They dispersed as the headmistress strode off to Archebald Hall. “Fill that hole,” she said to the maintenance workers as she passed them. “It’s a safety hazard.”
I motioned to Dante and we snuck past Mrs. Lynch, making our way to the edge of the hole. The dirt crumbled as I knelt down. It was deep and gaping, and opened into some sort of chamber that must have been part of the tunnel system. The catacombs, I thought, staring at the roots of the great oak, which broke through the ceiling of the chamber, their tendrils hanging over the center of the cavern like a gnarled wooden chandelier.
At the bottom was a giant mound of dirt and sticks and grass where Kurt had fallen. “Someone must have buried Nathaniel alive,” I said to Dante. “Just like they did to Cassandra. And then Kurt fell through under the weight of the actors. But who would bury him? And right below the school play?”
“Someone who wanted him found,” Dante murmured, deep in thought. “Just like Eleanor. The person who killed Eleanor wanted her to be found too. A flood isn’t the easiest way to kill someone, or the most inconspicuous. The person who trapped Eleanor wanted her to become Undead....”
Behind me, Mrs. Lynch was ushering everyone back to the dormitories while the professors convened in a group by the oak to discuss what to do next. Hoisting myself up, I felt something hard in the soil. I pushed the dirt away until I found, buried beneath it, Nathaniel’s glasses. I wiped them off with the bottom of my shirt and joined the crowd. I slowed as we walked past the professors.
“I don’t know how this went under the radar,” Professor Lumbar said. “The Board of Monitors has been patrolling the grounds at night, and the headmistress wasn’t aware of it.”
Aware of what? That the board was patrolling?
“Who was on patrol tonight?” Miss LaBarge asked.
“Brandon Bell,” replied Professor Lumbar, her tone ominous, as if the fact that this had occurred while he was patrolling made it all the more distressing.
“Do you think a student is behind this?” Professor Urquette asked.
“I don’t know. At this the point, all we can do is conduct a thorough search, and hope the boy saw his attacker,” Professor Lumbar replied.
But I knew they wouldn’t find anything, because at Gottfried, as in a Greek tragedy, the violence always seemed to happen offstage.
CHAPTER 16
The Burial of Nathaniel Welch
I COULDN’T SLEEP. AND SINCE ELEANOR COULDN’T either, we kept each other company until the sun rose over the mountains. From the window of our dorm room we watched the professors run back and forth between the nurses’ wing and the boys’ dormitory, their flashlights bouncing around on the patches of yellow grass like fireflies. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was reliving the past.
When morning broke, I went directly to the nurses’ wing. It was on the fifth floor of Archebald Hall. I knocked. Suddenly it cracked opened, and I stumbled forward, catching myself in the door frame.
A nurse stuck her head out. “Yes? May I help you?”
She was short and stubby, with thick fingers, a tight bun encased in a hairnet, and a name tag that read Irmgard. Dark bags hung under her eyes. She looked like a person who had spent the majority of her life being miserable.
“I’m here to see Nathaniel Welch.”
“I’m sorry, but no visitors are allowed in right now.” She began to close the door.
“But I’m his friend.”
“Mr. Welch is still unstable,” she said, her voice stern. “Unless you also have a health problem, I’m afraid it will have to wait until tomorrow.”
I put my hand on the door to keep her from closing it.
“Please,” I said.
She disappeared inside, and for a moment I thought she might be letting me in. Instead, the door opened and I was met by Headmistress Von Laark. “Renée,” she said, her blue eyes studying me. “Are you ill?”
“No,” I said, trying to be discreet as I craned my neck to see what was going on behind her. Brandon Bell, was sitting in the hallway, flipping through some sort of notebook.
“Then you shouldn’t be here. I believe you have Physical Education now, no?”
Defeated, I nodded and stepped back as the door closed in my face.
I jogged across campus, stopping by the dining hall on the way. But when I got there I had no appetite. Instead of eating, I took a saltshaker from one of the tables and shoved it into my pocket.
When I reached the green, the rest of the class was gathered by the lake in front of the Ursa Major statue. The night fog was lifting, and the morning was hazy and cool. An owl hooted in the distance. Everyone was talking about Nathaniel. “It must have been a student,” Rebecca said. “Someone who knew him. It’s too much of a coincidence that he was buried right below where the play was being performed.”
“But why Nathaniel?” asked Greta.
And why Eleanor, I asked myself. What did they have in common? Me, I realized.
Thankfully, before I could dwell on my conclusion, our gym teacher, Miriam Hollis, strode through the trees. She was androgynous and energetic, with a boyish voice that cracked when she was excited. She wore gym shorts all the time, even at night when it was freezing.
“I didn’t realize it was already nap time,” she said, checking her watch. “All right. Everybody up. And try to look alive.”
Our Physical Education classes were less about sports and more about survival. Each class focused around a life-threatening environmental situation that required athletic skills. How to shoot a bird with a slingshot. How to run for an extremely long time if we were being chased. How to build a makeshift shelter if we were trapped outside in a storm, which I personally thought was the most unpleasant lesson so far.
“Swimming! Every year thousands of people die from falling into cold water. Why is this? Because they never learned to master their minds and control their bodies! Therefore, today’s objective is to master the art of temperature acclimation and buoyancy.”
I raised my hand, interrupting her. “Ms. Hollis, I don’t feel well. May I go to the nurses’ wing?”
“Certainly not,” she said.
I sighed. It was worth a try.
“Only dead bodies float naturally, and that’s because they’re incapable of sinking. Hence the term, dead man’s float. In order to control your buoyancy and your temperature, you have to train your bodies to be comfortable both above and below the water. Our first exercise, therefore, will be to float for thirty seconds without moving any of your limbs.”