Bridge of Souls (Cassidy Blake #3)(6)

And Mom blinks, eyebrows going up as if she got so caught up in the story, she never thought about how it ended.

“No,” answers Dad. “They never did.”

I look around, wondering if the axeman’s ghost is still wandering these streets, a hatchet on one shoulder and his head cocked, listening for a saxophone, a trumpet, some promise of jazz.

Mom breaks into a smile. “Hello! You must be our guide.”

I twist around in my seat, and see a young Black man wearing a crisp white button-down shirt, the sleeves rolled to his elbows. Behind wire-framed glasses, his eyes are light brown, flecked with green and gold.

“Professor Dumont,” says Dad, rising to his feet.

“Please,” he says, in a kind, smooth voice. “Call me Lucas.” He shakes Dad’s hand, and then Mom’s, and then mine, which makes me like him even more. “Welcome to New Orleans.”

He sinks into a plastic chair across from us and orders coffee and something called beignets.

“You’re staying in the Hotel Kardec?” he says as the waiter leaves.

“We are,” says Mom.

“It’s named for someone, isn’t it?” I ask, remembering the statue in the lobby, with its far-off gaze and studied frown. “Who was he?”

Lucas and Dad inflate at the exact same time, both about to speak, but then Dad nods for Lucas to go on. Lucas smiles, and straightens a little in his chair.

“Allan Kardec,” he says, “was the father of Spiritism.”

I’ve never heard of Spiritism, and Lucas must be able to tell, because he explains.

“Spiritists believe in the presence of a spirit realm, and the … entities that inhabit it.”

Jacob and I exchange a glance, and I wonder if Kardec could have known about the Veil. Perhaps he was an in-betweener.

“You see,” continues Lucas, “Kardec believed that spirits—phantoms, ghosts, if you like—existed there, in that other place, but that they could be communicated with, summoned by mediums.”

“Like in a séance?” I ask.

“Exactly,” says Lucas.

And suddenly the decorations back at the hotel make sense. The velvet curtains, the outstretched hands, the painting on the lobby ceiling—the table and chairs, empty and waiting.

“There is a séance room in the hotel,” Lucas adds. “I’m sure they’d be happy to give you a show.”

Mom and I say “Yes!” at the same time Jacob says no, but since I’m the only one who can hear him, the vote doesn’t count.

A plate arrives, piled high with pieces of fried dough covered in powdered sugar. Not dusted, really, but buried beneath the sugar, white mountains like snow over the mounds of dough.

“What are these?” I ask.

“Beignets,” says Lucas.

I pick one up, the fried dough hot beneath my fingers, and bite down.

The beignet melts a little in my mouth, hot dough and sugar, crispier than a doughnut and twice as sweet. I try to say how good it is, but my mouth is too full, and I end up breathing out a tiny cloud of powdered sugar. It is heaven.

Jacob eyes the beignet mournfully as I pop the rest in my mouth. He folds his arms and mutters something like “Not fair.”

Lucas takes one, and somehow manages to eat it without spilling sugar all over himself, which I’m pretty sure is a kind of superpower. Even Dad, who’s a bit of a neat freak, has to dust some powder off his sleeve.

Mom, meanwhile, looks like she walked through a snowstorm. Sugar dots her nose and her chin; there’s even some on her forehead. I snap a photo, and she winks.

My own shirt is streaked with white, my hands sticky, but it was totally worth it.

“Well, Professor Dumont,” says Mom, wiping her hands. “Do you believe in ghosts?”

Our guide steeples his fingers.

“It’s hard to live in a place like this and not believe in something, but I prefer to focus on the history.”

It’s a very diplomatic answer.

“Better than my husband,” says Mom. “He doesn’t believe in any of it.”

Lucas lifts a brow. “Is that so, Professor Blake? Even after all your travels?”

Dad shrugs. “As you said, I prefer to focus on the history. That part, at least, I know is real.”

“Ah,” says Lucas. “But history is written by the victors. How can we know what really happened if we weren’t there? We are, all of us, speculating …”

At that point, Dad and Lucas launch into a deep discussion about the “lens of history” (Dad) and the past as a “living document” (Lucas) and I stop paying attention.

The show binder sits on the table, the cover dusted with streaks of sugar. I pull it toward me, flipping past Scotland and France to the third episode, marked by a single red tab.





THE INSPECTERS


EPISODE THREE


LOCATION: NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA

“LAND OF LOST SOULS”



“Well, that’s promising,” says Jacob, reading over my shoulder as I skim the list of filming locations.

1) THE PLACE D’ARMES

2) MURIEL’S RESTAURANT

3) ST. LOUIS NO. 1, NO. 2, NO. 3

4) LAFAYETTE CEMETERY

5) THE OLD URSULINE CONVENT