I don’t know how long I stood there going over everything in my head. If I had absorbed Dante’s memories, did that mean that my visions belonged to him, too?
Dr. Newhaus had said that Wanderlust was about absorbing memories, but my visions weren’t Dante’s memories. I was seeing them long after our kiss, and it seemed like they were happening now, not in the past. Then again, we were soul mates; everything worked differently with us.
“My sis—” I’d said to the nurse in my vision of the hospital, just before I’d corrected myself to say brother. Dante had had a sister. And the cemetery. Dante had been there right after my vision; he’d known exactly where the Monitor section on the map was, and he’d noticed the headstone just before I tripped over it.
I thought back to the night before my birthday, when I had my first vision. Had Dante chased Miss LaBarge through the waters of Lake Erie? “You?” she’d said. Could she have been talking about Dante? In the vision, I’d had long hair. Dante did, too. Was it possible that he’d taken her shovel and then killed her?
Unable to control myself, I began to tremble. No. Maybe I was seeing him in my visions, but he couldn’t have killed anyone. I had to believe that he would never hurt anyone. He’d told me himself that he wouldn’t, that he wouldn’t hurt me….Except he had. I was hurt now. And Miss LaBarge was dead. What explanation could he possibly have?
Outside, the day faded to night, and tiny snowflakes floated in through the open window on a cool, swirling breeze. Standing up, I lowered the pane and went to splash my face with water. But when I turned the knob of the bathroom door, it was locked again.
“Go away,” Clementine yelled from inside, though this time her voice was different. There were no girls in the background whispering or giggling.
She blew her nose. Quietly, I pressed my ear to the door, only to hear the soft sound of her crying.
“I can hear you,” she yelled suddenly. “Go away.”
Stunned, I fell back. And without thinking, I slipped on my coat and scarf, getting ready to leave. I didn’t care where.
When I opened the door from my bedroom to the hall, Noah was right in front of me, his arm raised as if he were about to knock.
“Noah,” I said, jumping. “What are you doing here?”
He looked red and flustered, his brow gathered into a tiny wrinkle. When he saw me, his face softened. “I just wanted to see you.”
I scratched my head, confused. Behind me I could hear Clementine turn the faucet on in the bathroom.
“You seem upset. Are you leaving?” he asked, betraying a hint of panic as he surveyed my coat and scarf.
“I—I’m fine,” I said, unable to think coherently enough to form a proper response. “I’m just going for a walk.”
“Can I come?”
I glanced at Clementine’s door. The last thing I needed was for Clementine to find out that Noah was here, talking to me. “Okay.”
“Okay.”
We walked in silence, both lost in our own thoughts as the traffic lights changed soundlessly in front of us. As we waited on the curb for a car to pass, Noah turned to me. “I broke up with Clementine for good.”
His words took a moment to sink in. “I’m so sorry.” I didn’t know what else to say.
“Thanks.”
He didn’t offer anything more, and I didn’t ask.
The city was different at night. Without any destination we meandered down the streets, past sex shops and head shops, tattoo parlors and peep shows. The windows of the storefronts were smudged and cracked and glowing neon.
As we passed under the awning of an all-night café, I stopped. Through the glass I spotted someone wearing a tan suit coat that looked incredibly familiar.
“That’s Dr. Newhaus,” I said.
Our psychology professor was sitting alone at a table, staring down at a plate of food, deep in thought.
It was a smoky French bistro, the kind that served cheap wine. A television was on, tuned to a hockey game. There were barely any people inside, save for two older men smoking cigars, and a group of college boys heckling a waitress.
“I wonder why he’s out so late alone,” I murmured, watching him pick at his food.
“Do you know about him?” Noah asked from over my shoulder.
“Know what?”
“He was one of the best Monitors in his class. My father told me he was fearless; always the first to volunteer, and later the first one on the trail of an Undead. They used to be friends a long time ago.
“Eventually he got married and had a son. Apparently I was friends with the kid when we were both younger, though I can’t remember any of it.”
“You don’t see him anymore?”
Noah shook his head. “He died when he was ten. Fell out of a tree in their front yard.”
I raised my hand to my mouth.
“In his grief, Dr. Newhaus decided that instead of burying him, he would wait until his son reanimated. That’s when he and my father started drifting apart.”
“What do you mean?”
