Life Eternal

by Yvonne Woon

  After months of feeling numb, of tossing in my sleep and waking up to another day without smells or tastes, without music or laughter or warmth, it seemed impossible that Dante was now here, stepping toward me. And without knowing why or where it was coming from, I started to cry.

  Closing my eyes, I let myself collapse into him, feeling his cool skin against mine, my chest rising and falling with his, breathless, as if my soul were flitting in and out of me. “You’re here,” I said, listening to the irregular sound of his heartbeat. “You’re still here.”

  Quiet, still, we stood like that—one person instead of two. I pulled back and studied his face, touching his nose, his cheeks, his eyelashes—each a vague reminder of someone I had loved in another life. How much time had passed between us?

  “You look different,” I said, my voice cracking as I stared at his eyes, which almost looked cloudy.

  “So do you,” he said, wiping my cheek.

  Now that I was with him, it was as if a film had been rubbed off. I could smell the garden air, sticky and sweet. I could feel the warmth of the sun on my shoulders. And when I raised my lips to his, I almost felt complete again. He put a finger to my mouth just before we touched.

  “How did you know I was here?”

  “What?” I asked, confused. “I thought you were—” and that’s when I realized he hadn’t been waiting for me. I took a step back, hurt. “So you aren’t here to see me?”

  “Of course I am. Why else would I come to Montreal, where there are hundreds of Monitors searching for me? I just didn’t know how to get to you. If I got any closer to St. Clément, I worried someone would sense me. So I came here, looking for a place for us to meet. I thought a cemetery would help muffle my presence.” His eyes wandered across the headstones. “That way if someone sensed me, they would assume it was just the graveyard.”

  “I felt you,” I said softly. “But I don’t think the other girls could. Or the doctor.”

  Dante’s face hardened, a wrinkle forming over his eyes. “Doctor? What do you mean?”

  I told him everything: About my summer with my grandfather and the doctors; about the way everything seemed dull and meaningless without him; about how I had changed. I told him about my dream of Miss LaBarge and how it came true, and then about the placement test, and history class, and how I’d made a rubbing of something beneath the hospital bed.

  When I finished, Dante ran his hand down my face, his eyes worried as he searched me. “Are you okay? Is everything okay now?”

  In the distance, a wind chime clinked together, its sound cascading in tiny notes like water droplets falling onto a roof. I nodded and touched his fingers. “Are you? Where have you been? I was so worried.”

  Instead of answering, Dante pressed on. “What did the doctor say?”

  “He gave me some sort of medication that will stop the dreams, but I don’t know if I want it. This will probably sound crazy, but I think the dreams might be useful.”

  Dante gripped my hand. “You’re not thinking of—”

  “Going to the hospital to see what’s under the bed,” I whispered, finishing his sentence. “The dream I had before Miss LaBarge died was true. What if this one is too?”

  “No,” Dante said, his voice abrupt. “You can’t.”

  I shook my head. “Why?”

  “Because it isn’t safe. You don’t know where these dreams are coming from or why you’re seeing them. You just said that you dreamt of Miss LaBarge directly before she died. What would have happened if you had woken up in time to have gone there?”

  “I could have saved her.”

  “Or you could have died too,” he said, louder than he intended. Lowering his voice, he pleaded, “I almost lost you last year. I can’t risk that again. Please, promise me you won’t go to the hospital.”

  I hesitated. Before I could respond, something rustled near the back of the cathedral. We both froze, listening to the metal gate of the cemetery creak open and clatter shut.

  Before I knew what was happening, Dante led me behind a large headstone beneath the willow tree and pulled me on top of him as we both fell into the grass.

  I buried my face in his neck as we waited, listening to the sound of footsteps. “Who is it?” I whispered into Dante’s ear as he peered around the side of the stone. He smelled of cedar and dried leaves, of a cold winter night in the woods. Grasping the collar of his shirt, I held him closer. When he turned to me, our lips were inches apart. “The grounds-keeper,” he said, his cool breath mingling with mine.

