by Yvonne Woon
“Nothing,” he said. “I just try to enjoy the time I do have. That’s all we can do, really.”
The rest of the flight was quick; it seemed like we had just boarded when three chimes sounded over the intercom, followed by the flight attendant’s voice, announcing in both French and English that we had begun our descent. Dustin leaned over me to look out the window. The blue sky faded as we entered the clouds, and was replaced by the tiny lights of buildings, the irregular spirals of roads. And then, through the mist, an island emerged.
Montreal was a castle of a city, surrounded by water on all sides, and connected to the mainland by bridges. After going through customs, we rented a compact car and set out for St. Clément, in the old part of town, Vieux-Port. We drove down a street called rue Notre-Dame, which was lined with uneven sidewalks and town houses capped with mansard roofs.
It was an overcast afternoon, the air warm and thick. I rolled down my window as we passed a group of bicyclists, all wearing little hats. One of them turned to me as we passed, his hair pulled back into a messy knot. Dante, I thought as I pressed my nose to the window. But it was just a tall man with long hair. He winked as we turned down rue Saint Maurice. There, we drove until we passed a narrow street with no sign. Slowing to a stop, Dustin looked over his shoulder, and then reversed until we were even with the unnamed street, which was really more of an alleyway. Dustin squinted at the stained brick buildings.
“If my memory serves me correctly, this is it,” he said finally, and turned. The cobblestones were slanted, putting our tiny car on an incline.
A pair of pigeons flew out of our way and flapped around the alley as we squeezed past the trash bins that lined the curb. The street ended at a sign that read PETIT RUE SAINT CLÉMENT.
It was only slightly larger than the alley, but much sunnier. Dustin took a left, and a few hundred feet down, pulled up in front of a large stone building with an arched entranceway. Etched over it in large letters was: LYCÉE SAINT CLÉMENT.
A security guard sauntered toward us. Setting down my bags, Dustin fished around in his pockets for a piece of paper. Upon reading it, the guard uttered something in French to us, making hand gestures. To my surprise, Dustin seemed to understand. “Merci, monsieur,” he said, with what sounded like a perfect accent, and picked up my bags.
“I didn’t know you could speak French,” I said as we crossed a grassy courtyard surrounded by the school. In the middle was a fountain. Two girls were standing next to it, holding books as the water spouted behind them.
“Nor did I,” said Dustin. “The last time I spoke it was a lifetime ago.”
We entered one of the buildings on the far side of the courtyard, which said FEMMES. Unlike the Gottfried dormitories, this one was small and cozy. A plush carpet blanketed the lobby, which was furnished with overstuffed sofas. A bulletin board hung on one wall, cluttered with tacks and colorful fliers. Potted plants streamed over the windowsills, and brass numbers and nameplates decorated each of the doors. Upstairs we found a maze of hallways lined with rose wallpaper, and crowded with girls hauling trunks, suitcases, and piles of books into their rooms. They barely paid attention to me as I squeezed past them.
My room was nestled into a sunny corner of the building with one other room, number 32, labeled with the name CLEMENTINE LAGUERRE. Mine was number 31. I fumbled with the keys, pushing the door open just as Dustin, hauling the luggage, caught up with me.
The only word to describe it was lovely. An arched hallway led to a series of little areas: a sink and mirror, a bedroom with a real potbellied stove, and small balcony that overlooked the courtyard. There was even a beautiful old fireplace, which had been sealed years ago, according to Dustin, after a bad fire. But the most foreign thing of all was that I had the whole room to myself.
The only shared part was the bathroom, which connected my room and Clementine’s, and had a deep porcelain tub that could fit three of me in it. I fiddled with the knobs on the bidet, turning the right one around and around, but nothing happened. It must be broken, I thought, hitting it with my hand just as Dustin said something from the other room. Suddenly, water burst out of the spigot, spraying my legs.
“What?” I shouted, jumping out of the way.
“I said, someone just slipped an envelope under the door. Would you like me to open it?”
