Tunnel of Bones

by Victoria Schwab

I close my eyes, arms crossed on the rail.

  Jacob must have gotten lucky. He must have not really been looking.

  He’s not forgetting, I tell myself.

  He’s not forgetting.

  I can feel my head drooping.

  He’s not …

  A car alarm goes off a couple of streets away. I jerk upright, my heart slamming in my chest, as another goes off, then another, as if someone is banging on every hood.

  “Thomas Alain Laurent.”

  I say the name into the dark, as if the words might summon him, but there’s nothing there. I look down at the street below, half expecting to see a little boy looking back. But the street stays empty.

  And yet.

  Something steals through me like a chill.

  And I hear it, soft as whispers on the wind.

  “Un … deux … trois …”

  I don’t know what makes me reach for my camera—maybe a hunch, or the faint memory of how, once, it let me see through the Veil itself—but as I bring the viewfinder to my eye and adjust the focus, the night beyond, and the street below, begins to shift and blur.

  “… quatre … cinq … six …”

  And there he is.

  Thomas Alain Laurent stands on the street, his head tipped back toward the open window, his edges rippling, his eyes bright and hollow and red, and leveled on me. I snap a photo, no flash. Crank the film. Snap again. As if I’m afraid he’ll disappear again between shots.

  He stops counting and holds out his hand, an invitation to come out and play.

  He flashes me a trickster’s grin, but when I shake my head, his face falls, dropping from a smile into a child’s sneer. The effect is so sudden and eerie that I pull the viewfinder away from my eye. Without it, the street below looks empty again.

  And when I get up the courage to lift the camera and look again, Thomas is gone.

  The floor trembles and the walls shake, as if the whole hotel is shivering.

  I’m crouched on the floor behind a pillar, trying to avoid the debris as it flies across the lobby.

  “Jacob, listen to me!” I call out over the sound of rattling picture frames and breaking glass.

  He’s curled in on himself in the center of the marble floor, the air around him whipped into a frenzy.

  “Stop,” he pleads as water runs from his clothes, dripping onto the marble floor. His hair floats around his face, which is ashen, gray.

  “Cassidy!” orders Lara from behind the front desk. “You have to send him on.”

  No. I can still save him.

  I grip my camera, take a deep breath, and lunge out from the shelter of the pillar, already turning the lens on Jacob. I hit the flash, hoping the burst of light will jar him loose, bring him back to his senses. But the function on the camera jams, and before I can try again, a violent gust snaps the strap and rips the camera from my hands. It slams into the far wall with a sickening crunch. No, no, no.

  A gust of wind shoves me backward, and I struggle to stay on my feet.

  “Jacob!” I shout as the ceiling cracks and splits, raining down dust.

  The hotel shakes around us, as if it’s about to come down.

  “Stop,” Jacob says, finally lifting his head. “Stop me.”

  And when looks at me, his eyes are glowing, no longer blue but red.

  I sit up with a lurch, my heart racing.

  Sunlight streams in through the curtains, and through Jacob, who’s perched cross-legged at the end of my bed.

  “You should see your hair, Cass.” He runs his hands through his own, making it stand on end.

  “You know it’s super creepy,” I say, “when you watch me sleep.”

  Jacob hops up, leaving the barest mark on the comforter. “I wasn’t watching you sleep. I was trying to wake you up.” He points at the phone on my bedside table. “It was going off. Lara kept calling.” He pokes the cell, his fingers going straight through the screen. “Trust me, if I could hang up on her, I would.”

  I scramble up and grab the phone, scrolling through the texts.

  Lara:

  I found something—or rather someone.

  Lara:

  Call me.

  Lara:

  It’s important.

  “Who uses proper punctuation in a text?” says Jacob.

  “Uh-huh,” I say half-heartedly, still shaken from the dream.

  “You okay?” he asks, eyeing me. “You seem … off.”

  “I’m fine,” I answer quickly, my stomach dropping even as I say the words. Second rule of friendship: No lies.

