Until I Die

and unicorns and mermaids, I came across a page with an illustration of two men. One was drawn with an evil face, and the other had radiant lines around its head like it was shining. Its entry was entitled “Revenant: Bardia/Numa.”
I shook my head in amazement. Trust Papy to have a book illustrating a species of undead beings who are so meticulous about preserving their identity that they’re completely unknown to the modern world.
A shiver of excitement ran down my spine as I tried to decrypt the short paragraph beneath the heading. But besides those first three words, I didn’t recognize a thing. I felt like kicking myself for not taking more than a year of Latin in middle school. I pulled a sheet of paper from Papy’s printer and carefully copied the text onto it. When I finished, I put the book back in its place, grabbed the Latin dictionary off Papy’s reference shelf, and retreated to my bedroom.
Due to Latin’s weird verb tenses and the fact that there seemed to be no order to where words appeared in a sentence, I worked on the short text for quite a while. Finally I had deciphered enough to understand that it defined revenants as immortals who are divided into the guardians of life— bardia —and the takers of life— numa . That both types are limited by the same rules of “death sleep” and “spirit walking.” That they take power from their human saves or kills. And that they are virtually impossible to destroy.
Well , nothing new there , I thought with a pang of disappointment. Except for the term “bardia.” I wondered why the revenants didn’t use it for themselves, since the word “numa” was obviously still current.
I looked back at my notes to translate a paragraph that had been written in smaller script at the bottom of the page. It was just two sentences, and I found them easier to decrypt than the rest, getting them pretty much word for word. As I deciphered them, I felt a chill creep through my body until, when I finished, my fingers felt numb.
    “Woe to the human who encounters a revenant. For he has danced with death, being either delivered from or into its cold embrace.”
    I shivered, and glanced toward the clock as I heard my grandparents return. Midnight. I would have to continue my research another day. But having already discovered something on the first try, I was determined to find more.

NINE
     
    AND LIKE THAT, THE HOLIDAYS WERE OVER AND I was back in school. Junior year had proven to be easy so far, and Georgia, in her last semester of high school, kept me from feeling lonely between classes. But the excitement of being with Vincent and the revenants made this facet of “real life” feel bland. School was just something I needed to get out of the way. I wasn’t even thinking past graduation.
Georgia, however, had her future figured out. She would be starting a communications degree at the Sorbonne in the fall. And she had a new boyfriend, Sebastien, who not only wasn’t an evil killer like her last boyfriend, but had no criminal record that I knew of and was actually really nice. Of course, he was in a band. But you couldn’t be a nobody and date Georgia. Glamour and fame were her lowest common boyfriend denominators.
Georgia and I were on our way home after our post-holiday two-day school week and were passing the Café Sainte-Lucie when I heard someone shouting my name. I looked over to see Vincent in the café’s front door, waving us over. “I hoped you would pass by,” he said. Folding my hand in his, he steered us through the crowded room, where I saw a table full of revenants in the corner.
“Hi,” I said, leaning in to give cheek-kisses to Ambrose and Jules as Vincent took two chairs from a nearby table and placed them between him and Violette.
“Georgia, meet Violette and Arthur.” I gestured toward the newcomers. “This is Georgia, my sister.”
Arthur nodded and stood formally, taking his seat again once Georgia had sat down.
“Let me guess,” Georgia said, gawking appreciatively at his gallantry. “If it weren’t for that divinely handsome mask, you’d probably look like the crypt-keeper. What are you, like … pre-Napoleonic? Friends of Louis XIV?”
Violette gasped and placed a protective hand on Arthur’s shoulder. Her shock was offset by his look of amusement.
Ambrose cracked up. “Keep going backward, Georgia. You’ll get there in a couple hundred years.”
Georgia whistled, impressed. “It seems you have to hang with the