City of Ghosts Page 8

  I try to push all the questions from my head so he can’t hear them, but it’s like he’s not even listening.

  “Did you have a nice chat?” he asks coldly.

  “Don’t be like that,” I say. “I was just curious. I didn’t know there were other people who could cross the Veil. Did you?”

  He scuffs the ground with his sneaker. “No.”

  He clearly doesn’t want to talk anymore, but I can’t stop the other questions from bubbling up. “Did you know what I really was, Jacob? What I could do?”

  He winces but says nothing.

  “You said there were rules to the Veil.”

  “There are.”

  “Ones you couldn’t tell me. Was that true? Or did you just not want to?”

  Jacob reddens and looks away, and it’s as good as an answer.

  “You didn’t trust me,” I say, surprised how much it hurts to put into words.

  Jacob shakes his head. “It’s not like that, Cass.”

  “Rule number six of friendship, Jacob. Friends don’t leave friends in the dark.”

  He looks pained. “I’m sorry. I was just”—he shakes his head—“afraid …”

  “Of what?” I ask, but before he can answer, my for-emergencies-only phone goes off in my pocket.

  Uh-oh.

  “Cassidy?” says Dad, sounding really worried when I answer. “Where are you?”

  “Sorry,” I say quickly. “I needed some air, and then I got turned around.”

  I follow Dad’s instructions, Jacob on my heels, until we get back to the mouth of Mary King’s Close. Dad appears a second later, his hair mussed and his glasses dusty.

  “There you are,” he says. “We’ve been looking everywhere. I called your phone four times before you answered.”

  Apparently there’s no cell reception in the Veil.

  Dad turns and calls back down the tunnel. “I found her!”

  Found her, found her, found her, echoes away.

  “Sorry,” I say, ducking my head. “I guess I got a little spooked.”

  Dad pulls me in for a hug. “Can I tell you a secret?” I nod, and he says, “This place gives me the creeps, too.” He squeezes my shoulder. “But don’t tell your mother,” he adds. “I’ve got a reputation to maintain.”

  Mom shows up a few moments later, the camera crew and Findley in tow.

  “That was brilliant!” she says, cheeks flushed. Leave it to Mom to love a good scare. I bet she’d love it even more if she could see the other side. Dad shoots her a look and she sobers, her grin replaced by a very parental frown. “Except for the part where you disappeared, young lady. That was decidedly not brilliant.”

  I mumble a half-hearted apology.

  Findley winks at me. “Have we made a believer of you yet?”

  “Oh,” says Mom, “Cassidy’s always been a believer.”

  Findley’s rusty eyebrows go up. “That so?” he asks with newfound respect.

  “Her best friend is a spirit.”

  And just like that, she takes me from interesting to crazy.

  “Mom.” I glare at her.

  She throws her arms around me. “Embrace your strange, dear daughter. Where’s the fun in being normal?”

  Spoken like someone who doesn’t see ghosts.

  We end the day in a place called Grassmarket.

  Of course, there’s no grass, and I don’t see any signs of a market. Just a wide-open plaza surrounded by shops and pubs. The castle looms behind the buildings like an eerie sentinel, but the plaza itself is nice, airy, open.

  This isn’t so bad, I think, right before Mom tells me that it used to be an execution ground. Why am I even surprised?

  Sure enough, as we follow the crew across the square, the Veil thickens around my arms and legs until it feels like I’m walking through water. The only reason I don’t get pulled in is because my mind is still stuck on Lara Chowdhury: her mirror necklace, her strange incantation, and the way the ghost fell apart at her feet.

  This is what we do.

  Jacob fidgets nervously beside me. We haven’t talked any more about what happened in the alley, about what he meant when he said he was afraid to tell me, but now’s not the time. So we do our best to pretend that nothing’s wrong.

  Dad gestures to a low stone slab, a marker on the ground. “See that, Cassidy? Hundreds were put to death right here.” The Veil turns leaden as I reach out to run my hand along the marker.

  “Haha noooo,” says Jacob, shooing me away.

