Page 113 of She Haunts Me Still

“I’ve been calling and calling.” Saskia’s muffled words overlap with other voices in the background. “Was your phone on silent? Where were you? Whereareyou?”

“I’m—oh god.” Panic and despair collide as she absorbs the weight of what’s happening. Of what she’s just lost. “Did Hendrix—?”

“Hendrix flipped out,” Saskia says. “And I didn’t want to do it, Mal. I don’t feel so good. I’m hot, and the lights—I have a bad feeling. But I didn’t have a choice.” Her gasp is ragged, like it’s hard for her to breathe. “Hendrix told me to go on. As Juliet.”

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Blood rushes in Mallory’s ears as she flies up the theater steps. Her boots thud beneath her, wet hair freezing down her back. She slams into the stage door, gaze swinging wildly.

“Ay, those attires are best,” Saskia says from the stage. “But gentle Nurse, I pray thee leave me to myself tonight.”

Act 4.

The poison scene, Mallory realizes with a knot in her stomach.

Arden rests in a cushioned chair, boot peeking from beneath her cream-colored gown. Jessica stands in the center in her red Lady Capulet dress, her matching headpiece glittering in the washed gold around her. And Saskia—Saskia is onstage in the Juliet nightgown. She’s wearing a chestnut- brown wig, tied with a ribbon. From a distance, anyone might think it’s Mallory herself.

But under the lights, Saskia’s skin looks green yellow, and even with stage makeup, graying circles linger beneath her eyes. Her lips are cracked and red, and when she talks, her voice is a hoarse scrape.

Mallory whirls, rushing into the wings until she finds Paisley, their stage manager.

“Paisley,” she hisses, and the older girl’s eyes widen.

“Hendrixcannotsee you here,” she says. “I’ve never seen a grown man so pissed. Wait in the greenroom until curtain call.”

“No, no.” Mallory looks toward the stage. At the prop dagger next to the bed. “I can’t do that. Saskia is—she’s sick. I need to step in.”

Paisley laughs in disbelief. “Absolutely not. We can’t switch you in the middle of the show. Hendrix would have a fucking cow.”

“Give me ten minutes. I’ll dry my hair and throw on some makeup. Please, Paisley.” Mallory wills herself not to cry, searching for something another theater major might understand. “This ismyrole. I can do it.”

But Paisley only shakes her head.

“Mallory. Girl. Can I give you a little advice?” Her walkie-talkie crackles at her hip; she ignores it. “Juliet is a dream role—I get it. But theater is a cold, ruthless place. It’s performance. It’s art. It doesn’t give anounceof a shit about your feelings. So, you show up. You play the game, and if you’re lucky, you learn to take your own emotions out of the mix. Eventually, it becomes less personal.”

Paisley’s words poke at something soft and vulnerable inside her. Theater will always be personal for her—it’s the only place she’s ever felt comfortable in her own skin. She’s no one without it.

Even if after tonight, she might not be anyone at all.

“I know,” Mallory says, scrambling to reclaim the urgency she arrived with, “but Saskia is really sick. You don’t understand—”

A murmur from the audience snags Mallory’s attention, and she whirls—

Saskia perches on the prop bed onstage, staring into the lights. Her back is rigid as a wooden plank, her arms robotically tipped in front of her.

But her eyes—her eyes are milk white. No color, no darkened pupils. Just like when Mallory found her with the knife.

Just like her mother’s eyes the day she died.

“No,” Mallory chokes out, gaze flying to the prop dagger. “Paisley, we need to cut the lights.”

Paisley glares. “Absolutely not. I need to go back to the booth. And if you know what’s good foryou,you’ll go to the greenroom.”

“Paisley!” Mallory pleads, but it’s useless. The older girl turns, disappearing into the shadows.

She swings her gaze back to Saskia, just as she starts her final soliloquy.

Except the voice that spills out isn’t hers.