Life Eternal (3 page)

It was a cozy room, with tiny white lights strung around the ceiling, a heavy quilt on the bed, and a collection of Russian nesting dolls on the dresser. I went to pick one up, when I noticed a photograph leaning on the wall behind them. It was of a teenage Annette, sitting on a braided rug, hugging her knees beside two other girls. One was a slender blonde; the other a defiant-looking girl with a face just like mine. My mother. The girls stared into the camera, their eyes wide like deer, as if the photographer had caught them doing something in secret.

My mother’s expression haunted me as I touched the edge of her lips, which were pursed in an O. The blonde beside her looked tall, like a ballerina, and familiar, incredibly familiar. Where had I seen her before? I reached for the frame to get a better look, but when I lifted it, something slid out the back onto the floor. It was a letter.

August 1, 2009


My Annette,


 

It was so comforting to hear news from Gottfried. It feels like ages since I’ve been back there, so long that I can’t believe the world you described was once my life. I’ve been spending almost all of my time traveling in France, searching for the lost girl.


Half of the places I’ve been to were dead ends, but I think I’ve finally found something that might put us in the right direction. I found it on my last trip to Europe, though I was certain someone was following me. Robert thinks I’m insane from jet lag. He can’t imagine how we’re on anyone’s radar, and I suppose he’s right. We’ve been living out west for so long that even the idea of other Monitors has become a part of our distant past….Regardless, it serves as a reminder that we have to be careful. Anyway, I probably shouldn’t write any more here. You understand.


It’s been difficult having to keep it from Renée; I hate lying to her….I don’t think she suspects anything yet, though every time I look at her I have to suppress the urge to tell her everything about who she is and what we’re doing. Once it’s safe, I’ll tell her everything.


Are you still planning to visit us later this month? The day you said you’d arrive is Renée’s sixteenth birthday, and although I can’t promise she’ll remember you from the last time you visited, I’m sure you’d be a welcome surprise. We were thinking we could pick you up and go to that quaint coffee shop we went to the last time you were here. The sandwiches are the best in northern California, and it’s very private. It’s also just outside the redwood forest, which is beautiful this time of year.


Until then,


Lydia


Lydia. The name dripped down the page in a long watery streak, and I realized I was crying.

Sitting down on the edge of Miss LaBarge’s bed, I tried to read the letter again, but couldn’t, knowing that I was looking at my mother’s handwriting. She had written these words. I could see the smudges in the margins from her palm. It was almost like she was still alive, speaking to me, except that the same phrases kept standing out. Traveling. Searching for the lost girl. California. My birthday. The redwood forest. This letter was probably the last one my mother sent before she was killed.

How come I hadn’t even realized what was going on? We lived in the same house for sixteen years. We ate all of our meals together, we used the same computer, the same telephone. How could I not have even noticed that my mom had been traveling all over the world, looking for something? How could I not have known?

“Renée?” my grandfather called out.

“I—I found something.”

Bounding in from the other room, my grandfather took the letter from me, muttering to himself as he read.

“What is it?” I asked, staring at the letter as if it were a strange relic.

The creases on my grandfather’s face tightened. “I don’t know yet.”

I began pacing. I thought my parents had been killed by an Undead they were hunting; that they’d died in the line of duty. But was it true? It seemed like a strange coincidence that my parents had been killed by an Undead right after my mother sent this letter. Right after they discovered something seemingly important. “Their deaths weren’t just Monitor casualties, were they?” I said, the words coming out wobbly. “My mom was looking for a lost girl. She thought someone had been following her.”

My grandfather held up a hand to silence me while he thought. Sticking out from beneath Miss LaBarge’s bed was a rusty handle. I pushed it out with my foot, only to discover that it was the handle of a shovel.

“I wouldn’t read too much into this, Renée,” my grandfather said. “Your parents were traveling a lot for Monitor-related activities. Seeking out the Undead, Monitoring them. This is mostly likely referring to a similar episode that they were consulting with Annette LaBarge about.”

