We lined up along the creaky dock on the near bank of the lake, where the shore dropped off into deep water. It was dark and unnaturally still. While everyone else stripped down to their bathing suits, I slipped to the end of the line and fished through my pocket until I found the saltshaker. I was determined to see Nathaniel. He must have seen the person who buried him alive; he had to know.
Ms. Hollis marched down the line, barking commands. “Pull your shorts up,” she said to Brett. He tugged at them, but she rolled her eyes. “Higher. No one wants to see your genitals.” Brett’s face went red. A few of the girls giggled. “Rebecca does,” Bonnie whispered.
I unscrewed the top of the saltshaker, and when I was sure no one was watching, I poured a mouthful of salt onto my tongue and swallowed.
At first, no one noticed. Emily Wurst was clutching a towel that barely covered her large figure. With one swift movement, Ms. Hollis yanked it off and threw it aside. Some of the boys started to snicker, but stopped when Ms. Hollis spun around and glared at them. I began to sweat. A chill ran under my skin, and I started to shiver uncontrollably. My breaths grew deeper, until I was heaving over the ground.
“Stand up straight,” Ms. Hollis said to Neil Simons, who was slouching and scratching at his nose. “And for God’s sake, stop picking your nose.”
Everyone laughed. The sound of it seemed so loud it was deafening. I covered my ears with my hands.
“Stand up straight,” Ms. Hollis repeated to Minnie Roberts, whose gnarled braid seemed to be growing longer. My eyes watered, and I blinked, watching the world slow down.
“Stand up straight,” she said to me, her words echoing in my ears as my knees buckled. My legs felt too weak to support me, and as if in slow motion, I tottered and then collapsed with a splash into the water.
The shock of the cold twisted my lungs, squeezing the air out of them. With a gasp, I surfaced and then sunk back under, unable to keep myself above water. Unlike the world above, the atmosphere beneath the surface was eerie and muted. Things moved slowly, without sound—the weeds swaying with the waves, the fish meandering between rocks and plants. I tried to will my limbs to move, but they were growing so cold that I could barely feel them.
And then something hit the surface above me. At first all I could see was a blur of white plunging through the water. As the water calmed, a shape began to take form, and before I realized it, Dante was beside me. The sunlight filtered through the surface of the water, and he grabbed my arm. Almost as if he were floating, he pulled me up toward the light.
With another gasp, we surfaced, and I coughed up mouthfuls of water. I wrapped my arms around his neck as he lifted me onto the dock. Everyone gathered around us, but Ms. Hollis herded them away. Dante took a towel from the group and wrapped it around my shoulders. I let my gaze drift up to his, wandering from his pants matted against his thighs to his shirt and tie, transparent with water. His skin glistened in the sun, and I watched his chest rise and fall, the water from his hair dripping down his neck. Where had he come from? He wasn’t in my gym class.
A crowd of people hovered over me, their faces blurring into one.
“Renée,” a voice said. “Just hold on.”
I nodded and let my eyes flutter closed. I felt two arms scoop me up, and all of sudden I was being carried across the lawn, through the trees and down the path toward Archebald Hall.
“Renée, are you okay?” Dante asked me when we were out of earshot.
I nodded weakly.
“Can you see me? How many fingers am I holding up?”
I blinked. My hair was matted to my face with water and sweat. All I could see was a blur of colors. Maybe this is what Dante felt like. “I ate salt,” I said, my voice weak. “I had to see Nathaniel. It was the only way I could get in.”
He wiped the water collecting on my eyebrows. “Shh,” he said soothingly. “Don’t talk now. Rest.”
“Where did you come from?” I said weakly.
“I was walking to the front gate when I saw you from the path,” he said. “Then I saw you fall in, so I ran.”
I closed my eyes, until all I could see was the outline of Dante’s face, white and radiant, like the sun. “Thank you.”
Nurse Irmgard frowned when she saw me again, and from the way Dante was talking to her, I could tell she was skeptical of my “illness.” But after she pressed the back of her hand to my forehead and felt my pulse, her frown quickly changed to a look of concern.
“What happened to her?” she asked, addressing Dante, who was still holding me in his arms.
Dante glanced at me. “She ate salt,” he said.
She gave him a confused look that bordered on frustration. “Why would she do something like that?”
Dante shook his head. “The cafeteria food is pretty bland.”
Nurse Irmgard didn’t appreciate his humor. She called in another nurse, whom she addressed as Wendy. “Prepare Room Three, and start setting up an IV. Her pulse is at ninety beats per second and she’s low on electrolytes.”
“She’ll be okay, won’t she?” Dante asked.
Wendy scurried away, and Nurse Irmgard ignored him and marched down the hall and into an exam room. “Set her down here.” Dante placed me gently on the exam table. He lingered as she listened to my heart with her stethoscope, and then took my blood pressure. When she realized he was still there, she shooed him away.
Dante tried to protest. “I’d like to stay, if that’s all right.”
“Absolutely not.” Just before she pushed Dante out of the room, the headmistress entered. The nurse busied herself over a movable table as the headmistress approached us.
“Mr. Berlin,” she said, and then noticed me on the bed. “And Miss Winters. Back so soon.”
“I fell in the lake,” I said weakly.
“She ate salt is what she did,” the nurse said impatiently, while she sanitized a needle. “And it’s a good thing he told me, otherwise it would have taken a lot longer for me to diagnose and rehydrate her.”
“And Mr. Berlin jumped in after her?” the headmistress said pensively.
No one said anything.
“Gallant,” she said to Dante, “if not slightly familiar, no? As much as I enjoy seeing you so frequently after these mishaps, perhaps one of these days you will each start to focus on your studies?” She rapped her fingers on the table. Neither Dante nor I responded. And without saying more, the headmistress left.