Chapter 9
Mallory spends the rest of rehearsal studying Saskia.
When she followed Saskia into the maze earlier, she’d looked scared and panicked.
Like she’d seen a ghost. But right now, she looks like anyone else—a college student in jeans and sneakers.
Her flannel shirtsleeves are rolled to her elbows, revealing a series of arrows tattooed on her arm, and her ears glitter with piercings all the way up the cartilage.
At Hendrix’s request, Saskia offers a brief introduction, announcing she lives in a single in one of the newer freshman dorms. “I’m from Boston,” she adds with the barest hint of an accent.
“Been doing theater since I was a kid. I’m sorry I couldn’t make it sooner.
I was in the hospital this summer, so I had to start the semester late. But I’m excited to meet everyone now.”
Mallory isn’t oblivious to the way Saskia avoids her gaze. Perhaps because Mallory is the one person in the room who knows she’s full of shit.
Saskia has been on campus this entire time.
As soon as Hendrix releases them with his standard Cast dismissed!
, Mallory bolts out the side door, darting into the crisp autumn air toward the front entrance.
The evening is quiet, shadows gathering around the unlit buildings adjacent to the theater.
In the distance, orange lights glow from the dining hall, like unblinking eyes.
Saskia emerges a few moments later, tucking her script into her bag. Her expression hardens when she notices Mallory, and she turns abruptly in the other direction.
“Not this time,” Mallory says, immediately at her heels. She lunges, fingers closing around Saskia’s upper arm. Saskia whirls unexpectedly, and they practically collide in a fit of hair and limbs.
“What do you want?” Saskia snaps.
“Me?” Mallory echoes. “You’ve been spying on me for days! What do you want?”
“I already told you. I want you to leave me alone.”
Mallory’s brain muddles in confusion. “But I haven’t—I haven’t done anything to you.”
Saskia just huffs a bitter laugh.
“You’ve been on campus since the read-through,” Mallory accuses. “Why did you tell everyone you weren’t?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“You’re my understudy,” Mallory fires back. “That makes you my business.”
Saskia holds her stare, a stony challenge simmering in her amber-colored eyes.
In the quiet, Mallory can’t help but register the spill of freckles across her nose, the curve of her absurdly long lashes.
The way they’re standing far closer than she intended, wrapping her in the dark scent of Saskia’s perfume.
Magnolias and violets, amber and vanilla.
Mallory matches her icy glare and pretends not to notice.
“Aren’t you glad I wasn’t around?” Saskia finally says, voice low and taunting. “The role was all yours for a while. Now you have to share.”
Her words needle, poking at Mallory’s fear of losing the one thing that keeps her tethered, as though Saskia slipped directly into her thoughts, peeling back the layers of her insecurity in a single breath. Mallory steadies herself, refusing to let Saskia catch on.
“Why,” Mallory presses, “did you call me Lily earlier?”
At that, Saskia’s face pales. “You just…” Saskia’s gaze trails the length of her, focus snagging on Mallory’s short skirt, her exposed collarbone, before finally returning to her face. “You look like someone I know, is all. But it was a mistake.”
“Wait,” Mallory says as Saskia turns to leave. She softens her voice. “What do you mean?”
“I really need to go.”
“Saskia—”
“Look,” Saskia says, turning back. “I don’t want your role, okay?
I don’t even want to be here. I had a whole plan after high school to move to California, but it all went to shit for reasons I don’t care to get into.
I got a letter inviting me to apply to Shore’s theater program, and it was a Hail Mary.
A last-ditch effort to get my life together.
That’s all I want. So just stay out of my way, and I’ll stay out of yours. Alright?”
Mallory studies her, thoughts racing until they land on—
“Wait,” she says. “You got a letter inviting you to apply? I did, too.”
Saskia smirks. “Guess we’re not very special, are we?”
“But—”
“Good night, Juliet.”
With that, Saskia disappears between a smattering of trees, leaving Mallory standing beneath a streetlamp, holding all her questions alone.
Thorne Hall rests at the top of a hill toward the eastern edge of Shore’s property.
The stone-fronted structure houses only seniors, its facade punctuated with ribbons of ivy and arched gothic windows.
With only two floors, Thorne isn’t as big as other dorms, but the rooms on the bottom level have additional outdoor entrances, leading to patios draped in the allure of privacy.
And, according to one of their conversations in the dressing room, Ezra lives on the rear corner of the first floor.
