Love Reborn

by Yvonne Woon

  I shrank back. He was right.

  “And yet, I still choose you,” Noah said. “All those days I spent wandering the woods, all the nights I couldn’t sleep when I stayed up thinking about my parents and sister, about our house in Montreal and how I could never return there again—the only thought that gave me hope was you. I can never see my family again. I can never be a Monitor, nor can I go back to St. Clément or even to Montreal, with all the High Court there. All of my training, all of the hopes I’d had before are gone. I can’t feel cold or warmth. I can’t taste food, nor can I smell the air around me, nor can I hear the softness of your voice, and yet every time I try to remember the feeling of happiness, my mind drifts to you.”

  I had been prepared for Noah to be angry, but I hadn’t been ready for this.

  “I helped him,” Noah said, glancing at Dante. “I helped him for you. Because I knew it was what you would have wanted. I came to you in the night at the castle in Bavaria; I watched over you. I wanted you to be safe. And when the Liberum attacked, I protected you.”

  “I didn’t know,” I said. “If I had I would have—”

  “You would have what?” he asked.

  I waited for him to continue, but he said nothing. “I—I don’t know.”

  My admission struck a silence between us. Noah understood then that nothing he could have done would have changed this outcome.

  “I gave up my life for you once,” Noah said. “I would do it again. Everything I’ve been doing is for you.”

  “Why?” I asked. “I have nothing to give you. My soul is just as parched as yours.”

  “It’s not,” Noah said. “You make me feel alive. As alive as I can be. I won’t ask you to come to the Netherworld with me; I would never have asked you to give up your life to help me find mine. I just ask that you wait for me. When I take a new soul, I’ll find you. We can pick up our lives where we left off.”

  “I—I don’t understand.”

  “Choose me.”

  The problem was that I didn’t want to continue this life. I wanted to start a new one. There was nothing left for me here—no beauty, no sadness, no hatred—just a steady numbness. My parents were gone, as was my grandfather; all of my friends were either living normal sunny lives or wallowing as Undead, and as a Monitor, I would eventually be tasked with ending their lives, a calling I never wanted in the first place. I couldn’t help but feel like I had one foot in the underworld and one foot on earth. How could a person go on living like that?

  Although I couldn’t remember the scent of Dante’s hair or the taste of his skin or the sound of his voice as he whispered to me while I fell asleep, I knew that every part of him was imprinted on my soul, breathing life into my past, my present, my future. He was the only person who made me feel alive. Who made me want to be alive.

  I inched away from Noah. “Dante never asked me to give up my life for him. I wanted to. Without him, there’s nothing here for me,” I said, my voice cracking. “He is my life.”

  My words struck him. He moved his fingers, as though he wanted to reach out and touch me, though he held himself back. “And you are mine.”

  Though I knew he meant what he said, his words were void of emotion. His coldness frightened me. This wasn’t the same Noah who had run into me with his bicycle in Montreal, his crooked smile making me melt; or the Noah who had stacked my arms full of food at the grocery store, making me laugh for the first time in months; or the Noah who had brought me to his childhood bedroom, where I’d sat on his twin bed and tried to imagine what my life would be like if I chose to spend it with him. This Noah frightened me.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I can’t give you what you want.”

  Noah let his hands drop to his sides. “No,” he said, his voice dead. “I am.”

  I shook my head. “I didn’t mean it like that—”

  But he cut me off. “You want to leave,” he said. “So go. Go!”

  I backed down the stairs.

  Dante was waiting for me in the front pew. I ran to him, trying to will my hands to stop trembling. “My answer is you,” I said. “It’s always been you.”

  He eyes drifted to the stairway, wondering what had shaken me so, but he didn’t ask any questions. “And mine, you,” he said. “Come on.”

  He led me to the back of the church, where he pulled me into the shadows. But as he reached for my hand, I noticed something strange.

  The skin on his wrist looked different, as if it belonged to man twenty years older. It looked so pale that I could almost see the veins running beneath it. Dante must have seen me staring. He pulled his arm back into the shadows.

