Life Eternal

“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?

“Renée?” Dustin’s voice was muffled 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 glass 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 glass 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. Pushing the window closed, I looked down to the lawn, where his footprints were already being filled in with snow.

Chapter 12

RENÉE?” MY GRANDFATHER’S VOICE CALLED FROM outside my bedroom door. “It’s time for lunch.” He paused. “Renée?”

“I’m not hungry.”

“You’ve barely eaten anything all week.” He turned the knob, 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 shirt 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. Clément. 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, pushing 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. “Renée, 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.

“So what do you think?” I said. “Will you come? I was thinking we could go on Saturday. We could take a train.”

“The day after tomorrow? I can’t.”

I gave her a puzzled look. “Why not?”

She stood up and went across the room to light a votive. “I have to help my dad at the store.”

“Can’t you take one day off?”

“No. It’s really busy this time of year,” she said, and blew out the match.

“It’s the middle of January in Montreal,” I said slowly. “Nothing’s busy. You can barely walk outside without getting windburn.”

“You haven’t been wearing the necklace I made you.”

I shook my head in confusion. “What?”

“You don’t like it?”

“The one with the beans?” I said. “It’s…not really my style. But why are you dodging my invitation? Do you just not want to go? Because you can tell me.”

“Fine,” she said. “I just don’t want to go.”

“Because you’re scared?” I pressed.

“Because I just don’t want to go,” she repeated. “And I don’t think you should go either.”

“Why not? Since when are you the voice of reason?” I said, picking up a wishbone charm adorned with feathers.

Anya’s face went taut, her lips parting as if she were about to snap at me, but instead she sank back into the couch. “Why don’t you take that?” She gestured at the charm. “You might need it.”

I stood up and tossed it on the couch. “Thanks, but I think I’ll manage on my own,” I said, and slammed the door.

Maybe she was right, I thought as I walked back to my room. Only an obsessed person would want to follow a dream to a strange farmhouse in Vermont. But what else could I do? Everything had already been set into motion; I couldn’t stop now.

Through the window, I could see the boys’ dormitory across the courtyard, its windows lit up. One of them belonged to Noah. He would understand that I had to go. He wouldn’t even need an explanation. And without thinking, I stood up and threw on my coat.

It was a frigid and still night, the trees white and motionless, as if the entire campus had been frozen over. I was halfway across the courtyard when I noticed a tall, huddled figure walking toward me. We crossed paths in front of the fountain, which was covered in a glossy layer of ice. I tightened my hood around my face.

“Renée,” a voice said.

I stopped walking and spun around. “Noah?” I pushed back my hood to get a better look, my hair prickling with static.

Noah was wearing a heavy fleece coat and leather boots. Snowflakes caught on his hair. “I saw the light in your window and wanted to say hi.”

“You know which window is mine?” I blurted out. The thought made me happy.

“But you’re going somewhere, I guess?”

“No,” I said, unable to stop the smile spreading across my face. “I was actually going to see you.”

“Do you know which window is mine?” he said, flattered.

I shook my head and stepped closer to him, hugging myself in the cold. “No. I guess I didn’t really have a plan.”

“Me neither,” he said. Unwrapping his scarf, he looped it around my neck.

“So how was your holiday?” he said, studying my face. His lips were pale red, the fog of his breath dissipating into the night just before it reached me.

“Can we go somewhere?” I said.

He motioned toward the back of campus. “This way.”

The lights in the gymnasium buzzed as he flipped them on. It was dark, empty, and the only sound was the trickling of water coming from somewhere in the locker room. Chlorine, I thought, trying to remember the way pools smelled, trying to will my senses to life. But it was no use. My shoes squeaked against the wooden floor as we ran through the basketball court and down the stairs, until we reached the pool. The water was blue and so still that I could see the ceiling’s reflection in it, making me feel like I had entered some backward, alternate world.