Dead Beautiful

“No,” we said simultaneously.

She leaned back in her chair.

“Nathaniel didn’t kill Eleanor,” I blurted out. “It was Gideon DuPont. He killed her to get back at Brandon for burying Cassandra. He was the one who stole Eleanor’s diary and wrote all those notes in it. And he took the files.”

The headmistress put on the pair of glasses hanging from a chain around her neck. “Really?” she said, seeming genuinely surprised, though not at all disturbed—as if I had just told her an interesting fact about the migration patterns of flamingos. “I’ll make sure to let the professors and the Board of Monitors know.”

Dante and I exchanged confused looks. Why didn’t she seem to care?

She tapped her fingers on the desk. “Normally I don’t take an interest in the personal lives of my students. My role at Gottfried and with the student body has always been an academic one. But you two”—she waved a hand between us—“your relationship has captivated me.”

“Us?” I said slowly. “Why us?” I didn’t understand. Beside me, Dante inched closer until our hands were almost touching.

The headmistress ignored my question. “I have been watching you closely, Mr. Berlin, after what happened last spring. And with a name like Winters, I of course wanted to keep an eye on you, too,” she said, looking at me. “So when I discovered that you were romantically involved...well, that was a shock, to say the least. And an interesting turn of events. That’s the brilliant part about being the headmistress. You spend the year thinking you’re in control of your students, that you have to do everything yourself, and that nothing can possibly surprise you. And then something like this just falls into your lap.”

As if called, a cat jumped in the headmistress’s lap, and in long, languid strokes, she caressed its back until it began to purr.

“It was also fortunate that both of you have a knack for getting into trouble. Our meetings together allowed me to observe you.”

“Observe what?” Dante asked.

Once again, the headmistress brushed off the question. “I wasn’t sure of it at first, but now there’s no longer even a shadow of a doubt in my mind.”

My mind raced through all the times I had been called into the headmistress’s office, trying to figure out what she was referring to.

“What is it that you’re so interested in?” Dante asked. His voice was calm, which comforted me. If Dante wasn’t worried yet, then I didn’t have reason to be either.

“Are you familiar with Descartes’ Seventh Meditation?”

Neither of us said anything.

“A seminal work,” Von Laark said, almost to herself. “It was banned, you know. Do you know why?”

“Because it was about the Undead,” I blurted out. “And it was supposed to be kept a secret.”

The headmistress raised a long, sinewy finger. “Yes. And no.

“In that work, Descartes not only discussed his discovery of the Undead, but the process through which they regain their mortality, a process we have since considered a myth, because in the history of history, no Undead has ever found his rightful soul.”

Beneath the folds of my coat, Dante laced his fingers through mine.

“It is the question of a lifetime,” the headmistress went on. “What would happen if an Undead finds his soul and reclaims it? Would he become human again? Would he cheat death?”

Dante tightened his grip around my fingers as my heart began to race.

“But before I continue, a few questions.”

I looked at Dante, confused, but his attention was set on the headmistress.

“Mr. Berlin, when did you die?”

At first Dante didn’t say anything. The headmistress stood up and took a step toward him.

“Your year of death? Surely you remember it.”

“Sixteen years ago.”

“Be precise.”

“August twentieth, 1994.”

I was concentrating more on the headmistress than on what Dante was saying, but when I heard the date, I went rigid.

The headmistress turned to me. “Do you recognize the date, Miss Winters?”

Of course I did. August twentieth. It was the day I found my parents dead. The same day that I turned sixteen.

Dante died on the day I was born.

I didn’t have to say anything. From the look on my face, Dante knew. Finally I understood the strange connection between us. I thought about how Dante always seemed to have a craving inside him when he was around me, as if he were barely able to control himself. Why we always spoke at the same time and said the same things. Why Dante couldn’t touch me without making me numb. Why I felt drained and tired after being with him. Why he could only smell things, feel things, taste things when I was close to him. It was why we had been drawn to one another in the first place, and why, I now realized, it was impossible for us to ever be together.

I had Dante’s soul.

“How do you feel when you’re around her?” the headmistress asked, her eyes dark fixed intensely on Dante with curiosity. “Do you feel sensation? Do you feel alive?”

But Dante wasn’t looking at her; he was looking at me, hoping I would say something that would prove her wrong.

“What I’m about to ask you to do should be painless. Perhaps even enjoyable. For one of you.”

She approached me and spoke in a voice that was dark and commanding. “Now, what I want you to do is to give him your soul.”

“And why would she do that?” Dante said.

“Because she’s in love with you.” She turned to me. “Think about your situation,” the headmistress said. “He only has a few years left. You alone are in control of his fate.”

Nausea curled through my body as I began to realize that she was right. But before I could say anything, Dante’s voice cut through the air.

“No. She won’t. I won’t let her.”

I watched his body tighten as he readied to approach the headmistress. She took a step back.

“You can do whatever you want to me,” she said quietly, “but it won’t make this go away. Renée will always know what she has to do. I’m not forcing her to do anything.” She glanced toward the door. “It’s unlocked,” she said.

Dante gave her a suspicious look, and then took my arm. “Renée, let’s go.”