Lily dallied in the library for some time hoping that suddenly the right book would just fly out at her, except she didn't actually expect a book to do just that. She was wandering past a collection of school annuals when something fell and hit her straight on the head. That felt heavy enough to fracture. She thought as she soothed her head with her left hand, crouching down to inspect the flying weapon. An annual was splayed out on the hard wood floor, 1960 clearly stated on the front cover and spine in thick gold letters, though the gold's original shine had long since faded.
"What did I do to you 1960?" Lily sighed as she picked it up. She flipped it over and began trying to smooth out the pages otherwise Mrs Reed might have her head for damage of property. As her fingers ironed out the paper she began to find herself reading. The first name she read was 'Gerard Pitts'
How Unfortunate.
His clubs were very standard. Chemistry, Physics and Soccer. Lily could just tell how interesting his life must have been. She yawned but continued reading nonetheless. Her eyes wandered up to the person above Gerard, Harry Phleming.
That was probably worse than Pitts.
Harry was a member of the Welton rowing team, the maths Club, the school annual and the debate team. One could just tell from the quality of the guy's photo compared to everyone else that there were many perks to being a part of the school annual.
Lily flipped back a page and found a page entirely devoted to one student.
He must have led the annual.
But upon closer inspection Lily realised that was a harsh misjudgement. The boy, named as Neil Perry, had died in November 1959, never even seeing his graduation year. Messages had been left on the opposite page by fellow classmates, as well as a prayer asking for God's strength to fill them all as they go on into their own lives. The book didn't list a cause of death, but that was unsurprising. Cancer or pneumonia would really have spoilt the tribute – well that's if he had even died of Cancer or pneumonia. He certainly seemed too healthy to die so young.
"Lily?" The voice was instantly recognizable – Dana.
Lily looked up to see her roommate.
"Have you found anything?" Dana asked
"Nothing for Philosophy." Lily sighed, turning back to the shelf and slotting the annual back into the right place, "Perhaps you'll be better at finding something."
"Well perhaps if you weren't procrastinating" Dana began, leaning in close so that her lips were only just hovering millimetres apart from Lily's, "you might actually find something." She smiled and pulled away, skipping off to the section on religious studies.
Lily took a moment to breathe. If Dana only knew what she was doing to her. Or perhaps she knew everything and was cruelly teasing her. When Lily felt her blush had gone down enough she followed her roommate.
Lily scribbled out notes from her book on mechanics, but all the while she couldn't shake the thought of the dead boy from 1959. Who was he? What were his passions? Which room did he live in? Who were his friends? How did he die? Was he happy when he died? Lily shoved her work to one side, grabbed a clean piece of paper and scrawled out the name: "Neil Perry" in the centre of the page and encased it in a circle. Off one shoot she wrote, "1959" and another, "Senior". She also listed the clubs and then leaned back in her chair, the pencil wedged between her teeth, and sighed. That was also she knew about the mysterious dead boy. She wanted to know more and soon enough she hoped to have a whole page of information just to satisfy her curiosity. It was better to deal with it head on than fend it off for the year and find herself distracted from her work.
Where could she get her answers though? Not a single teacher working at the school had been around in 1959. She might be able to find more answers from that annual though she doubted it. She could probably use the school computer lab for answers but it was too late to try that. She groaned, pulled her mechanic book closer to her and tried to make sense of it and her subsequent notes.
The next day, Lily went to the computer lab just after breakfast. There was a whole hour between breakfast and the first lesson, allowing for students to complete any homework or final revision. It also allowed the day students a chance to comfortably make it to school in time. She logged into her school account and began googling the name "Neil Perry". Unfortunately every result was just a work profile of some sort. Lily huffed and added "1959, Welton" to the search bar and she was almost certain she had found what she wanted when articles and blog posts entitled: "Welton student dies" or something similar appeared. The blogs were mainly memorials by old friends – one was actually by Harry Phleming – and the articles were digitalised rewrites of the original 1959 ones. A small collection of articles were just on Welton as a school, briefly noting Neil's "untimely demise." Lily quickly learned that Neil had not died of pneumonia or cancer, but rather by his own hand. His face was present on every blog post and news article and all she could feel was pity. One particular article mentioned that he was buried at the cemetery in the nearby village and so Lily decided that she would visit his grave in honour of the fleeting connection she felt towards him. She knew she couldn't visit that afternoon; she had lacrosse every Wednesday after school. In the end she determined that she would visit on the Thursday.
When Thursday afternoon came around Lily's friends all thought she was insane. She hadn't intended to say that she was just happening to visit a dead boy's grave from 1959 later that day at the lunch table, but somehow her plans had made it into the conversation. Dana had teased her playfully about it during their Chemistry lesson and even before Lily left for town.
