"It was a riptide. There wasn't anything anyone could do. A riptide."

Candace's stepmother sounded like a broken record the day of the wake.  She was obviously very emotionally shaken by the events of the last few days, and while Mischa and I both wished she would just stop talking, neither of us felt empowered to put an end to her tirade. She looked like a younger, thinner version of Candace's mom, blond and tan, in a blue and white wrap-around dress that seemed inappropriately informal for a wake. Mr. Cotton, quite possibly the only person who stood a legitimate chance of silencing his wife, seemed to be in a daze, picking at his fingernails, nodding to acknowledge everyone arriving at the funeral home but barely saying a word to anyone.

Candace's mom, on the other hand, was simmering in a corner, nearing her boiling point. The veins in her neck stood out like metal rods supporting her head, and her sisters swarmed around her like bees, attempting to calm her. At times the corner of the parlor where Candace's mom had been corralled by her sisters looked like a cluster of permed blond hair, bare swinging arms, and black stocking legs.

"We never even saw her fall under water! The tide just took her out to sea. Who would have known?" Candace's stepmother continued on, despite Father Fahey, the priest from St. Monica's who was scheduled to deliver a short service later that evening, trying to quiet her down. "I mean, who ever thinks a riptide is going to carry someone away from a resort that costs six hundred dollars a night?"

"Shut that woman up!" I heard Candace's mom say from her corner. Her sisters swooped in, circling her more tightly.

Mischa, Matt, Trey, and I sat on the same floral couch Mischa and I had occupied during Olivia's wake. Candace's memorial was very different from Olivia's, which had been somber and respectful. A second memorial for a high school student, following Olivia's by just a few short weeks, seemed to be more than the good graces of our town could handle. By late in the afternoon, it was evident that the Richmonds would not be arriving to pay respects, probably because it would just be too difficult emotionally to set foot in Gundarsson's again so soon. Just like at Olivia's wake, the casket was closed, and the flower arrangements were so abundant that the funeral home director had run out of places to put them. A few were in the hallway, flanking the entrance to the parlor where everyone was gathering for Candace's memorial. Her extended family seemed endless, with tall blond relatives of all ages comforting each other and fetching cups of coffee from the lounge area. The wake was held on Monday, and classes had been suspended at Willow High School for the day so that students could attend, but because of Candace's erratic behavior in the weeks leading up to her death, the turnout was significantly less than the number of students who had shown up for Olivia's wake.

"Candace's mom is going to knock her stepmother over," Mischa muttered, impressed by the potential for violence within the Cotton family.

"I don't think I need to see that." I got up from the couch, smoothed out the skirt of my black dress, and moments later Mischa stood to follow me out into the hallway and toward the lounge. I felt awkward seeing Candace's mom under such terrible circumstances. She had been holding herself together the night she found out that Candace had drowned, the very same night we had taken the Ouija board to the abandoned lot. My mom had driven us over to the Cottons' house to see if there was anything we could do to help. I either hadn't known or hadn't remembered this, but at one point when Jennie and I were very little, Mom and Candace's mother had played together in the Willow ladies' bowling league. As soon as Candace's mom had called my house to tell us that it was Candace on the news who was missing, my mom insisted that we pile into the car and drive over.  We had been there, in Candace's kitchen, keeping our eyes open all night with piping hot coffee, at three in the morning when the call had come from Hawaii confirming that Candace's body had washed up at high tide, nearly ten miles from where she had disappeared.

"Well," Candace's mom had said with unnerving composure, "Now we know."

In the lounge, we found Julia picking at a tray of cookies with some cousins her own age. She wore a short dress with a layer of black lace over it, which seemed a little provocative for a girl who was thirteen years old. I wondered for a second if that dress had been bought for a school dance. Probably no one had ever thought at the time that the dress was purchased that Julia would end up wearing it to an event as serious as her older half-sister's wake.

"How's it going, Julia?" I asked as I poured myself a cup of coffee. Julia had been asleep when the phone rang early on Friday morning. Mischa, Trey, my mom, and I had sat patiently and silently in the Cottons' kitchen at the table with one of Candace's aunts while her mom and another aunt had gone upstairs to wake up Julia at dawn to tell her the bad news. We left and drove Mischa home before Julia came downstairs, and we all called in sick for school on Friday.

"I'm okay," Julia informed us, her eyes looking a little puffy. Her cousins said they were going outside to run in the parking lot and they abandoned her in the lounge with us.

"How is Candace's dad holding up?" Mischa asked, stirring no-calorie sweetener into her own cup of coffee.

Julia shrugged and popped a thumbprint cookie into her mouth. "He looks like a total mess, I guess. But I don't know. I don't really know him that well. He had to ID the body, you know."

Mischa and I exchanged nervous glances. So many details of Candace's death had matched the basic story Violet had told at Olivia's birthday party, it was easy to assume that the part about her body already being badly decomposed had come true, too.  "Wow, that's rough," Mischa said gently, about to probe for more information. "That must have been terrible for him."

"Yeah, well, mostly because it was all gross and bloated and stuff," Julia informed us. I tried to remember back to when Jennie died of what my understanding of death had been at the time. Julia's casualness was probably an effect of her inability to comprehend the finality of death, the incomprehensibility of the fact that Candace would never, ever be coming back from Hawaii.

"Who told you that?" I asked.

Julia reached for another cookie and replied, "No one. That's just what the newspaper said. But the casket is closed because my mom said when bodies are in the water for a long time they get all puffy and gnarly."

Violet did not attend Candace's memorial on Monday, which wasn't surprising, but on the other hand, it kind of was. I wondered on Monday evening if she'd dare to show her face the following morning for the prayer service before the burial.  Mischa's parents had denied her request to be permitted to spend the night at my house on Monday night, and although my mom would probably have let me spend the night at hers, I wanted to stay close to home and Trey. Olivia's spirit had mysteriously left my room quiet since Wednesday night, and it was a source of wonderment for me why she had decided to stop pestering me. If the original haunting had been intended to prevent Candace's death, I had failed, and maybe her abandonment of my room meant that Mischa wasn't in danger. Or maybe Olivia's spirit was preoccupied with welcoming Candace's spirit to the other side. I couldn't know the reason, but I had a strong suspicion that my room hadn't experienced the last of the supernatural activity. There would be more, but there was no way to know when to expect it.

On Monday night, Mom pressured me into an awkward and unpleasant conversation with my dad, during which he tried to convince me to make an appointment with the psychiatrist who had met with Candace.

"I'm fine, Dad. Really," I insisted. I was eager to send a text message to Mischa, turn off the lights in my bedroom, and wait for Trey to knock on my window.

There was a pause and I could hear the television on in the background on his end of the line before he said, "Two close friends passing away in one school year. That doesn't sound like the recipe for fine to me. But then, what do I know? I'm just a professor of clinical psychiatry and your dad."

