” he asked.


I smiled. “Of course.”


Eleanor pushed her tray over to make room, and then continued. “Maybe he’s superhuman. A demigod. After all, he is an Adonis.”


I shook my head. “He’s too dark to be a superhero.”


“That must make him the villain, then,” Eleanor said with a mischievous smile. “Even better.”


Nathaniel pushed his glasses up. “What are you guys talking about?”

“What happened?”


“They turned out to be different people than I thought they were.”


“What do you mean different?”


“Capable of doing things I never thought they would do.”


What was he talking about? “Like what?”


“Anything,” he said. “That’s the point.”


“Does it...does it have anything to do with Benjamin Gallow?”


Dante stared at me, his eyes almost threatening. “Benjamin Gallow?” he said softly, so that only I could hear. “What do you know about Benjamin Gallow?”


“Nothing,” I said quietly. “Just that he was dating your friend. And that he died. And that you found him.”


“So that’s why you wanted to talk to me. You wanted to gossip about a boy’s death.”


“No! I didn’t mean to—I just—I don’t think he died of a heart attack.”


Dante began to respond, but held back, taking me in. “What do you think he died of, then?”


“I was hoping you’d know.”


“And why are you so interested? So you can talk about it with your friends?”


His words hit me in the face like a slap. “My parents died three weeks ago. I was the one who found them. They both died of heart attacks. At the same time. In the woods. Just like Benjamin.”


I could feel his eyes on me as I turned away from him and faced the board.


He didn’t say anything for a long time. Finally he said stiffly, “I can’t help you.”


“Does that mean I’m right?”


Dante lowered his voice. “Maybe you’re right,” he said, almost mocking me. “Maybe it wasn’t a heart attack. Maybe it was an attack of the heart.” It took me until Saturday to tell Eleanor about my suspicions about the connection between Benjamin’s death and my parents. She thought I was losing it.


“You’re losing it,” she said, looking at me in the mirror while she did her hair. It was the start of the weekend and she was helping the Humanities department hold auditions for the school play.


I didn’t respond.


“And aren’t those the same things anyway? A heart attack and an attack of the heart?”


“Who knows. He was just making fun of me.”


“What did you say after that?”


“Nothing. The bell rang. And then he was gone.”


“Maybe he’s losing it.” She pinned her hair back with a clip. “See, you’re perfect for each other.” I rolled my eyes. “It means he’d rather torture me with teasing than actually answer my questions.”


“It means you’re reading too much into it,” she said, grabbing her bag. “Okay, I’ve gotta go.”


Eleanor would be busy all day, so we agreed to meet for dinner in the dining hall.


“I would say you should try out,” she said, “but only boys are allowed to act in plays. School policy.”


I frowned. “Why?”


“Apparently Shakespeare did it.”


“Isn’t that illegal or something. Like sexist?” Even if it wasn’t illegal, it was wrong.


Eleanor shrugged. “It’s a private school. They can do whatever they want.”


I normally would have been angry at such a ridiculous policy, though this one didn’t seem much worse than Gottfried’s other rules. But I was relieved to finally have time to myself. Or at least that’s what I thought. I had so much homework that I spent virtually the entire day in my room, huddled over my books, leaving only for dinner. But Eleanor never showed up. I waited outside the Megaron, drawing circles in the dirt with my shoe as everyone but her filtered in. Finally I gave up and went inside by myself. Thankfully, I spotted Nathaniel sitting alone in a corner, surrounded by papers and glasses of milk. He was even more stressed about his homework than I was, and together we ate a quick meal before going back to the dorms.


When I got to my room, Eleanor still wasn’t there. Maybe she was with the production crew. Alone at my desk, I didn’t know what to do with myself. I tried to write my philosophy essay, but as I stared at the words I had written on the page, the letters blurred, rearranging themselves into shadowy silhouettes of my parents. And when I was able to push them out of my mind, they were only replaced with Annie, Dante, and a perturbing amalgam of Wes and Brett.


I glanced at the clock on the wall. It seemed that every time I looked at it, another hour had passed and I still hadn’t gotten anything done. I needed to clear my head, but with Eleanor gone, I didn’t have anyone to talk to. I could go next door and see if her friends were there, but the only thing we seemed to have in common was Eleanor. I checked the clock again. If it was eight o’clock here, then it would be five o’clock in California. I picked up the phone and called Annie, but no one answered. Slamming the phone down into the receiver harder than I had intended, I paced around the room. It was messy and cluttered with clothes. I picked them up and shoved them into my dresser, and continued cleaning until I found my way under the bed to get a sweater out of my suitcase. Dust bunnies were everywhere, and thin wisps of spiderwebs fluttered down from the bed frame. Yet as I reached for my suitcase, my hand was met with something soft. I pulled it back to find a collection of dead moths dangling in a dusty knot. I gasped and shook my hand, wiping it on the carpet until the moths were stuck to the floor. I grimaced at them. I had to get out of this room. Without thinking, I shoved my books into my bag and slipped out the door.


The hallway welcomed me with the tart aroma of femininity. Floral and citrus floated through cracked doors; hot bursts of steam wafted in from the bathroom showers; and the faintest trace of cloves seeped out from the fourth-year wing. The hallway was empty, yet muffled chatter hummed behind each door, giving the dormitory a feeling of enchantment, as if every room held its own enclosed universe.


Having only an hour until nine o’clock curfew, I scurried down the stairs and into the crisp night air. When I reached the fork in the path that led to the different corners of campus, I stopped. I didn’t know where I was going or what I would do. In a split-second decision, I took a right and started to jog to the library.


Copleston Library was a massive Greek structure with thick Doric columns holding it up in the front. Above them, a triangular façade bore an ancient war scene. Engraved around the rim was another phrase in Latin: HOMO NIHIL QUAM QUID SCIET EST.


The giant iron doors creaked on their hinges when I opened them, and a warm burst of air escaped from inside. The librarian was a mole-like woman with bad posture, closely cropped gray hair, and a faint mustache. She stopped me at the entrance. “The library closes at nine o’clock,” she cautioned. I jumped at the sound of her voice, which was far too loud to be appropriate in a library. “And no food or beverages. Or smoking. Or game playing. Or talking. Or whistling.”


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 his 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.

“I... I just found it,” I said. “I was looking for soil....” Even though that wasn’t the truth.


Professor Mumm’s face softened, and she took me by the shoulders. “Come away, dear,” she said. “No use in looking at it. There’s nothing we can do now.”


She led us back to the chapel, where she collected our bulbs and bags of soil, murmuring comments as she sifted through each sack—none of which were the right match.


When it was my turn, she took my bag and shook it around. “An unorthodox pairing,” she said, almost to herself. “Crocuses normally thrive on dry soil, cool and salty ...though this might work. Yes...interesting. Very interesting. The mixture of the red clay and oil...that would definitely work.”


Professor Mumm’s eyes swept over me, curious. “Class dismissed.”


As everyone dispersed, Eleanor ran up next to me. “What just happened?”


“I was just walking around when I found it,” I said, knowing that even at Gottfried it wasn’t normal to be pulled by an invisible force to a dead animal.


“Weird. It looked like you knew where you were going.”


“Well, I didn’t,” I said quickly.


“How did you figure that out about your soil, by the way? That was pretty smart.”


“I don’t know. The soil that I picked just seemed to complement the bulb. They had the same coloring, and the bulb was dry and the soil was kind of greasy.” I shrugged. “It seemed right.”


“Intuition!” Eleanor said, mocking Professor Mumm’s voice. “Your gut!”


I laughed. “She seemed pretty freaked out.”


“She teaches gardening. She needs a little excitement in her life.”


Just as we were about to head over to Philosophy, Brett ran over to us. “You’re a natural,” he said to me.“Hi, Brett,” Eleanor said with a smile, and leaned toward him to wipe the dirt from his face with her thumb.


“Now you really do look like a farmer,” I said.


He laughed. “Is it that bad?”


Eleanor smiled. “A cute farmer.” I rolled my eyes as Brett grinned. His resemblance to Wes wasn’t just physical. He had the same easygoing walk, and spoke with the same flirty yet vacant banter; he even had the same teeth. That should have made me like him more, but instead it made him seem ordinary and unexciting.


“So, girls, what next?”


“Philosophy,” I said, even though Horticulture started so early in the day that we had a short break before breakfast. But just as I spoke, Eleanor said, “Oh, nothing.”


“Nothing?” Brett said. “Maybe we should make that a something. Breakfast?” Unable to contain myself, I laughed, and then tried to cover it up with a cough when Eleanor gave me a threatening look. How many girls had he used that line on? Eleanor smiled. “That would be great. Renée was just saying how hungry she was,” she said, elbowing me in the ribs.


“Um, yeah. Famished.”


As we entered the Megaron, Brett talked about his classes and his family and his friends from home. At times I actually forgot that we were talking to Brett, and spoke to him as if he were Wes. So I wasn’t surprised to discover that their lives were almost identical. He was the oldest of three and played on the rugby and soccer teams before coming to Gottfried, where he was disappointed that neither sport existed. Now he was the captain of the track-and-field team. He had a yellow Labrador, which he liked to play Frisbee with in the summer; his favorite color was blue; he liked any music except for country; and his favorite author was Hemingway (typical), or so he claimed, though I doubted he had read anything by him other than whatever was assigned at school. By the time breakfast was done and we were walking through the double iron doors of Horace Hall, Eleanor’s eyes were glazed over with admiration.


“He’s so dreamy,” she said while we climbed the stairs to the third floor. “So manly. So American. So...tan.”


“So rehearsed,” I said, opening the door to Philosophy.


The classroom had high-beamed ceilings and two windows that overlooked the green. A few people were already sitting down, talking or shuffling through their papers. We took seats in the front, and I couldn’t help but scan the room for Dante. He wasn’t there.


Nathaniel scurried in behind me, his skinny frame hunched under the weight of his backpack, making him look like a turtle. He sat down in the desk next to mine just before the bell rang.


“Hi, Renée,” he said, winded and sweating. He pushed his hair out of his face and adjusted his glasses. “Did you finish your essay? I stayed up almost all night doing it. I had to rewrite it four times before I got it right.”


A wave of queasiness passed over me. “Essay?” I looked to Eleanor, hoping it was news for her too, but she pulled hers out of her notebook.


“Yeah, about a myth that we want to believe in. You didn’t do yours?”


“No, I had to miss class because Mrs. Lynch sent me home to change. Remember?”


“Oh, right …” Eleanor gave me an apologetic look. “Sorry. I thought you knew. You looked so busy during study hall that I figured you were working on it.” I sighed and tried to figure out what to do. “No, it’s my fault. I should have asked.”


“I have a couple of my drafts,” Nathaniel said. “They’re not that good, but you can use one if you want.” He handed me a few crumpled sheets of paper.


It was a sweet gesture, but I wasn’t keen on cheating. Plus, even though everyone knew Nathaniel was a math prodigy, I wasn’t so sure that his brilliance transferred to writing. “Oh no, that’s okay. I’ll just explain what happened to the professor.”


But Nathaniel wouldn’t let me refuse. “I really don’t mind,” he said earnestly, holding the essays in front of me. We both stared at them. With nothing else to do, I took them and began to read.


His handwriting was messy and there were smudges of eraser marks all over the pages. The first one was titled, “I Want to Believe in Myself.” I flipped to the next draft. “I Want to Believe that Calculators Can Replace the Human Brain.” And “I Want to Believe in Imaginary Numbers.” The last one was the most promising, though it looked more like a math proof than an essay, and it didn’t really fit the assignment.


