Page 11 of She Haunts Me Still

“Definitely.”

Mallory watches Arden leave, the door clicking behind her. In the quiet, the remnants of her dream wash over her, carrying a flood of nostalgia. Kiki appeared in her subconscious the exact way Mallory remembers her—frozen at five years old. Limbs kissed with plum bruises, a blue teddy bear in the crook of her arm. Mallory’s mother and Kiki’s mother were best friends, too, and the four of them spent so much time together—dinners, holidays, vacations—they might as well have lived in a world of their own.

But after Mallory’s mother died, Kiki’s mom wouldn’t let them play together anymore, as though death was contagious and Mallory was irreversibly infected.

She never even got to say goodbye.

Pushing the thought away, Mallory turns to the drawerwhere she’d hidden her mother’s records. She retrieves them, flipping to the health center visits.

And sucks in a raw, confused gasp.

Nothing is legible. Instead, there’s one word written over and over, letters rushing together, consuming the careful cursive underneath.

HURT

“What…?” Mallory thumbs through the pages. Everything is covered in ink. All the notes, gone. That neurologist’s name and phone number, gone. All replaced withHURT HURT HURT HURT HURT HURT HURT HU—

“What the fuck?” She pushes both hands through her hair. “What thefuck? Wh—?”

She stops, catching sight of the uncapped black marker on her desk.

Her gaze slams to her hands. To the smudges on the sides.

“No. No, I didn’t do this. When would I have—”

The room swims as Mallory thinks of her mother’s notebook from Shore, that pad of lists in the blue house, the way her handwriting deteriorated into chaos over time. As though she wasn’t in control of what she was writing.

As if something else was.

Panicked fear overtakes her, and Mallory shoves the papers into the folder, stuffing the entire thing in her desk. Bloody hearts. Lily. Kiki.Hurt.

She wishes she could talk to her mother.You’re stronger than any ghost,her mother used to say.You exist inthisworld. You get to claim it for yourself.

Mallory drops to her bed, nonsensical questions racingthrough her. Do ghosts bide their time? Can a haunting return like a cancer?

She considers the idea of a patient spirit, satiated for more than a decade after driving one woman to her death. A wraith sleeping in the shadows, laughing maniacally as Mallory tried for years to assemble a ruse of normalcy.

Waiting for her time to run out. For it to be her turn.

Perhaps Shore was never going to offer answers about her mother.

Maybe Shore was always going to be her own reckoning.

At the read-through that evening, Mallory’s head is swimming with too many thoughts.

She sits between Arden and Raf at the table set up on the stage, barely able to concentrate. She rubs at her hand; the ink remains a stubborn stain.

“Juliet.” Hendrix’s voice cuts across the room. “It’s your line.”

“Sorry.” Mallory flips pages, an embarrassed blush warming her cheeks. “What scene?”

Raf leans over, pointing. On the periphery of Mallory’s vision, she notices Ezra straighten in his chair, his focus solely on her.

“One five,” Hendrix answers. “Romeo and Juliet’s tragic meet-cute—and perhaps your biggest challenge as actors. To convince an entire room not only that love at first sight exists but also that two people can cross paths and inherently knowthisis someone I would die for.” He gestures with his script. “This scene should be imbued with attraction, but it’s also a catalyst—death is set into motion from this moment on.”

The rest of the read-through passes in fits and starts. Mallory loses her place dozens of times, and by the end of the three-hour rehearsal, her palms are slick with sweat. This isn’ther. Last year, when she played Abigail inThe Crucible,she had her lines memorized in a week. She always dives headfirst into roles, whispering scripted words while doing her makeup in the morning, silently running them again while falling asleep. She’s not sure who this pathetic person is tonight, but she’s suddenly desperate to leave before Hendrix can pull her aside and say he’s made a grave error in casting her. But as she’s tugging on her coat, a voice drifts into the theater.

“Can I please see Romeo and Juliet and their understudies?”