“Listen,” says Mom, wrapping her arms around my shoulders. “Do you hear that?”
And suddenly, I’m on edge again, fingers going to the evil eye in my pocket as I listen. I hear the constant murmurs of the Veil, the vague melody of whispers and songs, but closer, clearer, I hear what Mom does. A beat, as steady as a heart or a drum. Lara and Dad and Jacob hear it, too, their heads turning toward the sound.
“What is that?” I ask.
But Mom only flashes a dazzling smile and says, “Let’s find out.”
She grabs my hand, and we’re off.
When I was young, Mom and I would go for walks in the fields and woods beyond our house. There was no path, no set course. If anything, she would change direction as often as she could, getting turned around on purpose. We were never far from home, but at the time, the world felt so wild and big, and I was scared of going too far, of not finding my way back.
But Mom loved it. Believed it was all part of the adventure.
She said the best way to find yourself was to let yourself get lost.
It’s hard to get lost in the grid of streets, but it’s easy to get turned around.
I catch Lara’s hand in mine, and Jacob catches hers, and Dad is on our heels, and together, we follow the drum, and the trumpet that joins in, the brash shout of a horn, and the metallic ring of whistles.
The volume rises like a tide.
A chaotic melody, vibrant and alive.
The music swells as we round a corner, and suddenly, we’re face-to-face with a parade.
Not a jazz funeral like earlier—there are no white suits, no somberness to the affair, no casket that I can see—just shining brass instruments, and brilliant costumes, and skeletons. I tense, instantly on guard. But the skeletons only billow like kites on bright red strings, dancing in the air, jaws open as if laughing. Lara’s hand tightens around mine, but despite everything, I’m not afraid.
There is no menace in the air, no danger. No bone-deep chill or hollowing fear.
Just the overwhelming thrum of energy and life.
We stand there a moment, two parents, two girls, and a ghost, watching the parade. With every forward step, it seems to gain size. People join, cheering and dancing, the procession swelling into a street party.
“What are they celebrating?” I call over the roar of the crowd.
“Life!” says Mom. “Death!” she adds. “And everything in between.”
“Can we join?” I ask, and Mom beams, as if she thought I’d never ask.
We step into the fray. The parade swirls around us, carries us along, and we let it. I want to close my eyes, disappear into the sound, but I don’t want to get trampled.
“Life is a party, dear daughter,” says Mom, draping a chain of gold beads around my neck. “Celebrate it every day.”
Dad snags a feathered crown and sets it on Lara’s head, and for an instant, she looks so surprised, so out of place, that Jacob cackles, and I expect her to take it off, to smooth her hair. But she doesn’t. She smiles. And sure, she straightens the crown a little when it slips to one side, and holds it there, but only because she doesn’t want to lose it while she’s dancing.
And there, in the midst of the parade, she is not Lara Chowdhury, a lonely girl trying to grow up too fast. She’s just Lara, smart and clever and selfless.
And Jacob Ellis Hale is not the ghost of a boy who drowned three years ago in a river, trying to rescue his little brother’s toy. He’s just my best friend, bouncing out of time with the beat.
And I’m not being hunted by an agent of Death.
I’m just a girl dancing with my friends and family in the street.
We tumble back into our hotel room, giddy and tired.
My shoe knocks against something small and hard, and it goes skittering across the floor. A stone. I look down and see another, then the open box of matches, spilling thin wood sticks across the floor.
The room wasn’t exactly tidy to start with, but now it’s a mess.
“Oh dear,” says Mom.
And for a second, I wonder if we somehow caught the attention of a poltergeist here. And then I realize, this wasn’t a spirit at work.
It was a cat.
Grim has not only gotten into Lara’s backpack, he’s pulled out everything he could reach. The cat was a small black tornado of destruction, scattering all our supplies around the room.
The bottle of oil is nowhere to be seen. The ball of white string has been unraveled, and tangled through the legs of the table and around the chair. Only the pouch of grave dirt has been left mercifully closed, though the culprit sits squarely on top of it, his black tail flicking nervously from side to side.
