City of Ghosts

by Victoria Schwab

  “I’m working on it,” I answer breathlessly. My camera bobs around my neck.

  It should have worked.

  Why didn’t it work?

  “Something’s wrong with them,” I say.

  “You mean besides the fact they’re chasing us?” asks Jacob.

  We hit the base of the road and skid to a stop.

  “Oh no.”

  When I was on the other side of the Veil, I could feel the weight of it, the pressure warning me when places were haunted, when ghosts were close. But from this side, I can’t feel anything.

  Which is why I didn’t realize where we were going until we’re already there.

  Grassmarket.

  On the other side of the Veil, Grassmarket was a bustling square full of tourists and pubs, open air and history.

  Here, it’s still exactly what it used to be: an execution ground.

  The place where hundreds of men and women met their ends.

  The square is packed with ghosts, huddled around a wooden stand.

  “Detour,” whispers Jacob, but I can hear the boy and the girl running behind us and there’s nowhere else to go, no way out but through.

  I take Jacob’s hand and we force our way into the dense crowd as a man is led onto the platform. A coarse rope is cinched around his neck.

  I turn away, burying my face in Jacob’s shoulder because there are some things you never need to see.

  But the execution doesn’t come.

  The voices in the crowd trail off into an eerie silence. And when I look up, I see a hundred faces. The mob isn’t looking at the man on the stand.

  They’re looking at us.

  A woman shuffles toward me.

  “The Raven came this way …”

  A man jostles closer.

  “She said she’d set us free …”

  A child skips and twirls.

  “All we had to do …”

  An old woman grabs at my sleeve.

  “… was get ahold of you.”

  I yelp and hold up my camera like a shield, and the old woman staggers back as if struck.

  Jacob takes my arm and pulls me toward the end of the square.

  “We can’t outrun them!” I say.

  “We don’t have to,” he says.

  And he’s right. We might be stuck here in the Veil, but we’re not stuck here, not bound to any one place, any one loop in time and memory.

  All we have to do is reach the edge of Grassmarket.

  Hands grab at us as we duck and twist through the crowd.

  A man collars Jacob, but I twist my friend free, camera raised, and we keep running, as hard as we can. The air at the edge of Grassmarket shimmers up ahead as the mob of ghosts closes in behind and around us.

  I feel fingers brush my back, trying to snag the camera strap, but the instant before they close, we veer left out of the square and onto a narrow road. Then Grassmarket vanishes behind us, like a door slamming shut.

  The mob of ghosts, the hungry crowd, their cries and shouts are swallowed up by a fold in the Veil.

  Jacob doubles over, gasping, and I slump against the wall, breathless and shaking. The feeling of cold is getting worse. I don’t tell Jacob but he can see it on my face, read it in my panicked thoughts. My hands, when I look at them, are colorless. I’m running out of time.

  I crane my head, straining to see over the rooftops until I find it. The dark gray stone of the graveyard wall.

  “Come on,” I say, dragging Jacob after me.

  The wall flashes behind and between houses, and I keep it in my sights as we move, because the last thing I need right now, with the Raven so close and time running out, is to get lost.

  We’ve carved a large circle, and we’re on a narrow road that runs along the graveyard wall, almost back to the gate, when I see the boy with sad eyes—Matthew—at the mouth of the lane. A smaller child stands beside him.

  Jacob skids to a stop and turns, only to find the modern-day blond girl, with two more ghosts at her back.

  “Plan?” he asks again, his voice edging higher with worry.

  “I’m working on it,” I say, backing up until my shoulders hit the stone of the graveyard wall.

  I don’t know what the children want, but it doesn’t involve talking.

  They don’t make any sound at all, not a whisper or a giggle or a grunt. You don’t think about how unnerving silence is until it’s everywhere.

  The circle of ghosts tightens like a knot. I don’t want to find out what happens when they close the last of the gap between us.

  “Stay back!” orders Jacob. When the ghosts keep coming, he shoots me a nervous look. “It was worth a try.”

