“That’s the thing! They can’t just take things outside of the rules of the spell. To do that, they always need to make an agreement. They need your cooperation. At the end of the forty days that Jesus spent in the desert, the devil took him up to the top of a mountain and tried to tempt him into proving that he was the son of God.…”

I couldn’t recall Mrs. Robinson ever mentioning the Bible before, but I guessed it wasn’t impossible for her to know her Bible stories and also believe wholeheartedly in voodoo.

“So he could trick him into handing over the Lord’s kingdom. The loa are like the devil,” she continued. “There’s always something more they want, and it always has to do with power over our world. They can’t get enough of it,” Mrs. Robinson explained.

There were five of them—I’d seen them with my own eyes—and only four of us. And among us, there were only three souls they had yet to claim. Based on what Kirsten had told me about spell interaction, and how the spell cast by Trey’s mom had subverted Grandmother Simmons’s original spell, I wasn’t even sure they’d want Violet’s soul, or Trey’s. In the fall, Violet had told us that they “didn’t have a story” for Trey, which meant they would refuse to predict his death. If we stood any chance of successfully luring Mischa over to Violet’s house that day under the guise of making a deal, all we really had to offer them was Henry.

And I really, really didn’t want to do that.

After a prolonged moment of silence, Mrs. Robinson must have sensed my terror, because she added, “You’ll have to take some precautions. I would recommend you make some voodoo dolls, if you’ve got the time.”

“We don’t have much time. Do you really think the dolls would help?” I asked.

Mrs. Robinson went on to explain why the dolls were important; that their purpose had been distorted in mainstream media. They were most effectively used for protection rather than to inflict pain and suffering on others. We were going to have to make voodoo dolls of ourselves as a way of deflecting the full force of the spirits’ power. “They don’t have to be anything fancy. Just make sure they’ve got heads, arms, and legs.”

She also said that black pushpins were essential; the color black was associated with power, and we’d want to stick a pin in the head and chest of each of the four dolls we created to bolster our individual strength. “And you’ll need to take the pins out of your doll at the right moment for your sister to do whatever you’re thinking,” Mrs. Robinson reminded me. “She won’t be able to reach any of your souls either, as long as the pins are in.”

Making dolls and even finding black pushpins were the least of my worries that morning. Staying focused the entire time we were dealing with Mischa, and convincing her at exactly the right moment that I was going to die—so that Jennie could swap our souls and do her part—that was going to be a lot more difficult.