Life Eternal Part 25

Where are you going?"

"Business," he said.

"What was Miss LaBarge looking for in Breaker Chasm, Vermont?"

"I don't know," he answered. "Which is why it's important that I keep things in order. You can't just take things like this and leave them about the house. What if they'd gotten thrown out? Misplaced? We would have lost the only clues we have." He snapped his briefcase shut. "This isn't a game. People are dying. Monitors are dying. I don't think your friend Eleanor would be amused by whatever half-hatched theory you've come up with. So I would suggest you save your childish endeavors for the dormitories."

That night, it started to snow. I ate dinner alone, sitting at the end of the long dining room table while Dustin stood in the corner, his hands clasped behind his back.

"If I may, Miss Renee," he said as I picked at my duck. "I believe Breaker Chasm is in the part of the lake country that many people believe is haunted."

"Haunted?" I repeated.

"I believe so."

That's when I felt it. At first it was subtle. Just a slight chill tickling my ankles. And then it moved, traveling up beneath the table to my arms, my shoulders, my neck.

I dropped my fork. It clattered against my plate and fell to the floor. The air around me seemed to rearrange itself into his name: Dante. But it couldn't be. He wouldn't be here; it was too dangerous.

Dustin stared at me. "Miss Renee, is everything all right?"

Shaking myself to attention, I nodded and reached under the table to pick up my fork. A draft must have snuck in through an upstairs window. Except we were deep into the Ma.s.sachusetts winter; none of the windows were open. Could he really be here?

It was too dark to see anything out the window, except for the snow collecting on the panes, but I could still feel him.

"I'm finished," I said, picking up my plate. I had to go outside and see if he was there.

"But you've barely touched your food," Dustin said, concerned. "Come, just a few more bites?" He must have seen me glance out the window, because he continued. "Is there something outside?" he said, following my gaze. "I can call the gardener to fetch it for you."

"No," I said quickly. "I was just admiring the snow," I said, and sat back down, not wanting to draw his attention to Dante.

After dinner I stayed up with Dustin, watching late-night talk shows until he nodded off, his head in his hand as he leaned on the arm of the sofa. Tiptoeing across the room, I turned off the television. The room went dark, save for the twinkling lights on the Christmas tree. I crept out, up the stairs, and into my room.

Before I could turn on the lights, a cold hand covered my mouth and pulled me inside, the door clicking shut behind me.

"I didn't want you to scream," a deep voice said.

My body went rigid. Dante. He was here, in my bedroom, his chest expanding against my back as he breathed. I could smell the sap on his clothes; I could hear the branches tapping on the windowpanes in rhythm with his heart.

When he released me, I backed away from him. Framed in the doorway of my closet, he looked like a mannequin. Tall, pale, and too perfect to be real, his broad shoulders stiff beneath his sweater.

He pushed a loose lock of hair behind his ear. "Why are you looking at me like that?" he said, his voice gentle. He moved toward me, but I stepped away.

His smile faded. "What's wrong?"

"Where have you been?"

"I was moving around," he said, offering me the same answer he always did.

"But where?"

He frowned, his forehead wrinkling into delicate lines. "Why does it matter? I'm here now."

"Why does it matter?" I breathed. "I've been trying to find you for months. I've been waiting for you, not knowing where you were or what you were doing. You know everything about me, but I know nothing about you. Do you know how that feels?"

"Don't say that," he said, hurt. "You know me better than anyone."

"It doesn't feel that way."

"I'm sorry," he said, his eyes a soft brown. "I was in Vermont. A town called Breaker Chasm. I haven't been telling you because I thought it would be safer if you didn't know."

I leaned against my bedpost. "Breaker Chasm?" I said miserably, the words deteriorating as they left my mouth.

He nodded. "Do you know it?"

"No," I whispered. "What-what were you doing there?"

Dante hesitated. "I was in hiding," he said. "Like I told you I was."

My lip began to quiver. I bit it and turned away, hoping he hadn't seen. "What do you do when you're in hiding?"

"I've been searching for an answer for us," he said, beginning to grow worried. "You know that."

I gripped the bedpost. "Searching where? In mailboxes?"

A flash of recognition pa.s.sed over him. "Mailboxes?"

"Eleanor's mother is dead," I said.

"What?" he said, confused. "How do you know?"

