“Inspecters,” corrects Mom.
“I was told you have what you need, yes, I see you do, very well, we’re short on staff today, so I’m afraid I can’t spare a guide—”
“No worries,” says Dad, gesturing at Lucas. “We brought our own.”
“Great,” she says, “all right, welcome to Muriel’s …” And with that, she’s already gone.
“Well,” says Jenna, her camera on her shoulder. “Which way to the ghosts?”
Jacob and I look at each other. Mom and Dad scan the restaurant. Adan shifts his weight from foot to foot.
But Lucas nods at the dark wooden stairs. “Up.”
* * *
As we climb the stairs, the noise from the restaurant fades.
Mom pulls out her EMF meter—a device used to measure spectral energy—and switches it on. The box hums with a low static.
When we reach the space at the top of the stairs, the EMF meter begins to whine. Other people would take it as a warning, but to Mom it’s just an invitation. It gets louder as she walks, but I’m pretty sure it’s because Jacob is trailing behind her.
The room upstairs is a kind of lounge: deep plush sofas and chairs piled with cushions. It is mercifully dark and cool. Mom heads for a pair of not-quite-open doors, red light spilling through the gap. She stops, the EMF meter rising into high static.
“What have we here?” she asks in a singsong voice.
“Ah,” says Lucas. “That would be the séance room.”
Mom lets out a delighted mmmm. She nudges the doors open, looks back at us with a face full of mischief, and slips inside.
Dad chuckles and follows, Lucas on his heels.
Jenna plunges in next as if it’s a pool.
Adan hangs back a moment, lets out a low breath, as if psyching himself up, then goes in.
Jacob and I are still standing in the lounge area.
“That,” he says, pointing, “looks like a very comfy couch.”
I roll my eyes. We’re not here to nap.
“But we could be,” he complains as I head for the doors. I don’t have to look back to know he’s there, though, following me through.
The séance room is bathed in red. It’s like walking into a darkroom, that deep crimson light, just bright enough to see by. I expected a table and chairs, like the painting on our hotel ceiling, but this room is as cluttered as an antique store. Pillows are piled on old sofas and ornate chairs. An Egyptian sarcophagus leans against one wall. There’s a sculpture of a woman dancing, a floor lamp casting her shadow against a patterned wall. There are faces everywhere: A trio of Venetian masks smile and grimace. An old man stares out from a dusty portrait. Two old-fashioned women in elegant dresses glance up from a painting in an ornate frame. Tinny music whispers through a speaker somewhere out of sight, an eerie, old-sounding song.
A giant mirror sits on the floor, so old it’s gone silver. Jacob catches sight of it and jerks his gaze away, but I stop to stare at myself, my curls gone wild with humidity, the camera hanging around my neck. The weathered surface makes me look like an old-fashioned photo. I step closer, turning the pendant on my necklace out, so the mirrors catch each other, reflecting again and again as far as I can see. An infinite tunnel of Cassidys.
As I stare into the endless reflection, the ordinary world goes quiet in my ears. The sound of my parents talking to the camera, the tinny music, and the far-off noises of the restaurant all seem to fade as the Veil leans into me.
It’s like when you know someone’s watching you. When you can feel the weight of their gaze. And I know if I ignore it for too long, the nudge will become a hand gripping my wrist, and it will drag me through, into the world of ghosts.
But I can’t go through, not yet.
I turn, putting my back to the mirror, and tuck the pendant under my collar.
Mom and Dad are sitting on the other side of the room, on a fancy sofa. Lucas catches my eye and holds one finger to his lips. The red light on Jenna’s camera tells me they’re rolling.
Dad runs his hand down the arm of the sofa. “Welcome to the séance room of Muriel’s.”
“Now this,” adds Mom, “is a place that’s home to more than history.”
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.