I attempted to turn my head to the right to see if Trey had made his way over to the piano to take the pins out of my voodoo doll. But my neck didn’t twist immediately, and when it did, I became distinctly aware that my body seemed to be operating on a delay. My eyes didn’t automatically follow the movement of my head. I felt disconnected to my physical motions, as if someone else was controlling my body like a puppet and I was simply observing.

Then my realization of what had happened when Violet had fired the gun clicked into place. Trey had pulled the pins out at the exact right second. I wasn’t the one operating my body anymore. I wasn’t really even sure that I was in my body anymore.

Jennie was.

Trey was there, behind the piano, looking over at me in such terror that I don’t think he was even breathing. And Mischa’s body had slumped back against the sofa where she’d been sitting. Color was returning to her face, and the spidery veins visible beneath her skin were fading. But her glassy eyes stared straight ahead, showing no sign of life behind them.

Confirming my worst suspicions about having been pushed out of my body, I heard my own voice yell across the room at Trey, “Open the jar!”

He hesitated during a moment of suspended animation, looking confused as to whether or not to trust me. But then—still carrying the gun—Violet, who was closer, leapt toward the coffee table. She set the gun down and twisted off the mason jar’s lid, then gaped at the open jar in horror as it occurred to her that she’d just released Mischa’s soul into the expanse of her parlor.

Just then, I looked down and saw my own hands clutching at my throat as if I was trying to strangle myself. Strangulation. That was a death associated with air. That might have been the spirits’ prediction for me all along.

I heard my garbled voice shout, “Under her nose!”

Violet yanked Mischa’s head upright by a handful of the hair on the back of her head. She shoved the open jar underneath Mischa’s nose, but Mischa’s expression didn’t change. “Come on, breathe!” Violet shouted at her. Trey dashed across the room to assist, and clapped a hand over Mischa’s mouth, giving her no choice but to breathe through her nose if, in fact, her lungs were actually working. Then, switching tactics, he frantically pumped on her chest as if giving her CPR, and hopped backward when she suddenly sputtered.

As Mischa blinked and coughed, Trey reached across the coffee table to grab the handgun. Violet was a split second ahead of him, snatching the gun and aiming at him. “Don’t even,” she warned.

Both of them turned to face me—or my body, rather—as I heard myself coughing and sputtering. I was detached from my body but still watching the outside world through my eyes, and I couldn’t hear anything but static coming across the earbud nestled into my right ear. But surely the five spirits were inside me, wrestling with Jennie for control of my body. We hadn’t considered what this experience would be like for me while she tried to send them to the dark place, and I panicked, believing that even a few seconds of this was a sure sign that something was wrong. Jennie was outmatched. They were too powerful for her.…