RYAN L A S AL A

​Copyright © 2023 by Ryan La Sala

All rights reserved. Published by PUSH, an imprint of Scholastic Inc., Publishers since 1920. PUSH
and associated log­os are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for
author or third-­party websites or their content.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in
any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or other­w ise,
without written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to
Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are ­either the product
of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to a­ ctual persons,
living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Library of Congress Cataloging-­in-­P ublication Data available
ISBN 978-1-338-74534-4
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 23 24 25 26 27
First edition, October 2023
Printed in the U.S.A. 37
Book design by Maeve Norton
 ​T HI S B O O K ­I S N ’ T D ED I C AT ED TO YO U,
SU S A N , B U T I K N OW YO U ’ L L R E A D I T O N E
DAY. S O I J U S T WA N T ED TO L E T YO U K N OW
YO U S T IL L OWE ME T H E R E S T O F M Y
S ECUR I T Y D EP O S I T. H O PE ­T H O S E B O O K S O F
YO UR S A R E G
­ O IN G WEL L !
Beholder is a con­temporary super­natural horror story that includes
­ele­ments of suicide ideation. Reader discretion is advised.
If you or a loved one is struggling with thoughts of suicide,
please call or text the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988.
­There are ­things in that paper that nobody knows but me,
or ever ­will.

— ­C harlotte Perkins Gilman,

“The Yellow Wall­p aper”
The Sunday night of the party, a few hours before every­one dies, a girl with

bleached bangs is telling you all about her f­ uture.

She is, of course, very wrong about what comes next. Her hand spiders up

your leg (she thinks ­you’re older than you are; every­one does). You are uncom-

fortable (with her, but also in general; the outfit you shoplifted for to­night is way

too tight, and ­you’re sitting on the arm of a sofa that’s prob­ably worth a year of

your rent).

You a
­ ren’t sure why y
­ ou’re still h
­ ere, in this exquisite pent­house apartment.

Uhler brought you but, old as he is, he prob­ably left hours ago. And your yiayia,

even older, is prob­ably still awake at home, praying over her mirror, begging God

to deliver you back to her safely.

You, you, you.

You are Athanasios Bakirtzis. Reckless, charming, self-­

destructive

Athanasios. Athan to your friends, if you kept any, but that last part—­the self-­

destructive part—­usually scares them off. Which you like. It means the next

time you burn your life to the ground, no one ­else gets caught in the blaze.

The girl with bleached bangs squeezes your thigh, and you turn back to her. For

­ ere just staring off at the wall. Specifically at the wall­paper. It’s a
a moment, you w

sickly yellow color, infested with a sprawling, golden design that seems to shift

­every time you blink. It looks like neurons—­rotting neurons that flicker with poison-

ous thoughts. And just for a moment, while your eyes sought some logical escape

from the pattern—­a break or seam or anything that would disrupt that unending,

wretched design—it felt like your brain was slowly filling with poison, too.

What’s in your f­ uture? the girl asks, her hand squeezing again. What’s fate

got in store for you?

1
 Your fate, your ­future. Two ­things you refuse to think about, thanks to years

of your grand­mother’s superstitions. You glance at the wall­paper again, and it’s

like being wrapped in your yiayia’s claustrophobic beliefs. Is to­night the night

you fi­nally cut your way ­free?

My f­ uture . . . ​you say, trying out the words.

The girl squeezes, and her eyes focus on you for what feels like the first time

in almost an hour of one-­sided conversation. She r­ eally wants to know.

You make an excuse to go to the bathroom. Alone.

This is the excuse that saves your life.

2
 CH A P TER ONE

I close the bathroom door, shutting out the party.

The room smells like the perfume of the trio of girls who ­were just
in ­here. It’s a tiny, beautiful space. The dark green wall­paper rustles
with monstera leaves, and a golden faucet gleams in the candlelight.
It’s serene. Safe.
I wish I could match it. I often feel this harsh contrast between me
and the artful rooms I pass through, working for a designer like Uhler.
Someone arranged this space with love and intention. I wish someone
would peer into the chaos of my interior and pull me into peaceful
composition. It’s no won­der the rich enjoy life; they get to live it in such
beautiful spaces. Like this pent­house. It’s softly lit and artfully deco-
rated and way, way too big for the bachelor who Uhler introduced as
the host when we arrived. It’s hard to believe anyone lives in so much
gorgeous emptiness.
I’m not threatened by the casual grandeur, though. I’ve faked my
way through dozens of ­these parties before. It’s easy. The guests are
always the same: brand-­new New Yorkers trying out being fascinating,
looking for someone to listen to them prove it. As Uhler’s personal
party date, that person is usually me.
I’m a good listener, they always tell me, which is true. But the a­ ctual
truth is that I know if I ask p
­ eople about themselves, t­ hey’re less likely
to ask about me. By the night’s end, I know every­thing about them.
For instance, Hannah Chloe Kaplan, the girl with bleached bangs,
thinks she’s an empath ­because she can read “vibes,” and for the rec­ord
mine are immaculate, and she d
­ oesn’t believe in New Year’s resolutions

