“Moonflowers,” I said, remembering them from the night-blooming plants class in Horticulture.
Dante smiled and held open the riveted doors, which, surprisingly, were unlocked. With delicate footsteps, I stepped inside.
The chapel was lit by dozens of candles all arranged in a line between the two aisles of pews. I picked one up and cradled it in my palm, glancing back at Dante with a surprised smile. He nudged me forward, and I followed the candlelit path into the belly of the chapel.
It was dark and shadowy, with the faint smell of musk and rosewater. The candlelight reflected off the stained-glass windows, covering the floor in a dark mosaic of blue and purple light. The ceilings were vaulted and covered in peeling frescoes of clouds and angels and beautiful women with long, flowing hair.
The candles led to the back of the chapel, behind the altar, and up into a narrow spiral staircase. The wind rattled the windows, and I looked back at Dante, who was just steps behind me. His fingers grazed the ends of my hair as I climbed, watching our shadows dance across the stone.
We emerged at the top of the steeple, where a ring of candles wrapped around a giant bell in the middle. I stepped outside, the cold air refreshing on my cheeks. In front of me was the entire campus, now small, and behind it the forest and the rocky peaks of the White Mountains disappearing into the clouds.
“It’s beautiful,” I uttered, though it hardly described what I felt.
“You like it?”
I turned to face him. “I love it.”
Dante studied me, his face almost sad as he gently ran his fingers down my arm. “Renée, I—”
I looked up at him expectantly, curling my hands into the sleeves of my coat.
Dante’s eyes searched mine. “I can’t lose you.”
My voice trembled as I stepped closer to him. “Why would you lose me?” I said with a faint smile.
He raised my hand to his lips and kissed it. We sank to the ground, surrounded by candles, and listened to the wind.
“If you could have anything you wanted, what would it be?” Dante asked as I rested my head against his chest.
“To have my parents back.”
“If I could give that to you, I would,” Dante said, kissing the inside of my arm, making it feel like dozens of white flowers were blooming across it.
I turned to him. “Then a kiss. A real kiss.”
Dante ran a melancholy hand down my cheek. “I can’t.”
“Why?” I asked, my face inches from his as I drew him closer. He leaned in, unable to help himself. I felt his hand on the back of my neck, pulling me toward him until our lips were nearly touching. The air fluttered in my lungs, and I closed my eyes, letting my body go soft in his arms. I couldn’t think or feel anything except his arms knotting themselves in my hair, grasping at my neck as if it were clay. And then suddenly he pulled away. “I can’t—” he said. “I can’t trust myself around you. I can’t help myself.”
“I trust you,” I said softly.
“Renée, what if I hurt you? I would never forgive myself.”
“You won’t hurt me, I know you won’t,” I said, raising my hand to his face. He pressed it against his cheek.
“You don’t understand. You don’t know what I’m capable of. I’m afraid to touch you, in case I break you; I’m afraid to talk to you, afraid you’ll realize that I’m a monster. But every day you’re still here.” He gazed at me. “I can barely control myself when I’m around you. I have to have you. I have to keep you.”
“You do have me.”
He spoke slowly. “Renée, I need to tell you—”
But before he could finish his sentence, I saw a person walking down the pathway toward the chapel below us, carrying a lantern.
“Mrs. Lynch,” I said frantically. We ran downstairs and snuck out the back entrance into the cemetery. With barely enough time to say good-bye, I ran to the dormitory.
By the next morning, the magic of the night in the chapel seemed like nothing more than a dream, and the reality of Eleanor having been gone for over a week made me so nauseated that I barely had an appetite. I was stuffing books into my bag after Philosophy when Miss LaBarge approached me. “How do you feel about tea?” she asked.
I hesitated. Mrs. Lynch had already questioned me three times about Eleanor, and I wasn’t up for it anymore. “I... I—”
“That’s what I thought,” she said with a smile, and held the door for me as we walked to her office. It was on the third floor of Horace, in the east wing. I wiped my feet on a mat outside of her door that read, welcome friends, and entered. The room was covered in books. They were stacked on shelves, lying in piles on the floor, propped up against the windowsill, tucked behind the door. I sat in a Victorian armchair as Miss LaBarge busied herself over a platter with dishes, cups, saucers, and a teapot.
“I don’t know where she is,” I blurted out before she could say anything.
“Madeleine?” she said, her back to me.
I stared at her, confused. “No. Eleanor. She’s in our class.. ..”
Miss LaBarge turned around and smiled, holding out a plate of tea biscuits. “Of course she is. Madeleine, as in the cookie.”
“Oh...right. Thanks,” I said, turning red.
She held up a creamer. “Milk?”
I nodded, and she poured it in my cup and sat in the armchair across from me.
“Sorry,” I said. “It seems like every time someone talks to me these days, all they ask about is Eleanor.”
She frowned. “I’m not interested in your involvement with Eleanor’s disappearance, which I assume you had nothing to do with,” she said, sipping her tea, “but in your involvement with a certain someone else, who also has a proclivity for making himself scarce.”
She had a confusing way of speaking, and it took me a few seconds to figure out what she was asking me. “Who?” I asked, confused.
“The boy from the lake.”
I stopped chewing. “Oh...he’s just a friend.”
She picked up her saucer. “Ah, boys. Always problematic.”
“There’s no problem,” I said quickly. “There’s nothing going on.”
“It didn’t seem that way,” she said, clasping her hands over her knee. “But you needn’t tell me that. I am a professor, you are a student, and I understand that we have to operate under the contrivance that nothing romantic is going on with you and this boy, as the Code of Discipline decrees it.”