Dad flicks through the pages of the journal with his thumb.
“There are dozens of stories, some rooted in history, like Burke and Hare, others little more than urban legend. Plague victims buried in walls. Headless musicians. The ghost taverns. The Mackenzie poltergeist. The Raven in Red.”
I sit up straight, remembering the woman in the Veil, the crimson of her cloak. My chest tightens.
“What’s that one about?” I ask.
“Which one?”
“The Raven in Red.”
Dad flips back a couple of pages. “Hmm. She shows up in a few different stories about missing children—I’m guessing she’s a variant on the ‘mourning mother’ myth, the woman in widow’s weeds who steals other children away. But there’s no origin story, not in any of Weathershire’s journals. Now the plague vaults, that’s a fascinating section …”
But I’m still stuck on missing children.
I can feel Jacob staring at me as my mind spins over the memory of the Veil, the woman’s black hair and eyes, her hypnotic song. It’s strange, but when I saw her, I wasn’t afraid. On the contrary, she was like a patch of sun on a gray day. In that moment, when she sang, I wanted to follow her. I couldn’t think of anything else.
But now that she’s gone, the fear’s caught up.
Mom claps her hands and pushes to her feet. “I think that’s enough ghost stories for one night.”
We clean up the remains of the fish and chips and get ready for bed. Dad shuts off the lights in the living room, and Jacob slips away, like he always does at night.
Ghosts don’t need sleep, and after I found him once perched at the edge of my bed, watching me sleep, I told him that wasn’t cool. Now I don’t know where he goes—if he just turns off like a light or wanders the streets—I just know he’s not here.
I can’t stop yawning, and by the time I climb into my bed, I can feel myself sinking down into that murky place before sleep. The half-open window in my bedroom lets in a cool breeze and a wave of low, distant noise. Somewhere nearby, a baby cries. An old lady laughs. A couple fights.
At least, that’s what it sounds like, at first, but I soon realize it’s just seagulls, calling to each other in the dark. They squawk and trill and chatter, but the longer I listen, the more I think I can hear a woman’s voice weaving through the wind, the highs and lows of her song dragging me down into sleep.
The film crew turns up early the next morning, two men and a woman, all wearing black turtlenecks. They come bearing equipment, and fill our Lane’s End flat with noise. They start discussing schedules, snapping atmosphere shots, turning the cozy living room into a whirlwind of technical talk.
Jacob gets whipped up by all the energy and starts playing his favorite game, which basically entails following around members of the crew, waving his hands in front of their faces and chatting as if he’s a regular part of the fray.
I sit on the sofa, polishing raindrops off my camera lens and trying to stay out of the way. Grim lounges beneath the window and I snap a photo as he yawns, transforming for an instant into a tiny black lion.
“That’s a great camera,” says the woman on the film crew. “Vintage.” Her own camera hangs around her neck, massive and high-tech and full of settings. She notices Grim. “Oh, brilliant, is this the cat from the covers?” She kneels to grab a shot.
Jacob hops up beside the cat and strikes a pose, winking at me, and I laugh. We both know he won’t show up on those fancy digital cameras—I can already see the picture on her screen—but it’s fun, knowing there’s more to the image than they will ever see.
I look down at my own camera. I don’t have any way to see what I’ve shot, which means, until I get it developed, the film inside will stay a mystery, waiting to be exposed.
Mom and Dad appear, looking like they’ve stepped off the cover of one of their books: Dad in his tweed jacket, and Mom with her messy bun full of pens. I don’t have a part to play. Apparently the network thought I’d add a “fun family element,” but my parents were more protective, and that’s fine with me—I’ve never loved performing, have always preferred being behind the camera. So I’m wrapped in a giant sweatshirt and leggings, watching while a man pins a tiny microphone to the inside of Dad’s jacket. The woman pins a tiny microphone on Mom, who is busy arranging her folders.
