Life Eternal by Yvonne Woon Page A

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