“Dante.”
Eleanor looked at her feet and then took a step away from my bed. “You must think I’m a monster.”
I shook my head, silencing her. Finally I spoke. “What was it like?”
“Being reborn?” She closed her eyes. “It felt like being woken up from a dream. Like the way you feel when you take a nap in the afternoon, and you wake up and you’re not sure where you are or what day it is, and the line between yesterday and today and tomorrow is blurry.”
She let out a sad laugh, and there was a long silence as we both considered everything that had happened. I imagined Eleanor drowning alone in the basement. It was a harrowing image.
“Life after death. It’s got to exist,” Eleanor said. I knew she wasn’t referring to life literally, but an emotional life after death. She looked at me for an answer, her eyes searching for meaning.
“Yeah, I think it does.”
This seemed to put Eleanor at ease. “So what would you do if you only had a few days left to live?”
She waited for me to answer. I considered all the things I wanted to do—backpack through the Himalayas, see the pyramids, take a road trip across America, learn Spanish, live in the city and then in the country, write a novel—the list seemed endless. “I think I would try to spend as much time as I could with the people I cared about.”
Eleanor considered it. “Me too.”
I curled up beneath the covers. I told her about the files, about Cassandra and how she had accidentally killed Benjamin, and finally about Dante. “What do you think happened to Cassandra? Do you think the school buried her, like Minnie said?”
Eleanor looked troubled. “No.”
“Yeah,” I said quickly, “they wouldn’t do that.”
We lay there until the early hours of the morning, talking about the things we wanted to do, the places we wanted to go, the kind of people we wanted to be.
By the middle of March—the ides, as Professor Urquette ominously called them—the weather had warmed and the snow was just beginning to melt. As the water trickled down the sides of the pathways, the campus and all of its secrets were slowly revealed—the yellow grass, soggy and matted down; the benches and statues and fountains that punctuated the natural landscape; and the occasional Frisbee or garden spade or mitten.
I had barely seen Nathaniel since break; he was busy with the school play, in which he had one of the leading roles as Electra. Sometimes I helped him practice his lines after lunch. I never imagined that he’d be interested in acting; it always seemed like numbers were his natural language, not English. But when he took off his glasses and delivered his lines, he transformed into a suave, confident hero, his voice deep and rich and entirely not his own. Otherwise, the only real time we spent together was in class. We had math in room π, commonly referred to as “the Pi Room,” not to be confused with the dessert section of the dining hall.
Professor Chortle was round and cherubic, with thin lips and rosy cheeks that bespoke an uncorrupted innocence that he could only have obtained by spending all of his formative years indoors, thinking about math.
Imaginary Numbers, he scrawled on the board.
“Imaginary numbers are numbers that exist in a different world than ours. As a result, we can only sense their existence.” All of his lectures had a dreamy quality to them despite their content, making it seem like his natural habitat wasn’t here, but in some Renaissance landscape, where he would spend his days sprawled out on the grass, nibbling an apple and pondering the meaning of infinity.
I chewed on my pen. Nathaniel was sitting across from me, his eyes glued to the board.
“For example, when people act older than their age, it usually means they have a lot of imaginary years behind them,” the professor explained.
I tore off a corner of my notebook paper.
Do you think Eleanor is okay?
I was pretty sure Nathaniel was Undead, but I hadn’t talked to him about it. What would I say? Are you dead? But now that Eleanor was Undead too, I couldn’t avoid it any longer. I folded up the note and tossed it into his lap when the professor wasn’t looking.
Surprised, he looked down at it and turned around to scowl at Yago, who was sitting behind him. Then he brushed the note out of his lap and onto the floor.
I tried to get his attention, but he was too involved in the lecture. I dropped my pencil on the floor, leaned across the aisle, and picked up the note. This time I made sure to write his name on it, and tossed it into his lap again. Nathaniel was about to turn around again when I caught his eye.
Finally he figured it out. He unfolded the note and then scrawled something back.
I think so? Why wouldn’t she be?
I considered how to respond.
She looks exhausted, but she can’t sleep or eat. She’s cold all the time but barely notices it. She doesn’t enjoy doing any of the things she used to do. She talks about death all the time.
Nathaniel stared at what I wrote, clearly surprised that I knew. I waited until he tossed it back and unfolded the paper.
She sounds depressed.
His response was baffling. Nathaniel was Undead; I was almost sure of it. I was also sure that he fully understood what I was telling him. My message wasn’t that subtle. Yet for some reason he was being obtuse. I wrote back.
I know what you are.
Nathaniel avoided my gaze as he read it.
I don’t know what you’re talking about.
I shook my head, holding my pencil over the page, unsure of how to proceed. Why was he lying to me?
You don’t have to pretend. There’s nothing wrong with it. I won’t tell anyone.
He wrote a quick note back.
Thanks, but there’s nothing to tell. Pretending to do what? Are you coming to the play tomorrow?
I knew that Nathaniel was insecure, but I never realized he was in such denial. I crumpled the note in my fist and nodded.
The performance was to take place in front of the great oak at sunset. Ever since coming back to Gottfried after winter break, Eleanor hadn’t felt comfortable in large crowds. Everyone always pointed and whispered, so instead of going to the play, she went to the library to catch up on her homework. I met up with Dante in front of the dining hall, and we walked over together.
Rows of benches were set up on the edge of the green, which was lit by six massive torches positioned around the lawn in a semicircle. Dante took my hand and pulled me toward the back. We found a spot on the edge of the green under a large maple tree, and sat down. We couldn’t see much of the stage because of the benches in front of us, but neither of us minded. Soon the din of the crowd grew hushed, and a line of students, headed by Gideon, filed onto the stage.