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.
Brandon looked puzzled. “She’s not here,” he said, as if it were obvious.
“What? Why?”
“Only Monitors can attend a Monitor burial.”
“Oh. Right,” I mumbled. Eleanor wasn’t a Monitor anymore; she was the enemy. “How is she—” I started to ask, but Brandon didn’t let me finish.
“If you could move along, that would be helpful,” he said, and handed the couple behind me two shovels.
“Yeah, okay,” I said slowly, stung by how quickly he had brushed me off.
The deck was crowded with Gottfried professors and a handful of older people that I didn’t recognize. Genevieve Tart and a few other girls from Gottfried were standing by the wine table in sleek dresses, chatting. When they saw me, they stopped and huddled together, whispering. Waiters dressed in black suits wove through the crowd carrying platters of hors d’oeuvres amid the low hum of talk. “Monitoring without a partner.” “Careless mistakes.” “The Undead.” “She didn’t even have a shovel on her.”
No shovel? In my dream I had taken the shovel from her and dropped it into the lake. Could it have been real? I continued listening, but it was more of the same. It was odd hearing the word “Undead” spoken in public, but everyone here was a Monitor, so there wasn’t any reason for secrecy. The only person not engrossed in conversation was Eleanor’s mother, who was sitting alone by the mast, nursing a drink and looking out to the horizon. A waiter offered her a canapé, but she waved him away.
Beyond them, the waves crashed onto the rocky shore, where a woman was standing. She had plain brown hair and was wearing a dress that twisted around her in the wind like the trunks of the trees. Ducking beneath the lines that held the sails, I made for the side of the boat to get a better look, but people crowded past me, blocking my view. When I looked at the shore again, the woman was gone.
“Miss LaBarge?” I whispered, staring at the spot where I thought I had seen her. The salty air blew through my hair, and I blinked. It couldn’t be, I thought, letting my eyes wander to the open casket on the other side of the boat. I was so disturbed by her death, and by the letter my mother had written to her, that I was seeing things.
“Renée,” a boy said from behind me, and I turned. Brett Steyers, a friend from Gottfried and Eleanor’s former boyfriend, stood there in a navy suit, his sandy hair blowing in the sea breeze. “Where have you been hiding all summer?”
I gathered my own hair as it tangled in the wind. “At my grandfather’s,” I said, forcing a smile.
“I bet,” he said.
I furrowed my brow. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing,” he said, tracing the lines in the wooden deck with his shoe. “So when did you find out about all of this?” His gaze drifted across the other Monitors, and I realized that he and I had never before spoken of the Undead.
“Last winter,” I said softly. “You?”
“Last spring,” he said.
“Are you still in touch with Eleanor?” I asked.
Brett shoved his hands into his pockets, shaking his head ever so slightly. “What about you and…” He let his voice trail off. Everyone knew that the Gottfried professors were searching for Dante.
Looking away, I watched a gull land on the deck and peck at a discarded hors d’oeuvre. “No,” I said.
“People are saying he and his friend Gideon killed the headmistress last spring,” Brett said.
I shuddered, remembering that night. Dante had been protecting me, while Gideon, another Undead, had taken the headmistress’s soul, her legs quivering before they finally went still. Gideon died after that; Dante pulled him underground, which should have killed them both. But I gave Dante my soul to save his life. I died for him, and then ten days later he gave my soul back to me. He wasn’t a murderer. I wanted to scream it into the wind until everyone knew the truth, until it sank into their bones. But how could I possibly explain everything, let alone prove that he wasn’t dangerous?
“And they say that Dante’s on the run. That he left for Canada.” He searched my face for an answer.
“Dante would never kill anyone,” I said defensively. “As for Canada, I wouldn’t know.”
A few paces behind him were April and Allison, the twins from my horticulture class, along with a few other kids I recognized. I waved at them, but instead of returning the gesture, they turned away. I frowned.
Brett followed my gaze. “Don’t worry about them,” he said, and took a crab canapé from one of the waiters.
The boat slowed, and the captain lowered an anchor into the water. The chain unraveled for what seemed like minutes, until it finally grew taught. My grandfather’s voice boomed from the back of the boat. “Would everyone please convene at the bow?” he said.