  “What did they do to you?”

  Dante curled his fingers, studying them. “They dragged me into the woods, where they wrapped my arms and legs with gauze. The nine Brothers surrounded me. They asked me questions about the chest and the Netherworld, about the Monitors. They told me that if I didn’t help them find the next point on the map, they would find you and take your soul.”

  He lowered his eyes to the ground. “For days I tried to escape, but it was no use. The gauze had made my hands and legs so weak that I could barely move them. All I could do was think of you.”

  I took his hands in mine, tracing my fingers along the insides of his wrists. “How did you get away?”

  “I didn’t,” he said. “I don’t know how much time passed before they came back, but when they did they set up camp nearby. I could hear the Undead boys talking through the trees. I listened for your name; it was all I could think of. Had they found you? Had they taken your soul?” He ran a hand through his hair. “Then, one night, two of the Undead boys approached me. They were some of the oldest Undead in the army. So tall. I thought they had been sent to burn me. But instead, they turned out to be Noah and Eleanor.”

  He glanced back to the front of the church where I could hear Eleanor whispering. “They told me that you were still alive. I felt like they had given me my life back. They watched over you. They helped me plan my escape and steal back the chest from the Liberum. I owe them everything.”

  I shrank back against the wall, feeling the dust stick to my fingertips. “Not everything,” I said.

  Dante leaned his forehead against mine, his breath tickling my lips. Then he slid his hand around my waist and inched back toward the pews until I could see the last of the candlelight dance across the angles of his face. He lowered me onto the bench, the wood creaking beneath us as he traced his hand up the back of my thigh.

  I felt the warmth blossom beneath my skin. My chest felt hot and flushed. His hands grasped at my clothes, sliding beneath the layers of fabric until I felt his cool touch graze my skin. My body moved without me, my neck arching back, my legs wrapping around him as he pulled me to the floor beneath the pews. I felt the cold stone against my skin, the weight of Dante pressing me deep into the ground.

  His breath was thick and cold as it beat against my neck. I felt his hand tangle itself in my hair, coaxing my head back as he kissed my collarbone, the nape of my neck, my chest.

  Theo murmured in his sleep from the front of the church, but I didn’t care if I woke him.

  “Make me feel something,” I said. “Please.”

  Dante’s eyes were barely visible beneath the cloud of gray. Slowly, he unbuttoned my cardigan. The cool air of the church lapped at my chest as he peeled my clothes off of me, first my sweater, then my shirt, his fingers sending a shiver up my skin as he counted each of my ribs. My lips trembled as I grasped at his shirt, twisting it over his head until all I could see was the pale curvature of his chest expanding and contracting in the darkness.

  I pulled at his sides, kissing the muscles in his arms, his shoulders; I pressed my hands into his shoulder blades as if I were trying to rip them apart. His lips flitted over my skin, sending a prickle of cold up my back. Everything within me ached for him.

  My eyes drifted over the vaulted ceilings of the church, at the chipped paintings adorning the
stone. Images of burial and the afterlife, of angels ascending into the clouds. Everyone had to face death one day. I ran my hand through Dante’s hair as if it were the last time I would ever touch him, as if it were the last day of our lives.

  “I choose you,” I whispered. “I choose you.”

  He hovered over my mouth, the tendrils of his breath tickling my lips. A part of me wanted to press my mouth to his, to try and taste the salt on his tongue as it melted into mine. But Dante tightened above me, his grasp strong around my hands to hold me back. “We’re almost there,” he said.

  I collapsed back against the dusty floor. Dante lowered himself to the ground beside me and wrapped his sweater around my shoulders. I rested my hand on his chest and felt the vibrations of his heartbeat. Its rhythm had grown even more irregular. It lagged behind as if it were tired, then sped up in an attempt at recovery. What I didn’t want to admit was that my heart was slowing, too. I’d noticed it over the past few days, the occasional palpitation in my chest. I closed my eyes and counted along with his heart. One, two, three—one—one, two—one. Mine skipped in tandem, filling in the beats his heart missed, until I fell asleep, our bodies rising and falling as one.

