Bridge of Souls (Cassidy Blake #3)(10)

Dad rises to his feet. “It is not a kind past,” he says soberly, buttoning his tweed jacket. “Like in much of New Orleans, the shadow of slavery touches everything. Some insist that the building first raised on this plot of land was used to house slaves before they were auctioned off. The building was torn down, and in its place, a grand house was built, only to burn down in the great blaze of 1788, along with most of the Quarter.”

Mom produces a single green coin—a poker chip—and turns it idly between her fingers.

“A man named Pierre Jourdan bought the property and erected the mansion of his dreams, only to lose the estate in a poker game,” she says. “Devastated, Jourdan took his own life up here. Some say in this very room.”

For a moment, no one speaks.

I hear the smallest breath hiss between Adan’s teeth. The only other sound is that tinny old-fashioned music and the whisper rising to meet it, the murmur of voices from the other side.

“Jourdan is believed to haunt the rooms of his old house,” Mom goes on. “Moving plates in the downstairs restaurant, shuffling glasses in the bar, and, sometimes, simply lounging in one of these chairs.” Mom bounces to her feet. “But of course, he’s not the only ghost that calls Muriel’s home.”

My parents head for the doors, the film crew following close behind.

I hang back, and Lucas glances over his shoulder, a silent question in his eyes. I pretend to be fascinated by one of the masks, pretend I didn’t even notice everyone was leaving.

“I’ll catch up,” I say, waving him on.

“Yeah,” says Jacob, “why would we want to head back into the nice, busy, living restaurant when we could stay here with the horror movie music and the wall of faces?”

Lucas lingers a moment, too, as if trying to decide what to do, but in the end, he nods and goes. It feels like the handshake back at Café du Monde. Like he sees me as somebody, instead of just somebody’s kid.

And then Jacob and I are alone in the séance room, with the smell of smoke, and the whispers in the walls, and the red light staining everything.

“Cass,” whines Jacob, because he knows what I’m thinking.

Fire and ash, and the drum of ghosts.

Spirits, trapped and waiting to be sent on.

I reach out, and feel the invisible curtain brush against my fingers. The boundary between the land of the living and the world of the dead.

All I have to do is close my hand around it, pull the gray film aside, and step through.

I know what to do—but again, I hesitate, afraid of what else might be waiting beyond the Veil.

There’s always a risk, of course.

You never know what you’ll find.

An angry spirit. A violent ghost. One that wants to steal your life. Or cause chaos.

Or there could be something else.

A skull-faced stranger in a trim black suit.

“You know,” says Jacob, “fear is a perfectly rational response, the body’s way of telling you not to do something.”

But if I waited until I wasn’t scared, I’d never go through.

Fear is like the Veil. It’s always there. It’s up to you to still go through.

My hand travels to the cord at my collar and I tug the necklace out, let the mirror pendant rest faceup in my palm.

Look and listen, you say when you see a ghost. See and know.

This is what you are.

Well, this is what I am.

This is what I do.

This is the reason I’m here.

I catch hold of the curtain and pull it aside, stepping through into the dark.





For one terrible second, I’m falling.

A downward plunge, a single shocking gasp of cold, the air knocked from my lungs—

And then I’m back on my feet.

The Veil takes shape around me, in mottled shades of gray. I take shape, too, a ghostly version of myself, washed out save for the bright blue-white ribbon glowing in my chest. My life. Torn, and stitched back together. Stolen, and reclaimed.

I press a hand to my chest, muffling the light as I look around the séance room. It ripples and shifts in my vision. The red light is gone, the room lit only by the soft glow of lamps. The masks leer down from the walls. The faces stare out from the paintings.

“Oh, look, it’s just as creepy,” says Jacob, appearing beside me. Here in the Veil, he’s solid, real, another reminder that I’m out of place.

He didn’t have to come.

But he always does.

“Rule number four of friendship,” he says. “Stick together. Now, can you just find a ghost and send them on so we can go back?”

As if on cue, a door slams down the hall.

I pull the necklace over my head and take a few steps toward the sound, but the moment I move, my vision doubles, blurs. The room multiplies, sliding in and out of focus around me. Furniture shifting, appearing, disappearing, changing, burning, smoke and laughter, light and shadow, all of it so disorienting I have to squeeze my eyes shut.

I don’t understand.

I’ve crossed into the Veil countless times. Back home, and in Scotland, and in France. I’ve seen places where the Veil is empty, nothing but a stretch of white, like unmarked paper. But this is different. This is more than one Veil in the same place.

I remember what Dad said about Muriel’s, how it had been torn down and rebuilt, how it had belonged to several families and lived several lives.