Life Eternal (10 page)

After the bleeding stopped and the silver cuff was in place, Anya opened a tin of almond cookies her father had sent her, and we sat on her shag carpet eating them until we were giddy on sugar. She tried to explain why she had been so upset earlier, speaking quickly, in jarring bursts, and by the time she was finished, I still wasn’t exactly sure what had transpired. Something to do with a boyfriend, or maybe an ex-boyfriend, and two other boys. One named Vlad, two named Dmitri. Or was it one named Dmitri, two named Vlad? They were Plebeians, which meant that Anya couldn’t tell them she was a Monitor. When she left for school, it made things a little complicated.

“I have a piercing for every breakup,” she said, pointing to the line of studs in her ears.

I told her I understood, because I did. It wasn’t easy dating someone when you were a Monitor.

“But how can you understand?” she said, fingering the new silver cuff that clung to her ear, which was now bright red and swollen. “Do you have a boyfriend?”

I hesitated. “No,” I said slowly, taking another cookie.

She rolled her eyes. “Is he a Monitor?”

I paused again. “I can’t really talk about it.”

When she kept pressing me, I changed the subject to my blackout, and the dream I’d had of the Royal Victoria Hospital. Or the vision, as she called it.

“What was under the bed?” she asked.

“I don’t know. I couldn’t see it.”

Anya looked disappointed.

“What if I’m seeing the future?”

She gave me a questioning look, and when she saw that I was serious, she burst out laughing. “I know people who can read the future, and you definitely can’t.”

“How do you know?” I said, taking offense.

“What’s going to happen to me tomorrow?” she asked, her lips in a pout.

“It doesn’t work like that.”

“Oh?” she said, smug. “How does it work, then?”

“I think it was triggered by the photograph of the hospital.”

“So you just have to see a picture of the future before it comes to you,” she said sarcastically.

I rolled my eyes.

“If you want to see your future, I know a woman who can do that. She’ll tell you what the visions are.”

I leaned back against the wall. “I don’t believe in that kind of stuff,” I said, dismissing her.

Anya laughed. “How can you say you don’t believe when you just thought
you
were seeing the future?”

“That’s different,” I said. I had been reborn, and I now had a little bit of Undead within me. I didn’t know how that future was going to affect me, but maybe this was it. The Undead reanimate as the best versions of themselves. Wasn’t I prettier now, my features more mature? Wasn’t I a better Monitor? Maybe I could see the future, too. “That’s believing in myself.”

It was nearly two in the morning when I returned to my room. I still couldn’t get used to the fact that there was no curfew at St. Clément. Madame Goût was the girls’ dorm parent, but her primary rule was that we didn’t bother her. Otherwise, we could do whatever we wanted. While I brushed my teeth, I took off my shirt and examined the mark on my back in the bathroom mirror. If I raised my shoulders in just the right way, it almost looked like Dante’s silhouette.

Before I knew what was happening, the door leading into the adjacent room burst open, and Clementine barged inside, unaware that the bathroom was occupied. Letting the toothbrush fall to the floor, I grabbed my shirt and jumped back, trying to cover myself with my arms.

“Oh,” she said, letting out a laugh as she looked at me. She was wearing a tight camisole, her face delicate now that it was stripped of makeup. “What were you doing?”

“Get out!” I cried.

“Smart enough to rank number one, but not smart enough to lock the door,” she said, backing away.

I caught a glimpse of her room: dimly lit and velvety like a boudoir. A group of girls were splayed across her canopied bed, giggling. With force, I slammed the door shut.

S
OUL SHARING DOES NOT EXIST
. A
SOUL MAY ONLY INHABIT
one body at a time.

After days of searching through the narrow stacks of the St. Clément library for anything that might save Dante, it was the only answer I could find. Shutting that book, I pulled a thicker one off the shelf, entitled
The Art of Dying,
which the cover described as
The most comprehensive study of death and its aftermath in current publication.
Checking the index, I flipped to the section on Souls and skimmed the page until I found the entry I was looking for.

Soul splitting does not exist. To split one’s soul is to kill one’s self.

Frustrated, I shut the book and shoved it back on the shelf. We were never going to find a solution. Sliding to the floor, I rubbed my face with my hands. The reality was this: I was searching for an antidote to death. I laughed at the irony that everyone thought I was immortal, when here I was, sitting on the floor of the library, trying to find the answer to immortality in a book. As if it were that easy.

I spread my fingers on the floor, imagining the wood was Dante’s back. That was how long he had left to live. Across the room, I heard a chair scrape the wood as someone sat down. I looked up to see Clementine unpacking her books from her bag. She was alone and hadn’t seen me. Quietly, I put the books back on the shelf and crept toward the exit.