"No, you're just a guy who walked out on us," I absent-mindedly snapped before realizing how harsh my words must have sounded to him. "I'm sorry, Dad," I quickly backtracked. "It's just been a long day."

I knew I had done some significant damage because a solid twenty seconds of silence passed before he responded. "No, no, you're right, McKenna. Every reason you have for being angry with me is justified."

He rambled for a while about indulging in a selfish impulse, convincing himself that his departure had truly been a constructive thing for me and Mom as well as for him. I didn't have any interest in his apologies that night. I was more concerned with the order in which we had taken turns playing the game the night of Olivia's birthday.

My mother drove me to back to Gundarsson's the next morning for the prayer service, and opted to stay with me rather than wait in the car. All things considered, she was being great about the whole situation, not asking me questions about the issues Candace had been having after Olivia's death, or backing up my dad's insistence that I talk to a psychiatrist. Tracy arrived on Tuesday as some kind of an ambassador from Student Council, blabbing about how it was her social responsibility as Class Secretary to pay her respect. She also stated that Violet had a severe cold and couldn't attend, even though she really wanted to do so.  As Tracy nonchalantly told us this, I felt Mischa's muscles tighten, like a cat about to pounce. I had no way of knowing exactly what Mischa was experiencing emotionally, but a cold, restrictive sense of dread had taken over me. My body felt stiff. I couldn't bring myself to cry even though I knew I would miss Candace terribly. This time there was no maybe about it: it was certain that we were under some kind of hex or curse. Even though I didn't have the energy to think about what my next steps might be while still mourning Candace, I knew that Trey and I were going to need help in bringing an end to this. The enormity of taking on Violet and whatever was helping her in the spirit world was simply too much to consider on that rainy morning before Candace's funeral.

Mom stood next to me in the cemetery at St. Monica's as Father Fahey led the small crowd that had gathered in a few prayers at the gravesite. Trey stood on my other side, loosely holding my left hand, letting his long dark hair cover most of his face. Big Isaac Johnston wiped a few tears from his eyes when the casket was lowered and shook his head. 

Back at home that afternoon, I changed out of my black dress and tights and directly into my plaid pajamas, and crawled under my blankets even though it was still light outside. In the back of my mind I knew it was an hour when parents weren't even driving home from their jobs yet, and the high school marching band was still practicing out on the football field, yet all I wanted to do was close my eyes and block out the world. I wanted to wake up in another town, in another life, another existence entirely in which I had never gone to Olivia's birthday party and become a part of this nightmare.

You next.

Who next? Who had the spirit in the empty lot meant? It had denied that it was Olivia, denied that it was Candace.  Was I vulnerable? Was I protected from the game because Violet hadn't been able to see my death? But even that wasn't exactly true; Violet had said she'd seen fire. What would that do to my mother, to lose her surviving daughter in a fire?

In the middle of the night when I stirred awake, Trey was there, and the lights were on.

"Can't be too safe," he told me when I blinked around, trying to figure out what time it was.

"Whatever was in my room is gone for now," I assured him. "If it was really Olivia, we failed. We didn't put the clues together fast enough. Now they've got Candace, too."

Trey looked at me intently, directly into my eyes, and after a long moment asked, "The night you played the game, whose turn was it after Candace?"

"Mine."

He nodded. "We're getting help and we're ending this thing."

On Thursday my mother stood in the doorway and informed me that she was driving to campus for her class but would be driving back immediately afterward, handling her office hours over Skype from home. She didn't have to spell it out for me because I already knew; there would be no expectation that I return to school that week if I didn't want to, but her patience wouldn't extend into the following week.

Trey's mother drove him to school and he immediately doubled back on foot, knocking on our front door incessantly until I rose from my bed and met him, still wearing my pajamas. "Get dressed," he ordered me. "We're walking into town to meet with someone."

I didn't ask questions, simply tugged on jeans and a sweatshirt and followed Trey through the brisk morning air on a long walk through town. It was a foggy day, which was common weather for Wisconsin in the fall. School and regular life felt a million miles away. Mischa hadn't sent me an email or text message since before we knew for certain Candace had died, but I strongly suspected that she was being kept home from school all week, too. Nothing felt real. I wasn't thinking clearly, I was in a state of distractedness, following orders I could barely hear.

 "State your business," a female voice addressed us through the security system at the back door of the brick rectory building behind St. Monica's church. Trey and I stood, shivering, on the cement staircase leading up to the rectory, which housed the church's administrative offices and the priest's living quarters. Standing there, I suddenly felt very exposed in the overcast daylight, the dead eyes of plaster statues of the Virgin Mary and St. Augustine upon us. I hadn't felt as if I had been in danger on the walk over from our neighborhood, but now that we were standing at the perimeter of the sanctuary of the church grounds, I felt an urgent need to step inside.

"We're here to ask for Father Fahey's help in a personal matter," Trey stated, gripping my hand a little more tightly. A surveillance camera was affixed above the rectory door in plain sight, presumably because the rectory hosted a soup kitchen and from time to time, people not quite right in the head turned up on this very same doorstep demanding help. We were asked for our names, which Trey supplied, and then we were buzzed in.

"Jim, two teenagers are here to speak with you," a gray-haired secretary wearing a knit vest over a floral polyester blouse announced into her desk phone as soon as we entered the rectory. She sat at a cluttered desk behind a glass window with a slot in it just like a teller's window at a bank, and pointed at a wooden bench across from the window where she expected us to take a seat.

We sat down quietly and unzipped our jackets in the warm hallway. Down the hall and through a doorway, in what was presumably the rectory kitchen, we smelled soup and could hear the clattering of dishes.

"What's the nature of this personal matter?" the secretary asked us through the window, her hand over the mouthpiece of the phone.

"It's private," Trey shot back, glaring at her.

A moment later, she set the phone back down on her desk and told us, "He'll see you now."

When we stood and walked to the end of the hallway, she buzzed to release the lock on the door and we passed into the cozy kitchen of the church offices.  Father Fahey stood at the stove in a brown wool cardigan stirring soup with a wooden spoon. A monthly calendar with a big picture of the Duomo in Milan hung on the fridge along with a number of church bulletin newsletters held in place with magnets. A cuckoo clock hung on one wall, fixed above a framed picture of Jesus with a tear rolling down one cheek.

"So, a private personal matter," Father Fahey said as we entered. I felt like an overgrown giant the moment we stepped into the small room, and the old man nodded us toward the chairs around the kitchen table. "Let me guess. You're truly in love and you want to get married but your parents think you're too young. Or, you're truly in love and you've given in to sins of the flesh and now you're in a predicament and you need my advice on what to do."

"Neither of those things, sir," Trey said, holding out a chair for me to sit down at the table. "My girlfriend and her friends from school played a game involving the occult and now something evil is killing them, one by one." From his backpack, he pulled out his copy of Requests from the Dead and set it down on the kitchen table.

