Bridge of Souls (Cassidy Blake #3)(34)

Lara reaches out a fork and takes a dainty bite of each, and despite the messy nature of the meal, she never spills a spoonful or loses a grain of rice. I bet she could eat a beignet dressed in black and never get a speck of powdered sugar on her.

All through dinner, I keep the evil eye charm nestled in my palm, bracing for trouble, jumping at the slightest scrape of a chair or strange angle of light. But Lara smiles and chats as if nothing’s wrong. She’s so good at pretending everything’s okay. I watch her, wishing I was better at it. But it also makes me sad, that she has so much practice at it.

And even though we’ve only known each other a couple of weeks, having her here feels right.

Even Jacob has softened toward her, and more than once I catch him and Lara exchanging looks, not even murderous ones, but the kinds of glances that pass between friends.

It makes me feel happy, and full.

“I met my first ghost in London,” Mom is saying to Lara. “When I was about your age. Not in the Tower, or in one of the graveyards, or anything like that. I was on a double-decker bus.”

I sit forward, realizing I’ve never heard this story.

“He was just sitting there,” Mom goes on, “looking out the window, waiting for his stop. He asked if I would hit the button, and I did, and he got up and walked away, and I called after him that I hoped he had a nice day. And my father looked at me and said, ‘Who are you talking to?’?”

Mom breaks into a smile. “The boy wasn’t there, of course. Not anymore. And I’ve never seen a ghost like that since—but it was such a thrilling thing. Like a corner of my world had pulled away, revealing a whole new place.”

I bite my lip, wishing that someday I could show her that other place, take her with me through the Veil.

“Is that why you write books?” asks Lara.

Mom sips her drink and hums a little, thinking. “You know, maybe it is. Stories have a way of making the world feel bigger, too.”

Lara nods and looks down at her plate. “I met my first ghost in St. Mary’s.”

Dad frowns a little. “That’s a hospital, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” she says briskly, “I was quite sick once. Scarlet fever.”

Mom brings her hand to her mouth. “Your parents must have been so worried.”

Lara looks up, blinking quickly. “Oh, yes, they were.” She looks down again. “I got better, obviously, but they kept me there a while, on the ward, and one night, I couldn’t sleep. Someone was singing. Quite loudly, in the hall. But no one else seemed to hear, or notice.” She stares off into space, a faraway look in her eyes. “So I got up, and went to find them.”

“And tell them off,” says Jacob, teasing.

Lara’s gaze cuts toward him, but she doesn’t stop talking. “There was this curtain in front of the door, and when I pushed it aside, the voice was so much clearer. So I followed it. And I found her, around the corner, at the end of the hall, looking out the window and singing. She was holding a baby, and the moonlight was streaming through, one of those bright spotlight moons, and I could see straight through both of them.”

I shiver a little.

But Lara only straightens, and smiles, and says, quite briskly, “Of course, afterward, I knew, it must have been a fever dream. I was still quite sick, after all. But I never forgot that woman, or the singing, or the child in her arms.”

The table is quiet for a long moment.

In the end, it’s Jacob, of course, who breaks the silence.

“You know, I thought the creepiest thing in the world was children singing, but I take it back. It might be that.”

Lara and I both laugh, and Mom and Dad look at us as if we’ve lost our minds.

After dinner, we make our way back through the maze of garden and gate and start back toward the Quarter. The streets around us are filled with people, and I scan them all, holding my breath as I search for a broad-brimmed hat, a skull-faced mask. Jacob walks backward, checking behind us. Lara glances around, too, even as she carries on with Dad and Mom, talking about the histories of New Orleans neighborhoods.

But I’m still thinking about Lara’s story. Did she know what to do? Even then, did she know that she’d crossed into the Veil, that the woman there was a ghost, a trapped spirit, waiting to be sent on?

She couldn’t have known then, right?

And yet, it’s hard to imagine a version of Lara Chowdhury that doesn’t know.

Hard to imagine she was ever scared or confused.

“Listen,” says Mom, wrapping her arms around my shoulders. “Do you hear that?”

And suddenly, I’m on edge again, fingers going to the evil eye in my pocket as I listen. I hear the constant murmurs of the Veil, the vague melody of whispers and songs, but closer, clearer, I hear what Mom does. A beat, as steady as a heart or a drum. Lara and Dad and Jacob hear it, too, their heads turning toward the sound.

“What is that?” I ask.

But Mom only flashes a dazzling smile and says, “Let’s find out.”

She grabs my hand, and we’re off.

When I was young, Mom and I would go for walks in the fields and woods beyond our house. There was no path, no set course. If anything, she would change direction as often as she could, getting turned around on purpose. We were never far from home, but at the time, the world felt so wild and big, and I was scared of going too far, of not finding my way back.