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.”
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.
“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.”
“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.