“Okay,” I said, struggling with the faucet.
“‘Promptly report to the gymnasium at nine a.m. on Monday for your placement examination.’”
Wiping off my shorts, I went to the main room. “A placement test?”
“Yes,” Dustin said, checking his watch. “Tomorrow.” When he saw my wet clothes, he chuckled and dug through my bag until he found a towel.
“Tomorrow? But I don’t even know what the test is on.”
“I’m sure it will be fine,” Dustin said. He pulled some sheets from my bag and stretched one over the mattress. When I tried to help, he swatted me away.
Of course he thought it was fine; he wasn’t the one who had to take the exam. I blew a wisp of hair from my face before beginning to unpack. While we worked, Dustin taught me tidbits of French. “La pelle,” he said, handing me a shovel. “Les pièces,” he continued, handing me a bag of coins with the rest of my Monitor supplies. “La vie.” Life. “La mort.” Death. He unpacked my old philosophy books from Miss LaBarge’s class, and glanced out the window. The sun was setting behind the buildings. “Éphémère.” And after dusting off my bookshelf one last time, he said, “Cri de coeur,” and hugged me good-bye, hurrying back to the airport to catch his flight home. After he left, I looked it up in my French dictionary. It meant a cry of the heart.
That evening I skipped dinner and spent the rest of the night alone in my room. I only ventured out once to carry my trash to the bins, but ended up getting lost in the maze of hallways as I tried to find my way back to my room. I ended up in a side hall that looked just like mine, except that the room number was 21, and the name on the door read ANYA PINSKY. It was ajar, revealing a messy clutter of boxes and clothes, the room half decorated with tall glass candles and colorful charms. A girl with hair dyed a dark, unnatural red was holding a bundle of linens and having an argument with an older man in what sounded like Russian. When she saw me looking in, she squinted at me and then walked to the door and shut it.
The door beside it was painted shut with so many layers that I could barely see the seam of the wall. BROOM CLOSET, it read.
I tried to retrace my steps, making a few wrong turns until I finally found my door. Shutting myself inside, I sat on my bed and listened through the walls to the girls walking down the hall, speaking to each other in French. I didn’t know who they were or what they were saying; I wasn’t even sure that I wanted to know. They lived in a different world than I did. I could tell by the way they were laughing, by the fact that they could laugh.
Just as I was falling asleep, I heard the toilet flush from the shared bathroom, and sat up. “Eleanor?” I said, staring at the other side of the dark room before realizing that I was alone. If Dustin were here, he would tell me the word in French. Turning on the light, I picked up the pocket dictionary he’d left for me. “Alone” had eight entries. “Seul. Isolé. Séparé. Écarté. Solitaire. Singulier. Sans aide. Perdu.” Which kind was I? Left behind by my parents, by Miss LaBarge. Separated from Dante. Isolated from the people around me. Lost.
I was closing the book when the phone rang. Startled, I jumped.
“Renée?” a hushed voice said as I held the receiver to my ear.
“Eleanor?” I said, a little louder than I had intended, and then repeated, “Eleanor?”
I heard a breath on the other line. “It’s really you,” she said, uncharacteristically monotone.
“It’s really you,” I repeated, leaning against the wall. She must have been back at Gottfried, calling me from the room we used to share. “I feel like I haven’t seen you in ages.”
“I know,” Eleanor said, her voice duller than I
remembered.
“And your postcards—I don’t know how I would have gotten through the summer without them.”
“Well, it gave me something to do. My mom was driving me insane all summer. Anyway, how is it over there?”
I sighed.
“Same here at Gottfried,” she said. “They’ve been calling each of us in to be questioned. About Miss LaBarge’s death.” Her voice didn’t waver when she said Miss LaBarge’s name, as if she were talking about a stranger rather than our philosophy professor.
“Questioned?”
“They know she was killed by a group of Undead, and want to see if any of us have information. I went in this morning. Your grandfather kept asking me if I had been contacted recently by a group of Undead.”
