City of Ghosts

by Victoria Schwab

  “No,” I say, “I’m asking because it’s Harry Potter and it’s amazing. And the author wrote the books here!”

  Lara lifts her chin. “Well, the history of the Elephant House is contested among locals.” She hesitates, adding, “But I’ve always fancied myself a Ravenclaw.”

  “So you are a fan!”

  She cuts a sideways glance at me. “Let me guess, you’re a Gryffindor.”

  I beam. “How did you know?”

  She looks me up and down. “Reckless, headstrong, most likely to charge into a situation unprepared.” The edge of a smile. “Plus, you’re wearing a red and yellow Hogwarts sweatshirt.”

  I look down at myself. She’s right.

  At the bottom of the road, she finally slows her pace.

  “This is better,” she says, breathing deeply. “Not a shred of privacy in that place.”

  “Mrs. Weathershire is your aunt?”

  “My great-aunt, on my mother’s side. My father’s family is from New Delhi. Mum’s family is from Scotland. Hence the …” She trails off, gesturing back in the general direction of the Lane’s End. “And I was born and raised in London … but if I stay here much longer, I’m going to lose my consonants.”

  I smile, even though I’m not really sure what she means. Lara’s accent is crisp, and the Scottish accents I’ve heard are more musical, but they both sound strange and lovely.

  We stop at a kiosk on the street and buy hot chocolate—well, I buy hot chocolate, Lara opts for tea.

  She stirs milk into her paper cup, her movements slow, precise. I bet she’s the kind of girl with perfect cursive handwriting. The kind who never trips, or bangs her knees, or wakes up with a rat’s nest for hair.

  “How long are you staying with your aunt?” I ask.

  Lara shrugs with a sigh. “My parents didn’t exactly give me a return date. They’re off on some dig in Tanzania. Something to do with pottery.”

  “And they didn’t take you with them?”

  A small, bitter smile. “An archaeological site is apparently no place for a growing girl.”

  Neither is a ghost tour, I think, suddenly grateful that Mom and Dad didn’t decide to leave me behind.

  “They usually show up again before school starts.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?” she asks curtly.

  “I just mean—”

  Lara turns on her heel, so fast I almost run into her. “I didn’t agree to meet so we could discuss my family life. Let’s stick to business.”

  For as long as we’ve been walking, the castle has loomed overhead on its rocky cliff. Now Lara leads me through a low iron gate and into a kind of park around the cliff’s base. We’re surrounded by old trees and a few dog-walkers.

  Lara sits down primly on a bench in the cliff’s shadow. I sit cross-legged, trying not to fidget. She turns her dark-brown eyes on me, one of those long, loaded looks that makes it hard to sit still.

  I’m so used to Jacob’s constant commentary, like a narrator in my life, that without him, the world feels quiet. He’s not always around, but this is the first time it feels like he’s deliberately missing.

  As if Lara can read my mind, too, she says, “No sidekick today?”

  “His name is Jacob,” I say.

  She shrugs dismissively. “Ghosts don’t belong in the in-between,” she says, “and they certainly don’t belong on this side of it.”

  “He saved my life.”

  “So you let him hitch a ride into the land of the living? Not smart, Cassidy. Not smart at all.” She looks around. “And where is he now?”

  “Sulking,” I say. “He’s mad at me for even being here. For talking to you, after what you did.”

  Lara looks surprised. “What I did?”

  “To the man in the alley.”

  “Oh,” she says. “The ghost.” She flicks her fingers dismissively. “Comes with the job. So, how long have you been an in-betweener?”

  “A what?”

  “An in-betweener,” she says, drawing out the letters in case I didn’t hear. “A betwixter. A shadow-crosser.” When I still stare blankly, she rolls her eyes. “You know, what we are.”

  “Oh. I didn’t know there was a word for it.”

  “There are words for everything.”

  “Like Veil and in-between,” I point out.

  Lara gives a grudging nod. “Fine, yes. Well, in-between is the one I learned, and that makes someone like me—like you—an in-betweener.”

