Page 27 of Petrify

I ignore the urge to pull the chain of the lamp, because every single time, he disappears the moment I look away. “Haven’t you?”

His hands remain at his sides. It’s too dark to make out any details, but I can see the edge of his figure against the midnight shadows of the room. I can see the planes of the mask. And the glint of his eyes hidden behind.

A dead man is standing at the foot of my bed.

He doesn’t know he’s dead.

I’m not sure that’s the truth. And I can’t stop the thought from forming: that I’m not sure this is the ghost of adeadman, either.

“You left me that music, didn’t you?” I start to ramble. “I thought you did. I—I played it a few times. It’s—beautiful.”

His response is a whisper, the sound barely louder than a breath: “Yes.”

And then he takes a step forward.

Yes, he left the music for me? Yes, he’s been watching me?

And he’s coming closer, my muscles screaming at me to do something, tomove. “What is it you want?”

It’s then I remember I’m locked in this room—the chair is jammed under the door knob, sealing me inside. I can’t run. I could scream, but I don’t know if anyone would be able to hear me.

I am alone in this wing of the house, this wing which used to belong tohim.

My tongue has gone dry, but I don’t let myself panic. I don’t look away either. Unable to blink. Unable to doanythingbut wait for his next move.

“I’m curious about you.” Voice low and gravelly as if he never speaks. “You’re more interesting than the others.”

“The others?”

“They’ve brought other tutors into the house.” A pause. “Yet you seem to care for him. And the music.”

“Of course I care.”

He doesn’t say anything else, those glinting eyes studying me through the dark. Can he see me?

Then he says, “We all run from something,” and my blood runs cold. “The past never really leaves us, does it? Tell me, Mallary Doyle, are you still running?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” It’s reflexive, the words out of my mouth before I can even think.

Deny, deny, deny.

He laughs. A rough sound that shoots straight through me. Raspy, deep, andmale. “Yes, you do.”

My brain is scrambling to make sense of this.

There’s a masked man—aghost—standing in my room.

But am I the one trespassing? Am I the one at fault?

Is this my fault?

The memory of the first time I went to Jason’s office plays in my head, hisoffice hoursafter that first class, and it has my heart fluttering even quicker in my chest, a tight panicky feeling that doesn’t want to go away even when I take a handful of deep breaths. The eagerness to do well, to please. To stand out.

I think about the last time I was cornered, and how well that ended.

“What does it matter? I am here to do a job. I’m here for the music. That’s all.”

“Music?” The word is smooth, the whisper velvet-soft. “What does that word mean to you?”