ELEANOR BELL
Height: 5’5”
Weight: 115 lbs
Hair Color: Blond
Date of Birth: June 5, 1994
Origin: Maryland
Parents: Cindy Louise Bell, no occupation; Gareth Aaron Bell, lawyer; DIVORCED
Siblings: Brandon Bell, Monitor
Status: MONITOR
Attached were Eleanor’s transcripts, letters of recommendation, records of detention and work details, and her admissions application package, which included a personal statement about her parents’ divorce and some sort of scorecard, which I assumed was from an admissions test. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary except for her status, which read “Monitor.” It must have been a typo; Eleanor wasn’t on the Board of Monitors. Otherwise, there were no notes on the margins, no plans hatched on the back in Gideon’s handwriting. Disappointed, I flipped through the rest of the files.
Cassandra’s was much thicker than Eleanor’s, stuffed with documents regarding the death of her family in an avalanche. I skimmed through them until I found her official Gottfried records.
CASSANDRA MILLET
Height: 5’4”
Weight: 110 lbs
Hair Color: Blond
Date of Birth: November 21, 1990
Origin: Colorado
Parents: Colette Millet, ballet teacher; Bernard Millet, hotelier; DECEASED
Siblings: George Millet, Pauline Millet; DECEASED
Status: NON MORTUUS, DECEASED
Primary Date of Death: February 14, 2005
Secondary Date of Death: May 15, 2009
Primary Cause of Death: Skiing accident
Secondary Cause of Death: Sepultura
I read her status again, my mind racing. NON MORTUUS, DECEASED. What did it mean? Non Mortuus translated to “Not Dead.” But if she wasn’t dead, why would they list it, and why would she have two causes of death, the second of which translated to “Burial,” each on different dates and in different years?
I turned the page. Suddenly I was face-to-face with Headmistress Von Laark. It was a drawing sketched in charcoal, and showed her standing in the woods, at the head of a deep hole. The Board of Monitors stood solemnly beside her, all staring at Brandon Bell, who was holding the limp body of Cassandra Millet in his arms as he lowered her into the pit. The edges were darkened with the night sky. In the corner, the sketch was signed: Minnie Roberts. I shuddered. Even in pencil, the scene was haunting.
Finally I opened Benjamin’s folder.
BENJAMIN GALLOW
Height: 5’11”
Weight: 165 lbs
Hair Color: Brown
Date of Birth: September 18, 1994
Origin: Pennsylvania
Parents: Karen Gallow, school teacher; Bruce Gallow, dentist; MARRIED
Siblings: None
Status: PLEBEIAN, DECEASED
Date of Death: May 12, 2009
Cause of Death: Basium Mortis
I had to read the last line once, twice, before I could figure out what it said. Basium Mortis. I let the words roll off my tongue like a curse. “Death Kiss,” I translated from the Latin. Or maybe it was “Kiss of Death.” My mind raced with possible explanations as to why such a cryptic phrase was on an official school document, but none made sense. I must have translated it wrong: maybe it was a medical phrase like rigor mortis. I shuffled through the pages that followed: his transcripts, information about his parents and friends, until finally I found the hospital’s death certificate. It was dated May 12, 2009. Approximate Time of Death:
7:12 p.m. Cause of Death: Heart Attack. Which was definitely not the same as Basium Mortis. Behind it was an envelope marked GALLOW, held closed with a paper clip. My heart beat faster as I opened it.
Inside was a collection of photographs, all taken at different angles of the same subject. Benjamin Gallow’s body, dead and pale, splayed out in the woods. The first was a distant shot, the lighting so dark I could barely see anything except for the startling whiteness of his skin and the yellow caution tape wrapped around the trees in the background. I flipped to the next, and then the next, each closer and more detailed than the one before, until I could finally see his body in detail.
My heart beat faster as I stared down at a surprisingly familiar scene. Benjamin was still in dress code, his red tie unknotted, one end hanging loose across his shoulder, the other stuffed violently in his mouth. I knew where I had seen this before. His skin looked old and somehow ravaged; not at all the bright, knavish face that everyone had described to me. His brown hair was unexpectedly speckled with gray along the temples. His eyes were closed, purpling bags hanging beneath. The more I looked at it, the more the image blurred until I was looking at my parents, dead in the woods, white cloth stuffed in their mouths.
CHAPTER 11
The Incident Last Spring
IT’S FUNNY HOW THE THINGS YOU WANT SOMETIMES turn out to be things you wish you had never laid eyes on. I had barely managed to push the gruesome details of my parents’ deaths out of my mind before Benjamin’s files plunged me back into that hot summer night. I sat on the floor, hugging my knees and willing myself not to cry, before I was able to compose myself enough to go to class. I walked briskly to Horace Hall, stopping by the library on the way, where I hid the files between two oversized books on the third floor, glad to be rid of them for the moment. If the files proved anything, it was this: both Benjamin and Cassandra had been murdered, and their deaths were somehow connected to the murders of my parents. But who was behind it? I thought back to what Eleanor had said about Gottfried the first day we met. The secrets that aren’t found out are buried well. And probably for a reason. The only problem was that this secret now had to do with me.
Plus, I had to worry about Mrs. Lynch. I didn’t dare risk keeping the files in my room—not with the possibility of her searching it. That would only give Lynch further evidence that I was to blame for Eleanor’s disappearance. After jotting down the titles Toads of New England and Amphibious Past Lives, along with their Dewey decimal numbers, I set off for class.
“Gideon has something to do with it,” I told Nathaniel, pulling him aside before lunch.
“And what drew you to this conclusion? Wait, let me guess: you snuck into his room and found Eleanor’s body.”
“Actually, that’s not far off. Come with me.”
I dragged him to the library, which was now crowded with students studying frantically for finals. I led Nathaniel up three flights of stairs and through the maze of bookshelves until I found the oversized book section, which, to my relief, was empty, probably because it was dark and musty, which wasn’t the best condition for studying.