Chapter 42 Elle
ELLE
With trembling knees, I take a seat backstage, listening to Sabrina deliver a flawless recitation of Desdemona taking credit for her own murder. My stomach is cramping bad today even though my period ended a week ago, so I asked if we could do my scenes last.
Through the curtains, Sutton yells cut, and the cast scatters to the back. I watch Sabrina in her beautiful gown as she sashays to the corner, gulping down some lemon water she keeps in a metal bottle.
She catches my eye in the floor-length mirror propped against the wall and turns toward me, an unreadable expression on her face. As she approaches, my entire body instinctively tenses up, and I scoot my legs in, as if touching her might drag me back down to those caves.
Sitting down on the closed clothing trunk beside me, Sabrina unfolds her hand, revealing an oblong, nearly translucent white rock.
“An apology,” she says, offering me the object. “For getting you into that whole mess at the Apollodorus. I shouldn’t have asked you guys to go down there. I wouldn’t fault you if you blamed me for the emotional trauma.”
It’s the first either of us have brought up that night, seeming to choose to pretend it didn’t happen. Out loud at least.
“Uh…what is it?”
“Moonstone. I found it at the quarry.” She turns the object over in her palm, smoothing her fingers against the uneven ridges.
“Fury Hill, decades ago, got into mining for raw minerals. A way to make a quick buck, I guess. The school actually shut it down due to environmental concerns, but the minerals are still there—including cool gemstones like this one.”
Slowly, I take the rock from her and hold it up to the light; I can practically see right through it. “Thanks… But how is this an apology?”
“Lexington told me you like astrology and shit—”
“Astronomy.”
“—so I thought maybe you’d find me more favorable if I found something cool that interests you.” She shrugs, her blue eyes crinkling at the corners. “I realize now that it’s completely cheesy, but you never know. Lots of people believe in celestial connections between the heavens and the earth.”
“Life and death,” I say.
She sucks in a low breath, nodding. “Yeah, that too.” Bracing her hands on her knees, she looks at me through the curtain of her hair as it falls over her shoulders. “I’m really sorry about what happened at that party, you know. I swear, I had no idea what was down there.”
My fingers close around the cool stone. “You seemed to know an awful lot about Death’s Teeth though.”
“Casualty of growing up in Fury Hill.” She sighs, pushing her hair back.
“You don’t get through kindergarten without hearing tales of the masked shadows in the Primordial Forest. Then, with everything that happened last semester and the way it was swept under the rug…
I guess I got curious. Started reading up about it. ”
I glance at the front of the stage, where Sutton is marking places for the cast to stand during different scenes.
“The man who dragged us to that cavern… Did you know him?”
“No.”
“Really?” She glances at me, squinting. “He seemed to be familiar with you.”
My gaze falls to my backpack again. I shake my head. “Probably just another curse nut. Who knows?”
“Stranger things have definitely happened. I’m just glad he let us go after. I’ve read some pretty fucked-up stuff that can go on at those ceremonies.”
She doesn’t mention that we were offerings or my own volunteer stunt, so I have to wonder how much she actually remembers. I’m about to ask for more information when Sutton cuts in from up front.
“Desdemona, we’re ready for you again.”
She exhales. “You should’ve been the leading lady.”
“Nah.” I give her a small smile. “Bianca suits me just fine. You deserve the spotlight—you’ve been practically begging the professor for it the whole semester.”
Something flashes in her eyes, and she purses her lips, considering. “You know, I never really want—”
“Desdemona.” Sutton’s voice is louder, firmer, and I hate that the authority of it makes my thighs clench.
As she gets up and passes through the curtains again, I follow suit, hanging on to the fabric and watching the scene from behind. The auditorium is hushed and darkened, shrouded in an array of shadows as the spotlights focus on the cast members.
Sabrina crosses the stage, heading to the makeshift bed to simulate Desdemona’s death. Everyone’s enraptured by her elegance as she approaches, aware that she’s about to be pretend-smothered by a classmate again.
She takes a detour as a couple of set designers work in the center to resituate the scene, all while our Othello continues his monologue, moving as if just entering Desdemona’s bedroom to accuse her of infidelity.
“‘Yet she must die, else she’ll betray more men. Put out the light, and then put out the light.’”
Before he finishes the last line, the spotlights angled toward the stage go out, encasing us in total darkness. At the same time, a scream and subsequent crash echo through the auditorium, the fear reverberating off my skull.
“What the hell?” I hear Sutton say. He swears under his breath when the lights don’t come back on, and panic murmurs through us as we listen to his footsteps rush toward the emergency switch on the wall.
Seconds later, the floodlights illuminate the room in a faint glow, and relief passes over us in a wave.
Until someone screams again. One of the set designers leans into the pit, a horrified look frozen on their face.
“Professor, come quick! Sabrina’s hurt!”
Everyone rushes over to where they’re at, looking into the secluded area. Sabrina’s somehow flat on her back, staring up at the rafters with wide, unseeing eyes.
Blood pools beneath her head, soaking her hair.
Nausea rolls through me, a cyclone of terror.
“Oh my God!” someone cries, and the room begins to descend into madness.
Percy climbs into the pit, breathing hard, and reaches for her.
“No, wait!” I say, forcing myself to stop him. “You can’t move a head injury. Someone needs to call the paramedics and campus police.”
“Sabrina, can you speak? Or hear us at all?” Sutton asks.
She opens her mouth, but I jump down into the area and shove the others out of the way. My hands tremble, and I’m unable to look away from her eyes.
“I slipped,” she manages, cringing as she tries to lift an arm. “Hurts.”
Pointing at Percy, I still don’t look away from her. Can’t look away—fire scalds the inside of my chest when I try. “Call campus police. Get someone out here to treat her. Now.”
Sutton stands above us and drags a hand through his hair. He hovers so close to me, like he’s trying to silently offer support, but I wave him off too.
“Give her space,” I bark, turning for a second just to shoot the hyenas watching a nasty look. “Stop staring at her like she’s a zoo animal, and go figure out what the hell is wrong with your equipment.”
“We did the full rundown on these lights at sound check, right?” Sutton asks someone, but I’m curled protectively over Sabrina’s body and not willing to move to see who.
A tear slips over her cheek. “Am I gonna be okay?”
I nod, tapping her finger, even though I’m not totally sure.
I’m only using the very basic knowledge Dad taught us about head injuries.
I don’t know what other signs to look for or what sort of response she should be having.
But I feel the need to reassure her anyway, because as I’m maintaining eye contact to ensure she doesn’t lose consciousness, I’m not in the auditorium anymore—I’m a helpless seventeen-year-old girl lost in the Primordial Forest.
I’m a girl who reacted without thinking and sent someone else into that lake. Someone who never came back up.
The body before me isn’t Sabrina but the battered, limp form of a guy bound and soaked as if he somehow pulled himself out of the water.
Maybe that’s why I sprang into action, the need to save Sabrina from a similar fate surging so thoroughly in my chest that I couldn’t just stay still. A repeat of that night—of every time I’ve ever been fucking useless—couldn’t happen. Not again.
Or maybe it’s because when I look up into the darkened rows of the auditorium, I see the mangled silhouette of a man disfigured by brutal violence, and I know somehow that this is my fault.
Again.