The woman I saw earlier in the sundress dotted with red poppies floats beside us, her ethereal body overlapping the closed door. She beams at me.
“You did it.”
“What did I do?” I ask.
“You came to us.”
“Is that what this is?” I look around, one hand still pressed to Dr. Livingstone’s skin. “Is that why Schmidt couldn’t see us?”
She nods. “You’re on our side of things now.”
“Am I . . . dead?” I can’t help but ask.
She laughs. “No. You’re just traveling.”
“Like astral projection?” I heard the term once. From Estelle. She was always interested in the esoteric.
“Sort of. Except that you brought your bodies with you. Good thing too. That bitch would have made you suffer for escaping her little game.”
She glances at the doctor.
“You’re not like the others. Not like him.”
His eyes are wide and I realize he can see her too. “Who are you?” he asks.
“My name is Genevieve.”
“You’re a ghost.”
She smiles. “And you’re undead, doctor. Don’t look so surprised there are other impossibilities in the world.”
He looks at me. “I’ve heard you speaking when it seemed no one was there. You’ve been seeing them all along.”
I nod.
“I’m sorry. I should have believed you.”
He hangs his head, but I brush my thumb over his cheek. “You believe me now.”
“I do.”
Genevieve sighs. “Ah, young love.”
The doctor looks up sharply, his mouth open to reply, but voices filter in through what sounds like a tunnel.
“They’re searching the facility for her,” she says, looking at us both. “Come. I must show you the truth.”
Something tickles the back of my mind, but I can’t put my finger on it. “I saw you in the cemetery, but that wasn’t the first time, was it?”
She smiles sadly and reaches out to touch my hand. Her skin is like ice, and I’m surprised by how corporeal she feels.
“Yes, you have seen me before. I’ve been looking out for you for a very long time.”
My eyes widen as a memory resurfaces. “That night on the bridge. Just before I...” I glance down at my scarred wrist, recalling my walk home. “You passed me and smiled.” I frown, confused. “You were alive then.”
“I seemed alive to you, Celeste, but I passed over to this side a long time ago.”
“I don’t understand,” I say, but as I examine her more closely—the shape of her eyes, the tilt of her nose, the curve of her lips—the truth rises up in me, and though her next words shake my world, I do not doubt her.
“Celeste, I am your great grandmother. And it’s time you understood the truth of your family lineage. I was Cutter’s first victim… and I am the reason you’re here today.”
17
I grip Dr. Livingstone’s hand to steady myself as I stare back at the ghost in front of me. “What do you mean, you’re the reason I’m here?”
“It’s easier if I show you,” she says, then glances at the doctor. “You’re a part of this now as well. You should know who you’re working for, and why.”
With a touch to my arm, my magic flares with hers. A cold rush blows through me and the closet we’re standing in fades to black, as if all the lights have been turned off. I blink and a door appears before us, glowing in a soft silvery light.
Genevieve approaches and turns the nob, then looks back at us. “Follow me.”
“What’s on the other side?” I ask.
“The truth.”
I glance over at the doctor, who is staring at the door wide-eyed. “I need to know,” I say.
He nods and wordlessly, we follow Genevieve through.
I don’t know what I’m expecting to find behind the door. Another room? More hallways from hell?
Certainly not this.
I suck in a breath as we step onto a cobbled road in the streets of Paris. The world around us is thin, as if a veil separates us. The people look ghostlike and the setting isn’t modern. The buildings are familiar, and the Eiffel Tower looms in the background, but the styles are all different.
“Are we in the past?” I ask, studying one woman’s flapper dress as she walks by.
Genevieve holds her index finger over her lips to shush me and points to a café to our right, where a woman sits with her back to us. A man joins her, taking a seat at the table. I step forward and realize he looks exactly like… “Cutter?”
Dr. Livingstone doesn’t look surprised, at least by this. “Cutter is a vampire,” he says softly. “If this is indeed a reflection of the past, it’s not unreasonable that he would be at least 100 years old, if not more.”
“He wasn’t a vampire yet,” Genevieve says, her voice sad and almost wistful. “That came after.”
“After what?” I ask.
“You’ll see.”
When Cutter leans in to kiss the woman, she turns away and we see her face.
It’s Genevieve.
I look at the ghost and back at the woman. “You were with him?” I ask.
She nods. “We dated. At first, he was charming and kind, but then his true nature began to emerge. There was a darkness there that—well, I never felt for him what he felt for me,” she says. “And when I fell in love with another, I knew I had to end it with him.”
It seems we’re about to see the moment they broke up. The Genevieve at the table says something too softly to hear, and Cutter stands, knocking the table over as he does and startling everyone around him. I jerk back, nearly knocking into a man walking by, but he doesn’t see me.
That’s when I realize no one can see us.
We can’t interact with the past, only observe it. “Are we in your memory?” I ask.
Genevieve cocks her head. “We are in a bubble of time.”
Sure. A bubble. Got it.
Cutter screams at Past Genevieve. “You bitch. I loved you and you’ve betrayed me. You’ll pay for this.”
She stands up from her chair, tears running down her cheeks, as a waiter approaches to comfort her.
The ghost Genevieve walks back to the door. “Come. There is more to see.”
We walk through and this time we arrive in the living room of a beautiful home. Past Genevieve is on the couch while a young girl plays with a doll by the fire. A tall, handsome man with kind eyes sits at a piano and plays for them.
Ghost Genevieve smiles and walks to him, her ghostly hands reaching out to touch his cheek. “Oh, Lawrence.”
I feel tension buzzing in the air, and I know something terrible is about to happen.
Past Genevieve senses it too and looks up from her book, her face frozen in fear. “Juliette, go to our secret place, now! Hide and don’t come out, no matter what you hear!”
The little girl looks up, confusion written on her small face. Even with the tension of the moment, I am struck at the similarity of our features.
The man stops playing and looks at Genevieve. “What is it, mon amour?”