Life Eternal Part 13

"But how?" Anya asked, the bangles on her wrists clinking together as we walked to Strategy and Prediction, which was being held off campus.

"Maybe it will come to me in another vision," I said. "That's how it happened before."

The rest of the students loitered on the sidewalk by the school gates, which were matted with wet leaves. Parked by the guard's booth was a dark green van, with the St. Clement crest printed discreetly on the back.

Headmaster LaGuerre sauntered down the path in a light brown suit. When he saw us, he smiled and fished the keys out of his pocket.

I sat in the back row, in between Anya and a boy named Harrison, who had a chubby face covered in freckles. The seats were dusty and rough. In front of me sat Noah and Clementine, their heads bobbing together as we rolled over the cobblestone streets of the old port. I watched as she played with a lock of his hair and whispered something in his ear. He laughed, and I looked away, not wanting to admit that some part of me was jealous.

"As you probably realized from your placement tests, some dead animals are easier to sense than others," said Headmaster LaGuerre, glancing back at us through the rearview mirror. "The French term that Monitors use to describe this is force majeure, or in English, superior force. Some dead animals have a stronger force than other animals, which makes them easier to detect.

"For example, other than humans, the animal with the heaviest soul, and therefore the greatest force, is the cat, which is why it is our school mascot. The cat is much like a Monitor, because it can detect death just as we can."

I thought back to Headmistress Von Laark's Siamese cats, who always pawed at Dante and Gideon.

"The same distinctions of force exist within humans. The sign of a Clairvoyant Monitor is being able to recognize these differences in weight. Death is everywhere. In order to do our jobs, we need to be able to distinguish between dead animals, dead people, and the Undead. After that, we find the Undead who are dangerous, and put them to rest."

"Who put us in charge?" I asked, thinking of Dante. "Why do we get to decide who lives and who dies?"

As I spoke, I felt a pair of eyes on me, which I a.s.sumed were Clementine's. But when I looked up, I discovered they belonged to Noah.

The headmaster nodded thoughtfully. "Because a world without order would collapse in on itself. We're the only ones capable of sensing the Undead. It's not fair, I suppose, but it's not our task to solve the mysteries of nature."

The van continued along the St. Lawrence River to the grungy industrial area of Montreal. Headmaster LaGuerre glanced over his shoulder as he maneuvered down the waterfront. "But water," he said. "Water complicates everything."

Following the headmaster, we climbed out of the van and walked to the dock. Big windowless factories lined the sh.o.r.e, spewing a continual stream of black smog into the sky. Rusty pipes and corroded beams of metal stuck out of the river like the remnants of a flooded forest. It smelled like a mixture of salt and sewage, and for the first time, I was glad my sense of smell was partially muted.

"It is incredibly difficult to sense a dead creature when it is immersed in water," the headmaster said, stopping at the end of the dock. Behind him, a slew of rowboats bobbed in the water. "And the deeper it is, the more challenging it is for us to sense its presence. Which is exactly why we're here. To practice our intuition."

I shivered as I studied the flotsam drifting along the riverbank: beer cans and wrappers and cigarette b.u.t.ts.

"This is where people dump things that they never want to be found again. Weapons, clothes, the dead...Death often resides in inconvenient locations, and as a Monitor in the world, places like this will be your office. Many of the cases you will encounter are of children who have drowned -and per the Cartesian Oath, you will have to find them and bury them before they float and reanimate."

A murmur rose over the cla.s.s.

He gazed out at the murky water. "I have planted one dead animal out there," he said. "Your job is to locate it, identify it, and if possible, record its depth."

We paired up. Noah was working with Clementine. I worked with Anya, her platform shoes wobbling as she climbed into a rowboat.

After I settled in, she handed me the oars. "You row," she said. "I'll direct you."

"Why do you get to direct?" I said.

"Because I have weak arms," she said. "I'm not good at sports."

"But I'm better at detecting the dead than you are."

She looked offended at my statement, but shook it off. "All the more reason for me to practice."

"Fine."

"Fine."

As we rowed out, the headmaster climbed into his own boat and continued to shout out tips on sensing the presence of the dead beneath the water. I tried to pay attention, but Anya kept changing our course. "To the left more. No, now to the right. Oh, sorry, never mind, back to the left again."

Frustrated, I turned around. "Can you just pick a direction and stick with it?" At the periphery of my vision, I could see Noah put one of his oars down.

Anya pointed to the left. "More that way."

"That's wrong," I said. "I can feel it."

"So can I," Anya said. "Just because you're first rank doesn't mean you're always right."

"I'm right this time," I said, but was distracted by a splash.

Clementine and Noah were a few feet behind us, their boat wobbling as Noah teased her with a net he'd fished out of the river.

"Stop it!" Clementine said, shielding her face as she laughed. "You're shaking the whole boat!"

She winced as an oar fell in, splashing water into her face. Her voice was shrill as she screamed.

