Part 30 (2/2)

”I did attend.”

”I saw you, then,” I said, realizing that it was Collette on the coast that day as we sailed away. ”But you weren't on the boat. You were on the sh.o.r.e.”

”Annette and I weren't close.”

I shook my head, trying to understand. ”But every time I saw you on the street you acted like you didn't want to be seen.”

She put down her mug. ”When have you seen me?”

”The first time was at Miss LaBarge's burial. The second time was when your car stopped at an intersection. I wanted to talk to you, but you vanished. The third time, I was with Noah at a bakery in the old port, when you walked by. We followed you downtown, where you took an elevator into the underground. When we made it to the tunnels, we couldn't find you anywhere.”

Collette didn't say anything for a long time, her eyes darting between us. Finally, she spoke. ”Why have you come here?”

Noah's eyes met mine, but neither of us answered.

”Was someone chasing you?” she said, her eyes wild.

”We were looking for the secret of the Nine Sisters,” I said finally.

Collette coughed.

”You know it?” I said, studying the way her eyes widened, the way she s.h.i.+fted her weight.

”You're asking a dangerous question,” she said softly. ”Looking for the secret of the Nine Sisters can only bring death-just like your parents', my sister's, Cindy Bell's. Or you'll become like me, living in confinement, waiting for the Liberum.”

”It's too late,” I said. ”They already found us.”

As my words sank in, a flicker of understanding pa.s.sed over her face. Her body grew tense as her eyes moving from us to the window. ”Did they follow you here?”

”What do you know?” I said.

”Did you bring them here?” she said, growing panicked.

”It's possible,” I admitted. ”Please, tell us what you know. There isn't much time.”

She pushed her tea across the table and gave me a level look. ”I'll show you.”

We followed her down a corridor and one set of stairs, until we were in an old cellar.

”We all became friends at Gottfried-your mother, Annette, Cindy, me. That's where we first heard about Les Neuf Soeurs. Like everyone else, at first we were just intrigued, but as we did more research, we started to believe that the secret still existed, hidden by the mysterious ninth sister. And what started as a hobby turned into an obsession.

”We traveled all over Europe-France, Italy, England -looking for any kind of information that might identify her. We searched through all of the French Monitor archives, looking for a talented girl of seventeen who had lived around the time of the Nine Sisters. Of course we didn't find anything. The problem was that we had focused our entire search on France, since that's where the Nine Sisters had come from. It never even crossed our minds to look in Montreal, where they sent their youngest member for schooling.”

Collette walked to a hutch in the corner of the cellar. She opened one of the drawers and took out what looked like a box of loose leaf tea. Lifting the lid, she removed an envelope, yellowed with time.

”Annette gave this to me before she was killed. She said your parents had given it to her, and that it was incredibly important I keep it safe.”

With that, she handed it to me. The paper was so worn it was almost transparent. It was addressed to Alma Alphonse in France. I remembered the name from Madame Gout's lecture: Alma was one of the eight sisters who was murdered. Gently, I opened the envelope and removed the paper, flattening it on the counter. It was faded and creased and smudged with oil, as if it had been folded and unfolded dozens of times. The right-hand corner was embossed with the crest of a canary.

April 2, 1732 Cher Alma, I fear we have made a grave mistake with Ophelia. Her doctor at the Saint-Laurent says she is responding well to treatment; however, after visiting her in Montreal, I am quite worried. She seems rash and unable to control her urges. In confidence, she confessed to me that she often desires to kiss people, and her mood fluctuates between rapture and severe melancholy, in which she complains of the world clouding to tedium. She is resistant to the treatment we give to her kind, and speaks of suffering from a moral crisis and lovesickness, though it is unclear with whom she is in love. The only person she seems fond of is her doctor, Bertrand Gottfried.

She has taken an unusual fancy to water. Her nurses say she studies it day and night, staring at the basin in her room or sitting by the fountain, a practice which is in stark contrast to the vigor and discipline she held as first rank Monitor. No doubt this is a reaction to the fire; however, I have asked them to remove her from St. Clement for the safety of the other students. Doctor Gottfried expressed interest in taking her to the American colonies, where he plans on opening a new hospital for the Undead, though I wonder if it will help. I implore you to consider the safety of our discovery. Ophelia Hart has changed too much. We cannot trust her, and I beg of you to consider the option of putting her to rest.