Without even turning to face us, Father Fahey slowly turned the gas knob on the stovetop to its off position. When the roar of the boiling soup quieted down we could hear that a small radio on the kitchen counter was tuned in to morning talk radio. "You're talking about Candace Cotton and the Richmond girl, I presume."

"Yes," Trey confirmed.

"And what makes you think that their deaths had anything to do with occult forces rather than simple, random acts of nature?" he asked patiently. "We live in a society that believes blindly that there must always be a fair cause for suffering. When bad things happen to us and people we love, we find comfort in the idea that there is a just reason for those bad things. We believe that time will reveal those reasons, because we cannot understand that in this universe, events occur at random. We cannot question God's will."

"We all played the game on Olivia's birthday. There's a new girl at school from out of town, and it was her idea. She made up stories about how we would all die, and they're all coming true, right down to small details. And since Olivia died, something has been haunting my bedroom. It was trying to leave us clues before Candace died. It was trying to warn us about what was going to happen to her." My admission was embarrassing, and I tried to sound as mature and serious as I could.

Father Fahey put the metal lid on his pot of soup, and turned to face us, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Follow me," he ordered.

The basement of the rectory was paneled and carpeted, but it still felt damp and unfinished. Father Fahey locked the door behind us as we began our descent down the staircase leading to the lower level of the building. "Just part of our security routine here at the church. You're perfectly safe, and I'll explain everything when we get downstairs."

At the far end of the basement, past a ping pong table, a long table surrounded by chairs, and a set of utility shelves stocked with boxes labeled as Sunday school supplies, Father Fahey unlocked a plain-looking wooden door with a bowl of holy water set on a table next to it. He dipped his fingers in the bowl and made the sign of the cross, and encouraged us to do the same. "I served both of your at your First Communions. I know you're familiar with this routine."

We both made the sign of the cross obediently, and followed Father Fahey through the door. My heart was beating rapidly at that point since I didn't have any idea what to expect on its other side. In the split second before Father Fahey flipped on the light, I was imagining a scary spiral stone staircase leading even further down toward the earth's core, taking us to dungeons or secret chambers filled with torture devices. But all that we saw on the other side was a large, relatively plain room, with two orange couches, a long brown table, heavily stocked book shelves, and what looked like a medical examination table in the center of the room.

"Forgive me for the dramatic evacuation to the basement," Father Fahey apologized, taking a seat in the corner upon a chair that looked like it belonged in a library. Trey and I sat down on the couch across from him, and I relaxed a little when I realized I could still slightly smell the soup upstairs, and could hear a warm stream of air coming from the central heating vents.  "We have two elderly priests who live on the second floor above the administrative offices. Father Nowicki, you probably remember; he said mass often when both of you were still in Sunday school. He suffered a stroke two years ago and his visiting nurses tend to him all day. We also care for Father Adeyimi, a missionary from Africa who is recovering from heart surgery. You must understand that the elderly and very young children are especially susceptible to evil and I can't afford to expose them to anything you may have brought with you. So it's safer for us to discuss things of this nature down here, hence the lock on the door so that we aren't interrupted."

I must have looked horrified and surprised by this, because it had never occurred to me that spirits might be following me around. Or that churches had secret, windowless rooms in their rectories.

"Spirits cling to strength that they find compatible with their needs," Father Fahey explained. "You mentioned upstairs that something has been haunting your bedroom. Make no mistake. It is manifesting its powers in your bedroom because it has figured out how to manipulate the energy in that space. But it is haunting you."

Father Fahey's words stunned me. I had never been spoken to by an adult so directly before about such a frightening idea. He was making no attempt whatsoever to sugarcoat the situation for me, or to assure me, as grown-ups were often likely to do, that things weren't as bad as they seemed.

"Can you see it? Is it here with me?" I asked, alarmed. Instinctively I leaned forward and looked over my shoulder.

The priest shook his head patiently and folded his hands in his lap. "I don't have any magical powers, Miss Brady.  I'm just a simple man of the cloth. There's no magic wand I can wave in front of you to reveal if there's a bogeyman behind you. But as I said before, spirits latch onto the energy of people. You may have no awareness that something's following you, but there's a chance that it's with you at all times."

Trey fumbled with the book in his hands and mumbled, "We started doing some research after Olivia died. We thought maybe Violet, this girl at school, made some kind of a deal with a spirit and she's been delivering souls to it."

Father Fahey strummed his fingers on the end table next to his chair and considered that. "Sounds plausible. But in exchange for what? Why would Violet be in service for this spirit? What's it giving her in exchange for the work she's doing?"

"Popularity," I suggested. "She's new in town and she went from being kind of shy and quiet to suddenly the Class President and captain of the pom pon squad. And she's dating Olivia's old boyfriend. It's like she just stole Olivia's whole life in a matter of days."

 "And this girl was involved in the game that you played?" Father Fahey asked, suddenly appearing to be a lot more intrigued by our allegations now that we were in the basement. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.

"She was the one who told the stories about how we'd all die. It was her idea to play the game," I offered.

The priest mulled this over. "So, this girl recently arrived to town, led all of you in this game, and you claim the manner by which both the Richmond girl and the Cotton girl passed away match up with details presented in the game?"

I nodded solemnly, wondering if he was drawing his own conclusion that Trey and I were nuts. Trey held up the book he had brought with us again. "This book suggests that maybe Violet has ties to the spirit world through an object."

"Yes, well, that's oftentimes how these things go," the priest agreed, easing back into his chair again. "However, don't allow yourselves to think that it will be an easy task to identify the object. Sometimes when a spirit passes and feels like it has unfinished business among the living, it fastens onto an object of significance, and is able to exercise control over living souls through it. This isn't always necessarily a practice of evildoing; sometimes the spirit of a parent or grandparent will maintain a presence among the living to keep watch over a child they're leaving behind. But more often than not, a spirit will resort to trickery or harassment to enlist a living person to execute their intended actions here in our plane of existence.  Destroy the physical object, and destroy the connection. The catch is going to be figuring out exactly which object it is. There's a good chance this girl being manipulated doesn't even know which object in her life is connecting her to this force."

Trey squeezed my hand. This is what we had come to hear; that there was a way to end Violet's game. Even if the solution was going to be difficult and dangerous, we knew we had to pursue it.

"But I must warn you, guys," Father Fahey continued. "From the sound of it, this girl Violet seems to have an arrangement with a very powerful spirit. This thing isn't going to be easily overthrown, and if it's viewing the living through Violet's eyes, then it's probably already aware that you're suspicious of it, and she'll be wary of you. You're going to have to be very cautious in your approach."

Father Fahey he asked me to repeat for him as best I could remember the stories that Violet had told at Olivia's party, and he took extensive notes as I tried not to leave out any details. Trey chimed in during my retelling of Olivia's story, as his real-life experience had followed Violet's predictions during the car crash. I hesitated after finishing Candace's story, and said, "It was my turn next, but when Violet tried to tell my story, she couldn't come up with anything good. She said she could only think of something having to do with fire, but it didn't feel right."

