Life Eternal

Mr. Pollet continued. “You may find and identify the animals by any means necessary. There are only three rules. One, you must return in exactly one hour. Two, you may not touch, move, or relocate the animals. And three, you must work alone.”

Madame Goût took over. “Are there any questions before we begin?”

I felt myself starting to panic. I had too many questions. One hour? To find nine dead animals hidden around campus, while every other girl was doing the same thing? It seemed impossible.

“No?” she asked, flexing the tendons in her neck as she peered around the crowd to make sure she wasn’t missing anyone. “Okay. Ready yourselves,” she said, watching the clock on the wall. When the hands hit nine o’clock, she said, “Begin!”

Everyone dispersed. Some of the girls meandered around, unsure of what to do. Others set off in one direction with determination, and the rest followed the decisive-looking ones. Clementine glanced at me, and with a smile, slipped out the door and into the daylight.

I was the only person who didn’t move. I didn’t do anything until everyone had emptied out of the gymnasium. “The clock is ticking, mademoiselle,” Madame Goût warned.

Now that there was silence, I could think. I walked to the center of the gymnasium, where there was a circle painted on the floor. Not completely sure what I was doing, I stood in the middle of it and closed my eyes.

Taking small steps, I turned around in the circle until I felt the air shift, as if it were moving out of my way. The tiny path that it left was cool and seemingly devoid of anything. I imagined myself walking down it, marking the number paces on my map. Twelve paces straight, four paces to the left, up ten stairs. Eleven paces to the right. Down three stairs. Two paces to the left. There, I drew an X. And without realizing what I was writing, I scrawled the word cat in big wobbly letters.

Puzzled, I stared at it. I had no idea how I knew it was a cat, but now that I saw the word on the page, I was certain that was it. Next to it I wrote #1.

I repeated the process. This time when the air shifted, the path seemed a little narrower. I followed it, counting the paces. Marking it with an X, I wrote SHEEP, #2. I continued on, the empty paths in the air growing thinner and thinner. CROW, #3. BOAR, #4. SQUIRREL, #5. POSSUM, #6. RAT, #7.

When I got to the last two I wavered. Their paths were so narrow that they barely seemed to exist. fish, I wrote, feeling a little unsure of myself, and then crossed it out and replaced it with CARP, #8. Glancing at the clock, I realized I only had five minutes left until the exam was up. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t identify the last animal. As the second hand made its final rotation, Clementine burst through the doors in her white tennis shoes, and handed in her list. How could she have finished? Giving up, I drew a simple X where the last animal rested, and labeled it #9.

After a series of written tests on Monitoring history, we finally finished the exam. I spent the rest of the day in my room, listening to the girls in the hall laughing and talking about their summers. Part of me wanted to go talk to them, but what would I say if they asked me about my summer? That I’d spent it indoors, seeing doctors and therapists? That I’d spent my nights pacing by the window, wondering when I would hear from my Undead boyfriend?

Suddenly the bathroom door burst open, and a plump girl with rosy cheeks fell into my room. “Oh, sorry. Wrong door,” she said, staring at me. “Hey, are you that girl who can’t die?”

Sitting up, I glared at her.

“Sorry,” she said, rolling her eyes, and popped back into Clementine’s room, where faintly I heard her talking, probably about me.

I didn’t venture out until dinner. The dining hall had the feel of a medieval kitchen, with long wooden tables and three cooks standing behind a counter, flipping meat in skillets. The whole room was crowded and steamy. Even though there were plenty of empty seats, it still felt like there wasn’t one for me. Clementine and a group of her friends whispered as I passed them. Over the noise of clattering plates, I could hear Brett laughing as he joined a group of boys by the wall. Finally I spotted the girls from my horticulture class sharing a table with a few people I recognized from my floor. I made my way toward them.

“Is anyone sitting here?” I asked.

April looked up at me. “Oh, Renée. Um—no,” she said, and pushed over just enough for me to squeeze onto the end.

“Thanks,” I mumbled.

After a solid moment of silence, conversation resumed.

“So you had Undead at Gottfried. I mean, in your classes. What were they like?” a prim Korean girl asked April’s twin, Allison.

“They’re like us,” Allison said, picking at her salad. “Except they can speak Latin.”

“Do they look different?” the girl pressed. “Clementine said that they look like corpses. That their eyes are cloudy.”