I bit my lip. “These are really...good,” I said, handing them back to him, “but I’d feel bad passing in your work. I’ll just talk to the professor after class. Hopefully he’ll understand.”


Nathaniel shrugged and stuffed them back into his notebook. “It’s a she.”


As if to complete his sentence, a woman entered the room, carrying an armful of papers. She set them on the desk and walked to the front of the class, holding a book. I gazed at her in awe. It was the same woman who had saved me from going to the headmistress’s office.


Annette LaBarge wasn’t beautiful. In fact, she was quite plain. Her clothes were functional and basic, comprised mostly of earth tones: today a linen skirt that exposed her slender ankles and cork clogs. I pictured her in one of those women’s catalogs, posing on a rocky beach while holding a long twig or a piece of driftwood.


“Fairy tales.” Her voice carried like a wind chime. “What if they were true?”


She glanced around the room, her eyes wide with excitement. She was a small woman, thin and fragile looking, though her presence seemed to fill the room with energy. “What if the world once had giants and witches; animals that talked and monsters that threatened all that was good? These stories are the foundation of our society, and what most of Western philosophy is based on.


“I want you to think of the books we read this year not only as philosophical stories, but as realities.” She opened her book and flipped to the first page. “So let’s go there, to that faraway land where ‘Happily Ever After’ still exists, and see where it takes us.”


She began to read. “Once upon a time...”


And listening to the delicate sound of Miss LaBarge’s voice, I was lulled into a daydream; a simpler place where people were either good or evil, and love lasted forever, where problems could be solved just by believing, where fairies and fauns helped you find your way when you were lost.


After class, I waited until everyone filtered out, then approached the front of the room. Miss LaBarge was standing behind her desk, organizing some papers. I cleared my throat, and she looked up. “Oh hi, Renée.” I was surprised that she remembered my name. It made me feel even more terrible about not doing my homework. “Professor, I—” “You missed class earlier this week and didn’t know there was an essay due. I know.”


I looked at my feet. “I’m sorry.”


“Just do it for next week,” she said gently. “Write about something you don’t believe in, but wish you did. And next time, just ask.”


I nodded and hugged my books to my chest. I thought about my parents. About Benjamin Gallow. About the graveyard behind the chapel. What did I want to believe in? Life after death.


When I got to Crude Sciences at the end of the day, Dante was waiting for me at our table. This time, with no Latin book, no journal.


“Hello,” he said, pulling my chair out for me.


Surprised, I sat down next to him, trying not to stare at his perfectly formed arms. “Hi,” I said, with an attempt at nonchalance.


“How are you?” I could feel his eyes on me.


“Fine,” I said carefully, as Professor Starking handed out our lab assignments.


Dante frowned. “Not very talkative today, I see.”


I thrust a thermometer into the muddy water of the fish tank in front of us, which was supposed to represent an enclosed ecosystem. “So now you want to talk? Now that you’ve finished your Latin homework?”


After a prolonged period of silence, he spoke. “It was research.”


“Research on what?”


“It doesn’t matter anymore.”


I threw him a suspicious look. “Why’s that?”


“Because I realized I wasn’t paying attention to the right thing.”


“Which is?” I asked, looking back at the board as I smoothed out the hem of my skirt.


“You.”


My lips trembled as the word left his mouth. “I’m not a specimen.”


“I just want to know you.”


I turned to him, wanting to ask him a million questions. I settled for one. “But I can’t know anything about you?”


Dante leaned back in his chair. “My favorite author is Dante, obviously,” he said, his tone mocking me. “Though I’m also partial to the Russians. I’m very fond of music. All kinds, really, though I especially enjoy Mussorgsky and Stravinsky or anything involving a violin. They’re a bit dark, no? I used to like opera, but I’ve mostly grown out of it. I have a low tolerance for hot climates. I’ve never enjoyed dessert, though I once loved cherries. My favorite color is red. I often take long walks in the woods to clear my head. As a result, I have a unique knowledge of the flora and fauna of North America. And,” he said, his eyes burning through me as I pretended to focus on our lab, “I remember everything everyone has ever told me. I consider it a special talent.”


Overwhelmed by the sudden influx of information, I sat there gaping, unsure of how to respond.


Dante frowned. “Did I leave something out?”


I thought about Benjamin, about my parents. This was my opportunity. “What about your friends?” I asked gently.


“I thought it was already decided that I didn’t have any.”


“And I thought it was already decided that there was more to you than you let on.”


Dante gave me a pensive look. “Maybe I did have friends once.”

Attica Falls. The gas station, the general store, the diner. It was like an abandoned town. A stray cat and a rusty pickup truck were the only signs of life. “Where does he live?” I asked.


“In an old boarding house. I’ve only seen the outside, but it looks depressing.”


“No wonder they were all so close,” I murmured. “They didn’t have anyone else.” It was a situation I could relate to.


“I know. Can you imagine not having a family?”


“Yeah,” I said quietly. “I can.”


Eleanor went silent, and I immediately felt the uneasiness that always followed when I brought up the death of my parents.


“Wait, how do you know all of this? Your brother?”


Eleanor shook her head. “Don’t you remember? Cassie was my old roommate.”


Friday morning we woke up earlier than usual for our first Horticulture class. All of the other classes started at eight, but for some reason Horticulture was at six. Something to do with plants and the sun, I assumed. Eleanor was in the class too, and I glanced at my schedule while I waited for her to get ready.


Horticulture   F 6:00 a.m.   The Chapel


“Hey. Our class is in the chapel?”


“I guess so,” Eleanor said, pulling on a wool skirt while simultaneously trying to pin back her hair. “Ironic, considering how ungodly it is to get up this early in the morning.” She took one last look in the mirror and then grabbed her bag. “Okay, let’s go.”


It was a clear autumn day. The oak trees towered over us as we walked down the cobblestone path. The chapel was in the westernmost corner of campus. It was dreary looking, with gothic steeples that harkened back to the Dark Ages. All of the arches seemed to be slouching over, as if they had gotten tired of standing upright after three centuries. Statues of saints were carved into the façade, framing the door with blank, eyeless faces. Water stains ran down the stone figures, and a bird’s nest was wedged between two of the apostles.


“It’s been out of use for ages,” Eleanor said. “I think like a hundred years ago Gottfried was a religious school, but then the chapel was abandoned. It’s supposedly under renovations from some fire a while back, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone working on it.”


We approached the tall riveted doors and attempted to open them, but they were locked. Eleanor and I looked at each other, confused. I jiggled the handles a few times and pounded on the door in frustration, but it was no use.


“I guess it’s canceled,” Eleanor said happily. “We should probably go back to the dorm.”


I was about to agree with her when we heard voices coming from behind the building. The entire class was standing in what looked like an overgrown graveyard. It was a small class: me, Eleanor, a pair of twins named April and Allison, who lived on our floor, a few guys I had never seen before, and a cute boy who looked uncannily similar to Wes. Eleanor and I joined them.


Professor Betty Mumm was a tiny birdlike woman. She had a weathered, wrinkled face from too many days in the sun, and short brown hair cut like a boy’s. She stood in the grass in front of us, wearing tall rubber boots, gardening gloves, and a sun hat.


“Welcome to Horticulture,” she said, and pulled out a bag of flower bulbs from a burlap sack on the ground. “Today we’re going to be learning the basics of soil.” She passed out the bulbs, a set of trowels, boxes of matches, and gardening gloves. She was surprisingly nimble considering she looked older than my grandfather.


“The first thing you need to know about horticulture is that without the appropriate bed for the appropriate plant, you will never succeed in growing anything. There are dozens of varieties of soil, each with its own unique characteristics. Fortunately for us, all of them can be found in this very garden, due to the fact that the ground in this particular area of campus has been dug up and replaced over the course of the last two centuries.”


As Professor Mumm discussed the five most common kinds of soil, I glanced around the graveyard. The grass was speckled with wildflowers that grew up to the middle of my shins. They were moist with dew. Nestled beneath the weeds were barely visible fragments of chipped gravestones, centuries old. When I’d first seen Horticulture on my schedule, I hadn’t known what to expect, and I would be lying if I said I’d been excited about the class. I’d assumed we’d be learning about plant biology, not digging around in an abandoned graveyard.


“Isn’t this a little morbid?” I said to Eleanor, keeping my eyes on the professor, who was demonstrating how to hold a trowel correctly.


“What makes you say that?” a deep voice replied.


Startled, I turned around. Eleanor had moved closer to the chapel, and was now whispering to one of the twins. Standing in her place was the cute Wes impersonator.


“I’m Brett,” he said with a grin.


Suddenly I felt very shy. “Renée.”


Brett was tall and athletic, and looked like he had just come from playing rugby. His features seemed exaggerated, giving him a dashing and overly masculine look, which I had only attributed to characters in fairy tales.


“So who did you mean to talk to before I so rudely interrupted?”


“My friend Annie. I mean Eleanor. My roommate Eleanor.”


“Annie, Eleanor, which is it?”


“Eleanor. Eleanor Bell.” I pointed to where she was standing. “Sorry, my friend Annie is from California. I mean ...that’s where I’m from too. I just moved here. I’m still trying to keep everything straight.”


“A California girl. Aren’t you supposed to be blond?” He flipped a lock of my brown hair with his fingers.


I could feel myself starting to blush, and tucked my hair behind my ear. Brett seemed like the kind of guy who could get any girl; who plays Frisbee with his shirt off and his pants cuffed at the ankle, whose sweat actually smells good; the kind of guy who I never imagined would talk to me. Just like Wes. Yet here he was, standing next to me, doing what I could only identify as flirting.


“Where are you from?” I asked.


“Maine.”


“Aren’t you supposed to be a bearded farmer?”


Brett laughed. “So that’s what you thought it’d be like here? It must have been a huge disappointment.”


“Devastating,” I replied, and we both fixed our attention on Professor Mumm, who was motioning for us to follow her into the “garden.”


“Each of you has a different kind of flower bulb—woodland, climbing, perennial, annual, or arboreal. Now, what I want you to do is find the most suitable soil for planting your particular bulb, and shovel it into one of these bags,” she said, holding up a handful of cloth satchels. One of the twins raised her hand. “But we don’t know what kind of bulb we have. How are we supposed to know what kind of soil is best if we don’t know what our bulb is?”


Professor Mumm gave her a wise smile. “Intuition. That is the first rule of horticulture. Intuition. Follow your gut!” she said, clicking her heels together. “And remember what we recited. H-E-R-B-S: Handle, Eat, Rub, Burn, Smell. Now, don your gloves and man your trowels!”


Brett and I parted ways as everyone in the class started wandering aimlessly around the graveyard. Eleanor found her way to me and pinched my arm from behind. “Hey,” she said, the twins beside her.


I jumped. “A graveyard is not the place to creep up on people!”


Eleanor laughed. “It’s broad daylight! Besides, I wasn’t the only one who crept up on you.” She glanced at Brett.


April butted in. “He does that with all the girls,” she said. Her sister Allison nodded in confirmation.


“That doesn’t mean we can’t look,” Eleanor replied.


We all watched him bend over to pick up his trowel. As he stood up, he turned to us and smiled. Embarrassed, I looked away. Eleanor, on the other hand, responded by giving him a coy wave.


“I think I’m going to go ‘test the soil’ closer to Brett,” she said. “I never get tired of his dimples.”


