Bridge of Souls

by Victoria Schwab

  And when he speaks again, the voice is deep, and low, and unlike anything I’ve ever heard. I feel it in my bones.

  “You belong here,” it says, holding me tight until my lungs scream, and the light inside my chest flickers, and dims, and goes out.

  And we sink down through the bottomless dark.

  * * *

  I sit up with a gasp.

  Morning light glares through the window, and through Jacob, who’s perched on the windowsill, tugging at a loose thread on his shirt. Mom and Dad bustle around, getting dressed.

  I collapse back into the sheets, pulling a pillow over my head.

  I feel headachy and wrong, and I can still taste the river in my throat, can hear the voice like a vibration in my chest.

  You belong here.

  Grim pads across the bed and paws at the pillow.

  “Up and at ’em, sleepyhead,” says Mom. “Places to visit, spirits to see.”

  “You know,” says Jacob, “I wonder if she’d be so fond of ghosts if she could see them.”

  I groan and roll out of bed.

  Mom is even more cheerful than usual, and I don’t find out why until we’re at breakfast in the hotel restaurant.

  “Cemetery day!” she announces, the way a normal person might say, “We’re going to Disneyland!”

  I look from Mom to Dad, a biscuit halfway to my mouth, waiting for one of them to explain.

  Dad clears his throat. “As I mentioned, there are forty-two cemeteries in the city of New Orleans.”

  “That seems excessive,” says Jacob.

  “Please tell me we’re not going to all forty-two of them,” I say.

  “Goodness, no,” Dad answers, “that would be impractical.”

  “It would be a fun challenge,” says Mom, her face falling a little, “but no, we simply don’t have the time.”

  “We are, however, going to six of them,” says Dad, as if six is a perfectly ordinary number of cemeteries. He ticks them off on his fingers. “There’s St. Louis Number One, St. Louis Number Two, St. Louis Number Three …”

  “Somebody really dropped the ball on naming,” mutters Jacob.

  “Lafayette, and Metairie—” continues Dad.

  “And St. Roch!” adds Mom, sounding giddy.

  “What’s so special about St. Roch?” I ask, but she only squeezes my arm and says, “Oh, you’ll see.”

  Jacob and I exchange a look. Mom’s excitement is always a sign of trouble. And truth be told, I’m not in the mood for any surprises.

  But Lara warned us to stay together, and cemeteries are usually pretty safe, as far as spirits go.

  It can’t be worse than the séance.

  We meet up with Lucas and the film crew in Jackson Square. The air is sticky again today, but the sun has been blotted out by clouds, the low, dark kind that warn of storms.

  “Is it always this hot?” I ask Jenna and Adan while Mom and Dad chat with Lucas about the day’s schedule.

  “Only in June,” says Jenna. “And July. And August.”

  “And May,” says Adan.

  Jenna nods. “And September,” she adds. “And sometimes April and October. But March is pretty nice!”

  I try to laugh, but I feel like I’m melting.

  I look around. The square is beginning to feel almost familiar, with its clashing music, its buskers and tourists. Despite the brewing weather, people linger all around, selling jewelry—pendants and charms designed to ward off evil or bring good luck.

  “Hey, you.”

  The voice comes from a young white woman in a lawn chair, perched beneath a blue-and-pink umbrella. At first I assume she’s talking to someone else, but she looks right at me, and hooks her finger.

  “Come here,” she says.

  I’ve heard my fair share of fairy tales; I know you’re not supposed to go with strangers—especially when you’re being hunted by a supernatural force. But she’s just sitting there, in the open. And as far as I can tell, she’s perfectly human.

  I glance over at my parents, deep in conversation with the crew, and then I drift toward her, Jacob on my heels.

  The woman’s hair is cut in a violet bob and she has freckled skin. There’s a fold-up table at her knees, with a large deck of cards facedown on top.

  “Name’s Sandra,” she says. “Want to have your fortune told?”

  I consider the question, and the person asking it.

  Sandra doesn’t look like a fortune-teller.

