Chapter 11
Juliet’s balcony is littered with nails.
Mallory nudges the screws as she climbs to the top of the arch-shaped set that afternoon, wearing her nightgown costume. As she positions herself for the balcony scene, she tries not to think about how she’s dressed just like her mother on that December morning.
How she’s dressed just like Lily, too.
Rehearsal has barely begun, and it’s already off to a rocky, distracting start. She’s so close to something, but every answer keeps slipping out of reach. Mallory was sure the chapel would lead somewhere, but all it did was make her question her own sanity and nearly have sex in a church.
How embarrassing.
It’s time, she thinks, to start looking in new places.
“From the top!” Hendrix booms.
Someone turns on the spotlights, bathing the stage in mercury white. Raf enters from the wings, dressed in an olive-colored tunic and breeches, a narrow rapier against his side.
Familiar happiness surges inside her, and for a moment, Mallory remembers what it’s like to be onstage and not think about dead women with missing hearts. What it’s like to perform her favorite vanishing act and disappear into a world that isn’t hers. She can do this.
Despite not being fully memorized, Mallory nudges her script closed with the toe of her ballet slipper.
And somehow, Juliet’s soliloquy spills perfectly out of her mouth.
She doesn’t miss a single beat, breathing life into the meter, the prose, filling ancient words with new sound.
She was built for this, was made for blazing lights and the hum of applause.
For peeling back the layers of a haunted girl called Mallory and stitching together the pieces of someone stronger. We don’t have to be ourselves today.
“My name, dear saint, is hateful to myself, because it is an enemy to thee,” Raf calls from below. “Had I it written, I would tear the word.”
“My ears have yet not drunk a hundred words of thy tongue’s uttering, yet I know the sound,” she replies. A strange itch sparks to life at the back of her throat. She ignores it. “Are thou not Romeo, and a Montague?”
“Neither, fair maid, if either thee dislike.”
Mallory’s chest clenches as she clears her throat. “How camest thou hither, tell me, and wherefore? The orchard walls—”
A sharp cough rips through her, siphoning her words.
“The orchard walls are high and hard to climb,” she tries again. “And the place—”
Juliet’s lines evaporate as Mallory’s shoulders heave. She gags around a soft, thin object, like a piece of food caught in her throat. There’s something in there.
The lights begin to sway. The balcony suddenly seems very high off the ground, her lines impossible to recall.
Panic takes hold, both at the terrifying choking sensation and the devastating awareness that she’s fucking up the scene.
She can’t lose this role. She won’t lose this role.
Without theater, she’ll have nothing left, she’ll be nothing at all.
“Mal?” Raf calls, breaking character. “Hey, Mal. You okay?”
“Ms. Webb!” Hendrix this time.
Mallory sinks to her knees, grasping the railing. Her throat erupts in stinging pain as she works whatever it is up and up and finally out, spitting it into her palm as Raf sprints across the stage.
She has just enough time to register the matted black feather in her hand.
It spans from her fingertips to well past her wrist, and the pointed end of the quill is coated in mud. The barbules are sleek and ink colored, as though it once belonged to a raven.
Like the statues around campus.
Like the drawing she scribbled the other day.
“Mal!”
Raf appears on the ladder, and she shoves the feather into her nightgown pocket.
“What just hap—” He rears back. “Whoaaa—shit, Mal, you’re bleeding.”
She presses a hand to her mouth. It comes away slick with blood—and something else. Something dark and granular. Dirt.
“What’s going on up there?” Hendrix calls. “Is she alright, Marques?”
“Uh—hang on!” Raf yells back. He looks back at her, adding, “Are you? Alright?”
“I-I’ll be right back.” Mallory slips past him, scurrying down the ladder as fast as she can without falling, before sprinting through the wings. She barely hears Hendrix call for a ten-minute break as she careens down the corridor and into the bathroom, squinting against buzzing green lights.
She throws herself in front of the mirror and lets out a startled scream.
Her lips are coated in a mess of red. Blood oozes from her mouth, and when she rolls her tongue against her teeth, tiny grains of dirt seem to follow.
Hands shaking, she gathers her hair and snaps on the faucet, lowering to the sink to splash water over her lips and chin.
She rinses and rinses, emptying mouthfuls of scarlet-tinged mud into the porcelain.
The lights seem to moan with every spit, and the feather in her pocket burns against her thigh.
As she cleans bits of bloodstained earth from her body, she can’t help but think of that growling voice in her ear, that nightmarish man in the chapel.
This isn’t what happened in the blue house.
It’s like something is trying to destroy her from the inside out. Is it Lily?
Or something worse?
Just then, the door flies open and Arden rushes in. “Are you okay?” she gasps.
“I’m fine.” Mallory drags her hand across her mouth. “Just—just a nosebleed.”
Arden only stares. “Is it that easy to lie to me?”
“I’m not—”
“Where were you earlier?” she interrupts. “I was late to rehearsal because I waited in the café for so long.”
Arden’s text. Their coffee date. Fuck. “I’m so sorry,” Mallory attempts, meaning it. “I got held up, I—”
“With Ezra?” Arden guesses.