  “But who taught you?” I ask. “What you are? What to do?”

  For once, Lara is the one to squirm. “I … well … that is, no one taught me. Uncle Reggie has—had—an extensive library. It took a great deal of time and research, a lot of trial and error …”

  She’s lying, I think. Or at least, she’s not telling me the whole truth. But before I can call her on it, she changes course.

  “You didn’t answer my question. How long since you died?”

  I flinch at the word, the blunt way she uses it, but I don’t have to do the math. I know exactly how long. I can’t seem to forget. “Just over a year,” I say, because that’s not as weird as saying three hundred and seventy-three days.

  Lara looks at me, aghast.

  “A year?!” she says sharply. “And you haven’t reaped a single ghost?”

  “I didn’t know I was supposed to,” I shoot back. I didn’t have a user’s manual or a library of books (though in truth, there might have been something in Mom and Dad’s study, but I never thought to look). “To be honest, I’m still not sure I am.”

  Lara pinches the bridge of her nose. “Look,” she says, “you’re drawn to the Veil, aren’t you?”

  I nod.

  “Even though it frightens you …”

  Yes, I think.

  “And part of you wants to forget it’s there, but you can’t …”

  Yes.

  “You feel compelled to pull back the curtain, step across the line, and find the other side …”

  “Yes,” I confess, barely a whisper.

  Lara straightens, nodding triumphantly.

  “What you feel, Cassidy Blake, is called a purpose.”

  If Jacob were here, he’d probably make some joke about heroes and quests and monsters waiting to be vanquished. But Jacob’s not here, and the only monsters Lara is talking about are ghosts. Like him.

  Lara keeps going. “We’re drawn to the Veil because it needs us. Because you and I can do something other people can’t. We can free the spirits trapped there. We can send them on.”

  “Do we have to?” I ask softly.

  Lara purses her lips. “That pull you feel, it doesn’t go away. It will just get stronger and stronger until you start holding up your end of the deal.”

  “But I never made a deal!” I say, exasperated. I didn’t choose to go over the bridge that day. I didn’t choose to fall into the river. I didn’t choose to drown … All I wanted was to reach the surface. All I wanted was air and light and a second chance.

  A new shadow crosses Lara’s face: pity.

  “Yes, you did,” she says softly. “Maybe you didn’t say any special words, but you’re sitting here, alive, when you should be dead. Something was given to you, and you have to give it back. You and I—we’re able to cross the Veil, we’re meant to cross it, because we have a job to do on the other side. And it’s time you get to work.”

  Purpose.

  It’s crazy, but I know she’s right.

  I can feel it in my bones. The answer to the questions I’ve had for the past year, the ones that have been getting louder and louder since the accident.

  Why am I drawn to the Veil?

  How am I able to cross it?

  What am I supposed to do on the other side?

  Lara’s hand drifts toward the mirror pendant around her neck.

  “How does that work?” I ask, remembering the way she dangled it before the ghost, the incantation pouring from her lips.

&nbs
p; Lara draws the necklace over her head and sets it on the bench between us, reflective side up.

  “Ghosts can’t look at mirrors,” she explains. “They get stuck.”

  I think of Jacob back in the bedroom at the Lane’s End, snagged on his own reflection, the terrible version of himself in the glass. And I remember the only answer he would give me.

  “I … got a little lost …”

  I wrack my brain—had I ever seen Jacob look into a mirror before that? There wasn’t one in my bedroom back home, and he never went into the bathroom—never needed to go. Whenever he passed the thin mirror in the front hall, he always kept walking. I never gave it much thought.

  “What do you mean, stuck?” I ask.

  “Mirrors are honest,” says Lara. “They show you as you are. For a ghost, a mirror forces them to face the truth.”

  “And what’s the truth?”

  Lara looks at me. She has eyes like stones. Heavy.

  “The truth,” she says, “is that they’re dead. They’re gone.” She sits back. “In that sense, we’re like mirrors, too. We show them. We tell them. And once you get them to accept the truth, you just reach in and pull out the thread. You should always carry something reflective,” she adds. “For protection.”