It wasn’t until the end of the week that I woke with the sickening suspicion that I had forgotten something. Sitting up in bed, I looked at the clock. It was eight in the morning. I wasn’t late for class and I hadn’t missed any assignments. I didn’t have any plans or any friends, I thought miserably, except for Anya, who wasn’t really a friend at all; and I wasn’t supposed to see Dante for another week. The only other person I knew here was Dr. Newhaus.…That’s when I remembered.

Kicking back the covers, I jumped out of bed and threw on whatever clothes were lying around my room. And without looking in the mirror, I ran across campus.

The headmaster’s office was in the main building, above the school archway. I walked down the hallway, my feet sinking into the plush carpet as I studied the old sketches of Montreal that hung on the walls. Dozens of boats and barges speckled the river and canals.

Between two sketches stood a lacquered wooden door with a nameplate that said:
HEADMASTER JOHN LAGUERRE
. I knocked, and when no one answered, I sat on a wooden bench in the hall.

Just then Headmaster LaGuerre opened the door. “Renée?” he said, looking at me.

I stood up and he smiled, baring impressively white teeth. “And here I was thinking you’d forgotten about me.”

“Headmaster LaGuerre, I’m so sorry,” I said. “I know it’s early, but I only just remembered that you had asked me to come to your office, and I thought I should come immediately. I’m sorry I didn’t make it sooner.”

“That’s quite all right,” he said, and held out his hand. “Call me John. Please, come in.”

He motioned to a green leather chair. “Have a seat.” Up close, he was soft-spoken, his accent gentle and less pronounced. “I heard you fell ill?”

“I’m fine now,” I said, trying to smooth out the wrinkles in my skirt.

“Good,” he said, unbuttoning his suit jacket as he sat down. “Good. So how are you liking St. Clément?”

I sat on my hands. “It’s okay.”

“My daughter, Clementine, told me you’d met.”

“Oh,” I said, surprised she had mentioned me. “I guess we did.”

Clasping his hands in front of his mouth, he studied me, and then laughed. “Why so timid?”

“You don’t have any cats, do you?” I asked, glancing around his office, which, admittedly, looked nothing like Headmistress Von Laark’s. It was a sunny alcove, finished with blond wood and floorboards worn smooth with time.

The windowsills held overgrown leafy plants, which, if I stretched my imagination, almost seemed to give off the faint smell of mint.

He gave me an amused look. “No. Why do you ask?”

“Because…” I said, glancing across his desk until I spotted a school folder, which had the crest of a cat. “Because it’s the St. Clément mascot.”

He shook his head. “To be honest, I’m actually very allergic. But that’s between you and me. If the administration finds out, they might give me the boot.” He winked and leaned forward, sifting through his documents until he found a piece of paper.

“The other day, when everyone was taking the placement exam, I stepped in to take a look. You were the only one in the gymnasium other than Madam Goût and Mr. Pollet. I observed you. You were standing in the middle of the gymnasium, writing.”

He pushed the sheet of paper across the desk. It was the map I had marked up, identifying eight out of the nine animals.

“This is incredible,” he said.

I felt my face turn red. Was it?

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m making you uncomfortable. Let me explain. I called you in here to congratulate you because of your class rank. Though, to be honest, after watching you, and studying your results, the title of top rank doesn’t even do you justice. The ability to locate death without moving, without taking a
single
step.” He placed his finger at the center of my map. “That is an ability that many of us strive for, but few ever achieve, even after years of training. How did you do it?”

How
had
I done it? I thought it might have had something to do with my being a little Undead, with my being a better version of myself, but that still didn’t explain
how
I did it. At Gottfried, I had been at the top of my horticulture class, but I never used to feel the air parting into a path, nor could I map the exact location of a dead thing without actually seeing it. I would just wander stupidly in one direction, where I would stumble across a dead animal and embarrass myself by screaming. Now it was different. It was as if the dead animals were items I had lost, and all I had to do was mentally retrace my steps to remember where I had put them. Only, I’d never known where they were in the first place. “I—I—”

The headmaster laughed. “Don’t look so scared. I’m not expecting an answer. I just wanted to meet the girl who could map death.”

I gave him an embarrassed smile. “I hope I haven’t disappointed you.”

A wrinkle formed between the headmaster’s eyebrows. “Of course not,” he said, and stood up. “Well, thank you for taking the time to meet with me.”

I picked up my bag and made for the door, but then stopped. “May I ask you a question?”

“By all means.”

“What was the last animal on the test?”

Headmaster LaGuerre crossed his hands. “A canary.”

I must have looked confused, because he asked, “Is something wrong?”

“I don’t understand. How did I rank first if I couldn’t even identify all of the animals?”

“Because that would have been impossible,” he said. “A canary has the lightest soul of all animals. Its soul is fragile, hollow, like its bones. It dies so quickly and so suddenly that it seems to barely have any life at all. It’s as if it isn’t even
present
in this world. No Monitor has ever been known to identify one correctly. The fact that you could detect its location was extremely impressive.”

I broke his gaze, not sure how to respond to his compliment. I didn’t feel very impressive, just confused.