  Dante ran his hand along my back, his hands climbing up the crests of my shoulder blades as the footsteps grew distant. When his fingers grazed the space between my shoulders, a sharp pain shot through my body. Unable to stop myself, I gasped.

  “What was that?” Dante said, stopping abruptly. His hand fell to his side.

  Just as quickly as the pain had started, it ended. Dante’s face was furrowed into a frown. Had he felt it too? “I don’t know,” I said, trying to compose myself.

  Giving me a skeptical look, he slowly placed his palm between my shoulders again. I couldn’t help but wince as the same prickling pain shot through my neck. Gently, he took off my cardigan and pulled down the back of my shirt.

  “You have a mark here,” he said, tracing the lines of my vertebrae. “How long have you had this?”

  “I didn’t know I had one,” I said, his gaze making me uncomfortable. Squirming away from him, I sat up. “It’s probably nothing.”

  “It’s not nothing. I have the same ones. Look,” he said, and led my hand to the small of his back.

  I ran my fingers across his spine until I felt them. Tiny indentations, barely visible, leading all the way up his back. They were as shallow as crease marks left from sleeping too long in the sheets; so subtle that I wasn’t surprised I had never noticed them before. Unable to help myself, I pulled my hand away. “What are they?”

  Dante touched a freckle on my arm. “I like to think of them as age spots.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I’ve been getting one every year, on the exact same day. The anniversary of my death.”

  “The marks count how long you’ve been dead?”

  Dante averted his eyes, as if apologizing for what he was.

  Grasping the bottom of his shirt, I pulled it off of him, watching his shoulder muscles roll under his skin as he let his arms drop. I reached around him and eased my fingers up his back, counting each mark like a knot in a lifeline. They stopped in the middle of his shoulder blades, one vertebra short of where my mark was.

  “There are only sixteen—” I said, and then stopped. I had just turned seventeen, which meant that Dante was missing one spot.

  As if reading my mind, he said, “I didn’t get one this year.”

  “What happens when you run out of space?” I asked, placing my hand on his neck, just above the last mark. My fingers fit perfectly.

  Dante gazed out at the gravestones peeking out through the grass.

  Stunned, I pulled away and stared at the space left on Dante’s back, counting how many marks could fit. Suddenly I felt weak. Five years. That’s how much time he had left.

  How do you measure someone’s life? By the scope of their accomplishments, or the number of people they’ve touched, or by the width of a hand? None of it seemed fair. None of it seemed like enough.

  “But it doesn’t make sense,” I said. “Why didn’t they just disappear? You became human when you took my soul. And then you gave it back to me, becoming Undead. Doesn’t that mean that you should start fresh again, and have another twenty-one years?”

  Dante shook his head. “All I know is that I was never fully alive even after you gave me your soul. And you—”

  “I’m not, either,” I said, my voice cracking. “But I don’t understand. Why?”

  “We were underground when you gave me your soul; we were both already buried, which made the transfer incomplete.”

  “Wh
ich means what?” I asked, but he didn’t reply. “Tell me what you’re thinking,” I pleaded. “Just because we have the same soul doesn’t mean I know what’s going on in your head. I’m not inside you. You have to tell me.”

  Dante let out a sad laugh. “That’s just it, though. I think you are.”

  “What?”

  He closed his fingers around my hand, holding my fist in his. It fit perfectly. “I think a part of your soul is in me now.”

  I shrank back and raised my hand to my face, my fingers grazing my cheek as if I were touching a stranger. I had spent the entire summer trying not to think about my symptoms, as the doctors called them. The small changes I had been noticing in myself. The fact that I barely had an appetite and couldn’t sleep like I used to. That I couldn’t smell cooked food until it was right in front of me. That I felt severed in some way, as if a piece of me were missing. Could he be right? Is that why my senses were dulled; why nothing had meaning or beauty until I was around Dante?