"Don't pretend like it's a surprise," I said. "You went to a farmhouse and took a piece of paper from the mailbox. It had Cindy Bell's name on it."

"It's not what it seems," Dante said, guilt etching itself into his face as he stepped toward me. But when he saw me grow rigid, he stopped.

"What was it, then? Why did you go there? What did you do with that slip of paper?"

Dante gripped the edge of the dresser. "Please," he said. "Don't ask me these questions."

"Why not? I have a right to know."

"You don't understand," he said. "If I tell you, I'll be putting you in danger."

"Why?" I closed my hand into a fist to stop it from shaking. "What kind of danger?"

Dante searched for an answer. "I can't-"

Suddenly I was crying. "Did you kill her?" I said, so softly I wasn't sure he heard me. "Did you kill Eleanor's mother?"

"No," he said, his voice wavering. "Of course I didn't. You know I couldn't."

"You're lying," I said, studying him in horror, and backed away until I was against the wall. "And Miss LaBarge? Did you chase her boat in Lake Erie? Did you take her shovel and then follow her to the island and kill her?"

Dante's expression widened with bewilderment. "I-I never killed her," he a.s.serted, though his voice cracked when he said it. He didn't deny the rest.

"My visions," I whispered. "They've been yours the entire time. You were looking for the secret of the Nine Sisters, and you never told me. Why? Why didn't you just tell me the truth? What's so bad about what you did that you had to keep it from me?"

"I wanted to tell you. I wanted to tell you more than anything."

I waited for him to go on, to give me some explanation, but instead he seemed to shrink into the shadows.

Downstairs, the clock chimed midnight. "I don't understand," I said, my voice wild with desperation. "Tell me why you chased her. Why you took Cindy Bell's name from a mailbox. Why you kept it a secret from me."

Dante raised his hand to me, and then let it drop, as if he were apologizing. "Please," he said, pleading. "You have to trust me."

"Why?" I cried. "Why should I trust you? I don't even know who you are."

Dante's eyes darted to the door, worried that I would wake someone up. "Of course you do," he said in disbelief, his shoulders sinking as if I had wounded him.

I moved away from him to my bed, suddenly frightened. "You're a murderer. I have the soul of a murderer." He sucked in his breath like I'd slapped him, but I didn't care.

"Don't say that," he said, shaking his head.

"What do you want from me?" I yelled. "Why are you here?"

"Because I wanted to see you," he said. "Because I love you."

Out my bedroom window I noticed a downstairs light turn on, casting a long yellow rectangle across the snow on the front lawn. Dante froze when he saw it. Dustin must have woken up.

"I don't believe you," I breathed.

Dante blinked, his chest collapsing as if there were nothing left inside him. And for a moment I could see him the way he used to be-the Dante that ran with me through the rain and pressed me against the blackboard, kissing my neck, my arms, my hands. The Dante that carried me through the field of flowers behind the chapel and gave my soul back to me.

And for reasons I can't explain, I wasn't scared when he came toward me, his hand gentle on my waist as he lowered his face to mine. This is it, I thought as he studied me. He is going to take my soul, and I am going to die. I closed my eyes, not wanting to see him when he did it. I felt his weight pressing against my body, his breath cool against my skin...and then, delicately, he kissed my cheek.

"I would die for you again if you asked me to," he said so softly that I wasn't even sure if I had actually heard him.

From down the hall, I heard footsteps. Surprised, I opened my eyes just as Dante vanished into the shadows of my room.

There were three soft raps on the door. Confused, my eyes darted about the darkness. What had just happened?

"Renee?" Dustin's voice was m.u.f.fled through the door. "I...heard something. May I come in?"

I rubbed my cheeks with my palms. "Just a minute," I said, and, wiping the tears from my eyes, I opened the door.

Dustin looked a bit groggy, the left side of his face red from sleeping on his hand; but his eyes were sharp as they darted around the room.

"Is someone here?" he said, his voice more stern than I had ever heard it before.

"No," I said, steadying my voice. "I was only reading."

Dustin followed my gaze to my nightstand, where one of my textbooks was resting. "I'm going to go downstairs and clean up a bit. If you need anything, I'll be in the kitchen."

"I'll help you," I said, eager to take Dustin's attention away from my room. "I wanted a gla.s.s of milk, anyway."

