Chapter 15
Mallory sits on Thorne Hall’s front steps beside Saskia and stares at the blueprints, trying to comprehend what they’re telling her.
Above, the sky has turned a deep gray, storm clouds circling the horizon.
The gentle morning breeze has evolved to a leaf-rustling wind, and Mallory tugs the hem of Ezra’s sweatshirt closer to the thigh-high socks she threw on before rushing outside.
But it doesn’t do anything to ease the chill, the word morgue looming like a threat.
“Lily’s corpse would have been kept right here,” Mallory murmurs, thinking of last night’s dream. “It’s like she never left.”
Saskia studies her. When she speaks, her voice is soft. “Mal, maybe you shouldn’t sleep in this dorm anymore.”
Mallory raises her head. “How did you know I was here to begin with?”
“I tried calling your cell,” she says. “When you didn’t answer, I went by your room. Arden said I should try here.”
Mallory swallows and glances back at the blueprints to numb the reminder of her fight with Arden, focusing instead on the drawing of the sanitarium. She frowns, spotting something narrow and snakelike sketched beside it, leading toward a different building.
A building labeled with a cross.
“Is this the chapel?” Mallory mutters, pointing.
Saskia tips her head, hair spilling between them. “It has to be.”
Mallory analyzes the skinny shape between the chapel and the sanitarium, mind racing. And then it hits her—
“Oh my god,” she says. “Saskia, I was in the chapel the other day, and I could have sworn I heard footsteps coming from below. I thought I imagined them, because the chapel is only one level, right?” She smacks the blueprints. “Wrong. There’s a tunnel. Underground.”
Saskia’s eyes widen.
“There must be a secret basement somewhere,” Mallory continues. “But why would there be a tunnel between those buildings to begin with?”
“From the sanitarium to the chapel?” Saskia echoes. “To transport dead bodies discreetly for funerals, I’d bet.”
Mallory thinks of her dream again. The flashing righteousness in Rebecca’s eyes when she promised to protect Lily’s grave, the way seeing her was like looking in a mirror. The way she could practically taste Rebecca’s frustration, the indignation pooling behind her teeth.
“Saskia,” Mallory says, “I have to tell you something.”
Saskia leans back on her hands. “I’m listening.”
“I haven’t confirmed it yet, but”—Mallory bites her lip—“Lily and I are related. That’s why she looks like me. Why you thought I was her. She’s my ancestor. And I think her daughter, Rose, was the beginning of my family’s legacy at Shore.”
Saskia stares at her, eyes rounded. “Holy shit. How did you find that—”
“I also think,” Mallory continues, cutting her off, “that every woman in every generation afterward died in a way that mimics what happened to Lily’s corpse. By stabbing themselves in the heart. Like you said in the library—it’s some kind of curse.”
Saskia considers this. “But why would someone put a curse on their own family?”
Mallory falls quiet, recalling the bone-chill when she heard Rebecca say the name Jacob with such venom. The way she gestured to the line of blood-soaked women and hissed, Do you see what’s been done to them all?
“Maybe,” Mallory starts, “we’ve been thinking about this the wrong way. I always thought Lily was the source of my mother’s suffering. Of my own torment. But maybe she isn’t in control at all. Maybe someone put the curse on her.”
“But why? And who?”
Mallory thinks of her other nightmares, the men in bird masks chanting around a fire. Like they were casting a spell.
Or summoning something.
“I don’t know. I think there are major pieces we’re still missing.”
“Wait, wait.” Saskia leans forward, elbows on her knees. “How did you come to this conclusion, anyway? About Lily being your ancestor?”
Mallory’s gaze falters, realizing there’s no way to explain this without also telling Saskia about Ezra. She thinks of Arden’s voice in the greenroom—Do you have any idea what people are saying about you?—and conjures a neutral expression to reply, “It’s too complicated to get into right now.”
Saskia examines her, as if she can see through her words. But she only offers, “Alright. Let’s get coffee and hit the library. Maybe we can find more—”
Mallory shakes her head. “I can’t leave.”
“You’re going to stay here?” Saskia’s eyebrows shoot up. “In the room that used to be a morgue?”
A roll of thunder punctuates her question, and Mallory apprehensively eyes the darkening clouds. “I need to warn Ezra. This room isn’t safe for him, either.”
Saskia’s expression shifts into understanding. The air suddenly seems thicker, and heat floods Mallory’s cheeks.
“We could meet before rehearsal,” Mallory rushes to say. “Or tomorrow after my morning psych class, or—”
“Easy, Nancy Drew,” Saskia says, cracking a smile.