I laughed as Eleanor skipped away, trying to inconspicuously follow Brett to the left side of the “garden.” Around me, dozens of gravestones peeked out of the grass, their faces so faded that I couldn’t read the inscriptions. My parents were like these people now, reduced to epitaphs, tombstones, coffins. Shaking the thought from my head, I picked up my bulb and turned it around in my palm. It was brown and bulbous like a ginger root. I held it up to my nose, but it just smelled like dry dirt. Intuition, I thought, and began to walk.


I didn’t know where I was going, but I stepped forward, changing directions every few minutes as if I were being pulled by an invisible force. Every so often I bent over to sift through the soil. H-E-R-B-S, I repeated to myself. H for Handle as I felt its weight in my hand. E for Eat as I raised the soil to my mouth and tasted it. R for Rub as I pressed the soil into my palm, comparing its color and texture to that of my bulb. B for Burn, though none of the soil was oily enough to ignite when I struck a match to it. And S for Smell—confusing smells of apple and grass and walnut, but none of them seemed right. Every batch of soil was either too dry or too gritty; smelled too much like pastrami or tasted too bitter.


Eventually I found myself a good distance away from the rest of the class, in a patchy area by a collection of trees. I bent over to pick up a handful of soil, which was cool and so moist it almost felt oily. I smelled it. Nothing. What had the professor said while I was talking to Brett? If the soil was grainy and smelled of smoked meat, it was best for woodland bulbs. If the soil was dry and tasted of salt, it was high in minerals and best for annuals. Or was that perennials? I couldn’t remember.


Reluctantly, I pressed a finger into the soil and raised it to my mouth. At first it just tasted gritty. And then slowly, it took on the faintest aftertaste of molasses. I examined my bulb, which was stringy and dry, and had the same brownish-red hue. For some reason, it felt right. Bending down, I shoveled a handful into my sack.


No one else seemed to have finished. Some were meandering through the weeds; others were crouched low to the ground, feeling around in the soil, dirt smeared on their cheeks. Professor Mumm was walking around examining our progress while offering tips about trowel technique. But instead of going back to the group, I walked on, inching closer to the forest. I didn’t know why I was doing it, only that it felt as if I had just remembered something very important that I had forgotten to do, and that something was in the trees.


I pushed through the grass, which was wild and as tall as my knees. A lazy bee hovered over a bunch of wildflowers. Behind me, I heard Eleanor calling my name. “Renée! Where are you going? Did you figure out what bulb you have?” I glanced over my shoulder to see her running to catch up with me.


“No,” I said. “Just looking around.”


The morning sun was hot and beat down on the back of my neck. Ducking under the shade of a tree, I stopped. Was there something in the grass? Something brown that looked like a stick, but wasn’t. Wiping the sweat from my forehead, I bent down. I heard Eleanor approach as I pushed the wildflowers aside with my trowel. And there it was, the thing that I now knew had been pulling me toward it. Behind me, Eleanor screamed.


It was a fawn, dead and curled up in the grass. Its limbs were contorted in unnatural angles. Flies buzzed around its head, its fur still a soft, spotted brown.


In seconds, the entire class had gathered around us, all staring at me and the fawn. Professor Mumm zigzagged through the group. When she reached me, she took off her hat and looked at the fawn and then at me.

CHAPTER 5

Horticulture


DANTE WAS COMPLETELY WRONG FOR ME. Unsociable. Severe. Intellectually condescending. Or at least that’s what I told Annie. It was Thursday, and I was nearing the end of my first week of classes. I called her after lights-out. The gnarled cord of the phone was stretched across the room as I huddled beneath the covers and whispered into the receiver, trying to find some semblance of privacy.


“He’s the exact opposite of Wes. And Wes is perfect, isn’t he? So what does that say about Dante?” I asked her. All week I’d been trying to convince myself that I wasn’t interested in Dante. I just wanted to get close enough so I could ask him about Benjamin. But the likelihood of that was slipping further and further away. After our hands touched in Crude Sciences, he’d stared at his and then at mine with a look of confusion mixed with disbelief. Lowering his hand beneath the desk, he opened and closed his fist, watching his knuckles turn white.


Turning to me, he asked, barely audible, “Did you...?”


But as he studied my face, his voice trailed off. Had he felt what I felt? I didn’t have a chance to ask him, because without saying anything else, he stood up. The class turned to us as his chair scratched the floor. Professor Starking stopped lecturing.


“I have to go,” Dante said, gathering his things and giving me one last glance, the door slamming behind him.


I had tried to talk to him the next time we had Crude Sciences, but he was too busy flipping through a Latin book under the desk and writing in a leather-bound journal to grace me with more than a one-word answer. As a matter of fact, he hadn’t even looked at me, which made me even angrier.


“Could you pass me the—?” I’d asked during a lab about the physics of a butterfly, but instead of paying attention to the lab, Dante was reading. Before I could finish my sentence, he passed me the magnifying glass. As he did, our hands brushed against each other. He pulled his hand back.


“Don’t touch me,” he said quickly, before averting his eyes.


His words stung as I stared at him, not knowing what to say. “What?”


“I’m sorry,” he said, without looking at me. “I … I shouldn’t have said that.” He turned back to the book in his lap and flipped a page, tracing the lines with his finger until he found the sentence he was looking for. “It’s a milkweed butterfly, by the way.”


“How … how did you know that? You didn’t even look. .. .”


But he didn’t respond. And after confirming that it was, in fact, a milkweed butterfly, I turned to him, frustrated. Holding the magnifying glass over my eye, I peeked over his shoulder, trying to see what he was reading. It was all in Latin.


“Is that for Latin class?” I asked, staring at his Roman profile, which was even more impressive when magnified.


Dante looked up, startled. “No,” he said, shutting the book. “Gray,” he remarked, staring at my eye through the glass. “Like the sky. Pretty.”


So maybe he was strikingly handsome, and maybe his voice was deep and buttery. And maybe he did say brilliant things and always knew the right answer even though he had spent practically the entire class reading a mysterious book in Latin. I wouldn’t let that distract me from the fact that he had was exactly the person that Eleanor had described: evasive, arrogant, and inexplicably distracted. But if all of that were true, I asked Annie, why couldn’t I stop thinking about him?


“The weirdest part was when we shook hands. He touched my fingers and my hand got all prickly, like it was falling asleep. That’s when he got up and left. He’s pretty much ignored me since.”


Annie laughed. “Oh, Renée. You’re always so dramatic when it comes to guys.”


“No, I’m being serious. I’ve never felt anything like it. It was like my skin was going numb.”


I heard Margerie say something in the background. Annie covered the receiver, muffling her response. “Hold on, Mom, it’s Renée,” I made out before she returned to our conversation. “I don’t get it. You lost circulation or something? Are you sure you weren’t just nervous? Or maybe you were leaning on your funny bone.”


I frowned. “No,” I said. “I know it sounds crazy, but I felt it. It was real.”


There was a long pause on the other side. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I believe you.” But she wasn’t very convincing. “So remind me again: if this guy is such a jerk, why are you so obsessed with him?”


“Because I think he knows something. And I’m not obsessed,” I added, and told her about Benjamin Gallow and the incident last spring. When I mentioned the heart attack, Annie’s end of the line went silent.


“Coincidental, right?” I said softly.


Annie hesitated. “It’s different, Renée. Your parents... they were at an age when...”


“When what?”


“Nothing, it’s just … I’m sure the doctors and police officers know more about that stuff than we do. No one suspects anything but you, right?”


I didn’t respond.


“I bet that kind of thing happens more than we think.”I curled the cord around my fingers beneath the sheets. “Yeah, maybe...”


We talked for a few more minutes about California and my old school. Annie told me all of the gossip about what the new teachers were like, who was dating whom, which freshmen had made the lacrosse team. It should have been exciting, but for some reason I couldn’t get into it. When she finally hung up, I threw my blankets off and stared at the ceiling. The receiver was resting on my chest, the dial tone dissipating into the darkness of the dorm room. What was wrong with me? Annie had been my best friend since we were kids; she was the only person left who knew everything about me. So why I did feel relieved when she said she had to go?


“I think it’s perfectly normal.”


Startled, I sat up. Eleanor was still sitting in bed, in silk pajamas, holding a pink highlighter and a book called Symposium, by Plato. A half-burned candle flickered on the nightstand.


“What is?”


“Dante.”


“You could hear me?”


“Of course I could. You were beneath a blanket. And you’re not good at whispering. Anyway, I think what happened between you and Dante is romantic.”


“Oh no, well, I don’t think it’s like that. I mean, I like someone else. Well, I did before I came here.” Though I knew that reality was quickly fading away. Annie told me that Wes had been asking about me, but I hadn’t heard anything from him since arriving at Gottfried. “I’m not going to get involved with Dante. He isn’t right for me.”


Eleanor raised a perfectly shaped eyebrow. “That’s strange, considering you spent almost the entire conversation talking about him.” “It’s also strange that you spent the entire time listening to my conversation when you were supposed to be reading,” I challenged, giving her the beginnings of a smile.


“That’s not strange, it’s normal. What else was I supposed to do? Besides, if I hadn’t listened, you wouldn’t have anyone to talk about Dante with. So really, I’m doing you a favor. And if you want my opinion, I think it’s obvious that he’s into you. That hand thing. That means something.”


I let out a sarcastic laugh. “Yeah, probably that I’m allergic to his cologne.”


“Don’t be ridiculous. I don’t think it’s that out of the ordinary.”


I gave her a skeptical look. “Really? Has that ever happened to you?”


“Oh, no. Of course not. I’ve never heard of anything like it. But I think if something creepy like that could ever happen, it would be with Dante Berlin. Or maybe Gideon DuPont, though then you’d have to face the wrath of Vivian.”


“They’re Dante’s friends, right?”


“They’re Dante’s old friends. The Latin scholars. Gideon’s a senior. He always wears black suits and these old-man glasses, like he just stepped out of the Great Depression or something.”


Immediately, I knew who he was. He was one of the people in the class I’d walked in on. Vivian must have been the girl beside him.


“And Vivian Aletto is his best ‘friend.’ Though everyone’s pretty sure there’s something going on between them. They’re always together and they’re always arguing like they’re brother and sister. But once I saw Gideon stroking the inside of her wrist. And Vivian sometimes wears his glasses. It’s really bizarre.”


“And they were friends with Dante and Cassandra Millet?”


Eleanor nodded. “And Yago Castilliar. You’ve probably seen him around; he wears a lot of pastels. Seersucker pants that just barely make dress code; loafers with no socks. Always needs a haircut, but never seems to get in trouble for it. I think it’s because he flirts with Mrs. Lynch.”


I had seen him around. He was easy to spot, considering he was the only guy who was brave enough to wear a pink oxford.


“Anyway, they were like a family. The oldest and most intimidating of the five were Gideon and Vivian, who were like the parents. Yago was the delinquent child, and Dante was the older brother, even though he’s actually younger than Yago. And Cassandra was the baby, the darling.”


“Don’t they have real families?”


“Sort of. At least Yago does. His father is some Spanish baron, so he’s always back and forth between Spain and New York. I think Gideon is from around here. New Hampshire maybe. And Vivian, who knows? I wouldn’t be surprised if she killed her family and ate them.


“Cassandra lost her entire family in a skiing accident before she came to Gottfried, and inherited their fortune. I think technically her great-aunt is her legal guardian, but she always used to tag along with Yago’s family on the holidays. Or with her boyfriend, Benjamin. Until he, well ...you know. The heart attack.” Eleanor closed her book and ran a finger back and forth through the flame of the candle, waiting for me to ask the question that we both knew came next.


“What about Dante?”


She sat up straight and narrowed her eyes dramatically. “He’s the strangest one. Apparently he’s an orphan. Or so he says. He never leaves Attica Falls on holidays; even over Christmas.”

