“Is this map really from the 1800s?” I ask, as Aiden unzips the bag.

“No, these are copies of relevant ones housed in the Library of Congress. I wouldn’t be qualified to handle the originals.” Aiden carefully extracts a heavy-duty, oversized folder from the map case. “But they’re very old copies, and they have to be treated with care. They were commissioned by a local collector way back when. He died and left them to the city, or so the story goes. Now even the copies are antiques. The originals date from before this land was even officially part of the United States. There was a lot of squabbling between European countries and America about who the territory belonged to.”

“Neither of them,” Kasey and I say, at the same time.

“Yeah, of course not.” Aiden gently unfolds the map. “There were people living here thousands of years before this was made.”

He carefully lays it out. It’s a large map on yellowed paper, somehow laying perfectly flat. The edges are worn, and even the protective sheet that Aiden removes from the top seems ancient. I scan my eyes over it with interest: it’s in color, our state divided up into colorful shapes that I guess were - counties, maybe? The colors fade out at the bottom, where instead a neat script reads: UNEXPLORED REGIONS.

“This original of this map is from thirty years or so after William died, but the old cemetery should have still been in use,” Aiden explains. “Let’s see - this one’s from too far out, we’ll need to zoom in a little bit.” He covers the map with the protective sheeting again, tucks it back into the black case and withdraws another.

“This is amazing,” Kasey sighs. “Like being back in the researching phase again. I know I complained about it like, every day, but now I miss it.”

“Here we go,” says Aiden, who was unable to hear all of that. “This one should do it.”

This map is most definitely a closer view. It's so old that it’s hard to tell, but with the distant mountains demarcated, the rivers, the valley - this is Ketterbridge. It has to be.

“I don’t know any of these names,” I inform Aiden, who nods.

“A lot of them have been changed. We’re more looking for an area than a street name.”

“Where do we start?” I ask, as Aiden leans over the map. “You’re the expert.”

“I’m definitely not an expert,” he answers, but I was talking to Kasey.

“Cemeteries are different than other kinds of locations found on old maps,” she says, her eyes skating over the careful, hand-drawn lines. “Most areas can be developed to outlive their usefulness, because the understanding is that they’ll eventually be torn down and replaced. Cemeteries are different: you can’t move them, usually you can’t build on top of them. Or if you try, there’s likely to be a legal challenge. It would be cost-prohibitive. We’re lucky. This is one of the few things on this map besides natural landmarks that might still be there, after all this time.”

“Would it be labeled?” I scan my eyes over the twisting lines pressed into the old paper, trying to make out what they denote. Some of them are marked without any comment from the mapmaker.

“It might be…” Aiden’s brow furrows. “This thing is so detailed. I’m just trying to think where to begin looking.”

“Cemeteries are placed very deliberately,” Kasey says, as Aiden uses a gloved hand to smooth out the map’s corner. “There are special things that have to be considered. Disposing of the dead has religious implications, specific laws, related superstitions…” She presses a finger to her chin. “Most cemeteries need room to expand, eventually. People don’t like to have them in the middle of populated areas, they depress land values, people find them creepy, and there’s not enough room to expand. So we’re probably looking for something outside of the city limits, but not so far away that it would be difficult to reach. Residents would need to be able to easily visit their dead, and caretakers would need to get there, too.”

You’re brilliant, I mouth at her over Aiden’s shoulder. I’ve been thinking of Kasey as helping us out by being a connection to the ghost world. I didn’t realize how much having an actual historian on the team would help.

“We’re probably looking for somewhere on high ground,” Aiden says.

“Yeah, and also outside of the city limits, but not too far away, and with enough room to expand.”

“That makes sense.” Aiden turns and looks at me, leaning a hand on the cabinet. “You know more about this than I thought.”

“Kasey,” I answer simply, and he nods, bending over the map once more.

“Okay, let’s see. Outside of the city limits, high ground…” He floats his fingers along the outer edges of the map. “Jamie, do you have your phone? People don’t often build on top of cemeteries.”

“Not white people cemeteries, anyways,” Kasey mutters.

“We could maybe narrow it down by what areas have no roads or developments today,” he finishes, and I extract my phone from my pocket. I quickly pull up a map of modern Ketterbridge, zoomed out far enough that we can see beyond the city limits.

“Looks like the East side of the city limits is pretty built up now,” Aiden observes. “Roads crisscrossing the whole area. We should start on the Western edge.”

