Life Eternal Part 10

She had a point. As we stepped out into the street, I turned to her. "Wait. I never even asked what Zinya told you."

Anya hesitated, and then began fidgeting with a ta.s.sel on her purse. "It's bad luck to tell someone else your fortune."

"But you didn't say anything about that when I told you mine-" I started to say, but Anya cut me off.

"I'm not telling you, Renee. It's bad luck." She pushed a red wisp of hair away from her face. "Maybe later I'll change my mind."

We didn't make it to the hospital for another week. As cla.s.ses picked up, Anya and I were too busy with schoolwork to plan anything, and we decided to postpone our trip till the weekend. In the meantime, I waited, keeping my window open each evening, but the days and nights pa.s.sed without a sign of Dante.

Before cla.s.s on Monday I traced my finger around the perimeter of the mark on my back, twisting in front of the mirror to study the way its edges grew pink after a hot shower. I liked to know it was still there, to be reminded that a part of Dante was within me. After getting dressed, I walked two blocks away from campus to the depanneur, a convenience store, where I picked up a copy of the daily newspaper and scoured the pages, searching for deaths, disappearances, mysterious sightings-anything that might have to do with the Undead. And even though I knew that if Dante had been discovered and buried by the Monitors, it wouldn't be in any newspaper, it made me feel better just to look.

A boy held the door for me when I got to Latin. "Thanks," I murmured, barely looking at him as I took a seat at the far end of the table. Just as I shoved the paper beneath the table, leaving it open to the obituaries so I could read when the professor wasn't looking, I heard a voice behind me.

"Any news from the outside?"

Brett pulled out the chair next to me and slung his blazer over the back. From his expression, I knew he was talking about Dante.

"No," I said, giving him a sad smile.

"I haven't talked to you in a while," he said, lowering his voice. "How is everything going?"

I shrugged. "I've been better."

"Yeah. I hear the girls gossiping at dinner. I wouldn't listen to them, though. People here, they don't know what it's like. Most of them have never even met an Undead. Just keep your head down and do what you have to do. Everything else will take care of itself."

"Thanks," I said, appreciating his words more than he knew.

Monsieur Orneaux, our Latin professor, was already seated at the head of the table, his back upright, his eyes dark and heavy. He was a gaunt man with hollowed cheeks and a rigid expression that rarely changed, regardless of what mood he was in. He seemed to dislike everyone, but held a particularly vehement disdain for women.

"Latin is a calculated language. A language of strategy, of ancient wars, of pagan G.o.ds and sacrifice, and later, of the clergy. It is a language that has always belonged to the afterlife." He had a way of drawing out each syllable, as if the words had turned sour in his mouth. "And as the language, so its people. The Undead are a miserable lot."

I didn't think I had to pay attention because, unlike last year, I was now practically fluent in Latin. I found myself knowing vocabulary words I had never learned before; conjugating verbs without even having to think. So instead, I glanced down at the newspaper on top of my bag and skimmed an article on the deaths of two tourists in British Columbia.

The professor interrupted my thoughts. "What do the Undead fear most?"

As the cla.s.s fell silent, a shudder crept through my body. All at once I felt cold and sweaty, my heart palpitating against my ribs, its beat quick and irregular. Fear-it was in me, overwhelming me, as if I knew what the professor was talking about....

"Hey, are you okay?" Brett whispered to me. "You look kind of pale."

Before I realized what I was doing, I blurted out the answer. "The ile des Soeurs."

All heads turned in my direction. Confused, I slid lower in my chair. What had I just said? Something in French? I barely even knew French, and whatever phrase I had said was one I had never known before.

Monsieur Orneaux studied me. "What did you say?"

I pulled at the neck of my s.h.i.+rt, which suddenly felt damp and far too tight. "I-I can't remember," I said. The words I had just spoken were gone, as if someone else had said them.

Across the room, Clementine answered, an eyebrow raised as if challenging me. "She said, the ile des Soeurs."

The professor studied me. "That is correct."

"What is it?" Brett asked, looking at me and then at the professor. I let my hair fall across my face, not wanting to reveal that I had no idea what I meant.

"It's the island just outside of-" Arielle began to answer, but Monsieur Orneaux held up a hand to silence her.

"Island of the Sisters, to Monitors," Monsieur Orneaux translated, "Or Nuns' Island, to regular Canadians. It is an island just outside of Montreal, known in Monitor history as the place where they used to send the Undead to be punished.