3
­because ­they’re for weak p
­ eople who d
­ on’t believe in spontaneous evo-
lution, what­ever that is, and she’s upset with her boyfriend ­because he
­doesn’t flush the toilet all the time, which I agreed sounded like weap-
onized helplessness of the first degree. All this I learned just by letting
her talk, and I ­don’t think she even knows my name.
Athan.
I’m still not ready to head back out ­there. I flush the toilet with
gusto and take my time washing my hands.
Athanasios.
My name means “immortal” in Greek, but it might as well mean
“survivor’s guilt.” In my head, I hear the ­whole t­ hing spoken in Yiayia’s
pleading voice. Athanaaaasios. I should go home—­this is far too long to
be away from an old ­woman who depends on me—­but lately I ­can’t be
around her for more than a few minutes a day. Her rituals, her supersti-
tions, her wards against some all-­
seeing evil eye that’s searching,
searching, searching for what’s left of our f­ amily. She’s gotten so much
worse in the past few months.
Look, just look, my mind whispers as I wash my hands, but I keep my
eyes off the mirror. Not yet.
How long can I hide in h
­ ere? I d
­ on’t want to go back out to the party
­until that girl has found another person to talk at. ­There was a cute
boy watching me over by the win­dow, but his eyes w
­ ere shooting dag-
gers. Prob­ably someone I ghosted. Oh well. I should look for Uhler, but
he never stays at t­ hese t­ hings long. And besides, I ­can’t keep ­running to
him e­ very time I start to feel lost. His charity ­won’t last forever. I’m not
even sure it is charity. All ­these party invitations, all the checks slipped
to me so that Yiayia and I can keep up with our monthly rent—­it’s got
to add up to something, right? I’m not e­ ager to find out what.
Look. Just a peek, I urge myself.
It’s embarrassing, but I’m building up the courage to look at myself

4
in the mirror. Most ­
people look at themselves without a second
thought, but not me. Of all Yiayia’s superstitions, avoiding mirrors is
the most impor­tant.
Yiayia ­doesn’t want me to end up like her, I think.
Morning to eve­ning, my grand­mother clutches a scratched-up hand
mirror and prays. Sometimes it’s a frantic song, and sometimes it’s a
quiet ­mumble I hear through the thin walls of our apartment. For a
while we could still go on walks, me leading her with one hand while
she used the other to hold the mirror up so she never had to look away.
Not anymore. Now she w
­ on’t leave our apartment. The praying has
gone from a few minutes each hour to a constant babble. She even falls
asleep with the mirror buried on her chest, clutching it with hands
that have gone clammy and stiff since they used to tuck me in. The
few times I’ve tried to slip it away, her grip seizes like a nightmare is
blowing through her dreams.
That mirror has her trapped, and I ­don’t need to won­der why. She
tells me, in her rare moments of lucidity. Athanasios! s­ he’ll cry out sud-
denly, her voice rising like a siren wailing over the din of the city. Our
eyes cast curses! On and on, her warnings reel with the momentum of a
far-­off catastrophe rushing ­toward us. What we can see, can see us!
Ever since the fire that took our home and f­amily, she’s filled my
head with cautions against the evil eye and all the doom its focus
brings. Never let it find you, Athanasios. Promise me you w
­ ill never look for it.
Greek superstitions, as ancient as the Acropolis. Myths that have
turned into a madness I’m afraid I’ll inherit.
Dr. Wei says the resentment I sometimes feel ­toward Yiayia is okay.
That it ­doesn’t mean I ­don’t love her, or miss her, or want the old her
back. Dr. Wei says that sometimes we self-­mythologize to make our-
selves big in our own minds, and Yiayia believes her praying is an act of
heroic sacrifice. It’s called a compulsion. He says that I prob­ably have a