Mom pulls out a sheet of paper with today’s three filming locations:
1) THE SOUTH BRIDGE VAULTS
2) MARY KING’S CLOSE
3) THE WHITE HART INN
“Here, Cassidy,” says Dad, handing me a cell phone, and I perk up. “This,” he explains, “is yours. But data isn’t cheap. This is for calls, and texts, and emergencies. Not Candy Crush.” I roll my eyes.
A bright ringtone goes off, but it’s not coming from my new phone. One of the crewmen announces that Findley’s downstairs.
Findley, it turns out, is our official guide.
Mom, Dad, and I head downstairs (along with the crew and Jacob, of course). Findley is waiting for us in the sitting room. He’s a stocky man with a trim beard and a bald patch in the middle of his red curls that makes it look like he’s wearing a crown. He reminds me a little of a redheaded Hagrid.
Mrs. Weathershire is pouring him a cup of tea, the cup so small in his broad hand it looks like she’s dumping hot water straight into his palm.
At the sight of our group, his face splits into a friendly smile.
“Findley Stewart,” he introduces himself, eyes sparkling. “I hear you’re looking for a fright. Well, you came to the right place.” His booming voice has the cadence of those storytellers Mom and I passed on the Royal Mile.
Findley downs his tea in a single swallow and sets the cup aside. “Shall we?”
With that, we set out on foot, Findley in the lead.
“Wouldn’t want to waste a patch of good weather,” he says. “Around here,” he explains, “you savor the sun whenever you get it—who knows how long it will last.”
Findley and Mom seem to have the same definition of “good weather.”
The ground is damp, and slivers of blue sky peek through the clouds, but they’re quickly swallowed by gray.
Dad looks up, and as if on cue, a drop of rain hits his glasses. Findley smacks him on the back, laughs, and sets off down the road.
As we cross Old Town, Findley rambles on about plagues and murders, grave robbers and bodies buried in walls, as if talking about tea, cake, a nap in the sun.
Dad has his journal out, jotting down notes, his attention torn between writing details and not tripping on the cobblestone street. Mom’s caught up in Findley’s tales, leaning in like a sunflower to the light. I know from experience that Dad will handle the history, and Mom’s job will be to paint the story. To make the viewer believe. She’s good at it. She used to tell me stories so vivid I’d dream about them after. Or ones so scary I couldn’t sleep.
It turns out Findley was friends with the late Mr. Weathershire. Findley used to go to pubs with him around the city, helped him collect those accounts that fill the dead man’s journals. Findley seems to know a lot about the myths and legends of Edinburgh.
Which gives me an idea.
“Hey, Findley,” I say. “Do you know the story of the Raven in Red?”
He rubs his head, thinking. “Och, aye,” he says with a nod. “Been a long while since I’ve heard it …”
My heart speeds up.
“It’s one of those you’re raised with as a child,” he goes on. “To keep you in your bed at night. Let me think … People tell it different ways—some say she lost a child, others that she couldn’t have one, some that she was a widow, and others that she was a witch—but here’s the version I know.
“Once there was a woman, a beauty with fair skin and black hair, and a little boy who loved to wander. And once there was a vicious winter, a snowstorm that turned the city white, and the boy went out to play and didn’t come back. The woman put on the red cloak so her boy would see her, and w
ent into the streets, and called for him, and sang for him, and cried for him, but he never came home. She searched all night, and all day, and she froze, or should have, but instead, something broke inside her. She began to set her sights on other children, began to call for them, and sing for them, and cry for them, until they came, drawn to her voice and her bright red cloak.”
I meet Jacob’s gaze, concern crossing his face.
“All winter, she stole children,” continues Findley, “lured them away from warm beds and parents’ arms and safe places. Their bodies were found outside her door, frozen on their feet.”
I shiver at the thought. The memory of cold in my lungs. The idea of it climbing my skin. Encasing me in ice.
“But why do they call her the Raven?”
The question comes from Jacob, but I repeat it to Findley.
“Ah,” says Findley, “perhaps for the birds that perch on her tombstone, or the color of her hair, or the way the story goes that if she catches you, the hand on your arm will turn to talons, and her voice will crack into a rasping caw, and her black hair will turn to wings, and she’ll fly away with you in her grip. She haunts the city every winter, stealing children, feasting on their warmth.”
