“Stop this!” the coach yelled at us.

To my right, I heard Dan say to Violet, “Come on, Violet. Let us go. This is freaky.”

We were almost done—so close. If only Cheryl would stay still for a few more seconds.

Tease them out. Tempt them, Mrs. Robinson had advised. This wasn’t like an exorcism in the movies. She had seemed confident that these spirits would not respond well at all to one of us commanding them to leave Mischa’s soul. They had to leave of their own accord, and temptation was the most likely way to make that happen.

I threw the empty water bottle into the grass and reached into my tote bag for the second mason jar—the empty one. With one quick flick of the wrist, I took off its lid inside the bag, where Mischa couldn’t see my hands.

“Sortez, sortez, méchants. Venez dans votre nouvelle maison.”

Clearly furious but still seemingly amused, Mischa took another step closer to the cornmeal mix on the sidewalk, maintaining eye contact with me. Challenging me. She raised her right leg as if she was going to step over the scant red brick dust barrier on the sidewalk separating her from Cheryl. But instead of setting her foot down on the other side, she kept it suspended in the air below her bent knee, as if the dust was a kind of force field preventing her from passing. Either that, or she wanted me to believe that it was.

Henry and Violet continued their tapping on the coffee can lids. Cheryl raised her voice to Violet, saying, “You guys are crazy. Seriously!”

And then, suddenly, Mischa’s hands flew to her throat and clasped around it. She appeared to be choking on something. Her eyes popped open so wide they looked like they might fall out of their sockets. She struggled to cough, her chest heaving, but no sound escaped her mouth, as if her airway was completely blocked. “Mischa!” her coach shouted in alarm. He reached around her waist to perform the Heimlich maneuver.

But I knew that Mischa wasn’t choking on anything.

She was strangling herself.

Or rather, the spirits inside of her were making her do so. Mrs. Robinson had warned me that they did love a spectacle. They’d do anything to resist the effect of the drums, the rum, and the cornmeal. And they’d resort to theatrics to try to make us stop. Choking… a sarcastic nod to the death Violet had predicted for Mischa back in September? Even though I had been expecting something along these lines, it was still horrifying to watch. If it weren’t for my own life in the balance, my love for Trey and desperate desire to have a future with him, the dramatic display might have made me lose my courage.

I had warned Henry about this. His and Violet’s drumbeat slowed, and I snapped at both of them, “Keep going!”

“She can’t breathe!” Dan shouted at me.

Cheryl shook her head angrily at me. “Just stop this, McKenna!” she shouted.