If I Should Die

by Amy Plum

  Trust Vincent to have a sense of humor at a time like this. I knew he was just trying to make the rest of us feel better. He must have been scared out of his wits.

  I thought for a moment, then turned to Mr. Gold. “I’d like to see if that quote under the wall painting is visible,” I said. “It was longer than the verse Bran quoted. Maybe that would hold the clue.”

  “I’ve booked you rooms at a hotel a couple of blocks away,” he responded. “But if you want to use my computer to download and magnify the image . . .”

  “I have my laptop with me,” responded Papy. “We can have a look in the morning.”

  “As for you, Jules, I alerted a house of our kindred located in Brooklyn that you would be staying,” Mr. Gold said. “I thought you’d prefer that to a hotel, since I was told you met several of them a few years ago at the London convocation.”

  Jules nodded weakly. “That sounds perfect.”

  “Good. Then I’ll phone a doctor to meet you at their house to stitch up your arm.”

  As we left the museum, Mr. Gold hailed a taxi for Jules. Then, stopping first at the apartment to get our luggage, Bran, Papy, and I followed Mr. Gold down the street to a small hotel on Park Avenue.

  I was so tired by this point that I felt like I was sleepwalking. Now that the urgency of our task had passed, my body was suddenly aware that it had been awake for a day and a half. I stumbled into the hotel room, ripped my clothes off, and fell into bed.

  Vincent stayed with me for the night, whispering an earnest Je t’adore as I fell asleep, and greeting me with Bonjour, mon amour when I opened my eyes in the morning. I glanced at the clock on the nightstand. It was barely six a.m. and I was wide-awake.

  Have I ever told you how cute you are when you sleep?

  I moaned and rolled over, pulling the covers over my head. “I don’t feel cute. I feel jet-lagged,” I said sleepily, and then remembering what happened the night before, I sat up, instantly alert.

  “The question is . . . how do you feel?”

  If I had a body, I would say “weak.” But it’s more like I feel very scattered. Not together. I guess you could say “faded.”

  “Oh my God, Vincent, that really scared me last night. I almost lost you.”

  But you didn’t, he insisted. I’m still here. And we’ll figure this out and try again.

  I knew he was trying to comfort me, but all I could feel was fear. If we tried again and he dispersed . . . , well, that would be the end. Which wouldn’t be fair. Because we were just beginning.

  I knew we couldn’t last forever; my own mortality put a limit on the time we had together. Eighty years—or whatever the life expectancy was now—had always seemed like a nice long time, before I met immortals. Not now.

  There were so many things Vincent and I hadn’t done. More than ever, I wanted to connect with him. To hold him in my arms, be held by him, and get as close as two people possibly can. To give him all of myself and take what he gave me. But that wasn’t even an option now. And, judging from the way things went last night, might never be.

  Vincent quickly changed the subject, as if he could see my black thoughts. Your grandfather and Bran are already having breakfast in the café downstairs. They slipped a note under your door.

  “Not much use for a note when they could have just left a message with my immortal answering service,” I said.

  Very funny.

  “Turn around. Or leave. Or whatever,” I said, throwing the covers back and rearranging my T-shirt. “I have to get dressed.”

  I’m not looking, Vincent assured me.

  “Yeah, right,” I said, self-consciously ripping my T-shirt off and pulling some fresh clothes out of my suitcase. “How many times have you seen me naked?” It was something I’d always wondered but never had the chance to ask.

  I’m a gentleman—Vincent said—not a stalker. I always let you know when I’m in the room.

  “How many times?” I insisted.

  I swear to you, Kate. I would never take advantage of my situation like that. Maybe a bit old-fashioned of me, but I don’t want to see you until you invite me to.

  I couldn’t help but grin. Vincent was so chivalrous. I doubted that most boys my age would have passed up an opportunity to see a girl naked—if the girl was sure never to find out. Chivalry: one of the advantages of dating a teenager who had been around since the olden days.

  There was a silence. Not that it hasn’t been tempting.

  “Vincent!”

  Can I look now?

  “Yes, I’m dressed,” I said.