"Interesting," Father Fahey commented, adjusting the frames of his glasses. "There could be any number of possibilities for that, but if part of this spirit's successful acquisition of a soul is linked to the prediction of death, then maybe a soul on the other side stepped in to protect you."

"Jennie," I mumbled. Of course Father Fahey knew that I'd once had a twin. He had baptized us, and delivered the eulogy at Jennie's funeral service.

"If you remember back to your catechism classes, you'll recall that we believe all souls who have passed into heaven and purgatory are part of God's spiritual union.  The church triumphant, which is how we formally refer to souls who have been admitted to heaven, can be called upon by the living for help with their lives on earth," Father Fahey explained.

I tried to think back to Sunday school lessons passed in the classrooms at St. Monica's school after church services, but I couldn't remember learning anything about relying on the help of the dead. Trey, a much more critical thinker than me, was already summarizing what the priest was telling us, and drawing his own conclusions.

"So, basically, you're saying that believing in ghosts is a fundamental part of our religion," Trey said dubiously, twiddling his thumbs with a sparkle in his eyes. "And that ghosts can meddle with us whenever they want."

Father Fahey smiled, seemingly pleased with Trey's interpretation of his lesson. "I didn't use the word ghost. But in our faith, we believe that souls are eternal. A soul that has been dedicated to God remains dedicated to God, and can intercede in heaven on behalf of the living."

I continued with my memory of Olivia's party, concluding with the premonition of Mischa's death by choking. I never would have thought that night at Olivia's house on her birthday that I would end up in a church basement, resuming my religious education— yet there we were, doing exactly that. Then, in the spirit of full disclosure, Trey told Father Fahey about both times we used the Ouija board, and the priest shook his head disapprovingly.

"I strongly urge the two of you to dispose of that as quickly as possible. You have no way of controlling what kind of energy passes through something like that. It's a horrible shame those instruments of evil are sold as novelties in toy stores. They are highly dangerous tools and should not be handled by children."

We both cringed. If any adult other than Father Fahey had referred to us as children, we probably would have rolled our eyes.

 "But if Violet is possessed, how else are we supposed to gain any kind of advantage over her? I mean, we need some kind of guidance," Trey objected in our defense. "We're like, helpless against her."

"Violet is not possessed. Possession has to do with demons, and demons are very different than spirits. Demons rarely have goals other than just to deliver messages and torment. Why, in fact, demons are fairly straightforward to remove," Father Fahey stated, waving his hand toward the table in the center of the room. For the first time since we'd taken our seats in that room, I realized its true purpose. The room must have been used for exorcisms. Upon closer examination, I observed there were ties attached to the table, like seatbelts, at points where they might fasten over the chest and legs of anyone reclining on the table, restraining their movements. The walls were bare, devoid of any object that might be torn off and flung across the room. The sudden knowledge that possessed people had been brought to this space, and that demons had been released right into the very area where we were sitting, made me shiver.  "There's no need to be afraid," Father Fahey consoled me, noticing my discomfort. "It's a very straightforward process. And a fairly common one, too, I'm sorry to say."

Trey looked around the room suspiciously. "This room is used for..."

"Exorcisms. Yes," Father Fahey said nonchalantly. "I don't mean to alarm you, but every church has their own process for dealing with such things. It's a community service provided, although one not frequently discussed. This room is thoroughly cleansed after every use and I'll admit it's been a while since the last time we had an appointment down here. The devil's strength is in fear, and the more we give into our fears, the stronger he becomes. Spirits with vengeances, however..."

He trailed off, and then took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose with his fingers.  "Spirits can gain their power any number of ways. Souls can take a lot of anger with them into the afterlife, as well as a lot of ambition and intelligence. Because they're halfway between here and," he waved his hand toward the ceiling and then toward the floor, "everywhere else, they can linger where they are for as long as they want. They're the only ones who can banish themselves into eternity, and unfortunately for us, sometimes those with an ax to grind overstay their welcome."

"So, there's no way to really get rid of them? No ghostbusters, no magical chants, no pointing them in the direction of the light?" Trey asked, sounding hopeless.

Father Fahey shook his head, a little amused by Trey's question. "You've seen a lot of movies."

We shared with him as much as we knew about Violet, her grandmother's quarrel with Arthur Fitzpatrick, Violet's life prior to her arrival in town, and the big house on the outskirts of town. I could hear our own desperateness in our voices as we tried to make sense of it all, and I wondered if the priest could tell just how urgently we wanted his help. How badly we needed someone older and wiser to instruct us, or to at least believe us that with one misstep on our part, either Mischa or I would die next.

"Well, I can tell you this," he said, sitting back in his chair and folding his wrinkled hands over his belly. "When spirits latch onto a servant in our world, they can only see and experience our world through that servant's eyes. If they have any weakness at all in this situation, it's that: limited vision. From what you've shared with me, I would suggest that you focus on destroying whatever that object is that connects Violet to the spirit controlling her. It won't rid her or any of us, for that matter, of the spirit forever if it chooses to continue to try to find a channel back into our world, but it will be a significant enough setback that it will slow the spirit down in achieving its goal. I wouldn't bother trying to figure out the spirit's goal in an attempt to bring an end to this. That could take you far too long; it could be far too dangerous."

I cocked my head in confusion, not sure if I understood the priest correctly. "But if we destroy the object, how will that bring an end to the curse on me and Mischa? Wouldn't that just prevent Violet from pulling more people into this in the future?"

Father Fahey said, "The object serves as the connecting thread between Violet and the spirit, but it also serves as the means by which the spirit's will is released into our world. Separate Violet from this object, or destroy it, and you will interrupt this curse."

"So how do we know which object?" Trey asked. "Can you help us figure this out?"

At Trey's request, the temperature in the room seemed to change, and Father Fahey shifted position. "I'm terribly sorry, but other than offering advice, I can't help the two of you at all in this matter. I'm the managing director of this parish, the only priest still capable of saying mass and running administration. My responsibilities to the people of this town and the people who reside in this building are too great for me to risk any kind of... spiritual contamination."

I felt my chest ache and my throat begin to close as if I was going to start crying. Trey and I were really alone in this miserable mess. The only person in our town who believed us, and who we could imagine might possibly be able to help us, was refusing to do so. We were going to have to figure out how to save ourselves, or more specifically, me and Mischa, on our own.

On Thursday night after Mom got home, Candace's mom surprised us with a visit. Mom put on a pot of coffee and Candace's mom handed me a plastic bag after taking a seat in the kitchen.

"Candace's father brought this back from Hawaii," she explained as I accepted the bag. "Candace apparently bought these for you and Mischa on their first night of the trip."