“Like a pied piper?” prompts Mom.
“Aye, and nae,” says Findley. “The piper’s a fairy tale. Our Raven, she’s a ghost. Hung for her crimes and buried in our own Greyfriars Kirk. New mothers leave baubles and bells on the grave,” he adds. “Like a patron saint, only you pray for her to stay away.” He breaks into a warm smile. “But you needn’t worry about the Raven this time of year. She comes with the cold.”
Then why, I wonder, did I see her in the graveyard? Why did she seem to want me?
Dad pushes his glasses up. “Do you believe in ghosts, then, Mr. Stewart?”
Findley strokes his beard. “I’ll tell you what I believe in, Mr. Blake. I believe in history.” Dad brightens. Right answer, I think. Findley goes on. “Edinburgh’s got an awful lot of history, not all of it cheery. The kind of things my city’s seen, well, it’s bound to leave a mark. Now, whether that’s a gravestone or a ghost, I can’t tell you, but you’d be hard pressed to find someone who hasn’t felt a spirit or seen a thing that makes them wonder.”
We turn onto a broad street called South Bridge: the first stop on our filming schedule.
As we pass coffee shops and bookstores and a dozen other ordinary places, I begin to relax. I can feel the Veil, but it’s not exactly tapping on my shoulder. Instead, the pull is softer, brushing against the soles of my shoes, as if wafting up from the street.
The crew members check their gear and start filming, while my parents narrate.
“South Bridge,” starts Mom, “may look like an ordinary street, but the vaults nested below are the site of many hauntings.”
Oh, come on, I think, looking down.
“Nope, nope, nope,” says Jacob.
“Nineteen vaults, to be exact,” says Dad. “And it was indeed a bridge,” he adds, “before the city rose around it.”
“Some say South Bridge was cursed from the start,” Mom goes on. “When the bridge was first completed, the honor of crossing it fell to a judge’s wife, but she died days before the ceremony …” Mom pauses in a doorway. “Torn between their superstitions and their plans, the city decided to mark the bridge’s opening by sending her coffin instead.”
“Cut,” says one of the crew. “That’s great.”
“Our permit here’s for tomorrow,” says another, “so we’ll wait until then to film the vaults.”
Jacob and I both sigh in relief.
We turn at the corner, and we’re back on the Royal Mile, with its street performers and tour guides in old-fashioned clothes.
The crew films what Findley calls “B roll” of Mom and Dad walking through the crowd, framed by the grand old buildings. Then Findley leads us to a small shop. The sign outside reads THE REAL MARY KING’S CLOSE “What’s a close?” I ask.
“A close,” explains Dad, “is a cluster of lanes and alleys where people used to work and live. But as the city spread, the new grew up over the old, and the lanes were buried. The underground streets were forgotten for centuries. And then they were found.”
“That sounds promising,” deadpans Jacob as we step inside.
Where I’m surprised to find, of all things, a gift shop.
There are these tall wire racks that hold souvenirs and pamphlets, and blown-up photos on the wall, and a counter where you buy tickets, and none of it seems particularly scary.
“Ah, the television crew,” says a woman behind the counter.
“We’ve been expecting you,” adds a male colleague brightly.
The woman rounds the counter and waves us toward a second set of doors. “We can give you an hour,” she says, opening the door.
A cool draft billows through it, and a bad feeling wells in my chest.
Mom glances at me. “Sweetheart,” she says. “You don’t have to come down with us if you don’t want to.”
“Did you hear that?” says Jacob. “We could just stay up here, where everything’s nice and not as haunted.”
But there it is again, that tap-tap-tap. The urge to turn around and peel back the curtain.
I square my shoulders. “No,” I say. “I’m coming with.”
Jacob groans, and Findley grins. “There’s our girl.”
The crew passes out what they call “torches”—apparently the British word for flashlights. Armed with the dull electric glow, we make our way down into the dark.