  In my mind, fortune-tellers are old, draped in velvet and lace, their skin weathered and their eyes deep. They don’t have purple hair and chipped nail polish. They don’t sit in lawn chairs under blue-and-pink umbrellas. They don’t wear flip-flops. But if I’ve learned anything this summer, it’s that things aren’t always as they seem.

  “The first one’s free,” she says, fanning out a deck of cards. They’re beautiful, the backs decorated with swirling lines, suns and stars and moons. They were silver once—I can tell by the shine—but they’ve been worn away to gray.

  Sandra turns the cards over, and I realize there are no hearts, no spades, no diamonds or clubs. Instead there are swords and cups, wands and rings. And scattered in among those, strange paintings of towers, and jesters, and queens.

  They’re tarot cards.

  I see a heart driven through with knives. Three wands crossed like a star. A single glowing ring. I shiver at the sight of a skeleton astride a white horse.

  Sandra doesn’t put on an act. She doesn’t change her voice, lace it with mystery or theater. She just turns the deck facedown again, fans the cards between her fingers, and says, “Choose.”

  I look down at the deck and ask, “How?”

  The backs of the cards are all the same. Nothing but suns and stars and moons. No way to tell what I’m picking.

  “The cards will tell you,” she says, and I don’t really understand, until I do. My hand drifts over the deck, the paper edges worn soft, like silk, under my fingers. And then my hand stops. There’s a pull, right under my palm, a steady draw, like the Veil rising to meet my fingers.

  I draw the card from the deck, holding my breath.

  When I see the picture, I exhale. There’s no grim reaper, no hangman’s noose, nothing particularly ominous. The card is upside down, but when I turn it around, I see a girl, blindfolded, holding a pair of swords, their blades crossed in front of her.

  She looks strong, I think, but when I glance up, the fortune-teller is frowning.

  “The Two of Swords,” she murmurs.

  “What does it mean?” I ask.

  Sandra tucks a strand of purple hair behind one ear and assembles her face into a mask of calm, but not before I catch the worry darting across her features. She takes the card, pursing her lips as she studies the image.

  “Tarot can be read two ways,” she says, “upright and reversed. The meaning changes depending on which way the card is drawn. But the Two of Swords is a difficult one, no matter how you draw it.”

  She runs her chipped pink fingernail along one sword, stopping where it hits the other.

  “Upright, this card signifies a crossroads. You will have to choose one road, but when you do, the other will be lost. There is no victory without defeat, so you do not want to choose at all, but you must. And no matter what you choose, you will lose something. Or someone.”

  Jacob tenses beside me, and I try so hard not to think of him, of his growing power, of Lara warning me again and again to send him on. But maybe it isn’t about Jacob at all. Maybe it’s about the Emissary, about me.

  “But your card was upside down,” Jacob whispers, “so that means the opposite, right?”

  I voice his question, but the fortune-teller only shakes her head.

  “Not exactly,” she says. “This card doesn’t have an opposite. It’s like the crossed swords themselves. No matter how you look at them, they form an X. Reversed, the Two of Swords still signals the same challenge, the same choice. It means, no matter what you choose,
you cannot win without losing, too. There are no right answers.”

  “Well, that’s stupid,” mutters Jacob. “You can’t just change the rules based on the card. She said there were two readings—”

  I shake my head, trying to think.

  “Can I draw again?” I ask.

  “No sense doing that,” Sandra says with a shrug. “It’s your card. You picked it for a reason.”

  “But I didn’t know what I was picking!” I say, panic worming through me.

  “And yet, you chose.”

  “But what am I supposed to do? How do I know which road to choose if neither one is right?”

  The fortune-teller eyes me steadily. “You’ll make the choice you need to make, not the one you want.” Her mouth tugs into a crooked smile. “As for your future, I’ll tell you everything I can,” she says, adding, “for twenty bucks.”

  I dig my hands in my pockets and find a couple of coins, but one is a pound from Scotland, and the other a euro from Paris. I’m about to ask my parents if I can borrow some cash when Dad appears like a shadow at my shoulder.

