Bridge of Souls (Cassidy Blake #3)(21)

Lucas puts his phone away, but my attention keeps going back toward the strange pull. I lift the camera to my eye, sliding the focus back and forth, as if it will show me the source of the pull, but all I see are blurry headstones. I’m still peering through the viewfinder when Mom calls, “That’s a wrap!” and it’s time to go.

*

We grab lunch in the Garden District, a place where all the houses are draped in Spanish moss and look like smaller versions of the White House, columned and proud. And then it’s on to Lafayette, which is apparently only Lafayette No. 1 (they really aren’t that good at coming up with names for graveyards here, but I guess when you have forty-two of them, it’s easy to run out of options).

The rain has trailed off, but the clouds still hang low, as if it might start again at any second. The world is gray, and full of shadows.

“For such a vibrant city,” says Mom, “people love to spend time with the dead.”

And I can tell that she’s about to start a story.

The cameras trail her down a row of tombs, and we follow.

“A few years ago, a couple was staying at a hotel here in the Garden District when they decided to take an afternoon walk to explore this cemetery.”

“As you do,” says Jacob.

As if she can hear him, Mom smiles. “It might sound like an odd way to spend the day, but people come from far and wide just to tour the graveyards. They treat them like art galleries, museums, history exhibits. Some come to study, or pay respect to the dead, but others simply like to wander among the quiet crypts.”

Her steps slow as she talks.

“On their way, the couple met a young woman, traveling alone, and she asked them if they knew how to get to Lafayette.

“?‘You can come with us,’ they said. ‘We are going there ourselves.’

“And so the three set out together, the couple and the young woman, who said her name was Annabelle. They walked, and chatted, and made their way to the gates of Lafayette, and strolled together, admiring the graves.”

It’s easy to get lost in Mom’s stories. I grew up with them, and sure, the tales she told me before bedtime were usually less morbid than these. But I love to hear her talk.

Now she comes to a stop in front of one of the crypts.

“And at some point, the couple realized that the young woman had stopped walking and was looking mournfully at one of the graves. And so they went to her, and asked, ‘Do you know someone? Is that where they’re buried?’

“And the woman smiled, and pointed at the grave …”

Mom reaches almost absently for the door of the crypt.

“And she said, ‘This one’s mine.’?”

Chills race over my skin, and Jacob folds his arms and tries to look like he’s not totally freaked out as Mom says, “The couple followed her gaze, and saw the name on the stone was Annabelle. And by the time they looked back at the young woman, she was gone.”

Mom’s hand still lingers in the air, as if reaching for the grave. I snap a photo before her fingers fall away, and I know, even before I’ve finished the roll, that shot will be my favorite one.

Dad steps up beside Mom.

“Some ghost stories are like gossip,” he says, taking up his role as the skeptical scholar. “Passed from person to person. Who knows if they’re true? But the next graveyard is home to something far more … tangible.”

“Oh joy,” says Jacob as the cameras cut off and Mom says it’s time to head to St. Roch.

She’s practically bouncing by the time we get there, as if this is the ride she’s been waiting for.

From the outside, St. Roch seems like a pretty normal graveyard, which is a thing I never used to say. I hadn’t exactly seen many graveyards before my parents decided to become the Inspecters. But in our brief time as a family of traveling paranormal investigators, I’ve walked through miles of bones and cemeteries large enough to need street signs, been pushed off crypts, fallen through crumbling bodies, and even climbed into an open grave.

“And that’s not even counting the five places we’ve been today,” says Jacob.

Mom grabs my hand and pulls me through the gate, and I feel the usual hush of unhaunted places. Or at least, less haunted ones.

I look around at the rows of stone monuments and crypts, wondering what the big deal is.

And then we enter the chapel.

“Oh sweet holy no,” says Jacob at my side.

“What am I looking at?” I ask, even though I’m not sure I want to know.

It looks like a room full of body parts. Hands and feet. Eyes and teeth.

There are legs tacked up on the walls, a pile of crutches on the floor. An arm hangs over the table, and looks like it’s waving at me. It takes me a second to realize that the body parts aren’t real, that they’re made of plastic, and plaster, and chipping paint.

My stomach churns.

“St. Roch,” announces Mom. “Patron saint of good health. Unofficial recipient of used prosthetics.”

A breeze blows through the chapel, and an artificial knee creaks.

“Some are symbolic,” explains Mom. “A hand, for someone with carpal tunnel. A knee, for someone whose joints ache. But others are given in thanks. People bring them here when they don’t need them anymore.”

I stare at the shrine. A glass eye stares back, one wide blue iris fogging with age.