“But she said she was looking for a
lost
girl, not an Undead girl—”

My grandfather cut me off. “Monitors often use vague words to communicate to each other, in case their correspondence is intercepted. Just like Annette protected her belongings underground. It’s a precaution.”

“But they were killed immediately after. And now Miss LaBarge is dead. What if she was out at Lake Erie looking for the same thing—”

“That your mother was searching for? No.” He shook his head. “Lydia was killed by an Undead while performing her duty. She died honorably.”

“I didn’t mean that—”

“My daughter wasn’t murdered,” he said, as if it were painful to even say the word
daughter.

“But Miss LaBarge hid the letter behind a photograph—”

My grandfather spoke over me. “Your parents were Monitors. Everything about their jobs was a secret, so it doesn’t strike me as strange for your mother to have written a secretive letter.”

He must have seen me shrink away from him, because he immediately composed himself. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“Can I keep it?” I asked. “The letter. I just want to have something she wrote.”

My grandfather hesitated, and then folded the note. “Of course.”

“Thanks,” I said softly. As I watched my grandfather collect the clippings from Miss LaBarge’s office, I wondered if my parents had ever gotten the chance to tell her what they had discovered, and if so, what it was. But even if they had managed to talk, I feared that the secret of my parents’ discovery had died along with my favorite teacher.

We arrived at the mansion late that evening after a long silent car ride, and went straight from the car to the end of the dining room table, where the cooks had already laid out an arrangement of sausages, butter rolls, and vegetable pie. I used to love this meal, but today it looked like it was made of plastic.

My grandfather sighed as he stuffed a napkin into the collar of his shirt. He was still thinking about my mother and Miss LaBarge, I could tell. For a moment he looked like nothing more than an old man—sad, exhausted, and brittle. Seeing him like that, I realized that I had to tell him what I knew.

“I had a dream,” I said as I picked at a bit of dry bread.

“A dream?”

“That I was chasing Miss LaBarge as she rowed a boat across a lake.”

My grandfather stopped chewing. “I beg your pardon?”

“I dreamed it the night before my birthday. The night she was killed.”

He put down his fork and knife. “You’re telling me that you dreamed Annette LaBarge’s death?”

I pushed my hair behind my ear. “Well, not exactly. Just the moments before. But I was chasing her, as if I wanted to kill her.” I didn’t even realize what I was saying, but once the words left my mouth, I knew they were true. Why else would I have been chasing Miss LaBarge like that?

Pushing his plate aside, he leaned on the table. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“What do you mean?” I asked. “I just told you about my dream—”

“But nothing else!” he said. “I spoke with Dr. Porter. He told me you weren’t very helpful when he met with you.”

I pushed the vegetables around on my plate, suddenly defensive. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“The doctor said that you wouldn’t even answer his questions.”

“That’s because he kept asking about my parents and my friends; about what we talk about on the phone. He even asked about my romantic life,” I said, trying to control my voice as I stabbed a sausage. “He’s a doctor. I don’t see how that’s any of his business.” After chewing, I put my fork down. “Can you pass the salt?”

When my grandfather didn’t move, Dustin came from the corner of the room and handed me the shaker. My grandfather eyed me as I sprinkled salt on my vegetable pie and took a bite. Still bland. I reached for the salt again, when my grandfather intercepted me.

“That is quite enough,” he said, taking the shaker from me. “The food is already well seasoned. And you will answer all of the questions the doctors ask you. I hired them for a reason.”

I stared down at my plate.

“It doesn’t make sense,” my grandfather said, wiping his lips with his napkin. “You were dead,” he said. “For nine days, you were dead. They found you on the green and took you to the nurses’ wing, under my request, to wait for you to reanimate. I saw you with my own eyes.” He paused to take a sip of water. “But on the day that you were supposed to reanimate, you disappeared. And when we found you, you were on the green again, not Undead, but alive. Completely alive.” He studied me. “How did you survive?”