  “What have we here?” He looks down at the cards. “Ah, tarot,” he says, his face unreadable. “Come on, Cass,” he says, tugging me gently away from Sandra and the Two of Swords.

  “I need to know,” I say, and he must be able to tell how shaken up I am because he stops and turns back, not toward the fortune-teller, but toward me. Dad kneels, looking up into my face.

  “Cassidy,” he says in his steady scholar’s tone, and I expect him to explain that fortune-telling isn’t real, it’s just a trick, a game. But he doesn’t say that. “Tarot isn’t a crystal ball,” he says. “It’s a mirror.”

  I don’t understand.

  “Tarot cards don’t tell you what you don’t already know. They make you think about what you do.”

  He taps the spot, just over my heart, where my mirror pendant sits beneath my shirt.

  Look and listen. See and know. This is what you are.

  Words I’ve only ever said to ghosts.

  But I guess they do apply to living people, too.

  “Those cards just make you think about what you want, and what you’re scared of. They make you face those things. But nothing can predict your future, Cassidy, because futures aren’t predictable. They’re full of mysteries, and chances, and the only person who decides what happens in them is you.” He kisses my forehead as the rest of the group comes over.

  “Oh, tarot cards!” says Mom, beelining for the fortune-teller.

  “The first one’s free,” says Sandra, fanning out the weathered deck, but Dad catches Mom’s hand.

  “Come along, dear,” he says. “Those graveyards won’t visit themselves.”

  Jacob and I fall in step behind them.

  I hold the card in my mind.

  The girl, blindfolded. The two swords crossed before her chest.

  You cannot win without losing, too.

  And I know what I’m afraid of.

  That I don’t know how this ends.

  I don’t mind cemeteries.

  They’re usually pretty peaceful, at least for me. See, ghosts in the Veil are tied to the place they died, and most people don’t die in graveyards. They just end up there. Every now and then you get a wandering spirit, but on the whole, they’re quiet spaces.

  “So are libraries,” says Jacob, scuffing his shoe on the sidewalk.

  I roll my eyes as we pass through the gates of St. Louis No. 1. To my surprise, there’s no grass—just gravel and stone, interrupted by weeds. Pale crypts crowd the space, some polished and others grimy with age. Some even have wrought-iron gates.

  “New Orleans is known for many things,” says Mom, and I can tell by her voice that the cameras are rolling. “But it’s especially famous for its cemeteries.”

  “And the people buried within them,” says Dad, stopping before a stark white tomb. Small stone planters, filled with silk flowers and slips of paper, are on either side of the sealed door. The stone walls of the tomb are scratched with Xs. On the ground in front of it, people have left a strange pile of offerings: a tube of lipstick, a bottle of nail polish, a vial of perfume, a silk ribbon, and a chain of plastic beads.

  “Here lies Marie Laveau,” Dad says, “considered by many to be the Voodoo Queen of New Orleans.”

  Voodoo. I think of the shops we passed yesterday, with their brightly colored pouches and dolls, the word stitched into curtains and stenciled on glass. And I remember Lara’s skull-and-crossbones warning. Do not touch.

  “Born a free woman,” Dad goes on, “Laveau opened a beauty salon for the New Orleans elite, and gained a following as an accomplished voodoo practitioner …”

  I look at Lucas, the two of us hanging back from the group.

  “What is voodoo?” I ask him softly.

  “Not to be trifled with,” he answers. But I keep staring at him until he realizes I want a real answer. He tugs off his glasses and begins to clean them for the third time in half an hour. I’m beginning to see that it’s a habit, something to do while he thinks, the way Mom chews on pens and Dad rocks back and forth on his heels.

  “Voodoo is a lot of things,” Lucas says slowly, weighing his words. “It’s a set of beliefs, a form of worship, a kind of magic.”

  “Magic?” I say, thinking of wizards and spells.

  “Perhaps power is a better word,” he says, setting the glasses back on the bridge of his nose. “The kind of power that’s tied to a people, and a place. New Orleans voodoo is steeped in history, in pain, just like this city.”