A breeze blew in through the window, rustling the papers on the headmaster’s desk. “You were the only one who made it past the fifth animal,” he said, studying me as if he were trying to figure me out. “Most students only identified three before the time was up. Does that answer your question?”

A canary?
I repeated in my head, remembering how I had blurted out that word on the airplane without knowing why. Was it a coincidence that the canary was the last animal on the test? No, I thought. Impossible.

“Is there something else?” The headmaster probed.

I shook my head. “Yes. I mean no,” I said, and forced a smile. “Thank you.”

• • •

When I got back to my room, Anya was waiting outside my door, looking annoyed. She was dressed in a tight little ensemble that was more nightclub than dress code. Her red hair was pulled into two loose braids, her dull roots showing along her part.

“Why aren’t you ready?” she asked, taking in my haphazard outfit.

I fumbled with my keys. “Ready for what?”

“Seeing your future,” she said, adjusting her purse, which was covered in tassels.

“Today? But I have to go to class.”

“Yes, today,” she said in disbelief. “And we don’t have class. It’s Saturday.”

I glanced at my watch. So it was.

“So? Are we going?”

I was pretty sure we had never made plans, but no matter. It’s not like I had anything better to do. “Okay.”

The woman Anya knew lived in Mile End, the neighborhood where Anya grew up. We traveled there by foot, winding through the city streets until we passed Mont Royal, the mountain looming at the center of Montreal, swallowing the west side of the city in its shadow.

It was a hazy morning, the sky a thick orange as Anya led the way. We chatted as we walked. She was born in Russia but had been living in Montreal since age ten. Her father ran a drugstore, and she used to help out on the weekends, stocking the shelves. That was where she first learned how to put on makeup and dye her hair, by “borrowing” items from her father’s shelves.

Even though she had been at St. Clément for two years now, she had few friends there. “I have my own people. Russian people,” she explained. But the way she talked about them was the same way I talked about everyone I’d once known in California: as if they didn’t exist anymore. They were in a different world, a world that didn’t include Monitors and the Undead, and I couldn’t tell them who I was or what I was doing.

Anya and I turned down a curved street lined with buildings that looked like tenement houses. The people who passed us on the sidewalk all seemed to be speaking Russian. “It’s across from my hairdresser,” Anya said. “See, there.” She pointed to a weathered brick building streaked with water stains. Over the entrance was a sign in huge Russian print. Anya held the door for me, and I stepped inside. It was a spice shop. The trail of cloves and nutmeg and paprika tickled my nose. Anya said something in Russian to the man behind the counter, who seemed to know her. He smiled as he responded, giving us each a honey stick before letting us through a back door that led to the rest of the building.

We walked up four flights of stairs until we reached an apartment with an etching of an eye on the door. “This is it,” Anya said, and rang the buzzer. No one answered. Anya rang it again, and tried to peer through the peephole.

“Maybe she’s out,” I said, cringing as Anya knocked and then held down the buzzer.

“No, they’re here. They’re always here.”

Moments later, we heard heavy footsteps in the hall, followed by the clicking sound of dead bolts unlatching. When it swung open, a hairy, middle-aged man wearing an undershirt stood there, appraising us. Anya said something to him in Russian. He looked at me, back at her, and then promptly shut the door.

“Zinyechka!” I heard him bellow within.

“What did he say?” I asked.

“We have to wait here for her to come meet us. If she decides to see us, she’ll let us in. If not, we have to go.”

While we waited, I peered out the tiny window in the staircase. A tall boy my age was wandering down the sidewalk below us, his broad shoulders moving beneath his collared shirt as he stepped into the street. “Dante?” I breathed, and stepped down a stair.

“What are you looking at?” Anya said.

I barely heard her as I watched the boy hail a taxi. Just before he ducked inside, he looked up. I pressed myself to the wall. It definitely wasn’t Dante.

Before Anya could ask me anything, the apartment door opened, and a woman appeared in the entryway. She was thick-boned, with thinning hair and heavy bosom. “Yes?” she said, her voice deep. Her hands were stained a blotchy red. She wiped them on her apron.

Anya spoke to her in Russian. After she was finished, the woman looked me up and down. “Why have you come to see me?” she said with a thick accent.

“I’ve been having dreams that I think might be premonitions,” I said softly.

The woman squinted at me. “Give me your hands.”

After hesitating, I placed them in hers. She squeezed them as if giving me a massage, her fingers moist and strong. Letting my hands drop, the woman said something to Anya in Russian, and disappeared inside.

“She said okay,” Anya translated, and together we followed the woman into the apartment.

The foyer was dark and carpeted, with smudged windows that looked out on a fire escape and a brick wall. It stank of meat. We walked to the back of the apartment, through a maze of little rooms—one with a boy watching television, another with a sewing machine and two mannequins stuck with pins—until we made it to the dining room.

Zinya supported her weight on the back of a chair. “Will cost forty dollars. Okay?”