  I press back into the wall. There’s nowhere to go. We’re so close. So close. I can hear the shovels hitting earth on the other side of the wall. The children close in, opening their mouths, and instead of different voices coming out, there’s only one. The Raven’s. Her eerie, hypnotic song pours from their lips. The notes fill the air.

  Jacob’s hand closes over mine.

  “I’ll try to distract them,” he says. “You run.”

  “No,” I say automatically, because I can’t stomach the thought of going at this alone, of being stuck in the Veil or facing the Raven without my best friend. “We’re in this together.”

  Jacob cracks a smile. “Whew,” he says. “I’m glad you said that. I’m really not up for noble sacrifices. But …” He looks at the circle of ghosts. “What do we do now?”

  I let my gaze drift up, taking in the wall. Its rough rocks, the ivy streaming down in patches, like ropes.

  I have an idea.

  It is, admittedly, a bad idea.

  I wrap my hands around the camera. “Plan,” I say firmly. “When the flash goes off, we start climbing.”

  Jacob groans. “I’m really not a fan of heights.”

  “Time to face your fear,” I whisper. “Ready … set …”

  I hit the button.

  The camera flash goes off, and for one dazed second, the ghosts jerk backward. Their singing drops away.

  In that second, we climb.

  I scramble up several feet before my shoe slips. I catch myself on a weedy vine, the rocks scraping my knuckles and shins. I manage to hook my foot into the groove of a missing stone, and keep climbing up the rough wall. I don’t look down, not until I reach the top.

  I swing my leg over the side and glance back. Jacob is right behind me. He starts to smile, and then slips, begins to fall.

  I lunge, catching his hand, and haul him up onto the stone lip beside me.

  “See?” I say, breathless. “That wasn’t—so hard.”

  Down on the street, the children stare at us, unfazed, and then start walking up the road.

  “Maybe they gave up?” says Jacob hopefully.

  Maybe, I think. Or maybe they’re looking for another way in. Either way, I don’t have time. I turn my back on them, on the rippling city, and look to the graveyard.

  Greyfriars stretches out beneath us, waiting.

  Church bells toll on the air, slow and sad. I scan the sloping lawn, cluttered with tombstones, trying to spot the Raven. Mist is twining through the graves, and the light is slipping low, and I can’t see her from here.

  I can’t see her—but I know she’s there.

  I can feel the pull of my missing thread, as if its end were still embedded in my chest. I am a compass, and the Raven in Red is my new north.

  Another shiver passes through me, a full-body wash of cold that steals the air from my lungs and leaves me struggling for balance. Jacob steadies me, and I focus on the pressure of his grip as I slowly straighten to my feet.

  Jacob lets go then, preferring to stay on his hands and knees.

  “It’s a perfectly rational thing to be afraid of heights,” he answers defensively. And far too loudly. His voice echoes through the dusk, and he clasps his hand over his mouth.

  We don’t have many advantages right now.

  Surpr
ise is kind of essential.

  Shovels sound somewhere beyond the church, and through the fog, I can just make out a small halo of bluish light. My light.

  It’s time to get it back.

  I look around and see a tall tombstone nearby, leaning up against the wall. The grave marker is a stone block with a sculpture in it, angel wings jutting out from either side and a face emerging from the stone, as if coming up for air.

  I try not to look at the angel’s lidded eyes or its open mouth as I shimmy down from the wall onto the nearest stone wing, then from the wing onto a single, outstretched hand.

  I jump.

  There’s a short fall, and then my feet sink into loamy earth, thick and damp and freshly turned. Jacob lands beside me a second later and topples forward, sinking in nearly to his elbows. He groans, pulling himself free.

  I get to my feet and look around, and as I do, something happens.

  The Veil shimmers around us, and the graveyard shifts, the whole world blurring for one long second before stuttering back, sharp and fresh and painfully familiar. This isn’t the Greyfriars I saw the other day, the one with the ghost dog running between tombstones and the man smoking at the top of the hill.

  No, this is the Greyfriars of right now.

