Read Until I Die for Free Online Page A

had forgotten where I was as I became gradually sucked into their history—a history full of love and happiness, certainly, but one that had ended as a tragedy worthy of Homer.
When I returned to the living room, carrying the tray with teapot and cups, Jules was pacing around on his cell phone, spreading the news to their friends. Geneviève sat on the couch with her head on Vincent’s shoulder, staring off into space.
My boyfriend’s eyes were dark as he watched me cross the room and set the tray on a coffee table in front of them. An expression of pain flashed across his face, and I knew we were thinking the same thing. The story of Geneviève and her human husband could one day be ours.

FIVE
     
    WE STOOD IN THE GRAVEYARD, AMONG THE TOMB stones, forty-some dead people and me. A couple of my fellow funeral-goers had even been in their own coffins, deep under several feet of French soil, before they had been dug out by Jean-Baptiste or another like him who had “the sight.”
As Vincent had explained to me, a revenant-in-the-making sends off a light like a beacon shooting straight up into the sky, visible only to those few revenants who have the gift of seeing auras. And if the “seer” gets to the corpse before it wakes up three transformational days later—if they provide food, water, and shelter for the awakening revenant—a new immortal is born. If not … ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
Although Philippe hadn’t met the revenant prerequisite of dying in another human’s stead, Geneviève didn’t take any chances and waited until the fourth day after his death to bury him. And now she knelt by the graveside, swathed in black crepe and throwing bunches of tiny white flowers down onto the casket.
“Thee only do I love,” came a girl’s hushed voice from just behind me. Vincent had left my side to stand next to Geneviève, picking up a handful of dirt and throwing it down among the flowers before giving another mourner his place. I turned to see Violette standing next to me.
“What did you say?” I asked.
“The tiny white flowers Geneviève is throwing—they’re arbutus.” She saw my confusion and corrected herself. “I forgot that they do not teach the language of flowers nowadays. That was a staple of a lady’s education. Every flower has its own meaning. And arbutus flowers mean ‘Thee only do I love.’ Geneviève would be aware of that—that is why she chose them for her one and only love.”
I nodded blankly.
“It is tragic,” she continued in her strange old-fashioned speech. I had a hard time following some of it—at times her words came out like she was quoting Shakespeare, but in Old French. “Why anyone would put themselves through such misery is quite simply beyond me. How could she expect anything other than grief, remaining attached to a human?”
The words came out almost flippantly, and then Violette turned to me with her mouth in an O and eyes wide. “Kate. I am so sorry! You blend in so well with all the revenants here, I completely forgot you were not one of us. And with you and Vincent being …” She grasped for words.
“Together,” I said bluntly.
“Yes, of course. Together. Well, it is so very, very … pleasant . Please forget that I said anything.”
Violette looked like she was on the verge of tears, she was so embarrassed. I touched my hand to her shoulder and said, “Don’t worry. Really. Sometimes it’s hard for me to remember there’s any difference between me and Vincent.” Which was kind of a lie, since that difference was almost always on my mind. But she seemed mollified and, after nodding gratefully at me, stepped forward and bent down to scoop up her own handful of grave dirt.
There was a stir as Vincent held his hand up to quiet the crowd, who had begun conversing softly among themselves. “Excuse me, friends,” he called out. “There is something that Geneviève wanted to read you herself, but she has asked me to take her place. It was a favorite