When I try to nudge Grim off, his ears go back, and his nails dig into the pouch, as if to say mine. Or maybe bad.
I reach for the pouch again, and he bats my hand away in warning. Perhaps he’s trying to protect me after all, telling me to stay away from this symbol of death.
Or maybe he’s just an ornery cat.
Dad hoists Grim up and plants him on the sofa, and Lara offers up her feathered crown to the cat as a distraction while I kneel on the floor, carefully scooping up the thin gray dust that spilled through the tiny holes where Grim’s claws punctured the cloth.
It takes ten minutes to find all the stones and pick up the loose matches.
“What is all this?” asks Mom, fetching the bottle of oil from where it rolled under the bed.
“Oh,” says Lara quickly. “Just some gifts I bought for my parents.”
“Speaking of which,” says Dad, making a tidy pile of the small black stones, “your aunt must be wondering where you are.”
Lara and I exchange a look.
“Actually,” she says, putting on her best grown-up voice, “Cass invited me to spend the night and my aunt agreed. If that’s all right with you.”
I exhale a little, trying to hide my relief. “That’s really nice of your aunt,” I say.
“I know.” Lara smiles. “She’s very thoughtful.”
Mom wavers. “It’s fine with us,” she says, “but I really would feel better if we called her to check.”
I hold my breath, waiting for Lara’s lie to fall apart, but she just nods and says, “Of course,” before pulling out her phone. It rings and rings, and I wonder if she’s called a real number at all when a voice answers.
“Hello! Hello! Thread and Bo—”
“Aunt Philly!” Lara calls in a bright, chiming voice. “It’s me, Lara.”
I can just make out Philippa’s whimsical voice on the other end. “Well, hello again.”
“Cassidy’s parents want to make sure I’m safe and sound, and that you’re okay with me spending the night. Will you speak to them?”
Lara hands the phone to Mom, shooting me a mischievous look. I can’t help but wonder if Lara has a little bit of Slytherin mixed in with all that Ravenclaw.
* * *
That night, when Mom and Dad are asleep, and the lights are out, and Lara’s backpack is safely stored in the bathroom with the door closed to protect it from the cat, she and Jacob and I make a tent under the covers of my bed, and talk.
We sit, knees close and heads together, our faces lit by the flashlight on Lara’s phone.
In this jagged light, we’re all washed out, and it’s easy to forget that Jacob’s a ghost. I can barely see through him, and I swear, if Mom and Dad were to look over now, they might see three figures in the tent instead of two.
Thankfully, they’re fast asleep.
“You’re breathing on me,” mutters Lara, leaning away from Jacob. “It’s … cold. I don’t like it.”
“What am I supposed to do?” mutters Jacob. “Hold my breath?”
“Do you even need air?” she snaps back.
“Focus,” I hiss.
We’d been discussing the steps for the banishing ritual.
“So what do we do tomorrow?” Jacob asks. “We just wait for the Emissary to show back up?”
“That,
” I say, “or we go looking for it.”
Jacob stares at me like I’ve lost my mind. I get it. When I think of running toward the Emissary, my legs feel like jelly. But the idea of getting caught off guard might be worse.
In the end, we take a vote. Jacob is solidly in the “don’t go looking for Death” camp, and to my surprise, so is Lara.
“I think we should be prepared,” she says. “But if we go after it, the Emissary might sense a trap.”
I take a deep breath. “So we let it find me.”
And take you back into the dark.
Jacob’s the one who can read my mind, but Lara’s the one who squeezes my hand. “We’re in this together. And you’re not going anywhere.”
She pulls her hand away to cover a yawn, and it’s contagious, bouncing from her to me to Jacob.
“We should sleep,” I say, even though I don’t know if I can.
We discuss taking shifts, then realize it’s pointless, since Jacob is the only one who doesn’t need sleep. Lara mumbles something about not trusting a ghost and a lazy cat to keep us safe all night, but she’s too tired to do more than protest.