  I woke to the sound of paper slipping beneath the door. The morning sun shone through the stained glass windows, dimpling the floor in light, and though I imagined it was beautiful, all I could see were the scuffed panels of glass, their colors monotone. The candles had all burned out, their wax in hardened puddles on the floor. Dante sat beside me, turning the small black box over in his hands.

  “Did you hear that?” I said.

  “Hear what?” he said.

  I ran to the entrance of the church, where an envelope lay halfway beneath the door. I swung it open, letting the sun spill inside. Monsieur had been here just moments before, I could feel it; though when I looked in either direction, the street was empty.

  It had been so long since we’d heard from Monsieur that I almost wondered if it was a fake. But the paper and the handwriting were perfect, exactly the same as in the letters before. I ripped it open.

  Dear Ms. Winters,

  You have their protection. Show it to them.

  Sincerely,

  Monsieur

  “Whose protection?” I asked, but before Dante could respond, a chill descended over the church. I pressed my finger to his lips and froze. A dark cloak swept past the windows, blocking out the light. The Liberum.

  The others stirred in the front of the church. They must have felt it, too, for they grasped their shovels. Theo rubbed his eyes and peered out the window. “The Brothers are here,” he said. “Three are heading toward the front door. Two to the back.” The door rattled, punctuating his sentence.

  Anya swallowed, supporting herself on a pew. “Is there any other way out?”

  “No,” said Theo. “I’ve already checked.”

  I peered through the window, feeling the long wisps of the Liberum curl toward me. A black cloak swept past the panes, its shape warped by the uneven glass. The remaining Undead boys followed, surrounding the church.

  “We’ll have to face them,” Theo said. Gripping his Spade, he turned to Anya. “You stay inside. I’ll take the front.” He nodded to Dante, Eleanor, and me. “You take the back.”

  “Where’s Noah?” Eleanor said.

  I scanned the church. I didn’t see him anywhere. Before I could answer, one of the Undead fell to the ground. A thrash of legs, a muffled scream. Then a wave of long pale hair swept past the window.

  “What was that?” Anya asked.

  “The Keepers,” I said.

  One by one, the Undead on the other side of the window fell, and were dragged through the dirt and snow, pulled by something soundless, faceless.

  Eleanor inched back. “Noah?” she called, his name echoing off the ceilings like a voice of a ghost. “Noah?”

  As she repeated it, a terrible feeling crept over me. Had he left because of what I’d said?

  Outside, everything grew still. Dante inched toward the door, ready to turn the knob, when a cry stopped him.

  I lowered my shovel and ran toward Eleanor’s voice. I found her standing in a doorway that led down into a cellar, her body trembling.

  No, I begged, inching closer. This couldn’t be happening again. I already knew what I would find, and yet I still hoped to find an empty hallway. The light from the windows shone into the stairwell, illuminating an arm, its skin turning gray. The bottom of the stairs was dark.

  Everything inside me collapsed. He had put himself to rest. I backed away, my hands muffling my sob. This had happened because of me.

  I heard footsteps behind me. “Get him out!” Dante said. Theo ran down the stairs and dragged Noah back aboveground. His body was limp, his face hollow with death. I turned away, unable to look any longer. Dante and Theo carried him through the church, bursting through the front doors and into the sunlight.

  Outside, the church grounds were quiet, but they weren’t empty at all. Five women stood around us, their hair fluttering in the wind. They each held a Spade, the metal tips glinting in the sunlight.

  Theo and Dante slowed, laying Noah in the snow, his head facing the sky. Seeing him in the light was startling, his lips the same muted shade as the clouds, as though he were already fading back into the folds of the universe. I wrapped my hand around Eleanor’s, feeling the cool touch of her skin as I squeezed her palm.

