Until I Die

NINETEEN



IT WASN’T UNTIL I GOT IN BED THAT NIGHT THAT I felt it. The loneliness. This was my least favorite day of the month. The day when Vincent was nonexistent. A few streets away, his body lay cold on his bed.

It wasn’t like I had to see him every single moment of the day. But when I knew I couldn’t talk to him—that there was no way to contact him—well, that was when it really got to me.

We hadn’t even been together for a year, but it truly felt like Vincent was my soul mate. He completed me. Not that I wasn’t a whole person on my own. But who he was seemed to complement who I was.

I leaned my head back against the pillow and closed my eyes. The image of a painting came to my mind: one of my favorite works by Cézanne. It is a small, simple canvas depicting two perfect peaches. The fruits are painted in loose brushstrokes of oranges, yellows, and reds, their vivid colors combined in a way that makes you want to pluck one from the painting and bite into it to experience its tantalizing juiciness for yourself.

But there was something else in the picture that you didn’t even notice until you let your eyes drift from the warm colors. The peaches sat on a creamy white plate with a soft blue fabric nestled up behind them. If the peaches had been painted on an empty canvas—fiery colors against a background of pure white—they wouldn’t have been believable. But the delicately painted background brought them to life.

That’s what Vincent was for me. He gave me context. I was whole in and of myself, but better than whole with him.

But for now, I was alone. I set my mind on what I had planned for the next day, and gradually drifted into sleep.



Good morning, ma belle, a voice said as I opened my eyes. I glanced at my clock. Eight a.m.

Rolling over to my side, I closed my eyes again. “Mmm,” I groaned in pleasure. “Good morning, Vincent. How long have you been ghosting around my bedroom?” I spoke my thoughts aloud. It was the only way Vincent could hear me, since mind reading was not a revenant superpower.

Since I woke up. I guess it was a bit after midnight. The words ran through my head like a breeze, bypassing my ears and traveling directly through my thoughts. In the beginning I had gotten only a few words at a time. But now—after a few months’ practice—I could understand almost everything.

“Did I snore?” I murmured.

You never snore. You’re perfect.

“Ha!” I said. “I’m just really glad you don’t have a sense of smell when you’re volant. I don’t have to jump up and brush my teeth before we chat.”

Although I couldn’t see him, I imagined he was smiling.

“I miss you,” I said. “I wish I could be at your house right now, lying in your bed, keeping you company.”

Keeping my cold, hard body company? In my mind, Vincent’s voice sounded amused. When you could be having a conversation with me instead? So—the next words took a few seconds to come through—you do like my body better than my mind.

“I like both,” I said obstinately. “But I have to say there’s something about human touch that seems pretty essential to a relationship. I would not be into dating a ghost, for example.”

No ghosts, okay. But revenants are datable?

“Only one revenant,” I said, my arms actually aching to hold him against me. I wrapped them around my pillow instead. A flower of desire began blooming inside me as I imagined him lying in bed beside me. “I want you,” I murmured, unsure whether he heard my pillow-muffled words.

Desire … The airspace in my head was quiet for a whole minute, and then I heard him again. Desire is a funny thing. When I’m with you—in body—I’m constantly on the defensive. Against myself. We haven’t known each other long, and I need you to be sure of what you want before we … go further.

“I know what I want,” I said.

Vincent ignored that and continued. But here, when touching you isn’t even an option … well, I want you so badly it hurts.

I sat up in surprise and looked around the room, trying to place exactly where he was. “You’ve never said that before.”

Trying to resist you is like trying to resist dying. It just gets harder the longer I hold out.

I sat there for a minute, stunned by his words. My senses were all on the alert: My fingers tingled and the scent of Mamie’s flowers on my nightstand suddenly seemed overpoweringly heady. “You said that dying is like a drug to you,” I said finally.

And yet, I choose you instead. I can only imagine that when our time finally comes, it will be exponentially better than any of these short-lived supernatural rewards.

“When will our time come?” I asked hesitantly.

When do you want it to?

“Now.”

Easy answer, since it’s not possible. I could almost hear Vincent’s rueful smile.

“Soon, then,” I responded.

Are you sure? The words flitted like birds through my mind.

“Yes. I’m sure,” I said, my body buzzing, but my mind feeling strangely calm about my decision. It wasn’t like I hadn’t thought about it. A lot. Sex—in my mind—was something you did with someone you planned on staying with. And there was no question that I wanted to stay with Vincent. Intimacy was the next natural step.



I stayed in bed for another half hour, talking to Vincent. The phone rested on my pillow in case Mamie walked in unannounced. Which she never did. But if that ever happened, it was my excuse for having a conversation with the air.

Vincent was on walking duty for the entire day with Jules and Ambrose, so once he left, I got up, had my breakfast, and took off. I had done my research the day before and had discovered that the Bishop Saint Ouen, for whom the town was named, had died in the royal villa of King Dagobert in 686 CE. It was to this Villa Clippiacum that pilgrims had made their way, and the whole town had been founded around Saint-Ouen’s cult.

The royal villa no longer existed, but I found a website saying that it was probably located where a twelfth-century church now stood. I figured I would begin my search in the area immediately around the church, and then work my way outward until I found something.

I took the Métro to Mairie de Saint-Ouen, just above the northernmost edge of Paris’s circle—at the twelve o’clock of its watch face—and headed toward the church, using the neighborhood map in the Métro station.

During the fifteen-minute walk, the buildings went from modern glass and tile structures to run-down brick high-rises with satellite dishes attached outside every window. When I finally reached the church, I was amazed to see the squat stone building nestled in the middle of an iffy-looking housing project. Seeing a gang of surly boys leaning on a rail nearby, I headed directly for the church’s front door and tugged at it, only to find it locked.