  “But we still saved each other,” I said in awe. “I have one of your marks now, which means that you have one extra year to live. Can’t we just keep exchanging souls?”

  Dante suddenly looked angry. “And you have one less. Are you suggesting that we kill each other every year?”

  I swallowed. When he put it that way, it did sound a little extreme.

  “Can you even fathom what that could do to us? What kind of existence that would be? Even after dying once, you’ve changed more than you know. I can see it your face, the way you stand, the way you speak.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I said, sitting upright. “Do you think I look old?”

  He shook his head. “No,” he said, his voice softer. “You’re surreal.” He ran his hand down the pale side of my wrist, feeling my pulse. “I took your life. And now a piece of your soul is gone. It’s in me now. You’re a little more Undead, and I’m a little more alive.”

  The sun set behind the cathedral, mottling the light around us as though the sky were a stained-glass window. Pulling my knees to my chest, I looked up at him, watching the shadows move across his face as he leaned on the gravestone. “Why is that so bad if it keeps you alive?” I asked quietly.

  “Because if we keep exchanging souls, it will only get worse. You’ll become more Undead. You’ll become wasted and miserable like the rest of us, and then we’ll both die.”

  “But you’ll live longer. We’ll have more time together,” I pleaded, unable to understand why he didn’t agree with me.

  “At what cost? Neither of us will be fully human. No one has ever done this before. Anything could happen. We could both die the next time we kiss.”

  “But what else can we do?” Angry tears blurred my vision, and I turned away from him. “You can’t die. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

  “We’ll be okay,” Dante said, running his hand down my leg. My skin trembled beneath his touch. “We’ll keep looking. We’ll find a solution.”

  When I didn’t say anything, he took my hand and held it to his chest. “Listen to me,” he said. “I won’t lose you. I’ll find a way.”

  I nodded, wanting to believe him. Curling up beside him on the grass, I listened to the birds flit through the trees toward the cathedral beyond, its rose windows flickering with candlelight. Voices carried through the cemetery, singing a hymn, and it was the first time in months that I’d heard music and harmony instead of just noise. Dante moved toward me, entwining his limbs with mine as if piecing our broken soul back together. I closed my eyes. As night fell, I pressed my ear against his chest and listened to the irregular rhythm of his heart beating in tandem with mine, the muscles within me stirring with warmth, as if finally awake after a deep slumber.

  When the church bells chimed eleven, Dante sat up. “I have to go.”

  I brushed my hair away from my face. “Why?”

  “The Monitors do a sweep of the city every night at midnight. I have to be far away from here when they do.” Taking my hand in his, he led me to the gates of the cemetery.

  “When will I see you again?” I said as he slipped through to the other side.

  He narrowed his eyes as he glanced at the cathedral door behind me, making sure no one could hear us. “It isn’t safe for me to stay here, but I’ll come back as soon as I can. Two weeks? Maybe sooner. Will you be able to sense me?”

  I grasped the iron bars and nodded. “What will you do in the meantime?”

  “Try to find a way for us to be together,” he said, wrapping his hands around mine.

  “Me too,” I whispered. Letting my hand slip from his, Dante disappeared into the night.

  The walk back to St. Clément seemed much longer than the walk from the school had been. The streets were wide and empty at night, with an occasional smoker loitering outside a bar. I retraced my steps until I made it to the intersection by the campus. It was a quarter till midnight. I was about to cross the street to the alley that led to St. Clément when a pair of people stole down the sidewalk, weaving around the streetlamps so they wouldn’t be seen. I crouched in the shadows beneath an elm tree and watched as they turned left. They were wearing long dark coats that shielded their faces. A few moments later, another pair emerged, followed by another. The Monitor sweep.

  I waited while each pair broke off in a different direction. When they had all disappeared, I stepped out to the curb just as a gray Peugeot pulled up to the traffic light. The driver was a woman with a plain face and dull brown hair, her neck wrapped in a thick knitted scarf.

