“Have you ever heard of TMI, Chucky?” Ambrose asked, clenching his hands in exasperation.
“Kate,” Charlotte said softly, “dying and animating are really hard on the human body. It kind of kicks us into a different life cycle. ‘Animated’ is a good way to put it, actually. We are so animated when we wake up that we go for more than three weeks without stopping. Then our body shuts down and we ‘sleep like the dead’ for three days. Like Vincent just did.”
“You mean, we are dead for three—” Charles began, correcting her.
Charlotte interrupted him. “We’re not dead. We call it ‘being dormant.’ Our body is just kind of hibernating, but our mind is still active. And once our body awakes, we go back to a few more weeks of absolute, but sleepless, normalcy.”
Charles mumbled, “Yeah, right.”
“Well, one could say that that gives the bare bones of the story,” Gaspard said helpfully.
“You were . . . dormant yesterday?” I asked Vincent.
He nodded. “The end of the three days,” he said. “Now I’ll be fine for almost a month.”
“You don’t look very fine to me,” I responded, staring at his skin’s waxy pallor.
“It takes several hours to recover from dormancy,” Vincent said with a weak smile. “For a human it would be like having open-heart surgery. You don’t just pop out of the hospital bed as soon as the anesthesia wears off.”
That made sense. If he kept going with the human analogies, I might be able to stomach this whole bizarre scenario a bit better. From the way they were arguing, they clearly weren’t used to having to explain their situation. It was up to me to figure things out.
I turned to Jules. “You’re over a hundred years old.”
“I’m nineteen,” he said.
“So you never age?” I asked.
“Oh yeah, we age all right. Look at Jean-Baptiste—he died at thirty-six, but he’s in his sixties!” said Charles.
“And how old would Jean-Baptiste be if he hadn’t . . . you know?” I fumbled for words.
“Two hundred thirty-five,” answered Gaspard without hesitation and, looking at the others, continued, “May I?”
Charles nodded, and the rest stayed quiet.
“After we animate, we age at the same rate as anyone else. However, each time we die, we subsequently reanimate at the same age that we died the very first time. Jules died when he was nineteen, therefore each time he dies, he starts again at nineteen. Vincent was eighteen when he died, but hasn’t died for, what’s it been now? A bit over a year?” He directed his question to Vincent, but I cut him off.
“What do you mean, ‘each time you die’?” I asked. The spine-chilling icy finger was making another appearance. Vincent tightened his hold on my hand.
“Let’s just say there are a lot of people who need to be saved,” said Jules, winking.
I stared at him, struggling to understand what he was inferring. Then my eyes widened. “The man in the subway!” I gasped. “You saved his life!”
He nodded.
“But how—I mean, didn’t—” I burst out, not able to form one single thought as a dozen flooded my mind simultaneously. I remembered Vincent diving after the girl, and Charlotte saving me from death-by-crushing.
“You died saving someone, and you keep doing it after death,” I said finally. Maybe I was stating the obvious, but the lightbulb had finally flicked on above my head.
“It’s the whole reason for our being,” Vincent said. “We’re bound to that one mission for the rest of our existence.”
I stared at him. I didn’t even know how to react. My mind was a blank.
“I think it’s time to wind down this Q and A session,” Vincent said to the others. “Kate’s getting to the information-overload stage. And I’m too tired to continue.”
“You can’t tell her—” began Gaspard.
“Gaspard!” Vincent yelled, and then closed his eyes from the effort. “I . . . swear I will not tell Kate anything else . . . of importance . . . without consulting you first. Cross my heart.” Vincent drew an X across his chest and glared at the man.
“Well, then,” Ambrose said, getting up. “Now that we’re done scaring the human—I mean, Katie-Lou here”—he paced over and clapped me on the shoulder affectionately—“it’s time for some grub,” and he walked through the doorway.
Charlotte touched my arm softly as the others left. “Come have breakfast with us. You probably won’t be allowed to”—she glanced at Vincent—“leave right away anyway.”
“What time is it?” I asked, realizing I had no clue how long I had slept.
Charlotte looked at her watch. “Almost seven.”
“Seven a.m.?” I asked, astonished that I had fallen asleep in a strange house under such disturbing circumstances. “Thanks, but I think I’ll stay and talk to Vincent.”
“You should eat,” said Vincent softly. “Jean-Baptiste’s going to come storming through that door in a few minutes anyway, after Gaspard gives him his update.”