  I hit call.

  “Finally,” says Lara.

  “Do you ever sleep?” I ask, rubbing my eyes.

  “I get the requisite seven to eight hours,” says Lara, “though I confess I’ve always functioned better on seven.”

  “Cass!” calls Mom, rapping her knuckles on the door even though it’s ajar. “We’re heading down to the salon for breakfast. You ready?”

  I put my hand over the phone. “I’ll meet you there!” I call back. “I need a few more minutes.”

  “Don’t go back to sleep!” warns Dad.

  “I won’t.”

  It took me ages to fall asleep last night after the Thomas sighting, and between that and the dream, I feel wide-awake.

  “What dream?” asks Jacob, reading my thoughts.

  I shake my head, pushing the nightmare to the back of my mind.

  “And you saw the creepy kid?” he presses.

  “Hello?” says Lara. “Earth to Cassidy.”

  “Sorry,” I say, turning my attention back to the phone. “What were you saying?”

  “Only that I have a lead for you. You’re very welcome.”

  “You’re supposed to say that after I say thanks. What’s the lead?”

  “Okay, so the bad news is that there’s no information on Thomas Alain Laurent, besides what you already know.”

  “Talk about a literal dead end,” muses Jacob.

  “Yes,” says Lara, “but not really a surprise. He did die a hundred years before the invention of the internet. But I found something. Thomas’s older brother, Richard.”

  My heart does a flip. “He’s still alive?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” says Lara. “But he did stay in Paris. Now, French names have far less variance than, say, American ones—there are a thousand Laurents—but thankfully Thomas and Richard’s parents had pretty unusual prénoms; that means first names—”

  “Can we fast-forward?” I ask, desperate for a lead.

  “Fine,” snaps Lara. “I’m pretty sure I found them. Your Laurents. Richard died thirty years ago, at the ripe old age of eighty-nine, but his granddaughter, Sylvaine, still lives in the city. I’m texting you her address. Maybe she knows the full story. Maybe she even has something that can help jog Thomas’s memory.”

  “Lara,” I say. “You are amazing.”

  “I know,” she says, “but this wasn’t terribly difficult. You’d be surprised what you can find if you know how to look. My school teaches fairly rigorous research methods.”

  “Is there anything your school doesn’t teach?”

  “Apparently how to hunt a poltergeist.”

  Jacob makes a gasping sound. “Lara Chowdhury, did you just make a joke?”

  I can almost hear Lara smile. “Anyway,” she says. “Good luck. And be careful.”

  “You don’t have to say that every time.”

  “You’d think not,” she says. “And yet.”

  The call ends, the screen replaced by Lara’s text bubble with the address of a Madame Sylvaine Laurent in the eleventh arrondissement.

  I have a lead.

  Now I just have to convince my parents to let me follow it.

  We’re having breakfast down in the salon when I bring it up, and in the end, it’s easier than I expected.

  Dad preens when I tell him about a break in the case, clearly excited to have a budding sleuth in the family. But Mom, for once, seems wary
.

  “Where’s this sudden interest coming from?”

  I look down at my croissant.

  “Well,” I say, “I know you asked me to take photos for the show, but I also started thinking about the people whose stories don’t make the show. I wanted to learn more about them, and something about this Thomas boy just stuck with me. I can’t shake the feeling there’s more to his story,” I finish, hoping it doesn’t sound like I practiced that in the mirror. Several times.

  “I’m sure it’s a very interesting tale, Cass,” says Mom, “and good on you for digging deeper. But our schedule here is so tight. It’s our last day to film and—”

  “I can take her.”

  The words come from Pauline, of all people.

  “We can’t ask you to do that,” says Dad, but Pauline flicks her hand dismissively.

  “It is no trouble,” she says. “You two will be fine with Anton and Annette. They know this city as well as I do. Besides, Cassidy has been very patient, and this mission clearly means a lot to her.” She glances my way, eyebrows raised, clearly prompting me to emphasize.

