Dead Beautiful

“Unnatural?” Dante said softly.

“I don’t even think its needles fall off. What kind of tree is that?”

“Evergreens aren’t supposed to die.”

“Everything dies.” Immediately I thought of my parents. “Sometimes too soon.”

There was a long silence. Finally Dante said, “It will get better, Renée. Don’t wish your life away just because your parents lost theirs.”

I sighed. “It would be better if you were here.”

“I’ll get to see you every day for the rest of the school year,” he said. “It’s only fair that I let your grandfather have a week or two.”

“Don’t I get a say in this?”

“That’s what I worry about. That one morning you’ll come to your senses and realize that a girl like you would never want to be with someone like me.”

I shook my head, confused. “I would never think that.

You helped me pass Latin. You stood up for me in front of Gideon and Vivian and the headmistress. And you found Eleanor. You’re like no one I’ve ever met. What kind of girl do you think I am that I wouldn’t want to be with you?”

“Unreal.”

On Christmas Eve there was a blizzard. Snow piled up to the windows, burying the lampposts, the statues, the fountain. I sat through a stiff holiday dinner with my grandfather, Dustin standing in the corner while I picked at my ham. Midway through, I turned to him.

“Why don’t you join us?”

Dustin, surprised at being addressed, didn’t know how to respond. “I...um...thank you, Miss Winters, but I’ve already eaten.”

“Well, that can’t be true. I saw you just before dinner, polishing the silver and setting the table.”

Dustin looked embarrassed.

“Thank you, Miss Winters, but I’m quite all right here.”

I rolled my eyes. “You don’t look all right. You look uncomfortable. Who can stand for that long?”

Dustin’s eyes traveled to my grandfather, who coughed and stopped chewing.

“Why yes,” my grandfather said with a jolt. “How silly of me. Dustin, please do sit. We have more than enough for three.”

I gazed at the heaping platter of ham and cured meats and yams in front of us, and stood up to pull out the chair next to me for Dustin. “You can use one of my forks. I have too many anyway.”

So Dustin sat down at the table, probably for the first time.

After dinner I helped him clear the table. Then we did the dishes together and left a glass of milk and two cookies beneath the tree. My grandfather retired to the Smoking Parlor. “Merry Christmas, Renée,” he said, squeezing my shoulder. He put on his glasses. “If you need anything, I’ll be downstairs.”

Just before midnight I crept downstairs in my mother’s pajamas. The Gingham Library was a few rooms down from the Smoking Parlor, in between the Game Parlor and the Red Room. Although it seemed silly, the idea that Dante would be in the Copleston Library thinking of me, while I was in my grandfather’s library, was the only thing that helped me forget about my parents. The house was quiet and dark, save for the Christmas tree, its lights twinkling in the foyer. As I tiptoed down the hall I could see snow falling past the windows in the moonlight. Portraits of men in three-corner hats and velvet scarves lined the walls, their eyes seeming to follow me as I passed.

But just as I turned the corner, I heard footsteps thumping against the floor. The light in my grandfather’s study was still on, beaming under the door. Even though I wasn’t at school, I still didn’t want to be caught wandering around at night. Just as his doorknob turned, I ran, slipping around the corners in my socks until I found myself in the kitchen.

I decided to get a glass of milk while I was there. So I opened the cupboards, looking for a cup. The kitchen was glistening in the dark, the moonlight reflecting off the long granite countertops, the hanging pots and pans, the knives stuck magnetically to the wall. I had never been in there alone; the kitchen staff was always preparing or cleaning something.

Finally I opened what turned out to be a huge lazy Susan. In the back, I spotted a row of mugs hanging from hooks. Leaning in, I grasped at one, but it was just out of my reach. So I stepped in, plucking the cup from the hook. Down the hall, the grandfather clock chimed midnight. The lazy Susan trembled, and I grasped at the hooks while it rotated. And suddenly I was on the other side of the wall.

An odd sort of room welcomed me with warm, stale air. It was large with angular ceilings and narrow windows that diffracted the moonlight off the walls, giving the room the hazy feeling of an attic. A living room, I thought. One that I had never seen before. One that looked oddly similar to the Second Living Room. I thought back to the tour Dustin had given me on the first day. There was no First Living Room, he had told me. But he was wrong, because I was standing in it.

There were no doors. A staircase carved into the corner led up to the second floor. I walked around, examining the taxidermied animals hung about the room: a raccoon, a badger, a full-sized cougar scowling above the fireplace. In a glass hutch by the windows there was a collection of shovels and odd-looking gardening tools. Surrounding everything were walls and walls of books.

I didn’t recognize the authors or titles of any of them. More than half were in Latin or some version of Old or Middle Latin that used an earlier form of the alphabet. The others were antique and leather bound, translated from Greek or French or Italian. They must have been hundreds of years old, I thought, running my hands along their cracked covers until I stopped at a title that caught my eye. I crooked my head to make sure I was reading it correctly. Seventh Meditation by René Descartes.

I pulled it out. It was the same book that Miss LaBarge had mentioned in class, the book that had been banned in Europe, that most people didn’t even know existed. I opened it. The table of contents read as follows:

I. OF DEATH AND THE SOUL

II. OF THE DEATH OF CHILDREN

III. OF NON MORTUUS

IV. OF BURIAL RITUALS

V. OF LATIN AND ITS EXTINCTION

VI. OF IMMORTALITY

In shock, I reread the title of chapter three, “Of Non Mortuus.” The files, I thought to myself. Those were the words describing Cassandra Millet’s status in her file. Through the walls I heard the clock chime a muffled twelve thirty. I gazed around the room, clutching the book to my chest. I had to find a way out. It seemed I had two options: go back through the pantry, or go up. Out of curiosity, I climbed up to the second floor.