Love Reborn (A Dead Beautiful Novel) Read Online Free Page A

Liberum, and from Dante, whom he had been hunting ever since Dante and I exchanged souls. Maybe my phone call would make him change his course.
    The phone rang, but I didn’t pick up. As the house stirred with the sound, I slung my bag over my shoulder and slipped outside. I ran toward the road, the zing of the morning cold making my limbs move faster. My taxi was waiting to take me to the bus station in Amherst. The driver nodded as he pulled away from the road, and I watched the last trace of my grandfather’s mansion disappear through the pines.
    Pilgrim, Massachusetts, was a quiet fishing town, the shores rocky and the water dark. The slant of the afternoon sun made my shadow stretch as I walked down Main Street, trying to figure out what to do. Souvenir shops and fish shacks lined the sidewalk, though almost all were closed for the winter, and the streets were empty save for a few stray seagulls perched on the awnings. I was supposed to meet Dante somewhere in town, but I felt no trace of him. That had to have been what Dante had meant when he’d told me I would know where to go—that I would be able to sense him—but all I could feel now was the salty sea breeze rolling in over the ocean.
    The shops on the street grew sparse as I made my way toward the end of town, the chest heavy against my back. I tried to keep my mind from wandering, but all I could think about was: what if? What if my grandfather had caught up to Dante? What if the Monitors had decided to bury him? What if I never saw him again? The seagulls cried overhead, circling like vultures, while the waves crashed against the rocks. I slowed, about to lose hope, when something caught my eye.
    The street rose up a hill. At the top stood a rickety brown house with a wooden sign hanging off its awning. It swung, creaking in the wind. the old soul , it read in a mariner’s typeface. Before I knew it, I was walking, then jogging toward it, the air sharp in my lungs.
    At the top of the hill, I stopped to catch my breath. The Old Soul stood only a few paces away: a weathered colonial with screen doors, a wraparound porch, and shutters flanking its windows. TAVERN AND RESTAURANT , the sign read.
    I peered through the windows, looking for Dante even though I knew he couldn’t be there—not without me feeling him. On the other side of the window stood a rustic dining room with long wooden tables set with mugs and dinnerware. No sign of guests or waiters. I scanned the chairs, looking for some clue as to why Dante would have told me to come here, when I saw something move.
    I jumped back. An elderly man stood behind the bar, listening to a portable radio. He didn’t seem to see me. I squinted, watching him sneeze, then pat around the counter for a stack of napkins as if he were blind.
    I leaned forward to get a better look, when I noticed someone peering in through the window on the opposite side of the building. I cupped my hands over the glass. It looked like a girl, though she was too far away to make out the details of her face. All I could see was the top of her hair, which was dyed a deep, unnatural red. I paused. The color looked shockingly familiar.
    “Anya?” I whispered.
    Just before my breath fogged the glass, her eyes darted to mine as though she’d heard me. But no, it couldn’t be. I wiped the condensation off the window; she ducked out of the way. Anya had been one of my closest friends at St. Clément last year. But the school and her home were both in Montreal—why would she be here, in this country, in this state, in the same exact town, peering into the same exact window on the opposite side of the restaurant where I was supposed to meet Dante? No one knew we were meeting here; in fact, even I hadn’t known until a few minutes before. I must be seeing things, I thought, and backed away.
    “Renée?” It was a high-pitched voice with a Russian accent.
    Before I knew it, Anya Pinsky had wrapped her skinny arms around me with an excited