"It was a barbaric place. Run solely by female Monitors, who operated out of an old convent. They did terrible things. Torture, seclusion, exorcism. They bled the Undead with leeches, they probed them with medical equipment in an attempt to cure them of their evil...." Monsieur Orneaux's face remained utterly calm as he recounted all the ways the early Monitors attempted to "cure" the Undead.

"It has a reputation among the Undead, though few Monitors are aware of it." His eyes met mine, as if trying to understand how I had known the answer. "It's one of the reasons why the Undead rarely come to Montreal. Along with, of course, the fact that Montreal is historically a Monitors' city."

"I've heard of it," a boy with a French accent said. "The convent is still there; it's now abandoned. In primary school there used to be a rumor that it was haunted, though I never knew why. The story was that any child who pa.s.sed through the gates would disappear forever. We used to dare each other to go inside-"

Monsieur Orneaux cut him off. "That's enough. This is not a history course."

He was about to return to his lecture on Latin and what it told us about the Undead when Clementine raised her hand. Monsieur Orneaux ignored her until she finally just spoke up.

"Why was it run only by female Monitors?" she asked, holding the end of her pencil up to her lips.

Monsieur Orneaux clenched his jaw. "Female Monitors are not my area of expertise. If you're interested in the Nine Sisters, go to the library in your free time."

Clementine's back went rigid. "What do you mean, the Nine Sisters?"

Monsieur Orneaux blinked, looking like he wished he could take back his last words. "That's enough," he said again, raising his voice for the first time. "Latin. Back to Latin."

And picking up his cla.s.s notes, he continued his lecture on roots and verbs and declensions, the Undead, and how the way they spoke could teach us about how they behaved.

I spent the rest of the afternoon gazing out the windows of my various cla.s.ses, hoping I would sense Dante.

"When you restrain an Undead, the most important step is to protect your mouth," Headmaster LaGuerre said in Strategy and Prediction, during a lecture about the art of burial. On the board he had drawn a series of diagrams of a Monitor attacking an Undead from behind, pinning him to the ground as he secured his arms and legs, and finally wrapping his head with gauze to prevent a kiss. On each of them, I mentally superimposed Dante's head, and shuddered. How could everyone else in the room be taking notes on this? Didn't they realize we were learning how to kill people?

"Renee?" Headmaster LaGuerre said. "Do you know what the primary cause of Monitor death is?"

Sitting up straight, I felt my cheeks flush. "I-um-no."

"Trying to speak to the Undead in the process of burial," Clementine said, shooting me a smug grin.

I don't belong here, I thought. I don't belong here.

When the last bell rang, I made my way downstairs and through the school gates. I had hours of homework to do, but I didn't care. I wasn't sure where I was going, exactly, only that St. Clement was the last place I would find Dante, which meant that if I wanted to see him, my best chance would be out in the city.

I only made it a few blocks before I caught a glimpse of a gray Peugeot, just like the one I'd seen Miss LaBarge in the other night. Or someone who I thought was Miss LaBarge.

"Wait!" I said, watching as the car turned down the street ahead of me. I pushed through the people on the sidewalk.

It all happened before I could move out of the way. I stepped into the intersection, not realizing the light was still red. From the curb, an old woman yelled at me to stop. The brakes of a car squealed, m.u.f.fling her voice, and I turned just in time to see something metal hurl itself toward me. This is it, I thought; just as Zinya predicted. I am going to die before I can even say good-bye to Dante.

A sharp pain shot up my right side as a bicycle and a bouquet of flowers flew into the air. Covering my face, I fell over and landed on something soft.

After a long moment, I sat up. To my surprise, the ground beneath me groaned.

I was lying on top of a boy. A tall, lean boy. I looked closer. A cute boy. Yellow daffodils were crushed into the ground around us. He groaned again, and I jumped off of him.

"Are you all right?" he said, wincing as he looked at his palms, which where sc.r.a.ped from the pavement. His bicycle was a few feet away, its front wheel still spinning.

I nodded. Save for what was probably going to be a big bruise on my right thigh, I was fine.

The boy's eyes traveled up to mine. He was clean shaven, with olive skin and hair that reminded me of the best months of autumn. He wore a rectangular pair of gla.s.ses that made him look like a college student. "You saved my life," he said, with a slight French accent.

"I'm so sorry."

"About saving my life?" He smiled. He had three artfully placed freckles. One under his eye, one on his chin, one on his neck.

