Sweet, unassuming Cheryl. I bit into my lower lip and felt a flash of hesitance about doing this to her. Candace’s parting advice for me was to use Cheryl as bait if I flat out refused to consider Henry. On one hand, Cheryl wasn’t someone I would think could easily talk victims into requesting their own deaths. Not the way that Violet had been able to do at Olivia’s party, or even in the festive way she’d predicted deaths at her New Year’s party. What had made Violet so skillful in managing her curse was that people always wanted to cozy up to her, earn her admiration.

Plus, Cheryl was too kindhearted to ever intentionally hurt another person. But what Cheryl had going for her was her eagerness to please others. Her genuine willingness to be a good friend. No one would ever suspect Cheryl of having evil intentions… and that was exactly why she’d be an irresistible conduit for the spirits’ soul-reaping.

The only reason I’d settled on Cheryl after ruling out Henry was that Mrs. Robinson had seemed so confident that I would pull this off, lure the spirits out and trap them without ever endangering Cheryl. I wasn’t so naïve as to think I could conduct this ceremony without Cheryl having any idea what I was doing. She’d definitely know I was doing something weird. But if I could dare to hope that I’d capture the five evil spirits in a mason jar and seal them off from the world, what was the harm in hoping Cheryl might not be too mad at me?

I hadn’t told Henry that Cheryl would be our bait that day, which meant that Violet also had no idea. While it was better that way—even if only so that neither of them could make me feel guiltier than I already did—it meant that I was solely responsible for getting the timing correct.

Just as Henry returned to the viewing room, Mischa began sobbing loudly enough to catch our attention. He handed me the water bottle, and we both watched as an enormous man with a buzz cut—easily twice the size of Mischa, with shoulders as wide as a refrigerator—walked down the aisle toward her. He practically lifted Mischa into the air when he reached her. The mere sight of him seemed to break Mischa out of whatever shell had been repressing her emotion since we’d arrived, and now the floodgates were open as he rocked her in his arms.

“That must be her gymnastics coach,” I told Henry. Amanda and Mischa had been training with the same coach in Ortonville since they were both toddlers. Mischa had told me that Coach Armoudian was kind of like a second father to them. The moment that thought occurred to me, it was followed by my hope that nothing bad would happen to him. Mischa had lost more than any of us now. It just wouldn’t be fair for her to have to say good-bye to another loved one.