Mom and Dad start walking again, and Jacob and I follow. I’m just about to turn my attention back to Lara’s texts when Jacob passes an open doorway. The shop beyond is filled with candles, and tinctures, and charms, and Jacob erupts into sneezes.
“Stupid—”
Sneeze!
“—spirit—”
Sneeze!
“—wards—”
Sneeze!
At least, I think that’s what he said.
It’s the same reaction he had back in Paris, when Lara sent over protective charms to keep a poltergeist at bay. Apparently, the charms work on all sorts of spirits, even increasingly corporeal best friends.
I take a photo of the shop—the word VOODOO ghosted on the glass—and send it to Lara.
Me:
Real?
I’m waiting for her answer when something catches my eye.
It’s a black cat.
It’s sitting on the shaded curb in front of a shop called Thread & Bone, grooming one leg. For a moment, I wonder if Grim somehow got out. But of course it’s not Grim—I’ve never seen Grim so much as lick a paw—and when the cat looks up, its eyes aren’t green but lavender. I watch the cat stretch, and yawn, and then trot away down an alley. There are probably a ton of black cats in a city like this, but I think of the Society and wonder if it might be a clue. Mom would call that “a little on the nose,” but just to be safe I snap a photo of the cat before it disappears. I’m about to send it to Lara when she texts me back about the voodoo shop.
Lara:
Very real.
The text is followed by an X0, and for a second I think she’s trying to send me hugs and kisses, which would be very out of character. Then she explains that it’s a skull and crossbones—like a bottle of poison. Do not touch.
The mention of a skull reminds me of the skeleton in the suit. Maybe I should just tell Lara about what happened. But before I can, she texts that she has to catch a flight, and then she’s gone.
I blow out a breath and tell myself it’s okay. I don’t need her help. Just because I saw the skull-faced stranger once doesn’t mean I’ll see it again. Once is a glitch, an accident. No reason to be worried.
“Yeah,” says Jacob, sounding skeptical. “I’m sure it will all turn out fine.”
At Café du Monde, the air tastes like sugar.
The café sits at the edge of Jackson Square: a giant courtyard full of people—tourists, but also performers. A woman stands on an upturned bucket, painted head to toe in silver. She’s dressed like a dancer, but she doesn’t move until someone drops a coin into her palm. A man plays a saxophone in the shade, and the sound of a trumpet rises from the other side of the square. The two melodies sound like they’re talking.
We grab a table beneath the green-and-white-striped awning. Mom and Dad order coffee, and I order iced tea, which comes in a large, sweating plastic cup. The drink is mercifully cold, but sweet enough to make my teeth hurt.
A dozen fans make lazy circles over our heads, churning the air without cooling it, but despite the heat, Dad is clearly in his element.
He looks out at the bustling square.
“New Orleans is a marvel,” he says. “It was founded by the French, given to the Spanish, used by pirates and smugglers—”
Jacob and I both perk up at that, but Dad presses on.
“Sold to the United States, scarred by slavery, consumed by fire, ravaged by flood, and rebuilt despite it all, and that’s just the shape of it. Did you know the city has forty-two cemeteries, and it’s home to the longest bridge in the US? The Lake Pontchartrain Causeway—you can’t see one side from the other—”
Mom pats his arm. “Save some for the show, darling,” she teases, but he’s on a roll now.
“This city has more history than hauntings,” he says. “For one, it’s the birthplace of jazz.”
“And home to voodoo and vampires,” says Mom.
“And real people, too,” presses Dad, “like Pere Antoine and Jean Lafitte—”
“And the Axeman of New Orleans,” adds Mom brightly.
Jacob shoots me a look. “I really hope axe is a kind of instrument and not—”
“He went around chopping people up,” Mom adds.
Jacob sighs. “Of course he did.”
“Back in 1918, he terrorized the city,” says Dad.
“No one felt safe,” says Mom.
They’re sliding into that TV show rhythm, even though there are no cameras, just me and Jacob, hanging on the edge of their words.
“He was a serial killer,” says Mom, “but he loved jazz, so he sent a letter to the cops and said he wouldn’t strike any house that had a full band playing in it. So for weeks, music filled the city streets, even more than usual. It spilled out of houses day and night, a cacophony of jazz.”
“Did they catch him?” I ask.
And Mom blinks, eyebrows going up as if she got so caught up in the story, she never thought about how it ended.
“No,” answers Dad. “They never did.”
I look around, wondering if the axeman’s ghost is still wandering these streets, a hatchet on one shoulder and his head cocked, listening for a saxophone, a trumpet, some promise of jazz.
Mom breaks into a smile. “Hello! You must be our guide.”
I twist around in my seat, and see a young Black man wearing a crisp white button-down shirt, the sleeves rolled to his elbows. Behind wire-framed glasses, his eyes are light brown, flecked with green and gold.
“Professor Dumont,” says Dad, rising to his feet.
“Please,” he says, in a kind, smooth voice. “Call me Lucas.” He shakes Dad’s hand, and then Mom’s, and then mine, which makes me like him even more. “Welcome to New Orleans.”
He sinks into a plastic chair across from us and orders coffee and something called beignets.
“You’re staying in the Hotel Kardec?” he says as the waiter leaves.
“We are,” says Mom.
“It’s named for someone, isn’t it?” I ask, remembering the statue in the lobby, with its far-off gaze and studied frown. “Who was he?”
Lucas and Dad inflate at the exact same time, both about to speak, but then Dad nods for Lucas to go on. Lucas smiles, and straightens a little in his chair.
“Allan Kardec,” he says, “was the father of Spiritism.”
I’ve never heard of Spiritism, and Lucas must be able to tell, because he explains.
“Spiritists believe in the presence of a spirit realm, and the … entities that inhabit it.”
Jacob and I exchange a glance, and I wonder if Kardec could have known about the Veil. Perhaps he was an in-betweener.
“You see,” continues Lucas, “Kardec believed that spirits—phantoms, ghosts, if you like—existed there, in that other place, but that they could be communicated with, summoned by mediums.”
“Like in a séance?” I ask.
“Exactly,” says Lucas.
And suddenly the decorations back at the hotel make sense. The velvet curtains, the outstretched hands, the painting on the lobby ceiling—the table and chairs, empty and waiting.
“There is a séance room in the hotel,” Lucas adds. “I’m sure they’d be happy to give you a show.”