Hooked on the game has ended. Thanks to those who has been following d story even when I went on a small haitus so I am moving to the next one on the agenda Tagged and Ashed continuous of the Sterling Shores series hoped you had fun while it lasted.

Epilogue


  



Three months later…


  



"I'll only be a second," I groan, but I'm unable to stifle my girly grin when Kade pulls me back for another kiss.


"Can't you just quit over the phone?" he pleads, pulling me closer.


"No. Dane has been so good to me," I mutter against his lips.


He snorts as he pulls back. "He better not have been too good."


I roll my eyes while letting my lips trail over his neck. "I think he's gay."


He bursts out laughing, and I tilt my head to the side to question that little outburst.


"Dane Sterling?" he chuckles out. "Gay? That's like saying Tag Masters is gay. Dane is just more discreet in his affairs. Believe me. I know. He used to be best friends with my cousin up until he most likely screwed her and then screwed her over."


I frown. "Well, he's never said anything out of the way to me, and I should be a big girl and quit face-to-face. Unless you'd rather find someone else to help you out."


"Uh-uh. You're not getting out of this. You are incredible at selling wine, and I don't want to be away from you. It'll be hard enough to deal with you at college. Now go quit."


I chuckle and kiss him once more before I head inside. Dane is talking to one of the new waitresses who is almost dissolving in front of his eyes.


"Dane?" I murmur sweetly, drawing his attention.


"Raya. It's your day off," he says, confused, dismissing the girl who almost expires.


"I sort of need to talk to you," I mutter uneasily. Maybe I should have been a coward and done this over the phone.


"You mean you came to tell me you quit," he says evenly, but a smile creeps up when my eyes widen. "I assumed Kade would haul you off. You sure that's really what you want?"


He props against the bar while he studies me, as if he expects me to beg for his help to escape. He really doesn't have a lot of relationship experience - not good relationship experience anyhow.


"Positive. I love him, and he's paying me double," I say with a wink, which prompts him to roll his eyes.


"Very well, be careful. I assume the two of you are on your way to his family thing."


I cringe. I really hope it gets off to a better start than my family cookout. I should have known better than to take my rich boyfriend around a bunch of heathen cons. "Yes."


He laughs when he sees my dread, and then he turns to walk away. "Don't worry, Raya. Paul makes them behave."


I'm not really all that worried. I've met most of his family, so it's not like I won't know anyone.


I rush back outside, and Kade sweeps me in his arms before offering me a sweet kiss I'd love to turn into more.


"Behave," he mumbles, even though his body protests.


"You don't mean that," I tease, making him laugh.


He opens my door for me, and he quickly takes his seat behind the wheel before driving us toward his family's house. Of course... it takes a little longer to get there than we originally expected.


When we arrive, the first familiar face I see is Tag, and he walks toward us while carrying three glasses of champagne.


"And you two are here just in time to see me leave."


"What?" I ask, glancing at my watch.


We're just two hours late. Totally Kade's fault.


"It's Raya's fault we're late," Kade says, earning a glare from me.


It's not my fault he couldn't wait until later tonight. He's the one that pulled over on the side of the road, and then pulled in behind the college, and then decided we had to go back to his house one last time after we had left Silk.


Kade smiles at me, and I lose my mock anger.


"Well, anyway, I have to head out. The girls are drunk. I don't mess with drunk chicks, so I need to go prowling for someone sober."


"You're prejudice against drunks?" I muse, finding that a little curious.


He laughs while shaking his head. "I'm prejudiced against taking advantage of a drunk girl. I've got morals, Raya. Don't act so surprised."


I actually am a little surprised, but judging by the hurt in his expression, I shouldn't admit that.


"Well, have fun stalking your prey," I murmur as he claps Kade on the back.


"Always do," he jokes, but I forget all about Tag when Kade's lips find mine, and then his incredible arms wrap around me.


Thomas made some improvement today. Everyone is celebrating. He's still breathing on his own, and he wasn't supposed to be.


"Let's skip the party," he murmurs against my lips. "I'd rather enjoy the night by simply holding you in our room."


Before I can say anything, Billy Prize walks out, seeming pissed on his way to his car.


"Leaving already?" Kade drawls, not really seeming to care. I really wish I knew why everyone seems to hate Billy. He's nice enough.


"Yeah. Ash has a problem I'm about to deal with once and for all," he growls.


He rips the door open on his BMW and drives away before Kade can say anything else.


"I don't think she's real," Kade says with a shrug, prompting me to chuckle.


I just lean into him as we make our way toward the back where everyone is laughing and joking around. A poker table is set up, and Paul waves us over.


"You two up for a game? Billy and Tag just left, so we have two open spots."


I start to object, when Kade says, "Deal us in."


I glare at him, but he shrugs. "It's not like they don't know what they're getting themselves into."


I roll my eyes as he leads me over to the table.


"Kade tells us you're good," Wren says before taking a sip of his beer.


Good? These people use the word good at all the wrong times.


"I'll go ahead and tell you that you won't win. Not even one hand. Are you sure you want to play me?"


Paul's laughter climbs free, Wren grins huge, and another guy I haven't met shrugs.


"Let's see what you've got," the unknown guy with sandy blonde hair says. "I've been playing poker a while. The name is Rye Clanton."


"Just don't say I didn't warn you," I mutter, grinning, just before placing the first bet of the night. Kade's soft lips press against my neck as Rye deals, and I lean into him, relishing the feel of his breath on my skin. I hope I'm always this hooked.

"Crazy?" he asks, turning back around, looking as weary as I feel. "Raya, I passed crazy a long damn time ago. I've done everything I know to do. I'm not letting you go. I can't. Not unless you can tell me you don't give a damn about me at all. Can you do that? Because judging by those tears in your eyes, you still want to be with me, but you're just too fucking stubborn to listen to me."


His tone is attempting to be even, but his exhaustion makes it come across as frustrated. He takes a step toward me, and I take one step back, keeping the distance between us.


"Your father is right. You're so much better than me, too good for me. You're the most incredible person I could have ever found, and I'm the biggest jerk in the world."


He's being too loud. Dad has to be able to hear him. Maybe he'll come up and toss Kade out... through the downstairs doorway, of course. Not my window.


"He didn't phrase it like that," I softly interject, trying not to sound as breathless as I feel.


Kade smiles, and my heartbeat speeds up even more. He keeps himself between me and the door, cutting me off from any escape. The window is out of the question. I still don't know if he jumped from that tree, but I'll kick his ass if he did. Well, I'll try to kick his ass.


"He should have," Kade says, taking another step toward me and making me step back again.


"Please go, Kade," I almost whimper.


"Not this time, Raya. Even if you forced me out, I wouldn't give up. I'll jump from that fucking ridiculously scary tree everyday if you make me. Just try to leave the window up for me from now on. It's hard to hang on and force a window up." His playful grin doesn't match his serious eyes. Another step forward for him, and another step back for me. This time, my back hits the wall, ending my room for retreat, and Kade smirks before taking another step toward me, keeping that predatory gleam in his eyes.


"You don't feel like you're good enough, and that doesn't make a damn bit of sense to me. I couldn't give a Bleep about your father or what he did. I wouldn't give a damn if you had done the same thing," he says, destroying any illusion of strength I thought I had left.


Be strong, Raya. Please be strong.


"My father is a con. Even if he's not out conning the world the way he used to, his past will haunt you just as it does me. No one in this society will ever back you if you have me and my reputation tethered to you. They'll whisper, gossip, and run your name through the ground. Just like they did mine back home. It'll catch up with me here. I'm sure Courtney is already spreading the word. You need to-"


"I need to be with you. That's all I need. My father's name holds more weight in this town than Courtney's or her family's. Even if it didn't, so what. I don't care what anyone thinks. I've spent my life worrying about the opinions everyone else has. I've spent too much time playing some stupid, elaborate game that I don't care about anymore. I was hooked. That's all.


"I was hooked on the game... just like your dad, Raya. I'm nothing more than a con. I don't have a single genuine friend outside my family. I realized that almost as soon as you left. I'm the one people should look down on. I'm the one who could tarnish your name. But I won't be this way anymore. Bleep it all. I want real friends - people who are there for me when I need them, just like my family. Just like you were." More of my tears heat my cheeks as they trail free, but I'm paralyzed. I can't move to wipe them away, because he's shocked me into a frozen state. I should say something, probably, but I can't. What in the hell could I possibly say?


He takes another step, and then another, until at last he's close enough to touch me. And he does. He tilts my head up with one hand, and then cradles it, while his other hand moves to be at my waist.


"You were all I wanted to see when Granddad went into the hospital, and you came. Even after all I did, you came. After the way I treated you, you risked it all to help me. I lost more than my girlfriend when I pushed you away. I lost the only friend I had ever made on my own. I don't want to lose you, Raya. I can't. I'm not hooked on the game anymore. I'm simply hooked on you. I love you," he murmurs softly, leaning down and brushing his lips against mine. His confession of love melts every bit of lingering strength I have, and my arms fly up around his neck to pull him down to me, deepening the soft kiss. His daring tongue sweeps in, and my fingers thread through his hair when I start losing what little control I have.


I hear the front door open and shut, a car crank and pull out of the driveway, and then I feel Kade's smile. We're all alone. Dad apparently knew what was about to happen.


Kade jerks open the button on my shorts, and I don't waste any time pushing them down, letting them take my panties with them. He rips me up, and my legs wrap around his waist as his glorious tongue ring makes me think back to all the delicious things he can do.


The only sounds in the room are our torrid moans and clothes dropping. At last, we're both naked, but still entangled as he presses my back against the wall. Without warning, he's suddenly buried inside me, and I gasp as the feel of his bare erection makes my eyes roll back in my head.


"Bleep," he hisses, tugging at my lower lip with his teeth, and then he starts moving when he needs more.


His unkempt, ravenous strokes start pushing me forth, making me reach for that peak he loves to push me over. I kiss him almost desperately, not caring how loud I get as he owns my body with his. He pulls back just enough each time to slam back into me, pushing me against the wall each time with a thump.


I claw at his shoulders when I feel the tightening in my stomach. My legs reflexively clench tighter to his waist, telling him I'm close, and he growls low in his throat as his motions quicken. A pathetic whimper comes out before my ungodly scream that doesn't even sound like me, and Kade surges in hard one last time as we both fall over that glorious edge.


He pulls me away from the wall as we attempt to kiss, but we have to give up on that endeavor when our need for oxygen wins out. Instead, he presses his forehead against mine as we both form a panting melody.


He crashes to the bed with me still in his arms, and he pulls me to him as he cradles my body against his. "I'm glad your dad left," he chuckles out before kissing my forehead.


I smile for so many reasons, not just what he said, and I snuggle as close to him as I can get.


"Me too."


"I meant it, Raya. I love you. I'm sorry I didn't say it the second you told me. I was... scared. That doesn't mean I didn't feel it. Christ, I felt it. I was... well, an idiot." My grin only grows as I start kissing along the side of his neck.


"I love you," I murmur softly, pushing my leg over his waist.


"Then we have a lot of making up left to do," he says with a salacious grin before his lips claim mine. "But, first things first," he adds while drawing back.


He jumps up, pulls on his boxers, and before I can even register his actions, he's jogging down my stairs. I hear the door open and close, and I sit up, pulling the sheet over my bare body. What's he doing?


After a few seconds, I hear the car door shut and then the front door opens and shuts again before I hear the sound of his feet start rushing back toward me.


