Do you ever feel like you’re being followed?

That prickle on the back of your neck that tells you someone is watching?

I can’t shake that feeling as we reach the top of the stairs, trading the tunnels for the Paris streets. As we walk, I keep glancing back over my shoulder, sure that I’ll see something, someone, and every time I look, I feel like I’ve just missed them. My eyes start playing tricks on me, until every shadow looks like it’s moving. Every streak of sunlight has a shape.

I try to tell myself it’s nothing. Just the residual creeps, clinging like cobwebs.

It’s lunchtime, and we snag a table at a sidewalk café. All of us, I think, are grateful for the fresh air. Mom and Dad discuss the next filming location—the Jardin du Luxembourg—and I order something called a croque monsieur, which turns out to be like a fancy grilled cheese with ham. As I eat, the warm sandwich helps dispel the last of the Catacombs’ chill. But my attention keeps drifting down to the sidewalk, remembering the city of the dead under my feet. I wonder how many people cross these streets and never realize they’re walking over bones.

“Morbid much?” calls Jacob over his shoulder.

He’s standing in the sun, the light shining through him as he studies a rock on the curb, readying to kick it.

And then, out of nowhere, I shiver.

It’s like someone put a cold hand on the back of my neck. It’s all I can do not to yelp in surprise. A sharp breath hisses through my teeth.

Mom glances toward me, but before she can ask what’s wrong, there’s a ripping sound overhead. The edge of the café’s awning tears free.

“Cassidy, look out!” shouts Jacob.

One of the metal hooks in the corner of the awning sweeps down toward our table, shattering the pitcher of water right in front of my seat.

I jump back just in time, avoiding all of the glass and most of the water.

Mom and Dad gasp, and Pauline’s on her feet, one hand clutching the front of her blouse in surprise. Anton and Annette shake their heads and examine the broken awning, exchanging a flurry of French.

A waiter rushes out, full of apologies as he sweeps up the damage. He moves us to another table, and everyone tries to shake off the strangeness of the incident.

Mom keeps fussing over me, checking me for cuts. I assure her I’m okay, even though I’m feeling a little dizzy. I look back at our old table. It could have been nothing. A faulty screw in the awning. An old piece of cloth. Bad luck. But what about the rush of cold I felt, right before the awning broke? What was that? A warning?

“Do you think you’re becoming psychic now?” asks Jacob.

Even though I’m 90 percent sure that’s not in the in-betweener job description, I text Lara under the table.

Me:

Hey

Me:

Do people like us have any other powers?

A few moments later, Lara texts back.

Lara:

Some are intuitive. The more time they spend in the in-between, the stronger their spectral senses get.

Lara:

Why do you ask?

I hesitate before writing back.

Me:

Just curious.

Lara:

Jacob looks over my shoulder. “Ha!” he says. “It looks just like her.”

I have to hand it to the French: They really love dessert.

As we walk to the next location, we pass: shops devoted to chocolate; four window displays of small cakes as intricate and detailed as sculptures; countless ice cream carts; and counter after counter filled with tiny, brightly colored cookie sandwiches called macarons, in flavors like rose, caramel, blackberry, and lavender.

Mom buys a box of macarons and offers me one the buttery color of sunshine. I try to focus on the cookie instead of the shaky feeling in my stomach, the stutter step of my pulse, the nagging sense that something is wrong.

When I bite into the macaron, the outside crackles before giving way to soft cream and a bright burst of citrus.

“Like a natural,” says Pauline. “Next you must try escargot.”

Mom and Dad both laugh, which makes me nervous. When I start to ask, Mom pats my shoulder and says, “You don’t want to know.”

Dad leans in and whispers in my ear, “Snails.”

I really hope he’s joking.

“Here we are,” says Mom. “The Luxembourg Gardens.”

“You keep using that word,” says Jacob. “I don’t think it means what you think it means.”

He’s got a point. These gardens look like they were designed using complicated math.

Massive trees, their tops cut into parallel lines, lead like giant green walls to another huge palace. The packed-sand paths carve the lawns into geometric shapes, their edges trimmed with roses and dotted by statues. The grass is so short and so smooth, I can imagine someone down on their hands and knees, trimming it blade by blade with a tiny pair of scissors.

Mom veers left, ducking onto a wooded path, and we follow. The sand crackles beneath our shoes as we walk, and then Mom stops and lowers herself onto a bench.

“Do you want to hear a story?” she says, her voice soft and sweet and creepy.

And just like that, we all shuffle closer. Mom has always had that power over people, always been the kind of storyteller who makes her listeners lean in.

Even Pauline can’t really hide her interest. Her hand drifts to her collar as she listens, the way it has a few times today. A nervous tic, I think. Though it’s strange. After all, she said she’s a skeptic—what does she have to be nervous about?

Anton has started filming, and when Mom speaks again, she’s not just talking to us but to an invisible audience.

“One lovely evening in 1925, a gentleman sat on a bench here in the Jardin du Luxembourg”—she pauses to pat the seat beside her—“enjoying a book in the fine weather, when a man in a black coat came up and invited him to his home for a concert. The gentleman accepted, and followed the man in black back to his apartment, where he found a party in full swing, and passed the night with music and wine and excellent company.”

Mom flashes a mischievous grin and sits forward. “In the early hours of the morning, the gentleman left, but shortly after, he realized he was missing his cigarette lighter and returned to collect it. But when he arrived, he found the place dark, the doors and windows boarded shut. It was a neighbor who told him that a musician had once lived there, but that he’d died more than twenty years before.”

A little shudder runs through me, but this one is simple, the almost-pleasant chill that comes with a good ghost story. Not like what I felt earlier at the café.

“And yet, to this day,” finishes Mom, “if you linger in the park as the sun goes down, you just might be approached by a man in a black coat, extending the same invitation. The only question is, will you accept?”

“Finally!” says Jacob. “A friendly ghost story.”

As Mom rises from the bench, a cold breeze blows past. This one feels like the cool air I felt at the café. I’m fighting back another shiver when sand crackles under feet on the path behind me. I twist around, catching something—someone—in the corner of my eye.

But when I look at the path head-on, no one’s there.

“Did you—” I start, but Jacob has already moved ahead with the rest of the group. I let out an unsteady breath.