"Oh-oh, no," I said. "Wait, what do you mean?"

"I didn't see the red light. If you hadn't blocked me, I would have run it and been hit by that car."

"Oh," I said, blus.h.i.+ng. "It was an accident."

He laughed and helped me up.

"You're warm," I said, accustomed to Dante's coldness.

He took me in. "You're the girl who can't die."

"You go to St. Clement?" I asked, surprised.

"I sit three seats down from you in Strategy and Prediction. And in History and Latin. I held the door for you today?"

"Oh." I felt my face grow red as his features grew familiar. I was used to seeing only the side of his head.

He smirked. "It's okay. You're the famous one."

I looked away and brushed off my skirt. "Those are just rumors."

"Or maybe some of your immortality just rubbed off on me."

I smiled. "Then I guess you owe me one."

"Owe you one what?"

"I won't know until I want it." The words came out of my mouth automatically. What was I saying? Was I flirting with this boy?

"Deal."

"I'm Renee, by the way," I said.

"Noah Fontaine."

He held out his hand, and I hesitated, staring at it and thinking of Dante. "Oh, I'm sorry," he said, looking at his scratches and then wiping his hand on his jeans.

I looked at my feet and fidgeted with the b.u.t.tons on my sleeve.

Bending down, he picked up his bag and the remains of the bouquet of flowers he had been carrying, which had spilled out around us, coating the road in crushed petals.

"I'm sorry about your flowers," I said.

"Oh, it's okay. She probably won't even notice," he said, holding up a wilted stem.

And even though I had no idea this boy existed until a few seconds ago, for some reason, as I watched him collect the loose flowers, my heart sank imagining the girl he had bought them for.

He stood up. "Do you believe in fate?" he asked.

"No," I said quickly, and then reconsidered. "Well, maybe."

"My thoughts exactly," he said. And with the grace of a cat, he picked up his bicycle and pedaled off, grinning at me over his shoulder before he vanished into the crowd.

ACCORDING TO MADAME GOuT, FRENCH WAS AN irregular language, a secretive language; the language of Monitors. The last three letters of almost every word were silent, which had the strange effect of making all words sound alike, regardless of their meanings. Everything was about accent, p.r.o.nunciation, performance; as if the entire language were a disguise, designed to make us blend in with everyone else.

The other girls called it romantic, but I thought it insincere. The Latin Dante spoke made his love for me feel ancient and timeless, as if it could never die. What I didn't realize until later was that French had depth, too; the trick was to hear the words that weren't spoken.

Our cla.s.sroom was in the attic, where it was oppressively hot, comme un etat Vichy, our professor joked, saying it would improve our throaty accents.

Madame Gout was a slender woman in her fifties who wore high heels and belted dresses. She had a gap between her front teeth and spoke with a thick French-Canadian accent. Her favorite word was "Non," which she said in a definitive kind of way, to make sure we all knew when we were wrong.

"There are too many tenses and cases in Latin. It makes you think too much," she said, gesticulating quickly. "There is no love in it, no emotion, no joie de vivre! With French, it just spills out."

The heat rattled through the radiator, punctuating Madame Gout's lecture. Next to me, Anya was taking notes, pus.h.i.+ng her red braids aside when they got in the way of her pencil. As the professor wrote a list of p.r.o.nouns on the board, I could hear Clementine whispering to two of her friends.

Madame Gout must have heard, too, because she put down the chalk and turned around, her heels rapping against the floor. "If you insist on whispering in my cla.s.s, I would rather you share it with all of us."

The sharp edges of Clementine's shoulders s.h.i.+fted beneath her s.h.i.+rt as she faltered. She looked starched and pressed, her collared s.h.i.+rt crisp as an envelope.

"Well, speak up," the professor said.

"We were talking about the ile des Soeurs. About the women who used to torture the Undead there."

Madame Gout raised a pencil-thin eyebrow. "Torture? Who told you that?"

"Monsieur Orneaux."

Madame Gout groaned. "Of course Monsieur Orneaux would say that. He is what we call un homme pour les hommes. A man's man. Like most men, he is not interested in the endeavors of women," she said, waving her hand in the air. "He does not know anything," she muttered. "I have been telling them time and time again that he is not qualified to teach."

The room fell into an uncomfortable silence.

"The truth is that women were the founders of our entire Monitoring society." Madame Gout lowered her voice. "And the women you speak of are Les Neuf Soeurs, or the Nine Sisters."