Violet parked in the circular driveway at the bottom of the front steps, and led us up to the front door. She tapped a long code into a security panel on the brick wall next to the doors, and the doors opened in unison with a click as a green light flashed on the panel. She stepped inside first and held the door open to welcome us.

Trey couldn’t help but marvel as he entered the foyer, just as I had the first time I’d entered this house. An enormous arrangement of peach roses and white tulips was set in a swirled glass vase atop a marble table in the center of the entryway, behind which sprawled the grand staircase leading to the house’s second floor. The imposing portrait of Grandmother Simmons was hung on the wall along that staircase, which kind of made her seem like she was frowning down at the parlor area to our right.

“Shoes off, please,” Violet said.

As Trey kicked off his sneakers, he joked, “Does the butler have the night off?”

Violet didn’t even turn around to look at him when she replied, “Of course. It’s Easter Sunday.”

Trey shot me a frown, and I shrugged. I’d never seen hired help at Violet’s house before during previous visits, but it seemed reasonable that her family had at least a small part-time cleaning staff. The house was enormous—far too big for all of the rooms to be used often by its three occupants. I couldn’t imagine Violet’s parents, both of whom worked full-time, spending their weekends maintaining the vast property.

We followed Violet into the parlor area and then onward to the kitchen. “So, I think we need to conduct an exorcism on Mischa,” I said as I sat down at the table.

Violet took three glasses out of a cabinet and set them on the counter. “Exorcism,” she repeated dubiously as she opened the fridge and removed a bottle of water. “Are you guys hungry?”

I hadn’t thought about it until that moment, but I hadn’t eaten anything all day. If I had to guess, Trey probably hadn’t eaten much over the last two or three days either. “Kind of,” I admitted, although depending on more of Violet’s kindness made me uneasy. She handed both me and Trey glasses of water, and then, without saying a word in response, she took a frozen pizza out of the freezer. She then turned on the oven to preheat it before sitting down at the table with us.

“So, how do we go about performing an exorcism?” Violet asked as casually as she’d once asked me to come up with fund-raising ideas for the junior class trip.

“How should I know?” I said. I was next in line to die, didn’t she understand? I was exhausted from everyone always expecting me to have answers. Violet had been dealing with the curse for far longer than I had; I was starting to get annoyed that the strategizing always fell on my shoulders. “Please don’t think I’m some kind of witch doctor or ghost hunter, because I’m not. I don’t know any more about this than you do. I just have a slight advantage in being able to ask my sister questions.”