Bridge of Souls (Cassidy Blake #3)(44)

“Right, the coffin. We call him Fred,” says Philippa. “He’s empty,” she adds, almost as an afterthought.

I sigh a little with relief, but then inhale sharply as Philippa swerves between two trucks and hits the gas. Lucas closes his eyes. And this, I think, is how I’m going to die. Again. Not in a river, and not at the Emissary’s hands, but in a hearse, hurtling through afternoon traffic toward Lake Pontchartrain.

I grip the broken evil eye charm in my pocket, squeezing until my fingers ache. I wasn’t sure if we were right about the bridge, but as the hearse races north, I can feel it, like a shadow at the edge of my sight, a patch of cold on a warm day, and I know we’re going the right way.

“Music?” asks Philippa, already switching on the radio. I don’t know what I expected—rock, or pop, even classical—but what spills out is a series of low gongs, a meditation track so at odds with the racing hearse and my rising panic I almost laugh.

As we drive on, I hold the red backpack in my lap, running my thumb over the stitched letter L I never noticed on the front.

“Do you think we’ll get there in time?” I ask.

I probably just want an adult to lie and tell me things are going to be okay, but Lucas says nothing, and Philippa looks at me in the rearview mirror and says, “I don’t know, Cassidy.”

And before I can get upset, she slams on the brakes, and if Jacob were corporeal, I’m pretty sure he would have gone through the front window. Instead, he braces himself against the back of the seat. I think of the display case shattering under his fist, of how strong he’s getting, how, until yesterday, my biggest fear was him becoming an out-of-control spirit I’d have to send on. Everything changes so fast.

“You’re staring,” he says, and I blink, too quick, the way Dad does when there’s a sappy commercial on and he’s trying not to cry.

“Because you look funny,” I say.

And he sticks out his tongue.

And I stick out mine, too.

I’m glad Jacob’s not a normal ghost.

I’m glad he’s stronger than ever.

I need him to be.

I don’t want to lose him.

I don’t want to lose Lara.

I don’t want to lose anyone.

There is no victory without defeat, said the fortune-teller, but Dad said you can’t tell the future, because we haven’t lived it yet. He said that the cards were only mirrors, reflecting our own thoughts, and hopes, and fears.

So I know what I’m scared of, but I also know it isn’t set in stone.

I know that I can save one of my friends without losing the other.

And I know there’s a third life at stake: my own.

“We’re here,” says Lucas, and I look up to see the lake spreading on the horizon, a vast gray slick, as far as I can see. And cutting across it, the bridge. Philippa pulls the hearse over onto the shoulder, near the mouth of the lake. Cars go by, slowing at the sight of a stalled hearse with its flower-draped coffin in the back, but she waves them on as we all climb out.

I turn my attention to the Causeway Bridge. It stretches like taffy, a rippling line that goes straight to the horizon.

“Ready?” I ask Jacob.

“Nope,” he says, but we both take a step forward. This close, I can feel the Veil, and the place beyond it. The Bridge of Souls. Like a pocket of silence, heavy and still.

Even in the muggy heat, it makes me shiver.

Up close, the strange push-pull is stronger. Here, it feels like repulsion. Something deep inside me warns me this is a bad place, urges me to run away.

But I can’t.

I’m about to reach for the Veil when Philippa says, “Wait.”

She digs in her pocket and pulls out a piece of candy, a crumpled receipt, a fortune cookie, and a strand of braided red thread.

She plucks the red thread from the pile of odds and ends, shoves the rest in her pocket.

“Hold out your hand, Cass.”

I do, expecting her to put the red thread in my palm, but instead, she wraps it several times around my wrist.

“It’s easy to get lost in the space between worlds,” she says. “It’s like dreaming. Sometimes you forget what is and isn’t real.” She ties the ends into a knot. “This should help you remember.”

I think of Neville Longbottom and his Remembrall, the way it turned red whenever he forgot something. The trouble, of course, was he could never remember what it was he forgot.

But all I say is “Thanks.”

Philippa waves, and Lucas nods at me. “Be careful,” he says.

I take a deep breath, and reach for the Veil.

The gray curtain rushes up to meet my hand. It slides between my fingers, and I catch hold, flinging it aside. I feel the lurch as the ground drops away, taking the light and color and the sound of cars with it. There’s a moment of falling, of cold, and then I’m back on my feet, and the world is darker, quieter.

But here, at least, there are no dizzying layers, no double vision. Just a bleak stretch of gray.

Jacob stands beside me, his edges solid against the pale landscape.

He stares ahead. I follow his gaze, and see the bridge.

In the land of the living, it was gray, concrete, mundane. But here, it’s something else. Bigger, stranger, a stretch of polished black stone that reaches as far as I can see, the end disappearing into fog. There’s no water, no railing, just a long drop into shadow.