Page 26 of She Haunts Me Still

“You want to light those downhere?” She points to the wooden planks above them. “Are you trying to burn this place to the ground?”

“It’ll be fine.” Ezra produces the silver lighter from his front pocket. “Did you bring it?”

Mallory sighs and reaches into her bag for the lock of hair and bloodstained ribbon. He gestures to the table, and she lays it next to the candle before tugging off her coat.

“I don’t think we should be doing this,” she adds, watching as Ezra draws a new chalk circle on the floor. “Besides possible arson, now we’re messing with props, a theatrical sin.”

“You sound like a stage manager.” Ezra repositions a velvet chaise next to the circle, smirking. “Tell me something, Jules. Are you always this much of a good girl?”

There’s no way to ignore the heat in her stomach at that. Without answering, Mallory snatches the lighter, setting all three candles ablaze. She drops onto the sofa, sending a cloud of cobwebs askew.

“Are we having another séance?” she clips.

“Not exactly.” Ezra sits beside her. “Think of it as a game. About death.”

Mallory stares at him. Above the amber spill of the candles, his features are knife sharp, a discordant mix of angelic and skeletal. In this moment, he looks like someone who doesn’t fear death because it’s already inside him.

She flexes her fingers nervously. “What’s the game?”

“There’s an idea among some mediums,” Ezra starts, “that if you’re having trouble accessing the other side, you should try invoking the dead closest to you. Emotionally speaking, that is.”

Mallory arches a brow. “Let me guess. Another book you read?”

“Not this time.” Ezra’s lips twitch in a smile. “Saw it on an episode ofAre You Afraid of the Dark?”

“Honestly,” she says, but his grin is infectious, and she can’t help but smile, too. “Alright, then. Let’s call this meeting of the Midnight Society to order.”

Ezra’s eyes glitter in unexpected amusement, and for a moment, she’s able to forget why they’re down here in the first place, wanting only to find a million more ways to get him to grin at her like that.

But then he asks, “Have you ever seen a dead body before?” and the warmth flutters away.

She stiffens. “Yes.”

“Me, too.” He reaches into his bag again, brandishing a sheet of paper. He tears it, handing her one half, then grabs the pencil tucked behind his ear from rehearsal. “Write the name of that person and fold it up.”

Apprehension fills her. “I don’t…I don’t want to.”

Ezra leans closer, and her breath thins at the press of hishand on her knee. She doesn’t have to look to know that his palm dwarfs her leg, that if he were to slide higher, his fingers would stretch across the entire width of her thigh. Her cheeks warm as she finds his gaze.

“You can do this,” Ezra says, his expression serious.

Mallory slowly takes the pencil and scrawls her mother’s name in loopy cursive.

“Now what?” she asks.

“Now we switch. Read mine.”

The sheet crinkles loudly as she unfolds it. “Celia Pierce. Who’s that?”

“My grandmother.” Ezra hooks one arm over the back of the sofa. “I was a kid—seven, maybe eight.”

“Like…at her funeral?”

Ezra shakes his head.

“At the hospital?” she tries. “Were you in the room? When she died?”

He nods, and the air suddenly feels a bit colder, the room a shade darker.