Page 61 of She Haunts Me Still

Frowning, Mallory grabs her bag. She rummages, finding her cell phone turned off. Her frown deepens. She doesn’t remember doing that.

“Sorry. What’s going on?” Mallory narrows her eyes. “Are those the blueprints from the library?”

“Yeah, and you need to see this.” Saskia peers into the dorm, a strange look on her face. “I can’t believe you’rehereof all places.”

Another wave of embarrassment floods her at the awareness that Saskia can see the rumpled bedsheets, her discarded clothes on the floor. Mallory steps closer to the window, blocking her view, but it just makes Saskia peer closer ather. Something unnameable flickers in her eyes as she registers Mallory’s flushed complexion and mussed hair. Mallory pushes away her discomfort to ask—

“What do you mean, ‘of all places’?”

“I couldn’t sleep, so I studied the blueprints,” Saskia replies. “I wanted to figure out which building used to be the actual sanitarium. So, I layered these two sketches together: the old one from the eighteen hundreds, and the one from today.” She jabs the paper. “Thorne Hall was the sanitarium. As in, the building you’re inright now.”

Mallory’s mouth falls open. “What—?”

“Andthisroom? Ezra’s dorm?” Saskia lifts a brow. “Do you want to know what it was used for?” She holds up the blueprints. “Look.”

Mallory glances at the two drawings, flicking back and forth between past and present. Her breath rushes out at what’s written just above Saskia’s finger. A word that turns her stomach and lights a fresh candle of fear inside her.

Six letters, one syllable.

M-O-R-G-U-E.

15

Mallory sits on Thorne Hall’s front steps beside Saskia and stares at the blueprints, trying to comprehend what they’re telling her. Above, the sky has turned a deep gray, storm clouds circling the horizon. The gentle morning breeze has evolved to a leaf-rustling wind, and Mallory tugs the hem of Ezra’s sweatshirt closer to the thigh-high socks she threw on before rushing outside. But it doesn’t do anything to ease the chill, the wordmorguelooming like a threat.

“Lily’s corpse would have been kept right here,” Mallory murmurs, thinking of last night’s dream. “It’s like she never left.”

Saskia studies her. When she speaks, her voice is soft. “Mal, maybe you shouldn’t sleep in this dorm anymore.”

Mallory raises her head. “How did you know I was here to begin with?”

“I tried calling your cell,” she says. “When you didn’t answer, I went by your room. Arden said I should try here.”

Mallory swallows and glances back at the blueprints tonumb the reminder of her fight with Arden, focusing instead on the drawing of the sanitarium. She frowns, spotting something narrow and snakelike sketched beside it, leading toward a different building.

A building labeled with a cross.

“Is this the chapel?” Mallory mutters, pointing.

Saskia tips her head, hair spilling between them. “It has to be.”

Mallory analyzes the skinny shape between the chapel and the sanitarium, mind racing. And then it hits her—

“Oh my god,” she says. “Saskia, I was in the chapel the other day, and I could haveswornI heard footsteps coming from below. I thought I imagined them, because the chapel is only one level, right?” She smacks the blueprints. “Wrong. There’s atunnel. Underground.”

Saskia’s eyes widen.

“There must be a secret basement somewhere,” Mallory continues. “But why would there be a tunnel between those buildings to begin with?”

“From the sanitarium to the chapel?” Saskia echoes. “To transport dead bodies discreetly for funerals, I’d bet.”

Mallory thinks of her dream again. The flashing righteousness in Rebecca’s eyes when she promised to protect Lily’s grave, the way seeing her was like looking in a mirror. The way she could practically taste Rebecca’s frustration, the indignation pooling behind her teeth.

“Saskia,” Mallory says, “I have to tell you something.”

Saskia leans back on her hands. “I’m listening.”

“I haven’t confirmed it yet, but”—Mallory bites her lip—“Lily and I are related.That’swhy she looks like me.Why you thought Iwasher. She’s my ancestor. And I think her daughter, Rose, was the beginning of my family’s legacy at Shore.”