He answers almost immediately after Mallory knocks, dressed more casually than she’s ever seen him. Gray sweatpants. Black long-sleeved shirt. Hair tousled like he’s been lying in bed. His skin is paler than normal, and there’s a smear of dried blood beneath his nose.
“Jules,” Ezra says, surprise flickering across his face. “What are you doing here?”
“Are you okay?”
He arches a dark brow. “Did you come to check on me?”
“No,” she replies quickly, face flushing. “Maybe. I just—I need to talk to you.”
Ezra drags a hand through his hair. “Now’s not really a good time.”
“Please,” she says, and something shifts in his stare. Like he’s contemplating a million other ways he could make her say that word. She blushes again, rushing to add, “I don’t have to stay for long.”
He leans in the doorway, seemingly considering as he rolls up his sleeves. Mallory tries not to notice the flex of his forearms, the corded muscle running up the exposed skin.
“You can stay as long as you want,” Ezra finally replies. “But the lights have to remain off.”
Mallory nods. “Migraine. Got it.”
“It’s mostly over.” Ezra swipes at his nose. “But I don’t want it coming back.”
She trails him into the darkened dorm, the door closing softly behind her.
A slip of moonlight spills through the arched window, casting the barest glow onto his bed, sheets wrinkled and comforter askew.
His wooden desk is covered with open books, chair pushed back as though he’d been studying when the pain struck.
Narrow orange bottles litter the nightstand, pills tumbling out like beads.
Ezra notices them at the same time she does, and he swiftly sweeps them into a drawer.
Despite the dim light, Mallory isn’t oblivious to the way his usual confidence has been replaced with something vulnerable.
Soft. He hasn’t just let her into his dorm—he’s let her in on another secret, too.
“Well?” Ezra asks, sitting on a bed that’s at least twice the size of the one in Mallory’s dorm. “What is it that couldn’t wait?”
Mallory settles into the reading chair next to his desk, suddenly nervous. She’s been desperate to talk to him for hours, but now that she’s here, she has no idea where to begin.
“Jules,” he coaxes.
“I found Lily’s grave,” she blurts. “It’s here. On campus. Hidden in the gardens, under the hedge maze.”
Ezra leans forward, arms draped on his knees. “What do you mean, ‘hidden’?”
“Do you know what the New England Vampire Panic was?”
There’s a beat of quiet. “No.”
Mallory’s explanation rushes out. “In the seventeen and eighteen hundreds, there were some who believed that people who died of tuberculosis were coming back to life, leaving their graves, drinking the blood of their living family members, and infecting them. Like vampires.” She pushes a hand through her hair.
“In order to prevent it from happening, they exhumed their graves and cut out their hearts. If there was blood inside, they thought it meant there was something evil present—so they burned those hearts. And then put their bodies back in their graves, dismembered.”
Ezra is silent. She can’t read his expression at all.
She barrels on.
“It wasn’t true, of course,” she continues.
“The hysteria was a disease in and of itself—tuberculosis was killing so many people because of how contagious it was. They were probably afraid of being next. And this was something tangible to cling to, something they could do to supposedly prevent infection. But the fear spread. Like the Salem witch trials. Ironic, actually, since people moved to Rhode Island to get away from witchcraft persecution in the sixteen hundreds. To think, a century later, people started losing their minds believing their dead relatives were vampires!”
“Jules.” Ezra’s voice is like a splash of cold water. “Slow down.”
She sucks in a breath. “Listen—the point is: Lily Hubbard died here, when Shore was a sanitarium. She had tuberculosis. I think someone took her from her grave and cut out her heart. And burned it.” She glances down.
“The part I can’t explain is what it has to do with me or my mother.
But I think—I think that’s what my mom was trying to do to herself.
Cut out her own heart. Everything must be connected somehow. ”
Ezra falls quiet again, but she can feel the heat of his stare in the darkness.
“There’s one more thing,” Mallory says. “My understudy is back from her ‘leave of absence.’ Saskia.” She shakes her head. “But she’s been on campus this whole time. She’s been following me. There’s something off about her.”
“Yeah.” The bed creaks as Ezra leans against the wall. “She’s…unwell.”
Mallory tries to find his face in the shadows. “Hold on—do you know her? Is that why she didn’t have to audition?”
“Sort of.” He sounds uncomfortable. “We did theater together in Boston one summer. I…spent some time with her.”
“ ‘Spent some time with her’?’’ Mallory narrows her eyes. “Is that code for something?”
Ezra’s laugh travels across the room. “If you’re asking if we hooked up, the answer is absolutely not.”
“Why do you say it like that?”