Dead Beautiful (40 page)

“I fell in the lake,” I said weakly.

“She ate salt is what she did,” the nurse said impatiently, while she sanitized a needle. “And it’s a good thing he told me, otherwise it would have taken a lot longer for me to diagnose and rehydrate her.”

“And Mr. Berlin jumped in after her?” the headmistress said pensively.

No one said anything.

“Gallant,” she said to Dante, “if not slightly familiar, no? As much as I enjoy seeing you so frequently after these mishaps, perhaps one of these days you will each start to focus on your studies?” She rapped her fingers on the table. Neither Dante nor I responded. And without saying more, the headmistress left.

Nurse Irmgard turned her attention to me. “Just a little prick,” she said, and inserted an IV drip into my forearm.

“You’ll have to stay on this for twenty-four hours in order to replenish all of your water content.”

“Okay,” I tried to say, though no sound came out. My mouth was dry and frothy. I took one last look at her and let myself drift into sleep.

I woke up after dark to a flickering fluorescent light. The nurses’ wing was the only place on campus that was permitted to have artificial lights after sunset. At ten o’clock a nurse checked on me one last time, then retreated to her office for the night. I waited until I heard her door close, and saw the lights switch off, and then pulled the IV out of my arm and stood up. My clothes were piled on the countertop. I rummaged through them until I found my jacket, and took Nathaniel’s glasses out of the pocket.

I walked down the hall in my hospital gown, my bare feet slapping softly against the tile floor. Every time I passed a room I peeked through the window in the door. Finally I found Nathaniel’s room. Trying to keep quiet, I pushed open the door.

When I stepped inside, I was met with an odor so acrid that I had to steady myself against the wall before continuing forward. The burning hair at the séance had given off a similar smell, though this was stronger and more concentrated. The smell of decay. Was this what happened when an Undead was buried? I opened the windows. A draft floated in, and my hospital gown billowed around me.

Nathaniel was lying in bed. The outline of his frail body jutted out under a thin white sheet. A fly circled above him.

I swatted it away. Traces of soil still stained the edges of his face, and his eyes were closed. Without his glasses he looked tired and old—much older than he actually was. The skin on his cheeks sagged, and purple bags hung under his eyes. A folding chair was positioned by his bed, and I sat down in it, watching him shift around in bed, the closest he would ever get to dreaming.

“Renée?” he said in a small voice, squinting at me.

I jumped. I didn’t think he was conscious. “It’s me.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I ate a bottle of salt.”

Nathaniel tried to ask a question, but could only mouth it. “
Why
?”

“So I could see you.”

“That’s a little extreme.” His voice cracked. “They’re going to let me go in a few days.”

I highly doubted that. I wasn’t even sure if he could sit up.

He patted around the nightstand for his glasses. “Salt is a preservative, you know.”

Typical Nathaniel, lying on what could have been his deathbed, talking about the chemical properties of salt. “I have them,” I said, holding up his glasses. “I found them on the lawn.”

“Thanks,” he said. His fingers trembled as he pushed them onto his nose.

“How are you feeling?”

“I’m fine,” he said. “Just tired.”

I looked at him in disbelief. He didn’t look fine. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah,” he said, his voice weak, as if he barely had breath to speak the words. “It’s just a little dirt.”

I sat back in my chair. So he was still denying the fact that he was Undead. “Nathaniel, you were buried. We both know what that means for you. You don’t have to lie. I know what you are and it doesn’t matter to me.”

I touched his arm, but he pulled away.

“Fine,” I conceded. “You’re fine.”

Neither of us spoke for a few minutes. Eventually I broke the silence. “So what happened?”

“After you showed me the files you found in Gideon’s room, I got interested. I wanted to go back and look through them again, but they were already gone. I was sure Gideon had followed you to the library and taken them back. So I snuck into his room to look for them.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I don’t know. I’m just not like you, Renée. I don’t really tell people things.”

I fidgeted with the tail of my hospital gown.

Nathaniel lapsed into a fit of coughing. I offered him a glass of water, but he refused. “I’m not that good at snooping, so it took me a while to find anything. But eventually I found the files. And Eleanor’s diary.”

I shook my head. “What?” I had completely forgotten it had even been stolen.

