I didn’t bother taking another look at Mischa over my shoulder as Mom and I left. It was already painfully evident that the girl in the black dress splattered in cow’s blood was not Mischa.

In the hallway as I waited for Mom to fish my coat out of the closet, I looked at the two drops of condensation in the mason jar I carried with a stabbing pain beneath my rib cage. What if I’d lured a soul out of Mischa’s body and caught it in the jar after all, only it wasn’t evil?

CHAPTER 12

I SWEAR, IF I DON’T go to another memorial service again for the rest of my life, it’ll be too soon,” Mom said as we walked across the parking lot.

I couldn’t bring myself to chat, but Mom didn’t seem to notice. I climbed into the passenger seat, fastened my belt, and held the mason jar in my lap. Until I figured out exactly what had gone wrong, I had to consider whatever that jar contained to be precious cargo.

Mom hesitated for a second before starting the car’s engine. “I’m sorry, McKenna. About everything that happened in the fall. I know you don’t want to tell me why you and Trey did what you did to that girl from Chicago. And I get it. I guess when I was your age, I kept secrets from my mother too.”

“Mom, I—” I really did not have the mental capacity to get into an argument with her about everything that happened since Violet had moved to Willow in the fall. Knocking her down in the high school parking lot and stealing her locket was nothing compared to what Violet had done to Olivia and Candace, although my mom would never believe the truth.

“No, no. You told me that there was something strange going on in this town with… so many tragedies, and I tried to convince you that they could all be explained by coincidence. But now, I’ve got to admit… this just doesn’t seem normal.”

I appreciated Mom’s admission, but this was absolutely not the right time for me to unload the truth on her. There would probably never have been a good time to fill Mom in, at least not about all of it. Not about the night we played the game, or how we made Violet play it again in Michigan, and definitely not about having been in touch with Jennie. “I don’t know what to say, Mom. Sometimes bad things just happen. I think you and Dad were right. It doesn’t mean there’s a reason why.”

Mom’s lips parted as if she was about to say something else, but then she started the car. As she backed out of the spot, her mood changed. “What if we stop by Bobby’s and get some pie? We haven’t done that in a long time.”

Under ordinary circumstances, I would have enthusiastically agreed. But when she’d started the car’s engine, the radio had filled the car with music. And not just any music.