CHAPTER 16

THE BURIAL OF NATHANIEL WELCH

I COULDN’T SLEEP. AND SINCE Eleanor couldn’t either, we kept each other company until the sun rose over the mountains. From the window of our dorm room we watched the professors run back and forth between the nurses’ wing and the boys’ dormitory, their flashlights bouncing around on the patches of yellow grass like fireflies. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was reliving the past.

When morning broke, I went directly to the nurses’ wing. It was on the fourth floor of Archebald Hall. I knocked. Suddenly it cracked open, and I stumbled forward, catching myself in the door frame.

A nurse stuck her head out. “Yes? May I help you?”

She was short and stubby, with thick fingers, a tight bun encased in a hairnet, and a name tag that read Irmgard. Dark bags hung under her eyes. She looked like a person who had spent the majority of her life being miserable.

“I’m here to see Nathaniel Welch.”

“I’m sorry, but no visitors are allowed in right now.” She began to close the door.

“But I’m his friend.”

“Mr. Welch is still unstable,” she said, her voice stern. “Unless you also have a health problem, I’m afraid it will have to wait until tomorrow.”

I put my hand on the door to keep her from closing it.

“Please,” I said.

She disappeared inside, and for a moment I thought she might be letting me in. Instead, the door opened and I was met by Headmistress Von Laark. “Renée,” she said, her blue eyes studying me. “Are you ill?”

“No,” I said, trying to be discreet as I craned my neck to see what was going on behind her. Brandon Bell was sitting in the hallway, flipping through some sort of notebook.

“Then you shouldn’t be here. I believe you have Physical Education now, no?”

Defeated, I nodded and stepped back as the door closed in my face.

I jogged across campus, stopping by the dining hall on the way. But when I got there I had no appetite. Instead of eating, I took a salt shaker from one of the tables and shoved it into my pocket.

When I reached the green, the rest of the class was gathered by the lake in front of the Ursa Major statue. The night fog was lifting, and the morning was hazy and cool. An owl hooted in the distance. Everyone was talking about Nathaniel. “It must have been a student,” Rebecca said. “Someone who knew him. It’s too much of a coincidence that he was buried right below where the play was being performed.”

“But why Nathaniel?” asked Greta.

And why Eleanor? I asked myself. What did they have in common? Me, I realized.

Thankfully, before I could dwell on my conclusion, our gym teacher, Miriam Hollis, strode through the trees. She was androgynous and energetic, with a boyish voice that cracked when she was excited. She wore gym shorts all the time, even at night when it was freezing.

“I didn’t realize it was already nap time,” she said, checking her watch. “All right. Everybody up. And try to look alive.”

Our Physical Education classes were less about sports and more about survival. Each class focused around a life-threatening environmental situation that required athletic skills. How to shoot a bird with a slingshot. How to run for an extremely long time if we were being chased. How to build a makeshift shelter if we were trapped outside in a storm, which I personally thought was the most unpleasant lesson so far.

“Swimming! Every year thousands of people die from falling into cold water. Why is this? Because they never learned to master their minds and control their bodies! Therefore, today’s objective is to master the art of temperature acclimatization and buoyancy.”

I raised my hand, interrupting her. “Ms. Hollis, I don’t feel well. May I go to the nurses’ wing?”

“Certainly not,” she said.

I sighed. It was worth a try.

“Only dead bodies float naturally, and that’s because they’re incapable of sinking. Hence the term, dead man’s float. In order to control your buoyancy and your temperature, you have to train your bodies to be comfortable both above and below the water. Our first exercise, therefore, will be to float for thirty seconds without moving any of your limbs.”

We lined up along the creaky dock on the near bank of the lake, where the shore dropped off into deep water. It was dark and unnaturally still. While everyone else stripped down to their bathing suits, I slipped to the end of the line and fished through my pocket until I found the salt shaker. I was determined to see Nathaniel. He must have seen the person who buried him alive; he had to know.

Ms. Hollis marched down the line, barking commands. “Pull your shorts up,” she said to Brett. He tugged at them, but she rolled her eyes. “Higher. No one wants to see your genitals.” Brett’s face went red. A few of the girls giggled. “Rebecca does,” Bonnie whispered.

I unscrewed the top of the salt shaker, and when I was sure no one was watching, I poured a mouthful of salt onto my tongue and swallowed.