My stomach tightened. “You’ve never met one before?” I asked, gazing at the St. Clément girls on the other side of the table. They shook their heads as if it were obvious. “Well, Clementine doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”

“But she’s met the Undead before. With her dad.”

“So have I,” I said. “And she’s wrong.”

A couple of girls across from me went rigid, as if I had insulted their religion.

“But aren’t they angry and uncontrollable?” said a delicate brunette, her eyes wide behind her glasses. “That’s what Clementine said. That they’re animals.”

“I don’t see how they can stand it,” her friend said, playing with the straw of her soda. “Knowing that a murderer is lurking inside them.” The other girls nodded in agreement.

I stopped eating. “Not all Undead take souls at random. And besides, any of us could kill someone. It’s not like we’re perfect. Humans kill each other all the time. As Monitors, we’re going to learn how to kill the Undead. That doesn’t bother you?”

There was an awkward stillness as everyone gazed at me. I looked to the girls from Gottfried for support, but only April gave me a sympathetic glance before looking away. The rest of them were too cowardly to even look me in the eyes, even though they had been close with the same friends I’d had at Gottfried. “Allison, are you still in touch with Eleanor?” I asked.

“She’s different now.”

“She’s had a hard time. It’s not her fault.”

“I never said it was,” Allison said, offended. “But she’s Undead now, and I’m a Monitor. That’s not my fault, either.” Putting down her fork, she stood up. “You know, I’m not really hungry anymore.” Without looking at me, she turned to her sister. “I’ll see you back at the dorm.”

The table went silent as she gathered her things, and I realized that none of them were comfortable with me there. “Right,” I said, crumpling my napkin in my fist. “I guess I’ll go.” And picking up my tray, I walked down the aisle, refusing to look back. I paused when I spotted Anya Pinsky sitting by herself in the corner. Smiling, I walked over to her table and sat across from her.

She looked up from her brisket. “Did I say you could sit?” she asked, pronouncing every consonant immaculately. Her dark red hair was pulled into a low bun.

“Sorry. I thought you were alone.”

“I am,” she said.

“I was just trying to be friendly.”

“I don’t need any friends,” she said.

“Now I know.” Just as I moved to the end of the table, the main door of the dining hall opened, and a tall, ebony-skinned man sauntered down the aisle, carrying a folder of papers. He was wearing a dark green suit, the kind only a tall person could pull off. His hair was graying.

A hush fell over the crowd as he stood at the head of the room and put on his glasses.

“Hello,” he said in a French-Caribbean accent, his voice deep yet wavering, as if he were singing the words. “As many of you know, I am Headmaster LaGuerre, and I’d like to welcome you all to Lycée St. Clément.”

Everyone clapped. From where I was sitting, I could see the back of Clementine’s head near the front. Her last name was LaGuerre, too.

“You are all Monitors,” he said, and smiled. “It makes me proud to say those words. Some of you come from old Monitoring families, others are new to our community, but we are all united by our shared talents: the unique ability to sense death, and the primal urge to seek it out and bury it.”

The room went still as he gazed around us, his words pulsing beneath the silence like electricity.

“In your time at St. Clément, you’ll make new friends, discover new skills, and eventually you’ll specialize in one branch of Monitoring. However, most important, you will learn how to control and use your powers. The purpose of our calling is to police the Undead, and to put them to rest only when completely necessary. All life is precious, even second lives.”

I wanted to turn to April’s table, but resisted the urge.

“Monitoring is not a safe calling. Every day you will be risking your lives for the betterment of humanity.” He paused dramatically. “In your classes you will hone the three basic Monitoring skills: intuition, sensing the Undead; evaluation, judging the Undead; and execution, putting the Undead to rest. But classes aren’t a replacement for real experience. You need to learn how to watch after yourselves, and now is the perfect time to start.” He motioned toward the doors. “The gates are always open. You can come and go as you please, and at your own risk.

“That said, we do have two rules. First, I ask you to keep what you learn at St. Clément to yourselves. You are not to discuss the existence of Monitors or the Undead to anyone outside of these walls; nor shall you blatantly display your talents to anyone outside this community unless the situation is life threatening. Should the public find out about the existence of the Undead, they will try to bury them all. History has proven this to be true over and over again.