Dead Beautiful (8 page)

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

Looking slightly surprised, he straightened his posture.

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

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

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

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

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

“Right, Renée?” Eleanor probed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Eleanor rolled her eyes.

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

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

I stopped chewing.

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

I could feel myself begin to sweat.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“So are they together now or something?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I sighed. “I guess.” Even though everything she said made sense, I didn’t believe it.

“But if Dante’s
is
hiding something, maybe you can get it out of him,” she said, wrapping an elastic around the bottom of my braid. “I think he likes you.”

“He said three words to me, then told me I was in his seat. That hardly counts as liking.”

“Okay, but you have to admit that he’s gorgeous. Aren’t you at least curious?”

I was, but not just because he was unreasonably good-looking. There was something about the way he’d looked at me that made me feel more alive than I’d felt since before my parents had died. Even though our interaction was brief, I couldn’t get it out of my head. Why did he talk to me but not to anyone else? It seemed too coincidental that he had found Benjamin dead in the forest from a heart attack, just like I had found my parents. Yes, there was no
proof
he knew anything. He could have left his friends for any number of reasons. But what if there was more to it?

I was about to respond when someone knocked on the other side of the wall above Eleanor’s bed. A mischievous smile spread across her face. She climbed onto her bed and knocked back three times, waited, and then knocked once more.

Tiptoeing next to the door, she pressed her ear against it to make sure no one was outside. “I’m going next door. Do you want to come?”

“What’s next door?”

“Just the girls,” she said, putting on her slippers. “Genevieve’s going to be there, and I want to hear all the dirt on the Board of Monitors.”

“Is there dirt? I thought they were model students or something.”

“Oh come on, everyone has some terrible secret buried away.” Raising an eyebrow, she teased, “Not just Dante.”

“Isn’t your brother on the Board of Monitors? Why don’t you just ask him?”

She shook her head. “That’s the only thing he won’t tell me about. Obviously he doesn’t understand reverse psychology. Keeping it a secret only makes me want to know more.”

The invitation was tempting, but I was still trying to process all the things she’d told me about Benjamin Gallow. “Maybe some other night. I’m exhausted.”

Eleanor shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

She pulled on a sweater and slipped into the hall, where Rebecca and Bonnie were huddled outside. “Sweet dreams, Renée,” she said, and closed the door.

Unsure of what to do with myself, I picked up our dorm phone and dialed Annie’s number. Her mom answered.

“Hel... Hello?” my voice cracked. Even though I had only been gone for two days, it felt like ages. I had taken for granted what it was like to talk to someone familiar, and all at once my emotions about losing my parents and being ripped away from my friends and my life in California came bubbling to the surface.

“Renée, is that you?” Margerie’s voice echoed from a world that I had almost forgotten.

I swallowed. “Yes,” I said in a small voice. “Is Annie there?”

“Oh honey, she’s out right now. Can I have her call you back?”

“Sure,” I said, trying to hide my disappointment.

“Is everything all right?” she asked, after I had given her my dorm phone number.

“Yeah, it’s great,” I forced out. “Everything here is great.”

There was a long silence on the other end, as if Margerie were weighing whether or not she believed me. “Okay. Well, call us if you need anything. And I’ll make sure to tell Annie you called.”

“Thanks,” I said, and hung up.

I thought of all the places Annie could have been—the marina, the coffee shop, Lauren’s house—all the places I used to go to, but would never see again. To take my mind off it, I rolled over and picked up the Gottfried
Code of Discipline
and opened to the table of contents. It had dozens of sections: Dress Code, Curfew, School Boundaries, Leisure Activities, Room and Board, and Attica Falls, among others. I flipped to the chapter on the history of Gottfried and began to read.