Tunnel of Bones (City of Ghosts #2)

by Victoria Schwab

  “Think of it as a look behind the scenes,” says Dad. “Bonus content. The network would love some added material and we thought it might be nice for you to help in a more hands-on way.”

  “And keep you out of trouble,” adds Jacob, who’s now perched on the back of the sofa.

  Maybe he’s right. Maybe this is just a ploy to keep me from wandering off and getting my life thread stolen by powerful ghosts, and avoid being charged with misdemeanors for defiling graveyards.

  But I’m still flattered.

  “I’d love to,” I say, hugging my camera to my chest.

  “Great,” says Dad, rising to stretch. “We don’t start filming until tomorrow. How about we go out for some fresh air? Perhaps a walk through the Tuileries?”

  “Perfect,” says Mom cheerfully. “Maybe we’ll get a glimpse of good old Jean.”

  Calling the Tuileries a garden is like calling Hogwarts a school.

  It’s technically correct, but the word really doesn’t do either one justice.

  Twilight is quickly giving way to night as we enter the park. The sandy path is as wide as a road, flanked by rows of trees that arch overhead, blotting out what’s left of the sunset. More paths branch off, framing wide green lawns, trimmed here and there with roses.

  I feel like I’ve stepped into Alice in Wonderland.

  I always thought that book was a little scary, and so is the garden. Maybe it’s because everything is spookier at night. It’s why people are afraid of the dark. What you can’t see is always scarier than what you can. Your eyes play tricks on you, filling in the shadows, making shapes. But night isn’t the only thing that makes the garden creepy.

  With every step, the Veil gets a little heavier, the murmur of ghosts a little louder.

  Maybe Paris is more haunted than I thought.

  Mom loops her arm through Dad’s. “What a magnificent place,” she muses, leaning her head against his shoulder.

  “The Tuileries have quite a history,” says Dad, putting on his teacher voice. “They were created in the sixteenth century as royal gardens for the palace.”

  At the far end of the Tuileries, beyond a section of roses that would rival the Queen of Hearts’s, is the largest building I’ve ever seen. It’s as wide as the jardin itself and shaped like a U, arms wrapping the end of the park in a giant stone hug.

  “What is that?” I ask.

  “That would be the palace,” explains Dad. “Or the latest version of it. The original burned down in 1871.”

  As we get closer, I see something rising from the palace’s courtyard—a glowing glass pyramid. Dad explains that these days, the palace houses a museum called the Louvre.

  I frown at the pyramid. “It doesn’t seem big enough to be a museum.”

  Dad laughs. “That’s because the museum is beneath it,” he says. “And around it. The pyramid is only the entrance.”

  “A reminder,” says Mom, “that there’s always more than meets the eye—”

  She’s cut off by a scream.

  It pierces the air, and Jacob and I both jump. The sound is high and faint, and for a moment I think it’s coming through the Veil. But then I realize the shouts are sounds of happiness. We walk past another wall of trees and find a carnival. Complete with Ferris wheels, small roller coasters, tented games, and food stalls.

  My heart flutters at the sight of it all, and I’m already moving toward the colorful rides when a breeze blows through, carrying the scents of sugar and pastry dough. I stop short and turn, searching for the source of the heavenly smell, and see a stall advertising CRÊPES.

  “What’s a cre-ep?” I ask, sounding out the word.

  Dad chuckles. “It’s pronounced ‘creh-p,’ ” he explains. “And it’s like a thin pancake, covered in butter and sugar, or chocolate, or fruit, and folded into a cone.”

  “Sounds intriguing,” I say.

  “Sounds amazing,” says Jacob.

  Mom produces a few silver and gold coins. “It would be a travesty to come to France without trying one,” she says as we join the back of the line. When we reach the counter, I watch as a man spreads batter paper-thin over the surface of a skillet.

  He asks a question in French and stares at me, waiting for an answer.

  “Chocolat,” answers Dad, and I don’t have to know French to understand that.

  The man flips the crêpe and spreads a ladleful of chocolate over the entire surface before folding the delicate pancake in half, and then in quarters, and sliding it into a paper cone.