“I found it in Gideon’s room. And inside, there were all these notes in Latin about where she went and what she did and at what time. Parts of her schedule were circled, like he was memorizing her routine.”

So it was Gideon who killed Eleanor, I thought, my mind racing. But why? “Why didn’t you tell anyone?” I asked, incredulous. “Do you still have it?”

“No. I only found it yesterday. The night before the play. I took it from his room and was running to the headmistress’s office to show her, when I ran into Brandon Bell on the green. I figured I might as well just show him, since he was on the Board of Monitors. But when he saw Eleanor’s folder and diary, with all the notes in it, he went totally berserk. He started accusing
me
of attacking Eleanor. He kept asking me why I killed her.

“I tried to tell him that she was still alive, but it just made him angrier. Then I told him that it was Gideon who had taken the diary, but he was too angry to listen.

“He brought me to the boys’ dormitory and locked me in a broom closet. When he let me out, he was carrying a shovel and a burlap bag. I tried to get away, but he was stronger. He stuffed my mouth, put the sack over my head, and pushed me across the lawn.

“He said, ‘I’m going to make an example of you, the same way you made an example of Eleanor. Then you people will finally see what happens when you kill innocent girls.’

“Then Brandon brought me to the green. And you know what happened next.”

I was speechless. Brandon buried Nathaniel alive? That meant that Brandon knew about the Undead. He knew that Eleanor was Undead and he knew that Nathaniel was Undead. Either that or it was a huge coincidence that he chose to bury him. “But how? Why? Why would Gideon kill Eleanor? He barely knew her.” I almost confused myself saying it.

“I don’t know,” Nathaniel said meekly. “But Brandon has her diary now, and all of the folders.”

That must have been what he was flipping through when I saw him earlier today with the headmistress.

Nathaniel coughed. A deep, hacking cough.

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I told you, I’m fine. But I’m not sure if you are.”

I frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Gideon had your file too. I didn’t get a chance to look at it, but it was definitely there.”

“Why would he want my file? He has no idea who I am.”

“I don’t know. But there must be something in there of interest. The real question you should be asking is: do
you
know who you are?”

CHAPTER 17
The Board of Monitors

I
T WAS THE NIGHTTIME WHEN I SNUCK OUT OF THE
nurses’ wing and back to the girls’ dormitory. Dante wasn’t anywhere to be seen, and when I got back to my room, Eleanor wasn’t there either. Probably in the library, I thought. I shut the door. There was only one other person who could give me answers. I pulled out my suitcase and dug inside until I found a folded piece of paper. Picking up the phone, I dialed the nine-digit number scrawled on the bottom of the note. After three rings, Dustin picked up.

“Winters Residence.”

“Is my grandfather there?”

“Miss Winters?” he said, lightening his tone. “Of course. One moment.”

I waited until the line clicked. “Renée?” My name sounded strong and definitive in my grandfather’s baritone voice.

“What aren’t you telling me?” I demanded.

There was a long silence.

“Renée, have you ever felt pulled to someone?”

Immediately Dante came to mind. “Yes.”

“I’m not talking about love. I’m talking about something else. Something more magnetic.”

“Yes,” I said, the word leaving my mouth before I could stop it.

“Good. And do you remember when I told you that the early headmasters built tunnels beneath the campus to keep the Plebeian students safe?”

“Yes.”

“They also took another precaution. The Board of Monitors.”

“But the Board of Monitors does
nothing.
They don’t even help Mrs. Lynch patrol the halls.”

“Because patrolling the halls isn’t their function.”

Confused, I waited for him to continue.

“The Board of Monitors was originally formed as a group of living students who had the gift of sensing death. It is virtually impossible to tell the difference physically between the Undead and the living. Monitors represent a small percentage of the population who can actually make that distinction. It’s a skill that often runs in families. Monitors are usually drawn to death even from a young age. At Gottfried, the headmistress and professors are able to identify these students through a series of examinations that take place during the admissions process. They then elect a Board of Monitors, whose role is to help protect both the living and the Undead. When a student is elected to the board, they are then educated by the headmistress about the details of the Undead; before that, their education is no different than yours.

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

“Do the Undead know about Monitors?”

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

“And Headmistress Von Laark is a Monitor?”

“Yes.”

“And all of the professors?”

“Correct.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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