  The Keepers looked almost identical, though I could see the difference in age. The first woman’s cheeks were far more sunken than the others, her youth sucked from her too early. The second woman had withered lips, her mouth falling into a wrinkled pout. The third woman’s face had hollowed into a pinch, her nose spotted with sun splotches. The fourth woman had clouded eyes, her irises now a foggy white. And the fifth had gnarled and knotted hands, her fingers wrinkled as she gripped her Spade.

  There was something about their faces that looked familiar, beyond having seen them over the past few days, though I couldn’t place how I recognized them.

  “What do you want?” Theo said, pointing his Spade at them.

  Instead of answering, the first woman spoke, reciting a line from Descartes’s riddle.

  “Sounds, they fade to the ground, the earth’s music unsung,” she said, then turned to the woman on her right.

  “Then taste, until food is but dirt on the tongue,” said the second woman.

  “The nose, it next decays, death the only stench to stay,” the third woman said.

  “The eyes follow, the jaws of the mountains a colorless gray,” the fourth said, then turned to the fifth women.

  “Touch, the noblest, is last to decline,” she said. “The final remainder of life in this soul of mine.”

  The five Keepers. One for each point. That’s why their faces had aged so differently—they each occupied a separate point on the map, one sense decaying while the others lived on. I remembered Monsieur’s note. You have their protection. Show it to them. The five women in front of us, the Keepers, were supposedly the descendants of Ophelia Hart, the ninth sister, the one who had hidden the chest in the lake for us to find. Which meant that they could only want one thing. “The box,” I said.

  Dante squinted at me, his thoughts meeting mine. “In its world it is dust, in the hand it is coal,” he said, reciting the final lines of Descartes’s riddle. “At long last I found it, the ephemeral soul.”

  He lowered his bag and took out the small black box. The Spades of the Keepers wavered.

  “In the hand it is coal,” he said to himself. “Does that mean that this is—?”

  “A soul,” I whispered, completing his sentence. Was that what the final lines of the riddle meant: that in the Netherworld, the soul took on the form of dust, and in the hand, it solidified into a rock, just like the one we’d found in the chest? Was that how Descartes had taken a soul to use on his deathbed?

  Anya had been right, back in Paris; it had never been a box in the first place. All this
time we’d already had an extra life with us, and we’d had no idea.

  The Keepers didn’t answer. They lifted their Spades, and speaking in harmony, they each whispered, “A soul is not given; it is earned. It is yours to use.” Their white figures shrank back.

  Ours to use? An itch inside me wanted Dante to press it to his lips and take a new life. But where would that leave everyone else? Where would that leave me?

  The others were thinking the same thing; I could tell by the way they eyed it, their faces greedy.

  “Give it to Noah,” Anya said finally. “I don’t have any elixir that can bring him back,” she continued, looking at Dante, “but you do.”

  None of us spoke as she stepped toward Dante and took the black box from his hands. I could see its weight tugging against her as she knelt over Noah. She pushed the hair away from his face. His lips parted slightly at her touch. She held the black box over him, its heaviness making her arms tremble. When she lowered it to his mouth, its black edges began to dissolve. The dust swept itself into a thin black thread that seeped between his lips, twisting down, down, until there was nothing left in Anya’s hands but a smudge of black.

  Noah’s muscles twitched, the veins in his arms lifting as the blood began to pulse through them. His chest heaved. His lips parted. He gasped.

  Anya backed away, so startled that she stumbled over herself.

  The Keepers swept over Noah. “Go,” they said to us in unison. “Go.”

  But I couldn’t move; I was too stunned. Was it real? Had it worked?

  I felt Dante’s hand on my arm. “We’re almost there,” he said. “We have to go.”

  As Dante pulled me away, following the others toward the valley, I turned and watched over my shoulder as Noah’s hand, which had lain lifeless in the snow, curled into a fist. He was alive.

  “Good-bye,” I whispered to him.

  Following the etching on the chest, we made our way down the valley toward the third lake, inside of which lay the fifth point. The path cut through the surrounding hills like a dry riverbed. The snow on the ground grew spotty, revealing dry and rocky earth.