“Before rehearsal is fine.” She slings her bag over her shoulder, glancing at the ivy-wrapped dormitory.
“For what it’s worth, I’m not judging you—you can quit blushing about it.
But if you don’t want people to know”—she reaches up, and Mallory’s breath hitches as Saskia brushes a reddened bruise below her ear—“you should probably cover this.”
Mallory stares back, shuffling through a flurry of emotions before landing on gratitude—at simply being seen without judgment.
Combined with another, more confusing warmth at the gentle press of Saskia’s fingers.
The way her hand lingers confidently, like Saskia has no issue touching her in a place that’s been branded by another person’s kiss.
“You keep these,” Saskia says, reaching for the blueprints. The first raindrops pelt the stone steps as she adds, “In case you need an escape route.”
Two hours later, Ezra still hasn’t returned to Thorne Hall.
The sky has cracked open, unleashing a raging storm.
Sheets of rain cascade down the windows, turning the world outside a blur of gray and black.
Mallory paces the shadowed dorm, her steady calm replaced by mounting worry.
Every clap of thunder sends her pulse spiking, and when the lights start flickering, her apprehension morphs into panic.
She shouldn’t be here.
Just as she begins contemplating running to the theater in the storm, the door opens and Ezra steps through, shaking out an umbrella. Mallory practically pounces on him.
“You have to change rooms,” Mallory blurts.
Ezra closes the door, blinking as he peels off his coat.
“What?”
She tugs the sleeves of his sweatshirt over her hands. “You can’t stay in this dorm, Ezra. It’s not safe. You could move off-campus. You could get an apartment, we could—”
“Whoa, whoa, slow down,” Ezra says, hands folding around her shoulders. He sweeps his gaze over her and smiles. “I like seeing you in my clothes.”
Mallory glances down, and for the first time registers what sweatshirt she’d grabbed.
All black, The Caligo Group written across the front in red cursive.
Her stomach twists, both at the reminder of Ezra’s future in London and the way he readily agreed to manipulate her for his father in order to get there.
She fleetingly wonders if the sting from feeling used will ever go away.
“This is important,” she says, swallowing the thought. “Neither of us can stay here anymore.”
Another grin tugs at his mouth, like he’s not sure if she’s joking. “And why is that?”
Mallory snatches the blueprints from his nightstand. “Thorne Hall used to be the actual sanitarium. Where they quarantined people who had tuberculosis during the eighteen hundreds. Look.”
He glances at the papers. Then back at her. “Okay?”
Mallory holds his gaze. “Ezra. Your room—the room we’re in right now? It was the morgue.”
Water pelts the windows as he stares back. “I’m not following you. Why would I need to leave?”
“Are you serious?” Delirious laughter bubbles from her mouth, and she gestures with the blueprints. “Ezra, Lily’s body was kept right here. You said it yourself—she wants revenge. We’re sitting ducks if we stay!”
Ezra reaches for her, disentangling the papers to place them on his desk. “Don’t you remember what we talked about? Places aren’t haunted. People are.” He brushes a strand of hair out of her face. “There’s nothing wrong with this room.”
The unspoken part lands between them. Just with me, she thinks bitterly, and she turns so he can’t see her hurt expression.
“If there’s nothing wrong with your room,” Mallory says, “then why does it get so cold in here? It smells like rotting meat sometimes. There are scratches on your walls! The nightmare I had last night—it wasn’t like the ones in my dorm. Something knocked above the bed, woke me up—”
“Jules, baby, stop—”
“And your clock!” She whirls, pointing. “It’s read 3:33 for days! Maybe I haven’t watched a million horror movies like you, but even I know what that means. It’s the hour of evil, right? It’s—”
The words evaporate on her lips.
Because the ruby-red numbers read 1:42 in the afternoon. She was sure they said 3:33 a moment ago, she was certain of it, she—
“Jules.” Ezra folds her into his arms. “Take a deep breath for me.”
Embarrassment pools inside her and she slips away to perch on the bed.
“Ezra,” she says, “can you tell me something real?”
For a moment, the steady rain is the only response. But then he kneels in front of her, palms resting on the outsides of her thighs.
“Something real,” he echoes, fingers grazing the bare skin above her socks.
“Alright. My favorite season is winter, but I never say that because no one is supposed to like winter. I had a black Lab named Orbit when I was a kid, and I used to take him for hour-long walks just to get out of my house. It helped a little. But then I always had to go back.”
She draws her lip between her teeth, pinned beneath his stare.