I don’t understand.

I’ve crossed into the Veil countless times. Back home, and in Scotland, and in France. I’ve seen places where the Veil is empty, nothing but a stretch of white, like unmarked paper. But this is different. This is more than one Veil in the same place.

I remember what Dad said about Muriel’s, how it had been torn down and rebuilt, how it had belonged to several families and lived several lives.

And suddenly this muddled, overlapping scene makes sense.

Because the Veil isn’t really one place. It’s a collection of remembered spaces, stitched together, each tethered to a ghost, their life, their death, their memories. That’s why some parts are empty—no ghost to hold them up.

And that’s why this one is full.

Because Muriel’s doesn’t belong to just one ghost.

It belongs to several. Each with their own story. And I’m standing in all of them.

“It’s giving me a headache,” says Jacob, closing one eye and then the other.

He looks silly, but it gives me an idea. I let go of the mirror pendant and lift my camera instead, peering through the viewfinder. I slide the lens in and out until only one version of the house comes into focus at a time.

In one, I’m in the plush séance room, all elegant tapestries and low rosy light.

In another, I’m standing on rough wooden boards, the clink and slide of chains somewhere below.

In a third, the room is hot and dark, smoke seeping up between the floorboards.

I don’t know where to start.

And then another door slams. Loud and close. I slide the focus just in time to see a man surge across the doorway and down the hall. He’s not in the building on fire, or in the slave quarters. He’s in the ornate house.

“No, no, no,” he mutters, dragging his hand along the banister. “It’s gone.”

I catch up as he rounds the corner, follow him into a room with a poker table, chips piled in tiny mountains before empty chairs.

“It’s gone.”

In a violent motion, he sweeps his arm across the table, scattering the chips. They fall like rain around him. I step closer, and he rounds on me.

“They took it all from me,” he snarls, and I know this must be Mr. Jourdan, the gambler who lost his whole house, and then his life.

In another version of the house, someone wails, the sound sudden and sharp. It catches me off guard, and in that second, Mr. Jourdan lunges forward and grabs my shoulders.

“Everything is gone,” he moans.

And I forget I’m gripping the camera instead of the mirror until I hold it up toward his face and nothing happens. The ghost looks at me, and then down at the lens, and then past it, at the curl of light inside my chest.

And something in him changes. His eyes darken. His teeth grit.

A second ago, he was a desperate man, trapped in his last moments. But now he’s a hungry ghost. A spirit, longing for what it’s lost.