I peeked inside the plastic bag and saw inside of it what looked like a cheap toy ukulele. The plastic bag was from a gift shop in Hawaii, and a crumpled receipt was at the bottom of the bag. I thought of the music that had filled my head and distracted me in the days before Candace flew to Hawaii, and then throughout mid-terms. It had been my strongest warning from Olivia, and I hadn't acted on it.

Candace's mom stayed in our kitchen, sobbing and talking to Mom, long after I turned in for the night and tucked the ukulele into the box in my closet where I'd stowed all of my other problematic possessions. I could smell cigarette smoke, the reassuring scent of company, and guessed my mom was probably counseling Candace's mom about losing a child. Not long after I heard the clock chime midnight, Trey texted me asking if I wanted him to come over and I assured him that I was okay and that he should stay in his own room for the night. Through my window, I saw strange patterns of lights out on the street, and when I got out of bed to raise the blinds and investigate, I saw teenagers dressed as superheroes walking around with flashlights. It was Halloween, and somehow I had completely forgotten about the holiday. I climbed back into bed, vaguely remembering how, back in September, I had assumed that I'd buy some kind of sexy cat or sexy bunny costume that year, and trick or treat up and down the Richmonds' block with Olivia, Candace, and Mischa. The sadness wafting off of Candace's mom seemed to fill our whole house, settling in my bedroom and surrounding me as I fell asleep.

On Friday I woke up without the help of an alarm clock at dawn, and dressed for class even though I knew my mother would be surprised that I was ready to return. Before Homeroom, I walked directly toward Mr. Dean's classroom and entered boldly while Trey waited for me in the hallway with his books.

"Mr. Dean?" I asked, causing him to look up from the papers he was grading at his desk. "I have some bad news. I didn't do so well on my mid-terms and I'm resigning from my position as Class Treasurer to focus on bringing up my grades."

Mr. Dean's expression was one of absolute astonishment, but I stuck to my story. As I twisted the combination lock on my locker and mumbled goodmorning to Dan Marshall, I thought of how wildly my priorities had changed since the beginning of the year. In September, securing my popularity had seemed more important than anything. Now, I had just willingly abandoned my foothold in the world of popular people without fear of how Violet would react. Senior year was going to be a complete roll of the dice, if I lived long enough to experience it.

Mischa and I agreed that at lunchtime that day in the cafeteria, we would abandon our old lunch table and sit elsewhere. We wandered through the cafeteria together with Matt, our empty trays in our hands, and eventually after considering nearly all of the kitchen's options that day, I stepped into line behind Mischa with a turkey sandwich.

"That's all you're having?" I asked, noticing that she had returned her tray to the stack and was carrying nothing but a carton of skim milk.

"I'm not hungry," she claimed.

After she paid and stepped into the seating area to wait for us, I stepped forward to pay for my sandwich at the register, and Matt, behind me, said quietly, "She won't eat. She hasn't eaten anything solid in days."

"Why?" I asked, holding out my hand for the cashier to return my change.

"She's afraid of choking," Matt said, concerned.

We ventured out into the seating area, the salty stench of deep-fried tater tots and spicy chicken patties clinging to our clothing and hair. When we found space at the end of a table of sophomores and sat down, they looked at us as if we were bonkers. Across the cafeteria, I sensed heads turning in our direction and didn't wonder too much what Pete, Jeff, and Isaac were thinking about our sudden departure without explanation. I would leave it to Violet and Tracy to explain. I watched Mischa, who sat across from me, as she unwrapped her straw and tucked it into her carton of milk.

"You have to eat, Mischa," I warned her. "Chew slowly if it makes you feel safer, but come on. You can't just stop eating."

Mischa blinked and looked away, and casually brushed away either a tear or a stray eyelash. "That's easy for you to say. You weren't predicted to choke to death. You don't have nightmares about not being able to breathe—ˮ

Mischa stopped short and when I looked over my right shoulder, I saw Violet standing behind me. Her posture and gestures were aggressive, but her voice was intimidated and unsteady. True to what Tracy had said at Candace's wake, she did sound stuffed up as if she had been suffering from a bad cold, and her nose was pink and dry from the heavy use of tissues.

"Why are you guys sitting over here? There's room at our table," she said. She was wearing a beautiful brand new sweater with a stylish cowl collar, multi-color cashmere flecked with strands of fine gold thread. A sweater like that could not have been inexpensive, and it served as yet another unwelcome reminder that the Simmons' family was wealthy.  "And Mr. Dean said you quit Student Government. I don't get it, McKenna. We had such great stuff planned for this year."

"You killed Candace," I said firmly in a voice low enough to prevent the sophomores at the other end of our table from hearing us. Although I knew the time was right to confront her as Trey and I had discussed, I still wished he wasn't so adamant about avoiding the cafeteria during our shared lunch period so that I wouldn't have to address her alone. We decided that it might be easier to distract her from our true intent by making sure she was aware we were angry. The time had come for all of our sneaking around to end. "Not to mention Olivia, too, but that goes without saying."

I fought the urge to look away from her and as uncomfortable as it was, I watched as she turned beet red and struggled to find words to respond. Her ankle twisted, her lips mashed together, her fingers tightened where her hands were placed on her hips. Her discomfort with confrontation was as evident as was mine with being confrontational. "McKenna, you know that's irrational. I was nowhere near Hawaii when Candace died. And I wasn't anywhere near Olivia when she died, either. A human being cannot control the weather. I can't control the ocean."

Feeling my pulse begin to race with anger, I steadied my nerves before replying, "We all know now that you are very much in charge of what's happening to us. We have something very special planned for you, and we're waiting to see what you do next."

Violet opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. Her eyes darted from mine across the table to Mischa's. After a moment of hesitation, she regained her composure. "Is that some kind of threat?" she asked haughtily.

"You'd better believe it is, Violet," I bluffed. 

"We'll kill you," Mischa blurted, taking me and Matt both completely by surprise. "If you die, the spell is broken. I'm not afraid to kill you to save my own life."

Trey and I hadn't told Mischa about going to visit Father Fahey, or our plan to determine which object belonging to Violet served as her connection to the spirit. Her comment about killing Violet was completely out of left field, but it served a perfect purpose: distracting Violet completely from what Trey and I had in mind. Violet's face drained entirely of color. Her expression faded to one of absence of emotion, and she turned on her heel to return to our former table. We didn't watch long enough to see the reaction of everyone else sitting over there to her explanation as to why we weren't accompanying her.

"Are you crazy?" I asked Mischa. "She can go to the principal and say you're threatening to hurt her! She could go to the police!"

"Fine," Mischa said firmly, taking a sip of her milk. "I'm serious. I will throttle her with my bare hands. If I'm going to die, then I want her dead, too."

Matt put an arm around her shoulders and kissed the side of her face, but I could tell by Mischa's tone and calmness that she was not kidding around.