“By a group of Undead? What does that mean? What group?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “He wouldn’t say anything more specific. I was hoping you might know.”
“I have no idea,” I said, tracing the stitching on my comforter. “How is your mom doing?” I asked, thinking of the photograph I’d found in Miss LaBarge’s cottage.
“She’s fine, I think,” Eleanor said, though she sounded confused. “The same as always. Why?”
“I thought she was friends with Miss LaBarge.”
“Why would you think that?” Eleanor said. “She met her for the first time last year.”
“What?” I said, sitting upright. “But I went to Miss LaBarge’s cottage with my grandfather and found a photograph of her with your mom and mine when they were our age. It was framed in her bedroom. And I saw her at the funeral.”
Eleanor paused. “Are you sure it was my mom in the photo? Every time I mentioned Miss LaBarge at home, she always forgot her name or messed it up, calling her DuFarge or something. I’m certain she’d never met her before in her life.”
I frowned. “Well, I’m certain it was her in the photo. Unless your mom has a sister?”
“No. She’s an only child.”
I coiled the telephone cord around my finger, remembering the way Eleanor’s mom had looked sitting alone on the deck of the boat. Why would she have lied about knowing Miss LaBarge?
“Have you heard from Dante?” I asked, breaking the long pause.
“No.” She cleared her throat. “He hasn’t sent me anything since your birthday. I’m sorry.” I knew she meant it, but she sounded devoid of empathy.
I loosened my grip on the receiver. “At the funeral, Brett told me there was a rumor Dante was in Canada. Do you think it’s true?”
Eleanor didn’t respond for a long while. “I don’t know where he is,” she said stiffly. Her tone reminded me that she was Undead, and that funerals weren’t the best subject matter; nor was Brett, her ex-boyfriend.
I immediately regretted saying anything. “Eleanor, I’m sorry—”
“It’s fine,” she said quickly, as if she didn’t even want me to say what I was about to say. “The weird thing is that I don’t really care. I know I should, but I can’t feel anything. Not for Miss LaBarge’s death, or for my breakup with Brett. Nothing. It’s not right. I know it’s not right, but I can’t help it.”
“It’s not your fault,” I said softly.
“It’s not about fault anymore. It’s about dealing with it every day. Knowing that every day that passes, I’m a little less human.”
I pressed the receiver to my cheek, trying to find the words that would explain how badly I wanted to help her, how badly I wished I could be with her right now. But all I could come up with was, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay,” she said, her voice cracking. “I shouldn’t have even brought it up. It’s just a passing thing, I bet.” But the words dissipated between us. “Tell me about you. I’m tired of me.”
So I told her about my dream, about the newspaper articles in Miss LaBarge’s cottage, the letter my mother had written to her, and how my grandfather thought Miss LaBarge and my parents had only been searching for the Undead when they were killed.
Eleanor paused. “Maybe he’s right. I mean, that’s what Monitors do, isn’t it? Search for the Undead and bury them?”
“I don’t think it’s that simple,” I said. “We don’t just bury the Undead immediately, right?”
“You tell me,” Eleanor said. “You’re the Monitor now, not me.”
“It’s not like that,” I said. “I’m the same; nothing has changed.”
“Then how come you’re at St. Clément and I’m at Gottfried?”
Shocked, I stared at the receiver. “Oh, I see. So it’s my fault that I’m here and you’re there? Do you actually think that I want to be here? That I want to learn how to bury people?” I was about to hang up the phone, when Eleanor cut in.
“Wait—Renée, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. I know it’s not your fault. It just isn’t fair. I don’t belong here with everyone else. I’m not like them.”
“If it makes you feel any better, apparently all the other Monitors think I’m immortal,” I said, carrying the phone to the bed.
“They’ve been saying that here, too.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Have you told anyone else what really happened?”
I’d told Eleanor everything in a letter over the summer. She was the only one who knew that Dante and I had exchanged souls.
“No. I can’t. My grandfather suspects something, but he doesn’t actually know anything.”
“So, do you think immortality is really possible?”
