“Your job, according to Lara.” I forgot to mention that Jacob can read my mind. Jacob saved my life, and ever since, I’ve been able to cross into the Veil, a place filled with the spirits of the restless dead. My name is Cassidy Blake, and one year ago, I almost drowned. (And a girl we just met named Lara, but that’s only because she’s like me, or I’m like her, someone who’s crossed the line between the living and the dead, and made it back.) If it seems strange, the whole dead-best-friend thing, well, it is, but it’s not the strangest thing in my life by far. I guess I should explain: Jacob is what he likes to call “corporeally challenged.” Basically, he’s a ghost.

I study my reflection in the glass-messy brown hair, brown eyes, round face, and the old-fashioned camera around my neck -but the space next to me, where Jacob should be, is empty. Jacob leans against the wall beside me, and I look out the window again. And that time, everything was in English. I went to New York City with my parents once, and we rode the subway every day, and I still couldn’t tell where we were going. There’s a map of the Metro above their heads, but it just looks like a tangle of colored lines: more like a maze than a guide. Mom and Dad sit across from us with their luggage. Speaking of cats, Grim scowls up at me from the cat carrier in my lap, his green eyes promising revenge for his current imprisonment. “Scaredy-cat,” I whisper back, as if I’m not also creeped out by the presence of so many spirits. “Well, that’s a pleasant thought,” says my best friend, Jacob, shoving his hands into his pockets. I can feel the ebb and flow of the Veil, the drumbeat of ghosts on every side. Shadows rush past the windows, little more than streaks of movement, dark on dark.

The train rattles as it moves beneath the city.

Tunnel of bones by victoria schwab