History's Repeat

Disclaimer: look chapters 1 and 2.

A/N: chapter 3 – Chris visits the graveyard and finds a very special book

3. Whispers of the Past

Shaking her head to free herself of the strange spell, Chris leaves the room along with the rest of the class.

"Well, that was weird," Alex comments, shifting his books in his hands.

"It was… different," Chris answers; she is still under the spell of the lesson, and unknowingly mirrors the dreamy smile of one of the dead boys.

"You think we're gonna have a test on that stuff?" Julia asks nervously. "I haven't managed to take a single note in there."

"Surprise, surprise," George snickers. "Didn't you hear her? Didn't you get anything she told us?"

Juila looks confused as the rest of the group, Chris included, shake their heads in exasperation and trot off to their next destination.

As the friends stay for the study group, Chris's head is buried in the old Annual. The usual noises around her are dimmed, and she grins as she hears Alex and Amy trying to put an old radio together, with occasional cursing in-between. On her other side, George, Nikkie, and John are scrawling away at their homework.

Chris sighs, scrawls 'Carpe Diem' in her notebook and starts sketching there. Somehow, the fantasy knight that appears on the page looks like Neil Perry. Chris heaves another sigh and bangs her notebook shut.

Alex and Amy jump and relax, as Chris leaves the study hall.

"Where are you going?" Alex whispers quietly, trying not to attract the unnecessary attention from the others.

"For a stroll," Chris answers, holding up the Annual. "I'll drop this off as well."

"'kay."

Their curiosity satisfied, Alex and Amy bend down to their radio again.

Chris glances at the watch. Discovering that it's only eight, she smirks. She has whole two hours to be there and back again. Her distraction is created as one of the guys enters the room, telling the others about his problem. Chris slips out of the door, unnoticed in general chaos.

Throwing on her uniform coat – black with red lining inside – Chris takes a small book of poems she took with her from home.

Then, she takes her flashlight and slips out of the room and off the site – unnoticed by others.

Silently, almost like a wraith herself, Chris flits through the night into the graveyard – over the metal fence, through the headstones, and to that isolated memorial of a young poet. After making sure that nobody followed her, Chris comfortably sits down at the base of the grave, glancing at the portrait of the young man. She still wonders about his story, but for now she is there just to think. And to read some poetry.

"The living come with grassy tread
To read the gravestones on the hill;
The graveyard draws the living still,
But never anymore the dead.

The verses in it say and say:
"The ones who living come today
To read the stones and go away
Tomorrow dead will come to stay."

So sure of death the marbles rhyme,
Yet can't help marking all the time
How no one dead will seem to come.
What is it men are shrinking from?

It would be easy to be clever
And tell the stones: Men hate to die
And have stopped dying now forever.
I think they would believe the lie."

Chris stops, slightly cocking her head to the side, before softly continuing,

"Did you hate to die, Neil? Well, I think you did." She chuckles softly to herself. "Look at me, talking with the air now. Am I going crazy?"

She pauses, silently re-reading the lines of the poem.

"You know, I don't even know what I'm doing here, since someday I'm going to return here forever, anyway. I mean, even my English teacher said so. I wonder if the others even thought about this."

The girl pushes her dark hair to the side, that annoying lock slipping forth again.

"Well, tell you what, Neil. I'm going to live my life to the fullest. I'm going to live each day to the fullest. Carpe Diem, huh? Well, I'm going to seize the day. I just need a little help?"

The boy on the photo continues to smile dreamily, apparently off in his own little world. But his dark eyes are twinkling at Chris, as though he hides some secret.

"Huh? What's this you've gotten here?"

Chris feels a square stone right where she is sitting. Curious, she picks it up, carefully unwrapping the heavy old book from its material cover. The title of the book says it all.

"Five Centuries of Verse."

Chris cautiously opens the book to the very first page. At the front she reads the names of the first members of the Dead Poets Society. Then, a few familiar names jump at her.

"Neil Perry. Todd Anderson. Charlie Dalton. Knox Overstreet."

Here, the girl grins, and as she reads farther under her flashlight, her grin widens.

To Be Read At The Opening
of D. P. S. Meetings

I went to the woods because I
wanted to live deliberately...
I wanted to live deep and suck
out all the marrow of life!
To put to rout all that was not life...
And not, when I came to die, discover
that I had not lived...

H.D.T

D.P.S

Chris grins crazily, stifling the urge to laugh.

"This is it!" she whispers. "This is it."

She heard the talk that the book had disappeared mysteriously after the last Society was disbanded by the authorities. Now, the mysterious disappearance was a mystery no longer – nobody, in their right minds, would think of searching for the ancient book in the graveyard.

Chris hugs the book tightly, grinning, as she looks up.

"Hey Neil. Thanks. You really helped. Just you wait – we'll be back."

She pauses.

"And we'll be more cautious than ever. I promise it." She grins. "Dead Poetess's honor."

With the book close to her chest, Chris slips out of the graveyard.

There is one more place she needs to go to.

Cautiously slipping down between the roots of the old tree, Chris lands on her feet. She is in the infamous cave – the hideout for the Society. She has found a route to it earlier in the Annual, and decided to check it out. She did not expect to look into the graveyard before that. Nor did she expect to find the old book she wanted to find.

The old cave is still untouched. Chris lowers herself down, discovering one other legacy of the Society – the old kerosene lamp that was standing in the corner. Of course, all the oil had disappeared a long time ago, but it won't be trouble to find some to replace it.

Chris sits on the ground, hugging her knees, as she listens for the old inhabitants of the cave. Her imagination going wild, Chris can still hear laughter of the boys, and hear different voices reading poems – some from the book, and others of the so-called original works. Chris smiles dreamily, not knowing how creepy she looks right now – resembling the long-dead boy, whom she had only seen in the old school photo during her first English class.

The distant bell chimes ten, and Chris silently makes her way towards the walls of Weldon Academy, with a dreamy smile still playing on her lips and 'Five Centuries of Verse' securely tucked into her cloak.

A/N: the text came from a comprehensive site... which I managed to forget. Up next – the new generation of Dead Poets Society is formed