  Dad pays, and Mom takes the crêpe. We head for the white tables and chairs scattered along the path and sit, bathed in carnival lights.

  “Here, dear daughter,” says Mom, offering me the crêpe. “Educate yourself.”

  I take a bite, and my mouth fills with the hot, sweet pancake, the rich chocolate spread. It is simple and wonderful. As we sit, passing the crêpe back and forth, Dad stealing giant bites and Mom wiping a smudge of chocolate from her nose and Jacob watching the turn of the Ferris wheel with his wide blue eyes, I almost forget why we’re here. I snap a photo of my parents, the carnival at their backs, and imagine that we’re just a family on vacation.

  But then I feel the tap on my shoulder, the press of the Veil against my back, and my attention drifts toward the shadowy part of the park. It calls to me. I used to think it was just curiosity that drew me toward the in-between. But now I know it’s something else.

  Purpose.

  Jacob’s eyes flit toward me. “No,” he says, even as I get to my feet.

  “Everything okay?” asks Mom.

  “Yeah,” I say, “I need to use the bathroom.”

  “No, you don’t,” whispers Jacob.

  “I saw one, just past the food stalls,” says Mom, pointing.

  “Cassidy,” whines Jacob.

  “I’ll be right back,” I tell my parents.

  I’m already moving away when Dad calls out, warning me not to wander off.

  “I won’t,” I call back.

  Dad shoots me a stern look. I’m still winning back their trust after the whole getting-trapped-in-the-Veil-by-a-ghost-and-having-to-fight-to-steal-my-life-back-by-hiding-in-an-open-grave thing (or, as my parents think of it, the afternoon I disappeared without permission and was found several hours later after breaking into a grave-yard).

  Po-tay-to, po-tah-to.

  I slip past the stalls and veer right, off the main path.

  “Where are we going?” demands Jacob.

  “To see if Jean the Skinner’s still here.”

  “You’ve got to be joking.”

  But I’m not. I check my back pocket for my mirror pendant. It was a parting gift from Lara.

  She would be furious at me for keeping the pendant in my pocket instead of out around my neck. She says people like us aren’t only hunters; we’re beacons for specters and spirits. Mirrors work on all ghosts, including Jacob, which is why I don’t wear the pendant. Lara would probably say that’s why I should.

  Needless to say, she doesn’t approve of Jacob.

  “Lara doesn’t approve of anything,” he quips.

  They don’t get along—call it a difference of opinion.

  “Her opinion,” he snaps, “is that I don’t belong here.”

  “Well, technically you don’t,” I whisper, wrapping the necklace around my wrist. “Now, let’s go find Jean.”

  Jacob scowls, the air around him rippling ever so slightly with his displeasure. “We were having such a nice night.”

  “Come on,” I say, closing my fingers over the mirror charm. “Aren’t you curious?”

  “Actually, no,” he says, crossing his arms as I reach for the Veil. “I’m really not. I’m perfectly content to never find out if—”

  I don’t hear the rest. I pull the curtain aside and step through, and the world around me—

  Vanishes.

  The carnival lights, the crowds, the sounds and smells of the summer night. Gone. For a second, I’m falling. Plungi
ng down into icy water, the shock of cold in my lungs. And then I’m back on my feet.

  I’ve never gotten used to that part.

  I don’t think I ever will.

  I straighten and let out a shaky breath as the world settles around me again, stranger, paler.

  This is the Veil.

  The in-between.

  It’s quiet and dark, full night. No carnival, no crowds, and thanks to the deep shadows and the tendrils of fog rolling across the lawns, I can barely see.

  Jacob appears beside me a second later, obviously sulking.

  “You didn’t have to come,” I say.

  His foot scuffs the grass. “Whatever.”

  I smile. Rule number twenty-one of friendship: Friends don’t leave friends in the Veil.

  Jacob looks different here, fleshed out and colored in, and I can’t see through him anymore. Meanwhile I’m less solid than I was before, washed out and gray, with one glaring exception: the ribbon of light shining through my rib cage.

  Not just a ribbon, but a life.

  My life.

