Life Eternal Part 14

"Renee," he said, studying me through his gla.s.ses. "You move like a cat. Soundless."

Smiling, I bent down and picked up his book. Colorful drawings of heroes and villains filled the pages. All of the dialogue was in French.

"Comics?" I asked with a smile, and handed it to him.

"You say it with such disdain," he said.

I laughed. "What's it about?"

"Superheroes fighting the Napoleonic wars. But really it's about so much more. Life, death, violence, love, immortality. The meaning of our existence on earth." His tone was serious, but his eyes seemed to be teasing me. "I think you'd like it."

"Why do you say that?"

"Don't you have a superpower, too?"

I shrugged. "Well, I can't read French, whatever that's worth."

"And her true tragic flaw is finally revealed," he teased, and stood up.

"Have you been here the whole time?"

He shrugged. "I wanted to make sure you were okay."

I picked at a piece of mud clinging to my s.h.i.+rt, not wanting to be reminded of the mortifying incident. "Thanks."

It was evening as we left the building and walked across the courtyard to the dormitories. Just as I was about to thank Noah and go up to my room, he turned to me.

"Hey," he said, "are you hungry? I know of a really great French deli."

"What about Clementine?"

Noah's smile dropped a little. "Oh, I think she's busy tonight. But she won't care."

Unable to help myself, I let out a laugh. Of course she would care.

But Noah didn't see the humor. "What's funny?"

"Nothing," I murmured.

"So what do you think?" He tilted his head to meet my gaze. "If you don't like French food, we can get something else."

I bit my lip, my face going soft with guilt. "I can't."

Noah stepped back. "Oh, okay."

"I'm sorry. I just-"

"No, it's okay. You don't have to explain."

Feeling grateful, I nodded, and was about to turn away when he said, "It's a boy, isn't it?"

"Excuse me?"

"I can tell by your expression."

I brushed my bangs away from my face. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"I knew you'd say that," he said with a wink. "Just thought I'd try."

He held the door for me, and after giving him a wave, I slipped inside. I pa.s.sed Clementine in the hallway, where I overheard her asking one of her friends if they had any dinner plans. I must have paused for a little too long, because Clementine glared at me and asked me what I was looking at. Without answering, I squeezed by them, wondering why Noah had lied about her being busy tonight.

In my room, I showered the river water out of my hair, rifled through my closet for a dry outfit, and set off. I crept past the school gates and through the city until I reached the long curving path that led me to the base of Mont Royal. I pulled my coat closer to me as I climbed the mountain, pa.s.sing the spot where I saw the girl and boy kissing by the water fountain. I could still remember the way they'd held each other, kissing as if it were an afterthought.

I was about to walk on when I heard something rustle in the leaves behind me. I froze. A rock tumbled down the hill. For a moment I thought it was the couple, back to haunt me with their happiness. A moth fluttered about a lamp, but otherwise all was still.

I continued until I found myself in front of the twisted gates of the Mont Royal Cemetery. I stopped in front of them, running my hand along the cold bars. Beyond them, tombstones stuck out of the ground in great winding rows that stretched as far as I could see. Dim lamps lit the path.

The gate creaked as I pushed it open just wide enough to squeeze through. Inside, the graveyard was just as I had envisioned it.

Frost laced the gra.s.s, making everything appear frozen in place, but when I stepped onto it, a headstone seemed to s.h.i.+ft.

I gasped, backing against a tree as the ice seemed to crystallize up my feet and around my legs. Dante was here.

He was standing by a black marble tombstone carved into the shape of a pillar. All that was visible were the angles of his face, ivory against the shadows like the planes of a statue.

"Renee?" Maybe it was the wind distorting his voice, but something about the way he said my name made me think he was just as surprised to see me as I was to see him.

Just before our arms met, I hesitated. It seemed strange that I would find him here, right after my vision.

"Is everything okay?" he said, his eyes searching mine.

"You scared me," I said.

"I wasn't sure you'd come. This cemetery is so far away from St. Clement that I was worried you wouldn't sense me. But you did."

I nodded as he wrapped his arms around me until there was no s.p.a.ce between us. My visions couldn't have been his, I thought, burying my face in his chest. Everything felt right, now that we were together. Everything felt like it was in its place. Except that I hadn't felt him. I'd been too focused on finding the cemetery to notice his presence.

Extricating his arms from mine, Dante took a step back and studied me, his eyes dark and clouded like the sky. Maybe it was my own nervousness, or the fact that we were in a cemetery, or the fact that he never blinked, but something about the way he was staring made me uneasy. I tried to move toward him, but he stopped me.

"Let me look," he said, the words low. "Please."

My voice cracked. "At what?"

He didn't answer for a long while. "Sometimes I worry that I'll forget."

Beside us, a crow swooped onto a tombstone. My coat was unb.u.t.toned, letting a chill creep beneath my clothes, but I didn't care. "Forget what?"

Dante's eyes traveled across me, but his mind seemed far away.

"Forget what?" I repeated, as some part of me began to panic. "Me? Us?"

