Life Eternal (32 page)

Dusk fell over the trees as Noah and I ran toward the lake. It was completely frozen over, my feet slipping beneath me as I slid across its bumpy surface. I stared down at the striations in the ice, which looked like thick blue ribbon candy, but I couldn’t see to the water below. I didn’t know what I was looking for; I could only hope that I would feel it.

I had almost made it to the statue of the bear on the other side of the lake when I heard a soft crack. I wasn’t even sure I’d heard it; it could have been a tree creaking or a window closing in the distance. So I pressed on, my breath coming out in quick, shallow clouds, until something beneath me quivered. And before I could move, before I could even take one last breath, the ice broke.

Just before I could fall in, Noah grabbed my waist and pulled me to the shore, where I landed beside him on the crest where the snow met the ice. Lying back in the snow, I stared at the gray sky and was about to say thank you, when I felt it. A tug so slight it could have been nothing; except it wasn’t. I had felt it once before, during my placement exam.

Digging his heels into the snow, Noah stood up, but I didn’t move. Instead, I closed my eyes and let the thread of air wrap itself around me, leading me down, down into the depths of the lake.

Suddenly I knew what to do. I threw down my bag. Sitting up, I unbuttoned my coat and pulled it off.

“What are you doing?” Noah said as I approached the hole in the ice.

“It’s down there. I can feel it,” I said, taking off my scarf. “About ten feet below, a little to the left.”

“You can’t go in there,” Noah said. “It’s too cold. You could die.”

“How else are we going to get it?” Turning from him, I stepped off the shore and onto the ice. The hole was a few feet away. “Besides,” I said, trying to control the shiver in my voice, “it’s in the shallows. It won’t be that bad,” I said, my words turning to fog in the winter air.

“Renée, let me go first,” Noah said from behind me. And before I could stop him, he threw off his coat and blazer and strode past me onto the ice.

“Wait!” I said, trying to stop him, but he had already reached the edge of the hole. And glancing at me over his shoulder, he jumped in. He broke the water with a gasp, and, his arms thrashing once against the ice, he sank into the water below.

“Noah?” I said, searching for any sign of him. “Noah?” I shouted again, and leaned over the hole and reached my hand in. The sharp pain of the cold shot through my fingers, making them numb. I gasped and pulled it back.

It had been almost a full minute. I was about to dive in after Noah when he burst through the dark surface of the water. He grasped at the edge of the ice, but it crumbled under his hands. Relieved that I hadn’t followed him underwater, I grabbed his arms and pulled.

“Help me!” I said, but his body had already grown stiff. His shirt was hardening around him. “Please, Noah. Help me.”

From somewhere beneath his clothes, I felt the muscles stir within him. I heard his legs kick in the water, pushing against the ice. Using all my strength, I heaved, dragging him out of the lake and onto the snow.

I rolled him over, rubbing his face to warm it, when I noticed that he was clutching a small iron box to his chest, its sides held shut with clasps, its lid engraved with the worn crest of a canary.

“You found it,” I said, wrapping his blazer and coat around him. His hair was hard with ice. “You actually found it.”

Noah gave me a weak smile, which deteriorated into a shudder. His face was losing its color, and his lips were turning blue. Without thinking, I leaned over and kissed him.

When I pulled away, he gave me a sad grin. “I like this.”

I laughed and rolled my eyes. “Okay,” I said, taking his hand. “Do you think you can walk?”

He gave me what I thought was a nod and put his arm around my neck.

“Where are we going?” he said, as I crouched low. Once I was sure the path was empty, I led him across the green.

“Inside, so you can warm up.”

The closest building was Horace Hall, which would be empty now that classes were over for the day. Taking a chance, I walked toward it, Noah leaning on my side. We were almost at the entrance when I froze. The doors of the building opened and my grandfather stormed out, tapping his shovel beside him like a cane. His white hair was thin and matted to the sides of his head in the misty air. Thinking quickly, I pulled Noah to the ground behind a pile of snow. We waited, and when the doors to Horace Hall swung closed behind my grandfather, I helped Noah up and walked him inside.

The foyer was dark, the windows shaded by thick blue curtains. Beneath them, the radiators crackled with heat, the red carpet plush beneath my shoes as I set Noah down, holding his hand against the small of my back to make it thaw. Noah closed his eyes as his muscles relaxed. From the upstairs balcony, a pendulum clock chimed seven. Its low, lethargic sound reminded me of my grandfather’s house in Massachusetts.

With a groan, Noah hoisted himself up.

“No,” I said. “Rest.”

But he shook his head and held up the box from the lake floor. “Open it.”

I hesitated.

“Go on,” he said, thrusting it into my hands. It was surprisingly heavy, its dark metal carved with ornate shapes that covered its sides. Engraved on the top was the crest of a canary. I traced the wings of the bird, which were still lined with mud. Jiggling the clasps loose of the dirt and rust, I slid them down and opened it.

The inside of the chest was perfectly dry. Pinned to the inside of the lid was a preserved canary, its pale yellow wings spread open as if it were in flight. Only then did I realize what the riddle had been referring to.
The best of our kind.
Only the best Monitor could sense a canary, especially one submerged in water.

Beneath the canary was a smaller metal case, etched with a strange shape that almost looked like the outline of the canary with its wings spread. Drawn across it were dozens of lines and dots and triangles, swirling together to form a landscape. Carved in the center was the following phrase:
Pour l’amour vrai.

