Maybe they were waiting for me to get good and distracted before they made their move, so they’d catch me off guard. It was a lucky thing that Mrs. Robinson had stepped into my life to remind me that the danger was ever-present. Or was it? It had been weeks since I’d gone down a mental rabbit hole of paranoia like this, wondering if I was fearing the right things and if I had anything truly to fear at all.
We were about halfway through eating dinner before I sensed the awkward tension between Rhonda and Dad. I had just swallowed a large gulp of water when I realized that they were both eating in silence, and Dad occasionally glanced over at me with a stern look. My stomach sank. I had been trying to follow orders, be helpful around the house, and not be a nuisance. Living with them was a privilege, and I was desperate to avoid being sent back to the Sheridan School for Girls.
“Is everything okay?” I dared to ask.
“Fine,” Rhonda said curtly, making it clear that she was lying. I liked Rhonda, but she could be passive-aggressive.
“You guys are being really quiet,” I said, convinced that in one way or another, they were fighting, and the reason for their fight had something to do with me.
After dinner, I loaded the dishwasher without being asked. Dad went straight to the living room to watch one of the crime shows he loved. Instead of walking over to the gym, Rhonda went upstairs to the bedroom she and Dad shared. I genuinely hoped that I hadn’t inadvertently offended her on our drive back from the assisted living facility. Later, while I was trying to do homework, my phone buzzed with incoming messages. When I finally took a break from what little progress I was making and took a look at my Instagram account, I saw that the messages were from Mischa. She was freaking out, claiming that weird things had started happening with increasing frequency, and she was pretty sure something very bad was imminent. Before I even read the fourth message in the string of short, urgent notes she’d sent, I tapped the contacts on my phone to call her. Hearing from her on the same day as having Mrs. Robinson tell me I was surrounded by angry loa was enough to completely shake me.
“Why are you calling me?” she asked.
“Because I don’t want to text about this stuff! You know my parents spy on my social media accounts!” I exclaimed. “What is going on? You haven’t touched any tarot cards, have you?”
“No! God! I said I wouldn’t, and I haven’t,” she insisted. With an uncharacteristic trembling in her voice, Mischa continued, “But listen. They’re mad at me for not listening. I don’t know how much longer I can keep resisting this.” She kind of sounded like she was hiding in a closet from a home invader, terrified of being overheard.
“What’s been happening?” I asked, trying to keep my voice low.
“Well, two new moons have passed since January, when I went missing, right? And no one died in January, so technically they didn’t get what they wanted from Violet before that new moon either. So I’m three behind.”
“No,” I argued. “You’re not behind. This was Violet’s problem, not yours.” Since January, whenever I’d touched base with Mischa, I had made a point of adamantly insisting that she not take responsibility for any part of the situation. Accepting responsibility was like taking ownership, and it seemed dangerous to me for Mischa to mentally acknowledge any of the burden of killing.
Mischa groaned. “Whatever! I keep seeing threes. Everywhere I look! And I’m not being paranoid, okay? Last night, the alarm on my phone went off at three thirty-three a.m. And at lunchtime today? I bought an iced tea and carrot sticks in the cafeteria? Three dollars and thirty-three cents. And that’s just today. For the last few weeks? Every morning when we leave for school, Amanda has to start the car three times. Three. It always works on the third try.”
I listened without interrupting, mostly because I didn’t know what to tell her to convince her to continue resisting. She was in a sickeningly awful predicament. It was one thing to fear for your safety. It was quite another to intentionally kill another person.
“Look,” I said when it seemed like her rant was over. “I know you’re not being paranoid. If anyone on Earth is going to believe that these things aren’t just coincidences, it’s me.”
“So what am I supposed to do? I don’t think I can keep ignoring this!”
I had never told Mischa what Violet had relayed to me about her early experiences with the curse after she had inherited it from her grandmother. Telling Mischa that the spirits had electrocuted Violet’s mom and nearly killed her when Violet was refusing them seemed like a surefire way to make Mischa whip out a deck of tarot cards and give some unsuspecting kid a death prediction as soon as possible. It made me feel terrible keeping that from her since I had every reason to believe—even though I didn’t want to think about it—that eventually the spirits would pursue Mischa’s family if they didn’t get what they wanted.
“I’m working on this thing every day. I’m so close to finding a way to get it off you. I swear,” I assured her. This was wholly untrue because I’d been focused on keeping a low profile in Florida and had been naïvely hoping that things in Wisconsin were under control. But I did feel slightly better about lying to her regarding the status of my progress, because meeting Mrs. Robinson was something.
“Well, work faster! I’m honestly, like, scared. And this is super messed up because I qualified last weekend at the state championships to advance to the Region Four meet in three weeks—which is amazing considering that I missed two invitational meets and who knows how much practice in January. But instead of throwing myself one hundred percent into training, I’m freaking out about stupid evil spirits! I mean, do you understand how ridiculous this is? I have a real shot at qualifying for the Olympic team, and I’m worried about potentially having to kill people!”
“Just…” I struggled to find convincing enough words to encourage her to keep resisting. I had no reason to believe that Mrs. Robinson’s knowledge of voodoo would be of any assistance at all in Mischa’s situation. We hadn’t even talked about Mischa. “Don’t predict any deaths, okay? We both know how that ends.”
“How much longer?” Mischa demanded. “How am I supposed to believe that you’re getting anywhere? Every time you’ve said you’ve known what we have to do, you’ve made things worse!”
My breath caught in my throat. She’d forgotten that I could have easily turned a blind eye after both Olivia and Candace died in the fall. After all, Jennie had protected me from the curse that Violet had issued to them, as well as to Mischa. It was only because I’d wanted so desperately to be part of their close-knit circle—even after Mischa was all that remained of it—that I’d dedicated myself to trying to stop Violet. Maybe I’d been trying to save Mischa because I hadn’t been able to save Jennie from the fire that had burned down our house when we were eight. But the fact remained that since the fall, I’d wrecked my life—and Trey’s—in service to Mischa, and I’d not been under any obligation to do so.
Before I could utter a word, I heard Mischa sob over the phone. “I’m sorry. I know this isn’t your fault, and you’re the only person I can count on. I’m just scared,” she said through her tears.