Life Eternal Part 19

"Therapy?" I said. "But you're fine the way you are. You don't need to see a doctor."

Eleanor lowered her voice. "I've been having a lot of thoughts lately. Bad thoughts."

I frowned. "What do you mean?"

"About life and death. About me and what makes me different. About the things I want."

I waited for her to go on.

"I'm so scared," she said, the words quivering through the receiver. "I don't want to die."

"You won't," I said automatically, not wanting to even think about it.

Eleanor let out a cold laugh. "Renee, you know I'm Undead. I only get twenty-one more years. That means that unless a miracle happens, I'm almost middle-aged."

"No," I said. "We're going to find a way out. The Nine Sisters. The visions. The riddles. When I find the last one, you'll-"

But Eleanor cut me off, her voice firmer than I had ever heard it before. "There is no answer, Renee. You're in denial. I'm going to die. Dante's going to die. We're all going to die."

I swallowed. "No," I said. "You're just upset. There's a solution, I know it."

I heard Eleanor take a deep breath. "The other day I was walking to the Megaron, and I saw one of the maintenance worker's sons smoking behind the bushes when he was supposed to be watering the plants. He only looks a little older than me. I couldn't stop staring at him. I kept thinking, why does he get to have a full life when I don't?

What makes him more deserving than me?"

"He's not," I said.

"I wanted to take his soul, Renee. I wanted to go up to him and just take it."

I went quiet.

"Are you still there?"

"I'm here," I said. "It wouldn't help you, though. He doesn't have your soul."

"I know," she said. "I wasn't thinking. I was just so angry. I felt like I had no time. Taking his soul would give me more time."

I felt the same way. Dante only had five years left, and although I never would have admitted it to Eleanor, ever since Latin, when the professor told us about the Liberum living long past their life span, I had been trying to suppress the one thought that I knew was too terrible to consider: if the Liberum could take souls to extend their lives, so could Dante. "I know how you feel," I said. "But I wonder if it'll always feel like we have no time, even if we live until we're eighty."

"Not me," she said. "When I was little, I used to put on makeup and picture the way I would look when I was older. But when I try to imagine it now, I can't."

I smiled, remembering the way she put expensive lotion on her face every night when we were at Gottfried. "You were obsessed with wrinkles."

"I still am," she said. "Only now, I want them."

Eleanor's words echoed in my head as Headmaster LaGuerre drove us to a small wooded area outside of Montreal. It was an overcast November afternoon, the trees bare and frostbitten. In front of me, Clementine's head rested on Noah's shoulder as we crossed a planked bridge. I studied her slender neck and the short waves of her hair, trying to imagine what she would look like in twenty-one years, what Noah would look like. By then, Eleanor would be dead.

Noah and I hadn't spoken since our fight at the waterfront, and even though I felt terrible about what I'd said, I was still angry. What gave him the right to make judgments about my life? And worse: what if his judgments were right?

We parked on a shoulder and carried our tools to a clearing in the woods, now dusted with snow.

"In order to be a great Monitor, you must treat burial rituals as an art form," the headmaster said. "You must read the soil just by crumbling it in your fingers; dig the deepest holes, craft the most durable coffins, and wrap the dead as if you were draping a mannequin in delicate silk.

"The object of today's exercise is to build a funeral pyre. You will work alone, gathering your supplies from the forest. At the end of the cla.s.s we will ignite them." He unrolled a cloth bag and handed each of us an ax. "The characteristics of a good funeral pyre are as follows: First, it must ignite quickly and stay ignited. Second, it must be st.u.r.dy enough to hold the weight of a human without collapsing. Third, it should generate as little smoke as possible. Drawing attention to a funeral pyre is never in our interest."

When he was finished, we dispersed, running to the trees to collect as much wood as possible. I pa.s.sed Anya chopping off the branches of a birch tree; Brett, who was working at a decomposing pine; and April and Allison, who seemed to be working together despite the headmaster's instructions. To my right, Clementine sauntered through the trees, swinging her ax at the underbrush to make a path.

I gathered only dead wood that I foraged from the forest floor, and piled it at my spot in the clearing.

Across from me, Noah rolled up his sleeves, broke a branch over his thigh, and began to weave his wood together, his hands moving quickly as if he were working a loom.

I wasn't exactly sure what I was doing when I bent down and stacked the wood in pairs, threading them together until I had formed the base of a winding staircase.