“Dr. Newhaus decided to homeschool his son. The rumors are that his wife wanted to bury the boy, but Dr. Newhaus couldn’t bear it. Supposedly that was what eventually destroyed their family—not the death itself, but Dr. Newhaus’s inability to cope with it.”
“What do you mean, it destroyed their family?”
Inside the restaurant, a haggard waitress carrying a tray was standing behind Dr. Newhaus, speaking to him, but the professor was lost in his thoughts and didn’t seem to hear her. Only after she touched his arm did he turn around.
“His wife divorced him, leaving him to care for his Undead son alone.” Noah shrugged. “You know how it ends. Folly after folly, and eventually he had to bury him. Bury his own son. Can you imagine?”
I gazed at Dr. Newhaus through my reflection in the window. “When did all of this happen?” I said, my voice cracking.
“A decade ago, maybe more. That’s when he became a psychologist.”
“I want to go,” I said, tearing myself away from the window. “I don’t want to be here anymore.” Though I wasn’t sure if I meant here at the café, or here in Montreal, or here in general. Everything was too complicated.
“Me neither,” Noah said, his breath dissipating into the night. I followed his gaze down the street, where the block lights of a theater stuck out over the awnings. “Hey. Do you want to see a movie?”
The only thing showing past midnight was a black-and-white film about a man who plotted to murder his wife. I shuddered as I stared at the dull colors of the movie poster, which seemed to mock me. But before I knew it, I found myself waiting as Noah bought two tickets, a bag of buttery popcorn, and two large sodas. We were the only people in the theater, and took seats right in the middle.
“This is a classic,” Noah said. “You’re going to love it.”
It wasn’t until the movie started that I realized it was entirely in French, with no subtitles.
“They’re talking so quickly I can barely understand them,” I whispered to Noah as he passed me the popcorn.
After a moment of confusion, he realized what I was saying. “Oh no,” he said. “I forgot.”
Clearing his throat, he leaned toward my ear and began to translate, his voice deep and accented. I slid down in my seat, laughing despite everything and sipping my soda as our thighs pressed against each other. Somewhere in between a woman crooning in scratchy French and the fly that landed on the projector lens, I fell asleep, my dream a chaotic swirl of murder and betrayal, of me and Noah in black and white, smiling as we ran, hand in hand, into white light.
Hours later, a man with a broom and dustpan nudged me awake. I blinked. The screen glowed white, and popcorn was strewn about our feet. Noah’s head was resting on my shoulder, his hand sweaty and wrapped around mine. “Renée,” he murmured in his sleep. He was dreaming of me, just as I had been dreaming of him.
I realized then that for the first time in months, my dream had been my own.
Chapter 11
DECEMBER IN MONTREAL WAS DARK AND BLEAK, with winds so strong they could blow a person over, and snow that buried parking meters and bicycle stands. From the windows of our classrooms the city looked post-apocalyptic and abandoned. For me, it was real. The world I thought I had known, the world colored by Dante, was gone now, and everything felt vacant and meaningless. Every morning it was harder to get out of bed. The prospect of facing the day seemed too exhausting to bear. I couldn’t focus on studying for my exams, and every time the voice inside me screamed, Search for the ninth sister!, I silenced it. Eternal life doesn’t exist, I told myself. The Nine Sisters were nothing more than a group of smart women who protected a secret about literature or politics. Immortality was a legend. And even if it wasn’t, what was the point in searching for it? The only reason I wanted to find their secret was because of Dante, because I wanted to be with him for eternity. But I didn’t know if I wanted that anymore.
After the night in the movie theater, things changed between Noah and me, though it happened so quietly that it was hard to catch. We still went on walks together, wandering through the slushy streets after classes to get a bite to eat, or studying for exams with Anya, on a rickety table at the coffee shop, an espresso machine whirring in the background. On the surface, everything appeared the same. I didn’t tell Noah about Dante, but something about the way he studied me when he thought I wasn’t looking made me think he understood.
“Hey, maybe the ninth sister was a doctor,” he’d say in the middle of a study session, when he saw me lost in thought as I stared out the window at the snowplow on the street. “Maybe that’s why the riddle was hidden at the Royal Victoria.”
I shrugged. “Maybe.”
“Or maybe she was very sick,” Anya said, “and hid the riddle beneath the bed where she was treated.”
Noah scratched the stubble on his chin. “I guess anything’s possible. We could check hospital records. What do you think, Renée?” he said gently, trying to catch my gaze.