They’re sliding into that TV show rhythm, even though there are no cameras, just me and Jacob, hanging on the edge of their words.

“He was a serial killer,” says Mom, “but he loved jazz, so he sent a letter to the cops and said he wouldn’t strike any house that had a full band playing in it. So for weeks, music filled the city streets, even more than usual. It spilled out of houses day and night, a cacophony of jazz.”

“Did they catch him?” I ask.

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.