Part 8 (1/2)

She opened her closet door and rummaged through her shoes until she found a chunky platform. ”I already think you're weird, so it's not like anything you tell me will make me think worse of you. And don't even try to trick me with that cheating death story. I don't believe any of it.”

After wiping the bottom with rubbing alcohol, she placed the platform shoe just behind her ear. ”Hold this right here,” she said, and I put my hands where hers had been. I was surprised at how relieved I felt, hearing those words. I don't believe any of it.

”Did it look that bad?” I asked.

”You fell off your chair, and then you started blinking. You were just blinking really fast for a long time.”

I winced.

Anya bent down and took an ice cube from a miniature refrigerator on the floor. She rubbed it against her ear. ”Don't worry,” she said. ”I've seen worse, but everyone else basically thinks you're possessed.”

”Maybe I am.”

Tossing the ice on the floor, Anya took the needle from me and shook her head. ”I don't think so. Have you ever seen a possessed person?” she asked, as if she had. ”You're too normal.”

Looking in the mirror, Anya held the needle up to her ear, where there were already four piercings. ”Okay,” she said. ”Hold the shoe steady.”

”Wait, what are you doing?”

”Piercing my ear,” she said.

I backed away. ”No. I'm not doing that.”

”How do you expect to bury an Undead when you can't even watch me use a needle?” she said, and put my hand back into place. ”You're not doing anything-I'm doing it. It'll be over in a minute. Just hold your hand steady.”

”Are you sure this is safe?” I said as I tightened my grip on the shoe.

”Of course it is.”

I braced myself, trying to stop my hand from trembling as I watched her in the mirror, her eyes red and fierce. She took a deep breath and began counting in Russian. ”Raz, dvah...” Just before she said ”trie,” I pressed my eyes closed. The needle plunged into the sole of the shoe, and the entire room rang as Anya let out a deafening, high-pitched scream.

After the bleeding stopped and the silver cuff was in place, Anya opened a tin of almond cookies her father had sent her, and we sat on her s.h.a.g carpet eating them until we were giddy on sugar. She tried to explain why she had been so upset earlier, speaking quickly, in jarring bursts, and by the time she was finished, I still wasn't exactly sure what had transpired. Something to do with a boyfriend, or maybe an ex-boyfriend, and two other boys. One named Vlad, two named Dmitri. Or was it one named Dmitri, two named Vlad? They were Plebeians, which meant that Anya couldn't tell them she was a Monitor. When she left for school, it made things a little complicated.

”I have a piercing for every breakup,” she said, pointing to the line of studs in her ears.

I told her I understood, because I did. It wasn't easy dating someone when you were a Monitor.

”But how can you understand?” she said, fingering the new silver cuff that clung to her ear, which was now bright red and swollen. ”Do you have a boyfriend?”

I hesitated. ”No,” I said slowly, taking another cookie.

She rolled her eyes. ”Is he a Monitor?”

I paused again. ”I can't really talk about it.”

When she kept pressing me, I changed the subject to my blackout, and the dream I'd had of the Royal Victoria Hospital. Or the vision, as she called it.

”What was under the bed?” she asked.

”I don't know. I couldn't see it.”

Anya looked disappointed.

”What if I'm seeing the future?”

She gave me a questioning look, and when she saw that I was serious, she burst out laughing. ”I know people who can read the future, and you definitely can't.”

”How do you know?” I said, taking offense.

”What's going to happen to me tomorrow?” she asked, her lips in a pout.

”It doesn't work like that.”

”Oh?” she said, smug. ”How does it work, then?”

”I think it was triggered by the photograph of the hospital.”

”So you just have to see a picture of the future before it comes to you,” she said sarcastically.

I rolled my eyes.

”If you want to see your future, I know a woman who can do that. She'll tell you what the visions are.”

I leaned back against the wall. ”I don't believe in that kind of stuff,” I said, dismissing her.

Anya laughed. ”How can you say you don't believe when you just thought you were seeing the future?”

”That's different,” I said. I had been reborn, and I now had a little bit of Undead within me. I didn't know how that future was going to affect me, but maybe this was it. The Undead reanimate as the best versions of themselves. Wasn't I prettier now, my features more mature? Wasn't I a better Monitor? Maybe I could see the future, too. ”That's believing in myself.”

It was nearly two in the morning when I returned to my room. I still couldn't get used to the fact that there was no curfew at St. Clement. Madame Gout was the girls' dorm parent, but her primary rule was that we didn't bother her. Otherwise, we could do whatever we wanted. While I brushed my teeth, I took off my s.h.i.+rt and examined the mark on my back in the bathroom mirror. If I raised my shoulders in just the right way, it almost looked like Dante's silhouette.

Before I knew what was happening, the door leading into the adjacent room burst open, and Clementine barged inside, unaware that the bathroom was occupied. Letting the toothbrush fall to the floor, I grabbed my s.h.i.+rt and jumped back, trying to cover myself with my arms.

”Oh,” she said, letting out a laugh as she looked at me. She was wearing a tight camisole, her face delicate now that it was stripped of makeup. ”What were you doing?”

”Get out!” I cried.

”Smart enough to rank number one, but not smart enough to lock the door,” she said, backing away.

I caught a glimpse of her room: dimly lit and velvety like a boudoir. A group of girls were splayed across her canopied bed, giggling. With force, I slammed the door shut.

SOUL SHARING DOES NOT EXIST. A SOUL MAY ONLY INHABIT one body at a time.

After days of searching through the narrow stacks of the St. Clement library for anything that might save Dante, it was the only answer I could find. Shutting that book, I pulled a thicker one off the shelf, ent.i.tled The Art of Dying, which the cover described as The most comprehensive study of death and its aftermath in current publication. Checking the index, I flipped to the section on Souls and skimmed the page until I found the entry I was looking for.

Soul splitting does not exist. To split one's soul is to kill one's self.

Frustrated, I shut the book and shoved it back on the shelf. We were never going to find a solution. Sliding to the floor, I rubbed my face with my hands. The reality was this: I was searching for an antidote to death. I laughed at the irony that everyone thought I was immortal, when here I was, sitting on the floor of the library, trying to find the answer to immortality in a book. As if it were that easy.