Part 26 (1/2)

”So what do you think?” I said. ”Will you come? I was thinking we could go on Sat.u.r.day. We could take a train.”

”The day after tomorrow? I can't.”

I gave her a puzzled look. ”Why not?”

She stood up and went across the room to light a votive. ”I have to help my dad at the store.”

”Can't you take one day off?”

”No. It's really busy this time of year,” she said, and blew out the match.

”It's the middle of January in Montreal,” I said slowly. ”Nothing's busy. You can barely walk outside without getting windburn.”

”You haven't been wearing the necklace I made you.”

I shook my head in confusion. ”What?”

”You don't like it?”

”The one with the beans?” I said. ”It's...not really my style. But why are you dodging my invitation? Do you just not want to go? Because you can tell me.”

”Fine,” she said. ”I just don't want to go.”

”Because you're scared?” I pressed.

”Because I just don't want to go,” she repeated. ”And I don't think you should go either.”

”Why not? Since when are you the voice of reason?” I said, picking up a wishbone charm adorned with feathers.

Anya's face went taut, her lips parting as if she were about to snap at me, but instead she sank back into the couch. ”Why don't you take that?” She gestured at the charm. ”You might need it.”

I stood up and tossed it on the couch. ”Thanks, but I think I'll manage on my own,” I said, and slammed the door.

Maybe she was right, I thought as I walked back to my room. Only an obsessed person would want to follow a dream to a strange farmhouse in Vermont. But what else could I do? Everything had already been set into motion; I couldn't stop now.

Through the window, I could see the boys' dormitory across the courtyard, its windows lit up. One of them belonged to Noah. He would understand that I had to go. He wouldn't even need an explanation. And without thinking, I stood up and threw on my coat.

It was a frigid and still night, the trees white and motionless, as if the entire campus had been frozen over. I was halfway across the courtyard when I noticed a tall, huddled figure walking toward me. We crossed paths in front of the fountain, which was covered in a glossy layer of ice. I tightened my hood around my face.

”Renee,” a voice said.

I stopped walking and spun around. ”Noah?” I pushed back my hood to get a better look, my hair p.r.i.c.kling with static.

Noah was wearing a heavy fleece coat and leather boots. Snowflakes caught on his hair. ”I saw the light in your window and wanted to say hi.”

”You know which window is mine?” I blurted out. The thought made me happy.

”But you're going somewhere, I guess?”

”No,” I said, unable to stop the smile spreading across my face. ”I was actually going to see you.”

”Do you know which window is mine?” he said, flattered.

I shook my head and stepped closer to him, hugging myself in the cold. ”No. I guess I didn't really have a plan.”

”Me neither,” he said. Unwrapping his scarf, he looped it around my neck.

”So how was your holiday?” he said, studying my face. His lips were pale red, the fog of his breath dissipating into the night just before it reached me.

”Can we go somewhere?” I said.

He motioned toward the back of campus. ”This way.”

The lights in the gymnasium buzzed as he flipped them on. It was dark, empty, and the only sound was the trickling of water coming from somewhere in the locker room. Chlorine, I thought, trying to remember the way pools smelled, trying to will my senses to life. But it was no use. My shoes squeaked against the wooden floor as we ran through the basketball court and down the stairs, until we reached the pool. The water was blue and so still that I could see the ceiling's reflection in it, making me feel like I had entered some backward, alternate world.

We took off our shoes and sat beneath the diving board, dipping our feet into the water as I told him about the farmhouse in Vermont, about the slip of paper with Cindy Bell's name, and how I thought the last piece of the riddle could be there.

”Let's go,” he said immediately. ”Cla.s.ses don't start till Monday. It's too late to go now, but could leave tomorrow. What should we bring?”

We sat there talking and laughing and planning our trip, our shadows melting together as he fell asleep by my side in a pile of towels. I watched him, his chest rising and falling, and wished that I could fall asleep in the crook of his arm; that a single word from his lips could remind me of how beautiful it was to be alive; that a touch from his fingers could inspire me to breathe deeper, to live slower, to be better; that I could fall in love with him.

On Sat.u.r.day morning, Noah was waiting for me by the school gates, holding two coffees and a brown paper bag. It was a cold, yellow day, the sun partially obscured by clouds as we took a taxi to a boat station in lower Quebec, where we boarded a ferry.

The boat traveled slowly across Lake Champlain, the drone of the motor churning beneath us as we sat by a dingy snack bar near the window. Noah opened the paper bag and took out two dry brioches. ”Chocolate or almond?”

I took the chocolate one and smiled. ”Thanks.”

The boat was empty save for a few people loitering around deck, their parkas bloated with wind. Leaning over, Noah wiped a flake of pastry crust from my lips, his fingers lingering there for a moment too long.

The loudspeaker hummed and then amplified the captain's voice. He spoke with a rural French-Canadian accent. ”We are now leaving Canadian waters and entering the territory of the United States of America.”

”We're in between worlds now,” Noah murmured, gazing out the window.

The water was a deep blue and extended as far as I could see, the sky reflecting off of it as if there were no beginning or end to the horizon, and we were suspended somewhere in the middle. Just like I was suspended somewhere between life and death, between my world and Dante's.

It was late in the afternoon when we disembarked on a desolate dock on the northern tip of Vermont. The sky was streaked with red as the sun sank behind the mountains in the distance.

Three taxis were waiting in the parking lot. Noah and I approached the closest one. The driver was asleep, his head perched on his fist. A newspaper was spread open over the dashboard. Hesitantly, I knocked on the window. After jolting awake, he rolled down the gla.s.s.

”Where are you headed?” He was a gaunt man with gray stubble and wild, overgrown eyebrows.

Unfolding the sc.r.a.p of paper from my pocket, I read him the address from my vision. With a grunt, he motioned to the backseat. As we climbed in, he pushed the newspaper to the pa.s.senger's seat and drove off.

Unrolling the window, he lit a cigarette. A cherry air freshener swayed beneath the rearview mirror. ”How far away is it?” I asked, leaning in between the seats, when a b.u.mp sent me toppling into Noah's lap. His warmth caught me off guard, and I jumped, surprised at how outside of me he felt. Is that what it would feel like to touch Noah, to kiss Noah, to be with Noah-a shock of the unfamiliar? The driver mumbled something back that sounded like twenty minutes, and turned on the radio to easy listening.

The landscape was frozen and gla.s.sy, the trees coated in a delicate layer of ice as we drove past dimly lit farmhouses and snowy fields protected by wooden fences. Just before dusk fell over the treetops, we pa.s.sed a familiar sign. breaker chasm welcomes you!

”We're close,” I said, gazing at the streetlights, the closed shops, the gas station; each looking exactly as they had in my vision. With a finger, I wrote the phrase Fait Accompli in the fog of the window.

”Irreversible Action,” Noah translated. ”Why did you write that?”