In gym class, I attempted to be sent to the nurse's office by claiming I had cramps, but Coach Stirling thwarted my efforts by informing me that moderate exercise was as good a cure for cramps as Tylenol. Earlier that week, before Mischa's return to school, her parents had done what Candace's had done for her and switched around her entire class schedule so that she could avoid Violet in every class other than lunch. I wished I could be more honest with my parents about what was happening at school and ask them to do the same thing for me, but I knew if I asked my mother to change my schedule I would face an endless assault of skeptical questions.  I changed into my red and black gym suit in the row of lockers other than the one I usually used to avoid Violet and Tracy. I pulled on my gray hooded sweatshirt as an afterthought, because it was starting to get cold out.

On the track, I jogged at my own slow pace, avoiding the eyes of everyone around me. I focused on the lyrics of the song playing on my iPod until I unmistakably heard my name called.

"McKenna!"

Violet was behind me, walking at a brisk pace. Quickly I noticed that Tracy was half-way around the track, running, so I took out my ear buds and listened.

"What?" I asked.

"Why are you suddenly so mad at me?" she asked, sounding earnestly bewildered about the change in our friendship since the previous week.

"This isn't sudden, Violet," I told her sternly. "I was willing to consider the possibility of coincidence when Olivia died. But not now that Candace is gone, too. I'm onto you, I know what you're doing, and I think you're sick. You're going to sit back and watch all of us die, the whole time pretending to be completely oblivious."

"No," Violet said, shaking her head. "You're not all going to die, and I don't have any control over what's happened."

"Tell me one thing," I said, standing and facing her, not caring who saw us arguing on the track. "When it was my turn, why couldn't you see my death?"

"I don't remember," Violet quickly claimed. "That was weeks ago."

"You do remember, and you know exactly why!" I accused.

Violet looked around wildly, but I was staring her down, demanding an answer. "Because you're already dead," she finally said matter-of-factly.

Her answer stunned me so profoundly that I began walking again just to get away from her, just to gain some distance from those words. Numbly my fingers jammed my ear buds back in my ears, and music blasted out the frantic reaction in my head.

Already dead.

I could hear Violet calling my name as I broke into a run, but didn't stop.

Did that mean that Jennie and I had shared a soul? Did half of me die with her? Had I died instead of her, and by some strange twist of nature, was I still walking around? If I was technically dead, was that why it had been so much easier for Olivia's spirit to reach out to me instead of Mischa?

And most importantly: was I exempt from the curse?

The thought that I may have been truly immune to the curse made my core glow with joy. If Violet had no power over me, then I wouldn't have to worry about what might happen to my mom if I suddenly died, or about Trey's reaction. Suddenly the promise of ongoing life made the morning air all the more fresh, the sunlight all the more warm, the music in my ear buds all the more spectacular. But almost as fast as relief flooded my nervous system, I remembered that Mischa was not immune. And I still didn't have the slightest clue how to go about saving her.

After school, Mischa and Trey met me at my locker. Mischa was planning to invite herself over to my house to do homework to avoid having to go to gymnastics practice with her sister, who was waiting for her in the parking lot, presumably with her engine running.

"Just wait for me right here," Mischa instructed just outside the West doors of the high school, right before she darted off in her black suede blazer through the cars in the lot toward her sister's hatchback Volkswagon GTI. Trey and I watched as the sisters argued, and finally Amanda threw her car into reverse and pulled out of her parking space. She shouted some parting words at Mischa, which appeared to have been along the lines of, "wait until Mom and Dad find out."

Mischa shrugged when she rejoined us near the doors to the school, adjusting the strap of her stylish leather messenger bag over her shoulder.

"Is everything okay?" Trey asked.

"Fine," Mischa said in a sing-song voice. "My sister just doesn't understand that gymnastics don't really seem very important to someone who's about to die."

A moment after those words left Mischa's mouth, the red doors of the high school behind us opened and we found ourselves face to face with Violet. There was a moment of awkward, sickening silence as the four of us all examined each other.

"Hello," Violet finally said sheepishly to us, and then turned and raised a hand to shield her eyes from the sun as she looked across the busy parking lot for something.

"I believe you owe Trey an apology," Mischa piped up, preventing Violet from just dashing off without further acknowledging us.

Violet looked at her, startled. "For what?"

 "You knew it was going to be Trey driving the car the night that Olivia died," I intervened. "And you didn't even say a word."

Trey looked at his feet, uncomfortable for having been pulled into a girl fight.

Violet batted her eyelashes wildly, and said, "I don't know what you're talking about," but I could tell by the tone of her voice that she knew exactly what I was talking about.

"Don't be ridiculous, Violet. Trey knows; he knows everything." I took a step toward her, studying her, trying to determine what item on her person might have been given to her by her grandmother. Her vintage Louis Vuitton leather Speedy handbag? The charm bracelet around her wrist? Could the key to our troubles be as elusive as a bottle of perfume, a mist of magic that Violet sprayed on each morning? "With one phone call to him, you could have prevented Olivia from dying. All you had to do was tell him, and you could have saved her life. Olivia knew, you know. Trey said right before the truck hit, she was begging him to pull over. The last moments of her life were spent in terror, and that's all on you."

Accusing her so directly seemed to have an emotional impact on her. She probably hadn't thought too much about how her inaction had resulted in the death of two friends. She had probably been so concerned with just following the orders she had been given that she had overlooked her own responsibilities as a moral human being. 

"You have to believe me, guys. I didn't know it was going to be him," Violet said, her eyes pleading with us for mercy. Her voice was almost shrill; she was so desperate that I not doubt her. "They didn't show me his face."

"Why should we believe you?" I snapped. I didn't buy her claim that whatever had allowed her to watch Olivia's death had obscured Trey's identity from her. "If you had warned him, Olivia would still be alive."

"But that's just it," Violet sputtered. The doors to the school behind her opened and a flood of freshman boys rushed past us toward an idling minivan driven by someone's mom. Violet waited until the minivan pulled away before she continued, "I'm not allowed to ever warn anyone. I'm not supposed to change what will happen. They don't let me see enough to try and stop it."

The impact of everything she had said to us was all at once so shocking I didn't even know how to continue interrogating her.  And I found it odd that she kept insisting that there were multiple spirits who kept her informed instead of just one. I was speechless for a second as my thoughts tried to assemble everything Violet had just said in my mind. I tried to remember Father Fahey's guidance: don't try to figure out the spirit's motivations. Just focus on the object connecting her to it.

"What do you mean, they let you see things? Who?" I asked. "And you knew. If this has happened before, then you knew that Olivia was going to die!" My lips were forming words, but I was trying to scouring her with my eyes. Was it an object in her bag that we couldn't even see? Would Mischa and I have to break into her gym locker to search the contents of that leather handbag? Was it something she kept hidden away in her bedroom? No... my hunch was that it was something she had brought with her to the Richmonds' the night of Olivia's party.

