Life Eternal

That night my grandfather and I returned to the mansion in silence. I tried to sleep but kept being shaken awake by the prickling presence of Dante, as if he were in the room with me, his cold breath tickling my lips. Kicking off the covers, I went to the window, my head throbbing with distorted images: the tip of Miss LaBarge’s nose as she lay in the casket; Brett chewing a crab canapé, the crumbs clinging to his chin as he asked me about Dante.

I pressed my fingers against the pane of glass, now cool from the night air, and imagined I was touching Dante. Cracking open the window, I let the chilly air flutter against the top of my nightgown. Outside, the trees that lined the driveway flexed and bowed in the wind, their shadows shifting across the pavement. I watched them, waiting for Dante’s face to emerge out of the darkness, until the sun rose over the horizon.

The mail arrived early. I jolted awake at the chimes of the doorbell. Through the window I could see a lanky mailman standing on the front stoop, adjusting the bag on his shoulder as he admired the façade of the mansion. Downstairs I could hear Dustin shuffle to the door and greet him.

After pulling on a cardigan, I ran downstairs. Dustin was standing in the foyer, signing something on a clipboard. When he was finished, the mailman handed him a single letter.

“What is it?” I asked, watching Dustin turn it over before shutting the door.

He jumped. “Oh, Renée,” he said, composing himself. “How convenient. It’s for you.”

Hoping it was from Eleanor, I took the letter from him and immediately knew it wasn’t. The envelope was made of a heavy paper, the color of bone. My name was inscribed in fine print. The return address read: Gottfried Academy. I tore the seal open.

Gottfried Students and Parents:

We are deeply saddened to report that the Gottfried community has lost another one of its members. Annette LaBarge, alumna and celebrated philosophy professor, has passed away. She was a friend, colleague, and mentor to many of us at the Academy, and our hearts go out to her family and loved ones.

This tragedy has forced us to evaluate the larger picture of our recent history at Gottfried. After the unfortunate loss of a student, Gideon DuPont, and Headmistress Calysta Von Laark in an accident last spring, along with the unsettling events of two years ago when we lost an esteemed member of our student body, Benjamin Gallow, we no longer believe that Gottfried Academy can provide a safe and healthy learning environment for our students. After careful consideration, we have made the difficult decision to close Gottfried’s doors. The Academy will only remain open to provide services to a small number of students with special needs.

Should you have any questions regarding matriculation at our sister school, Lycée St. Clément, or lingering thoughts about the recent losses to our family, I encourage you to contact me or any Gottfried staff member. Individually and as a community, we remain committed to the health and future success of all our students.

Sincerely yours,

Professor Edith Lumbar

I looked out the windows at the mail truck disappearing behind the trees. Somewhere inside me I had known that Gottfried would have to close; I just didn’t think it actually would. But when I looked down, the letter was still there in my hand, and none of the words had changed.

Dustin glanced at me before picking up a tray with coffee and scones. “I’m so sorry, Renée.”

“Did you know about this?”

Dustin’s face dropped. “Oh, no. I—er—why don’t you talk to your grandfather,” he said, and hurried into the hallway, carrying the platter to my grandfather’s study. I followed him.

Dustin knocked. “Come in,” my grandfather said, taking off his reading glasses when he saw me.

“Is it true?” I demanded, handing him the letter.

He took it from me and skimmed it.

“Yes,” he said. “And no.”

I shook my head. “What?”

“You will not be returning to Gottfried,” he said, tossing the letter aside. “But I will be.”

I must have looked confused, because he continued. “I will be resuming my position as headmaster. Gottfried is going to be a disciplinary school for the Undead, where we can monitor them in privacy, and, as necessary, put them to rest without risk of exposure. The Academy is returning to its roots—the way it began, under Dr. Bertrand Gottfried and his nurses.”

My chair creaked as I sat back. So that’s what the letter meant by “special needs.” But where would I go? Where would everyone go? I couldn’t return to a normal school now. Not after everything I knew, after everything I had seen and done. I thought about Eleanor, about the Board of Monitors and the chimneys and Grub Day. They were the only things that had helped me rebuild my life after I’d lost my parents. They had become my life. How could I move on from Gottfried now?

“You will continue on to Lycée St. Clément, Gottfried’s sister school, and an academy solely for Monitors.”

