Tunnel of Bones (City of Ghosts） - Victoria Schwab Page 0,9

form in the glass.

The crack would spread and spread, up the walls and overhead, until bits of dirt came through and then, just as the ceiling shattered, I’d wake up.

I haven’t thought of that dream in years.

But I think about it now.

The spiral stairs are a tight coil, so we can’t see more than a full turn at a time, and they just keep going, and going, and going.

“How far down are the Catacombs?” I ask, fighting to keep the fear out of my voice.

“About five stories,” says Dad, and I try not to think about the fact that the Hotel Valeur is only four stories tall.

“Why would you put a graveyard underground?” I ask.

“The Catacombs weren’t always used as a graveyard,” explains Dad. “Before they became an ossuary, the tunnels were simply stone quarries that ran beneath the growing city.”

“What’s an ossuary?” I ask.

“It’s a place where the bones of the dead are stored.”

Jacob and I exchange a look. “What happened to the rest of them?”

Mom chuckles. It doesn’t make me feel any better.

“The bodies in the Catacombs were transferred here from other graves,” explains Pauline.

Transferred.

Meaning dug up.

“Oh, I do not like this,” says Jacob. “I do not like this at all.”

“Today,” says Dad, “the Catacombs are home to more than six million bodies.”

I nearly trip on the steps. I must have heard him wrong.

“That’s three times the living population of Paris,” adds Mom cheerfully.

I feel a little queasy. Jacob glowers at me as if to say, This is your fault.

We finally reach the bottom of the stairs, and the Veil washes up around me like a tide, dragging at my limbs. I push back, trying to keep my footing as Jacob draws closer.

“We are not crossing here,” he says, all the humor gone from his voice. “Do you hear me, Cass? We are not. Crossing. Here.”

He doesn’t have to tell me.

I have no desire to find out what’s on the other side of this particular Veil.

Especially when I see what’s ahead of us.

I’d been hoping for a large space, like one of those giant caves with stalactites—stalagmites? I can never remember which is which—but instead there is only a tunnel.

The ground is a mix of rough stone and packed dirt, and the walls look dug by hand. Here and there, water drips from the low ceiling. Electric lights have been spaced out, casting dim yellow pools among patches of shadow.

“Well, this is cozy,” says Mom.

I swallow hard as we start walking. The only way out is through, I tell myself.

“Or, you know, back up those stairs,” says Jacob.

Come on, I think. Where’s your sense of adventure?

“I must have left it up on street level,” he mutters.

Mom and Dad walk on ahead, narrating for the cameras. I glance over at Pauline, who’s focused on where she’s stepping, careful to avoid the shallow pools of water, the muddy dirt patches between stones.

I lean toward her and whisper, “I expected more bones.”

“We haven’t made it to the tombs yet,” she explains, her voice echoing off the low ceiling. “These are only the galleries. Relics from the days when these tunnels served less grim purposes.”

The tunnel twists and turns, sometimes wide enough for two people, and sometimes so narrow we have to walk single file. The Veil presses against my back like a hand, urging me forward.

“You know the only thing worse than a haunted place?” asks Jacob.

What?

“One you can’t easily leave.”

You don’t know it’s haunted, I think, sounding thoroughly unconvinced.

“How can it not be?” he counters. “Have you forgotten George Mackenzie?”

George Mackenzie was one of the ghosts in a cemetery back in Scotland. He didn’t start haunting the graveyard until some vandals disturbed his bones.

That was one man.

But maybe the stories are wrong. Maybe he was already restless.

“And maybe they’re all friendly ghosts down here,” says Jacob, “just having a grand old time.”

Mom pulls out a small box, its surface studded with lights. An EMF meter—a tool meant to register disturbances in the electromagnetic force. Also known as ghosts. She switches it on, but the meter only registers a muffled static as she lets it trail over the wall.

We reach the end of the galleries, and the tunnel opens into a chamber, the walls lined with glass cases, like in a museum. The glass cases hold text and pictures, explaining how the Catacombs came to be. But the thing that catches my eye is the doorway on the other side.

A stone mantel looms over it, the words carved in bold French