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Cao back to normal, or as norirl h there was no proof, it was hard not to project Benjamin’s fate onto Eleanor Mrs Lynch seemed almost excited She patrolled the halls and conducted random room searches with the kind of enthusias up with children who deserved to be disciplined, but rarely were A scandal like this would merit a punishhattention as I tried to sination Somewhere out there, Eleanor was in trouble I felt useless, and Professor Lumbar’s lecture about ancient forh to take my mind off of it

"What can Latin tell us about ourselves?" she asked, her giant body housed beneath a tent dress She wrote a word on the board in large, slanted cursive: Vivus eram

"There is a form of ancient Latin called Latinum Mortuorum, which can only be spoken in the past tense It doesn’t have any other tenses You couldn’t say, ‘I am alive’; only ‘I was alive’ It was spoken by children, often orphans For them, the present, the future--these realms of ti backward In essence, living in the past"

I stared at the board, copying down the phrase It was difficult to leave the past behind First the death of my parents, and now Eleanor’s disappearance Maybe it was uilt I felt aboutEleanor would somehow make them come back

How could I not be haunted by the past when death was looht I called Annie, and told her about Eleanor

"Why don’t you go to the police?" she asked

"They were here Plus, ould I say? That so them heart attacks, and that Eleanor was probably the next victim?"

"It does sound pretty ridiculous"

"I know And I have no proof"

"Have you told anyone?"

"Just Nathaniel and Dante"

"You’re still talking to that guy?" she said

"Dante? Of course I a to hiht he was so back to our previous phone conversation, I was alotten at Annie "I’ that I didn’t understand, and nothing see hed "Definitely not I think I just changed I like Dante I like hi about him; I wanted to describe the way he looked at me, the way his voice sounded when he spoke in class, each word like a tiny piece of a sprawling love letter written only forup, I sat inthrough the walls How could they laugh when one of their friends waselse to do, I decided to clean my rooe stacks of papers and books crowded the floor, surrounded by dust bunnies I began to sift through theht fro on its side beneath a pile of notebooks and folders I wedged it out and wiped off its cover Attica Falls Its woven ivory binding was slowly unraveling along the edges "The Gottfried Curse," I thought I had spent soabout how the curse related to otten about the only part of the article that related to me Literally I stood up and paced the roorandfather’s number Dustin answered

"Winters residence," he said stoutly