Violet's eyes flooded with tears that rolled down her cheeks and she made no attempt to wipe them away. "I didn't know, not for sure. I never know exactly what will happen."

Mischa's temper was flaring. "What are you even talking about, Violet? You're not making sense! Who shows you things?"

Violet took a deep breath and looked around the parking lot suspiciously. Rap songs blasted through the closed windows of cars, doors slammed, and horns honked at the corner where kids impatiently waited their turn to leave the lot. "I'll tell you whatever you want to know, but not here."

 "You'd better," Mischa warned. "Because you were the one who suggested we play that stupid game in the first place, and I think you owe us a lot of explanations."

The track was abandoned at that hour, although through the trees that separated the fields, we could see and hear the football team practicing for their game that weekend. Violet had told Tracy she was going to hang out with us and declined a ride home, and throughout our walk from the parking lot down the cement path leading to the football field, we could hear Tracy furiously text messaging Violet through the buzzes emanating from Violet's bag. We stood near the small row of bleachers and I shivered inside my denim jacket, wishing that we'd have the luxury of at least one more week of warmth before winter settled in for the season. Trey sat down on the lowest cold, aluminum bleacher seat, but Violet remained standing, clutching her little leather bag, kicking at the dry grass beneath her feet as she spoke.

"They started showing me things a while ago. I don't even remember exactly when it started," Violet began quietly. "Don't ask me who they are, because I don't know. Spirits. Ghosts? Friendly ghosts, evil ghosts? I don't know. I've never felt afraid of them, and they've never hurt me. Certain situations make it easier for me to see what they want me to see, like the game, for example. It's hard to explain any of this, really. They tell me things, but I don't really hear voices. They let me see things, but it's not the same as seeing these bleachers."

"What kinds of things do they tell you to do?" I asked. A gust of wind stirred the dry leaves on the trees surrounding the track.

The question made Violet uncomfortable, and she picked at her fingernails before replying. "Talk to certain people. Ask them about their lives. Offer to read their palms."

I immediately felt sick. Our situation of Violet having peered into the future toward our deaths wasn't the first time she had played this game. Who knew how long this had been going on, how many lives had been taken?

"Like Josh Loomis, and Rebecca Shermer?" Mischa asked with one eyebrow raised.

Violet didn't look the least bit surprised to hear those names from her past mentioned.

"I guess," she shrugged. "Look, I didn't realize at first that what happened to them was connected to me. Josh was always a depressed kid. It's terrible to say, but no one was really surprised when he killed himself. They didn't tell me that if I read his palm I'd be opening the door for it to happen. I mean, I saw it happen in my head, but when they told me to talk to him I thought maybe if I gave him some attention, or showed some interest in him, I could prevent it. But that's what it's like, in my head, when it happens. It's like a door opens and things just start moving through it."

I couldn't help but roll my eyes at her. Hearing her claim that she thought she could prevent a suicide simply by showing a nerdy boy in a lower grade a little attention was kind of far-fetched, but Violet, at least the version of Violet we had met in September, could be so naïve and sheltered that I guessed it was possible.

"Didn't you realize after he killed himself that you'd made it happen?" Mischa asked, not buying any of Violet's innocent act.

"No! Not at all. Imagine if you were in my shoes. Would you really put two and two together? It's like... what if the lady who works the cash register in the lunchroom died tomorrow? Would you ever think that her death was linked to a hamburger that you bought, or the five-dollar bill that you handed her? No!"

"And then what about Rebecca? Did you figure it out when she died? Or did things not click into place until the third funeral, or the fourth?" Mischa snapped.

Violet straightened her posture and threw her shoulders back, growing defensive. "Hey. Rebecca was my friend. I didn't know she was going to do what she did. I'm not a monster, you know." Two enormous tears made their way over her lower eyelids and spilled down each cheek. She wiped them away with her fingers quickly, and blew her nose into a tissue she withdrew from her coat pocket. "I knew she was in a lot of pain, keeping a lot of secrets. I didn't think she'd ever..."

"So, I have to know. Did your parents move you away from Lake Forest because of all the problems you caused there, or because of the estate here to settle in Willow?" I asked. For just a fraction of a second, Trey looked up from the bleachers and glanced at Violet. She looked back at him, and I could have sworn I observed some kind of understanding pass between them. Just as quickly as their eyes met, Violet looked away out toward the fence circling the track.

"The things that happened in Lake Forest were not my fault," Violet insisted. "I haven't committed any crimes!"

Mischa snorted. "The way we see it is that you brought this on," Mischa accused, taking a step forward and stabbing her fingertip into Violet's chest. "You killed Olivia, you killed Candace, and now I'm probably next. The last time I checked, murder was a crime. You have tomake it end."

I was a little afraid of Mischa. She was acting wild, but then again, if I had still believed my death was next in the line-up, I might have been acting with a greater sense of urgency, too.

"I don't think you get it, Mischa," Violet said, smiling nervously, digging her hands into the pockets of her coat. "I can't change what they showed me. I didn't kill anyone. I don't know how to make it all stop, and they also don't show me a timeline of when things will happen. For all I know, you're meant to choke on something when you're one-hundred-and-five years old."

This brought Mischa no comfort. She folded her arms over her chest and stared Violet down. "I don't want to choke to death now or ever. And if I'm going to die, I'm comfortable taking you with me. I want to be clear with you. If you don't make this stop, I will kill you."

I was chilled to the bone by Mischa's conviction and tried not to turn and stare at her. To my left, I could hear the huffing and puffing of her angry breathing. The truth was that she had considerable upper body strength from gymnastics training for ten years. If she wanted to hurt someone, she could. If she wanted to kill someone, and wanted my help, I wasn't sure how I'd respond. While I believed Violet in her claims that she didn't know how to bring the game to an end, I didn't believe her charade of innocence entirely. I believed she was being guided through this confrontation. She was being told what to say, how to throw us off.

Violet's eyes darted beyond us; surely she was wondering if we'd chase her if she made a run for it across the track back toward the parking lot, where the late bus would be arriving momentarily to pick up kids who stayed at school an extra hour for extracurricular activities. Maybe her spirits controlled her words, but they couldn't control her thoughts, and she was probably thinking in that moment that if Mischa lunged at her, she would be a goner. "How do you propose I do that, Mischa?" she asked. "I don't know how many times I've told you guys, I don't have any control over this."

"Then summon your spirits. Make them fix it," Mischa demanded.

Violet's voice quivered. She was on the brink of crying. "It doesn't work that way, I swear," she insisted. "I can't just summon them. They only come to me under specific circumstances, or randomly when they feel like it."

Mischa and I exchanged determined looks. "You mean, like if we were to play Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board," Mischa suggested.

Violet shifted her weight from one leg to another. Beneath her, gravel that had drifted over from the track into the grass on which we stood crunched. She said finally, "Yes. Or if we held some kind of a séance. But even that's not a guarantee. I've never actually asked them to do anything for me. They don't take requests. They just arrive, show me stuff, and leave."

