Die for Me

“Jean-Baptiste has ‘the sight’—it’s kind of like a radar for the ‘transforming undead.’ He sees auras.”

“Like the New Agey kind of auras?” I asked doubtfully.

Vincent laughed. “Yeah, kind of like those. He tried to explain it to me once. Revenants’ auras have their own color and vibrancy. After their first death, Jean-Baptiste can view revenants from miles away. He said it’s like a spotlight pointed up into the sky.

“That’s how he found Ambrose a couple of years later, after his American battalion was slaughtered on a Lorraine battlefield. Jules died in World War One; the twins in World War Two; and Gaspard in a mid-nineteenth-century French-Austrian war.”

“Gaspard was a soldier?”

Vincent laughed. “Does that surprise you?”

“Wouldn’t he be a bit too nervous for battle?”

“He was a poet forced to be a soldier. Too sensitive a soul to have seen what he did on the battlefields.”

I nodded pensively. “So almost all of you died during wartime?”

“Wartime is just the easiest time to find people who are dying in others’ stead. It must happen all the time, but usually goes u

“So what you’re saying is that there are people dying all over France who could come back to life . . . under the right circumstances.” My head hurt. It was all a bit overwhelming, even after having had more than a month to get used to the idea that the world I lived in was no longer the one I had always known.

Vincent laughed. “Kate, it’s not just a French thing. I’ll bet you walked past a good number of revenants in New York City without knowing that you were crossing paths with a zombie.”

“So why you? I mean, in particular. I would guess that most lifesaving firefighters or policemen or soldiers don’t wake up three days later.”

Vincent said, “We still don’t understand why some people are predisposed to be revenants. Jean-Baptiste thinks it’s something genetic. Gaspard believes it’s merely fate—that some humans have just been chosen. No one’s found proof that it’s anything other than that.”

I wondered if it was magic or nature that had created Vincent and the others. It was getting harder for me to tell the two apart, now that the rules I had been taught were being turned upside down.

Vincent pulled over the table and poured me a glass of water. I took it gratefully and sipped as I watched him pile a few more logs onto the now dwindling fire.

He settled himself onto the floor in front of me. The couch was so low, and Vincent so tall, that his eyes were just underneath mine as he spoke cautiously now, carefully weighing each word.

“Kate, I’ve been trying to figure out how to work with this. I told you that I once lived to twenty-three. That was five years of avoiding the compulsion to die. Jean-Baptiste had asked me to hold out so that I could get a law degree in order to handle the family’s papers. It was hard, but I was able to do it. He gave me that task because he knew I was stronger than the others. And I’ve seen him resisting his own urges for up to thirty-five years at a time. So I know it’s possible.

“The woman you saw me with the other day. In La Palette . . .” Vincent wore a pained look.

“Yes, Geneviève. Jules told me she was just a friend.”

“I hoped you would believe him. I know it must have looked . . . compromising. But I asked Geneviève to meet with me that day so that I could ask about her situation. She’s married. To a human.”

My jaw dropped. “But . . . how?”

“Her original death was around the same time as mine. She had just gotten married. And her husband lived. So when she animated, she went back to him, and has lived with him ever since.”

“But he must be . . .”

“He’s in his eighties.” Vincent finished my thought.

My mind tried to wrap itself around the thought of the beautiful blond woman married to a man old enough to be her great-grandfather. I couldn’t imagine what her life must be like.

“They’re still madly in love, but it’s been a hard life,” Vincent continued. “She wasn’t able to control her urges to die, and her husband encouraged her to follow the fate she was dealt as a revenant. He’s proud of her, and she dotes on him. But soon enough it’ll be his turn to die, and she’ll be alone. It is one option, but not one that I would ever ask someone else to endure.”

Vincent leaned forward and took my hands in his. They were warm and strong, and his touch sent a rush of excitement coursing through my body that lodged in my heart. “Kate,” he said, “I can stay away from you. It would be a miserable existence, but I could do it if I knew you were happy.

“But if you want to be with me, too, I can offer you this solution: I will resist dying for as long as I am with you. I’ve talked to Jean-Baptiste, and we’ll figure out a way for me to handle it. I won’t put you through the repeated trauma of living through my deaths. I can’t do anything about the fact that you will be without my physical presence for three days a month. But I can control the rest. And I will. If you decide to give me the chance.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

WELL? WHAT COULD I SAY?

I said, “Yes.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

WE SAT ON THE FLOOR CUDDLED UP NEXT TO each other, facing the fire. “Are you hungry?” Vincent asked.

“Actually, I am,” I confessed, surprising myself. I hadn’t had much of an appetite for about . . . three weeks.

While he went to the kitchen, I phoned my grandmother. “Mamie, would you mind if I skipped di

“From the tone of your voice, would I be correct in guessing that this is about a certain boy?”

“Yes, I’m at Vincent’s house.”

“Well, good for you. I hope you can clear this all up and join us again in the land of the living.” I flinched. If only she knew.

“We have a lot to talk about,” I said. “I might be out late.”

“Don’t worry, darling Katya. But remember you have school tomorrow.”

“No problem, Mamie.”

My grandmother paused for so long that I wondered if she had hung up. “Mamie?” I asked after a few seconds.

“Katya,” she said slowly, as if pondering something. Then, in a decisive voice, she continued, “Darling, forget what I just said. I think it’s better to get things sorted out than to try to be sensible about getting a good night’s sleep. Does Vincent live with his parents?”

“With his family.”

“That’s good. Well, if you decide to spend the night, give me a call so I won’t worry.”

“What?” I exclaimed.

“If it means having to take a sick day, then that’s fine. You have my permission to stay at his family’s house . . . in your own bed, of course.”

“Nothing’s going to happen between us!” I began to protest.

“I know.” I could hear her smile through the headset. “You’re almost seventeen, but you are older than that in your head. I trust you, Kate. Just take care of things and don’t worry about coming home for me.”

“That’s very . . . progressive of you, Mamie,” I said, paralyzed with amazement.

“I like to think I’m up with the times,” she joked, and then said ardently, “Live, Katya. Be happy. Take risks. Have fun.” And she hung up the phone.

My grandmother just gave me permission to have a sleepover with my boyfriend. That takes the cake for weirdness-of-the-day, I decided. Even more than Vincent’s pledge not to die for me.

He returned with a huge tray of food. “Jea