  “Miss LaBarge?” I uttered, watching her face glow red, then green as the light changed. She fiddled with a knob on her dashboard and then looked straight ahead, neglecting to see me.

  “Wait!” I yelled, but it was too late. Running into the middle of the street, I watched as her car disappeared around a corner. I caught a glimpse of her license plate, which was from Quebec, but I didn’t see it well enough to commit it to memory. I must have been imagining things, I thought. Miss LaBarge was dead; I saw her coffin drop into the Atlantic Ocean. What was happening to me? I rubbed my eyes, and pulling my gaze away from the spot where the car had been, I ran the rest of the way back to my dormitory.

  After I reached my floor, I made the same wrong turn on the way to my room. Spying the broom closet again, I cursed under my breath and was about to turn back when I heard shrieks coming from Anya Pinsky’s room. I crept toward it.

  The door was cracked open, and inside, Anya was sitting on the floor with her back to me, half sobbing, half screaming into the phone in rapid, high-pitched Russian. Pausing, she took a few deep hysterical breaths, said one last word into the receiver, and then slammed it into its base.

  All was still as she caught her breath, hiccupping a few times. Then, without warning, she picked up the phone and threw it across the room. I gasped as it hit the wall.

  She whipped around, her face swollen and red. Mascara was smeared across her cheeks. “You,” she barked, wiping her face with her sleeve.

  The dial tone beeped in the background.

  “Come here.”

  She looked so crazed, it took me a moment to realize that she was addressing me. Without responding, I turned and started to walk back to my room.

  “Why are you always here, lurking at my door?” she said, sticking her head into the hall. “Do you think I want to talk to you?”

  I kept walking.

  “You think you’re interesting or something because you didn’t die?”

  I took a breath, trying to convince myself it wasn’t worth it to turn around.

  “Because you had a fit in the middle of class? What’s your problem, anyway? Are you some kind of freak?”

  I looked down at my hands, and realized they were clenched.

  “Why aren’t you answering me? Did your parents never teach you English?”

  At that I spun around. “I never said I was interesting,” I yelled, louder than I meant to. “And of course I can hear you. Ever
yone can hear you.” It felt surprisingly good to shout at someone. Maybe this was what I had needed to do all along. “I don’t lurk in front of your room. I get lost. And I really don’t think you’re in a position to be calling anyone a freak.”

  She glared at me. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  I took in her bad dye job, her asymmetrical clothes, and her acrylic fingernails. “You look ridiculous.”

  “So do you!” she said, waving her hands wildly. “And you’re possessed!”

  Catching our breaths, we stood there in silence, unsure of what to do next. Behind me, I could hear a group of girls gathering in the hall.

  “A witch arguing with a liar,” Clementine said, as she put a hand on her hip. She was wearing slippers, her short hair held back with a series of bobby pins. The girls behind her started to whisper.

  Before I could formulate a response, Anya’s voice cut through the hallway. “July thirtieth. Have you forgotten?” she said, her eyes dark and steady. “Because I haven’t.”

  Confused, I glanced at Anya and then at Clementine, who was glaring back at her. Her friends seemed just as baffled as I was.

  Clementine let out a nervous laugh. “Is that a threat?”

  “Yes,” Anya said plainly.

  “What’s she talking about?” Josie, one of Clementine’s friends, asked, her lips thin and pursed in a pout. I recognized her from class.

  Clementine began to look uncomfortable. Prying her eyes away from Anya, she turned to her friends. “I have no idea,” she said, though I could tell it wasn’t true. “Come on, let’s go.”

  After everyone had left, I turned to Anya. “What was that? July thirtieth?”

  “Oh, nothing,” she said, her face bearing the hint of a smile. “Just a little secret of Clementine’s that I happened to stumble across this summer.”

  “You’re blackmailing her?”

  “No,” Anya said, a tiny wrinkle forming on her forehead. “I’m not asking for anything in return. Only that she leave me alone.”