  “Protection?” I ask. “From what?”

  “Not all ghosts are friendly,” she says bluntly. “Every time you step into the Veil, you’ve got one foot in our world, and one foot in theirs. And you may think of yourself as a visitor, a spectator, but the truth is, if a ghost is strong enough, they can hurt you. And they will, because we’ve got something they want.”

  “What’s that?”

  Lara taps her chest. “A life.”

  I think of the dull, dark rope she pulled from the ghost’s chest. And the strange light that fills my own chest whenever I’m in the Veil. The same light I saw in Lara.

  She glances past me. “Oh look,” she says dryly. “Your friend is here.”

  I twist around, and sure enough there’s Jacob, scowling at us from behind a nearby tree. Relief rushes through me, and I wish I could throw my arms around him, but the moment he sees me looking, he ducks back out of sight. Only the toe of a sneaker and a chunk of messy blond hair stick out from behind the trunk.

  Lara stares down into her cup. “My tea’s gone cold.” She rises to her feet, sweeping the pendant off the bench. “Back in a tick.”

  I watch her walk over to the kiosk at the edge of the green. She gets in line, checking her phone as she waits to order.

  I catch movement out of the corner of my eye again. This time, Jacob sinks onto the bench beside me. For a few moments, neither one of us speaks. I feel like I should apologize, but also like he should, too, so I’m relieved when I open my mouth to say sorry and he cuts me off with, “I shouldn’t have disappeared.”

  “Rule number sixteen of friendship,” I say. “Don’t go somewhere I can’t follow.”

  “I thought rule number sixteen was never spoil the end of a movie.”

  “No way,” I say confidently, “that’s rule number twenty-four.”

  He chuckles, and it’s great to see him smile again, but the space between us still feels tender, like a bruise.

  Jacob takes a deep breath. “I didn’t tell you,” he says slowly, “because I was afraid that if you knew why the ghosts were stuck in the Veil, if you knew that you could send them on, you’d send me—”

  “But you’re not stuck in the Veil.”

  Jacob looks down. “I was.”

  “Well, you’re not anymore. You’re here, with me. Do you want to leave?”

  His head snaps up. “No. Of course not.”

  “Then why would I send you away? You’re my best friend. And I think there’s a reason we’re all tangled up.”

  Jacob brightens. “You think?”

  I nod emphatically. “You’re not an ordinary ghost. I think you’re supposed to help me. I think we’re supposed to be a team.”

  He brightens a little. “Like in Skull and Bone?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Like in Skull and Bone.”

  He cracks a smile. “Which one of us is the dog in this scenario?”

  Lara returns, holding a fresh cup of tea. “All right,” she says. “Where were we … ?”

  Jacob leans forward and says, “I still don’t like her.”

  Lara’s eyes flick toward him. “I don’t like you, either, ghost.”

  He nearly falls off the back of the bench. “She can hear me?”

  “Yes, I can hear you,” says Lara, “and I can see you, and I shouldn’t be able to do either one of those things, because you shouldn’t be here.”

  I clear my throat, eager to change the subject, when I feel it.

  The tap-tap-tap of a nearby ghost.

  Lara feels it, too; I can tell by the way she stiffens, head cocked as if listening for a sound.

  “What do you say?” she asks me, turning to go. “Ready to see what you can do?”

  Lara doesn’t search for the Veil, doesn’t grab at air. She simply lifts one hand and slashes it sideways—a single, decisive motion—and the Veil parts around her.

  Around us.

  I step forward, feel that familiar bloom of cold, and then we’re through. We’re still in the park at the base of the castle—a bleaker version of it. The world is now gray and ghostly.

  I half expected Jacob to stay behind, but he’s here, at my side. He lets out a shivery breath and folds his arms. “Skull and Bone,” he murmurs, and I don’t know if he’s talking to me or to himself.

  Lara brushes invisible dust from her sleeves, that warm light shining in her chest.

  Nearby, a man bundled in winter clothes calls out a name. His voice is high and thin, as if the wind is stealing it away.

