Chapter 6 #2
“Honestly,” she says, but his grin is infectious, and she can’t help but smile, too. “Alright, then. Let’s call this meeting of the Midnight Society to order.”
Ezra’s eyes glitter in unexpected amusement, and for a moment, she’s able to forget why they’re down here in the first place, wanting only to find a million more ways to get him to grin at her like that.
But then he asks, “Have you ever seen a dead body before?” and the warmth flutters away.
She stiffens. “Yes.”
“Me, too.” He reaches into his bag again, brandishing a sheet of paper. He tears it, handing her one half, then grabs the pencil tucked behind his ear from rehearsal. “Write the name of that person and fold it up.”
Apprehension fills her. “I don’t…I don’t want to.”
Ezra leans closer, and her breath thins at the press of his hand on her knee. She doesn’t have to look to know that his palm dwarfs her leg, that if he were to slide higher, his fingers would stretch across the entire width of her thigh. Her cheeks warm as she finds his gaze.
“You can do this,” Ezra says, his expression serious.
Mallory slowly takes the pencil and scrawls her mother’s name in loopy cursive.
“Now what?” she asks.
“Now we switch. Read mine.”
The sheet crinkles loudly as she unfolds it. “Celia Pierce. Who’s that?”
“My grandmother.” Ezra hooks one arm over the back of the sofa. “I was a kid—seven, maybe eight.”
“Like…at her funeral?”
Ezra shakes his head.
“At the hospital?” she tries. “Were you in the room? When she died?”
He nods, and the air suddenly feels a bit colder, the room a shade darker.
“One second she was there, the next she wasn’t,” Ezra continues. “You always hear people say stuff like that about death, but it’s different when you witness it. Here, and then gone. Two sides of the same coin.”
“Yeah,” she breathes.
“My dad stepped out to take a business call. So, it was just me and her. The doctors, nurses, they didn’t get there until after.
” Ezra brings a hand to his jaw, slides it behind his neck.
“I told everyone later that it was peaceful, that it was like she drifted to sleep. But that was a lie. I only said that so no one would be upset.”
The candles crackle below them. “What was it really like?”
“It was horrible. She made these…sounds. Like a wounded animal. Like something was being ripped from her as she crossed over. It was almost better once she was gone. Because all the pain stopped.”
She doesn’t know if he’s talking about his pain or hers. Maybe both.
“I’m sorry,” Mallory says, and the words sound pathetic next to everything he just said. But he lifts a shoulder in a shrug, before nodding at the candles.
“The paper,” Ezra says, gesturing. “Burn it.”
“Are you kidding? What’s the point of this? What—”
“Just do it.”
She grits her teeth, holding the slip over the flame. The edges curl in the blue-orange glow, and she lets the blaze spread before she brings the remains of the paper to her lips and blows.
She can feel Ezra watching her the whole time.
Mallory rubs the pads of her fingers together and straightens. He starts to unfold the sheet with her mother’s name, and her stomach turns. This isn’t like her other secrets. This one is edged like broken glass. It would slash her throat to ribbons on its way up.
“Wait,” she says, and he pauses. She scrambles for anything to draw out the moment before Ezra learns the worst thing that’s ever happened to her. “Tell me something real first.”
Ezra leans back on the sofa. “There’s nothing to be scared of, Jules.”
“I disagree.” She’s half tempted to snatch the paper back from him. Instead, she asks, “Why did you choose theater?”
He squints. “What, as my major?”
Mallory shakes her head. “No, I mean…why do you love it?”
Ezra seems to consider this. “It’s something that’s mine.
At the end of a production, I can look back and say I did that.
I made that happen. It makes me feel powerful.
” He glances at the flame. “Some people think power is about oppression, making yourself strong at the expense of others. But theater is real power. It’s community.
It’s creating something beautiful out of nothing.
Out of air and dead space.” Ezra looks back at her, and something shifts in his eyes as he catches the way she’s staring at him. “Trade?”
But she’s still processing his words, the weight of them.
The understanding that theater is a lifeline for Ezra, too.
“I’ve never had a real home,” Mallory finally says, and for once, the truth doesn’t taste bitter. “Theater is the only place that’s ever come close. It’s like a shelter. A haven. The safest place in the world because I don’t have to be myself.”
