Amber Jones’s Reviews > City of Ghosts > Status Update

…through her ribs like the filament in a lightbulb. An adult’s voice, calls « Places! ». She knows what this is. It’s the night of the fire. She snaps a few photos, a shadow of what’s here. Jacob says they could be eating with normal people rn. She says he can’t eat and she sees ghosts. She tries to look for a source for the fire. Jacob says, « That’s not how it works. »

She mentions how her dad used to come in her room to check if there was any monsters in her room when she was little. « Crossing the Veil is like opening the closet door. » For a second, she was backstage but underwater. Jacob said her name and then the water went away. The stage is faded but not as dark now. Jacob looks solid. A light inside her chest- a coil of cool blue-white brightness that shines…

Right now, it dances between her fingers and waiting to be caught. She grabs hold of curtain, taking a deep breath and pulling.

She has seen « ghost whisperers » on TV talk about « crossing over, connecting with the other side like it’s flipping a switch. » For her, it’s this curtain and finding part in curtain and catching hold of fabric and pulling. The Veil is more smoke than cloth and hard to catch hold of. But when a place is really haunted, the fabric twists around her, practically pulling her through.

The Veil! « The boundary between this world and somewhere else, between the living and dead. This is what I’m looking for! » Jacob shifts his weight from foot to foot, « Let’s get this over with. » « Ghost five. »- putting up hands and them pretending they are touching. Both murmuring a soft smack sound on contact. They laugh and she feels a bit better- clearing our fear and nerves.

She is halfway across the darkened stage, when she trips over- something and stumble forward. Jacob tries to help but she falls through him- hanging her knee. Then the floor bounces a little and she’s on top of the trapdoor. The tap-tap-tap becomes more insistent under her hands. At edge of sight- a thin gray curtain caught in a breeze - different from the heavy red curtain. This one, no one else can see.

She goes on the stage. Jacob follows. She can hear the whisper of the flood boards and maybe paper. Some kids dare each other to go back here to put their ear to the floor and listen for the boy who didn’t make it. Some claimed they did wear the boy’s voice. She said her parents write books about paranormal activity, and people do assume she is weird enough to come down alone which she did.

She thinks how she scares just as easily as anyone. She said how she can’t ignore the ghosts because they are there and can feel their breath of her neck. « Your mind just makes it worse because in the end, what you don’t see is always scarier than what you do. »

…to the stage, she knows there is a particular story that a boy died in a play. It was when the school first opened- there was a fire in the second act of Midsummer Night’s Dream. They thought everyone got out. Until they found the boy under the trap door. Jacob shivers. She rolls her eyes and thinks he scares easily. « Have you ever thought that you don’t scare easily enough? » he said.

… Down the stairs and along the hall, and with each turn, the tap-tap-tap gets stronger and turning into a pull (like a rope). « Ninth rule of friendship, ghost watching is a two-person sport. » She takes out her camera. She says that she gets to figure out if it’s real about the ghost stories and most of the time, it’s not.

She follows tap-tap-tap down the theatre aisle and up …