  By the time we reach the final stop on our filming list—a pub called the White Hart Inn, supposedly known for its hauntings—I’m prepared for the worst. So I’m relieved when the tap-tap-tap of the Veil fades to a distant prickle.

  Mercifully, this pub isn’t haunted.

  At least, no more haunted than the rest of the city. Which is good, because I’ve officially had my fair share of all things Inspecters for one day. Mom and Dad and the crew head to the back of the pub to film, while Findley and I (and Jacob) slide into a corner booth and order food.

  Findley gets up to go to the bar, but while he’s gone, Jacob and I don’t talk. I can’t stop myself from thinking about what he said—and didn’t say. Jacob keeps his eyes pointedly on the table, trying to lift a coaster from the wood.

  At last, Findley reappears, setting down two pints of beer.

  “Um,” I say, “I’m not exactly old enough to drink.”

  He laughs, a low, rich bellow. “S’not for you,” he says. He pulls one glass toward him. “This one’s mine …” he explains, nudging the other toward the empty seat at his side, “and this one’s Reggie’s.”

  I look around the pub. “Reggie?”

  “Reggie Weathershire,” says Findley. “My old mate. This was his favorite place.”

  My eyes widen. Mrs. Weathershire’s late husband. The one who’s been dead for eight years.

  “Do you think he’s haunting here?” I ask.

  Findley gives an amicable shrug. “Couldn’t say. But if he is, I don’t want him to go thirsty. I always bought the first round.”

  There’s no sign of Mr. Weathershire, not on this side of the Veil. But Dad once told me that the living hold on to the dead, that “ghosts” are just our way of keeping people with us. Of course, I know there’s more to it than that, but the thought of Mr. Weathershire being there in the pub seems to make Findley happy.

  A big basket of fries—I mean chips—comes to the table. I douse them in vinegar and pop one into my mouth.

  Findley chuckles. “We’ll make a local of you yet.”

  I reach for another chip. “Do you really believe in ghosts?”

  “Aye,” he says without a second’s pause. “In a sense. I believe there’s something left behind when a person goes, a kind of memory. I’ve lived too long in this city not to believe it. But I don’t think they really mean us harm.”

  Lara would probably disagree with that.

  “And even if they do …” he adds, “I hear you’ve got your own ghost for a guardian angel.” I tense, but there’s no teasing in his voice. There’s a mischievous light in his eyes, but he’s not mocking me. “You’ve nothing to fear with a friend like that.”

  Jacob looks up, smiles tightly. “You know I’ve always got your back, Cass.”

  “So,” says Findley, “tell me about this ghost of yours. What’s his name?”

  I pop another chip into my mouth. “Jacob,” I say. “He saved my life,” I add.

  Findley’s eyebrows go up. “Did he, now? Well, aren’t you lucky.”

  I cut a glance at Jacob. I am.

  Jacob blushes and looks down at the table. Shortly after, Mom and Dad turn up with the crew, and the rest of the meal is a lot of technical talk about the show. I stack towers of chips. Jacob tries to knock them down.

  When it’s time to go, we all haul ourselves up, equipment and all, and head for the doors. I glance back at the table one last time and see that Mr. Weathershire’s glass is empty.

>   If this day has taught me anything, it’s that I’ve still got a lot to learn.

  Maybe the world is even stranger than I know.

  The camera crew says good night and the rest of us make our way back to the Lane’s End. Dad and Findley are deep in conversation, Jacob is whistling the theme song of some cartoon I can’t place, and Mom has her head tipped back to enjoy the summer air. The moon is high.

  The night is crisp and clear and perfect, and I snap photos of the winding streets, the amber streetlights. Even though I’m not in the Veil, there really is something magical about this city.

  We’re at the top of the Royal Mile when I hear the song.

  It echoes up the road, and at first I think it’s coming from a street performer or a bagpiper. But the street is empty, dark. And the sound is crystal clear.

  It is a woman singing.

  Her voice snags in my head like a hook, slowing my steps. I know that song. Or rather, I know the voice of the person singing it. Because it’s not a person at all. I can picture her red cloak, her black curls, her outstretched hand. I stop walking and turn in a circle, searching for the song. It’s so close. I want to find it.

