*
When I awoke an hour later, I didn’t know where I was for a few seconds. And then I felt Vincent’s cold body by my side, and I was suffused with an overwhelming sense of peace that made me feel stronger than I ever had before.
I heard a noise and turned to see Charlotte poking her head through the door. “I stopped by before, but you were asleep. Are you up now?”
“Yes,” I said, sitting up and slipping off the bed.
“Oh, good.” She slid inside and closed the door. “You’ve been crying,” she said after kissing my cheeks.
I nodded. “I’m fine now. But you don’t look so hot yourself.”
Charlotte’s normally radiant glow had turned sallow, and all the life that seemed to be popping and sparking around her before had disappeared. She looked sad and exhausted. “It’s Charles,” she said.
“Still no word?” I asked, pulling her down to sit next to me on the couch.
She shook her head, bereft.
“I’ve tried calling him a million times. I’ve left dozens of messages. We’ve put all the numa-controlled locations under surveillance, have paid our tipsters, and even raided an old warehouse where we thought they might be holding him. And we’ve found nothing.”
“I’m sorry.” Not knowing what else to say, I rubbed her shoulder comfortingly.
“He’s my twin, Kate. We’ve never been apart except for when we’re dormant. I feel like I’ve lost a half of myself. And I’m really afraid for him.”
I nodded. “Vincent told me what he suspected.”
“I just don’t understand,” she whispered, shaking her head.
She leaned in toward me, and I hugged her slender frame against my own.
“Vincent’s been leaving us alone for the last few minutes, but he says he wants to be part of the conversation now.”
“Okay,” I said.
She nodded, listening to him, and her eyes welled with tears.
“What did he say?” I asked.
“He said, ‘We’re all lost souls here. It’s a good thing we’ve got each other.’”
Vincent’s right, I thought. Even though I’m not a revenant, I fit right in. I took a package of Kleenex out of my book bag and handed one to her.
She dabbed her eyes, and then looked at me, surprised. “Vincent says that he talked to you this morning, and that you heard!”
“So I wasn’t imagining it!” I said, awestruck. “Ask him what he said.”
“He said he told you, ‘I’m yours.’”
“That’s it!” I said, jumping up off the couch and glancing over at his body before realizing for the millionth time that he wasn’t there. “But how is that possible?” I asked her. “He told me once that revenants can only communicate with other revenants when they’re volant.”
Charlotte listened, then said, “Vincent says that he’s been studying up since then. That it’s rare but has been reported in cases where a human and a revenant have been together for years and years. Geneviève is the only revenant we know like that. And her husband can get impressions of what she wants, but he can’t actually hear words.”
“But we’ve been together for weeks, not years,” I said doubtfully. “How can it work for us?”
“He says he has no clue, but wants to try again,” Charlotte said excitedly.
“Okay,” I said, walking over to the bed.
“No, come over here,” Charlotte said. “It will just distract you to look at his body. He says to close your eyes and block everything else out. Like you do at museums.” I smiled as I remembered the art-induced trance he had spotted me in at the Musée Picasso. I closed my eyes and breathed slowly, letting the room’s tranquillity permeate my body. Slowly I began to feel the same sensation I had before. Of someone trying to write letters in my mind.
“What are you hearing?” she asked me.
“I’m not hearing anything. I’m kind of seeing something . . . like someone is writing words.”
“He says you’re trying to visualize. Stop using your inner eye and use your inner ear. Like if you were listening to music that you heard coming from far away. Try to sharpen it and tune in.”
I concentrated, and began to hear a kind of swishing noise, like the wind through leaves, or a kind of static.
“He says to stop trying so hard and just be,” said Charlotte.
I relaxed, and the static turned into a rustling noise like a plastic bag being blown around in a breeze. And then I heard it. Pont des Arts.
“Pont des Arts?” I said out loud.
“You mean, the bridge crossing the Seine?” Charlotte asked, confused, and then nodded. “Vincent says it was the site of a very important event.”
I laughed. “Um, yeah. That would be the first time we kissed.”