I wrung my hands and admitted, “I don’t know. I’m open to ideas.”

“We could drug her,” Trey suggested earnestly. “If Violet’s right, and the spirits are limited by the state of Mischa’s body, then maybe we could knock her out long enough to bring her back here.”

“Drug her with what?” Violet asked.

“Don’t your parents have fancy designer drugs around here? We could crush Ambien into a cup of tea or something,” Trey said.

Violet shook her head in frustration. “You obviously don’t understand how sleeping aids work. And besides, you guys should know by now what happens when the spirits suspect we’re up to something. Even if we could disable Mischa’s body, they’d still know what we were doing and try to stop us.”

Henry piped up, “Why don’t you ask that woman?”

“Mrs. Robinson?” I took a moment to explain for Trey and Violet’s benefit who Mrs. Robinson was.

“Call her,” Violet urged me. “It can’t hurt.”

With the time difference between Wisconsin and Florida, it was seven fifteen in the morning in Tampa. Far too early to be making phone calls on a Monday. But most of the residents at the assisted living facility were up with the sun. I just didn’t know whether or not Mrs. Robinson was one of them.

Mrs. Robinson’s phone rang three times before she answered and greeted me with, “Who is this?”

“It’s McKenna Brady,” I replied.

“McKenna Brady,” Mrs. Robinson repeated. “When are you coming back to work? I need you to bring me some needles and black thread. One of these girls on the housekeeping crew complained to the building manager about my salt, and I need to teach her a lesson.”

I smiled in spite of my anxiety about the day ahead and the grim likelihood that I’d never return to Oscawana Pavilion. “Mrs. Robinson, is there a way we can convince a possessed person to come with us to a safe location?” After I explained to her that Jennie thought she might be able to banish the spirits to the dark place, Mrs. Robinson thought for a moment. “The only way I can think of to get the loa to do anything at all is to offer them something they’d want.”

Intimidated by the three sets of eyes fixed expectantly on me, I turned my back on the others and walked into the kitchen before saying, “Well, they want souls, and they’ve already got mine. I don’t know what more I could offer them that I could actually give them.”

Mrs. Robinson hummed a few notes that didn’t sound like they belonged together in a melody. “Well, they do love making deals. You know, that game you played with them really was a deal—just a shady one. You had to figure out the terms on your own, after the fact.”

I shuddered. Of course. A deal.

In a tiny voice, I asked, “Why would they want to make a deal with us when they can just take whatever they want?”