Ezra studies her for a long time. He almost looks sad.
“That’s a good reason…but it’s everyone else’s loss.” Registering her confused glance, he adds, “I see the real Jules. And she’s pretty fucking amazing.”
Her heart skips at that, but before she can respond, Ezra holds up the paper.
“I’m going to read this now. Okay?” At her nod, he starts to recite it, but the words Jasmine Webb die on his lips as understanding takes hold. “Oh, fuck. Your mom?”
Mallory nods again, and Ezra turns, knees colliding with hers.
“I’m sorry,” he rushes to say. “I didn’t realize—”
“I told you she died,” Mallory says, “but I didn’t tell you how.”
Ezra falls silent. He stares at her in the candlelight.
“Do you want to tell me?” he asks softly.
She doesn’t. She does. The words are locked in her mouth, tight as bolts.
She wrenches them free.
“My mother killed herself,” Mallory says. “And I was the one who found her.”
Ezra’s expression turns serious. But now that she’s started, she can’t stop. The secret is loose, like a knotted thread coming undone.
“It was late morning; we were supposed to go Christmas shopping.” Mallory fidgets with her sleeve.
“I went into her room. At first, I thought she was asleep. But then I saw the blood. There was so much of it. On her skin, soaked in the sheets. Dripping onto the carpet.” She closes her eyes.
Her voice shakes. “Her chest was torn apart. She looked like something hanging at a butcher’s shop.
Just cracked open and bleeding and bleeding and bleeding and—”
Ezra’s hand lands on her knee again. More firmly this time, fingers pressing into her skin.
“There was a knife in her hand,” Mallory whispers.
“She did it. To herself.” She swallows and opens her eyes.
“I was five years old. I didn’t know what to do, didn’t know how to call nine-one-one.
So, I climbed into bed with her. Just laid there, in her blood.
For hours. Crying and crying for her to wake up.
” She finally dares to look at him. “But she never did.”
Mallory waits for him to say something. Anything. But he remains silent, slides the paper into a candle. Jasmine Webb, now in flames.
Traitorous tears prick at Mallory’s lashes. Every muscle in her face strains to look away, but instead she lets him notice.
The paper burns all the way to Ezra’s skin, and he curls his hand to spread the ash into his fist without breaking their locked gaze. And then, still devoid of any words, he reaches along the antique sofa until his fingers close around hers.
“What are you—”
“Shh,” he hushes. “Just let me.”
Mallory glances down as he transfers the ash from his palm into the creases of hers—heart line, lifeline, all turning black.
For a moment, she’s frozen, paralyzed, but then she mirrors his movements, kneading remnants of the flame into his hand.
Their fingers move in tandem, wrists slowly arching and rotating until their palms are inked with identical whispers of death and loss.
But she doesn’t let go and neither does he, and when she looks back up, his eyes are wild and tenebrous, pupils blown and glittering.
“What’s supposed to happen next?” she whispers.
“Well—”
Without warning, a kaleidoscope of images flashes behind her eyes.
A woman’s lifeless body, being pulled from the dirt. White dress. Dark hair.
A dripping, bleeding heart.
A crooked gravestone with an engraved emblem at the top—a cross with ivy.
And a name in the center, demanding to be seen: Lily A. Hubbard.
She cries out, startled, ripping her hand away. The motion throws her off balance and she nearly tumbles to the floor, but Ezra’s hands fly to her waist, hauling her upright.
“Holy shit,” she pants. “I think I just—”
Mallory slams to silence, catching sight of his expression. The way he’s staring at her incredulously, like she’s something he dreamed into existence.
The way for a singular, foolish second, she dares to hope—
“Ezra? Did you see that, too?”
His expression transforms into confusion. “See what?”
Mallory swallows a burst of unexpected disappointment and shakes her head. “Sorry. Of course you didn’t.” She blinks, trying to hold on to the images. “Oh my god.”
“Jules.” He carefully brushes a strand of hair away from her face. “What did you see?”
“I should have put it together sooner,” she whispers.
Ezra shakes his head. “Put what together?”
She drags her gaze back to his.
“The ghost’s name is Lily. Someone stole her body from her grave.” She stares at him, eyes wild. “And then they cut out her heart.”