Chapter 21 #2
Mallory peers up at the ghost light, recalling the winter evening in seventh grade when she first noticed how her drama teacher always left the lone bulb burning in the quiet.
The ghost light chases away bad spirits, he explained, and provides solace to the benevolent ones.
It’s good luck to keep a theater a little bit aglow.
“You must think I’m weird,” Saskia says with a laugh, misinterpreting her silence.
Mallory shakes her head. “Not even close.”
Saskia’s nose wrinkles playfully. “I mean, to be fair. I am weird.”
“Well, so am I.”
Saskia laughs again. “Like calls to like.” She looks back at the light, expression smoothing into something serious.
“I wish I’d met you sooner. You get me, you know?
Growing up, I always felt so invisible. People either forget I exist, or they project what they want to see onto me.
But”—she turns, looking almost shy—“you see me the way I see me. When I talk to you, I feel like a whole person. I feel like myself.”
Dust dances at the corners of Mallory’s vision. “There’s a specific kind of loneliness that comes with not being seen,” she says softly. “It can wear you down. Make you afraid that you’ll be forgotten, that you’ll live your entire life and no one will ever really know who you are.”
Saskia’s gaze turns thoughtful, as though Mallory has spoken her own fears out loud, too. But then her lashes drop, a soft, low tone creeping into her voice. “Do you want to be known, Mal?”
Mallory flushes at the way she asks it. Like it’s less of an existential question and more a code for something else. She nods anyway, focus slipping to Saskia’s full, pink lips, and fleetingly wonders what she’d do if she kissed her right here.
The question jumbles her feelings even more.
She’s not even close to healing from the whiplash of Ezra’s actions; just days ago, her thoughts were infected with fantasies of him.
Mallory never predicted she could feel this way about two different people, emotions overlapping like fallen leaves, yet here she is.
Looking at Saskia and unable to quell the burning curiosity of what her mouth might taste like.
Of what the rest of her might taste like, too.
Maybe there are infinite ways to fall for someone. Ezra lit something explosive and feral inside her, and she fell fast, hard, all at once. The crash was inevitable, only one way down. But with Saskia, maybe falling would feel more like flying, like maybe she’d never touch the ground at all.
“Well.” Saskia studies her. “Want to get out of here? Luxuriate in some light evening reading of obituaries and female rage?”
Mallory cracks a smile before rummaging through her bag for the planchette.
“I have to show you something first. Hendrix said he found this in the prop loft. He thought it was mine. But I think it belongs to Ezra.”
Saskia’s eyes widen. “Shit.” She takes the object, examining it. “This is what mediums used in, like, the eighteen hundreds. What the hell would Ezra be doing with one of these?”
Mallory shakes her head. “I don’t know. Sometimes it seems like Ezra’s looking for the same answers we are, also racing against some invisible clock.”
“Like he’s afraid of what might happen if he’s too late,” Saskia agrees.
“And another thing.” Mallory reaches into her bag for the letter Rebecca wrote to that woman named Catherine. “I think Rebecca knew that Lily’s heart was being used for something…evil. She was trying to protect her, even after it happened.”
Saskia studies the letter. “So much still doesn’t add up. There must be a thread we’re missing.”
“One that connects Ezra’s family to Lily somehow,” Mallory says. “More than just Shore’s campus being built over her grave. His father is way too interested in her—and me—for this to be anything but personal.”
“Not to mention,” Saskia says, “what all of this has to do with me.”
Mallory looks at her. “Is it weird to say I’m happy Lily’s visited us both, even if we can’t figure out why?”
“Maybe a little. Given she’s fucking terrifying.” Something shifts between Saskia’s lashes. “But weird finds weird, remember?”
Holding Saskia’s gaze, Mallory summons a wisp of bravery, finding once again that it’s easier to grasp when she’s next to her. A tangible thing she can wrap her fingers around, press into her palm. Wield it like a magical object that connects the living to the dead.
“Victor’s gala is next week—the same day as opening night. We need to figure this out by then.”
Saskia frowns. “Why then?”
“Ezra’s dad knows I’m Lily’s bloodline. He knows I’m the one who’ll die next.
” Mallory sinks her teeth into her lip. “I think he wants to make sure I do. He was so insistent I attend—I think he’s planning something.
I just don’t know why the curse is so important to him.
” She studies the planchette. “But maybe if we go back to the beginning, we can find out.”
Saskia lifts an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”
“Let’s ask Lily,” Mallory says, “what she knows.”