  I need to find it.

  “Do you hear that?” I whisper. But no one else seems to notice the singing, not even Jacob, who looks at me like I’ve lost my mind. I crane my head, listen, listen, but before I can find the source of the melody, it’s gone.

  I don’t hear anything but wind.

  Mom and Dad stay up late, going over the day’s footage and preparing for tomorrow’s filming. I, meanwhile, head straight to bed; all I want to do is sleep (and preferably dream about something other than haunted alleys and buried crypts).

  But sleep doesn’t come.

  Doesn’t stick.

  I end up tossing and turning. When I close my eyes, I see the broken tunnels of Mary King’s Close, the way a dozen sickly faces turned toward me. The scene dissolves, and I’m aboveground, Lara Chowdhury standing in the street, the mirror pendant hanging from her fingers.

  Watch and listen …

  See and know …

  This is what you are …

  It’s the middle of the night when I throw off the covers and get up, nearly tripping on Grim. I slip out into the living room. The door to my parents’ room is ajar, but the lights are out, and I can hear Dad snoring softly.

  “Jacob?” I whisper, hoping he’s nearby, but there’s no answer.

  I cross to the old-fashioned desk beneath the window. My camera sits on its purple strap in a pool of moonlight. I pick it up, look at the counter on top—I’ve got ten pictures left on the reel. I turn the device over in my hands, intending to clean off the lens with the cuff of my pajama shirt, when I spot something.

  I’m not usually on this side of the camera, so I never noticed the way the lens reflects, like a piece of glass. Or a mirror.

  Is this why Jacob never looks at the camera when I take his picture?

  How many secrets is he keeping?

  How many things do I still have to figure out?

  Are you sure you don’t want to come?” Mom asks me the next morning. “We’re going to explore the vaults beneath South Bridge. It’s supposed to be positively brimming with paranormal activity.”

  Is this how normal parents speak to their children?

  “Since when is anything about your family normal?” says Jacob.

  “I’m sure,” I tell Mom, pulling Grim close. “I think I’ll sit this one out.”

  “Is everything all right?” asks Dad, scrawling a few last-minute thoughts in his notebook.

  “Yeah,” I say. I don’t say there’s a girl downstairs waiting to talk to me about hunting ghosts. I don’t let myself even think it, not with Jacob there, and the secret hanging between us like a lie. Instead, I take the tried-and-trusty angle of fear. “It’s just …” I bite my lip for effect. “I’m still kind of freaked out from Mary King’s Close …” It was pretty scary. And there’s that whole part where the Veil wouldn’t let me go. “I’m not sure I’m ready to do it again.”

  “Oh, honey,” says Mom, brushing the hair from my face. “I heard you tossing and turning last night. Was that why?” I nod, and she pats my head. “You’ve always been so sensitive to those things.”

  “Drowning didn’t help,” offers Jacob cheerfully. I shoot him a warning look.

  “The energy down there,” I say with a shiver, “it was just so dark.”

  Jacob snorts. He clearly thinks I’m laying it on a little thick, but Mom nods sympathetically. “There was definitely something malevolent down there,” she says.

  “Perhaps,” says Dad, “it wasn’t the best place to take a child.”

  I almost bristle at that. I hate when they call me a child. And I can tell by his tone that he and Mom have had this talk before. That Dad didn’t think I should have come to Edinburgh in the first place. Was there a version of this story without me in it?

  “No!” I blurt out. “I’ll be fine. I just need a day. Not even a day. A morning! A few normal hours without spirits or specters or poltergeists or ghosts or …” I’m rambling now. Jacob frowns, and I can tell he’s trying to figure out what on earth I’m thinking, but I focus on my parents. “It was probably the combination of greasy food and jet lag. I’ll get my ghost-finding feet under me,” I finish assuredly.

  “I’m sure you will,” says Mom. She kisses me on the head.

  Dad leaves me some cash for emergencies, as well as their filming schedule for the day and strict instructions to stay put in the Lane’s End until they get back, because Edinburgh may be a very pretty city, but it’s still a foreign one.