When my door opens, he's wearing a smile and carrying a crate. My crate. My wine crate.


"I left that on purpose," I murmur softly. "It should stay in your family." He shakes his head as he opens the top, and I look over to see two bottles packed very safely inside.


"Raya, Granddad thought you were family. I'm sure he still does. This is yours. He'd kick my ass if I kept it."


I almost smile at that thought. It'd be nice if Thomas could wake up and kick his ass.


"This one is mine. And I've been saving it for a very special day."


My eyes widen when he pulls out two wine glasses from the same crate. I almost gasp when he pulls out a corkscrew. He can't... no.


"Kade, don't be ridiculous. I can't drink that wine, and you can't-"


Before I know what's going on, he's already pulled out the cork, making it too late.


"Have you lost your mind? What are you doing?" I gush.


"Putting away the corkscrew," he says while tossing the pigtail looking tool into the crate. Smartass. "Now I'm pouring our wine."


His eyes glisten with a teasing hue as he pours the first glass.


"Kade, this wine-"


"Was meant for something special. I happen to think telling a girl I love her for the first time in my life is pretty monumental. So, you'll drink my wine with me and you'll enjoy every sip."


Tears fill up in my eyes. Him doing this... it says more than the words. I know how special that bottle of wine is to him, and it almost leaves me a mushy puddle at his feet.


He hands me mine, and he clanks the side of my glass with his before kissing me softly. I almost lick my lips in anticipation as the first drop of the wine graces my mouth, and an involuntary moan comes out when I fall in love with a damn drink.


I'm not sure when my eyes closed, but when I open them, Kade is smiling, staring at me.


"Is it good?" he asks, leaning over to kiss my shoulder.


Good, I scoff inwardly. I almost roll my eyes. It's not good; it's divine. No mortal should ever have something so smooth, fresh, and completely delicious.


"I think I'm hooked."

Chapter 18


Running and Hiding


  



"Raya," Dane Sterling, the club owner, says from behind me.


"Yes, sir?" I ask, turning around to face the man the women in here drool over.


He's only twenty-something, but he owns a ton of Sterling Shore. Which makes sense, considering he's related to the Sterlings - the ones who founded the city. Oddly enough, he never seems to pay attention to all the women who adore him. He's a lot like Kade - too busy with the future, I suppose.


"There are at least fifteen dozen roses for you at the front door. You have to talk to the guy before he fills my club up."


My heart breaks a little. Since Brody returned the vineyard to him two weeks, Kade has been doing his best to thank me. He's called nonstop, hounded Ember for my address, and tried his best to catch me outside my classes. Sadly, I've managed to start sneaking out windows at school. Ember has refused to hand over my address. But he managed to find out where I work, and he stalks me here more than anywhere else.


I always hide, the other girls lie and tell him I'm not here, and I work around it. I even have the bouncer looking out for his car... or cars, rather. But that doesn't stop him from sending heaps of flowers.


"Sorry, Mr. Sterling, but I really can't."


"Dane, Raya. It's Dane. I feel ninety when you call me Mr. Sterling. I'm not that much older than you. And you have to do something. Otherwise, I'm going to have to kick his ass at some point."


The playfulness in his tone lets me know he's kidding, and I sigh out heavily. He forces a sympathetic smile.


"I know Kade and his family. Do you want me to go talk to him? This really isn't like him. I've never seen him obsess over anyone."


I let an exhausted laugh free. He's so far off base.


"He's not obsessed. He feels bad for judging me, but not because he thinks he was wrong, and not because he misses me. I did him a favor a couple of weeks ago, and it has him confused. It wouldn't have ever worked out. We're way too different. He'll remember why he left me soon enough, and all this will stop."


Dane's eyes become alight with intrigue. Crap.


"Why did he leave you? Since you brought it up."


I glance around the club at all the waitresses preparing for the soon-to-be-here customers, and I motion to them. "Because I'm one of them. Not one of you. As a matter of fact, I'm not even good enough to be one of them."


His eyes darken and a flash of anger comes over his face. "He left you because of your financial status? You're serious?"


I huff and quickly shake my head, dreading the mess I've just made. "No. He knew I was poor before we started dating. He was great, but I have baggage. Baggage that could wreck his future plans. It's a long story. I really need to get back to work. My boss will kick my ass if I don't."


He smiles at my playful ending note, but it's forced. And I retreat quickly when my phone buzzes in my pocket. Kade. Again. He's relentless. It'll have to stop soon.


  



The club is beyond packed. The dancers on the stage are getting catcalls, money tossed, and marriage proposals. What am I getting? Crappy tips and a groped ass. I picked the wrong job.


I head outside to take a break from all the loud music, dancing fools, and touchy customers. The sand finds my heels, and I strip them off to allow my toes to press into it. The ocean sprays the air, making everything seem fresher than it is. It always helps to deal with the madness. And with a view like this, it's easy to forget my problems for a few brief seconds.


Strong, familiar, warm arms wrap around my waist as a small kiss finds my neck, while someone nuzzles their face against me. My heart almost explodes as the contradicting emotions stir a storm within me.


"I've missed you," Kade says, making my first tear fall.


I try to pull away, but he has his arms locked around me, and his soft, perfect lips start making a trail from my ear to my jaw. "I'm sorry, Raya. I'm so fucking sorry. Please forgive me. Come back."


I cry harder. It was hard to read things like this on his cards that were attached to the flowers, but now, hearing it aloud... this is torture.


"Kade, you don't really want me back. You're confused because I saved your vineyard."


"No the hell I'm not. Raya, I've wanted you back since you walked out. I'm a jerk. I'm an idiot. I'm every form of stupid there is. I made the biggest mistake of my life. Please, please come back. Let me make it up to you."


I try to break free again, but his hold is too tight. It only loosens for a second, but that's simply to spin me around to face him. Oh damn. I wish he hadn't done that.


Those beautiful blue eyes that have haunted my fantasies, my dreams, and my life are now staring into mine. It almost hurts to have to see the man I love, especially when I know he's here for all the wrong reasons. "Kade," I mumble, feeling my lip tremble as tears drip from my eyes. "You don't... you don't want to be with me. I'm a conman's daughter. Your business, your dreams, and your name can't be tainted by a girl-"


His lips find mine, halting my objection, and he grips me tighter, pulling me to him to further drive me crazy. It'd be so much easier if I hadn't fallen in love like the fool I am.


When his tongue sweeps in, it takes all my strength to force him back. My tears storm my cheeks harder as he stumbles and almost falls, and I grab the door to jerk it open before he can regain his balance.


"Just go home, Kade. Please leave me alone."


I run in, deciding to call it a night, and I head toward the front, desperate to escape the man who is probably already coming after me. Dane is going to kick my ass for calling in, but I can't help it. Kade needs a few days to digest things. After last night, I'm scared of seeing him at work again. It'd be too easy to give in.


A loud knock at the door draws my attention, and I walk over to the window. The covered porch hinders me from seeing who might be knocking downstairs, but it doesn't block my vision from the Range Rover I know too well.


"Damn it," I whisper to myself, tensing up.


"Coming," Dad yells to the door.


I rush to intercept him, but I barely make it halfway down the stairs before the door opens.


"Yes?" Dad asks, completely unaware of who he's talking to. Thank God I can't see him.


All I can see is the open door and my oblivious father. "I need to talk to Raya, please," Kade says, sounding exhausted.


"And you are?" Dad probes, but by now he probably has it figured out.


"Kade Colton."


I almost get sick. How did he find out where I live?


"I think you know by now she doesn't want to see you. You should go and forget this address."


Dad starts to shut the door, but it thumps and stops against something, most likely Kade's foot.


"I really have to see her, Mr. Drivel. It's-"


"Capperton," Dad interrupts, almost growling. "It's Ray Capperton. I don't use Drivel."


"Sorry," Kade says, almost sounding amused. "Mr. Capperton, I'd really like to have a chance to apologize. Raya is wrong about us. I-" "You hurt her," Dad says simply, interrupting him again. "She trusted you and you hurt her, because you, like all the other morons she meets, judged her based on my actions. She's a good girl. She has a heart like you'd never understand. She's the most forgiving, understanding, and compassionate person I've ever known, and you hurt her. She doesn't want to talk to you."


Tears fill my eyes as I sit down and draw my knees to my chest like a scared little girl.


"I didn't judge her. Mr. Capperton, I bleeped up. You don't understand. If you'd just let me-"


"What? Let you in? Let you stalk my daughter more? You're lucky I'm not calling the cops. Believe it or not, I've actually got a few friends in that department. You have your vineyard, your plans can move forward, and your life will be as fucking shiny as you like it. You're the one who doesn't understand.


"You didn't Bleep up because of what you said once. It's what you've preached about. Your life is supposed to be perfect. You want that. And you've made Raya feel as though she's inferior. My daughter is a better person than you'll ever be. Ever. She doesn't deserve to feel as though she's a lesser person because of decisions I've made, because of the money she didn't have handed to her, or because of where she came from.


"She's strong, and you damn near broke her. Now, go. The Bleep. Away."


Kade's feet move loudly across the porch and Dad slams the door. He takes several deep breaths as though he's holding himself back. Then he looks up to notice me for the first time, and tears are gathered in his eyes just as they are in mine.


He starts to speak, but there aren't any words. Instead, he nods once to me, and I nod back as a silent conversation passes between us. Then he walks away, leaving me to sob on the steps. Maybe now Kade will just leave me alone.


A loud thud in my room and a slight groan startles me, and I rush back up the stairs to find Kade climbing back up from the floor under the window. How the hell he did he get in here? That tree is almost five feet away, and it's the closest means of climbing.


"I knew you'd be on the top floor," he mumbles, rubbing his side as though it hurts.


"Kade, are you crazy?" I gasp, ignoring the pang of desire I feel when his eyes meet mine.


He shakes his head as he dusts his clothes back into place and he heads over to the door to shut it, letting his body brush against mine along the way.

Shit. She may not recognize me, but Leonard might.


"Actually, can you point us in the direction of a restroom?" Brody asks. "It was a long drive out here."


"Of course. Take the first right down the hall. In the meantime," she says, turning back to my father, "I'll show you the place for the reception."


As Henrietta leads, my father and Ember follow. Brody waits until the clicking heels disappear from sound before he says, "And... action."


An involuntary grin quirks up on my lips, and I stifle a ridiculous giggle as the excited tingles consume me.


"You'd better not even think of making this a habit," he grumbles while tugging my hand, but before we can reach the cellar door, Leonard walks around a corner with Harry, the manager, just barely missing the sight of us before Brody rips me away and back around the corner we just came around.


Brody almost shoves me into a side door that leads to a large stock room full off office supplies and crates.


"Shit," he hisses.


"I thought you were supposed to be good at this," I whisper, wondering why he's panicking.


"You didn't tell me Harold Cole was in on it, and I didn't have enough time to research this as thoroughly as I needed to."


Harold who?


"Who is Harold Cole?"


"The guy with Leonard Mars. He's a big time player in the game, but no one can ever find any evidence to prove his guilt. He's been lying low for the past five years. I guess I know why now," he says, making sure to keep his voice low.


"Harry Talbot is Harold Cole? He's the manager here. Has been for a while."


"Damn it. I knew this was rushed, but your father would have done it on his own if I hadn't hurried."


The voices carry through the door, forcing us to stop our whispered conversation.


"It's all taken care of. We need to hurry up and get this charade of a meeting over with," Harry... or Harold says.


"We have to keep up appearances. Paul Colton is a vicious man with too much money and influence. If it looks like we're running the business into the ground, he'll start using it as an angle in court. We have to make it look as though Henrietta loves this place as much as Thomas. We've just gotten started."