  It’s beginning to snow, not everywhere, just right around him. When he turns and makes his shuffling way out of the park, the Veil seems to recede with him like a tide, taking the winter with it.

  “How …” I start.

  “The in-between isn’t really one place,” explains Lara. “It’s different for every ghost. A kind of … time capsule. Ghosts overlap sometimes, bleed together, but in the end, each ghost is living in their own in-between, moving through their own loop.”

  We follow the man out of the park and down the road. He trudges through shallow snowdrifts up to the door of a house. He shoulders the door open and steps inside. Lara quickens her pace, and we catch up before the door falls shut.

  Lara, Jacob, and I step out of the falling snow and into a home. Jacob puts himself in front of me, like a shield. But the man doesn’t turn toward us. He stands at a fireplace, stoking the wood of a dying fire with a long iron rod. He’s tall and gaunt with wild gray hair and deep-set eyes. He could be scary. But he’s not. There’s just this overwhelming sadness, rippling off him like steam.

  “Have you seen him?” asks the man in a low, husky voice.

  I take a step forward. “Who?” I ask gently.

  Lara is already lifting her pendant, but I catch her wrist, shake my head. “Wait,” I whisper.

  “Why?” she whispers back. “It isn’t necessary to hear his story.”

  Maybe it’s not necessary, but it feels important.

  The man’s sad eyes drift toward me, to the camera around my neck. “What do you have there, lass?”

  I raise it for him to see. “It takes photos.”

  A shadow crosses the man’s face, and I start to think he doesn’t know what a photo is. Maybe he lived before cameras existed. But then he draws a small, weathered piece of paper from his shirt and turns it for me to see.

  A boy stares out from the yellowed square of an old photograph.

  “My son, Matthew,” he explains. “Got this taken at the winter fair. Right before he went missing.”

  My stomach lurches. A child stolen in winter.

  The man’s eyes go to the window. “My wife, she went south to see her kin. But I couldn’t leave my boy. I told his mother I’d
wait. I’ll wait as long as I have to.” The man sinks into his chair by the dying fire and closes his eyes. “I’ll wait until he comes home.”

  Wind whistles against the glass.

  The man’s breath fogs the air, and I shiver as the cold reaches me.

  I’ll wait as long as I have to.

  I remember what Lara said about ghosts. That they only stay in the Veil because they’re stuck. My chest aches for this man trapped here, in this world, in this house, in this endless day of waiting, because I know he’ll never stop looking out that window. And I know his son is never coming back.

  “Cassidy,” says Lara, appearing at my side. I realize that it’s time. “Do you have a mirror?” she asks, offering her own.

  I nod down to the camera in my hands. “I have this,” I say, snapping off the cap and showing her the front lens, the way it shines when I tilt it, reflecting pieces of the room. “Will it work?”

  She looks skeptical. “I suppose we’ll find out.”

  I look to Jacob, who’s hanging back by the door, his face unreadable.

  You’re not like him, I think. You don’t belong here. You belong with me.

  Jacob bites his lip, but he nods, and I turn my attention back to the man in the chair. Frost is lacing his beard, and his skin is going white with cold.

  “If you see my boy …” he murmurs, his breath a cloud.

  “I’ll send him home,” I promise, lifting the camera. “Can I take your picture, to show him?”

  He drags his eyes open, meets his reflection in the lens—and goes still. It’s like someone swapped him for a statue instead of a person. He freezes, all the pain and sadness gone from his face.

  I hear Jacob suck in a breath, but I keep my focus.

  “Do you remember the words?” asks Lara.

  I think I do.

  “Watch and listen,” I say.

  Frost crawls over the windowpanes.

  “See and know.”

  Icicles trail down the man’s face.

  “This is what you are,” I whisper.

  The man’s edges soften, his whole shape rippling. Then I take a deep breath, gather up my nerve, and reach into his chest. I pull out a fragile thread, brittle and gray. Holding the man’s life—his death—in my hand, I understand what Lara meant, when she talked about purpose. I understand what drew me again and again into the Veil. What I was looking for without looking. What I needed.