Part 14 (2/2)

He took a step closer. ”No, not that. All of this. The feeling of being with you.”

”Why would you forget?” I asked, growing anxious.

He let his hand drop down my arm, sending a s.h.i.+ver up my skin. ”I don't know.”

What was he saying? I touched a tombstone near us. The marble was cold and black. ”Why did you choose this cemetery?”

Dante gazed around us. ”It's the biggest in Montreal. I thought it would be safest.”

”Have you been here before?”

Dante's eye twitched. ”No.”

I believed him. I had to give him the benefit of the doubt; though something about the way he turned away made me wonder. ”Isn't there a section of this cemetery where Monitors are buried?”

”Monitors?” he said, betraying a hint of unease. ”I don't know.”

”I was just thinking that maybe the Nine Sisters might have been buried there. I know you're skeptical about them, but it wouldn't hurt to check.”

Dante hesitated. ”Doesn't that seem too easy?”

”I just want to look,” I said. ”Will you walk with me?”

In the distance, a car drove past the cemetery gates, its headlights s.h.i.+ning across the headstones. Dante took my hand and slipped it into the pocket of his coat.

We walked to the fork in the path, and stopped at the map-the same one I'd seen in my vision. Barely taking any time to search, Dante put his finger on the small green area near the back of the grounds. ”It's here.”

I went stiff. ”How do you know that's the right section?”

”Because it says so right here.”

He pointed to a tiny line of text in the map's index that said Founders. I a.s.sumed it meant the founders of Montreal.

As we walked beneath the streetlamps to the back of the cemetery, I watched the shadows change his face, darkening and distorting it until he looked like a stranger.

”What?” Dante said, giving me a confused look.

”Nothing,” I said quickly, and looked straight ahead until I found myself standing in front of the same tiny circle of land I'd seen earlier today. It was framed with barren trees and separated from the path by a chain.

Slowing to a stop, Dante gazed around the frozen weeds at our feet. ”They must be somewhere here,” he said. Behind us was the same narrow aisle I had visited in my vision. I waited, expecting Dante to lead me down that row. But instead he pulled me in the opposite direction. ”Maybe this way?” he said, bending down to look at the headstones as we walked.

I let out a sigh of relief. He hadn't been here before. It was all in my head. Leaning in to him, I pressed my head against his shoulder, silently apologizing for not trusting him. We walked like that for a while, meandering through each of the rows, Dante wiping the frost from the face of the headstones so I could read the names and dates. I gave each of them a brief glance, and then shook my head. We had almost made it through all of the aisles, when I turned to him. ”I don't think it's here. We can go if you want.”

”Are you sure?”

I nodded.

With that, we made our way back, our arms stretched over the headstones as we wove in and out of them, veering apart and then coming together in a dark waltz. I laughed as I skipped down an overgrown row a few steps ahead of Dante. I was almost at the chain when he called out to me. ”Watch your step.”

At his words, I froze, the smile fading from my face. Slowly, I looked down. Buried in weeds just below my feet was the nameless headstone, the same one I had tripped over in my vision. The word soeur peeked out just above the gra.s.s.

Suddenly I felt queasy. I put a hand to my head, my knees growing limp. ”Renee?” Dante said, just as I fell. I landed on the frozen earth beside the crooked stone.

Its inscription was barely visible through the frost.

”Are you okay?” Dante said from above me, bending down to offer me a hand. But I couldn't bring myself to look at him. Had he lied to me?

Rolling over, I stood up and brushed myself off.

”What's wrong?” he said, studying me. ”You look sick.”

I took a step away from him. ”Did you see that headstone?”

”Of course. That's why I told you to watch your step.”

I paused, trying to sort everything out. ”But it's so dark. How did you see it from all the way over there?”

Dante gave me a confused look. ”I was right behind you.”

Was he? I couldn't remember.

”What's going on?” he said, his voice betraying a hint of alarm.

”I had another vision. I came to this cemetery, looking for a grave, but while I tried to find it, I tripped over a headstone. The same headstone you just warned me about.” I squinted at him in the dark.

”What are you implying?”

”That my visions are yours. That I'm somehow seeing what you're doing.” I swallowed. ”That you've been lying to me about it.”

Dante gave me a baffled look. ”Lying to you about what? What do you think I'm doing that's so terrible?”

”I don't know,” I said, shaking my head. ”Digging up a grave. Looking for the secret of the Nine Sisters.” But the more I spoke, the more absurd everything sounded. If he had been looking for the secret of the Nine Sisters, he would have told me.

”Is it really so hard to believe that I saw the headstone just before you fell?”

”I-I don't know,” I said, and looked up at him, hoping the truth would be somehow etched in his face. ”Tell me where you've been this whole time. Tell me what you've been doing. I feel like I'm walking in the dark.”

”I've been in hiding,” he said. ”Moving around so the Monitors can't find me. You know that.”

”But why won't you tell me any specifics?”

”I don't want to put you in any danger. If the Monitors here ask you questions, I don't want you to have to lie. It's better if you don't know where I am.”

”So ask me to run away with you,” I said. ”I would say yes. You just have to ask me.” My back went rigid as I leaned against the trunk of a tree and waited for him to say the words: Come with me.

But they never came.

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