Dead Beautiful

Even though the investigation about Eleanor was technically still going on, with no leads, no suspects, and no evidence, it had degenerated into guesswork and speculation. A few students didn’t come back to school because their parents thought it was too dangerous. In response, Gottfried tightened its security by increasing the number of guards both on campus and around the wall, and by enforcing stricter rules for day students entering and exiting the campus.

Although I had no decent theories, my discovery of the Undead made everything more logical. Gideon and the rest of the Latin club had to be Undead. It fit with their behavior—and their files. And if Benjamin had died of Basium Mortis, that could mean that Cassandra had taken her boyfriend’s soul. But who killed Cassandra? And was the same person behind Eleanor’s disappearance?

After spending winter break recovering at her mother’s house, Eleanor returned to Gottfried. She burst into the room and was about to give me a hug when she stopped as if she had changed her mind, and pulled away before we touched. “Is everything all right?” I asked, giving her a weird look. It wasn’t like Eleanor to be standoffish.

“Yeah,” she said. “I just have a cold. I don’t want you to catch it.”

“We’re living in the same room,” I said with a laugh. “I’ll probably catch it anyway.”

For a moment we stood in silence, Eleanor looking uncharacteristically humorless. I didn’t know what to say, and small talk had never been my forte. So I just asked her what was on my mind.

“Eleanor, what happened?”

She took off her beret.

“You have to tell me,” I said. “I know that look. You’re hiding something.”

She sighed and sat on her bed. “Okay, so don’t get mad at me, but this past semester, I was secretly dating...” She closed her eyes and bit her lip, bracing herself for my reaction, “Brett.”

“What?” I said, too loudly. It was so far from what I was expecting that I couldn’t help but stare, waiting for her to confirm that I had heard correctly. “Brett Steyers? You and Brett Steyers?”

Eleanor nodded.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I don’t know. I liked the idea of a secret fling. It was so exciting and romantic to think we could get caught. And then when they found me, I didn’t want to tell anyone what really happened because they might suspect him, and it wasn’t his fault.”

“What do you mean ‘what really happened’?”

“On Grub Day I went to the library to study. Later, I snuck out to meet Brett, then tried to sneak back into the dorm through the basement. But just after I stepped inside, someone locked the door behind me. I tried to climb into the chimney to get back to our room, but the flue was closed. I heard four loud bangs, like a hammer on metal, and water came rushing in from somewhere in the ceiling. I tried going to the furnace room to find another way out, but the basement was already filling with water. I screamed and screamed, but the water was too loud for anyone to hear me.”

“How did you get out?”

She shrugged. “One day I just woke up and the flue was open, so I climbed out.”

“Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

“I didn’t want them to know about the chimney. It’s our only way out. And I didn’t want anyone to suspect Brett.”

“But what if it was Brett?”

Eleanor shook her head. “It wasn’t. Because I was coming back from meeting him when it happened. He would have had to be in two places at once to have broken the pipes while I was in there. Besides, why would he want to kill me?”

“So are you guys still...you know?”

Eleanor sighed. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen him yet,” she said, and unzipped her bag.

Sitting on the bed while she unpacked and told me about her winter vacation, I wanted to believe that nothing had changed, that we were back to the first day of school, before the flood, before Dante, before everything got complicated. But it wasn’t true. She avoided talking about the flood any further, and remembering what it felt like after my parents died, I didn’t ask. Whatever happened in the basement had changed her. It was something about the way she carried herself, the way she now slouched and dragged her feet, the way her smile seemed thinner and crooked. They were subtle differences, barely noticeable to anyone except me. It was as if she had been replaced by a twin, identical, yet essentially different. So instead of talking about what happened, we went to lunch.

“So how was your break?” she asked as we sat in the dining hall. Groups of students gathered in clusters at the tables around us.

More than anything, I wanted to tell her about what I had learned at my grandfather’s house. “I was at home and I found this book,” I said, trying to figure out how to best explain everything. Where to begin? Should I start with the Seventh Meditation, or just skip ahead to what the Undead were and how everything in the book described Dante? “So you know how Dante has all of these unexplainable things about him—like his cold skin and the fact that he never...he never...” My voice trailed off as Eleanor’s plate caught my eyes.

“Renée?” she said to me. “Hello? You were saying something?”

“Ate anything,” I said blankly. Eleanor’s plate was virtually empty. Putting my cup down, I studied her again. Could it be?

“You’re not eating anything,” I said quietly as I tried to remember how many days Eleanor had been in the basement. Ten?

Eleanor looked at her plate. “I sort of lost my appetite since the flood.”

“And you didn’t wear a coat when we walked over here.”

Eleanor didn’t notice until I pointed it out to her. “I guess you’re right,” she said, looking at the thin sweater covering her arms with surprise. “I didn’t even realize. Anyway, what were you saying about Dante and something about a book?”

Should I tell her about it? I wasn’t sure that Eleanor even knew what she was yet, and I definitely wasn’t the right person to tell her. But I also didn’t want to get accidentally killed. “Oh, um, nothing. Nothing.”

That night she didn’t sleep. She tossed around in bed, tangling herself in the sheets, while I had nightmares of zombies running toward me from every direction, their faces blank and emotionless. Every so often I would wake up in the middle of the night, my pajamas drenched in sweat. I’d kick off the covers and sit up, unable to stop thinking about all the things my grandfather had told me about Gottfried. And then I would stare at Eleanor and wonder if she was feeling the impulse to take my soul.