Page 30 of She Haunts Me Still
Heart pounding, she clicks, and her eyes widen at the faded clipping.
Mrs. Lily Ann Hubbard (née Clark), beloved wife of Tobias, died of consumption at Shoreview Sanitarium on June 12, 1890. She is survived by her sister, Rebecca Clark; and her daughter, Rose.
Mallory reads it a few times before it registers.
Shoreview Sanitarium.
The gasp that follows draws stares from the students around her, but she barely notices. Because Lily didn’t just live in this state, or in this town. She diedright hereon this campus. When Shore College was a sanitarium.
Mallory thinks of her tour guide’s words about lingering ghosts, Professor Golden’s voice the night of auditions:Today, Shore is a place to think, but decades ago, it was a place to survive.
But Lily didn’t survive at all.
Mallory navigates back to the search engine, typing:Shoreview, Rhode Island cemetery tuberculosis 1890. She’s not sure what to expect, but it’s certainly not the headlines that follow.
VAMPIRE HYSTERIA GRIPS NEW ENGLAND TOWN
TUBERCULOSIS OR VAMPIRE INFECTIONS?
BODIES REMOVED FROM THEIR GRAVES OVERNIGHT
“What?” Mallory breathes. She clicks a headline dated 1896, titledGRISLY SUPERSTITION PERSISTS THROUGHOUT NEW ENGLAND.
Townsfolk have been digging up bodies of deceased relatives at Shoreview Sanitarium and burning their hearts. They believe those dead from consumption are leaving their graves and drinking the blood of living family members—unless their hearts are removed and set aflame.
The words blur as her pulse thrums in her ears. How has she never heard about this?
This phenomenon is not limited to Rhode Island. At least twenty incidents have been documented throughout New England between 1793 and 1892. Those partaking in this practice believe that consumption is not a physical disease but a spiritual one, and if the deceased still has blood in their heart after death, it means evil lurks there and must be destroyed.
The room seems to tilt. “ ‘The burnings are reportedly performed like a ritual,’ ” Mallory whispers, determined tomake it through the rest. “ ‘Living family members are said to gather while corpses are dismembered, their hearts burned. Some families allegedly breathe in the ashes afterward, as added protection from evil.’ ”
Corpses dismembered. Hearts burned.
She thinks again of her nightmare—the cloaked men, the masks. The raging bonfire. The rock with the dripping red heart.
The stab wound through her mother’s chest. The emergency official’s words.It’s like she was trying to cut out her own heart.
It can’t be a coincidence.
Mallory types in another search:vampires, New England.The screen fills with article after article describing the same thing—exhumed graves, burning hearts, all throughout the Northeast. Manchester, Vermont, 1793. Plymouth, Massachusetts, 1807. Saco, Maine, 1862.
And Shoreview, Rhode Island, 1799, 1827, 1874, 1890.
As though her hometown has been the capital city of this secret all along.
She shuts down the computer and scrambles to her feet, snatching her bag. She has to find Ezra. Maybe she can catch him before rehearsal—
She halts.
There, among the shelves, is the girl from the courtyard.
She’s peering at Mallory through the book spines, a wisp of wintery hair falling over her forehead. Unlike the other night, she’s dressed in normal clothes. Jeans and a flannel, hair pulled back in clips. For a moment, Mallory is derailed by how pretty she looks in the muted light, the lamp illuminating her peach-toned cheekbones and full, pink mouth.But it’s only a second before she clocks the girl’s curious stare, the way she’s crouched behind the shelf, like she’s been watching this whole time.
“Hey,” Mallory whispers as she approaches. “I can see you!”
The girl spins and hurries down the aisle, but this time, Mallory is right at her heels. She trails her through the shelves, between desks, and into the back stairwell, where the white-haired girl flies down the stone steps. Mallory matches her pace, chasing her through the double doors at the library’s rear entrance.
“I just want to talk!” Mallory calls.