Turning off the light, I closed the door, my eyes lingering for the briefest moment on the spot where Dante had just been standing.

Downstairs, I helped Dustin with the dishes in silence. When we were done, I poured myself a gla.s.s of milk and went upstairs. I entered my room cautiously, a gust of cold air enveloping me as I opened the door. But once inside, I realized that it was just an open window. Dante was gone. It was just cold air now. Pus.h.i.+ng the window closed, I looked down to the lawn, where his footprints were already being filled in with snow.

RENeE?" MY GRANDFATHER'S VOICE CALLED FROM outside my bedroom door. "It's time for lunch." He paused. "Renee?"

"I'm not hungry."

"You've barely eaten anything all week." He turned the k.n.o.b, and when he realized it was locked, he rattled it. "What are you doing in there?"

"Nothing," I said, dragging a chair into my closet, which was still filled with my mother's childhood things from when it was her room. "Go away." I propped it against the wall, and when I thought my grandfather was gone, I climbed on top of it and patted around the top shelf until I felt a long leather case. Wedging it out, I pulled it onto the floor, where it landed with a thud.

"What was that sound?" my grandfather called. "Are you almost packed? We're leaving in an hour."

"Yes," I yelled, opening the clasps on the case. "I'm fine. Just leave me alone." Inside was a shovel, its wooden sheath dark with oil from my mother's hands; its head speckled with rust. My fingers grazed the metal. It was surprisingly heavy when I lifted it from the box and held it upright. I gazed across the room to the mirror, trying to see myself for who I was. A Monitor.

I pulled down the back of my s.h.i.+rt and stared at the reflection of the mark on my back, watching the way it subtly changed from white to pink as I rolled my shoulders, the way its shape seemed to transform when I moved my neck, distorting from an oval to a skull to the silhouette of Dante's face.

"There's nothing between us," I whispered, my eyes dark and heavy. And quickly, before I changed my mind, I tore a Band-Aid out of its wrapper and pressed it over the spot, covering him, embalming him, deleting him from my life.

Montreal was three feet deep in snow when I arrived later that evening. The wheels of my suitcase left two wobbly trails in the street as I pulled it down the alley that led to St. Clement. Just before I reached the gates, I stopped. My suitcase had gotten stuck in a ridge of ice. Turning, I tugged on the handle, when I noticed that it wasn't just a ridge. It was a shape: a giant letter drawn into the sidewalk. I stepped back, pus.h.i.+ng my hood from my face as I realized there wasn't just one letter, there were many letters. Carved deep into the snowy ground beneath the streetlamp was a message written in Latin.

FORGIVE ME, it read.

I let go of my bag as I spun around, searching the alley and the buildings for any trace of Dante. A doormat slung over a fire escape flapped in the wind. Otherwise, all was still. Pulling my coat closer, I stood over the message, my cheeks stinging from the cold as I watched the falling snow slowly fill in the letters. Forgive him? How could I? He still wasn't being honest with me about what he had been doing.

After dropping off my suitcase, I went straight to Anya's, where I knocked on the door and hovered by the broom closet across the hall, fidgeting with my skirt while she yelled through the door that she would just be a minute.

She answered the door in a silk robe. "Renee, I didn't know you were back."

"We have to go to Vermont," I said.

She gave me a steady gaze. "Come inside."

Her room was cluttered with clothes and shoes and lacy underwear. She pushed them off her couch and sat down next to me. "You had another vision."

In her upper ear was a new piercing, which she rotated as I told her about the farmhouse and Cindy Bell's name, about taking my mother's shovel with me. I wavered before mentioning Dante. I wanted to tell her about him more than anything; the burden of it had been weighing down on me for so long that it seemed only natural to let it go. But for some reason, I couldn't.

That was the first time I realized that I really wasn't a great Monitor. If I were, I would have turned Dante in. I would have stopped him from leaving my room that night. I would have told my grandfather about him the next morning, and helped them hunt him down. So why hadn't I?

When I was finished, Anya frowned. "But Cindy Bell wasn't killed in Breaker Chasm. She was killed in Colorado. So what exactly did you see?"

"I don't know. That's why I have to go. I have to find out. Something could be hidden there. The last piece of the riddle, even." What I didn't tell her was that it wasn't just the prospect of finding the riddle that was pulling me to Breaker Chasm. I needed to understand what Dante had been doing.