We collapse our makeshift tent, and Jacob goes to the foot of the bed and sits there, back to us, staring into the dark. “Night, Cass,” he whispers.
“Night, Jacob,” I whisper, my head on my pillow.
“Mnmnghost,” whispers Lara, already half asleep next to me.
I don’t know what’ll happen tomorrow.
I don’t know if I’ll be able to banish the Emissary.
I don’t know if we can win.
But right now, tucked between my family and my friends, I feel almost safe.
I lie awake, listening to the murmur of the Veil, and the very real noise of people in the streets, and the distant sound of the party still going somewhere, faint and far away as wind. I pull the evil eye from my pajama pocket and think through the banishing spell again, turning the glass charm between my fingers until the pattern of black, blue, white, blue becomes abstract, just streaks of colored glass, until I can’t keep my own eyes open any longer.
I don’t remember falling asleep, but one second I’m in bed, and the next, I’m in the cemetery.
I scramble backward as the Emissary appears, making its slow, steady way toward me between the crypts. I call for Jacob, for Lara, but I have no voice. I turn and run, until I reach a dead end, a crypt that stretches as far and wide as I can see. I burst through the door and into the tomb. There’s no casket, only a statue of the blindfolded girl from the Two of Swords, the blades crossed in front of her.
The girl is made of stone, but the swords are metal—heavy and real.
The door rattles and shakes behind me as I pull the swords out of the statue’s hands.
I turn to face the Emissary as it bursts through the door, but I wake right before it reaches me.
My heart is racing and the room is dark, my hand aching where it grips the evil eye. But when I force my fingers open, the charm is unbroken, and Lara is asleep, and Jacob is right there, in front of the bed. He glances over his shoulder and makes a silly face. My heart slows, and I smile and sink back into the sheets.
The rest of the night is restless, dreamless, and I’m relieved when light slips through the window curtains. I get up and shower, wrangle my messy curls back and up, reach for my mirror pendant before remembering it’s broken.
I comb through Mom’s toiletry bag and find a compact, a disc of blush on one side and a smudged mirror on the other. It’ll do for now.
One of the first things Lara taught me was that in-betweeners should never be without a mirror.
Look and listen. See and know. This is what you are.
The words reserved for a ghost.
But they hold true for the living, too.
I meet my gaze in the compact mirror’s reflection. “My name is Cassidy Blake,” I say softly. “I’m twelve years old. Last year, I stole from Death. I lived when I should have died. I stayed when I should have gone. I survived once, and I’ll survive again. My name is Cassidy Blake,” I say again. “And I will not be dragged into the dark.”
There are two ways to find Death.
Either you go looking for it, or you wait for it to come to you.
We chose the latter, but as the morning goes on, I’m beginning to regret that choice. Lara, Jacob, and I trail my parents and their film crew through haunted hotels. Apparently, it’s hard to find a hotel in New Orleans without a resident ghost. According to Lucas, half the hotels were schools or orphanages once, until, like the Place d’Armes, all of them burned down.
Where are you? I think as we stand in a room in the Bourbon Orleans, while Mom’s EMF meter warbles and whines, and once, I swear, it even giggles. I shiver and retreat, leaning against a wall, only to feel the Veil lean back, whispering mischief.
“Come and play.”
But I resist the pull. Ghost hunting is officially on hold.
We go to more hotels: the Monteleone, the Andrew Jackson, the Dauphine. At each one, the cameras roll, and Dad recounts the history of the hotel and Mom recounts the stories of its ghosts. Of shadows that sit on the edges of beds and children who play in the halls. Of things that go missing and things that are found.
It’s hard to focus on the filming. My nerves tighten, my senses bristle. I keep my ears tuned to the air, waiting for any shift. For the sound to drop out of the room, or a chill breeze, or a voice drifting through the dark.
We will find you, it said.
Come and try, I think.