Heat rushes to her cheeks. “No—”
“Another lie.” Arden narrows her eyes. “Jessica saw you leaving the senior dorms this morning.”
Mallory’s remaining excuses evaporate. “I can explain, we—”
“Save it.” Arden shakes her head, blonde highlights swaying. “We’ve been at this school a few weeks, and so much has changed already. I feel like I don’t even know you anymore.”
Something fiery loosens in Mallory’s chest at that. Something less like the crushing weight of guilt and more like anger. She leans into it, because right now, it’s easier to lash out than admit to all the ways she’s tearing their friendship apart.
“It’s not a crime to change, Arden!” Mallory snaps. “Maybe it’s not always going to be exactly how it was, but that doesn’t mean I don’t care about you.”
“Mal, it’s not even close!” Arden exhales.
“You haven’t just changed, you’ve shape-shifted.
The old Mal would’ve been so excited to play Juliet, she’d have every line memorized already.
She’d be kicking ass in her classes ’cause she’s smart as hell and making friends because she’s cool as hell, too.
This Mal? The one slinking around at night, hoarding secrets?
I don’t recognize her.” Arden steps closer, eyes narrowing.
“Look at yourself. You look half dead. And the fucked-up part is I think he likes you more for it.”
Mallory’s chest clenches. “You’re being ridiculous.”
“Okay, sure.” Arden snatches her bag. “By the way, if you don’t want other people knowing your deep dark shit, don’t leave every one of your desk and bureau drawers open.”
Mallory falters, her anger slipping away. A chill licks her neck. “What?”
“Don’t worry. I put everything back before Raf came over.” Arden starts for the door. “Imagine that: a best friend you can trust.”
Mallory glances in the mirror, mind racing. She wouldn’t leave her drawers open like that. But someone did.
Or something.
After Arden leaves, she stares at the dull, grayish tint of her skin. Her bangs fall flat on her forehead, brown hair stringy and unwashed. Shadows gather beneath her eyes, lips cracked and raw. You look half dead.
Maybe she is. Slowly being coaxed toward death until her body is identical to her mother’s, lifeless and ripped apart.
A clicking snags her attention, and Mallory turns just in time to see a stall open—
Where Saskia emerges. “Did you hear all that?” Mallory asks, and Saskia nods, crossing to the sink.
Mallory studies Saskia as she washes her hands. Her wintery hair is pulled back in a little ponytail, and she’s dressed casually in a ribbed T-shirt and wide-leg jeans, making Mallory feel out of place in her Juliet nightgown.
“I’m not a bad friend,” Mallory blurts, and Saskia tilts her head at her in the mirror.
“I’m sure you’re not.”
“And I’m not—” She swallows. “I’m not the kind of person who sleeps with a director for a role.”
Saskia reaches for a paper towel, eyebrows raised. “Noted.”
“Just—don’t tell anyone what you heard, okay?”
For a moment, Saskia’s quiet, holding Mallory’s stare as she carefully dries her hands. Finally, she tosses the towel in the trash and replies, “I won’t say a word.”
Saskia starts for the door.
“Wait.” Mallory doesn’t mean to say it. But she’s suddenly struck with the urge not to be alone, not when this crushing isolation is threatening to consume her whole.
“Who,” she whispers, “is Lily?”
Saskia freezes, a hand on the doorknob. “I told you. I was wrong about that.”
“You said I looked like her,” Mallory presses. “Is she someone from home? High school?”
Saskia shakes her head. “I don’t want to talk about this.”
“A former classmate?” Mallory tries, taking a step forward. “Someone you did theater with?”
Saskia’s gaze skitters around the room as she answers. “No.”
Mallory walks closer, and Saskia steps back, her spine connecting with the door.
“Saskia,” Mallory says, “is Lily even a person at all?”
At that, Saskia’s jaw tightens at the corners.
Mallory inhales sharply. She’s so close, so close to something. She can feel it—an answer, a clue, a puzzle piece. “Saskia, please—”
“She was a person,” Saskia says finally. “Once.”
Mallory’s eyes widen. “Because she’s dead, right?”
Saskia’s attention floats toward the mirrors. Every muscle in her face flattens into fear. “Not really,” she says. “She’s standing right behind you.”
Mallory whirls. She follows Saskia’s terrified stare toward the mirror, into the shadows pooling in the fluorescent reflection. She blinks once. Twice.
The third time, the woman in white slips into view.
She looms in the distance, husked beneath the ashy dark. The shape of her is murky, like she’s obscured behind smoke, but it’s her: Long, stringy hair. Face like a bees’ nest. White dress, her chest a mess of blood. Just like Mallory’s mother.
Just like Mallory might be one day.
Mallory’s breath rushes out as the realization catches up to her. “You can see her, too.”
And with the slightest tilt of Saskia’s nod, it’s as though the floor has ripped open beneath Mallory’s feet, creating a chasm with a million new questions.
But then Saskia says something else. And Mallory’s world shifts again.
“I’ve been scared of her,” Saskia whispers, “my entire life.”