  The Veil and the world beyond line up for the first time, two images stacked and shifted until they come into perfect focus.

  The only thing that lingers is the bad feeling, like fingers down my spine.

  “I don’t get it,” says Jacob.

  But I do.

  Each and every ghost creates their own Veil, paints their memory on a blank canvas. And this is my version.

  If I fail to get my life back, if I die—really die—this is what my afterlife will look like. I’ll be stuck wandering this graveyard, watching the Raven dig herself up, plant my life in her own bones.

  But I’m not giving up.

  I’m not dying here.

  I’m not dying at all.

  Jacob and I snake between the graves, following the sound of shovels. We make our way up the slope and around the side of the church.

  And then I see her.

  The Raven in Red sits atop a large stone slab, humming softly, the glowing thread of my life tangled like a game of cat’s cradle between her fingers.

  She’s not digging.

  But I can still hear the shovels going. I see the glint of steel like sparks in the air, the hole growing wider at the Raven’s feet like a magic trick.

  And when I lift the camera to my eye and look through the viewfinder, the Veil blurs and the real world beyond comes into focus. The two places look the same, with a few key differences.

  In the real world, the Raven still perches on the stone slab, but on that side, she’s not alone. Two teenage boys stand chest-deep in the grave, obviously enchanted. Their expressions are glassy, their breaths fogging as they shovel mound after mound of dirt out of the pit and onto the grassy knoll.

  I pan across the scene.

  The front gates of the graveyard have been padlocked. A dull knocking sound comes from the closed doors of the church, as if someone’s trapped inside. The graveyard is empty except for the Raven and the two boys.

  I lower the camera, and the Veil comes back into focus. The teenagers disappear and there is only the Raven, holding my stolen life.

  “Plan?” asks Jacob, and it’s just bad timing, the way his voice finds the gap between shovels on dirt.

  The Raven’s head snaps up.

  Jacob and I scramble backward, ducking behind the nearest tombstones and pressing ourselves against the broken graves.

  “Sorry,” he whispers.

  I peer back around the corner and see the deepening hole of the Raven’s grave, and suddenly, I have a plan.

  It is undoubtedly a very bad plan, perhaps the worst I’ve ever had, and Jacob doesn’t even have to ask, because he can hear me thinking it, and he’s already shaking his head no no no no no.

  But there’s no time to argue.

  The shovels have stopped thudding.

  The Raven has stepped down from her perch.

  “I need a diversion,” I whisper. “Do you have my back?”

  After a long moment, Jacob answers, “Always.” He frowns, adding, “But if you die, I’ll never forgive you.”

  I throw my arms around him. And then I let go. I crouch low as I half walk, half crawl between the tombstones, making a wide circle around the tree and the open pit and the Raven in Red.

  The Raven walks around her grave, my life coiled in her hand. She’s about to climb down into the pit when Jacob’s voice rings through the graveyard.

  “Hey, you!”

  The Raven looks up at Jacob, who is standing on top of a tombstone.

  “What’s this?” she asks in that eerie, singsong way. “A little boy lost?”

  “I’m not lost,” he says.

  She makes her way toward him, turning her back on her open grave. This is my chance. I start toward the edge of the pit as Jacob retreats, the Raven stalking him through the tombstones.

  “You poor thing,” she tuts. “Come to me.”

  The teenage boys flicker at the edge of my vision, blurred by the curtain of the Veil. They stand beside the mound of grave dirt, their eyes unfocused and their hands at their sides, still under the Raven’s spell.

  I’m almost to the hole when my sneakers slip. Dirt goes raining down like hail into the open grave, landing on the wooden box at the bottom. I hold my breath, but the Raven doesn’t look back, and I climb down into the grave.

  And onto the coffin.

  I open the lid, and then, against all my better judgment, I force myself to crawl inside.

  In with the bones of the Raven in Red.

  Confession: Despite the bridge and the river, my worst fear has never been drowning. It’s being buried alive. And as I ease the coffin lid closed, plunging myself into the dark, the air stale and close and damp, I decide that my fear hasn’t changed.