I can tell that Jacob and Lara are just as jumpy, though he’s no good at hiding it, and somehow she’s able to smile and pretend that she’s listening to my parents’ show, that the only thing making her shiver is one of Mom’s stories.
Lara keeps her hand on her backpack, ready to assemble the banishing spell as soon as the Emissary makes its move.
But several locations later and still no sign of it.
The sun is high and hot as we pass the Old Ursuline Convent, a massive building that looms behind tall walls and sculpted hedges.
According to Dad, the convent is older than the United States. According to Mom, it’s the birthplace of the American vampire. Or at least, one of the vampire legends. Apparently, teenage girls were sent over from France, and they arrived in New Orleans pale and gaunt, clutching casket-shaped boxes. The boxes—called caskets—were supposed to contain their dowry. But the myths grew until people believed that the boxes were literal caskets, and the girls undead.
As Mom and Dad narrate, I keep one hand in my pocket, fingers tight around the glass evil eye, and wait, and wait, and wait. But I don’t feel anything strange, save for the rise and fall of the Veil.
Maybe I should feel relieved. But I don’t. Instead, I feel like someone who’s holding her breath, and running out of air.
* * *
I knew we would end up here eventually.
The most haunted place in New Orleans.
We stand in front of the LaLaurie Mansion, looking up at the squat stone building, stretching as wide as the block.
“You know,” says Jacob, “I was just starting to think, as far as ghosts go, this city isn’t so bad.”
I stare at the house. It’s three stories tall instead of the Quarter’s usual two, which makes it loom over the low buildings to either side like a shadow, despite its pale gray stone.
And I shudder, despite the heat.
I’ve been to Mary King’s Close, where people were bricked into the walls while still alive.
I’ve been to the Catacombs of Paris, with its millions of bones.
Places where the past seeped through, the voices and emotions carried on the Veil.
And even from the street, I know this is one of those places. And suddenly, I think I’d rather face my own death again than go inside.
The front door sits back from the curb, crypt white beneath a stone arch, the entrance barred by a black iron gate. The tips of the bars are spiked li
ke arrows, and it feels like the opposite of an invitation.
Go away, the building seems to say.
I look around, almost hoping for a visit from the Emissary, but there’s still no sign of it as Lucas pulls a key from his pocket and unlocks the door, a stale draft seeping out.
I remember Adan’s story from the first night, about the call coming from inside the house, even though no one else was home. And I know it was the kind of ghost story you tell instead of the true horror, the kind you tell about places after they’re haunted, instead of the ones that explain how they got haunted in the first place.
“There are many shadows in New Orleans’s past,” says Dad, “but this is one of the darkest.”
His voice is low and stern, but I can tell he’s speaking to the camera.
We step through the door, and the Veil slams into me.
A wave of hatred and pain and fear so sharp it knocks the air from my lungs. Lara sucks in a breath, and I can tell she feels it, too. The weight of ruined places. The anger of the dead. Smoke burns my eyes, even though the front hall is cold and bare, and a heavy beat sounds in my ears, like knuckles knocking on wood.
“Madame LaLaurie was a socialite,” says Mom, with none of her usual cheer, “and a serial killer. At a time when the horrors of slavery ran rampant in this country, LaLaurie stands out for the sheer scope of her cruelty.”
Lucas looks down at the marble floor, his hands clenched into fists.
“It came to light during one of her parties,” says Dad. “A fire started, and quickly spread through the house. Everyone got out in time, or so they thought. And yet, there were voices coming from the burning house.” He swallows hard. “Even after the fire was put out, they heard pleading, and the dull pounding of fists. It was only when the ashes cooled that they discovered why.”
He looks down.
“LaLaurie had kept her slaves locked in the attic.”
Bile rises in my throat.
“When the fire started, they had no way to escape.”
Jacob shudders. Lara’s hand goes to her mouth. The Veil reaches out, ready to pull me through, and I push back with all my might because I can’t face the other side, and for once, it has nothing to do with the Emissary.
Bridge of Souls (City of Ghosts #3) Page 11