Like every cliché fucking movie I've ever seen, I move wrong and a stupid box falls from a perch and claps to the floor. Brody slaps his forehead in exasperation before he starts fumbling with his belt. What the hell is he doing with his belt?


"Check it out," Harold says, not bothering to whisper.


I don't know what the hell happens, but suddenly I'm against the back wall, my legs are wrapped around Brody's waist, and his lips are on mine. His pants are opened, my dress has risen up, and he's grinding against me. Oh hell no. I start to push him away and slap the hell out of him, wondering where the crap his sanity has gone, when the door swings open.


Brody moans as though he's doing more than simply grinding against me, and I realize what's going on. A few chuckles emerge from behind him, and I start playing along. Of course, the kiss gets sloppy and terrible when I tighten my lips and refuse to allow his tongue access. Tongue is really not necessary, in my opinion. The door shuts back and the chuckles continue as they start walking away.


"Let's go help Henrietta with the clients. Apparently half of them already like the place," Leonard jokes from farther away.


I break away from the wet kiss, and slap Brody. Albeit it's a pathetic girly slap, but I felt some reaction was warranted. I'm not really well versed with violence. My attempt to inflict pain merely provokes a low snicker from him.


"You could have warned me," I hiss as he puts me back down and starts redoing his pants.


"Action was all we had time for. Not spoken plans and warnings. Come on. We've got a short window."


I follow him out of the storage room, still considering slapping him harder. I'd probably earn another chuckle instead of doing any real harm. Jerk.


When we reach the cellar door, he motions for me to go in.


"You're not coming?" I ask, turning around.


"I can't. I can't watch you type in codes on a safe that doesn't belong to you."


What?


"I thought this was legal," I gripe, pissed that I left the drills behind now.


"It's not... legal. But it's not illegal. It's in a very gray area, considering this place doesn't rightfully belong to her but technically it does. Just go down there and take care of what you need to. I don't need to know the details. Then call me when you're coming back up. I'll find a spot to hide until then."


"It would have been nice if you had informed me of this before we came."


He rolls his eyes before giving me an incredulous look. "Really? Then you would have packed every tool for breaking in you could fit in the car. No way. I can handle a gray area. I can't handle it being straight up illegal."


A few choice words enter my mind, but he shoves me forward and shuts the door before those words can spill through my lips. Coward. I really wish I had at least one or two drills. Dad has the best equipment... even though he's out of the game.


I quickly remove the treacherous heels I'm wearing before I even attempt the stairs, and I hold them in my hand while I creep down, possibly plotting Brody's punishment. If this doesn't work because I don't have the proper equipment, I'm kicking his ass.


It's possible the drills wouldn't have worked either. It's Annex's after all. He's a tricky bastard, so he might have a booby trap set up that would make the safe even more inaccessible if I had drilled wrong. Considering I haven't done anything like that since I was twelve, I definitely might have messed up. Drilling safes was only ever a pastime thing for my dad and me. It's not like I'm a pro.


I drop the heels to a table on my way over to the painting with a secret. I smile when I remove it and find my salvation. I know that will is in there. It has to be. Kade might hate me, but at least I'll be able to give him one hell of a parting gift to remember me by.


Taking a weary breath, I go to type in the first, most obvious code. The annex is designed to accept numbers only, so I count the placement in the alphabet for Kade, along with 1993, but before I can press enter, I hear something I never in my life thought I'd hear so close to my head... the click of a gun.


"You should have stayed away from here," a familiar voice says as the barrel of the gun presses against the back of my head, making me visibly tremble.


Where have I heard his voice before? It isn't Harry... or Harold, rather, and it isn't Leonard either. Obviously this manly voice isn't Henrietta. I guess we weren't the only ones with a four-man team.


"I... um... got lost?" I stutter out like an idiot, slowly raising my hands in the air as a show of surrender.


A heartless chuckle taints the air when he finds humor in my poor attempt to come up with a lie. I'm actually much better at lying when I'm not in the middle of a con... ironically enough.


"Sure you did. At least now I know where the old man is keeping the will. Thanks for that," the grizzly voice says, and suddenly it dawns on me who it is.


"You're the... judge," I gasp, keeping my eyes on the safe as the gun presses harder against the back of my head.


"And you're the trailer-park trash that should have run back home to mother when Kade's friends bulldozed your house." He sighs out heavily, and then mutters, "I really hate to do this, but you brought it upon yourself."


I need to keep him talking and figure out a way to disarm him, but I have no clue about how to do that. Unfortunately, my father isn't a fighter, so he never taught me any of those skills. Damn it.


"You're going to..."


I can't get the words out. I can't cry, gasp, or even feel anything besides helpless. Surely a judge wouldn't-


"Kill you?" he laughs, finishing the words I couldn't. "What other choice do I have? I've been waiting twenty-three years to get revenge on Paul Colton. Twenty-three. Long. Years."


Keep him talking, Raya.


"Paul Colton? This is Kade Colton's inheritance, not Paul's." "Ah," he says, leaning down closer to my ear. "And Paul loves his boy. I've tried and failed many times to ruin Colton Fashion industries. He has that pretty little business packaged too well to be brought down. But this place... he didn't lock it up as well as he should have, and bringing it down is even better than bringing down his own empire. This is his father's - the man he adores. This is his son's - the boy he never knew how to relate to. This is the only thing that connected the three of them. Now I'm taking it."


Breathe, Raya. Breathe.


"So all of this is because you have beef with Paul?"


"Beef," he sniffs. "It's more than that. Paul Colton married the one and only woman in this world I've ever loved, and he didn't deserve her. He still doesn't. She and I had just planned a date when he met her. He didn't give a damn about me or the fact I had been desperately trying for months to get that date. I had to go through her father just to set it up.


"My family had money, my life was on track, and Paul was the poor boy who should have never crossed paths with her. All he did was use her and her contacts to build his father's business into something ridiculously wealthy. Used her," he says, repeating the last two words with a snarl. "Then he trapped her with a kid, just to ensure that she didn't wise up and leave him. That son of a bitch."


I've heard of women going crazy after being scorned, but I didn't realize men were just as bad. Frigging psycho.


"So then... you decided to get a group of cons to do this job? To steal this vineyard and exact revenge?" I ask, sounding stupid. But I have to stall, damn it. Where the hell is Brody?


He chuckles... again, managing to make it sound even eerier this time.


"Sorry, sweetheart. That's all the divulging I'm willing to do."


I tense up. "Are you sure?" I ask in an unusually high octave, rushing the words out so fast it almost sounds like one word. "Because it really sounds like you need someone to talk to."


The second click of a gun strikes me with more fear before I have time to register it as curious. How did he cock it twice?


"Actually," a saving voice says from behind, making my whole body almost jitter with relief, "I think Judge Higdon will have plenty of people who want to hear his story."


"Bleep," the judge says as the gun pulls back away from my head. But then he quickly starts trying to dig his way out. "This is Henrietta's property, where I too live, and this girl is trespassing. I was simply defending myself. You have nothing to prove otherwise."


I hear a rattling, as Brody most likely disarms the creep, and I tremble heavily before turning to face the judge for the first time, happy to see him without a weapon and his hands raised high in the air. He's bald, short, and not at all attractive. Add in the fact he's completely psychotic... I understand perfectly well why Kade's mom chose Paul.


Something hits me and makes me roll my eyes. "Judge Higdon. Roy Higdon. The Justice of the Peace who signed the marriage certificate for Thomas and Henrietta."


So the judge moonlights as a JOP. Why didn't I figure that out sooner?


Brody nods, his smile growing. "You mean forged?" he asks, winking.


"You have nothing to prove that," the judge repeats, almost growling. "This is her property, and I rent here. I'll have you both arrested for assaulting me in my own home."


Thank goodness Kade's grandfather didn't marry some troll without telling him.


"Unless I, as a man of the law, stumble across something in plain sight that could contradict that. Right, Judge?" Brody asks, making the growling man even more furious. "I think you've got an open safe to deal with," Brody says, covering his eyes with one hand and pressing harder against the back of Roy's head with the gun.


"That safe is not open! That's private property! You can't touch it!" the judge yells in objection. Yeah. Like I'm going to listen.


I quickly press the enter button to see if the code I pushed in earlier is correct, and my smile of wonder grows when a loud beep emerges, allowing the door to pop open just a hair. First damn try. Hell yes.


I quickly pull the door all the way open, delighting in what is right on top of the pile. "Oh look," I mutter, feigning innocence. "A document inside a very widely opened safe. And it looks like a will."


I turn to Brody who takes the will happily. "It seems you've found evidence that this property doesn't belong to the people who can now be considered trespassers. That's enough for me to hold them for now. It won't take me long to gather the rest. Good job, Raya."


I almost giggle like a silly girl, feeling the claws of adrenaline sinking in, but I refrain, coughing back the ridiculous outburst that was seconds from spilling out, and I offer a respectable smile and nod instead.


Brody rolls his eyes as he cuffs the judge, and then he looks at me once more. "You'd better not be hooked."


It was a thrill, a scare, and then a thrill again, but I'm far from hooked. There's only been one thing I've ever been hooked on and thoroughly addicted to, and... well, it was a person. In reality, I suppose I was just hooked on our game, because that's all it would have ever been - a game.


"Let's go," I mutter somewhat sadly, my euphoric cloud shattered by reality.


Brody frowns, but he starts shoving the handcuffed judge up the cellar stairs. I hear sirens going crazy outside, distorted voices coming over speakers, and shuffling feet going crazy. I whip my head around to find Brody smiling bigger.


"I might have called in backup. I suppose I had a little faith in you," he says with a shrug.


I sigh contently, happy it's all over, until we reach the outside and I see my father being pulled around by men in suits. His hands are cuffed, his curses are flying, and his claims of innocence are being ignored. Suddenly I'm twelve again, and my heart almost strangles me when it lodges in my throat.


"Unhand me you crazy sons of bitches!" Dad demands.


"Ray Drivel, you're under arrest for the-"


"Not him!" Brody yells, laughing almost hysterically. "He's with me. It's the other three," he says, motioning to Harold, Henrietta, and Leonard, who are all face down in the grass with their hands behind their heads. Poor Ember isn't far away, and she's doing the same thing. I really owe her one.


"And this one," Brody adds, shoving the judge off the porch and making him stumble to the ground with a loud umph.


They release my father, and my breath returns. He's finally one of the good guys. Well, good enough. I'm sure he'll always be a little bit bad.


"You okay?" Brody asks, reaching over and touching my shoulder.


"And it's Ray Capperton!" Dad screams, interrupting any lie I was about to tell Brody about how fine I am.


Dad rubs his wrists as he scowls at Brody. "You swore I could keep Ray Capperton. It's my favorite alias."


A snicker actually comes out, and Brody rolls his eyes before pulling out his wallet and handing Dad a license. "Here, Ray Capperton."


"Finally," Dad grumbles, ripping away the license and shoving it in his wallet.


I just smile as they embark on a candid conversation. Even when Ember joins us, I remain lost in my own world.


My phone buzzes, and I get a little sick when I see Kade's name flash across the screen. I'm sure by now he's already heard. His father has more than likely filled him in on what little he knew, and there are police here on their phones. I'm almost positive one of them is talking to Paul, briefing him on what has just transpired.


My finger hovers over the two options I have, but I wisely select ignore. My heart settles heavily in my chest, exhausted from holding its pieces together.