The crowd formed a tight circle around Miss LaBarge’s casket. Brett and I stood near the back.
“So, is it true?” Brett asked, his voice low.
“Is what true?”
“You know.”
I shook my head. “No, I don’t.”
Brett glanced around us. “That you’re some kind of…immortal?” He said it in jest, as if he didn’t believe it, but I knew his question was sincere.
My face grew hot. Now I understood why Brandon and the girls from Horticulture had acted so aloof. Is this what it would be like when I went back to school? “I—I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
An old man in front of us turned around and scowled. Brett gave him a polite smile, and leaned over me. “All of the Monitors are saying that Gideon took your soul, and you died, but instead of reanimating as an Undead, you just woke up. Alive.”
I bit my lip. I couldn’t tell him the truth. I couldn’t tell anyone the truth, or Dante would be buried and I would become a specimen.
Brett studied me with wonder. “It is true; I can tell.”
Before I could come up with an appropriately vague response, my grandfather stepped into the center of the circle and cleared his throat. The boat grew quiet.
“Monitors! Friends. Thank you for joining us on this cloudy occasion.” His white hair waved in the wind. “Annette LaBarge was a mysterious woman. A solitary woman. A woman who wore many hats.” He paused, letting his words hang in the air. “Some of us are here because we knew Annette the philosophy professor. Others, Annette the student, Monitor, and later, colleague. Still others, Annette the caretaker and friend.”
The boat swayed. Two women in the front were weeping.
“As Annette would say, ‘We cannot control the actions of others. All we have are our reactions.’ So I implore you: let us learn from her death. Let us react. Let us find the Undead who killed her and put that creature to rest.”
My grandfather took the pocket square from his jacket and wiped his temple before continuing with his eulogy. I gazed at the open casket, which was close enough for me to see the tip of Miss LaBarge’s nose. Was death ever fair? If Miss LaBarge had died naturally, would that have been easier to bear? Or would it always feel as if life were being taken from us?
A gust of wind blew a stack of napkins into the water, speckling the surface with white squares. Above us, a flock of seagulls cawed.
My grandfather opened a prayer book and read a passage in French as I looked at the swells of water sloshing against the side of the boat, at the seagulls roosting on the mast, and at the sky, which seemed larger and more dramatic over the ocean. I thought about how all these details seemed that much more beautiful, knowing that Dante still existed, and that he loved me.
My grandfather closed the prayer book and motioned to two men, who hoisted a barrel of soil up from below the deck and set it beside the casket. My grandfather touched Miss LaBarge’s forehead with his thumb, and then, grasping his trowel, he plunged it into the barrel of soil and sprinkled the dirt over her body.
A line formed along the side of the boat, and, one by one, everyone followed. Brett stood behind me, and we inched forward until it was my turn.
I hesitated before stepping up to the casket, where Miss LaBarge was resting with two coins over her eyes. They made her look expressionless and somehow inhuman. Soil and flower petals were sprinkled across her body.
“Go on,” Brett said, giving me a little nudge.
Dipping my trowel into the barrel, I leaned over her, my hand quivering, and touched her forehead.
Surprised by how cold her skin was, I jolted, spilling the soil everywhere. Everyone looked in my direction, and I bent down, mortified, and tried to scoop the soil up from the deck.
“Just leave it, Renée,” my grandfather said, pulling me up by the arm.
I walked to the edge of the boat, feeling lost. On the bench across from me sat Eleanor’s mother, hugging her knees as her blond hair blew around her face. Our eyes met for the briefest moment, before we both looked away. After my parents, after Dante, I still didn’t know what to do when confronted with death. That’s the thing nobody tells you. It never gets easier.
The captain opened a latch, pulling open a gate in the handrail at the edge of the deck. With some effort, my grandfather and three other men shifted the lid onto Miss LaBarge’s casket, closed it firmly, then lifted the sealed box to the edge of the deck and slid it into the water. The splash was much smaller than I had expected, and I leaned over the railing and watched as the casket trembled on the surface for a moment before sinking into the sea, a tiny trail of bubbles rising behind the box as if Miss LaBarge had let out one last breath.