He weakly smiled around the table at the three of us and shook his head as if wanting to console us, but shrugged to make it clear without saying as much that he wasn’t volunteering to involve himself. “Part of the spell that I provided to Ann Simmons involved planting a rosebush during a new moon in honor of each of the souls that had been lost. My best advice to the three of you would be to destroy those bushes—burn the roots, burn every petal. Put the ashes in a place where they can never contribute to the growth of another living organism. And,” he said, leaning back in his chair and resting his folded hands atop his belly, “be sure to do this during a full moon. The end of a cycle.”

With panic in her eyes, Violet looked across the table at me. “It’s too late for that. I already had our gardeners cut them down. The roots might still be there, but that all happened a few days after a new moon back in January. I don’t know what they did with the bushes or the flowers, but I’m pretty sure they didn’t burn them.”

Trey shook his head and looked down at his lap. “Jesus Christ,” he muttered. “Everything we’ve done has been wrong.”

Father Fahey appeared to be lost in thought for a moment and stroked his beard. “I truly hope you didn’t come here tonight intending to extort exorcism services from me by using that notebook for leverage. An exorcism isn’t what you need. If these incorporeal fiends have taken complete control of the host’s body, then they’re already too powerful to be withdrawn by prayer. Even if you found a way to draw them out, they’d need a place to go. In a typical exorcism, my job would be to make the host’s physical form too inhospitable for the demon to remain. Eventually, it would choose to return to hell. But these spirits…” He shook his head. “I fear they are something else, and they work together.”

At last, he’d come around to issuing advice on the topic we were there to discuss, but he was telling us exactly what I didn’t want to hear: that there was no way for me to save myself. An exorcism wouldn’t work. Game over.

“There has to be something we can do,” I pleaded, my voice barely more than a whisper. We’d botched Mrs. Robinson’s best advice. Father Fahey was our last resort.

“Then your best bet would be to destroy the physical form of the possessed person. Quickly and suddenly, before the spirits have a chance to suspect what’s coming. And while doing everything you possibly can to protect yourselves with the Lord’s grace until they find a new life-form to attach themselves to.”

My mind raced as I tried to process the priest’s instruction. Destroy a physical form? I suddenly felt overheated and realized I was sweating beneath my winter coat.

“What are you saying?” Trey demanded angrily, voicing my thoughts.