What I saw?

It wasn’t human at all.

As my parents walk on ahead of me, I take out my phone. It’s the middle of the afternoon in Scotland, assuming Lara’s still staying with her aunt. I send a text.

Me:

Hey, can you chat?

Within seconds, she texts back.

Lara:

What did Jacob do now?

“Rude!” he mutters.

I look down at the screen, trying to figure out how to ask about what I saw on the platform.

I bite my lip, searching for the words.

“I think the ones you’re looking for are scary, and nicely dressed, and soul-sucking skeleton dude,” offers Jacob, but I shoo him away.

Me:

There are other paranormal things, right? Besides ghosts?

Lara:

You’ll have to be more specific.

I start a few texts, deleting them each time. I don’t know what’s stopping me. Or maybe I do.

I can’t always run to Lara. I shouldn’t have to. I’m an in-betweener, too. I should know what to do. And if I don’t, I should be able to figure things out on my own.

“Sure,” says Jacob, “but you don’t have a dead uncle who spent his whole life researching the paranormal and now haunts the leather chair in your living room.”

“No,” I say slowly, “but I have you.”

Jacob smiles, a little uncertain. “Well, yeah, obviously.” He scuffs his shoe. “But I didn’t see the skeleton thing.”

And there’s more to my hesitation. The truth is, I don’t want to think about what I saw, or how it made me feel. I don’t want to put it into words, because then it will be real.

Lara:

Cassidy?

I look around for something else to ask her about. A spray-painted mouth smiles at me from a brick wall, two fangs jutting from the upper lip. An arrow points down an alley and asks the question, Thirsty?

I snap a photo with my phone and hit send.

Me:

Real?

Moments later, Lara writes back:

Lara:

No, Cassidy, vampires are not real.

I can practically hear her posh English accent. I can picture her rolling her eyes, too. Lara’s remarkably skeptical for a girl who can move between the world of the living and the dead.

My phone buzzes again.

Lara:

Are you in New Orleans? I’ve always wanted to go. It’s home to the oldest branch of the Society of the Black Cat.

It’s not the first time Lara’s mentioned the secret organization. When we met, she was staying in Edinburgh with her aunt and the ghost of her uncle. When her uncle was alive, he was a member, she said, of the Society, a mysterious group that knows all sorts of things about the paranormal.

Lara:

If I were there, I could petition the Society in person and convince them to let me join.

Lara:

If you find their headquarters, let me know.

I glance around again, half expecting to find a sign for the Society right here on Bourbon Street.

Me:

Where are they?