  “Have fun chasing ghosts,” I call out as the door swings shut behind them.

  Jacob flops onto the couch beside me. “What should we do now?” he wonders aloud. “We can watch weird Scottish television, or see where Mrs. Weathershire hides the biscuits, or … Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “Don’t freak out,” I say slowly.

  His eyes narrow. “That’s really not the way to start a sentence if you want me to stay calm.”

  I fidget, but there’s no use lying to him. Lying is hard enough. Lying to someone who can read your mind is nearly impossible.

  “I kind of need to see someone.”

  Jacob doesn’t have to ask me who. He can see the answer, plastered across my thoughts, and I can see his horror, plastered across his face.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “We’re just going to talk.”

  “I can’t believe you’re going to see her!”

  I don’t want to fight with Jacob again. Not about this. He can’t be mad at me for wanting to understand—

  “She’s a ghost hunter,” he says, gesturing down at himself. “You know, someone who hunts ghosts.”

  “I know what she is. But for the last year, I thought I was the only one who could cross the Veil. I’m sorry if I’m curious, but I’ve never met anyone else like me.”

  “But she’s not like you!” he snaps. “You take pictures of ghosts. You don’t”—he waves his hand—“you don’t unmake them.”

  But that’s the problem. What if I’m supposed to?

  Jacob must hear me think it, because his face contorts. I’ve never seen Jacob this mad before. Anger changes people, but it changes ghosts even more. His edges ripple and the color goes out of his face. He looks … ghoulish.

  “I’m all for you making friends, Cass,” he says, and I want to tell him I doubt Lara is interested in friendship, but he doesn’t give me a chance, “but maybe you could choose someone who doesn’t turn people like me to dust.”

  Before I can stop myself, I shoot back, “If you’d been honest with me from the start, maybe I wouldn’t have to go looking for answers somewhere else!”

  Jacob glares at me long and hard, then throws up his hands and vanishes, and I’m left alone in the middle of the flat.

  It’s not fair, the way he can just run away from a
fight.

  But I never fought with Jacob before this trip.

  The thought leaves me feeling cold, all the way down to the bone.

  I wait as long as I can, pacing, pocketing the handful of cash, looping my camera over my shoulder and tugging on my sneakers, doing up the laces slowly, hoping he’ll come back. But by ten o’clock, he’s still not here.

  If I don’t leave now, I’m going to be late.

  I knock on 1A, expecting Lara, so I’m surprised when Mrs. Weathershire opens the door. She’s dressed in a house robe, her white hair pulled up in a loose bun.

  “Oh, hello!” she says in her chipper way. “You’re the Blake girl, aren’t you? Is everything all right?”

  At first I think I must have the wrong flat, but then Lara appears in the short hall behind her. “She’s here to see me, Auntie.”

  Mrs. Weathershire claps her hands. “Oh, how nice.” She leans in close and whispers, “It’s about time our Lara made a friend.” Then she straightens and steps aside. “Come in, darling. I’ll put on the kettle.”

  “That’s all right,” says Lara, scooping up her jacket. “We’re going for a walk.”

  We are? I think, but Lara’s already pulling me down the stairs. She’s wearing leggings and a long-sleeved dress, her hair done in an elaborate fishtail braid. I’m wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, and I can barely manage a neat ponytail.

  We’re in the front hall when I hear the tread of footsteps overhead.

  “Mr. Weathershire?” I venture, glancing up.

  Lara rolls her eyes. “Not everything is paranormal, Cassidy. Now and then, it’s just bad plumbing.”

  Outside, it’s not raining, but it looks like it could, which I’m quickly learning is what the Scots call “partly sunny.” A cool breeze cuts through, an instant warning that I’m not dressed warmly enough. But Lara’s walking at such a brisk pace down the street, I don’t dare ask to go back now.

  The road slopes down, away from the Royal Mile. I don’t know where we’re heading, and Lara isn’t exactly chatty, so I search for small talk.

  “Are you a fan of Harry Potter?” I ask her.

  “Are you asking because I’m English?”