"Okay!" she said, smiling while she wiped her cheeks, "we have to get back to work."

"You work too much," Noah said, teasing her as he shook the water from his arms.

"Everyone else is already looking for the animal; we're behind."

"Oh, come on," Noah said. "It's just a cla.s.s. Besides, how hard could it be?"

Clementine adjusted her barrette. "Everything worth doing is hard," she said, and picked up an oar.

Letting out a sigh, Noah's eyes wandered across the river as she rowed backward. I felt his gaze linger on me.

Clementine must have seen him staring, because her lips tightened. Quickly, I averted my eyes, and, under Anya's directions, we zigzagged away from them until we were close enough to hear the headmaster speaking to one of the boats ahead of us.

"Stop," Anya said. "I think it's right below us."

I couldn't feel anything and knew she was wrong. But I humored her. Putting down the oars, I leaned over the edge of the boat and stared into the water, where I could see the headmaster's reflection as he rowed alongside a pair of girls.

I watched his lips move as he spoke. "It's customary to bury Monitors at sea-a place where their bodies can never be detected, even by fellow Monitors. Very few Monitors ask to be buried in the ground. The few that do are buried in the Monitors' section of the Mont Royal Cemetery."

Mont Royal Cemetery. I watched the reflection of the headmaster's face in the water. Suddenly I felt exhausted and miserable, as if I'd been searching for something but had failed.

Mont Royal Cemetery. I felt dizzy. I hated myself. I hated that I had failed.

My chest heaved, and I coughed. Slowly, I felt myself falling forward. There was a splash. And then everything went cold.

When I surfaced, I was dry and standing in a thicket of trees on the side of the mountain. In one hand I held a flashlight. Below me, the city was reduced to strings of tiny lights, and beyond that, I could see the St. Lawrence River, its waves glimmering in the moonlight.

I began to walk. Just a few yards away, there was a joggers' path illuminated by streetlamps, which wound up the mountain. I stayed away from it. Instead, I chose to travel unseen, weaving through the trees until I reached the other side of Mont Royal.

Two teenagers were standing by a drinking fountain, holding hands. Unable to help myself, I stopped for a moment and watched them whisper to each other and laugh. They seemed so carefree, as if time didn't matter. The boy played with the girl's hair, touching her neck, and I leaned against the trunk of a tree near them, my eyes so dry that they stung. When the girl leaned in to give the boy a delicate kiss, I looked away.

A tree branch behind me gave out, filling the silence with a loud crack. The couple froze and looked in my direction. Not wanting to be discovered, I crouched down and closed my eyes. I didn't want to be reminded of myself, to be reminded that I was there, invading their intimacy. Slowly, I receded into the trees behind me, and when I knew I was out of sight, I ran down the other side of the mountain, knowing that no matter how much I wished otherwise, I would always be that person peering from the woods, because I could never have what they had.

When I descended on the opposite side of Mont Royal, I found myself at the tall black gates of a cemetery. The mere sight of their iron tendrils made me relax. As I slipped inside, the air seemed to settle into a quiet stillness, the sound of the cars on the street fading into nothing.

I turned on my flashlight. The cemetery was overwhelmingly vast, with rows of headstones as far as I could see. Daunted, I walked toward a map-an intricate thing, as complex as a nervous system. After skimming the index, I found the section I was looking for and put my finger on it, tracing the path from where I stood to a tiny circle of land near the back of the grounds.

I set off. The sky was so wide that it felt like I was at sea. I knew I'd found what I needed when I spotted a gra.s.sy area enclosed by a chain. The headstones here were smaller than most of the others I had pa.s.sed, and far less ornate-many just rectangular stones overgrown with weeds.

Hopping over the chain, I shone my flashlight on each headstone, reading the inscriptions. There weren't more than two dozen of them, and they were all brief-just names and dates spanning the last two hundred years. I didn't recognize any of the names, and felt myself growing impatient.

As I neared the last stone I began to panic. It had to be here. Just as I was about to turn around, my foot hit something hard, and I tripped and fell into the gra.s.s. I groaned, feeling the rocky soil against my palms. I was about to hoist myself up when I noticed the headstone that had impeded my way.

It was low to the ground, flat, and so overgrown that I would have otherwise missed it. Stooping down, I pushed the weeds aside and shone my light on its surface. There was no name or date. Only the word soeur and the following inscription: here it is laid to rest where to only the best of our kind it shall be bequeathed.

Engraved beneath the words was the crest of a small bird.

I read the inscription again, lingering on the first line. I heard my heart beat, irregular and quick, like the sound of something tumbling down the stairs. I had to find a shovel. On my walk here I had pa.s.sed a worker's pickup truck on the side of a path. There could have been a shovel there. Standing up, I retraced my steps.

The truck was only a little ways back. Beside it sat a collection of garbage bins and a few tools: a pitchfork, a rake, and a shovel.