He took a step closer. "No, not that. All of this. The feeling of being with you."

"Why would you forget?" I asked, growing anxious.

He let his hand drop down my arm, sending a s.h.i.+ver up my skin. "I don't know."

What was he saying? I touched a tombstone near us. The marble was cold and black. "Why did you choose this cemetery?"

Dante gazed around us. "It's the biggest in Montreal. I thought it would be safest."

"Have you been here before?"

Dante's eye twitched. "No."

I believed him. I had to give him the benefit of the doubt; though something about the way he turned away made me wonder. "Isn't there a section of this cemetery where Monitors are buried?"

"Monitors?" he said, betraying a hint of unease. "I don't know."

"I was just thinking that maybe the Nine Sisters might have been buried there. I know you're skeptical about them, but it wouldn't hurt to check."

Dante hesitated. "Doesn't that seem too easy?"

"I just want to look," I said. "Will you walk with me?"

In the distance, a car drove past the cemetery gates, its headlights s.h.i.+ning across the headstones. Dante took my hand and slipped it into the pocket of his coat.

We walked to the fork in the path, and stopped at the map-the same one I'd seen in my vision. Barely taking any time to search, Dante put his finger on the small green area near the back of the grounds. "It's here."

I went stiff. "How do you know that's the right section?"

"Because it says so right here."

He pointed to a tiny line of text in the map's index that said Founders. I a.s.sumed it meant the founders of Montreal.

As we walked beneath the streetlamps to the back of the cemetery, I watched the shadows change his face, darkening and distorting it until he looked like a stranger.

"What?" Dante said, giving me a confused look.

"Nothing," I said quickly, and looked straight ahead until I found myself standing in front of the same tiny circle of land I'd seen earlier today. It was framed with barren trees and separated from the path by a chain.

Slowing to a stop, Dante gazed around the frozen weeds at our feet. "They must be somewhere here," he said. Behind us was the same narrow aisle I had visited in my vision. I waited, expecting Dante to lead me down that row. But instead he pulled me in the opposite direction. "Maybe this way?" he said, bending down to look at the headstones as we walked.

I let out a sigh of relief. He hadn't been here before. It was all in my head. Leaning in to him, I pressed my head against his shoulder, silently apologizing for not trusting him. We walked like that for a while, meandering through each of the rows, Dante wiping the frost from the face of the headstones so I could read the names and dates. I gave each of them a brief glance, and then shook my head. We had almost made it through all of the aisles, when I turned to him. "I don't think it's here. We can go if you want."

"Are you sure?"

I nodded.

With that, we made our way back, our arms stretched over the headstones as we wove in and out of them, veering apart and then coming together in a dark waltz. I laughed as I skipped down an overgrown row a few steps ahead of Dante. I was almost at the chain when he called out to me. "Watch your step."

At his words, I froze, the smile fading from my face. Slowly, I looked down. Buried in weeds just below my feet was the nameless headstone, the same one I had tripped over in my vision. The word soeur peeked out just above the gra.s.s.

Suddenly I felt queasy. I put a hand to my head, my knees growing limp. "Renee?" Dante said, just as I fell. I landed on the frozen earth beside the crooked stone.

Its inscription was barely visible through the frost.

"Are you okay?" Dante said from above me, bending down to offer me a hand. But I couldn't bring myself to look at him. Had he lied to me?

Rolling over, I stood up and brushed myself off.

"What's wrong?" he said, studying me. "You look sick."

I took a step away from him. "Did you see that headstone?"

"Of course. That's why I told you to watch your step."

I paused, trying to sort everything out. "But it's so dark. How did you see it from all the way over there?"

Dante gave me a confused look. "I was right behind you."

Was he? I couldn't remember.

"What's going on?" he said, his voice betraying a hint of alarm.

"I had another vision. I came to this cemetery, looking for a grave, but while I tried to find it, I tripped over a headstone. The same headstone you just warned me about." I squinted at him in the dark.

"What are you implying?"

"That my visions are yours. That I'm somehow seeing what you're doing." I swallowed. "That you've been lying to me about it."

Dante gave me a baffled look. "Lying to you about what? What do you think I'm doing that's so terrible?"

"I don't know," I said, shaking my head. "Digging up a grave. Looking for the secret of the Nine Sisters." But the more I spoke, the more absurd everything sounded. If he had been looking for the secret of the Nine Sisters, he would have told me.

"Is it really so hard to believe that I saw the headstone just before you fell?"

"I-I don't know," I said, and looked up at him, hoping the truth would be somehow etched in his face. "Tell me where you've been this whole time. Tell me what you've been doing. I feel like I'm walking in the dark."

"I've been in hiding," he said. "Moving around so the Monitors can't find me. You know that."

"But why won't you tell me any specifics?"

"I don't want to put you in any danger. If the Monitors here ask you questions, I don't want you to have to lie. It's better if you don't know where I am."

"So ask me to run away with you," I said. "I would say yes. You just have to ask me." My back went rigid as I leaned against the trunk of a tree and waited for him to say the words: Come with me.

But they never came.