Mischa's plum-stained mouth set into a firm, serious line. "Then we play the game again to bring them back, and you tell them that they made a mistake."

Violet looked at me as if to object, and then carefully said, "But the game won't work again. They already showed me your death. If they arrive again they might just show a repeat, or they might get angry."

"We'll play the game on Trey. They haven't told his story yet," Mischa suggested.

Trey looked at the gravel, and Violet shook her head slowly. "They don't have a story for him."

"Then, McKenna. They didn't show her death," Mischa reminded us both.

Violet's eyes flew wide open in terror, and she looked to me to save her.  As much as I didn't want to participate in the game again, it wasn't an ideal time to inform Mischa that Trey and I had other ideas on how to topple Violet's power. "Okay," Violet agreed. "Tomorrow."

"Not tomorrow," Mischa shook her head. "Tonight. Be at my house by eight o'clock. I want to deal with this as soon as possible. I could be dead by tomorrow, remember?"

"I can't tonight!" Violet objected. "It's my mom's birthday and we have a bunch of people coming over. I can't sneak out."

"Then, fine. Tomorrow. My house."

Violet's lower lip trembled a little bit before she agreed. "After the game. It's only the second game of the season. I have to be there."

Mischa's arms flew out at her sides in exasperation. "You're saying a basketball game is more important than my life!"  A buzz came from within her bag, and she checked her phone to find a text message from Matt. After reading it, she said, "Okay. Tomorrow after the game, if that's the best you can do. We'll all be here tomorrow afternoon in the stands, so don't even think about disappearing with the pom pon squad to go to Bobby's or something. We'll be waiting for you."

Mischa turned and walked toward the gate leading back to the parking lot, through which we could see Matt pull up in his mom's Honda to pick her up. Violet and I stood in silence, with Trey sitting behind us, both of us waiting for Mischa to be out of earshot before acknowledging our mutual fear of the game we had just committed to resume.

"Do you think she'll really kill me?" Violet asked me after Mischa passed through the gates and climbed into Matt's car.

"She might," I mumbled. Things might have been different right after Olivia died. But Candace's death changed everything. I felt it as sure as I felt the wind blowing; Mischa was doomed just like my other two friends had been. "Look, I'm not really thrilled about playing this damn game with you again, but I'm willing to try, because I actually care about Mischa when obviously you don't, Violet."

Violet looked down at the ground again, and startled me with a loud, uncontrolled sob. When her eyes met mine again, they were filled with tears and her nose was pink. "I didn't want to tell Mischa this, but her plan isn't going to work."

I already knew that playing the game wouldn't work to break the curse, as did Trey, but I put my hands on my hips. The cold November wind blew through my light jacket, making me wish I'd done as my mother had instructed and dug my winter coat out of the back of my closet that morning. "And why is that?"

"Because," Violet began, "I told you. When we played the game at Olivia's house and it was your turn, the spirits sent me all these weird messages. They couldn't show me your death, because it already happened. The door was already closed."

"Well, I'm not dead, I'm right here," I snapped. Trey stood up and took me by the arm.

"We're done here," he announced to Violet. "You're going to miss your bus."

Trey and I walked home without saying much. "That girl's crazy," he muttered as we reached the corner of Martha Road. "Don't pay attention to her saying stuff about you being dead. She doesn't know what she's talking about."

"I know I'm not dead. I'm right here," I insisted. "But maybe Jennie and I shared a soul, you know? Maybe identical twins like us are one soul, split in half, and that's what Violet's seeing when she tries to read me."

Trey kept shaking his head. "Everyone has their own soul and yours is just fine. Ignore her. We really can't believe anything she says. I was watching her reactions on the track. They, or it—or whatever is behind this—is telling her what to say."

"What about the object?" I asked, still considering the destruction of the object to be a safer course of action for us than resuming Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board. But to avoid initiating the game again, we were going to have to figure out the object, and destroy it, before evening the next day. "Any ideas?"

"I've got nothing," Trey said. "My only guess would be something she keeps in her purse, because she kept it pretty close to her the whole time we were talking."

I wanted to ask him if there was something he needed to tell me about him and Violet to put to rest my curiosity about that moment they had shared on the track. But it didn't feel like the right time to question him. Considering the level of trust I had invested in him over the course of the last few weeks, the thought of him withholding secret information about Violet was too much to bear.

At dinner time, Mom asked me a ton of questions about my day, quite obviously trying to be a more involved parent. I was distracted as I provided her with adequate answers about my classes, my thoughts lost in musings about objects and the afterlife. Maude was being a general nuisance throughout the meal, first begging for a sample of chicken pot pie and then scratching endlessly at the sliding back door leading out to the deck. "Alright, already!" Mom exclaimed finally, flipping the switch on our kitchen wall to flood our back yard with light and sliding open the door so that Maude could race across the yard.

Almost an hour later, I put on my shoes and my jacket to try to lure Maude back into the house after she refused to return inside when Mom called her. "There must be a rabbit back there or something," Mom theorized.

In the yard, even despite the light shining over our deck, my eyes adjusted to the darkness before I could see Maude's dark body in the far corner of the yard, digging away at something. It was freezing cold outside, with frost settling on the grass, and I cursed the puppy for dragging me out of the warm house. When she saw me approaching she became very excited, running in circles around her digging spot, not far from where Trey and I had buried Moxie, happily yapping at me. "What are you doing back here, you bad girl?" I asked. As I grew closer, I noticed that the hole she had dug, which she was so anxious to show me, wasn't very deep. It was about a foot in width, and oddly shaped. Standing right over it, I realized that the puppy had somehow scratched a hole in our grass that looked unmistakably like a heart. Maude barked at me enthusiastically, as if she was telling me, "See?"

And then clarity hit me like an unexpected slap across the cheek.

The sweaters.

Since the weather had turned cold, Violet had been wearing new sweaters every day. All of them—thick wool and creamy cashmere—covered her neck. There had been loose cowl necks and tight turtlenecks, ribbed crewnecks and an ivory funnel neck which had shown off her figure, even before Candace's death.

They had been covering the gold locket that she had so plainly displayed during warmer weeks of the school year.  Whether she had subconsciously been obscuring it with knitwear to put the locket out of our minds, or had been intentionally piling on sweaters in the hope that we'd forget that she had worn it every day at the beginning of the school year, I wasn't sure. But I had forgotten about it entirely, until Maude had reminded me. I thought back to the bowl of heart-shaped soaps in the bathroom at the Richmonds' house, and how I'd been compulsively inclined to use them. And then I realized whether I was "dead" as Violet claimed or not, I had just as much help on the other side as she did, if not more. It was possible that Jennie, Olivia, Candace or even Moxie had guided Maude outside to trigger this visual cognition. 

It was that locket, that heart-shaped locket, connecting Violet to all of this trouble. I was absolutely sure of it.