As we descend, so does the temperature.
It drops a little with every step. Only there are no steps, because the entrance to Mary King’s Close is like a set of stairs filed smooth. A downward slope lit only by dull yellow bulbs on the walls.
Sheets hang on clotheslines overhead, and it’s hard to believe that we’re underground, even with the damp air and smell of old earth, wet stone.
But soon, the ground levels out. We reach the bottom of the slope.
“That wasn’t so bad,” I say.
Findley laughs. “Oh, lass, that wasn’t the Close.” He takes my shoulder and turns me to the right. “This is the Close.”
Oh.
It sprawls before me: a maze of narrow streets and covered doorways, stone arches and places where the light doesn’t reach. I hear the distant drip of water, and see shadows dancing on the walls.
Jacob crosses his arms over his T-shirt. “Well, this is just great.”
The camera crew sets up, testing their equipment and adjusting their lights.
“Almost forgot,” says Findley. He hands Mom a small rectangular device. It looks like a walkie-talkie with a row of lights across the front.
“An EMF meter!” Mom squeaks, delighted. Her voice echoes through the tunnels as she waves the device at me. “Electromagnetic field,” she explains. “To measure paranormal activity.”
She flips the switch, and the meter emits a faint hiss, like the sound of a radio between stations. Mom swings it back and forth, as if searching for a signal. Jacob shoots me a mischievous glance and takes a step toward it. The device comes to life, emitting a low tone.
“What do you know?” Mom says. “It works.”
I think of telling her that it’s Jacob, but the last thing I need is for the show’s crew to know my best friend is a ghost. Still … I have to admit, it’s pretty cool, seeing his presence register on the device.
Jacob steps back, and the sound dies away, leaving only the drip of water on stone, the shuffle of our feet.
It’s quiet down here, but not as quiet as it should be.
The wind whistles, and I think I hear someone calling, the words just out of reach. When Findley catches me straining to hear, he smiles.
“It’s just the old city playing tricks,” he whispers.
“Or is it?” says Mom with a wink. And then she turns to the camera, and the filming starts.
“The trouble with Mary King’s Clos
e,” Mom begins, “goes back to the plague.”
“When it comes to corpses,” offers Dad in his teacher’s tone, “there are two great sources in history: sickness and war.”
“And Scotland’s had plenty of both,” adds Mom.
Dad picks up, the story passed between them like a relay baton. “When the plague came to Edinburgh and people fell sick, the healthy were so afraid of the ill that sometimes they buried them before they were dead.”
I shudder and look at Jacob, and he looks back, blue eyes wide in mock horror. Or maybe real horror. It’s hard to tell when Jacob’s actually scared and when he’s just humoring me.
This is how it is between us.
He pretends to be scared, even when he’s not.
I pretend not to be scared, even when I am.
I move closer to him. Even though Jacob’s not flesh and blood, I feel better next to him. We stand edge to edge, as close as we can without me putting an elbow through his side.
The Veil taps on my shoulder, and my fingers tighten reflexively on my camera strap.
“Don’t even think about it,” warns Jacob.
Don’t worry, I think back.
The Veil dances at the edge of my sight, trying to tempt me to turn and look, but I don’t. There’s a darkness to it here, a malice, like the energy in Greyfriars Kirk.
“How do you make a ghost?” asks Mom. She’s speaking softly now, as if she’s sitting on the edge of my bed. “Maybe it’s how a person lived. But I’ve always believed it’s how they died.” She raps her knuckles on the nearest wall. “There’s a reason we call these spirits restless.”
This isn’t at all like those cheesy ghost shows on TV. The way my parents speak … it’s like Mom is reading a story out loud. Like Dad’s lecturing at the front of his class. They’re naturals, and I’m so drawn in by their voices that for a few minutes, I forget to be afraid. Forget that we’re standing in a buried maze, surrounded by bones.
And then I glance sideways and find a pair of eyes staring out at me from a pale face.
I yelp, knocking backward into Findley.
“Cut,” calls one of the cameramen.
City of Ghosts Page 6