Chapter 12 #2
“I first saw her when I went into remission,” Saskia says. “Mostly, she’s showed up in my dreams. But I’ve seen her sometimes in mirrors or windows. She’s only spoken to me twice. Once, to tell me her name.” She pauses. “And again to say, ‘It’s not meant for you.’ ”
Mallory’s face twists in confusion. “What’s not meant for you?”
“I have no idea,” Saskia admits. “But it happened the day I arrived here. You were right to say I’ve been on campus since the read-through.
I just wasn’t going to classes. I kept seeing you everywhere and thought you were her.
You realize you look just like her, right?
Without all the…decay?” She shivers. “It was easier to avoid you. Doctors’ notes are simple to forge. ”
Mallory falls quiet, thinking of her nightmarish reflection in the costume dungeon, the way she and Lily blended until she couldn’t tell them apart. Same dark hair. Same distant stare. How Lily’s bloodied chest had fit perfectly over her own. She curls her fingers inward.
In every fairy tale her mother told her, curses were always broken. Maybe hers can be, too.
“I think,” Mallory says softly, “it’s time to stop being so scared. We need to figure out why we can see Lily when no one else can and what the hell she’s trying to tell us.”
For a moment, Saskia looks surprised at Mallory’s confident tone but then nods in agreement, leaning back with a small smile.
“Alright, Nancy Drew,” Saskia replies, “let’s crack the case.”
The sky turns lavender as afternoon bleeds into twilight.
Mallory sits on the floor, flipping through plastic-covered pages of a binder labeled 1910, the year Shore College was founded.
Beside her, Saskia has a record of buildings and grounds documents.
For a while, the only sound is the turning of papers and the occasional clip of footsteps outside the archival room, until—
“Saskia,” Mallory says, nudging her. “Look at this. It’s a document detailing the official conversion of the sanitarium to Shore College, signed by all the investors. Do you see this name?”
“Tobias Hubbard.” Saskia squints. “Lily’s husband?”
“Yeah. I remember his name from her obituary. You’d think he’d want nothing to do with the place where his wife died, and yet…
” Mallory keeps reading. “Maybe this is why. It says that all the investors’ descendants would be guaranteed admission.
Lily’s obituary mentioned a daughter, Rose.
I wonder if she attended Shore.” She peers at her watch.
“The archives room closes soon. I’ll photocopy some class lists before we leave. ”
“We’ll want to make copies of these, too,” Saskia says, tapping the blueprints in her lap.
Mallory glances. “Did you find something?”
“I think so.” Saskia turns the binder. “Look at this.”
“That’s the library,” Mallory says, pointing at one of the sketches. “And these are the gardens. The hedge maze.”
“Yeah.” Saskia flips a couple of pages. “And if I’m reading this correctly, this is the land before the gardens were constructed. Look. They actually built the hedge maze over a cemetery.”
But Mallory barely hears the confirmation, too busy staring at the drawing. Little rows of squares, side by side. Recognition flashes inside her brain.
Her mother’s notebook. The page in the back.
The lines sketched like a secret code. But it was never a code at all.
They were grave markers.
“Holy shit,” Mallory breathes. “My mom had a drawing that looked just like this. She must have been researching this exact thing. She was…” Mallory pushes a hand through her hair; she’s never been this close to something real before. “She must have been trying to find where Lily was buried.”
“I think,” Saskia says, “she was onto something.”
She shuffles the laminated pages, landing on an official-looking document with TOWN OF SHOREVIEW, RHODE ISLAND typed at the top, followed by SHORE COLLEGE EXPANSION, 1945.
“This is a land deed for the cemetery. The town sold the cemetery to a real estate company called Pierce Development Group in 1945. Looks like this is when they expanded the campus beyond the sanitarium building, adding dormitories, academic buildings, the theater—and the gardens.” Saskia cuts Mallory a glance.
“But why would a town sell a cemetery in the first place? Let alone permit someone to build on top of actual graves? Is that even legal? It’s almost like they were trying to get rid of it, or—”
“Cover something up,” Mallory finishes.
“Like the fact that the sanitarium’s graves had been desecrated.”
“It was probably a stain on the town’s history.”
“Wiped clean by a new institution.”
Their eyes lock, and the silence that follows forces Mallory to realize how close they’ve gotten on the floor.
One of Saskia’s knees rests on hers, a stretch of smooth, pale skin visible through her frayed jeans.
From the way Saskia’s sitting, her thin T-shirt pulls tight around her chest, offering the barest hint that she has nothing on underneath. Mallory blinks the awareness away.
But then, Saskia’s words sink in. The town sold the cemetery to a real estate company called—
“Wait,” Mallory blurts. “Did you say Pierce Development Group?”
“Yeah, why?”
Mallory’s gaze drops, thoughts racing until they land on a memory of Ezra’s voice in the swirling fog.
That’s when my dad decided I was destined to join his real estate business.
“No,” Mallory whispers. “That’s not possible.”
Saskia’s eyebrows pinch together. “What’s not possible?”
“Go back to the purchase of the cemetery.” Mallory’s heart pounds as Saskia flips the pages. “There. Stop.”
She leans over, barely noticing the brush of Saskia’s shoulders against hers this time.
Because she’s staring at a signature that reads Victor Pierce.
She thinks of the man in the chapel. His black leather gloves. His fingers on her throat.
I built this school.
The way he was tall with dark hair and light eyes, just like—
Ezra.
“Saskia,” she says, pointing. “You know Ezra Pierce, right? You did theater together? In Boston?”
“Yeah, why do you—” Saskia’s eyes widen. “Oh my god.”
“Tell me this is a coincidence,” Mallory begs. “Please.”
She shakes her head. “It’s not.”
“This can’t be true.” Mallory closes her eyes. “He’s not—”
“Victor,” Saskia says, “is Ezra’s father.”