  “Laveau’s power is believed to linger here,” Mom’s saying now. “Long after her death, people have come to ask for help, marking their request with an X.” She gestures to one of the chalk crosses. “If Laveau grants the wish, people return to circle the mark.”

  Sure enough, a few of the Xs have faint rings around them. I wonder if I should ask Marie Laveau to protect me from the Emissary. I look down at the gravel, searching for a bit of white rock so I can make an X, but Lucas stops me.

  “Don’t be mistaken, Cassidy,” he says. “It isn’t as simple as granting wishes. You’ve seen the shops in the Quarter, selling charms for luck, and love, and wealth, right?”

  I nod.

  “Most are for tourists. Voodoo isn’t just about lighting a candle, or buying a trinket. It’s a trade. A matter of give and take. Nothing gained without something sacrificed.”

  The tarot card glows in my mind.

  Give and take.

  No way to win without losing.

  The crew has moved on to another grave. Lucas starts toward them, and I follow, before realizing Jacob’s not with me. I look back at Marie Laveau’s tomb, and see him, crouching to examine the offerings left at its base, and I wonder what I’ll have to give up in order to win.

  * * *

  Halfway through St. Louis No. 2, it starts to rain.

  A lazy drizzle, little more than mist. I huddle beneath a stone angel, its wings just wide enough to keep me dry, but Jacob doesn’t have to worry about getting wet. He stands on top of a nearby crypt, head tipped back as if enjoying the storm.

  The rain falls through him, but I swear, it bends a little around his edges, tracing the lines of his floppy blond hair, his narrow shoulders, his outstretched hands.

  I lift my camera and snap a photo, wondering if I’ll catch the outline of a boy, arms spread in the rain.

  Jacob notices the camera, and grins, and then he slips, almost loses his footing.

  He catches himself, but a shingle comes loose beneath his shoe. It skitters down the roof and crashes to the ground, interrupting one of Mom’s stories.

  They all turn toward the sound.

  Jacob grimaces. “Sorry!” he calls to people who can’t hear him, and I just shake my head.

  I don’t think about the fact that ghosts shouldn’t be able to bend rain or knock shingles off roofs. I don’t think about what happens if he keeps getting stronger. I don’t think abou
t what it means for Jacob, for us. I don’t think about anything but not thinking about it.

  And the not thinking is loud enough for Jacob to look at me, and wince.

  I’m grateful when it’s time to move on.

  We take a cab to St. Louis No. 3 (I wanted to take a horse-drawn carriage, but apparently they don’t go beyond the French Quarter) and from there to Metairie Cemetery, a sprawling graveyard that used to be a racetrack.

  If I listen, I can hear the thundering hooves, the rush of air against my back. It takes all my strength not to cross the Veil, just to see the spectral racers on the other side. But it’s easier to resist after Dad says the track was used as a Confederate campsite during the Civil War.

  No wonder this place isn’t as quiet.

  But as we walk down the cemetery’s wide avenues, lined with pale stone crypts, something drags at me. I turn, searching for the source, but all I see are graves. And yet, now that I’ve noticed, I can’t shake it. It’s like a compass needle, drawing my attention north. North, past the walls of the graveyard. North, toward something I can’t see.

  But I feel it, leaning against my senses, not a pull but a push, a warning deep inside my bones.

  And I’m not the only one who feels it.

  Jacob stares in the same direction, a rare frown creasing his face.

  “What is that?” he asks, shivering slightly.

  I catch up to Lucas.

  “Hey,” I say, keeping my voice down since Mom and Dad are filming. “What’s that way?” I ask, pointing in the direction of the tug. Lucas pulls up a map on his phone. I squint down at the grid of streets, looking for another graveyard, or a monument, something to explain the eerie draw, but there’s nothing. Just neighborhoods. Block after block of ordinary houses running all the way out to Lake Pontchartrain. The vast expanse of water intersected only by the long, thin bridge.

  I remember Dad talking about that bridge. He said it wasn’t haunted, but then, there must be plenty of ghost stories my parents don’t know, ones they haven’t heard. But we’re too far from the lake and the bridge for it to be the tap-tap-tap of ghosts.