I hesitated before touching the handle of the shovel. I despised it. I didn't want to touch it. But tonight I had no other option. Its shaft felt rough and splintered as I ran my hand along it, growing accustomed to the quality of the wood. Lifting it over my shoulder, I carried the shovel back to the nameless headstone.

here it is laid to rest I focused on the words as I planted the shovel firmly into the ground and began to dig. The moon moved lower in the sky. Wiping my forehead, I stepped back to look at my work. The hole was now a few feet deep; to go any deeper I'd have to lower myself inside and dig.

I began to pace around the hole. I could try. I could stick one foot in and see what happened. It wasn't even close to the six-foot mark, where things started to get dangerous....Slowly, I lowered my foot into the hole. As it went below the surface, a tingling feeling pa.s.sed through my body. It quickly sharpened to a sting. My toes curled in my shoes, the muscles seizing before they went numb. Quickly, I pulled my leg back and collapsed on the gra.s.s. I couldn't. It was impossible. My body wouldn't let me. My eyes darted around the cemetery, looking for some other way. There wasn't one. Why had I not foreseen this? Why had I been so unprepared? My grip on the shovel loosened, and it dropped to the ground beside me with a soft thud.

When I woke up, I found myself surrounded by the mahogany walls of Dr. Newhaus's office. I was lying on a sofa, an itchy wool blanket draped over me. Rubbing my eyes, I kicked it off me and sat up. My hair was still damp from the river.

Dr. Newhaus was standing at the far end of the room, his back turned to me as he gazed out the window. When he heard me shuffling around, he faced me. He was wearing a maroon suit vest over a shirt and tie.

"Miss Winters," he said, holding his fingers together, his lids heavy as one eye gazed at me, the other at the plant on the windowsill. "You've returned from the netherworld. How are you feeling?"

"A little groggy."

Before I knew what was happening, I had a thermometer in my mouth, a blood pressure cuff on my arm, and the cold nose of a stethoscope pressed to my back.

"Still irregular," the doctor said as he counted my heartbeats with his watch. "Though otherwise, everything seems normal." He stood, his knees cracking, and fetched me a towel from a supply closet. "You baffle me."

I thanked him and wiped my face. Dr. Newhaus took off his gla.s.ses. "Can you tell me exactly what happened?"

I told him about Strategy and Prediction, about the boat, about how when the headmaster mentioned the cemetery in Mont Royal, I blacked out and fell into the water.

"Do you remember anything after that?"

"I had another vision," I said. "I was digging up someone's grave, but I stopped halfway."

Dr. Newhaus squinted. "Whose grave was it?"

SOEUR, I thought, but instead said, "It was nameless."

He grunted. "It seems your hallucinations are being prompted by visual or aural stimuli. A photograph, a phrase..."

I said nothing. He was right, partly, but I knew it was more than that. It was a feeling, a strong feeling of fear, of dread, of hate, of disappointment.

"Could you detect any other connection between this vision and the one you experienced previously?"

I hesitated. There was the second part of the riddle, which I should have been more excited about, but I was preoccupied by something else. Why couldn't I have jumped into the hole? Why had my foot reacted in that way? Why had I not wanted to touch the shovel?

"Renee?" Dr. Newhaus said, trying to catch my gaze. "Any connection between your visions?"

"Um-no," I said, my mouth suddenly feeling parched. The only reason why I wouldn't have been able to jump into the hole was if I were Undead. But I wasn't Undead. I could go underground; I had been in the Montreal tunnels.

The doctor wrote something on his pad, and I wondered what it was. If my visions were of an Undead, who was I seeing? There were hundreds of them out there, but only one person made sense.

But no-it couldn't be. When I'd told Dante about my visions, he hadn't recognized them, had he? He'd even asked me where they had come from, and worried that they might be dangerous.

"Have you been taking the medications I prescribed for you?"

I stared at the carpet, flattening its ta.s.sels with my toe. "No."

"Why not?" he said with disapproval.

"I-forgot."

"I see. Well, I would still encourage you to take them." Dr. Newhaus crossed his arms. "Have you considered my offer?"

I frowned, waiting for him to elaborate.

"To meet with me on a more regular basis."

"Oh, um...no, thank you. I think I'm fine now."

Dr. Newhaus seemed skeptical, but let it go. "Very well; it's your decision. But keep an open mind." Standing, he continued. "Well, I don't want to keep your young man waiting any longer. He's been very patient."

I froze. "Young man?"

The doctor nodded and walked me to the door. "He's been waiting for you outside."

Dante. But how could he be here at St. Clement? It wasn't safe. Suddenly becoming aware that my hair was wet and my clothes probably smelled like the St. Lawrence River, I slung my bag over my shoulder, thanked Dr. Newhaus, and slipped out the door.

But when I got to the hallway, Dante wasn't there.

"Noah?" He was sitting on a bench, reading.

I must have surprised him, because he jolted, dropping his book.