  “It does!” I say.

  Mom and Dad exchange a long look, and then agree, on the strict rules that I won’t bother the Laurents if they don’t want to be bothered, and that I’ll come back to the hotel as soon as it’s done.

  “You’ll miss the Butcher of Marmousets,” says Mom with a sigh.

  “Don’t even think about asking what that is,” warns Jacob.

  I swing my camera bag onto my shoulder and hug my parents, patting the pocket of Dad’s tweed coat to make sure the pouch of sage and salt is safe inside.

  And then we’re off.

  “Why did you offer to go with me?” I ask Pauline as we get on the Metro.

  “You are a child,” she says, “and Paris is a big city. It’s not safe to go wandering alone.”

  I want to point out that I’m neither a child nor alone, and I’ve actually already gone exploring. But then again, that nearly ended in death by mirror, so maybe she’s onto something. Besides, now I have a translator.

  I rock on my heels. “It wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact my parents are going to that butcher place today, would it?”

  “Nonsense,” she says, a little too quickly.

  “You’re not scared, are you?” I ask. “I mean, you don’t believe in any of these things.”

  “Exactly.”

  The train murmurs softly as it moves beneath Paris. It’s warm and crowded, a motley collection of people, some in suits, and others in jogging gear, high heels mixed in with rainbow flats. Most of them are on their phones, but a handful read paperbacks or newspapers or stare into space.

  The train rocks a little as it gains speed.

  Jacob stares out the window at the darkness sailing past the glass, and the effect is chilling, his reflection little more than streaks and blurs. An image submerged, dissolving. I think of the nightmare, and then do everything I can not to think of it. I end up focusing instead on Thomas Laurent.

  The fact I haven’t seen him since last night.

  Somehow, I don’t find that very comforting.

  I thumb the camera absently, and Pauline nods toward it. “That’s quite an interesting model.”

  You have no idea, I think, running my fingers over the battered metal casing. “It’s old and quirky, but I like it.”

  “My father is a photographer,” she says. “He restores old cameras. He says they see better than new ones.”

  I smile. “Yeah, they really do.”

  “If you like,” she offers, “my father could develop your film.”

  I look up and smile. “Really? That would be great.” I consider the canister of film. “I miss my darkroom,” I confess. That closet of space back home that was mine, and mine alone.

  Jacob clears his throat.

  Well, ours.

  “Perhaps,” says Pauline, “you could even—”

  But I don’t hear the rest.

  A cold wind rushes over my skin, and Pauline’s words are drowned out by the grinding of metal on rails.

  The train screeches, as if someone’s tapped the brakes a little too hard, and I nearly lose my balance. I shift my grip on the metal bar just in time. The train brakes again, and grinds to a stop on the darkened rail.

  Oh great, I think, right before all the lights go out.

  It’s not pitch-black.

  Thin light leaks through the windows from somewhere far down the tunnel, painting all the passengers in a weak glow. Everyone begins to grumble and look around, more annoyed than afraid. But Pauline’s hand goes straight to the charm at her throat, and even in the almost-dark I can see her lips moving.

  Jacob moves closer to me, his gaze flicking my way.

  In the dark, he looks almost solid, just another body in the crowded car.

  “Thomas?” he asks, and I nod. I lift the camera’s viewfinder to one eye, slide the darkened train in and out of focus, searching the crowd for a little boy who isn’t there.

  “Maybe this isn’t him,” says Jacob, sounding a little unconvinced. “I mean, trains stop running sometimes, don’t they? Technical malfunctions, power to the third rail … I don’t know what the third rail is, exactly, but I’ve heard people say that …”

  Sure, I think, lowering the camera. And sometimes massive mirrors fall off trucks …

  I take a step forward, then stop. I should stay put, stay here, firmly on the real side of life.

  “I completely agree,” says Jacob. “Do not engage the poltergeist.”

  After all, there’s nothing I can do until I know his story, know enough to remind him.

  “Do not engage,” repeats Jacob.

