Until I Die

me …” She waited.
“Kate. Kate Mercier.”
“Tell me, Kate Mercier, what have you to ask me?” She spoke the words as if they were a formula she had been told to follow.
“I … I’m in love. With a revenant.”
The woman’s face dropped. “Oh, my dear.”
Her look of pity only bolstered my resolve. “He’s still young: He’s only been a revenant for eighty-five years. So the compulsion to die often is still really strong. I love him. But I’m not strong enough to stay with someone who dies the gruesome deaths they do … over and over again.”
“Very few would be, my dear. Unless you cast all feeling from your heart, it would be a terribly traumatic life for you. And if you were able to succeed in numbing your emotions to that extent, well, you wouldn’t be the same sensitive girl that you are now—the girl that he fell in love with.”
I thanked her silently for understanding. “I’m searching for a way to ease the suffering that comes with his resisting death. So that he can hold out for longer. Perhaps for my lifetime,” I said, but in my mind the words were, Until I die . “I don’t want him to suffer for me.”
“I understand,” she said, sighing. “But I must tell you, I don’t have any kind of mystical cure sitting around. No bottle of healing unguent or potion hidden away in a cupboard. As you remember, the boy in the story never made it to my ancestor in the end. But after the story was passed to us, the gifted ones in my family have, over the ages, written down their thoughts on this and other matters.
“I will have to find my records, Kate, to see what I can come up with. There are things I know about the revenants. Secrets I’ve been given. But none of them would provide a solution to your particular problem. You have chosen a hard path, and I do not envy you that. But I will do my best to find something to ease the suffering—for both of you.”
She stood and walked to the door. “Let’s go downstairs,” she said. I followed her down and into the shop, where we came to an abrupt halt as we took in the scene before us.
Jules stood in the middle of the room, the tip of his drawn sword pressed to the chest of the bottle-glassed man, who looked like he had shrunk a foot under the revenant’s fierce gaze.
“I—I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the man was stuttering. “There’s no one here but me!”
“I know the girl is here, now take me to her!” Jules roared, and pressed harder with the sword, trapping the man against the front desk.
“Jules, stop!” I yelled.
Both men turned, and Jules dropped his sword, slipping it into its sheath as he walked quickly in our direction.
“Kate. Are you okay?” he asked, reaching for me.
“An aura like a forest fire,” said the old woman, staring at Jules. “You are one of them.” And then, slowly, she curtsied as if he were visiting royalty.
“What the—” Jules said, astounded.
The lady stood and held out her hand for Jules to take. “I am Gwenhaël, and this is my son, Bran.” She gestured toward the bug-eyed man, whose hand was clutching his chest as if Jules had actually wounded him.
Jules threw me a What the hell is going on? look, and cleared his throat uncomfortably.
“Is this the boy in question?” the woman asked.
“No,” I answered.
“Well,” she responded, studying Jules’s face as if trying to memorize everything she saw for future reflection. Jules raised his eyebrows and looked at me pointedly.
“We are honored to have your visit, sir,” she said finally, and then turned to me. “As we are to have yours, dear Kate. Give me a week and then come back. That will give me time to go through all my ancestors’ texts. Maybe I will have some information that can help you.”
“ Merci, Madame …”
“Just Gwenhaël,” she responded, and patted my hand. “I will see you in a week.”
Keeping a careful distance from Jules, Bran handed me a card with only a telephone number printed on it. “You can call before you come. Save you a trip. Good-bye,” he said, giving us a quick bow and then staring at us with his huge, reflected eyes as we stepped out of the store and into the street.
We had barely taken three steps before Jules turned to me. “Do you plan on telling me what that was about?”
“No,” I responded stubbornly.
“Then you plan on telling Vincent about it?”
“At some point, yes.”
Jules shook his head. “You were in there for twenty-five minutes. You could have at