Clementine worked next to me. Her jacket was strewn on the ground, and her s.h.i.+rt was marked with sweat as she tiptoed around a pile of sticks that seemed to collapse in on itself every time she tried to set a new piece of wood on top. Frustrated, she threw a branch to the ground and took a big gulp from her water bottle. When she glimpsed my half-finished pyre, a look of shock flashed across her face, but quickly hardened into a glare.

Ignoring her, I wiped my hands on my skirt and traipsed off into the forest to collect more tinder.

On the way back, I pa.s.sed Anya, who was sitting on the ground surrounded by sticks and twigs and leafy branches, looking dejected. Her face was streaked with dirt.

"Are you okay?" I asked, stooping next to her.

She threw her hands in the air. "No matter how I arrange them, they always fall over. It's hopeless."

I waited until no one was watching, and with swift motions, arranged her sticks into the beginning of a cylinder. "Like this," I said, before going back to my place.

By the end of cla.s.s, Noah and I were the only ones who had finished pyres that could support the weight of a person; all of the others collapsed. Mine looked like a spiral staircase that climbed around a pedestal. "Lovely," the headmaster said, prodding the bottom level to check its foundation. But Noah's was exquisite. It was hundreds of thin sticks latticed around the center platform like the inside of sh.e.l.l. He looked nervous when the headmaster stood up, his face wide with shock as he ran his hands across the joints of the wood.

"Remarkable," he said. "Tout simplement remarquable."

And with that, the headmaster struck a match and lit it on fire. The flame caught immediately, traveling around the structure like fingers. But when he held a match to mine, nothing happened.

I raised a hand to my cheek, confused, as the headmaster struck another match, and then another.

"Your wood is wet," he remarked, touching a branch and rubbing his fingers together.

"What?" I said. "But I specifically chose dry, dead wood. None of it was wet."

The headmaster didn't respond. Instead, he struck another match, and then another, until the wood finally ignited. But as the fire spread to the rest of the pyre, the clearing was engulfed in thick, black smoke.

Moving away, everyone started to cough and swat at the air.

"Why is this happening?" I said. "I don't understand."

The headmaster picked up an ax, and with three rapid swings, he took the pyre down, the wood collapsing outward until the fire went out and the smoke cleared. In the middle of my pyre was a messy pile of damp leaves and weeds, hissing as the smoke curled out of the embers.

"But I didn't put those there," I said. "I never put wet leaves in my pyre."

I glanced around the clearing, but no one seemed to care. As everyone began to pack up, my eyes rested on Clementine, who gave me the beginning of a smile before bending over to pick up her water bottle. It was empty.

I threw my tools on the ground and was about to go over to her, when I saw Noah a few feet away. He had picked up Clementine's coat but was frozen in place. He must have seen her look at me, because he studied her, his face twisting with disgust as he realized what she'd done. Dropping her coat at his feet, he turned and walked back to the van.

Clementine sat in the back row, and Noah just in front of her, as we drove back to school. When there was a lull in the headmaster's music, I could hear the low hum of their arguing. As we wound through the streets, I felt a thin strand of cold air wrap itself around my ankles and then break free as we turned a corner.

"Did you feel that?" I asked Anya.

"Feel what?" she said, looking up from her book.

I held up a finger to silence her, and closed my eyes, trying to find it again, but there was nothing.

"Never mind," I said, and gazed out the window, staring at the faces of the people on the sidewalk, hoping to see Dante. When we got back to St. Clement, it was raining. As I walked across the courtyard with Anya, I felt a hand on the sleeve of my coat. Hearing Clementine's voice near me, I whipped around. "Don't touch me." I was face-to-face with Noah.

He stepped back, retracting his hand. "Sorry, I didn't mean to bother you."

"Oh," I said, crossing my arms over my chest. "I thought you were..." I stopped short before saying her name.

"Ah," he said, understanding who I was talking about. "I see. Well, I just wanted to-"

"You don't have to apologize for her. I can take care of myself."

Noah pushed a lock of hair out of his face. "-apologize for my behavior," he said. "I shouldn't have said all those things. I don't know anything about the guy or how he treats you. I was just caught off guard."

Biting my lip, I nodded. "I'm sorry, too. I didn't-"

"Don't worry," he said. "I know."

The mist speckled his gla.s.ses, the water catching on the rust stubble climbing up his cheeks. "I also wanted to ask what you were doing on Friday."

"Friday?" Even though I had no plans, I pretended to think about it so as not to appear pathetic. "I don't know. I'll have to check."

He hesitated, as if he were nervous. "Would you..." he said slowly, "have any interest in coming to my house for dinner?"

"Your house? Like with your parents?" I said, both flattered and confused.

"Yeah," he said, with an amused smile. "Haven't you ever been to dinner with someone's parents?"

