Chapter 4
Soft midnight rain dampens the grass as Mallory returns to Fletcher Hall, grasping at the edges of a fresh plan: feign a family emergency, come up with a believable lie for Penelope, and get the absolute hell out of this school.
Regret simmers inside her as she hurries through the wrought iron gate, fog unspooling like scrawny fingers through the bars.
She was a fool to think she could slip into her mother’s old world and magically discover the reason behind her haunting, as though the Death of Jasmine Webb could be her academic major.
Some people’s entire lives are a secret, and so their death becomes one, too.
Mallory fishes for her keys but halts when a flash of white catches her eye.
A girl lurks at the edge of the brick building, near the courtyard, peering around the corner.
It’s eerie, the way the light from a nearby streetlamp hits her, like she’s otherworldly.
She’s wearing an ivory slip that’s the same shade as her shoulder-length hair, which seems to shimmer like a halo beneath the slope of the moon.
Her features are sharp and angular, with high cheekbones that glow against cream-toned skin and widened, feral eyes.
Eyes that are trained directly on Mallory.
Her pulse skips. For a moment, Mallory thinks back to orientation, her tour guide’s warning about ghosts after nightfall.
So many people took their final, bloody breaths here, he’d said dramatically as they walked through the lush gardens.
Shore may be a school now, but when it was a sanitarium, it was the last place patients lived. Some say they never left at all.
When the tour was over and the guide made his rounds to answer questions, Mallory worked up the courage to ask: Is it true? That Shore’s haunted?
But he only smiled. Let’s just say you don’t spend four years here without seeing a thing or two that makes you question reality.
Mallory knew better than to tell a stranger she’d been questioning everything her entire life, that her world had been ripped apart at the seams by something supernatural long ago. So instead, she’d simply thanked him, tucking his words away for a moment like this.
Staring at a ghostly figure in the night, wondering if she’s real.
Mallory should feel fear as she peers at the white-haired girl, but instead, a strange familiarity creeps in. One that encourages her to call, “Hello?”
The girl jumps at Mallory’s voice and immediately darts away like a frightened rabbit.
“Hey, wait!” Mallory hurries after her, but the girl is faster, disappearing into the dark.
Mallory pauses in the courtyard’s arched entryway, gaze raking over the bubbling fountain and a willow tree in the distance.
Her focus settles on a stone raven adjacent to a bench.
It’s the third one she’s seen on campus so far, but something about it unsettles her.
As though it’s staring back, waiting to see what she’ll do next.
“Who were you talking to?”
Startled, Mallory whirls to find Ezra a few feet away.
He leans against the gate, coat fluttering in the misting breeze. Fog filters through the autumn leaves, kissing the laces of his boots.
“What the hell?” she clips instead of answering. “Did you follow me?”
“It would appear that way.”
Mallory sighs. “What do you want, Ezra?”
“To help.”
“Help with what?” Her eyes narrow. “And why?”
“Can’t a person just want to help someone?”
She shakes her head. “There’s always another reason.”
“Fine.” Ezra steps toward her, prompting her to take one back. “I went out on a limb for you after auditions, but this production isn’t just your matriculation show—it’s also my senior project. My grade is on the line, and you suddenly seem like a real wild card.”
Mallory squints again. “What do you mean, ‘went out on a limb’ for me?”
“Hendrix wanted to cast your roommate as Juliet and you as Nurse.” Ezra slips his hands into his pockets. “I convinced him it should be the other way around.”
She freezes. “Why would you do that?”
“ ’Cause I could tell Arden is the kind of girl who’s used to getting whatever she wants. You, on the other hand, are not.” His voice softens. “Made me think you deserve it more.”
“That’s not how it works!” Mallory exclaims, but his words automatically conjure images of Arden’s pristine bedroom in her parents’ town house.
Her expensive haircuts. The designer clothes she’d wear to church.
The way Mallory always felt like an imposter, infiltrating Arden’s picture-perfect life.
She forces the feeling away. “If Arden gave a better audition, she should’ve gotten the part. ”
“You both gave solid auditions. But Hendrix made it clear that if you fuck up, I’m just as fucked.
I’m already on thin ice because you lost your place a million times during the read-through.
And before you can say you were tired or up late studying, let me save you the trouble.