  It glows with a pale blue-white light, and if I were to reach into my chest and pull it out, like some kind of gruesome show-and-tell, you’d see it’s not perfect anymore. There’s a seam, a thin crack, where it got torn in two. I put it back together, and it seems to be working well enough, but I have no desire to test how much damage a lifeline can take.

  “Oh well,” says Jacob, craning his head, “looks like no one’s here. We better go.”

  I’m as nervous as he is, but I hold my ground. Someone is here. They have to be here. That’s the thing about the Veil: It only exists where there’s a ghost. It’s like a stage where spirits act out their final hours, whatever happened that won’t let them move on.

  My hands go to the camera around my neck, and the mirror pendant wrapped around my wrist chimes faintly as metal hits metal. The sound echoes strangely in the dark.

  As my eyes adjust, I realize that buildings outside the park are gone, erased either by time—if they haven’t been built yet—or simply by the boundaries of this particular in-between, whoever it belongs to.

  The question is, whose life—or, rather, death—are we in?

  The night sky is getting brighter, tinged with a faint orange glow.

  “Um, Cass,” says Jacob, looking over my shoulder.

  I turn and stop, my eyes widening in surprise.

  There’s no Jean the Skinner, but there is a palace.

  And it’s on fire.

  The fog isn’t fog at all, but smoke.

  The wind picks up, and the fire quickens, the air darkening with soot. I can hear shouting, and carriages rattling over stone, and through the smoke I see a huddle of figures on the lawn, faces turned up toward the blaze.

  I step closer, lift the camera’s viewfinder to my eye, and take a picture.

  “Cass …” says Jacob, but he sounds far away, and when I turn to look for him, all I see is smoke.

  “Jacob?” I call out, coughing as the smoke tickles my throat, creeps into my lungs. “Where are—”

  A shape crashes into me. I stumble back into the grass, and the man drops the bucket he was hauling. It topples onto the ground, spilling something black and viscous. I know instantly that this is his place in the Veil. The other ghosts are just set pieces, puppets, but this man’s eyes, as they fall on me, are haunted.

  I scramble to my feet, already holding up the mirror pendant, ready to send him on—

  But there’s no necklace wrapped around my wrist, no mirror hanging in the air.

  I look down, scouring the ground where I fell, and see the necklace shining in the grass, where it must have slipped off. But before I can reach it, the ghost grabs me by the collar and pushes me back against a tree. I try to twist free, but even though he’s a ghost and I’m not, the Veil levels the playing field.

  “Jacob!” I shout. The man’s grip tightens as he spews at me in French, the words a mystery but the tone clear and cruel. And then he trails off, his eyes dropping to the camera at my chest.

  No, not the camera, I realize with horror. The thread. The blue-white glow of my life. He grabs for it, and I squirm, desperate to get away from the reaching fingers—

  “Hey!” shouts a familiar voice, and the ghost looks sideways just as Jacob swings the bucket at his head.

  The man staggers, black tar dripping down his face, and I gasp, dropping to the ground. The instant I’m free, I lunge for the fallen necklace as the ghost takes one half-blinded step toward me. I grab the necklace and scramble up, holding the pendant out in front of me like a shield.

  The ghost comes to a halt, his attention caught on the little round surface of the mirror.

  A mirror, explained Lara, to reflect the truth. To show the spirit what they are.

  The mirror traps the ghost, but the words, the spell, the incantation send them on. I didn’t know there were words until a week ago, didn’t know about the power of mirrors, or lifelines. But as I stand here now, facing the specter, my mind goes blank.

  I can’t remember the words.

  Panic rushes through me as I grasp for them, find nothing.

  And then Jacob leans in and whispers in my ear.

  “Watch and listen,” he prompts.

  And just like that, I remember.

  I swallow, finding my voice.

  “Watch and listen,” I order the ghost. “See and know. This is what you are.”

  The whole Veil ripples around us, and the ghost thins until I can see through him, see the dark thread coiled inside his chest. Lightless, lifeless.

  I reach out and take hold of his thread, the last thing binding him here, to this world. It feels cold and dry under my fingers, like dead leaves in the fall. As I pull the cord from his chest, it crumbles in my palm. Vanishes in a plume of smoke.

