Tunnel of Bones

Back at the hotel that evening, Cassidy is blamed for leaving the door open and letting the cat get out, but she’s confident that she shut the door. She and Jacob are searching for Grim in the hotel’s dining room, which is currently empty and dark, when they encounter ghost activity. A tablecloth is pulled off a table, and all the dishes on it crash to the floor. Then, Cassidy sees a shadow much larger than a cat. Jacob finds Grim before anything else happens, and though the cat hisses uncharacteristically at Cassidy, they bring him upstairs without further incident.

Cassidy relays what’s been happening on a video call to Lara, who suspects that Cassidy has attracted a poltergeist. She explains that poltergeists are spirits that are drawn to spectral energy, a dangerous kind of ghost that feeds on chaos and is no longer contained by a Veil. They engage in small acts of mischief at first but eventually turn to “menace and then mayhem” and have no qualms about violence or even killing (63). Lara tells Cassidy that she needs to find this poltergeist and send it on fast. Cassidy decides that that’s her mission for the next day. By the time she goes to bed, Jacob has left for the night. She doesn’t know where he goes at night but doesn’t want to pry.

Cassidy wakes up in the middle of the night and hears the door of their hotel room opening. She sees the poltergeist’s red glow and follows it into the hall. When she realizes that she left her mirror pendant in the room, she turns back for it, but the poltergeist shuts the door too quickly, locking her out. Cassidy hears Jacob’s voice calling from the hotel lobby. When she gets there, something terrible is happening to him. He’s creating a storm of energy and chaos that swirls around him. Lara is there too, shouting that she warned Cassidy this would happen. She urges Cassidy to send Jacob on, but Cassidy refuses, insisting that she can save him. Then, she wakes up and realizes that she’s been having a nightmare. Cassidy is jumpy all morning. She accompanies her parents and their crew to an enormous cemetery called Père Lachaise, where she and Jacob sneak off to enter the Veil and look for the poltergeist.

The in-between is relatively quiet at Père Lachaise. Cassidy explains that cemeteries usually aren’t very haunted because restless spirits are tied to the place where they died, not where they’re buried. Soon enough, however, she hears a child’s voice speaking French in a singsong kind of chant: “Un…deux…trois…” (72). Cassidy can’t find the source of the voice and realizes that the poltergeist is elusive, only ever allowing her to catch glimpses and shadows. She decides that she’ll have to lure it to her by creating an opportunity for it to create mischief. She climbs a crypt, and when she’s standing on the roof, the poltergeist shows itself. It’s a young boy; he appears to be about six or seven years old and has red, glowing eyes. He moves inhumanly fast; suddenly, he’s right in front of Cassidy. She shows him the mirror and recites the spell, but it does not affect him. He pushes Cassidy off the roof.