Lily signed out at the school reception and headed out of the school gates towards the town and the graveyard with her jacket pulled over her Welton uniform and a backpack slung over her shoulders. She bought a bouquet of white carnations at the local florists before going to find Neil Perry's final resting place at the cemetery next to the church. Neil's tombstone wasn't difficult to find. It was well maintained at least compared to some of the others, though it couldn't fight back the weathering effects of 50 years.
He didn't even get to turn 18. Lily noted as she spied his birth date: 24th February 1942. Lily laid down the bouquet at the foot of his tombstone and took a moment to make a prayer. When she finished, she sensed that she was being watched. Lily turned to see an ageing woman staring at her from the church entrance. The woman moved closer and Lily observed the way her skin was starting to wrinkle and sag, the way her hair was caught between shocks of white and blonde. Her eyes were a strong blue, hidden behind a pair of square glasses. She couldn't have been older than 60.
"What are you doing?" The woman called to her.
Lily was taken aback. Was it not obvious? "Paying my respects" She answered.
"Are you one of Todd's? I'm surprised he'd send a child to Welton." The woman inspected.
Lily shook her head, "I just go to Welton" She admitted.
The women frowned, "I hope you don't mind me asking, but why are you visiting this grave? No Welton student has ever visited here beyond the one's that knew him."
"I just…never mind, I'll go."
"No, I don't mind. I'm not sure he would mind either"—she gestured to the gravestone—"Neil so rarely gets visitors."
"Did you know him?" Lily inquired.
"I met him once, yes. I was just a naive teenager at the time, tagging along with my friend and a handsome boy from the private school. He took us to meet his friends in a cave in the woods - It all sounds so dodgy now – and Neil was there. They were having a meeting in the cave."
"What sort of meeting?"
"They called themselves the 'Dead Poets Society': a very pretentious title if you ask me, but of course my friend, Gloria, and I played along. We giggled and flirted." A reminiscent smile spread tugged on the old woman's lips, "Neil died a few days later – killed himself actually. It was an awful business."
"Why did he kill himself?"
"His father apparently, that was the local rumor anyway. The papers told an entirely different story, as always: 'Teacher causes teen suicide'."
Lily nodded to herself. She remembered that line from one of the articles.
"What do you think happened?"
"I don't know. He seemed happy when I met him. Anyway, it's nice to finally see he has a visitor. It has been a long while since his friends stopped by. His Mom used to come by twice a day until she died around 8 years ago now. That's her stone next to his."
"And his father?"
"I don't know if he ever visited. I only took up a position at the Church 12 years ago. He's still kicking though in the retirement home 10 miles from here."
"Anyway, I should be going." Lily announced, "It was nice meeting you…"
"Tina. Tina Sheppard."
Lily arrived at the cave that she had heard so many stories about. It was much colder in the woods where the sun cast vast shadows. Lily clambered inside and was surprised to find a shrine of sorts at the far side of the cave. A framed picture of Neil rested against the stone wall and letters had been nailed into the rock face. A book, frail from the decades it must have endured, sat at the base of the picture. Lily could just make out the title: "Five Centuries of Verse", though the gold lettering had long since faded into a crumbling, dull yellow and green typeface. To the right stood a statue of sorts. She quickly recognised it as a lamp stand. It was a strange thing to leave in someone's memorial. Lily surveyed the rest of the cave and was surprised to see no cigarettes butts or used condoms or anything. The cave seemed like the perfect hangout for any rebellious private school kid so why was it so untouched? Lily shook of the thought and returned her attention to the shrine. She couldn't help but look back over the statue. It was so odd and yet so beautiful. It looked like something Lily would find lurking in the back of her Great Aunt's basement and yet she couldn't help but admire it. She was mesmerised. She longed to feel the sculpted form. It was as though it sang to her. She brought her fingers forward and spied out the finely carved detail with her touch. She wanted to stay there for hours, pulled in by the enchantment of the lamp stand. She was lurching, the cave was melting, darkness swirling, rumbling, tumbling, down, away, into darkness and far beyond.
Hello people of the internet! So I really hope you enjoyed this first chapter. This is my second DPS story to date, my first being 'I Dial Your Number'. I really wanted to do something different and hopefully people like this. I also really hope that I can keep this up. If you liked this chapter make sure to favourite, follow and/or review. See you in the next one! :)
PS: I am British but for the sake of it being based in an American school with American characters I do try to use American spellings, however sometimes I do write use British spellings which is a force of habit. I am sorry if you find that jarring in any way.