To my embarra.s.sment, I hadn't. At least not to a boy's house. Dante didn't have any parents, and before that...well, I could hardly remember life before that. The thought of having dinner with Noah's parents was so traditional, so normal, that it was almost strange.

"I go home every Friday, and even though my parents are delightful people, I don't know if I can take an entire evening alone with them this week. Having you there might actually make it fun." I must have looked a little uneasy, because he added, "Take pity on me?"

"But what about Clementine?"

Noah's dimples disappeared as his smile faded. "What about her?"

"She's your girlfriend. Shouldn't you be bringing her?"

He scratched his head. "Right, well...we've been fighting." He shoved his hands into his pockets. "The point is, I'm asking you."

I bit my lip. "Oh, that's nice, but-"

"Great," he said with a huge grin. "I'll take that as a yes. I'll meet you at the gates at six."

That Friday, I spent an hour trying on clothes in front of the mirror in the bathroom, the thick fabrics tickling the mark between my shoulders, before I finally settled on an outfit that said "Just friends."

"What are you doing in there?" Clementine yelled through the door. I was tempted to tell her that I was getting ready to go to dinner with Noah, but then decided that was too cruel.

Noah's parents lived in a beautiful brick town house in Outremont. We took the metro there. It was crowded, and Noah's hand kept slipping down the metal railing, touching mine.

His father answered the door, wearing an ap.r.o.n over his work suit. Comfortably plump, with full cheeks and a swirl of brown hair clinging to the top of his head like a toupee, he looked nothing like Noah. He was holding a gla.s.s of red wine. "Ah, h.e.l.lo!" he said with a smile, his face flushed as he gave Noah a hug, the wine slos.h.i.+ng out of his gla.s.s. He wore a heavy ring on his pinkie finger.

"Dad, this is Renee."

"Luc," he said, squeezing my hand and then beckoning us inside.

The Fontaine house was a cozy mess-all oriental carpets and stacks of political magazines and books. A large aquarium stood on one side of the living room, filled with tiny spotted fish that looked like they were made of newspaper.

The sound of clattering dishes came from the kitchen, followed by a tall woman who entered the foyer holding a cutting board of charcuterie.

"Ah, and this is my Veronica," Luc said, turning to Noah's mother and placing his hand on the small of her back.

She looked just like Noah: tall, angular, effortlessly elegant. Her legs seemed even longer because of her high heels. "It's a pleasure."

As we followed her to the dining room, she said over her shoulder, "I hope you like meat." Before I could respond, she corrected herself. "Oh, but of course you do. You're a Monitor, no?"

The table was already set. Noah pulled out a chair for me, and in a sloppy bow, laid my napkin across my lap. I laughed as he sat next to me. His parents shared a knowing look as his mother pa.s.sed around the cutting board, atop which sat an elaborate spread of pate, sausage, and paper-thin slices of roast beef. She then disappeared into the kitchen.

On one side of the room was an ornate fireplace. Above the mantel hung two tiny trowels, both mounted on wooden plaques. The first said Noah; the second said Katherine.

"That was my first shovel," Noah said over my shoulder. "I was four when my parents gave it to me."

"Is this how you grew up?" I asked. "You always knew what you were?"

"Every family is different," his father said, filling my gla.s.s with wine. "Here, we are very open. We are what we are. What's the use in keeping secrets from each other?"

I watched as Noah spread a bit of pate on a piece of bread and took a bite. He laughed at something his father said, and then looked at me. I hadn't caught the joke, but I laughed anyway. This was what my life would have been if my parents hadn't died. If I could fall in love with Noah. But something was off about all of it. Why was I here, and not Clementine? Was I really that special to Noah, or was he interested in an idea of a girl that he thought was me?

The door swung open and Noah's mother returned carrying a silver platter and another dish. Noah's father put his hand on her hip as she removed the lids, revealing potatoes roasted with rosemary and thyme and a rack of lamb, its rib bones sticking out of its center like a piece of modern art. I should have been overwhelmed by the aromas, but I couldn't smell anything. The more I stared at the food, the more it looked almost waxy and unreal, as if there were a filter between me and everything else.

"So Noah told us you ranked number one at St. Clement?" his mother said, serving each of us. "Very impressive."

Noah's father clucked and picked up his wine. "Yes," he said. "And what kind of Monitor are you?"

"Um-I don't know."

"I a.s.sume you are planning to join the High Monitor Court when you finish school?" Noah's mother asked, crossing her legs.

Before I could answer, Noah cut in. "She can do whatever she wants," he said. "She's good at everything."