5
predisposition, but I still have the chance to prove to myself that mir-
rors ­can’t trap or hurt me. ­Gently, Dr. Wei has asked if I ­really believe in
evil eyes. In mirrors and their magic.
I said I d
­ on’t believe in any of it.
But I’m lying.
­Because it’s not all myths. I’ve known that since the first time I
broke Yiayia’s rule, found a mirror at the very back of our f­amily’s
frame shop, and saw what our eyes could truly do. I’m not sure if the
Sight is a superpower. It feels more like a curse I c­ an’t control. It hap-
pens automatically in any mirror—in anything reflective—­when my
reflection’s gaze meets my own. It makes living in a place like New York
City, an entire world gilded in reflective glass and chrome, a ­hazard.
But I’ve gotten good at dodging myself.
I’ve experimented ­here and ­there when I’m feeling brave, mostly just
to prove to myself that I’m not suffering from some contagious delu-
sion. I’m not. The power, or blessing, or curse, is real. But that’s all the
more reason to fear it. Dr. Wei says my fear enables the my­thol­ogy, but
Dr. Wei ­can’t see what we can see.
I dry my hands on expensive towels, the kind with tassels. I’m done.
Nothing e­ lse to do now but face my fears.
Look. Just for a moment. Just for a blink.
I look at myself in the bathroom mirror.
For the briefest moment before it happens, I’m able to see my reflec-
tion. It’s like looking at a stranger. Someone ­else’s eyebrows in an unsure
furrow, someone ­else’s chestnut curls, someone ­else’s fear clenched in an
unfamiliar jaw. Then I look into my own eyes, and the Sight activates.
Time reverses in the mirror, showing me every­thing it has seen this
night. I watch my reflection look away, then reach for the towels. I
watch me un-­dry my hands, then un-­wash them; watch the ­water flow
up into the faucet; watch myself back out of the bathroom and the

6
girls from before cram inside; watch a cloud of perfume hang in the air
over them before sucking back into their ­little spritzing ­bottles.
Now that I’ve fi­nally looked, I’m captivated. The girls gaze at one
another in the mirror as they touch up their makeup, but it feels like
­they’re gazing at me. They smile and laugh. They look so close. I put a
hand on the glass and tap, like ­they’re in an aquar­ium.
Something slams into the bathroom door and I jump. The reflec-
tion in the mirror lurches with my shock, jumping into the previous
day, showing a man on the toilet, scrolling on his phone. I cover my
eyes, blushing.
The slam turns into knocking. “Just a minute!” I shout.
I rush to reset the mirror. My mind scrambles, and so do the images
in the glass. The edges glow white-­hot.
“Stop,” I beg the mirror. “Stop. Please.”
I ­shouldn’t have looked for so long. I tap my fingertips over my eye-
brows, like Yiayia used to do when I was a l­ittle kid and had even less
control over our ­family power. If s­ he’d only let me practice, if s­ he’d just
told me how . . .
The slam comes again.
Tap tap tap. Stop stop stop.
A scream squeezes through the gap as the door is pushed open. I only
just catch it with my foot. The lock must be broken. I peek, and the mir-
ror is back to normal. This time, I avoid my reflection as I swipe my phone
from the ­counter, put on a smile, and swing the door all the way open.
“Sorry—” I start, but no one is ­there.
The hallway is empty. The party has gone ­silent. I turn ­toward the
living room, expecting to find it suddenly vacated, but every­one is still
­there. Just standing still, like statues. Is it a game? Or a prank? A sur-
prise, maybe? But they ­a ren’t huddled in gleeful anticipation, waiting
for a person to walk through so they can explode with Surprise! Happy

7
birthday! They look scared. Every­one is facing the walls. Hannah Chloe
Kaplan, the girl who said she was an empath, notices me standing in
the doorway. Tears are gushing from her unblinking eyes, dragging
dark stripes of mascara to her chin.
“Help me,” she whispers. Her eyes rise to the wall ­behind me.
I turn, but before I can see what she’s looking at, a shadow cuts
through the crowd and rams into me, knocking my phone from my
hand. It’s a person. They grab me around the waist, driving me back-
ward u
­ ntil I stumble back into the bathroom.
I land on my ass, swearing.
“Hey, what the f—”
The person—­the boy I saw ­earlier, the one watching me from the
win­dow—­cuts me off. “­Don’t open this door. If you ­don’t open it, they
­won’t see it. I’ll come back for you when it’s safe.”
He slams the door in my face, and I’m left with just the flash of an
impression. I recognize him now as one of Uhler’s many interns. I
remember him ­
because he always wears that bandanna knotted
around his neck. Orange, black, and white, like a monarch butterfly’s
wings. I caught ­those colors now. I’m sure it was the same guy.
But . . . ​what the fuck?
I race to open the door, but hesitate. What did he mean? I’ll come back
for you when it’s safe.
It’s the tiniest pause, but in that time something unleashes beyond
the bathroom door. It shakes on its hinges as screams flood the pent­
house. High, keening cries. Voices pushed to their limits, cracking,
breaking, wrenching out of bodies thrown into violent motion.
It’s the other party guests, but how could ­people sound like that? It
sounds evil. Rotten. I back away from the door, expecting something
foul to gush from u
­ nder it.
The screams go on.

