Part 10 (2/2)
After a long moment, I sat up. To my surprise, the ground beneath me groaned.
I was lying on top of a boy. A tall, lean boy. I looked closer. A cute boy. Yellow daffodils were crushed into the ground around us. He groaned again, and I jumped off of him.
”Are you all right?” he said, wincing as he looked at his palms, which where sc.r.a.ped from the pavement. His bicycle was a few feet away, its front wheel still spinning.
I nodded. Save for what was probably going to be a big bruise on my right thigh, I was fine.
The boy's eyes traveled up to mine. He was clean shaven, with olive skin and hair that reminded me of the best months of autumn. He wore a rectangular pair of gla.s.ses that made him look like a college student. ”You saved my life,” he said, with a slight French accent.
”I'm so sorry.”
”About saving my life?” He smiled. He had three artfully placed freckles. One under his eye, one on his chin, one on his neck.
”Oh-oh, no,” I said. ”Wait, what do you mean?”
”I didn't see the red light. If you hadn't blocked me, I would have run it and been hit by that car.”
”Oh,” I said, blus.h.i.+ng. ”It was an accident.”
He laughed and helped me up.
”You're warm,” I said, accustomed to Dante's coldness.
He took me in. ”You're the girl who can't die.”
”You go to St. Clement?” I asked, surprised.
”I sit three seats down from you in Strategy and Prediction. And in History and Latin. I held the door for you today?”
”Oh.” I felt my face grow red as his features grew familiar. I was used to seeing only the side of his head.
He smirked. ”It's okay. You're the famous one.”
I looked away and brushed off my skirt. ”Those are just rumors.”
”Or maybe some of your immortality just rubbed off on me.”
I smiled. ”Then I guess you owe me one.”
”Owe you one what?”
”I won't know until I want it.” The words came out of my mouth automatically. What was I saying? Was I flirting with this boy?
”Deal.”
”I'm Renee, by the way,” I said.
”Noah Fontaine.”
He held out his hand, and I hesitated, staring at it and thinking of Dante. ”Oh, I'm sorry,” he said, looking at his scratches and then wiping his hand on his jeans.
I looked at my feet and fidgeted with the b.u.t.tons on my sleeve.
Bending down, he picked up his bag and the remains of the bouquet of flowers he had been carrying, which had spilled out around us, coating the road in crushed petals.
”I'm sorry about your flowers,” I said.
”Oh, it's okay. She probably won't even notice,” he said, holding up a wilted stem.
And even though I had no idea this boy existed until a few seconds ago, for some reason, as I watched him collect the loose flowers, my heart sank imagining the girl he had bought them for.
He stood up. ”Do you believe in fate?” he asked.
”No,” I said quickly, and then reconsidered. ”Well, maybe.”
”My thoughts exactly,” he said. And with the grace of a cat, he picked up his bicycle and pedaled off, grinning at me over his shoulder before he vanished into the crowd.
ACCORDING TO MADAME GOuT, FRENCH WAS AN irregular language, a secretive language; the language of Monitors. The last three letters of almost every word were silent, which had the strange effect of making all words sound alike, regardless of their meanings. Everything was about accent, p.r.o.nunciation, performance; as if the entire language were a disguise, designed to make us blend in with everyone else.
The other girls called it romantic, but I thought it insincere. The Latin Dante spoke made his love for me feel ancient and timeless, as if it could never die. What I didn't realize until later was that French had depth, too; the trick was to hear the words that weren't spoken.
Our cla.s.sroom was in the attic, where it was oppressively hot, comme un etat Vichy, our professor joked, saying it would improve our throaty accents.
Madame Gout was a slender woman in her fifties who wore high heels and belted dresses. She had a gap between her front teeth and spoke with a thick French-Canadian accent. Her favorite word was ”Non,” which she said in a definitive kind of way, to make sure we all knew when we were wrong.
”There are too many tenses and cases in Latin. It makes you think too much,” she said, gesticulating quickly. ”There is no love in it, no emotion, no joie de vivre! With French, it just spills out.”
The heat rattled through the radiator, punctuating Madame Gout's lecture. Next to me, Anya was taking notes, pus.h.i.+ng her red braids aside when they got in the way of her pencil. As the professor wrote a list of p.r.o.nouns on the board, I could hear Clementine whispering to two of her friends.
Madame Gout must have heard, too, because she put down the chalk and turned around, her heels rapping against the floor. ”If you insist on whispering in my cla.s.s, I would rather you share it with all of us.”
The sharp edges of Clementine's shoulders s.h.i.+fted beneath her s.h.i.+rt as she faltered. She looked starched and pressed, her collared s.h.i.+rt crisp as an envelope.
”Well, speak up,” the professor said.
”We were talking about the ile des Soeurs. About the women who used to torture the Undead there.”
Madame Gout raised a pencil-thin eyebrow. ”Torture? Who told you that?”
”Monsieur Orneaux.”
Madame Gout groaned. ”Of course Monsieur Orneaux would say that. He is what we call un homme pour les hommes. A man's man. Like most men, he is not interested in the endeavors of women,” she said, waving her hand in the air. ”He does not know anything,” she muttered. ”I have been telling them time and time again that he is not qualified to teach.”
The room fell into an uncomfortable silence.
”The truth is that women were the founders of our entire Monitoring society.” Madame Gout lowered her voice. ”And the women you speak of are Les Neuf Soeurs, or the Nine Sisters.”
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