” Ezra examines her. “You’re scared of something. ”
“I…” Mallory’s eyes swoop away from his heated stare. It’s making her feel like a caged mouse in a lab.
“If you tell me what it is,” he continues, “maybe I can fix it, so this production doesn’t go down in flames before it starts.”
A laugh bubbles from her throat. “Trust me. You can’t fix this.”
“Only one way to find out.”
“Besides,” she barrels on, “I don’t even know you. What makes you think I’ll tell you anything?”
He quiets at that. “Alright. Something about me, then. I’ve been getting rare and severe ocular migraines since I was a kid.
First one happened in seventh-grade bio.
All of a sudden, the worksheet I was doing?
It disappeared. Everything turned white.
And there was this stabbing pain right behind my eyes.
Lost my shit in front of the whole class, spilled a beaker of chemicals on another kid.
No one would talk to me for months.” He steps closer again, but she doesn’t counter back this time.
“I know what it’s like to have things happen that you can’t explain.
To have everyone look at you like you’re crazy. ”
Mallory stares at him. “That’s different. A migraine has an explanation.”
“Not the kind I get,” Ezra replies. “What I’m trying to say is you’re not the only one who feels like they don’t belong.”
Her throat constricts at his words, the way they reach something soft and vulnerable inside her. A truth she’s spent years trying to avoid.
“I’ll trade you,” Ezra adds, and she swallows nervously.
“Trade?”
“A secret. One for one.”
Mallory hesitates, pulse racing at the idea of setting any secrets free.
She’s never talked about her past with anyone, not even Arden.
When they first met, Mallory said her mother had died from an illness.
When the world shows you at a young age you won’t be believed if you tell the truth, the consequence in the future is you keep things locked inside.
Any time Mallory even thought about letting Arden in, she’d find herself staring at the gold cross nestled at Arden’s collarbone.
A permanent reminder of the countless hours Arden spent in church, whispering away every trace of sin.
What would Arden think if she knew there was something evil dwelling in her best friend’s past?
Something that couldn’t be spirited away with a prayer or a splash of holy water?
As more time passed without her telling Arden the real story, it became harder and harder to confess. To explain her mother’s passing now would mean admitting she’d lied every day for the past six years. A death knell in a friendship based on them against the world.
“What do you think?” Ezra holds out a hand. “Do we have a deal?”
The no is on the tip of her tongue. But for a second, she contemplates how it would feel to say the words out loud. If sharing her worst secrets with a stranger would hurt less than saying them to a friend whose love she could so easily lose.
Before she can talk herself out of it, Mallory slides her narrow hand into his broad one, and neurons fire in her brain at the stark awareness of how much of her he’s able to grip at once.
Mallory follows Ezra into the courtyard to an iron bench beneath a sprawling oak tree. She tugs her sleeves over her hands, fingers chilled from the cold.
“When I was seven,” Ezra starts, “I stole a pack of cigarettes from my babysitter.”
A nervous laugh breaks loose. “That’s your deep dark secret?”
“Not even close.” Ezra darts his knee into hers. “C’mon, theater major, don’t you recognize a warm-up?”
“Right.” She rolls her eyes but grins anyway.
“As I was saying, I hid them for weeks until she forgot they were missing.” The smirk returns to his face. “Then I sold ’em to older kids on my block. For five bucks a cigarette.”
“Wow,” Mallory says, stifling another laugh.
“My dad found out, and he wasn’t even mad. He was like, ‘That’s how you turn a profit, son!’ ” Ezra drags a hand over one eye. “Joke was on me, though, ’cause that’s when he decided I was destined to join his real estate business, and it didn’t matter a damn what I actually wanted.”
The laughter dies on Mallory’s lips at Ezra’s abrupt change in tone.
“Your turn,” he says before she can ask any questions.
She fixes her eyes on the yawning hedges, the stretch of brick reaching toward the sky.
“Arden and I snuck vodka into prom last year,” Mallory admits.
“We poured it in water bottles and drank in front of the chaperones. I think that was the most thrilling part—breaking a rule in plain sight.” She dares a glance back at him.
“The joke was on me, too. I spent the rest of the night puking in the bathroom.”
His eyes flick over her, as if the confession has changed the shape of her somehow. She suddenly feels warm despite the bitter autumn air.