Page 114 of She Haunts Me Still

It’s deeper. Older. Gravelly and rusted, as though it hasn’t been used in years. Yet Mallory has heard it before. Screeching in the shadows of Thorne Hall. Hissing beneath hospital lights. Whispering in strips of moonlight many years ago.

It’s Lily.

“How if,” the dead woman inside Saskia continues, “when I am laid into the tomb, I wake before the time that Romeo come to redeem me?”

Mallory frantically looks around and around, spotting Raf and Arden in the wings. They’re staring at Saskia in horror.

“What’s wrong with her eyes?” Raf whispers as Mallory rushes to their side.

“Why is she sitting like that?” Arden asks.

“I—”

Mallory’s words evaporate as Saskia cocks her head, peering almost sideways at the audience. Her skin, which had previously had a green tint, appears almost gray beneath the circular spotlight. And then, a trail of blood starts trickling from her nose.

A soft buzz spreads through the crowd.

“Or, if I live, is it not very like the horrible conceit of death and night.” Saskia reaches for the dagger, arm moving rigidly, as though invisible strings are tugging on her from the rafters. But not forcing her movements—holding her back instead.

Mallory suddenly thinks of Lily, listed in her medical chart as her emergency contact. Lily, forcing her hand to write Ruth Golden’s name, forcing her mother to write things, too. Lily, cryingYou will diein the liminal shadows of Mallory’s mind. None of it was a threat.

It was awarning.

Lily wasn’t just her mother’s ghost, appearing by chance to Mallory in windows and mirrors simply because she was a child. Her visits were deliberate. Meticulous. Because Mallory isthe seventh one—the one who could end a multigenerational chain of devastation, set into motion against Lily’s will a hundred years ago. This entire time, Lily was never the enemy, never someone to be afraid of. She never wanted to hurt Mallory, just like she isn’t trying to hurt Saskia right now. She’s trying to help her.

She’s trying tostopher.

Before she’s compelled to carve out her own heart on this fucking stage.

“Cut the lights,” Mallory says, whirling to address the nearest crew member. “Did you hear me? Tell them to cut the lights!”

But they start flickering instead.

“What’s happening?” Arden grabs her wrist. “What’shappening,Mal?”

Mallory’s pulse spikes as she thinks of that library book, the section on signs of demonic activity.Electricalmalfunctions. Around her, other cast members are whispering, peering through the curtains. A new alarm trills in her ear at the possibility of this secret bursting from its confines and baring its teeth to a world that isn’t ready to see.

“Alack, alack,” Lily screeches from the stage, “is it not like that I, so early waking, what with loathsome smells—”

“There’s no time to explain. We have to get her offstage.” Mallory cuts Arden a tentative, desperate glance. “I need your help. Both of you.”

Arden just looks at the strobing lights, fingers unconsciously clasped around her cross. Even Raf’s eyes have gone round in disbelief.

“O, if I wake, shall I not be distraught!” Lily barks. “Environed with all these hideous fears, and madly play with my forefathers’ joints?”

“Please.” Mallory places her hands on Arden’s shoulders. “Saskia is in danger.Please—”

A distinct thumping steals her pleas, punctuated by a collective, surround-sound gasp.

Mallory’s gaze snaps back to the stage.

Where Saskia is rhythmically thrusting the blunt end ofthe prop dagger against her chest, in time with the remaining words of her soliloquy.

“And”—thump, thump—“in this rage, with some great kinsman’s bone”—thump, thump, slash—“as with a club, dash out my desperate brains?”

Terror soars in Mallory’s bones at the distinct sounds of the impact, amplified by Saskia’s microphone.

“No, no—Saskia—!”