  Do you know the phrase “Un rien te va”? Vincent asked me.

  “No,” I confessed.

  It means you look good in anything. I think you look even sexier first thing in the morning than when you’ve spent time beautifying.

  My smile took up my whole face. “I think that’s about the nicest thing a boy has ever said to me.”

  Just saying what’s true, Vincent said.

  “You’re lucky I can’t jump on you right now,” I commented.

  I disagree, he said.

  I had felt a yearning for Vincent’s body before. But never when he wasn’t there to touch. And now I wanted to touch him more than ever. To be touched by him. Maybe that was because it wasn’t possible, but I had a feeling that it was more than that. We had waited to make love because I hadn’t felt ready yet. But this brush with death—with Vincent’s eternal disappearance—had made me realize that that kind of connection with Vincent was what I wanted. If I was given the chance again, this time I would choose yes.

  Trying to clear my head of impossible dreams, I picked up my purse and the room key and began heading out the door when I suddenly remembered my phone. I hadn’t even taken it out of my suitcase when I arrived because I wasn’t sure I had international service. Plus . . . who was I going to call?

  “Wait a second, Vincent. I’m just going to check that picture,” I said, sitting back down on the bed. “I don’t even know if it turned out, since the cave was so big and my flash was pretty weak.”

  I clicked on the camera icon, and there it was: the last picture I had taken. It had worked. Although dark around the edges where the flash hadn’t reached, the middle of the painted wall was clearly visible . . . I expanded the image with my fingertips . . . and in focus!

  “Oh my God, Vincent? Do you see?”

  Yes! he said. It’s hard to read at this size, but if we loaded it onto your grandfather’s laptop, I think it would be legible.

  “Let’s go, then!” I said.

  Papy and Bran were sitting behind empty cups of coffee, studying a piece of paper. Seeing me arrive, Papy poured a cup from the pitcher on the table and set it on the place setting next to him.

  “No time for coffee!” I said. “The picture from the cave. It worked! We need your laptop, Papy.”

  My grandfather handed me his room key and I was back with the laptop in minutes. Plugging my phone into it, I waited a second until the image popped up, then selected the painting with the re-embodiment and cropped everything else out.

  “The image is very similar to what was on Theodore’s urn,” Papy agreed.

  “Can we see the words more closely?” Bran asked, leaning in toward the computer.

  I zoomed in, and the inscription filled the screen. As Papy began translating it from the Latin, Bran scribbled it down on the piece of paper.

  A man of clay is only mud

  Until his brother spills his blood.

  Mortal breath will animate

  The dead’s own ashes re-create.

  Once these elements combine

  The cooling flames will entwine

  Spirit with inanimate form

  For wandering soul to be reborn.

  “The dead’s own ashes? Does that mean Vincent’s ashes?” I asked, a cold wave of alarm washing through me.

  “That’s what it seems to suggest,” Papy said. He cleared his throat and looked uncomfortable. “Is there any wa
y for us to get Vincent’s ashes?”

  “I seriously doubt it,” I said. “It’s been days since Vincent was burned.” I felt sick. I couldn’t believe we had come this far only to run into an unsolvable problem.

  “Maybe Violette kept some of his ashes. For some sort of use?” Bran suggested doubtfully.

  No, I heard Vincent say. To both suggestions. I was there afterward. And I saw one of Violette’s people sweep my ashes into a bag and dump it in the trash. It was one of the more horrifying things I’ve experienced.

  I transmitted this to Papy and Bran, and they both fell silent.

  “Ashes,” I said, thinking it through. “That must be what the symbol of the box represents.”

  Papy nodded. “And do you remember the carved image on the side of Theodore’s funereal urn? The man with the torch held a box in his other hand. It makes sense. Ashes were kept in stone boxes—such as the boxlike urn presenting that very re-embodiment scene.”

  I chose a muffin from the bread basket and munched in silence while the men studied the picture. “Bran, what was your poem again?” I asked.

  He turned the paper over to show the verse already transcribed onto the page: That’s what he and Papy had been studying when I arrived. I read it out loud:

  Man of clay to man of flesh

  Immortal blood and human breath

  Traces do the spirit bind

  Flames give body ghost and mind.