I stepped back to get a better look. The stone facade didn’t look very old, but the carving over the lintel was medieval, showing an angel handing a chalice to a queen. To the right of the church was a cobblestone courtyard lined with rosebushes locked behind a white metal gate. On it hung a paper printed with the hours of upcoming masses. “Église Saint-Ouen le Vieux” was typed across the top. This had to be the right place.

The church was perched on a high cliff overlooking an industrial stretch of the river Seine, and I could easily imagine—with its vantage point over water transport—why this location had been chosen for the seventh-century royal villa. If pilgrims came here to worship, the relic sellers couldn’t have been too far away, I thought.

I glanced around for a church boutique or one of those shops near European holy places that are stuffed with pictures of the pope and postcards of saints. But the only buildings sharing the block with the church were apartments and a retirement home. I began walking away from the church, outward in a zigzag pattern so I wouldn’t miss anything. There were no reliquary shops. No signs with cords or ropes.

I even checked the local bars. None of them had a name even slightly resembling what I was looking for, although what did I expect? A pub called “The Cord and Relic”? “The Healer and the Rope”? I didn’t exactly expect to see “The Sign of the Cord” spelled out in so many letters, but I found nothing of interest within a good six blocks.

Frustrated, I went back to the church and sat down on its front steps, ignoring the catcalls of the gang of boys and trying to formulate a plan B for my search. A group of three men walked up to a nearby building, knocked on a locked door, and cast suspicious glances at me and the boys as they waited nervously for someone to open it. I am so out of here, I thought, feeling distinctly unsafe. As I stood to go, a man with a priest’s collar walked out of the gated courtyard. I went after him.

“Excuse me,” I said. The man smiled patiently and waited. “Is there some sort of church shop nearby that sells relics or religious items?”

He shook his head and shrugged. “When the church is open for mass, we sell candles and postcards. But I don’t know of any shops around here that would deal in what you’re looking for.”

I thanked him and, disheartened, began walking away.

“You know, you could always try the Marché aux Puces,” he called after me.

The Marché aux Puces. Paris’s famous flea market. It was less than a half-hour walk from here. Of course, it hadn’t even existed a thousand years ago, but maybe something had. Something that could have remained. Or relocated. The market was the place in Paris where you could find almost anything, so … why not?

It was already past noon, so I picked up a panini in a shop and ate it while I walked, knowing full well that eating lunch on the street in Paris is an etiquette no-no. As I munched my sandwich, people I passed wished me bon appétit, which was a teasing way of saying, “You should really be sitting down to enjoy your meal.”

As I hit the edge of the huge mile-square area that the market comprises, vendors with folding tables holding junk—not even the usual flea-market-style “junque”—started to appear, selling everything from gross old plastic potty seats to car parts. The closer I got to the market’s center, the better the goods got, until actual market stalls and tiny shops began to appear, jam-packed with everything from wooden African masks to vintage seventies lava lamps to crystal chandeliers. The smell of incense and furniture wax blended with the sharp sting of sautéed onions as I passed one of several food stands dotting the market.

I scanned the shop signs as I went, looking for any cordlike symbols. Maybe a workshop that used to house a rope maker, I thought. But there was nothing like that hanging above the antiques stores I passed. Finally I stopped and asked a vendor if he knew of anything that had a sign of a cord. He rubbed his chin and shook his head. “Non.”

“Well, is there anyone in the market who specializes in relics? Like … religious items?” I asked.

He thought for a moment. “Down that way there’s a store that isn’t really a part of the market. It’s more a shop, with regular opening hours. So it won’t be open on a Sunday, but you can have a look.” He gave me detailed instructions on how to get there, even though it was just a couple of blocks away. I thanked him with a grateful smile and headed in the direction he had pointed.

It was a tiny shop located on a street corner, flanked by an antique doll store on one side and, down the adjoining street, a vintage clothes boutique. The facade was painted bottle green, and the windows were lined with shelves packed with religious statues in every material imaginable: wood, marble, metal—even bone. There were crucifixes of all sizes and flasks of holy water “from the blessed springs of Lourdes,” as the tags read. The shop behind the display was dark. As the vendor had guessed, they were closed.

I backed up to get a better look at the building and noticed an antique, weather-worn wooden sign hanging above the door. On it, a carved raven perched atop the words le corbeau. A light was trying to go on in my head, but I couldn’t quite flip the switch.

I read it once again and had a mental flashback to the passage from Immortal Love, with its Gothic-style letters that were so hard to read. And suddenly it clicked, and my heart began beating a million miles an hour. Le corbeau, “the raven.” Not le cordeau, “the cord.” I had misread the ancient letters in the book and had been looking for the wrong sign the whole time.

Could this possibly be the place I was looking for? It sold relics … under the sign of the raven … among the Audoniens. But this building could only be a few hundred years old, tops.

I didn’t know what to think. But there was nothing else to be done. They were closed. No phone number or opening hours were posted on the door. There wasn’t even a number on the building. I checked the sign on the doll shop and the place directly across from it and guessed the store’s address from that, writing it down with the name of the street.

A woman walked out of the vintage clothes store and lit a cigarette. She glanced over at me. “He’ll be back on Tuesday,” she called. “Tuesday through Friday.”

“Thanks so much!” I called back.

Well, I had two days to wait. And only an hour or two before Vincent was going to be off walking duty. I hope he doesn’t mind hanging out in my room, I thought. After my busy weekend, I was going to have to spend the whole evening doing homework.