  But then I see it through the camera lens—a curl of red light against the far window.

  “Do not engage,” warns Jacob as I feel myself reaching for the Veil.

  I have his name now. His full name. It was enough to call him to the street last night. Maybe it will be enough to catch him here. Enough to make him remember.

  Pauline has her back to us, scanning the car, and I step sideways, into the dark.

  The crush of water in my lungs and then—

  I’m back in the Veil.

  I expected to find a stretch of bare gray space: an absence, a gap between places, the spaces where no ghosts have met their ends.

  So I’m unnerved when my foot comes down on solid steel.

  The car is empty, the crowd erased, but the train car is here, drawn in crisp, clear lines, the kind that only come with someone else’s memory. A ghost’s memory.

  Jacob appears beside me.

  “What part of do not engage …” he says, trailing off as the lights flicker in and out around us, illuminating empty benches. Bare floor. No sign of a little boy in old-fashioned clothes. No crop of dark curls or glowing red eyes. But I know he’s here.

  “Thomas?” I call out, but the word only echoes. Thomas, Thomas, Thomas. “Thomas Alain Laurent?”

  I go to the end of the train car and slide the latch. The door springs open, and I cross into the next car, expecting to find it empty.

  It’s not.

  No Thomas, but a tall man stands in the center of the car, his back to us, swaying on his feet. Something dark and red stains the floor beneath his boots. He mumbles softly to himself, not in French, but in English.

  “Who did it?” he growls, twisting toward us. “Who did it?”

  And as he turns, I see the knife buried in his stomach. His own hand curled around the blade as if to keep it from falling out. The sheen of blood running down his front. “Who did it?” he growls again, taking a staggering step toward us. “Was it you?”

  Jacob pulls me backward and slams the door between us.

  “Well, that’s going to haunt my dreams,” he says as we straddle the space between the cars. “As fun as this was—”

  “Un, deux, trois …” calls a playful voice behind me. A familiar voice. Thomas.

  The voi
ce is coming from the front of the train. Along with an eerie red glow.

  I step down from the train onto the tracks, squinting down the line of cars.

  “Thomas Alain Laurent!” I shout. “Come out, come out, wherever you are.”

  The red light dances along the tunnel wall, and I can hear the shuffle of small feet. A soft giggle. I clutch the pendant as I creep down the side of the train car.

  But he doesn’t show himself.

  Maybe Lara was right; maybe the name isn’t enough.

  “Thomas, please,” I call, and then, mustering my only French, “S’il vous plaît.”

  The red light brightens, shining along the tracks, and I see a pair of red eyes peek between cars. I hold out my hand, the way Thomas did on the street last night, an invitation to come play.

  Thomas smiles.

  And then he presses his small hands to the side of the train. The crimson light ripples out from his fingers, and then he giggles again, and disappears.

  “No,” I hiss, jerking forward, but Jacob grabs my arm.

  “Cass.”

  “What?” I snap, twisting free.

  “The train.”

  And I don’t understand what he means until I hear it.

  A faint and far-off groan. The sound isn’t human.

  It’s metal.

  And it’s coming from the other side of the Veil. The power is back on. The train is starting up again.

  I lurch toward the gap between cars as the ghostly train creeps forward. Jacob gets there first, hauls himself up, and offers a hand, and I’m grateful that he’s solid enough for me to take it.

  He pulls me up just as the train begins to gain speed, and I throw open the door, and the Veil with it, stepping back into the real world as the lights flicker on around us.

  Pauline sees me through the crowd and frowns as I weave my way toward her.

  “There you are,” she says, grabbing my shoulder.

  Her eyes are wide, her face pale, her other hand clutching the pendant at her chest. And I realize it’s the first time I’ve seen her truly lose her composure. The first time I’ve seen her mask of calm slip, reveal the thing beneath: fear.

  Pauline is terrified.

  “You’re not a skeptic, are you?” I say.

  She lets go of my shoulder and forces out a steadying breath. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”