  I studied it for a minute and said, “Where Papy’s poem mentions ‘ashes,’ Bran’s mentions ‘traces.’”

  “Well, I translated the original Breton word as ‘traces,’ but it also means ‘remains,’” Bran said, interest flickering in his eyes.

  “Ashes. Remains,” I said, my brain working at double speed. “The ceremony needs something of Vincent to bind his spirit to the clay figure. Otherwise his spirit is dispersed.”

  And then it hit me. “I have something!” I shouted, rising to my feet and tugging at the cord around my neck. From under my shirt, I pulled the pendants that I never took off: the signum and the memento mori that Jeanne had given me. The men looked at me quizzically as I held the locket toward them. “It holds a lock of Vincent’s hair.”

  Adrenaline coursed through my veins, making me want to sprint back to the Met, dragging Papy and Bran with me, to try the ritual again. I couldn’t believe I had been wearing the missing puzzle piece around my neck for the past few days.

  “Where did you get that?” Papy asked.

  “Jeanne gave it to me. She keeps locks of hair from all of the revenants in her care in these little boxes.”

  “How strange,” remarked Bran.

  “Her mother did it and her grandmother, too. It’s, like, a family tradition.”

  Papy pounded the table in excitement. “Which, quite obviously, started because of something like this,” he said. “Jeanne didn’t even know what she was doing by keeping the custom going, and perhaps neither did her mother or her grandmother. But somewhere along the way, a revenant keeper began that tradition in case remains were needed for this re-embodiment procedure. Fascinating!”

  “So we found it!” I said, touching Papy’s hand and willing him to come with me. “We found the solution. We better get over to Mr. Gold’s to let him know.”

  “I have his number,” said Papy. He took out his cell phone and began dialing.

  Within a half hour we were all standing around the burner again, Jules having taxied over from Brooklyn the moment Mr. Gold called. A big exhaust fan was sucking up the smoke from the torch. Now that it was daytime, Mr. Gold was concerned that passersby on the street above or in the museum, once it opened, would smell the fire. The whole mess from the water mixing with the clay the day before had been cleaned up during the night. I suspected that was Mr. Gold’s work.

  I sat down next to Jules, who was looking distinctly green.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “I’m not that excited about cutting my arm open again,” he said, using a tiny scissors to carefully clip the stitches he had been given the previous night. “Vincent’s worth it—of course. But I’ll try to slash the same place so I won’t have two major wounds to manage until I’m dormant in a couple weeks.”

  “How was last night with your New York kindred?” I asked.

  “Good,” he said, eyeing me with an expression that said he didn’t feel like talking about it.

  “Did you know anyone at the house?” I persisted.

  “Yes. There were a couple of guys who came to Europe for a convocation about ten years ago.” He sighed and looked back down at his stitches, clipping another of the tiny black threads. “It was actually really nice. They had set out a whole welcome-to-America party for me, which kicked off as soon as the doctor sewed up my arm and lasted until I left this morning.”

  “I was out like a light,” I admitted. “That’s got to be one of the huge perks of zombiehood: no jet lag.”

  Jules smiled. A real Jules smile. It was nice to see.

  “All right, we need to move now, people, before the first employees arrive,” prompted Mr. Gold.

  “Joy,” remarked Jules drily. He stood and extended his good arm to help me up.

  I took my place on the stepladder and peered over the rim of the thymiaterion at Clay Vincent. Jules stood on my right, and Bran directly across from us while Papy readied himself with the torch. A nervous hush settled over our small group. Bran had spread his hands out, and Jules was just lifting the knife when I heard Vincent say, No!

  “What’s happening, Vincent?” I asked. Everyone froze.

  Violette’s pulling me back. I feel myself being tugged away from here.

  “Fight it, Vincent!” I urged.

  “What is it?” Mr. Gold asked.

  “Violette is trying to get him back!”

  “Is he still here?” yelled Papy.

  “Yes, but I can see him being pulled upward—though it seems he is resisting. We must proceed quickly,” said Bran, and spread his hands above the clay form.