“Western edge, raised land…” I scan my eyes carefully over the map again, sticking to our narrowed-down area. “Here’s something.” I almost tap the map with my uncovered finger and catch myself at the last second. “What about this area? It’s raised land, out of the city limits, and there’s nothing built on it now. It’s got a lot of empty surrounding land… there’s a residential area nearby it now, but there wasn’t before.”

“Is it labeled?” Aiden leans closer, squinting.

“It says…” I read the flowery handwriting. “PC.”

“PC.” Aiden taps his fingers on the cabinet, a thoughtful crease between his eyebrows. “PC… People’s… Cemetery?”

“PC!” Kasey interjects, darting around Aiden to tug on my sleeve, her black hair dancing above her shoulders. “Perpetual Charter!”

“Perpetual Charter?” I ask her out loud, before I realize what I’m doing. Aiden straightens up.

“Perpetual Charter…” His expression clears, and a wide smile spreads across his face. “That means the land was allocated for some kind of permanent use.”

“Like a cemetery!” I answer, practically hopping from foot to foot. “Aiden, this is probably it!”

“We fucking found it!” he almost shouts, and Kasey does an invisible dance behind him, flapping her hands in the air. Aiden quickly clasps his fingers over his mouth. “Sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean to yell, it’s just - this is the first break, in so long. We shouldn’t get ahead of ourselves. This might not be it, we still have to go and-”

“No, no, we should celebrate!” I grab his hands, unable to contain myself, especially seeing Kasey and Aiden together smiling so brilliantly. “We did it!”

“We did it!” they both shout in unison. Aiden closes his thumbs around my knuckles, and we both are sort of jumping, and Kasey tips over for a celebration booty shake-

A sound from the stairway makes all three of us whip around, to see a rather startled looking janitor watching our little celebration. Or at least, mine and Aiden’s. He’s got a mop in one hand, a bucket in the other.

“Sorry,” he says, watching with his eyebrows raised. “Should I come back later?”

“Nope, we’re just leaving, sorry, Rick.” Aiden releases my hands and turns to quickly snap a photo of the map with my phone.

A few minutes later, we’re all back in Aiden’s office, huddled over the photo.

“We’re going to have to figure out the nearest address to this place and start from there. Maybe someone who lives in that area knows about it.”

“We’ll find out and then we’ll go there, right?” I open up Google maps and start zooming into the approximate area. “We probably know somebody who lives there. I bet.” I pause and look up at Aiden. “So, now that we made our first big break, will you finally tell me what you are?”

Aiden rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling.

“No.”

“Come on, at least let me take a guess.”

“Jamie, no-”

“Seriously, I think I’ve got it.”

Aiden stares at me, his lip twitching.

“What am I, then?”

“A vampire,” I answer, turning my gaze back to my phone. “Don’t deny it, cause I know it’s true.”

I freeze to the spot as Aiden folds a warm arm around my waist, drawing me closer. Suddenly the very tip of his nose is brushing against my neck, the tender skin just below my ear. My heart soars into my throat, and something behind my sternum leaps at the sweet, rare sensation.

“Yep, I’m a vampire.” His low voice sends goosebumps spiraling down my arms. “Come here, I need a bite.”

Oh my god.

“Idiot!” I sputter, as he releases me. His huffing laugh is intoxicatingly sweet. I want to coax it out of him in a million different ways, maybe by kissing him somewhere that he’s ticklish. Instead, I lay a smack on his chest with the back of my hand, forgetting that this was a mistake last time. I wince as my knuckles impact with hard muscle. “Stupid ass!”

“You sure you feel comfortable talking that way to a vampire? I could eat you up in one minute, skinny boy.” Smiling, he drops into his desk chair, his legs spread out in that sports-guy way of sitting. I turn to check if the door is ajar, whether anybody saw all that, and catch Kasey’s eyes on me, her eyebrows raised all the way up.

“Fine. You’re not a vampire.” The spot on my neck is on fire, and I am about to burn up and die and join Kasey in the afterlife.

“Decidedly not a vampire. Or a witch.”

“I’m going to figure it out. Just you wait, Aiden Callahan.”

The corner of his mouth lifts, almost a smile.

“I have total faith in you,” he says.

“Hello,” Kasey cuts in, “Um. The cemetery?”

“The cemetery. Right.” I shake my head and unlock my phone again. “If you’re done distracting me, Aiden.”

“I’m distracting?” Aiden gives me an incredulous look from his chair. “You’re the one who interrupted our last experiment at the Ghost Office to show me a video of a dog.”

“It was a corgi, and it had a little pirate hat on, and it’s not my fault Angie sent it during the middle of an experiment!” I zoom in on the map of the identified area and land on a street name. “Looks like the closest street is… Canyon Road.”

