Page 81 of She Haunts Me Still

“Furthermore,” Hendrix continues, “throughout Hell Week, Tech Week, whatever you want to name it—I don’t want to hear you call for line once. You’re going to be early for every rehearsal. You’re going to be on your A-game.”

She raises her gaze, stomach flipping.

She knows what’s coming next.

“If not, your understudy will take over,” he says. “You can decide if you want to have her ensemble role or step back from the production entirely. It’s up to you, but you might want to start thinking about a different major if this one proves too arduous for you.”

She bites down on her lip, hard, desperately trying to hold back tears.

“Theater,” Hendrix finishes, “is not for the faint of heart, Ms. Webb.”

His words sting in a way that will linger long after thisconversation ends. As if theater is something she’s merely dipping her toes into, rather than the one thing that’s made her feel alive her entire life. Mallory turns her head to the side. She won’t let him see her cry.

She thinks about orientation, that bloom of dangerous hope. The future tense of it all making success seem like a tangible thing, like it was patiently waiting for her in the seasons ahead. She thinks of Ezra outside the health center—Congrats, Jules—the way his eyes burned into hers in the courtyard as he told her she deserved this role. Maybe she doesn’t. Maybe she doesn’t deserve anything.

And with opening night falling on the same day as Victor’s gala, preparing to die as Juliet is starting to feel a lot like preparing to die in real life, too.

“Ms. Webb,” Hendrix says softly, “let’s turn things around, shall we?”

He hands her a tissue, and she summons a tearful smile.

But the gesture feels rigid and sticky. Like her heart isn’t in it.

Like somewhere, she knows the role of Juliet Capulet was always something she would lose.

Just like everything else.

After removing the rest of her makeup and swallowing two more painkillers with still no sign of Saskia, Mallory decides to look for her instead. It doesn’t take long, and she soon finds her sitting on the empty stage in the Crypt, beneath the glow of the ghost light.

A second ago Mallory was desperate to show Saskia the planchette and tell her about Rebecca’s additional letter, butnow she slows and simply gives herself permission to stare. A triangular peel of dusty gold spills over Saskia’s head, making her look ethereal. Celestial. Like something plucked from the heavens. Her white hair is loose around her shoulders, bare in a low-cut black tank top, evergreen flannel wrapped around her waist. Shadows gather in the curve of her clavicle, and she stares into the darkness like she just asked it a question and is waiting for a response. Like it’s an old friend she visits from time to time.

Finally, Mallory approaches, letting her boots clack on the wood, and Saskia turns.

“Hey,” she says. “Sorry, I was just about to head down.”

“It’s okay,” Mallory replies, sitting on the stage beside her. She peers at the shadows. “It’s pretty in the dark.”

Saskia leans back on her hands. The light falls onto the arrows tattooed on her arm, illuminating them in a shimmer.

“Sometimes I sit under the ghost light after everyone goes home,” she says. “I started doing it in high school, when I didn’t have a lot of friends. There’s something comforting about a light that never goes out. Even when the theater is empty, and there’s no one here to notice, it’s always shining. Keeping the ghosts company.” She smiles. “I guess it keeps me company, too.”

Mallory peers up at the ghost light, recalling the winter evening in seventh grade when she first noticed how her drama teacher always left the lone bulb burning in the quiet.The ghost light chases away bad spirits,he explained,and provides solace to the benevolent ones. It’s good luck to keep a theater a little bit aglow.

“You must think I’m weird,” Saskia says with a laugh, misinterpreting her silence.

Mallory shakes her head. “Not even close.”

Saskia’s nose wrinkles playfully. “I mean, to be fair. Iamweird.”

“Well, so am I.”

Saskia laughs again. “Like calls to like.” She looks back at the light, expression smoothing into something serious. “I wish I’d met you sooner. You get me, you know? Growing up, I always felt so invisible. People either forget I exist, or they project what they want to see onto me. But”—she turns, looking almost shy—“you see me the wayIsee me. When I talk to you, I feel like a whole person. I feel like myself.”

Dust dances at the corners of Mallory’s vision. “There’s a specific kind of loneliness that comes with not being seen,” she says softly. “It can wear you down. Make you afraid that you’ll be forgotten, that you’ll live your entire life and no one will ever really know who you are.”

Saskia’s gaze turns thoughtful, as though Mallory has spoken her own fears out loud, too. But then her lashes drop, a soft, low tone creeping into her voice. “Do you want to be known, Mal?”

Mallory flushes at the way she asks it. Like it’s less of an existential question and more a code for something else. She nods anyway, focus slipping to Saskia’s full, pink lips, and fleetingly wonders what she’d do if she kissed her right here.