Page 29 of She Haunts Me Still

Ezra shakes his head. “Put what together?”

She drags her gaze back to his.

“The ghost’s name is Lily. Someone stole her body from her grave.” She stares at him, eyes wild. “And then they cut out her heart.”

Act II

Exhumation

When I shall die,

Take him and cut him out in little stars,

And he will make the face of heaven so fine

That all the world will be in love with night.

—William Shakespeare,Romeo andJuliet

7

Mallory’s mother used to call this time of year “autumn’s bite,” when the air turns to frost and the last gasps of warm weather are used up all at once. Her mother would wake her in the morning, the bitter orange of deep fall pouring through the blinds, and whisper,Let’s dress warmly today.

The memory echoes as Mallory hurries down the tree-lined path through central campus. She attempts to conjure the exact curve of her mother’s voice around those words, and a familiar sadness fills her when she realizes she can’t quite remember.

Burying the thought, Mallory darts past Exeter Hall, turning at the lamppost to climb the wide stone steps toward the dome-roofed library. She has an hour between art history and rehearsal, and she’s determined to use it wisely.

When she returned to her dorm last night, Arden’s bed was empty. She’d left a note on a hot-pink Post-it—Staying at Raf’s!—the entire paper covered in hearts and smiley faces. But even in the thick silence, Mallory barely got any sleep. She twisted and turned for what felt like hours, thoughts skittering like mice.

Those men in the cloaks and masks—they took a womannamed Lily from her grave. They cut out her heart. Theyburnedit.

And she’s been wanting Mallory to know for years.

The realization is sobering. A broken woman, roaming the earth in the dark, desperate for someone to find out what happened to her. To be heard. For the first time, Lily’s rotting reflection feels less like a nightmare and more like looking at herself.

But with that sliver of understanding now comes a million new questions. What made Lily tellher? Why did Mallory’s mother die with a blade aimed at her own heart, a mirror image of what happened to Lily’s body after she died?

How can Mallory be sure she isn’t next?

Last night, she tried to quiet her mind by thinking about Ezra, but that only made her restlessness worse. In the dark, she gave herself permission to picture his mouth on hers, finding it all too easy to imagine him biting her lower lip, threading her hair in his fist. She thought about his ring-covered hands stroking her bare skin, sending a searing warmth between her thighs, until she had no choice but to slip her fingers beneath her shorts and—

No. She can’t think about that in thelibrary.

Mallory drops her bag onto a desk on the fourth floor, waking the computer. The small research nook is filled with a dusty glow from a banker’s lamp, and the only sound is soft clacking from other students’ typing nearby. Mahogany shelves loom, reaching toward the curved ceiling, and rows of leather-bound books seem to stare down at her.

Sitting, Mallory locates the search engine and types inLily A. Hubbard.

She scrolls. Nothing.

Trying again, she writes,Lily A. Hubbard obituary.

Nothing.

Chewing her lower lip, she tries,Lily A. Hubbard obituary Rhode Island.

This time, her breath catches.

Because the first link leads to the archives ofThe Shoreview Post-Gazette,the local newspaper.