The prop loft is tucked behind the curtains, accessible only by a thin, foldable ladder. Since the start of the semester, the entire area has been sealed off with a colossal X made from painter’s tape, daring to be ignored.
Mallory carefully peels back the end of the blue tape before pulling on the chain, unfolding the ladder as quietly as possible, hoping not to alert any custodial staff of the sound.
The ladder releases a cloud of dust with a rumbling sigh.
Saskia tugs on the sides, testing its weight, before starting up the narrow passage.
The wood groans beneath her sneakers, and disquiet creeps into Mallory’s stomach as she follows.
They crawl into the loft, and Saskia flips on the light, casting the faintest glow over the cramped space. The ceiling is so low that neither of them can fully stand, and when Mallory runs her hand over the shelves, a film of dirt lingers on her fingertips.
“You have a lighter, right?” Mallory asks as she tugs on a bin marked Candles.
Saskia produces one from her bag while Mallory rummages for three pearlescent votives, arranging them in a triangle on the floor. Saskia kneels to light them, and Mallory finds the wall switch, plunging the alcove into a coral glow.
“Do you know how to use this thing?” Saskia asks.
“Theoretically,” Mallory says, thinking of séances she’s seen in movies as she digs in her bag for a notebook and pencil.
She tears a page loose, then slides the pencil carefully through the hole in the heart-shaped wood before crouching.
“We put the planchette on paper and then ask questions. If Lily hears us, she’ll write an answer.
Like a Ouija board, but with actual words. ”
For a moment, Mallory contemplates whether they might need a gift, if she should whisper that Latin phrase again.
But then she thinks about Lily’s hardened eyes, the blaze of her soulless stare.
Deep down, she’s certain Lily doesn’t need to be bribed, that there’s something she’s desperate for Mallory to know.
Saskia hesitates. “You really think this will work? I mean, we’re not mediums.”
“It might.” Mallory places the planchette onto the paper. “It might not.”
“Feels a bit like playing Light as a Feather or Bloody Mary.”
“Worst-case scenario, we leave with no more answers than we have now.”
“That’s the worst-case scenario?” Saskia lifts an eyebrow. “Seems to me the worst-case scenario would be accidentally opening a portal to hell or something.”
Mallory smiles wryly, gently touching her choker necklace. “Honestly, that might be preferable at this point.”
With a soft laugh of agreement, Saskia places her fingers atop the planchette, nails grazing Mallory’s hands. “Alright, Nancy Drew. I’ll play along.” She lowers her lashes, a tranquil expression softening her face. “Is there anyone here with us?”
For the longest time, nothing happens. The flames crackle at their thighs. Saskia’s fingers brush hers again. Mallory waits for her to move, but she leaves them overlapping instead.
And then, the planchette lurches with a warning scratch.
Mallory peeks to find the pencil scraping the paper and her jaw falls open.
The planchette’s journey is languid and uneven, rattling beneath their hands. An acerbic breeze claws at Mallory’s skin while a pungent, sour scent pierces her nostrils, bordering on rot. Her stomach flips, that queasy feeling returning, and she struggles to ignore it.
Just as the pencil works out a sharp, messy YES.
“Holy shit,” Saskia whispers, and the air turns even colder. She moves the planchette to a fresh spot on the paper. “What’s your name?”
The wooden object jerks again. Mallory already suspects what it’s going to say, but she holds her breath anyway as it spells out L-I-L-Y.
The letters all rush together, like tipped dominoes.
Mallory thinks of her mother’s grocery list notepad, those scribbles over the medical records.
As if Lily has been waiting for years to be invited to speak.
The flames sway. The floorboards hiss. Mallory swallows and glances back down.
“Were you buried here?” YES.
“Did someone do something to your grave? To your body—your heart?” YES.
Mallory bites her lip. Sweat trickles along her spine. “Was his name Jacob?” YES.
Saskia narrows her eyes. “Did he want your heart for something bad? Something evil?”
At that, the planchette halts. An even deeper cold settles into the loft.
Saskia frowns. “She doesn’t like that question.”
“Why not?” Mallory whispers. “This seems like the thing she’d want us to know. There’s no reason not to tell us. Unless…unless she can’t. Because of the curse? Or…because someone won’t let her?” She flexes her fingers. Her pulse starts to race. “Lily, how many souls are in this room?”
The planchette hesitates.
Then, a fast scrape of 4.