Votre Soeur, Prudence Beaufort I looked at Noah. ”Ophelia Hart was a student at St. Clement when she was in a terrible fire?” I said, my mind racing as I scanned the letter once more. The world clouding to tedium. She often desires to kiss people. Unable to control her urges. Reaction to the fire. Those could only mean one thing. ”She became Undead?” I said in disbelief. ”Is that why she used the secret and then preserved it?”

Collette gave me a slight nod. ”I think so. Your parents were the ones who first discovered that Ophelia Hart was the ninth sister. Your mother found this letter buried beneath a birdbath in Alma's old house. They retraced Ophelia's life and found the second part of the riddle in the hospital, in the same room where she first reanimated as an Undead.”

”She must have planted it when she worked as the head nurse there one hundred years later,” Noah said, his eyes trained on mine.

”And then she created the headstone,” I said. ”She must have erected it in honor of her teenage life. She etched the last part of the riddle on it.”

Noah nodded, his expression almost sad.

My hands trembled as I held the letter, imagining my parents holding the exact same sheet of paper, just two years ago. ”And Miss LaBarge and Cindy continued the search, a.s.suming the next riddles were hidden somewhere having to do with her research on water,” I murmured. ”That's why they were found near lakes.”

Collette nodded. ”I'm the only one of us left. I've been finis.h.i.+ng their search but still haven't found the last part of the riddle.”

Ophelia Hart had gone to St. Clement, just like me, and at some point while she was there, she had died. What could be more meaningful than that? ”But they were wrong,” I said. ”The part of the riddle we're missing is the first part, not the last. And before Ophelia was a scientist, before she was a nurse, she was a student at St. Clement. She might have even died there.” I turned to Noah. ”Didn't your father say that she'd worked briefly as a nurse there?”

Too surprised to speak, Noah gave me a slight nod.

”What if she went back to work at St. Clement because she wanted to plant something there?” I said.

”The beginning of a riddle,” Noah said, completing my thought.

And together, we turned to Collette. ”We need to go back to school.”

WE FOLDED OURSELVES INTO THE BACKSEAT of Collette's car and waited beneath a blanket as she drove us back to school. ”I think it's safe,” Collette said, turning the ignition off. She had parked in an alley a few blocks away from the entrance.

I closed my eyes, feeling for the vacant presence of the Undead. ”They're close,” I said. ”But not here.”

Noah and I slipped out of the car and down the alleyway, giving Collette one last nod before we disappeared into St. Clement.

The buildings surrounding the courtyard blinked with lights, turning on in one window, going off in another. We knew the first part of the message had to be in one of them, but we weren't sure where. The school was huge, with oddly shaped rooms and an endless maze of narrow hallways and dark crevices. It could be anywhere.

”Where would she have hidden it?” Noah said as we stopped in the shadow of a building.

In my pocket, I could feel the letter Collette had given me. Ophelia had left her home to go to school at St. Clement. She'd been sent here with a secret, just like I had been.

So if I were Ophelia Hart, where would I have hidden the first piece of the riddle? It had to be a place that was private, where no one would find me while I hid the clue; but it couldn't be too private, or else I risked the chance that no one would ever find it again. Most important, though, I would only bury my deepest secret in a place that had personal meaning to me when I attended St. Clement.

Suddenly I stopped walking, tripping Noah, who was a step behind me. ”Her room,” I said, as he pulled himself together. ”It's in her old dorm room.”

We went to the library. There, we rifled through the card catalog until we found the location of St. Clement's old school files. It was upstairs on the fourth balcony in a dim, dusty corner that looked like it hadn't been visited in decades.

I started from the right side, Noah started from the left, and, moving toward each other, we scanned the books, looking for a volume that contained all of the old housing a.s.signments. Each book was at least an inch thick, full of bound school doc.u.ments, and most were poorly labeled. I was about halfway through the top row when Noah called out to me.

<script>