Mom and I say “Yes!” at the same time Jacob says no, but since I’m the only one who can hear him, the vote doesn’t count.
A plate arrives, piled high with pieces of fried dough covered in powdered sugar. Not dusted, really, but buried beneath the sugar, white mountains like snow over the mounds of dough.
“What are these?” I ask.
“Beignets,” says Lucas.
I pick one up, the fried dough hot beneath my fingers, and bite down.
The beignet melts a little in my mouth, hot dough and sugar, crispier than a doughnut and twice as sweet. I try to say how good it is, but my mouth is too full, and I end up breathing out a tiny cloud of powdered sugar. It is heaven.
Jacob eyes the beignet mournfully as I pop the rest in my mouth. He folds his arms and mutters something like “Not fair.”
Lucas takes one, and somehow manages to eat it without spilling sugar all over himself, which I’m pretty sure is a kind of superpower. Even Dad, who’s a bit of a neat freak, has to dust some powder off his sleeve.
Mom, meanwhile, looks like she walked through a snowstorm. Sugar dots her nose and her chin; there’s even some on her forehead. I snap a photo, and she winks.
My own shirt is streaked with white, my hands sticky, but it was totally worth it.
“Well, Professor Dumont,” says Mom, wiping her hands. “Do you believe in ghosts?”
Our guide steeples his fingers.
“It’s hard to live in a place like this and not believe in something, but I prefer to focus on the history.”
It’s a very diplomatic answer.
“Better than my husband,” says Mom. “He doesn’t believe in any of it.”
Lucas lifts a brow. “Is that so, Professor Blake? Even after all your travels?”
Dad shrugs. “As you said, I prefer to focus on the history. That part, at least, I know is real.”
“Ah,” says Lucas. “But history is written by the victors. How can we know what really happened if we weren’t there? We are, all of us, speculating …”
At that point, Dad and Lucas launch into a deep discussion about the “lens of history” (Dad) and the past as a “living document” (Lucas) and I stop paying attention.
The show binder sits on the table, the cover dusted with streaks of sugar. I pull it toward me, flipping past Scotland and France to the third episode, marked by a single red tab.
THE INSPECTERS
EPISODE THREE
LOCATION: NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA
“LAND OF LOST SOULS”
“Well, that’s promising,” says Jacob, reading over my shoulder as I skim the list of filming locations.
1) THE PLACE D’ARMES
2) MURIEL’S RESTAURANT
3) ST. LOUIS NO. 1, NO. 2, NO. 3
4) LAFAYETTE CEMETERY
5) THE OLD URSULINE CONVENT
6) THE LALAURIE MANSION
It all sounds fairly innocent, but I know by now that looks can be deceiving.
When the beignets are gone and the glasses are empty, everyone gets to their feet. Lucas dusts off his hands, even though he doesn’t have a speck of sugar on him.
“See you tonight?” asks Dad.
“Indeed,” says Lucas. “I think you’ll find this is a different city after dark.”
* * *
That night, Lucas is waiting for us in the hotel lobby, along with our film crew: a guy and a girl, a mismatched pair, linked only by the cameras hanging from their hands. They introduce themselves as Jenna and Adan. Jenna is small and bubbly and white, the ends of her black hair dyed electric blue, and a dozen silver chains draped around her neck. Adan is a giant, a towering guy in a black T-shirt, tattoos wrapping every inch of his olive skin.
He catches me staring at them and flexes so I can see the Christian cross on his bicep, the Egyptian eye on his forearm, the pentacle near his elbow. Some of the symbols I don’t recognize—a knot of triangles inside a loop, and a bold black mark that looks like a crow’s foot.
“That’s an algiz,” he says. “It’s a rune.”
He goes on to explain it’s not a crow’s foot, but an elk’s. I study the other symbols. I’ve seen people wearing one or two of them, but Adan has at least seven.
“What are they all for?” I ask.
“Protection,” he explains. A little thrill runs through me as my own hand drifts to the mirror around my neck.
“From what?”
He shrugs. “Everything.”
Jenna leans in and pats his arm. “Adan likes to keep his bases covered.” Her voice drops to a fake whisper. “He’s not a big fan of things that go bump.”
“Keep talking,” Adan says. “One day you’ll see a ghost, and you’ll get it.”
Jenna sighs dramatically. “I wish!” she says, pouting. “No one has ever haunted me.” Her eyes flick to my mirror pendant. “Cool necklace.”
“Thanks,” I say, twirling it between my fingers. Jacob winces when the mirror twists his way, and I close my hand over the glass before he can catch sight of his reflection. It happened once, back in Scotland. I can still see him the way he was in the glass: gray, and dripping wet from the river, and undeniably dead.
Jacob clears his throat, and I force a smile.
“Ready?” asks Lucas, his voice steady and sober, as if the answer might be no.
We step out of the Hotel Kardec, and the Veil rises to meet me. Without the sun glare and the heat, the press of ghosts is even stronger, tapping on my skull, swimming at the edges of my sight.
Music spills out of bars and off corners, but I can hear the music beneath the music. Ghostly tendrils of jazz drifting on the lukewarm breeze.
Mom squeezes my shoulder.
“Do you hear that?” she says, eyes dancing. “The city is waking up.”
I’m pretty sure we’re not listening to the same thing, but still, she’s right.
And so was Lucas.
New Orleans is a different city after dark.
The heat has faded to a drowsy warmth, but there’s nothing sleepy about the French Quarter. The streets are buzzing with people, crowds milling on curbs, drinking and singing.
Laughter spills down the street, and cheers pour out of open doors, and jazz instruments duel for space, and under all of it is the Veil. The worlds of the living and the dead feel like they’re colliding around me.
We pass a group on a vampire tour—they’re all carrying frozen drinks, the cherry-red contents staining their mouths, and wearing white plastic fangs, their cheerful energy at odds with their inspiration.
I’m so distracted by it all, I almost run into Adan, who’s stopped on the curb, camera raised. They’ve started filming.
Mom and Dad are standing in front of a redbrick building that’s clearly a hotel. It has a wrought-iron balcony and a white sign that reads PLACE D’ARMES. To the right, there’s an archway, just wide enough for a carriage, fronted by an iron gate.
Nothing special, nothing strange. But when I look through that archway, the space beyond cloaked in shadow, the hairs stand up on the back of my neck, and the Veil presses like a hand against my back.
I know if I’m not careful, it will push me through.
“Here in New Orleans,” says Dad, addressing the camera, “almost everything you see was built on the ruins of something else. Twice the French Quarter has burned down, once in 1788, and again only six years later. Countless blazes have broken out since, consuming rooms, or buildings, or blocks.”