I've heard there's a reason for everything that happens in life. I've been searching for a reason for all this pain and madness. Why would I fall so hard for a man I can never have? But here it is. This is why Kade and I met. I was meant to do this. Otherwise he would have possibly lost everything. It's not closure, and it doesn't help alleviate the ache I feel, but it's nice to know that it wasn't for nothing. Maybe that'll be good enough to help me move forward... one day. Today's not that day.

Chapter 18


The Conman's Daughter


  



The look of pure shock on my father's face would be funny any other time, but I don't feel like smiling right now.


"Raya, I can't help you run a con. You can't go down the same path-"


"Kade's family's vineyard is being stolen from them as we speak," I say to interrupt, rolling my eyes. "I want to steal it back."


He visibly relaxes, making me frown. I can't believe he thought I just wanted to swindle away some cash.


"Then that's a different story. Give me the details."


Very quickly, I toss out everything I know in short, rushed spurts, keeping an eye on Brody the entire time.


"What sort of security do they have?"


"State of the art, but I think we can run through it with a simple hack."


"And you think his will is in the safe?" Dad asks while jotting down different key points.


"I know it is, but it's an Annex Goliath. A decoding device will send it into total lockdown. If I don't manually get the code right on the third try, we'll need drills-"


"Absolutely not," Brody interjects, startling the hell out of me and making Dad groan.


I just checked on him like two seconds ago.


"You have me bugged, don't you?" Dad growls, glowering at the FBI nuisance who's fucking with my plan. Brody just smirks while cocking an eyebrow that screams smug bastard. Then Dad continues, "I can't believe I didn't pick up on them."


"I'm better than the others," Brody releases with his haughtiest tone. Then he turns more serious while looking toward me. "No drills, no breaking through the security system. If you want to do this, I'll set up a sting operation, and we'll do it legally. Your father can't afford to get a strike this early on, and he'd happily go back to prison just to fix this mess your boyfriend is in."


"She's not breaking in to rob the place. She's stealing it back," Dad says in my defense, making Brody groan.


"Raya, make him understand," Brody says, looking toward me to be the voice of reason.


I cross my arms over my chest and offer him what has to be an incredulous look. "Make him understand what? I don't understand either. We're not breaking the law; we're upholding it by keeping the bad guys away from the good guys' stuff."


Brody scrubs his face with his hands as if he's exasperated, but I'm confused. How are we doing anything wrong? "Look," he groans. "If the marriage certificate is real-"


"It'll be real. They were too confident for it not to be," I bitch, interrupting him.


"Then legally it's hers unless there is a will proving otherwise. If you break in, then you're going to be the one brought to justice, not them. So do this my way, and get your boyfriend's vineyard and winery back. Then I'll handle the bad guys - the real bad guys. Trust me."


"How am I supposed to break into a safe legally?" I hiss.


"You have three codes, right? Pick the right one. I can't say you didn't know for sure what the code already was."


"I have three tries in an endless array of possible combinations. You can't be serious," I screech, looking at him as though he just grew two extra heads.


"Then figure out which numbers meant the most to him," Brody says with a shrug, as though this is a simple task and not an impossible feat. Jerk.


I look toward Dad, but he gives me an I-know-he's-fucking-impossible glare. Great. As if this wasn't going to be hard enough. Now this simple break-in just turned into a full-on con. I'm so screwed.


"So, Paul Colton tells me the vineyard-slash-winery has a major deal going on with Davis Marlone. He's new to money, and he has a daughter getting married. She has pictures plastered all over the web, but you can pass for her if you wear sunglasses, red lipstick, and grab a sexy red wig," he says while looking at his phone. "I'll send you a picture of what kind of hair style to get it."


"That's a lot of info very quickly," I mutter, slightly impressed.


"I work fast, babe. That's how I keep your dad from doing something stupid." He winks, and then returns to reading from his phone. "Marlone is sending his brother, Garret Marlone, who has some pictures on the web, but he looks dangerously close to your father if he dies his hair silver."


Dad grumbles and shakes his head. "Wig."


Brody laughs and rolls his eyes. "Fine. Grab a wig. And grab some cheesy, over-the-top designer suits that poor people think rich people wear, because that's how this guy dresses."


"I actually think I have all that handy," Dad mutters with a casual, one-armed shrug.


Of course he does.


"We need a four man team," Brody says, ignoring the last part my father said. "Two women and two men. We have three out of four. I'll be your loving fiancé, Bradley," he says, grinning at me. "And your Dad will need some hot piece of ass hanging on his arm. We'll need to look like new money." "Who are we going to get for the fourth person?" I ask, going back to his "four man team" comment.


"Do you have any sexy friends who could stand to earn some extra cash. I'm sure your father could afford to hire an actress." Brody casts a smirk toward my father who grumbles something about the government being cheapskates.


"I know a girl," I say with a grin.


"Good. Call her and fill her in. All she has to do is act enamored by your father."


"How are you planning on us showing up at this meeting instead of the real 'new money' clients?" I ask. I'm almost ashamed of how excited I feel.


"Leave the details to me. Your concern is the will," Brody says, earning a glare from my father.


"I do the details," Dad scoffs, and suddenly they begin bickering about who is in charge. All I can think about is how destroyed Kade must be.


I stare at my phone, uncertain if I should call. I'd be devastated if Courtney was with him. Instead, I text Paul.


Tell Kade not to worry, and keep him away from the vineyard. If he does something stupid, they'll have him arrested.


My phone buzzes almost immediately with a response.


Don't do anything. The FBI contacted me just a few moments ago. These people could be dangerous.


Could be and probably are. That's the only reason I'm okay with Brody going.


I know. Keep him away. He's mad, and he's likely to do something stupid.


It buzzes again, but this time Paul promises to keep his son away. He won't be able to do it for long. I just hope our con works. With the way Ember is fidgeting beside me, I can't tell if she's nervous or excited. I'm just happy she agreed to do this. Sindell would have been ideal, but the less Brody knows about her existence, the better. She's still in the game, and having a FBI agent around would cramp her style, or land her in prison.


I may not agree with what the rest of my family does, but they're still family. I won't get them locked up.


"So, you're sure the people we're pretending to be aren't going to show up here?" I whisper, acting as though someone can hear me as we drive down the lengthy driveway.


Brody and Dad both chuckle at my paranoia, but Ember doesn't find the humor. This is just another day for the two pros who have been conning cons for a while together. My heart is trying to pound out of my chest and beat out my eyeballs. Ember's whole body is tense beside me.


"Positive," Brody says. "I explained the situation to Paul Colton. I went over there last night after the lawyers called to tell him their servers crashed, and they lost numerous files. And, coincidentally enough, they couldn't find the physical copies of the files either. I was expecting that though. Colton messed up by showing his hand. He shouldn't have told them about the will."


"He didn't know they were pros. He was emotional and completely distraught," I say in Paul's defense.


Brody ignores me as he surveys the landscape, acting like a cop. "Alright," he says as we slow to a stop. "Show time."


Brody climbs out and walks to the back to open my door for me. I'm not sure where he rented the Mercedes, but at least we look wealthy enough. I'm surprised he didn't go more ostentatious with an outrageous canary yellow or candy-apple red Lamborghini. Of course, then we wouldn't have all fit.


"Come on, Sweetheart," Brody teases, pulling my hand in his.


My heart beats faster as the thrill of a real con consumes me. No wonder Dad got hooked. I'm terrified and giddy at the same time.


I see Henrietta, or whoever she really is. She waves at us through the window while keeping a fake smile plastered to her face. The red wig is very firmly attached to my knotted up hair. It's a little jarring to see such a bold color in place of my chocolate locks, and that's with the sunglasses taming down the hue for me.


I'm not accustomed to wearing dresses this short. I've only worn something this revealing a time or two in my life. I feel like I'm walking around in someone else's body right now. I'm praying no one notices me. Of course, with this brazen choice of red lipstick next to the already scarlet hair, I don't see that as a problem.


"Come in," Henrietta says cheerily, acting as though this is really her home and not the one she stole.


I sound hypocritical for hating her so much right now, since my family is full of cons, but no one has ever done what she has. I still can't believe Thomas ended up married to her. I was so hoping she was making it up, but the certificate was authenticated, just as I feared it would be.


Dad makes our false introductions, while Ember hangs on his arm, looking like a trashy gold digger who is beyond bored. Good girl.


While he rattles on about the vineyard and the beauty of it, and how we need to discuss where exactly to hold the wedding, Brody stays attentive, smiling and nodding. I scour the scene, trying to find out the best way to make it to the underground cellar without being noticed.


"Would you like to take off your sunglasses, dear?" Henrietta asks, interrupting my plan of escape.


I freeze. I've prepared myself for this. I rehearsed my lines over and over, but the words refuse to escape the moment I'm tested. I'm a terrible con.


"My fiancée has a migraine. Too much of the Kinderton Merlot," Brody says gently, as if he's being sympathetic to my fake migraine.


I'd thank him, but I'm still experiencing stage-fright. Instead, I groan - sounding authentic - and lean against his arm.


"Oh goodness," Henrietta chuckles, making my head actually hurt with her annoying laugh. "Would you two like to sit down in the great room? It has a beautiful view. My lawyer is in there right now."

Professor Starking tilted his head down and studied the class over the top of his glasses. “In our time together I will attempt to reshape your Galilean brains. You may experience discomfort. Expanding the mind can often be painful.”


I glanced back at Dante, unable to help myself. Everything about him seemed irresistible—the waves of his hair, the stubble on his chin. I could look at him all day and still not have all of the contours of his face committed to memory.


“We’ve learned from history that we are more efficient when we work together,” Professor Starking said. “Plato had Socrates, Galileo had Archimedes, Doctor Frankenstein had Igor.” He let out a chuckle, which degenerated into a fit of coughing.


“So,” he continued, clearing his throat, “everyone has been assigned a lab partner, who you’ll be working with for the entire semester.”


He began to read off names. Please, I thought, read my name with Dante’s. Please.


“Nathaniel Welch and Morgan Leicester.” Nathaniel shrugged and stood up.


“Greta Platt and Christian Treese. Paul McLadan and Maggie Hughes.


“Renée Winters and Dante Berlin.”


Surprised, my body went rigid. In California, I always seemed to be partners with Oily Jeremy, the boy with terrible body odor, or with Samantha Watson, who was only interested in talking about her nail polish. A chair scraped against the floor, and Dante walked across the room and took the empty seat next to me, his shoulder blades shifting underneath his shirt like tectonic plates as he leaned on the table.


After studying me for a few moments, he turned and faced the professor without even acknowledging me. Shocked by his rudeness and unsure of what to do, I turned my attention to the board and pretended to ignore him. We sat in silence until the professor finished calling off the names.


“The Laws of Attraction.” He approached the board.


His voice was drowned out by the noise of rustling paper.


“The First Law of Attraction states that attraction and repulsion are two sides of the same force.”


And as Professor Starking talked about physics and magnetism, I turned to Dante.


“Why do you keep staring at me?” I muttered under my breath.


He glanced around to make sure no one was listening and then leaned toward me. His voice was hushed. “You have pen on your face. Here,” he said, touching the space by his nose. “Oh.” I felt my face go red as I wiped my cheek with my hand.


“That and you remind me of someone I know. Or once knew. But I can’t place who it is.”


“I thought you didn’t have any friends,” I challenged.


Dante smiled. “I don’t. Only enemies. Which doesn’t bode well for you, considering the fact that you must resemble one of them.”


