My blood was running cold. I had no idea what she meant by the dark place, but I didn’t like the sound of it, or of Jennie being there.
“Now, I can’t understand what she’s trying to communicate because that message is for you and not me. But you’ve got loa all around you, and she’s protecting you from them. You did something to upset them, and whatever it was…” She trailed off and closed her eyes, shaking her head as if whatever I’d done was too terrible to put into words.
Afraid, I asked, “What are loa?”
“They’re the spirits, ma chèrie. They bring us messages from the Bondye, but they need to be fed in order to stay strong enough to manage their business,” she explained.
I didn’t want to ask what the loa liked to be fed, or what kind of business they managed. I had a bad hunch where this conversation was headed. “What do they eat?”
Mrs. Robinson pressed her lips together as if trying to decide whether or not to answer me honestly. “They feed on life.”
Life. Of course. This conversation was getting to be too much for me. I couldn’t go down this road again. I had found a decent balance, with the protection spell, and I couldn’t risk that.
“Mrs. Robinson? My shift ended ten minutes ago, and I’m going to get in trouble with my boss,” I interrupted her as she went on about loa. The sun had completely set during the few minutes that had passed since I’d entered her suite, and I rose from my seat to turn on the overhead lights in the room. “We need to get your dinner order in, or you might have to actually go down to the cafeteria if you want to eat.”
She was adamant that she didn’t want to socialize that night, so I called down to the cafeteria and placed her order for a bowl of chicken soup and a side of mashed potatoes. I felt my phone buzz in the breast pocket of my shirt and didn’t have to check it to know that it was Rhonda, texting me to see if I was ready for her to pick me up. But despite everything, I couldn’t make myself step out of the room.
I knew—after everything I had already done and all of the warnings I’d been given by Judge Roberts—that the smart thing to do would have been to bid Mrs. Robinson a good night and leave—go back to Dad and Rhonda’s without giving Mrs. Robinson’s observations another thought.
But my scalp was still tingling as if I’d rubbed peppermint oil on it. Jennie wanted to communicate.
“Can you teach me how to talk to her? My sister?” I asked. I may have been doomed to light candles for the Portnoys for the rest of my life, and I wasn’t interested in receiving messages from dead people like a reality TV ghost whisperer. But I couldn’t resist the possibility of strengthening my connection to Jennie. Finding a way to communicate effectively with her would have been for me like anyone else having the ability to hop into a time machine and revisit the happiest day of their life. “You’re right. I am in trouble. I mean, I thought I was out of it, but I might not be.”
Mrs. Robinson told me, “I can try. But first, is there any salt around here?”
Each of the suites had a tiny kitchenette: two cabinets, a sink, and a small fridge, and I was pleased to find brand-new, sealed salt and pepper shakers in the cabinet over the sink.
“Good girl,” Mrs. Robinson said when I told her she was in luck. “Shake salt along the perimeter of this room. Right where the wall meets the floor. And do a little extra around the doorway.”
As I did what she asked, I felt like a total weirdo. I went somewhat easy on the amount of salt I shook because I didn’t want to attract bugs, even though housekeeping would probably vacuum up all of it within the next two days. Despite salt being mostly harmless, I knew I would probably be fired in a heartbeat if Luis were to find out. I wondered why Mrs. Robinson’s daughter hadn’t sprinkled the salt for her when they’d moved her in earlier that day if it was a priority. Probably because dumping an entire shaker of salt into carpeting was ridiculous.
“The salt keeps the evil out,” Mrs. Robinson called to me as I emptied out the rest of the shaker near the door.
“Okay,” I announced. “You’re all salted up.”
“Good. Good,” Mrs. Robinson told me, and “Now. When you come back, bring me some filtered water and essential oils—orange, lavender, and clove. And fennel! Don’t forget the fennel. And red brick dust.”
“Um, I don’t know where to get that,” I admitted, reluctant to disappoint her but knowing better than to commit myself to something insane, like smashing bricks into dust on my night off. She clearly wasn’t going to teach me what I wanted to learn until I fetched the items on her wish list, which was frustrating. But I couldn’t blame Mrs. Robinson for taking advantage of the situation. In the eight long years since Jennie had died, I’d only been able to communicate clearly with her once beyond simple yes-and-no answers to questions, and that had been at Christmastime, when she’d appeared in the form of a ghost that was rumored to roam along a highway during snowstorms. Having to wait another two days shouldn’t have felt like as much of a punishment as it did.
“Then eggshells. You can peel them off boiled eggs if you have to. Just bring me eggshells, as many as you can,” she said. “And sprinkle some salt and pepper in your shoes before you go to the store. Don’t want you handling my business with evil following you around.”
I have to admit, I began to wonder about the validity of her advice when she issued the order about the salt and pepper in the shoes, and I vowed to Google the authenticity of that as an actual voodoo practice later on. “I don’t work on Tuesdays. But I’ll bring it all on Wednesday.”
I didn’t know what Mrs. Robinson had in store for me, but I was lost in thought on the ride home with Rhonda. It was troubling to think that the loa, or Violet’s evil spirits, were mad at me, specifically, and surrounding me. Nothing ghostly had ever happened in my bedroom in Florida, and I’d never sensed any strange presences around me either. My heart was fluttering at the prospect of learning a better way to exchange information with Jennie. But icy terror was tickling at the tips of my fingers and toes at the possibility that Mrs. Robinson’s guidance might broaden my knowledge about the curse that was now on Mischa. As much as I was hopeful about finding a better way to protect Mischa, I genuinely dreaded the prospect of getting pulled back into the death trap that Violet had sprung on me and my friends back in September.
“Have a good day at school?” Rhonda asked.
“It was fine,” I said. “I have a ton of calculus homework.”
Behind the wheel, she shook her head. “Calculus. I didn’t even take precalculus until senior year. You’ve got a head for math. When I was your age, I just did not have the patience.”
Rather than asking her what her interests at my age were, which I knew she was hoping I would, I let the conversation die off. I was preoccupied with thoughts of whether or not Violet’s spirits had the ability to take their aggressions out on me if they thought I was tampering with Mischa’s obligations to them. It had certainly seemed like they’d been able to manipulate elements in the real world in the past to try to prevent me from making progress toward breaking the curse on Violet. They’d managed to drop an enormous icicle on Henry’s windshield back in January, shattering it. I suspected they’d caused my mom and Mrs. Portnoy to get into a fender bender over the winter too. The spirits’ power in our world seemed to require an enormous amount of energy on their part, which meant that the actions they were able to manifest were spur-of-the-moment and delivered in quick bursts. Even if they were fastidious planners, they seemed incapable of hatching elaborate plots, which was a small comfort. But now that I was dwelling on it, I’d been in Florida for two and a half months without experiencing any moments of dread or terror, which seemed suspicious.