Tunnel of Bones (City of Ghosts #2)(22)

Mom sulks. “But we’re going to the Rue des Chantres! You wouldn’t want to miss that.”

I bite my lip and let my shoulders fall. “I guess not.”

Jacob claps his hands at my Oscar-worthy performance. Mom and Dad exchange a glance, and then a few quiet words, before Mom nods and says, “Okay.”

I throw my arms around her shoulders. “Thank you.”

Dad slides a few bills through the ticket window, and he even gives me some cash for a soda and popcorn.

“We’ll be back,” he says, “before the movie ends.” He points to the sidewalk. “Right here.”

I wave goodbye and head inside, buying a snack at the counter, letting the usher tear my ticket. He points to the first theater on the left, and Jacob and I make our way into the darkened theater.

“A movie,” Jacob says, sinking into the leather seat. “This is a nice change of pace.”

I sip my soda and check my phone, waiting for one minute to pass, then two. I set a timer on my phone for two hours.

Jacob watches me. “We’re not staying for the movie, are we?”

I get up, leaving the bucket of popcorn at my feet. “Nope.”

Jacob sighs. “Just once,” he says, “I wish we’d do the normal thing.”

I push open the door marked EXIT, and we slip down the hall and out onto the Paris street.

“Where’s the fun in that?”



Paris is a big city, and as we stand on the street, blocks stretching in every direction, two hours suddenly doesn’t seem like very much time.

“Time to do what?” asks Jacob, for once unable to make sense of my jumbled thoughts.

I don’t blame him. My head is spinning with everything I know and everything I don’t.

I have to remind the poltergeist who he is—was.

In order to do that, I have to figure out who he is—was.

In order to do that, I have to find out more about him.

In order to do that …

I take a deep breath and reach for the Veil, pulling the curtain aside before Jacob can even think to protest.

I step out of the world, into a moment of free fall, like a missed step, a lurch of darkness. Then Paris settles around me again, stranger, grayer, older. The buildings look different, no longer uniform rows of pale stone but mismatched, like a ragged hem.

I cup my hands around my mouth and call, at the top of my lungs, “HEY, GHOST!”

The words echo away into the fog. I take a breath and shout.

“COME OUT, COME OUT, WHEREVER YOU AR—”

Jacob appears, clapping a hand over my mouth.

“What are you doing?” he hisses.

I pull free. “I’m tired of letting him call all the shots. I don’t want to do this on his terms anymore. I want to do it on mine.”

“So your best idea is to shout until he shows up?”

“We need a better look at him, right?”

“Yeah,” says Jacob, “but last time you came face-to-face, he pushed you off a roof.”

“Well, this time, my feet are on the ground. Besides …” I trail off. Over Jacob’s shoulder, a shadow is taking shape in the fog, moving toward us.

But when the figure parts the mist, it isn’t the poltergeist.

It’s a man in an old-fashioned suit. He lifts an old-fashioned pistol and aims it straight at me, and Jacob wrenches me back out of the Veil before the shot goes off.

I crash through a wave of cold water before landing on my butt on the curb in present-day Paris. Jacob looms over me, folding his arms. “You really should have seen that coming.”

I get to my feet, brushing off my jeans, and start walking.

As soon as I think I’m far enough away from the ghost with the gun, I take a deep breath and reach for the Veil again.

“Wait—” starts Jacob, but he’s too late.

I’m already through.

A shudder, a plunge, a second of darkness, and I’m back in the in-between.

The Veil is different here, the city still old-fashioned but a little newer than last time.

There’s a bridge just ahead, a stone arch garnished with statues and lampposts. As I start across it, a carriage rattles past the other way, pulled by a pair of glossy black horses.

A man plays an accordion along the banks of the Seine below, the music high and thin, as if carried on a breeze.

A pair of women walk arm in arm in fancy dresses, the skirts as wide as the sidewalk, their heads bowed as they whisper.

I pull the mirror pendant from my back pocket and wrap it around my palm as I walk, willing the ghosts not to notice. Their eyes flick toward me, as if they know I don’t belong, but they don’t come after me, and I don’t go after them.

“You know the definition of insanity, right?” asks Jacob, appearing beside me. “It’s doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result.”

“I’m not doing the same thing,” I point out. “You’re right, shouting was a bad idea.”

“Great,” says Jacob. “So what’s your new strategy?”

“I’m taking a walk.”

“To where?”

“The end of the Veil.”

I reach the other side of the bridge, and a block or so later, the in-between finally shifts again, thinning between one ghost’s Veil and the next, until it’s nothing but an empty stretch, a seam, a place where no ordinary ghost can go. But a poltergeist, a spirit not bound to the Veil …