“For true love,” I whispered, finally understanding why Ophelia had decided to defy the pact her Sisters had made to let the secret die with them. She had been in love, just like me. Like Dante, she wasn’t ready to die. Picking up the small box, I tried to lift its lid, but couldn’t.

“It’s stuck,” I said, turning it upside down, looking for a seam. But before I could do anything more, the front doors of the building blew open, banging against the walls as the room grew cold.

“What was that?” Noah said, but I already knew. I could feel it.

Putting the small case back into the chest, I closed the clasps and tucked it into my bag. “Stay here,” I said, and ran outside to the stoop.

The campus was vacant as night closed around it like a curtain. In the distance, I thought I heard the sound of snow crunching beneath feet, but then it stopped. Sliding my hand down the railing, I waited, listening. My eyes darted to the left at a flash of movement. And then to the right. The wind swirled past me as something on the horizon seemed to flutter. And then the air pressure changed, compressing in on me.

I felt them before I saw them, their name whistling through the branches: the Undead. I heard a pitter-patter in the snow; soft, like the wings of a moth beating against a porch wall.

I backed up the stairs and into Horace Hall, where I took Noah by the arm. “They’re here,” I said. “They’re coming for us.”

But as we stepped out the door, I realized I was too late. They were already running toward us, their small bodies zigzagging randomly across the green, stumbling and then picking themselves up as they followed each other, building momentum like the beginning of an avalanche tumbling down a mountain. The professors must have felt it too, because slowly they came out of the buildings, some in suits, some in pajamas, their expressions distorted in confusion as they watched the Undead descend on the campus.

I reached for Noah’s hand to pull him to the basement, but he was already outside, running toward the Liberum, wielding his shovel over his head. “Noah, wait!” I screamed, even though I knew he couldn’t hear me. “The tunnels!”

The Undead boys closed in on him, their tiny white hands grasping at his face. Picking up my bag and shovel, I ran after him. By the time I caught up, Noah had led them onto the lake, fighting them off with his shovel as he slipped across the ice. When I called his name, he hurled a child off his back and turned to me.

That was the moment.

He blinked, his gaze meeting mine, and the shovel slipped from his hands, its tip stabbing the ice by his feet. A jagged gash splintered through it, and just as his lips parted to call out to me, he fell.

The lake swallowed him, the water sloshing as he grabbed at the edge of the ice. But it only crumbled beneath his fingers, making him sink deeper.

I gasped as the Undead boys followed the sound of the water as it sucked him below, their bare feet sliding across the ice as they surrounded the hole. I was about to dash toward them when a palm pressed itself against the underside of the ice, only a few feet from the hole. I jumped back when I realized it belonged to Noah. Crawling toward it, I began to bang on the ice, trying to break it, but even under my sharp shovel, it wouldn’t split.

“Noah?” I screamed, pounding at the ice. “Noah?”

My breath grew ragged as I kept trying, using my heel to kick the blade, but to no avail. There was nothing I could do except stand and watch as Noah’s hand slipped away from the ice and grew distant as he sank into the depths.

I didn’t even fight when they came for me. I heard the hush of children’s voices in the night. Two tiny hands closed over my eyes. Two more covered my ears, and another my mouth. Still more over my arms and legs, until I collapsed into the snow. It was all I could to do to rip the bandage from my back and touch the mark between my shoulders. “Dante,” I whispered, pain reverberating through my spine. “I’m sorry.” His voice spoke back to me.
I’ll come for you.

The moon was a white hook in the sky as they dragged me into the Dead Forest. The decaying stumps poking out of the snow like toothpicks. I could feel the weight of the dead beneath us, the air vacant, totally absent of life.

A tall, thin figure walked toward me through the snow, his face a sliver of pale beneath his hood. A Brother. Crouching down, he picked me up by the arm and lowered his face to mine, ready to take my soul, my secrets. I closed my eyes. I could smell the bitterness of his breath. I pressed my lips together and thought of Dante, imagining it was him.

That’s when something strange happened. I didn’t feel scared or angry or even weak. I could barely feel anything except cold. I shuddered as I felt a prickling chill hurtling toward me.

Dante, his skin as white as the dead trees around us.

He dove between the Brother and me, his lips brushing past mine as he shoved the Undead onto the forest floor, knocking him out with a swift kick to the head. Dante whisked me off the ground and took me into his arms. Our bodies fit together, my limbs tangled with his until I couldn’t tell which were mine and which were Dante’s, and I began to melt, the warmth seeping through my palms and traveling higher, higher, through my hands, my arms, my throat, my lips, until I was crying. The chest from the lake bounced up and down in my bag as he ran. My fingers tightened around his shoulders, and I closed my eyes, smelling the sweetness of pine in the air; hearing the symphony of the trees creaking in the wind, the crows crying from branches, the snow crunching beneath Dante’s feet, his heart beating an irregular staccato as we vanished into the woods, until there was nothing left of us but a swirling, snowy gust.

Ted Malawer, for making the impossible always seem possible. Abby Ranger, for asking all the right questions, and for forcing me to be a better writer. Laura Schreiber and the team at Hyperion, for taking such good care of me. And Ari Lewin, for teaching me how to write a book.

Nathaniel, Lauren, Bec, and Katherine, for making the friendships in this book come to life. Brandon, for keeping me updated on everything zombie. Paul, for giving me a Montreal education, and for designing my whimsical Web site. My family, for feeding me when I was on deadline, and for being my most enthusiastic fans. And Akiva, for coloring every page.

Thank you.