None of the guests standing around sharing memories of Adam and Elena Portnoy seemed to notice anything at first. But the powdery, floral scent of the funeral home was slowly overpowered by a musty, rotten stench, and attendees tried to respond politely as they became aware of it by covering their noses with their hands and handkerchiefs. Mr. Gundarsson—not the owner of the funeral home, but his adult son—sniffed the air delicately and stepped out of the room, presumably to alert his housekeeping staff that something strange was happening.

Mischa turned away from the guests, and her eyes landed on me, Henry, and Violet. She stared at us with a firm frown, expressing that this was her territory, and we were intruding on it. Matt approached her, slipped an arm around her waist, and whispered something in her ear. She twisted her neck to face him while replying, and whatever she said to him was surprising enough that he backed away from her with his jaw hanging open and retreated to the other side of the room, where his mom was seated with his brothers.

“There you are. I’ve been looking all over for you.”

Mr. and Mrs. Richmond arrived, and Mrs. Richmond kissed Henry on the cheek. She looked as well put together in her black dress and cashmere coat as she always did, although now that I’d seen the piles of clutter in the Richmonds’ house, I thought of her differently. As she greeted me with a warm smile, my eyes fixed on her gold earrings, which were shaped like crosses. I knew I wasn’t imagining it when the crosses slowly turned upside down in her earlobes.

“Your mother? Is she here?” Mrs. Richmond was looking at me with a concerned expression on her face. I snapped out of the daze the earrings had put me in, realizing that she’d already asked me once about Mom.

As if on cue, Mom appeared next to me. “Ready to hit the road?” she asked me. She looked down dubiously at the mason jar in my hand. “What’s with the jar?”

I nodded. There was no way we were going to be able to undo what we’d done to Mischa that day without guidance from Mrs. Robinson or Jennie. “It’s just a… project.”

Henry and Violet both looked panicky as I waved good-bye to them and promised in a shaky voice to text them later. It took all of my focus to act “normal,” not wanting my mom or anyone else at the funeral home to have any sense that I’d probably just sealed my grisly fate, as well as doomed the entire population of Willow. It felt like an absolute admission of defeat to leave without correcting my mistake. Mischa, or whatever was masquerading as her, could skip town that very afternoon. I might never see her again and have another chance to beg or bargain for my life, if there was a chance either might work. All I could do was follow my mom on wobbly legs toward the French doors.