“Do you ever feel like you’re running out of time?” I asked Dustin.
He stared at the ice cubes in his drink. “Always.”
“So what do you do about it?”
“Nothing,” he said. “I just try to enjoy the time I do have. That’s all we can do, really.”
The rest of the flight was quick; it seemed like we had just boarded when three chimes sounded over the intercom, followed by the flight attendant’s voice, announcing in both French and English that we had begun our descent. Dustin leaned over me to look out the window. The blue sky faded as we entered the clouds, and was replaced by the tiny lights of buildings, the irregular spirals of roads. And then, through the mist, an island emerged.
Montreal was a castle of a city, surrounded by water on all sides, and connected to the mainland by bridges. After going through customs, we rented a compact car and set out for St. Clément, in the old part of town, Vieux-Port. We drove down a street called rue Notre-Dame, which was lined with uneven sidewalks and town houses capped with mansard roofs.
It was an overcast afternoon, the air warm and thick. I rolled down my window as we passed a group of bicyclists, all wearing little hats. One of them turned to me as we passed, his hair pulled back into a messy knot. Dante, I thought as I pressed my nose to the window. But it was just a tall man with long hair. He winked as we turned down rue Saint Maurice. There, we drove until we passed a narrow street with no sign. Slowing to a stop, Dustin looked over his shoulder, and then reversed until we were even with the unnamed street, which was really more of an alleyway. Dustin squinted at the stained brick buildings.
“If my memory serves me correctly, this is it,” he said finally, and turned. The cobblestones were slanted, putting our tiny car on an incline.
A pair of pigeons flew out of our way and flapped around the alley as we squeezed past the trash bins that lined the curb. The street ended at a sign that read PETIT RUE SAINT CLÉMENT.
It was only slightly larger than the alley, but much sunnier. Dustin took a left, and a few hundred feet down, pulled up in front of a large stone building with an arched entranceway. Etched over it in large letters was: LYCÉE SAINT CLÉMENT.
A security guard sauntered toward us. Setting down my bags, Dustin fished around in his pockets for a piece of paper. Upon reading it, the guard uttered something in French to us, making hand gestures. To my surprise, Dustin seemed to understand. “Merci, monsieur,” he said, with what sounded like a perfect accent, and picked up my bags.
“I didn’t know you could speak French,” I said as we crossed a grassy courtyard surrounded by the school. In the middle was a fountain. Two girls were standing next to it, holding books as the water spouted behind them.
“Nor did I,” said Dustin. “The last time I spoke it was a lifetime ago.”
We entered one of the buildings on the far side of the courtyard, which said FEMMES. Unlike the Gottfried dormitories, this one was small and cozy. A plush carpet blanketed the lobby, which was furnished with overstuffed sofas. A bulletin board hung on one wall, cluttered with tacks and colorful fliers. Potted plants streamed over the windowsills, and brass numbers and nameplates decorated each of the doors. Upstairs we found a maze of hallways lined with rose wallpaper, and crowded with girls hauling trunks, suitcases, and piles of books into their rooms. They barely paid attention to me as I squeezed past them.
My room was nestled into a sunny corner of the building with one other room, number 32, labeled with the name CLEMENTINE LAGUERRE. Mine was number 31. I fumbled with the keys, pushing the door open just as Dustin, hauling the luggage, caught up with me.
The only word to describe it was lovely. An arched hallway led to a series of little areas: a sink and mirror, a bedroom with a real potbellied stove, and small balcony that overlooked the courtyard. There was even a beautiful old fireplace, which had been sealed years ago, according to Dustin, after a bad fire. But the most foreign thing of all was that I had the whole room to myself.
The only shared part was the bathroom, which connected my room and Clementine’s, and had a deep porcelain tub that could fit three of me in it. I fiddled with the knobs on the bidet, turning the right one around and around, but nothing happened. It must be broken, I thought, hitting it with my hand just as Dustin said something from the other room. Suddenly, water burst out of the spigot, spraying my legs.
“What?” I shouted, jumping out of the way.
“I said, someone just slipped an envelope under the door. Would you like me to open it?”
“Okay,” I said, struggling with the faucet.
“‘Promptly report to the gymnasium at nine a.m. on Monday for your placement examination.’”
Wiping off my shorts, I went to the main room. “A placement test?”
“Yes,” Dustin said, checking his watch. “Tomorrow.” When he saw my wet clothes, he chuckled and dug through my bag until he found a towel.