From the foyer, the clock chimed nine times. “A Monitors’ academy?” I repeated. How would I see Dante? How would I tell him what was happening or where I was going? It would be hard enough to see him at Gottfried, but at least there, he knew where I was. And there was the distraction of other Undead students. We could have met off campus. We could have found a way. But at a Monitors’ academy, there wouldn’t be any Undead to muffle Dante’s presence, and the entire student body along with the professors would be able to sense him. Would be training to sense him.

“Many of your classmates will move to St. Clément with you. People from your horticulture class…It won’t be a difficult transition,” my grandfather continued. “Of course, those who are Undead will remain at Gottfried. And the rest, well, who knows. I suppose they’ll go to a normal school—”

I cut him off. “Where is it?”

“Montreal, Canada. It’s just across the border, really. Not far at all.”

“Canada?” I should have been upset, but instead, all I could hear were Brett’s words: People are saying he left for Canada. Was there a chance that they were right, and Dante was already waiting for me in Montreal?

“You’re upset,” my grandfather said, leaning back in his chair, his wrinkled knuckles turning white as he gripped the armrests. “The limiting of Gottfried to only Undead students was not my decision. But the events of last year are impossible to ignore when the welfare of both students and professors is at stake.”

Trying to compose myself, I looked up at him. “Fine,” I said, my voice weary as I grasped on to the only hope I had: that fate was on my side and Dante was somewhere in Canada. “When do I leave?”

Chapter 3

SIX LETTERS, ENDS WITH RY.” Dustin tried to write it out for me, but his pen was dry. He shook it and then tried again. We were on an airplane, traveling to Quebec.

I blinked. While he dug through his bag, looking for a replacement, an image of a bird flashed into my head, as if it were engraved on the underside of my eyelids. Without knowing why, I was overwhelmed with the desire to find this bird. To have it for my own.

“Ah,” Dustin said, emerging with a pencil in hand. He hovered over his crossword puzzle. “Now, where was I? Oh yes, number seventeen across—”

The answer seemed so obvious that I didn’t even let Dustin finish his sentence. “Canary.”

He counted the letters, and threw down his pen. “Now how did you know that? I hadn’t even read you the clue yet.”

“I don’t know. I—I guess it was just on my mind.” I averted my eyes to the little window, where I gazed at the clouds below.

“You must have inherited that gift from your mother. She was a master of crossword puzzles. Always used to sneak them under the table during breakfast.”

“What was the clue?”

“Blank in a coal mine.”

“Was I right?”

Dustin let out a laugh. “Yes, of course.”

“A canary in a coal mine?” I said, turning the words over in my mouth. The saying sounded familiar, though I couldn’t remember where I had heard it. “What does it mean?”

“You don’t know?” His face wrinkled with surprise. “Miners used to bring canaries down into the coal pits to test for poisonous gas. Canaries are very sensitive to that kind of thing, and if there was any gas, the birds would die immediately, alerting the miners to evacuate.” Dustin tilted his seat forward and back. “Isn’t it marvelous?” he said. “At this very moment we’re thousands of feet above the earth, shooting through the air!”

Despite how gloomy I felt, I couldn’t help but smile as I watched him fiddle with the buttons on his armrest. Dustin loved airplanes. The compartmentalized meals, the in-flight magazines, the flight attendants in their prim outfits, pointing front, back, side, side.

“Beverage?” an attendant asked, pushing a cart down the aisle.

“I’ll have a club soda, please,” Dustin said, and then changed his mind. “No—make that a cranberry juice.” As she filled a cup with ice, Dustin interjected, “Actually, could you change that to a tomato cocktail?”

He turned to me, looking pleased. “Lovely,” he said, as if the flight attendant couldn’t hear him. He shook a bag of peanuts with delight. “Everything is in miniature!”

Picking up Dustin’s magazine, I flipped through it, glancing at the ads until I stumbled across a map of North America. I spread it out on the folding table “Have you ever been to Lake Erie?” I asked, staring at its blue shape.

The smile faded from Dustin’s face. “Yes.”

“What’s it like?”

“Cold. Wet.”

“Were they close?” I asked. “My mom and Miss LaBarge?”

He loosened his seat belt. “When they were your age they were inseparable. Except when your father was around, of course.”

Finding Montreal on the map, I laid my hand down on the page. The width of one index finger—that was how far away my grandfather’s house in Massachusetts was from the city. Two index fingers—that was how far away from Montreal Miss LaBarge was when she died. Four index fingers —that was how far away my parents were when they died. I spread out my hand across the page—that was where Dante could be. Anywhere. And every day we were apart felt like a lifetime lost.