Dead Beautiful

I nodded.

“Eleanor never went to Attica Falls on Grub Day.”

“She said she was going to the library.”

“And did she return to the room that night?”

“No,” I said. “Wait, yes. Yes she did.”

Mrs. Lynch gave me a suspicious look. “In your short time here at the Academy, you have garnered quite the reputation for troublemaking.”

I gave her a confused look. “What?”

“Called to the headmistress’s office three times.”

“But the first time I hadn’t done anything—” I tried to say, but she continued.

“Caught severely out of dress code; breaking curfew with a boy; blatantly disobeying the authority of professors...”

“But that was all really just one time—”

“Talking out of line,” she said with contempt. “Where were you on Grub Day?”

“I was in Attica Falls. People saw me there; you can ask Nathaniel Welch. I was with him.”

“Where were you that evening?”

I hesitated. “I was in my dorm room, studying.”

“And what were you studying?”

“Latin,” I said quickly.

“And Eleanor was there that night?”

“Yes,” I lied.

“And you can produce no other witnesses of your whereabouts that night?”

“It was after curfew. We were alone in our room.”

She put down her pencil and clasped her hands together on her lap.

“Miss Winters, where is Eleanor Bell?”

“I... I don’t know.”

She sighed and then jotted something down on her pad. “I think you do.”

“But I don—” But she cut me off before I had a chance to respond.

“And you said that she wasn’t”—she picked up her pad, referring to her notes—“No, forgive me, that she was in your room that night?”

I swallowed and nodded.

“Yet conveniently, no one else saw her. Or you.”

I shifted uncomfortably, staring at a persian cat that had sauntered into the room and was glaring at me from the windowsill.

“So really you have no alibi for the night after Grub Day.”

“I do, but—”

“And you didn’t report her disappearance until today because you weren’t sure she was gone.”

“I would have, but—”

She jotted down one last note and shut her pad. “That will be all.”

By twilight, the search parties came. Professors and school administrators flocked to the green with flashlights and flares. They looked odd outside the context of class. Their casual clothes, boots, and raincoats made them look puttering and old, exposing the fact that they were vastly outnumbered by a campus full of teenagers.

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.