“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.
Gottfried Academy was originally founded as a children’s hospital. The patients were housed in two buildings, one for boys and one for girls. Between the buildings was the only known salt lake on the East Coast. The founder and head doctor, Bertrand Gottfried, used the antibiotic qualities of the salt water to ward off disease, and the lake became a bathing area for patients. The infirmary grounds were built around it, including a wall that concealed the grounds behind fifteen feet of stone, to protect the patients from the natural hazards of the White Mountains....
Although I was tired, something compelled me to continue reading. And that was how I ended my first day at Gottfried—thinking about rules and restrictions, about death and Benjamin Gallow and my parents, until I fell into a dreamless sleep.
CHAPTER 4
The First Law of Attraction
THE FIRST WEEK OF SCHOOL ONLY ADDED TO THE strange events that had been occurring over the past few weeks. It started in Latin.
Horace Hall, where almost all of our classes were held, was the size of a small Victorian castle, with stone towers and large wooden doors hammered with iron. They were so heavy I could barely open them. Ivy climbed up the face of the building, meandering around the windows that looked out onto the green.
The doors opened into a foyer with red carpeting, stained wooden walls, and high ceilings supported by oak beams. The windows were framed with heavy blue drapes, their folds gathering on the floor. Behind them, heaters hissed. In the middle of the foyer was a wide staircase with polished banisters that led to the outer wings of the building.