“Tomorrow? But I don’t even know what the test is on.”
“I’m sure it will be fine,” Dustin said. He pulled some sheets from my bag and stretched one over the mattress. When I tried to help, he swatted me away.
Of course he thought it was fine; he wasn’t the one who had to take the exam. I blew a wisp of hair from my face before beginning to unpack. While we worked, Dustin taught me tidbits of French. “La pelle,” he said, handing me a shovel. “Les pièces,” he continued, handing me a bag of coins with the rest of my Monitor supplies. “La vie.” Life. “La mort.” Death. He unpacked my old philosophy books from Miss LaBarge’s class, and glanced out the window. The sun was setting behind the buildings. “Éphémère.” And after dusting off my bookshelf one last time, he said, “Cri de coeur,” and hugged me good-bye, hurrying back to the airport to catch his flight home. After he left, I looked it up in my French dictionary. It meant a cry of the heart.
That evening I skipped dinner and spent the rest of the night alone in my room. I only ventured out once to carry my trash to the bins, but ended up getting lost in the maze of hallways as I tried to find my way back to my room. I ended up in a side hall that looked just like mine, except that the room number was 21, and the name on the door read ANYA PINSKY. It was ajar, revealing a messy clutter of boxes and clothes, the room half decorated with tall glass candles and colorful charms. A girl with hair dyed a dark, unnatural red was holding a bundle of linens and having an argument with an older man in what sounded like Russian. When she saw me looking in, she squinted at me and then walked to the door and shut it.
The door beside it was painted shut with so many layers that I could barely see the seam of the wall. BROOM CLOSET, it read.
I tried to retrace my steps, making a few wrong turns until I finally found my door. Shutting myself inside, I sat on my bed and listened through the walls to the girls walking down the hall, speaking to each other in French. I didn’t know who they were or what they were saying; I wasn’t even sure that I wanted to know. They lived in a different world than I did. I could tell by the way they were laughing, by the fact that they could laugh.
Just as I was falling asleep, I heard the toilet flush from the shared bathroom, and sat up. “Eleanor?” I said, staring at the other side of the dark room before realizing that I was alone. If Dustin were here, he would tell me the word in French. Turning on the light, I picked up the pocket dictionary he’d left for me. “Alone” had eight entries. “Seul. Isolé. Séparé. Écarté. Solitaire. Singulier. Sans aide. Perdu.” Which kind was I? Left behind by my parents, by Miss LaBarge. Separated from Dante. Isolated from the people around me. Lost.
I was closing the book when the phone rang. Startled, I jumped.
“Renée?” a hushed voice said as I held the receiver to my ear.
“Eleanor?” I said, a little louder than I had intended, and then repeated, “Eleanor?”
I heard a breath on the other line. “It’s really you,” she said, uncharacteristically monotone.
“It’s really you,” I repeated, leaning against the wall. She must have been back at Gottfried, calling me from the room we used to share. “I feel like I haven’t seen you in ages.”
“I know,” Eleanor said, her voice duller than I remembered.
“And your postcards—I don’t know how I would have gotten through the summer without them.”
“Well, it gave me something to do. My mom was driving me insane all summer. Anyway, how is it over there?”
I sighed.
“Same here at Gottfried,” she said. “They’ve been calling each of us in to be questioned. About Miss LaBarge’s death.” Her voice didn’t waver when she said Miss LaBarge’s name, as if she were talking about a stranger rather than our philosophy professor.
“Questioned?”
“They know she was killed by a group of Undead, and want to see if any of us have information. I went in this morning. Your grandfather kept asking me if I had been contacted recently by a group of Undead.”
“By a group of Undead? What does that mean? What group?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “He wouldn’t say anything more specific. I was hoping you might know.”
“I have no idea,” I said, tracing the stitching on my comforter. “How is your mom doing?” I asked, thinking of the photograph I’d found in Miss LaBarge’s cottage.
“She’s fine, I think,” Eleanor said, though she sounded confused. “The same as always. Why?”
“I thought she was friends with Miss LaBarge.”
“Why would you think that?” Eleanor said. “She met her for the first time last year.”
“What?” I said, sitting upright. “But I went to Miss LaBarge’s cottage with my grandfather and found a photograph of her with your mom and mine when they were our age. It was framed in her bedroom. And I saw her at the funeral.”