  And then, so does the ghost.

  He dissolves, ash and then air. There and then gone.

  Jacob shudders a little in discomfort, but for me, it’s like coming up for air. In those seconds, right after the ghost moves on, I feel … right.

  What you feel, said Lara, is called a purpose.

  The palace continues to burn, and I sway on my feet, dizzy, the effect of the Veil catching up with me.

  A warning that I’ve stayed too long.

  “Come on.” Jacob takes my hand and pulls me back through the Veil. I shiver as the curtain brushes my skin. For an instant, the cold floods my lungs again, the water pulling me down—and then we’re back on solid ground. The park is bright and loud, filled with carnival lights and tourists and evening warmth. Jacob is faded again, vaguely see-through, and I’m solid, the bright coil of my life hidden safely beneath flesh and bone.

  “Thanks,” I say, shaking off the chill.

  “We’re a team,” says Jacob, holding up his hand. “Ghost five.”

  He makes a smacking sound as I bring my palm against his. But this time, I swear I feel a faint pressure, like steam, before my hand goes through. I look at Jacob’s face, wondering if he feels it, too, but he’s already turning away.

  “There you are!” says Mom, holding out the last bite of crêpe as I return to the table. “I had to shield this from your father. Nearly lost a finger.”

  “Sorry,” I say, “the line was long.”

  (I don’t like lying to my parents, but I tried telling them the truth, after the whole incident in the graveyard, and they didn’t believe me. So maybe that makes this lie a little smaller.)

  “Yeah,” says Jacob, “keep telling yourself that.”

  Dad rises, brushing off his hands. “Well, darling family,” he says, wrapping an arm around my shoulders. “We better head back.”

  The darkness is heavy now, and the Veil is still pressing against me, calling me back. But as we make our way through the Tuileries, I’m careful to stick to the path, and stay in the light.

  The next morning, our local guide is waiting for us in the hotel’s salon (the dining room).

  Sh
e’s tall and slim, in a green blouse and a cream-colored skirt. She has high cheekbones in a heart-shaped face and dark hair pulled up in a complicated bun. She’s younger than I expected, maybe in her twenties.

  “You must be Madame Deschamp,” says Mom, holding out her hand.

  “Please,” says the woman in a silky voice, “call me Pauline.”

  Her French accent makes everything sound musical. It’s funny—I used to think the same thing about Scottish accents. But now I realize the accents are like two kinds of music, as different as a ballad and a lullaby.

  Dad says something in French, and Mom laughs, and suddenly I feel left out, like they’ve told a joke I don’t get.

  “You speak well,” says Pauline, and Dad blushes.

  “I studied in college,” he says, “but I’m afraid I’m rusty.”

  “Pauline,” says Mom, “this is our daughter, Cassidy.”

  Jacob sticks his hands in his pockets and mumbles, “Don’t bother introducing me.”

  “Enchantée,” says Pauline, turning toward me. Her gaze is steady, searching. “Parlez-vous français?”

  It’s my turn to blush now. “No, sorry. Just English.”

  I did take Italian in school last year, but I was really, really bad at it, and I don’t think being able to ask where the library is in another language will help me here. The only French I’ve managed to pick up is s’il vous plaît, which means please, and merci, which means thank you.

  A server drifts over, and Pauline exchanges a few words in rapid French before urging us to sit. “We’re so grateful to have you as our guide,” says Dad.

  “Yes,” Pauline says slowly, “it should be … interesting.” She smooths her blouse as if brushing away crumbs.

  “Tell me,” says Mom, “do you believe in ghosts?”

  Pauline’s expression goes stiff.

  “No,” she says, the word quick and crisp, like slamming a door on something you don’t want to see. “I’m sorry. That was rude. I will explain: I am an emissary, here on behalf of the French Ministry of Culture. I spend most of my time with dignitaries and documentarians. This is not an ordinary assignment for me, but I am Parisian. I have lived here all my life. I will take you where you wish to go. I will help in any way I can. But I cannot say that I believe.”