The Spectral City. Leanna Renee Hieber

woman who had died in the same industrial fire as Zofia. Their spirits had found one another in the corridor between life and death that the spirits so often talked about. They agreed to stay on and haunt the earth on behalf of those who died in industrial accidents and try whatever they could think of to prevent them. While Zofia wanted to stay on as a constant Precinct haunt, Olga only manifested during a séance.

      “Maggie has never missed telling us goodnight unless she’s told me and Zofia that she’s gone on a case hunt,” Olga insisted. “Something must be wrong.”

      “Any idea where she might have gone that might have caused trouble for her?” Eve asked calmly, even though her own nerves were fraying.

      “Yesterday she said she wanted to see something mid-town, that something didn’t feel right, and now she’s gone,” Olga exclaimed, her voice breaking.

      The varied ghosts that agreed to work with the Precinct knew one another, were often called forth in a séance, and occasionally went off on their own adventures together.

      Many of the Precinct spirits, whether they haunted Eve regularly or only came when called, had become close, filling in for family lost, drawn to their common causes and untimely ends. Any encounter with the spirit world offered a chance for family found and a bit of life restored.

      “We’ll find her,” Eve promised, opening her eyes to comfort both Olga and Zofia as they floated before her in their plain, drab, greyscale dresses. Turning towards the small form of the eight-year-old floating at Eve’s right, where the air was cooler, Eve placed her hand supportively at the side of the draft, where Zofia placed incorporeal hands atop her open palm. “She’s the mascot and the heart of the whole Precinct. Something must be so important that it drew her away from us, but she’ll tell us all about it as soon as we find her,” Eve stated, wishing she felt as confident as she was trying to be for these young spirits who bravely went into fires and all manner of industrial accidents hoping they could do any small thing to save a life or alert help, even if every time it meant reliving the trauma of their own deaths. These spirits were so inspiring.

      Cora Dupris spoke in French, reaching out to her closest and best haunt. Uncle Louis spent most of his time haunting New Orleans but was always ready to help his talented niece. After a benediction, he appeared before them, a handsome-featured man whose grey skin would once have been the same light brown as Cora’s, with close-shorn black hair, expressive eyes, and a plain dark suit.

      “Bonne nuit, ma chérie,” the spirit murmured. “Ça va?”

      Cora shifted to English for the sake of her colleagues. “Uncle Louis, mon cher, have you seen Maggie? She’s gone and hasn’t shown up at any of her haunts. It’s unlike her . . .”

      Louis Dupris, the twin of Cora’s father, had died in a mysterious research accident. He had a complicated past relationship with assisting Gran and other acquaintances of the family, and Eve had been instructed never to bring that up; his presence might cause pain if mentioned beyond their circle.

      “I’ve no additional insights,” Louis replied, “but I pledge to keep a spiritual ear tuned for her. I cannot claim closeness with Maggie, beyond awareness of her as a Precinct asset. Usually we try to allow the spirits to let go. This runs counterintuitive to the momentum that urges us onward.”

      “I know, Uncle,” Cora replied gently. “But our Precinct has its own protocols. Maggie’s disappearance is antithetical to her pledge to us.”

      “Anyone who is important to this divinely wrought group is important to me, tied together in soul bonds. I shall remain aware and come to you with any clues.”

      “Thank you, Mister Dupris,” Eve murmured, “you are always so gracious and helpful.”

      “Anything for my family,” he said, smiling at Cora. He wafted down to kiss the crown of her head with ghostly lips and vanished. Cora stared after him, turned towards the wake of his departing chill until the next ghost joined their ensemble.

      Vera was the next to arrive, an old woman who had been brought to New York as a child from Mexico City. She’d found her passion and calling late in life studying at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where many women found fulfilling instruction at an elite level in the school. She’d died at a ripe old age on the far Upper East Side and loved the raucous metropolis so much she simply didn’t want to leave. Manifest in the room, white-haired and floating behind Antonia, her favorite of the Precinct mediums, she drew her large, greyscale, once-colorful floral shawl over her bony shoulders. Antonia didn’t know Spanish, but she was fluent when Vera was around.

      “Amigas,” she began gently, speaking through Antonia, her youthful voice transformed to something gravelly, old, and warm. Vera had an accent but had learned English well during life and spoke it today for the benefit of the group. “You know the ways of the spirit world do not concur with the timelines of your own,” she said. “A friend missing for only a day, and there’s this much fuss?” She scoffed and laughed.

      “It’s her patterns being off that concern us, Vera dear,” Eve replied. “I know ghosts to be creatures of habit.”

      “She never misses saying a goodnight,” Zofia insisted, floating from her place beside Eve over towards Vera, tugging on the old woman’s spectral shawl. “I can always feel her. Or I could. Until today. She’s gone,” the child murmured, trying not to burst into tears again.

      “I’ll walk the Corridors and look,” Vera said.

      “Thank you,” Eve stated. “Be careful they don’t draw you too close.”

      Vera laughed. “The Walks cannot have me. I am not done with New York yet and it is not done with me any more than it is with Maggie.”

      Gran had always called the space between life and death “the two walks”, a corridor where souls came and went from between worlds, “for better or for worse.” She had described seeing her life flash before her eyes in a near death experience as a sequence of still moments, like pictures at an exhibition, hanging on the walls of that corridor. In one brief moment of candor her mother expressed having seen the same thing.

      This place had been further verified by the spirits that worked for her, something akin to a long hallway, although everyone’s experience was slightly different. It was best not to spend too much time in the Corridors. Nightmares lurked there, forces and energies that the living and the dead could not quite explain. The darkest of negativities that had coalesced all the way into demonic form could come and go from them too . . .

      “What else can we do?” Antonia asked the spirits.

      “Hold on to her,” Vera replied. “Find things of hers—relics, special places—think of her, and magnetize her to you.”

      “There’s such a sadness,” Zofia said. “Not just mine. It’s . . . it’s like I can’t breathe . . .” Olga, who had been quiet so that other spirits could speak, wafted closer to the child.

      The candle guttered and there was a sob from the spirit world, a soft, aching cry from many spirit voices, echoing in the room in an uncanny reverberation, and then silence. Silence in the dark. An otherworldly echo of a bell ringing meant the spirit world was closing its door, as if the ringing of the bell had a parentheses, a closure of thought.

      “Goodnight, Eve,” Zofia said, grabbing Olga’s hand and fading. “See you tomorrow.”

      Vera waved to the group and faded. Antonia blew Vera a kiss.

      That was the end of the session.

      “Thank you, spirits, for your services,” Eve murmured. “Good night.”

      Everyone was silent for a long time. The room warmed. Eve got up, moving slowly in the dim gaslight to the sconce where she turned the key and brightened the flames.

      “Tomorrow we’ll haunt her haunts,” Eve instructed, trying to sound more hopeful than she felt. “For now, get some rest.”

      Her colleagues filed upstairs while Eve wandered