Tunnel of Bones (City of Ghosts #2)(2)
What makes the camera truly special, though, is how it works beyond the Veil: It captures a piece of the other side. It doesn’t see as well as I do, but it definitely sees more than it should. A shadow of the shadow world.
I’m just lowering the camera when my phone chimes in my pocket.
It’s a text from Lara.
Lara Chowdhury and I crossed paths back in Edinburgh. We’re the same age, but it’s safe to say she’s years ahead in the whole ghost-hunting department. It helps that she spends her summers hanging out with the spirit of her dead uncle, who happens—happened—to know about all things supernatural. He wasn’t an in-betweener (that’s what Lara calls people like us), just a man with a large library and a morbid hobby.
Lara:
Gotten yourself in trouble yet?
Me:
Define trouble.
Lara:
Cassidy Blake.
I can practically hear the annoyance in her posh English accent.
Me:
I just got here.
Give me a little credit.
Lara:
That isn’t an answer.
I lift the phone, make a goofy grin, and snap a photo of myself giving a thumbs-up on the crowded street. Jacob’s in the frame, but of course he doesn’t show up in the photo.
Me:
Jacob and I say hi.
“You say hi,” he grumbles, reading over my shoulder. “I have nothing to say to her.”
Right on cue, Lara snaps back with her own reply.
Lara:
Tell the ghost to move along.
“Ah, here we are,” says Mom, nodding at a hotel just ahead. I tuck my phone back in my pocket and look up.
The entrance is ornate—beveled glass, a rug on the curb, and a marquee announcing the name: HOTEL VALEUR. A man in a suit holds open the door, and we step through.
Some places just scream haunted … but this isn’t one of them.
We move through a large polished lobby, all marble and gold. There are columns, and bouquets of flowers, and a silver beverage cart stacked with china cups. It feels like a fancy department store, and we stand there, two parents, a girl, a cat, and a ghost, all of us so obviously, thoroughly, out of place.
“Bienvenue,” says the woman at the front desk, her eyes flicking from us to our luggage to the black cat in his carrier.
“Hello,” says Mom cheerfully, and the clerk switches to English.
“Welcome to the Hotel Valeur. Have you stayed with us before?”
“No,” says Dad. “This is our first time in Paris.”
“Oh?” The woman arches a dark eyebrow. “What brings you to our city?”
“We’re here on business,” says Dad, at the same time Mom answers, “We’re filming a television show.”
The clerk’s mood changes, lips pursing in displeasure.
“Ah yes,” she says, “you must be the … ghost finders.” The way she says it makes my face get hot and my stomach turn.
Beside me, Jacob cracks his knuckles. “I see we have a skeptic in the house.”
A month ago, he couldn’t even fog a window. Now he’s looking around for something he can break. His attention lands on the beverage cart. I shoot him a warning look, mouthing the word no.
Lara’s voice echoes in my head.
Ghosts don’t belong in the in-between, and they certainly don’t belong on this side of it.
The longer he stays, the stronger he’ll get.
“We’re paranormal investigators,” corrects Mom.
The desk clerk’s nose crinkles. “I doubt you will find such things here,” she says, her perfectly manicured nails clicking across her keyboard. “Paris is a place of art, and culture, and history.”
“Well,” starts Dad, “I’m a historian and—”
But Mom puts a hand on his shoulder, as if to say, This isn’t a fight worth having.
The woman at the desk gives us our keys. In that moment, Jacob succeeds in nudging the beverage cart and sends a china cup skating toward the edge. I reach out, steadying the cup before it can fall.
“Bad ghost,” I whisper.
“No fun,” answers Jacob as we follow my parents upstairs.
Back in Scotland, people talked about ghosts the way you might talk about your weird aunt or that odd kid in your neighborhood. Something out of place, sure, but undeniably there. Edinburgh was haunted from its tip to its toes, its castle to its caves. Even the Lane’s End, the cute little bed-and-breakfast where we stayed, had a resident ghost.
But here, in the Hotel Valeur, there are no dark corners, no ominous sounds.
The door to our room doesn’t even groan when it swings open.
We’re staying in a suite, with a bedroom on each side and an elegant sitting room in between. Everything is crisp, clean, and new.
Jacob looks at me, aghast. “It’s almost like you want it to be haunted.”
“No,” I shoot back. “It’s just … strange that it’s not.”
Dad must have heard me because he says, “What does Jacob think about our new digs?”
I roll my eyes.
It comes in handy, having a ghost for a best friend. I can sneak him into the movies, I don’t have to share my snacks, and I never really get lonely. Of course, when your BFF isn’t bound by the laws of corporeality, you have to lay down some ground rules. No intentional scaring. No going through closed bedroom or bathroom doors. No disappearing in the middle of a fight.