“I don’t think so,” I said, staring at the beams lining the ceiling. “I mean, how could it be?”
Eleanor paused. “Yeah, you’re probably right. But, you know, the whole Undead thing—I always thought that was a myth until I came to Gottfried and it happened to me. So maybe there are other things out there that we don’t know about.”
I recognized something in Eleanor’s voice. It was the same kind of blind hope I had when I thought about Dante. Was Eleanor right? Could there be some other course for her future, and mine? “Maybe there are. Anything’s possible, right?”
The line went quiet.
“Are you still there?”
“Yeah…sort of.”
“Are you okay?”
Her voice cracked. “I don’t know.”
“I don’t know if I am, either.”
“Can we not hang up yet?” she whispered. “It gets so lonely here at night.”
“Here too,” I said, and, pulling the blanket up, I talked to her under the sheets, listening to the sound of her breathing on the other end of the line until I fell asleep.
The gymnasium was dingy and old, the floors a faded orange. I was wearing my dress-code clothes—black stockings, a pleated skirt, and a pressed oxford shirt—for the first time since Gottfried. Two boys ahead of me held the door as I entered, my shoes squeaking against the rubber floor. Sitting on two folding chairs in the middle of the gym were a man and a woman, both in suits. They directed us to the locker rooms to wait.
The long wooden benches of the locker room were already crowded with girls when I walked in. Some were chatting, others checking their hair in mirrors above the line of sinks off to the right. In the corner were a group of girls I recognized from Gottfried. I pushed through the crowd toward them, but when they saw me coming, they dispersed, avoiding my eyes. I froze, realizing they had been talking about me. Finally, Greta, an athletic girl who had lived on my floor last year, gave me a halfhearted wave. Turning away from them, I clutched my things to my chest, and was about to go to the toilets, when above the din I heard someone say, “I’m sorry, Clementine.”
I turned around, curious to see who lived in the room across from mine.
Clementine LaGuerre was petite, with dark brown skin so smooth it looked buttery. Her short hair was oiled and elegantly parted on one side like a flapper’s. A group of girls surrounded her as she pinned it in place with a single barrette. She met my gaze in the mirror, her eyes a startling green.
“Who are you?” she
said, speaking to my reflection. Her voice was soft and lyrical, a mix between a French and Caribbean accent. The girls beside her stopped talking and stared at me.
“Renée.”
“Renée Winters?”
I nodded, surprised she knew my name.
“So you’re the one who can cheat death,” she said quietly, her face impossible to read.
“And you’re Clementine. You live across the hall from me.”
“I know where I live,” she said, her voice calm but firm. Behind her, two girls in matching cardigans laughed. “So did you or did you not survive the kiss of the Undead?”
Somewhere in the room a locker door clanged shut. The girls scrutinized me, waiting for me to answer. But I was sick of being stared at by strangers, of being asked the same question over and over again. They hadn’t been there that night; they didn’t know what had happened. What gave them the right to pry into the most private moments of my past? By their looks I could tell that it didn’t matter what I said; they already believed I was immortal. So why not let them?
Clementine put a hand on her hip. “Well, is it true or is it not?”
I shrugged, trying to look nonchalant. “I’m alive, aren’t I?”
The room erupted in whispers, but Clementine said nothing, her eyes glued to my reflection.
“Prove it.”
I hesitated, my face in the mirror staring back at me, bewildered. Was she serious?
Clementine crossed her arms. “Go on.”
At the back of the room was a stairway with a sign that said it led to the swimming pool. I walked toward it. The Undead couldn’t go underground—it would put them to rest, like a burial.
I paused dramatically at the top step, and felt everyone hold their breath as I descended.
Behind me, the girls murmured, “But how? What happened?” Until they were interrupted by the locker room door swinging open.
A graceful woman entered, her cheeks hollowed out with age, her neck thin and curved like a swan’s. She was wearing a wool skirt suit, her hair coiled into a bun.
“Girls?” she said with a thick French accent. “It is time.”