  I nest my body next to a skeleton in a faded red dress, pressing myself into the coffin wall. I clutch the camera and hold my breath as a weight lands on the lid.

  A second later, the lid groans open.

  The first thing I see is my life, raised like a lantern in the Raven’s hand.

  But she doesn’t see me.

  She is so focused on her bones that she doesn’t notice me until it’s too late—until she’s reaching down to rest the stolen life inside her ribs and my hand shoots out and catches it first.

  Heat rushes up my arm like lightning, an almost painful burst of light.

  But I don’t let go. I hold on for dear life, which is basically what this is.

  “You stupid child,” hisses the Raven.

  She pulls back, trying to take the rope with her, but we’re connected now, by this thread between us, by my stolen life. As she straightens, she takes me with her, up out of the coffin, up to my feet, and I’m already lifting the camera with my other hand, convinced that I’ve done it, I’ve done it, I’ve actually beaten her—

  But the Raven is too fast. Too strong.

  Her free hand closes around the lens, blocking the reflection. She rips the camera from my hands, purple strap tearing as she casts it aside. The camera hits her tombstone, and I hear the horrible splinter of glass as the lens cracks, shatters, silvery shards tumbling into the grave dirt.

  And before I can think, can scream, the Raven grabs me and throws me out of the grave. There’s a tearing sound as I fly backward, and then I land hard on the ground. I tumble through the grass and hit a gravestone, knocking all the air out of my lungs.

  A hand touches my arm and I jump, but it’s just Jacob, kneeling beside me.

  My camera lies broken in the dirt, but it wasn’t for nothing.

  Because I didn’t let go.

  “You are no match for me,” calls the Raven.

  I get to my feet. “Are you sure?” I ask, holding up the thread of life. Or at least, half of it. The end is fraye
d where the ribbon tore in two. The Raven looks down at her hand, where the other half glows with a diminished light, my life now divided between us. She lets out a low, inhuman snarl and lunges for me.

  She’s so fast, like a shadow, a bird, one moment four graves away and the next looming up right in front of me, arms spread wide like wings. But at the last instant, a figure darts between us, and all I see is the flutter of a glossy black braid before Lara lifts her mirrored pendant.

  “Watch and listen!” she orders.

  But the Raven cuts her gaze away in time and knocks the pendant from Lara’s fingers. The necklace goes flying into the dark, and the Raven lunges for Lara.

  But Lara jumps backward, narrowly escaping the Raven’s talons as she tumbles into us. Jacob and I catch her.

  “Sorry I’m late,” she says, breathless.

  “Better late than never,” says Jacob.

  “How did you get in?” I ask.

  Lara nods at the cemetery wall. “Good thing I’m not afraid of heights. I take it,” she adds, “you two have a plan.”

  “Of course I have a plan,” I lie, shoving the glowing thread in my pocket.

  The Raven starts toward us again with all the elegance of a snake.

  “Well,” says Lara, “just in case you don’t have a plan, I do.”

  And just like that, the Raven freezes.

  Not like the grieving father when he looked into my camera lens. There is no slowing, no gentle slide from movement to stillness.

  No, the Raven goes rigid, arms pressed tight against her sides. She thrashes and flails, and through the gauze of the Veil, I see a man with a crown of red hair, wrapping his arms around her shoulders.

  She’s being pinned. By Findley.

  “Back, ye wicked spirit!” his voice echoes through the graveyard.

  I turn on Lara. “You told him?”

  “I didn’t intend to,” she says, bristling. “But he followed me here, and kind of insisted.”

  “And he believed you?”

  Lara shrugs. “We British have a high tolerance for the strange.”

  “Not to interrupt …” says Jacob, “but I think we have a problem.”

  I quickly see why.

  The Raven has stopped struggling. All at once, she goes still—truly, terrifyingly still—in Findley’s arms.

  “Oh, children,” she says, her voice slow and sickly sweet. “This just won’t do.”