I raised an eyebrow. “You know, you’re really good at compliments. Actually, it’s surprising that a person with charm like yours has any enemies.” The words came out before I could stop them. At this rate I would never be able to ask him about Benjamin Gallow, and it didn’t help that every time he looked at me I wanted to melt.


“So you think I’m charming?” Dante countered, mocking me. “Is that why you keep staring at me?”


“Alarming, not charming. And no, I’m just curious.”


“Curious?” Dante gave me a bemused look and leaned back, draping his arm over his chair. “About what?”


“Why don’t you talk to anyone?”


“I thought that’s what we were doing.”


“To anyone else.”


“Talking isn’t the only way to communicate. I speak when I have something to say.”


“Then you must be pretty boring, judging from what everyone says about you.”


Dante let out a laugh. “And what are they saying?”


“That you won’t talk to anyone at school because you think you’re superior.”


“And what if I am?” I narrowed my eyes. “You’re not. You just think you are.”


Dante smiled and leaned toward me. “So now you can read my thoughts?”


I swallowed. “No. I can just tell.”


“Really? What am I thinking now?” he said, lowering his eyes to mine.


It was difficult to act normal with him staring at me so closely, so intensely. My voice wavered. “You’re...you’re wondering where I’m from.”


Dante’s face softened. “That’s exactly what I was thinking,” he said, studying me. I wasn’t sure if he was joking.


“Somewhere green, I’d guess,” he continued. “With a lot of sun.”


“How do you figure that?”


Without touching me, he traced his fingers through the air along the top of my cheeks. “Freckles.”


I blushed. “California. And you...you’re from—?”


“Here and there,” he said, brushing off my question. “Nowhere, really.”


I gave him a suspicious look. What did that even mean? Though, admittedly, I couldn’t imagine him being from anywhere. He was too handsome, too mysterious to come from a place.


Before I could ask him another question, Dante continued. “So why did you come here? You don’t seem like the average Gottfried student.”


“Why?” I said, taking offense. “Because I don’t have a trust fund and a summer home?”


“Because you say what you think.”


“Oh,” I said, averting my eyes. “And people at Gottfried don’t?”


“Not like you did to me at the Awakening. Or to Mrs. Lynch this morning.” I sighed. He saw that. “I’m not used to so many rules. My old school was more...laid back.”


“So your parents sent you here?”


I shook my head. “My grandfather. ..” my voice trailed off.


I felt Dante’s eyes on me, examining my face.


“Do you have parents?” I asked, before realizing how stupid a question it was. Everyone had parents.


Dante hesitated. “No, not really.”


“What do you mean not really?”


“Nothing,” he said. “It’s...just, never mind.”


I rested my chin in my hand, considering his aloofness. “What’s the big secret?”


“No secret,” he said with a smile. “Just nothing to tell.”


I gave him a coy frown. “Or nothing you want to tell.”


Around us, everyone was flipping through the pages in their textbooks as Professor Starking recited something about forces. I shuffled through the pages haphazardly, more aware of Dante’s presence next to me than the vectors in the book.


He gave me the beginnings of a smile. “Look, I think we got off on the wrong foot. Can we start over?” He held his hand out beneath the desk. “I’m Dante,” he said.


I studied the creases in his palms, the veins running up the contours of his arms, before responding. “Renée,” I said quietly, slipping my hand into his.


His skin was cold to the touch, and I felt a tingling sensation in my fingers, as if they had just begun to go numb. Our eyes met, and my face became warm and flushed, my insides fluttering like a cage of small birds. It was alarming; nothing like this had ever happened before, and I didn’t understand why I felt so strange. It wasn’t just nerves or butterflies. I’d felt those with Wes; but this was different —frightening, almost supernatural. I opened my mouth to say something, but nothing came out.


He pulled his hand back quickly, and the sensation in my fingers slowly returned to normal, the warmth seeping through my skin like ink. I blinked once, and everything except for Dante seemed muted and distant. I stared at him—horrified, confused, excited—at his lips, parted and drawing breath into his body as he tried to understand what had just happened, and I knew that nothing would ever be the same.

“Minnie,” she said timidly.


Before I could respond, I felt a tap on my shoulder.


A woman with a yardstick was standing behind me. She was short and squat, with thick calves and an oversized blazer with a peacock brooch on the left lapel. Her hair was a dull brown and was cut close to her head in a no-nonsense style.


Minnie’s face contorted with fear and she stuffed the rest of her belongings into her bag and scurried away to the corner of the foyer, leaving a few stray pencils on the ground.


“Stand up,” the woman said to me.


Upright, I towered over her, my eyes meeting the top of her head.


“What is your name?”


“Renée,” I said, resentful of being ordered around and asked my name when all I’d been doing was helping a girl pick up her things. Professor Lumbar I could understand, since I had been late, but this was unnecessary. “What’s yours?”


She stared at me, horrified at my impertinence. “The audacity—” she said, almost to herself. “My name is Mrs. Lynch. But don’t busy yourself trying to remember it; in time it will ring familiar. An insubordinate child like you, I suspect, will be seeing a lot more of me in the future.”


She took me by the elbow and led me to the foot of the stairs.


“What are you doing?”


“General procedure.”


“But I haven’t done anything wrong!”


“Kneel,” she barked.


Startled by the abnormality of her command, I dropped to the ground in front of the staircase, trying to convince myself that teachers no longer beat students with rulers. Did they? Around us, a crowd students had begun to gather. A group of girls pointed at me and whispered. I tried to ignore them, though I could feel my face growing red. The grainy wood floor was rough against my bare knees, and I shifted my weight uncomfortably.


Mrs. Lynch circled me, her brown clogs clicking against the floor like a timer. “No stockings,” she murmured, dragging the end of the ruler across the back of my legs.


“Untucked shirt,” she continued. She dropped the yardstick, its butt hitting the ground with a thud. A hush ran through the crowd of students. I winced, waiting for her to hit me, but instead she bent down and held the stick against my thigh. She looked at my skirt and frowned. “Two and one-quarter inches above the knee. The dress code stipulates that skirts can be no more than two inches above the knee.”


“But it’s only a quarter inch!”


“Nevertheless, you are out of dress code,” Mrs. Lynch sneered, showing a row of tiny yellowed teeth.


I glared at her and stood up, pulling at my skirt. How was this possibly punishable?


“You will go back to your room and change.”


“But I have to go to philosophy—”


She ignored me. “And on the way you’ll pay a visit to the headmistress’s office.”


“I have class now!”


“You’ll have to miss it,” she said, and began to walk away.


“But it’s the first day!”


She turned to me. “Young lady, you’re lucky it’s the first day. Otherwise your punishment would have been far more severe.”


I hoisted myself up and was wiping off my knees when I heard a woman’s voice behind me. “Excuse me,” she said to Mrs. Lynch. Startled, she turned around.


The woman was thin and plain, with straight brown hair and a linen skirt. She was about the age of my mother, and had creases around her eyes from smiling. “This is one of my students. I’ll deal with her.”


I had never seen her in my life.


Mrs. Lynch gave her a suspicious look. So did I.


“I only mean to escort her,” the woman said, studying me as if she had seen me before. “She’s new.”


Mrs. Lynch grunted in reply and went back to her office, her yardstick tapping as she walked. When she was gone, the woman turned to me. “Come.”


The crowd in the foyer of Horace Hall parted, and I held my head high as I walked, avoiding eye contact with anyone, to hide my mortification. Once we were outside, she stopped and glanced around us. “Go back to the dorm and change.” “What about the headmistress?”


“Do you really want to see her?”


I shook my head.


“That’s what I thought.”


I didn’t know who she was or why she was helping me. “Why—” I started to say, but she interrupted me.


“Don’t get caught out of dress code again.”


With a nod, I ran back to the dormitory. I went through all of my mother’s clothes until I finally found a more modest pleated skirt. I put it on, along with a pair of stockings. Then I tucked in my shirt, slipped on my cardigan, and stood in front of the mirror. I could barely recognize myself. If Annie saw me now she would have walked right by me. Yet for some reason the woman who had just saved me from the headmistress’s office had looked at me as if she’d seen me before. Who was she? Sighing, I ran a hand through my hair and pinned it back with my mother’s barrette.


By the end of the day I had met up with Nathaniel, and together we walked over to our last class, Crude Sciences. It was in the Observatory, a tall spindle of a building in the center of campus. On the way, I told him about how I’d walked into the wrong class before Latin, and about Minnie and Mrs. Lynch and the mystery woman who had intervened.


“Yeah,” Nathaniel said. His poorly knotted tie was too long, and swung against his chest as he struggled to hold his books and keep up with me. “Lynch loves watching people squirm. She’s always on me for having too much facial hair.” He fingered the three or four lone whiskers that had sprouted from his chin. “I don’t even own a razor!” His voice cracked, and he blushed. “And next time don’t worry about Minnie. She’s always tripping over things and dropping stuff, which doesn’t really help the fact that everyone here thinks she’s crazy.”


“Why do they think that?” I asked, gripping my book bag.


“She had this outburst last year in the dining hall. I don’t really know what it was about. I wasn’t there.”


I shrugged. “Speaking of crazy, what was that class that I walked in on? There were all these morbid drawings on the board, and the teacher was speaking Latin, I think. And everyone looked miserable. Though I guess I would too if I had to stare at drawings like that all day.”


Nathaniel wiped the sweat beading on his forehead with the end of his tie. “I don’t know. It’s not that weird. It was probably one of the Advanced Latin classes.”


“Okay. But what about the drawings on the board? And Dante was in it. He’s in our year. Shouldn’t he be in my Latin class?” Nathaniel pushed up his glasses. “No. I’m in an Advanced Latin class too,” he said proudly. “They group us based on ability instead of year, since there aren’t that many of us. And as for the drawings, maybe they were just using them to learn vocabulary words.”


I gave him a skeptical look. “A chapter on coffins? I highly doubt that.”


The inside of the Observatory was much larger than its small frame suggested. The walls were white, and a single spiral staircase led up to the glass dome of the roof. When we made it to the top, we were in a laboratory with long concentric counters lined with beakers, scales, and metal instruments. Bottles of brightly colored liquids and vials of powder lined the walls. In the center of the room, a giant telescope faced up into the sky.


Nathaniel and I sat at an empty bench in the back row. The professor was standing in the middle of the classroom, a position that emphasized his potbelly and disproportionately skinny legs. He wore spectacles and had the spacey look of a mad scientist who believed in conspiracy theories and aliens. Pens stuck out of his shirt pocket, and frizzy tufts of hair sprouted in a ring around the crown of his head. He glanced at his watch and flipped the lights on and off to signal the start of class.


I was about to ask Nathaniel more about his Latin class when I felt someone’s eyes on me. I looked up and saw Dante. He was sitting on the far side of the classroom, the afternoon light bending around his silhouette. His dark hair was strewn carelessly about his face, making his skin look ashen and smooth in contrast.


Our eyes met, and I tried to smile, but Dante didn’t waver. Instead he gave me a curious, almost troubled look. What was he thinking about? The professor flipped the lights on and off one last time, making Dante’s face disappear and then reappear like the flash of a ghost. When the lights came back on, he was still staring at me. A prickly feeling of anxiety crept up my spine. I shuddered and looked away.


“Professor Starking is my name, though this is but a formality. The details of our identities are quite insignificant in the complex system of forces that comprise our universe.”


He patted the shaft of the telescope and glanced up through the glass ceiling. Clouds floated carelessly across the sky. A small flock of birds flew beneath them.


“But before we look into the outer realms of the cosmos, we must revisit this world. Thus we study the crude sciences. Biology, physics, chemistry—we will master these before we move on to the stars and planets.”