8
 And on.
And on.
For minutes.
For an hour.
I press to the back wall and stare at the door, imagining myself
opening it and r­unning, imagining my phone somewhere on the
floor where I dropped it. Could I grab it? Dial 911? Call Uhler, or even
Yiayia? Pointless visions. I’m too much of a coward to go for it. What­
ever evil Yiayia warned me against, it’s found me. I looked into the
mirror for too long, and it looked back. I ­don’t know what’s happen-
ing, only that I deserve it. I ball myself up next to the toilet and stifle
my sobs, afraid ­they’ll hear me.
The screaming fi­nally resolves into words. Pleading words. The
­people scream Can anyone hear us? They start to bicker, and it turns
into an argument. But at least they sound ­human now. I nearly work
up the courage to swing open the door and try to help, but that’s when
the fighting breaks out.
Crashing. Breaking. Agonizing moans. I d
­ on’t know how long this
goes on for. An hour? Hours? Time frays and unravels as the sounds of
vio­lence shred through the thin walls hiding me.
Then someone knocks.
A very polite knock.
So polite, I nearly shout “Occupied!” Like I would in the single-­
person bathroom of a crowded restaurant. But the memory of the boy
with the butterfly bandanna stops me.
He said they c­ ouldn’t see the door.
I stay quiet. The knocking moves around, like someone is trying to
find the hollow space ­behind a wall. I creep to the door and just barely
make out whispering. It’s Hannah! The empath. Was the boy right?
Can she not see the bathroom’s entrance?

9
 She knocks and knocks, whispering, “Please God please God please God
­don’t let me die in ­here.”
She’s not looking for a way into the bathroom. She’s looking for a
way out of wherever she is.
I’m scared. I’m tired. But hearing her plead like that . . . ​it awak-
ens something in me. I turn off the lights so I can see her walking
through the glowing band at the door’s bottom edge. The next time
her k
­ nocking takes her t­ oward me, I give a gentle knock back, just
for her to hear.
She goes quiet. I can see her shuffling back and forth.
I knock again. If I can draw her close, I can open the door just
enough to squeeze her in, then shut it again. Then ­she’ll be safe, too.
­She’ll have a phone. We can call for help.
Her knocks are soft. Questioning. She’s close now. I can hear her
breathing.
I knock back one more time.
She shouts, right ­behind the door, “­HERE! HE’S IN H
­ ERE!”
All at once the bathroom vibrates as an entire crowd stampedes
down the hall, ramming against the walls with terrifying speed.
­People crawl over one another to get at the door. I f ling myself
against it, holding it shut, but they ­don’t even turn the knob. They
just pound their fists, desperate and furious. Their cries layer into a
messy chant.
Come out, come out, l­ ittle Athanasios!
The lights flicker. The mirror flickers, too, like it’s responding to the
­thing in the hall. Not the ­people, but the ­thing that’s taken hold of
them. The ­thing that is searching for me.
Then it all goes wrong for Hannah Chloe Kaplan. Within the chaos,
I hear her screaming, Back off! Hey! Stop! Y
­ ou’re hurting me! Her voice
slides down to the bottom of the door as the crowd begins to crush

10
her. Her cries turn strangled and then I hear a crack. Then another.
Meaty snaps of bones. Bloody, bent fin­gers thrust beneath the door—­
the only visual evidence I get. They twitch as the chaos outside
pulverizes her.
Then it all goes still.
It’s still for minutes. Maybe an hour. I ­can’t look away from the fin­
gers, and the blood drying on shattered nails. Then, with a schwoop, the
hand pulls away. Gone. I blink, realizing that the light from the hall
has turned from gold to white.
It’s morning.
I get up slowly.
I crawl to the door, bending as close to the bloody gap at the bottom
as I dare. I listen. I can hear the far-­off sound of a siren. Traffic. New
York, reappearing on the other side of what­ever hell the pent­house
vanished into for the past five hours.
It’s quiet. It’s so quiet now. Is it fi­nally over? Has the eye fi­nally
turned elsewhere?
I close my eyes as I stand, afraid to even glance in the mirror. My
hand finds the doorknob, shaking as it twists.
I open the door and my eyes at the same time.

11
ORDER YOUR COPY!