  Opening the locket, I pulled the lock of hair from inside and stood there, wondering what I should do with it. Then, making a split-second decision, I pressed it securely into the side of the clay man’s shoulder with my thumb.

  I didn’t see Jules slit his arm a second time. I couldn’t watch. But there he was, bleeding profusely again on top of the golem, as I bent forward to blow lightly upon the face. I saw Bran reach up toward Vincent’s invisible-to-me aura. He made a motion like he was grasping it and pulling it down toward the clay man.

  Kate, Vincent’s voice came. I don’t know if I can fight . . .

  His voice disappeared. “Is he still here?” I cried, looking wildly across the cup at Bran.

  Bran peered upward and shook his head. “No. He’s gone.”

  Papy lowered his torch. Mr. Gold stood next to the bucket of water, looking helpless. Jules lowered his bleeding arm to rest on the rim of the thymiaterion and raised his other hand to his forehead.

  I couldn’t believe it. We were so close to bringing Vincent back, and Violette chose this crucial moment to reclaim him. A hatred like I had never felt before set my entire body aflame. She would not do this. Violette would not take Vincent away from me. This would not be the end. Fury and shock from what had just happened forged together like iron in my chest. Fueled by something bigger and older than I—something primal—I commanded, “Come back, Vincent. Now!” My voice echoed through the cavernous room.

  And then, so loudly it was like a megaphone positioned next to my ear, I heard, I’m back. But not for long. Do it quickly!

  “He’s returned! Go!” I shouted. Papy stepped forward and held the torch to the clay figure. As the air around it exploded into blue flames, Jules jumped back and I fell from the stepladder to the ground.

  “Vincent! Don’t let go!” I yelled, scrambling back to my feet. My heart pounding violently, I grabbed the side of the metal cup and heaved myself up to watch. The flames blazed higher, forming a gi
ant fireball, which then erupted with a loud whooshing noise like a great wind, leaving tiny blue flames licking over and around the body like a paraffin burner.

  Bran stretched his hands tentatively toward the fire. “Cold. The flames are cold, like the ‘cooling flames’ in the inscription you found, Kate,” he said, looking up at me. “It must be working.”

  As he spoke, the edges of the clay man began shimmering, like air does in intense heat, and the lumpen form gradually became more manlike. “Something’s happening!” I cried. I was paralyzed by shock and hope. “Please let it work. Come back, Vincent. You have to come back,” I whispered, pleading.

  Red clay became olive-toned skin, and the bald head became waves of raven black hair. The face that Jules had carefully sculpted became a real nose and mouth and eyes, closed as if in sleep. But it lay there, still and unmoving, until, focusing on the air just above, Bran yelled, “Come, bardia spirit, inhabit this body!” He made one final sweeping gesture, as if pulling the aura downward, and touched his fingers to the body’s side.

  The eyes flew open and Vincent took a great gulping gasp, as if trying to swallow all of the oxygen in the room.

  “Vincent,” I said, my heart in my throat.

  His eyes flew to mine. He reached toward me, and I took his hand and pressed it to my cheek. His skin was burning hot, like with a fever. I kissed his fingers, and his skin smelled like fire and rain-soaked earth. Like the boy I thought I would never touch again.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  IT WASN’T UNTIL JULES AND MR. GOLD HAD helped Vincent down out of the thymiaterion that we realized we had forgotten one essential element for resurrecting a spirit in a brand-new body. Clothes.

  This was a first for me. The most I’d seen of Vincent up to now was post-workout with only a towel around his waist. But noticing Papy look pointedly at me, I turned around and crossed my arms, waiting until the others wrapped a silver packing blanket around him before throwing myself on him.

  “Kate,” he said, staggering a bit, and then pulled me tightly to him and kissed the top of my head. I held my mouth up for a real kiss and his lips were like a revelation. Like our very first kiss, only a hundred times better. Vincent smiled weakly at me, and then his eyes shut as his head fell forward and he collapsed in my arms. Now it was me staggering, as I found myself holding all of his weight.