The smile vanishes from Aiden’s face; the hand resting on his thigh suddenly balls into a tight fist. A cloud passes across his expression, throwing the fatigued purple bruising around his eyes into sharper clarity.

“Canyon Road,” he repeats.

“Yeah?” I resist the instinct to exchange a glance with Kasey. “I’ve driven it a bunch of times, but I don’t think I know anyone who lives on it.”

Aiden pauses for a second, then lets out a deep, long sigh.

“I do.”

~~~~

The house is two stories, but slumping over like someone passed out at a desk; the lower level is almost buckling under the weight of the second. It was probably a cute little place when it was first constructed: someone did careful metalwork to create the fence boxing in the property (now half-fallen) and the roof has an elegant old weather vane spinning feebly. The shades are drawn over all of the windows, the door firmly shut, and the place silent.

Kasey, Aiden and I head up the long gravel path to the house. A row of tall evergreens marks the line where the forest starts behind it. Swaying greenery climbs up into the hills that surround the house, a velvet blanket of green. This morning’s rain has faded to a gentle drizzle, and the wet grass whispers under our steps. We had to wait until the weekend to come. We need daylight for this particular search, and Aiden is off the clock at 5 most days.

“It’s not too late,” I tell him, as Kasey moves up ahead of us. She’s the only one not dragging her heels heading into this particular interaction. “We can just try to find it on our own.”

“You think I want to be here?” Aiden gives me a pained look. “Asking him for a favor? There’s too much acreage to cover without any idea of where to start. It’ll take us forever.”

“I know, but - the last time we saw him-”

“Believe me, I remember. I’m very aware.” Aiden runs a hand over his face, grimacing as we reach the slanting porch where Kasey is already waiting. Two stray, crushed beer cans are at her feet.

“Come on, quit dragging your heels,” she complains, as Aiden and I take the slowest steps possible to join her. “We’re burning daylight!”

Aiden pauses in front of the door, takes a long breath, preparing to knock. Before he can, something moves to our left. All three of us jump as a cough arises from one of the busted wicker porch chairs. Grant, half-buried in his oversized jacket, yawns and sits upright, blinking sleepily.

“Aiden? And… Jamie. This is a surprise.”

“Hey, man.” Aiden reluctantly accepts the bro-hand-slap that Grant offers, then uses it to pull him out of the chair. “How’ve you been?”

“Not bad.” Grant rubs his eyes and fumbles around in his pockets, extracting a little plastic case. “Sorry, late one last night. I’m up, though. You two here to party?” He holds up the tiny case and gives it a shake, revealing that there are pills rattling around inside.

“No,” I cut in immediately, but Aiden merely pokes Grant’s hand out of his face.

“We’re here to talk to Ralph,” he explains. “Is he here?”

“It’s his house, isn’t it?” Grant shrugs, pops the case open, and traps a pill against the corner. He pinches it between his fingers, closes the case with a snap.

“Ralph owns this house?” I ask, and Grant snorts.

“No, he rents it.”

“Good luck on getting the security deposit back,” Kasey mutters.

“Is he mad at me for yelling at him at the party?” I can’t help but ask. Grant fixes his watery gaze on me, rolling the pill between his teeth.

“Which party?”

“Yeah, I think you’re fine,” Aiden murmurs, and turns back to face Grant. “Can you grab Ralph for us, dude? We’ll be quick, just want to ask him something.”

“Oh, Aiden, you know you can ask me anything,” someone says, and we all turn: Ralph has silently opened the door, unnoticed by any of us. He leans against the wooden frame, his white-blonde hair sticking up at violent angles.

“Ralph.” Aiden hesitates. “Hey.”

“Hey, yourself.” Ralph has a smug kind of smile on his face, like he somehow knew we’d show up here eventually. “So. What can I fix you up with? My stash is running a little low at the moment. My trust-fund-brat supplier up and flew off to the Caribbean for the summer.”

“We’re not here for that,” I explain quickly. “Aiden needs your help with something for work.”

Interest flashes through Ralph’s cutting eyes.

“What work is that?”

“The city has asked me to find this old cemetery for - um, record-keeping purposes.” Aiden unlocks his phone and holds up the picture of the faded map, which I’d texted him when we parted ways the other night. “Our research indicates it’s probably around this area.”

Ralph plucks the phone out of Aiden’s hand and examines the screen closely.

“Have you ever found something that looks like an old cemetery around here?” I ask, and Ralph looks up, with a grin on his face that I know means trouble.

“Alright,” he says. “I might have something for you.”