Outside, a maintenance worker was polishing the windows, the evening light blinking behind the motion of his rag. I could have filled in the gaps to my grandfather’s story. I could have told him that Dante and I had the same soul. That I gave Dante my life that night, and ten days later he gave it back to me in a field of flowers. But then what? My grandfather would never understand. “I’ve told you everything I can already. I don’t understand it any better than you do. What else do you want me to say?”

My grandfather shook his head. “There’s speculation among the professors that you have some sort of immunity to the Undead. That you’re a new kind of Monitor.”

“What do you mean?” I said, swallowing.

“They think you’re immortal.” He paused. “But it doesn’t make sense. No one cheats death like that.”

Breaking his gaze, I picked at the food on my plate. “Well, I’m alive now. Can’t we all just forget about it?”

“Forget about it?” he said, almost offended. “You’re curious about Annette LaBarge’s death, about your parents’ deaths, but not about your own? This is your
life,
Renée. Don’t you want to know how you survived?”

“Of course I do,” I muttered.

“You’re not yourself. You don’t even look like yourself. And you’re keeping something from me.”

I glanced down the hall to where I could see the cooks shuffling in and out of the kitchen, pots clanking as someone did the dishes. Although I could remember the way the halls of the mansion used to fill up with the smell of simmering food around mealtimes, now I could barely smell it unless I lowered my face to my dish. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said. “Everything is fine.” But the words fell flat.

I was definitely alive, not Undead, at least according to the doctors. Their tests had returned normal results: the glare of a flashlight shining into my eyes, my ears. A wooden stick pressed against my tongue. The cold shock of a stethoscope as it touched my back. What the doctors couldn’t seem to measure or explain was how I woke up most mornings: groggy, disoriented, my eyes dry and heavy with sleep, as if I had just come out of a long afternoon nap and didn’t know how much time had passed while I was sleeping. To be honest, since last spring, I wasn’t sure that I had ever completely awoken.

“You haven’t been seeing that boy, have you?”

I choked on my water. “What boy?”

“You know which boy I’m referring to.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Dante Berlin,” my grandfather said with force. “Have you or have you not been seeing him?”

My throat tightened at Dante’s name. It had been so long since I’d heard anyone other than myself say those words; it almost felt as though Dante had become a figment of my imagination. “No,” I said, wishing I was lying. “I haven’t.”

My grandfather’s face hardened. “Good. If he comes near you, I’ll bury him.”

I shrank back in my seat.
No!
I wanted to scream, but I knew that I couldn’t. I couldn’t do anything at all.

My grandfather motioned to Dustin to take his plate away, and pushed out his chair. Just before he left the room, he stopped. “We’re giving Annette a Monitor’s funeral on Friday. I expect you to come. Death is your profession now. It’s time you accepted that.”

Every day was windy on the coast of Maine. I could tell by the craggy cliffs and small knotted trees that were swirled and twisted out of shape. When we arrived at Friendship Harbor on Friday, after a five-hour drive, a crowd of people was already gathered by the shore. They all wore black. Docked behind them was a large wooden boat painted with the name
Le Prochain Voyage.

Brandon Bell, Eleanor’s older brother, was standing by the side of the boat, handing out garden trowels to the guests as he directed them on board. Beside him was his mother, an elegant blonde. I recognized her immediately, not only because I had met her at Gottfried last winter, when Eleanor had disappeared, but because I had just seen her. She was an older replica of the third girl in the photograph in Miss LaBarge’s cottage. Cindy Bell. Seeing her now —her sleek black suit and impeccable makeup—I could barely imagine the two women being friends. But if Cindy was here, it meant Eleanor had to be back from Europe.

Brandon’s eyes lingered on me for a moment before he bent down to pick up a trowel.

“Thank you for coming,” he said, handing it to me and averting his eyes. “The ceremony will take place just outside of Wreck Island.”

I had expected a warmer welcome, considering I was one of his sister’s best friends.

“Where’s Eleanor?” I asked, looking over his shoulder to see if I could spot her blond ringlets. I wanted to tell her about my dream, Miss LaBarge’s cottage, and the letter my mom had written to her.