This was the critical moment, the point at which Jennie’s instructions would either work… or fail. Whoever was on the other side of the door had successfully removed the doorknob, and was peering at us through the hole left in the door. I blocked that out, and focused on trying to tell the rest of the story—the story of how I would have died if Trey hadn’t saved me—as calmly as possible. When Violet had been the storyteller on the night of Olivia’s party, she’d gone all out on the gory details, so I did my best to imagine my death as it would have realistically occurred.

“McKenna tumbled through the air, falling over three stories to the pavement below. Her skull cracked when she hit the ground, and her neck snapped. She died instantly, spraying the cement and nearby fountain with blood and brain matter.”

From outside the door, I heard a male voice say, “They’re having some kind of séance or something!”

I looked around the circle at Mischa, Violet, and Trey and said, “Two days later, her family and friends gathered at Gundarsson’s funeral home, where her twin sister was waked eight years earlier. Her body lay in a closed coffin. Light as a feather, stiff as a board.”

Already knowing what was expected of them, Mischa and Violet chanted, “Light as a feather, stiff as a board.” Trey joined in, and the four of us continued to repeat the phrase. Our voices faded as if someone were turning down the volume on the audio around me. Within seconds, it was as if everything happening in Violet’s bedroom was on mute, or like my brain had been enclosed in something soundproof. I saw the lips of the others continue to move as they chanted, and in my peripheral vision, I saw men in navy-blue uniforms burst into the room after throwing the door open.

Then everything went dark.

When I opened my eyes, I was in a hospital bed.

I held very still as I gained awareness of my surroundings, at first wondering if somehow I’d reversed time and was eight years old again, back at St. Matthew’s Hospital, where I’d been taken after the house fire that had killed Jennie. Or maybe this was part of the dying process, revisiting one of my strongest memories. I recognized the location by its antiseptic smell before even noticing the TV on the wall across from my bed or the IV in my arm.

As soon as I made sense of the fact that it was daylight—and sunny outside my window—I realized that the women on the television show on my room’s TV were discussing the current president. I hadn’t traveled back in time. Then I felt a jab of pain in my heart.

Henry.

The last thing I could remember about being in Violet’s bedroom was the door opening. I had no idea if Henry had been taken away in an ambulance, or if he’d even lived long enough to be treated by the paramedics when they’d arrived at the Simmons mansion.