Dead Beautiful (26 page)

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.”

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.