At first, no one noticed. Emily Wurst was clutching a towel that barely covered her large figure. With one swift movement, Ms. Hollis yanked it off and threw it aside. Some of the boys started to snicker, but stopped when Ms. Hollis spun around and glared at them. I began to sweat. A chill ran under my skin, and I started to shiver uncontrollably. My breaths grew deeper, until I was heaving over the ground.

“Stand up straight,” Ms. Hollis said to Neil Simons, who was slouching and scratching at his nose. “And for God’s sake, stop picking your nose.”

Everyone laughed. The sound of it seemed so loud it was deafening. I covered my ears with my hands.

“Stand up straight,” Ms. Hollis repeated to Minnie Roberts, whose gnarled braid seemed to be growing longer. My eyes watered, and I blinked, watching the world slow down.

“Stand up straight,” she said to me, her words echoing in my ears as my knees buckled. My legs felt too weak to support me, and as if in slow motion, I tottered and then collapsed with a splash into the water.

The shock of the cold twisted my lungs, squeezing the air out of them. With a gasp, I surfaced and then sank back under, unable to keep myself above water. Unlike the world above, the atmosphere beneath the surface was eerie and muted. Things moved slowly, without sound – the weeds swaying with the waves, the fish meandering between rocks and plants. I tried to will my limbs to move, but they were growing so cold that I could barely feel them.

And then something hit the surface above me. At first all I could see was a blur of white plunging through the water. As the water calmed, a shape began to take form, and before I realized it, Dante was beside me. The sunlight filtered through the surface of the water, and he grabbed my arm. Almost as if he were floating, he pulled me up towards the light.

With another gasp, we surfaced, and I coughed up mouthfuls of water. I wrapped my arms around his neck as he lifted me onto the dock. Everyone gathered around us, but Ms. Hollis herded them away. Dante took a towel from the group and wrapped it around my shoulders. I let my gaze drift up to his, wandering from his trousers matted against his thighs to his shirt and tie, transparent with water. His skin glistened in the sun, and I watched his chest rise and fall, the water from his hair dripping down his neck. Where had he come from? He wasn’t in my gym class.

A crowd of people hovered over me, their faces blurring into one.

“Renée,” a voice said. “Just hold on.”

I nodded and let my eyes flutter closed. I felt two arms scoop me up, and all of a sudden I was being carried across the lawn, through the trees and down the path towards Archebald Hall.

“Renée, are you okay?” Dante asked me when we were out of earshot.

I nodded weakly.

“Can you see me? How many fingers am I holding up?”

I blinked. My hair was matted to my face with water and sweat. All I could see was a blur of colours. Maybe this is what Dante felt like. “I ate salt,” I said, my voice weak. “I had to see Nathaniel. It was the only way I could get in.”

He wiped the water collecting on my eyebrows. “Shh,” he said soothingly. “Don’t talk now. Rest.”

“Where did you come from?” I said weakly.

“I was walking to the front gate when I saw you from the path,” he said. “Then I saw you fall in, so I ran.”

I closed my eyes, until all I could see was the outline of Dante’s face, white and radiant, like the sun. “Thank you.”

Nurse Irmgard frowned when she saw me again, and from the way Dante was talking to her, I could tell she was sceptical of my “illness”. But after she pressed the back of her hand to my forehead and felt my pulse, her frown quickly changed to a look of concern.

“What happened to her?” she asked, addressing Dante, who was still holding me in his arms.

Dante glanced at me. “She ate salt,” he said.

She gave him a confused look that bordered on frustration. “Why would she do something like that?”

Dante shook his head. “The cafeteria food is pretty bland.”

Nurse Irmgard didn’t appreciate his humour. She called in another nurse, whom she addressed as Wendy. “Prepare Room Three, and start setting up an IV. Her pulse is at ninety beats per second and she’s low on electrolytes.”

“She’ll be okay, won’t she?” Dante asked.

Wendy scurried away, and Nurse Irmgard ignored him and marched down the hall and into an exam room. “Set her down here.” Dante placed me gently on the exam table. He lingered as she listened to my heart with her stethoscope, and then took my blood pressure. When she realized he was still there, she shooed him away.

Dante tried to protest. “I’d like to stay, if that’s all right.”

“Absolutely not.” Just before she pushed Dante out of the room, the headmistress entered. The nurse busied herself over a movable table as the headmistress approached us.

“Mr. Berlin,” she said, and then noticed me on the bed. “And Miss Winters. Back so soon.”

“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 odour 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 draught 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?”