Wherever she was in the fabric of space and time, Jennie would offer up the soul of the person described in the obituary in a way that matched my story. Mischa and I would chant the chorus, since I always needed the energy of a second person to “play the game.” And then we’d be done until the next cycle of the moon.

We hadn’t broken the curse the day that Mr. Simmons fell off the roof. But Jennie had successfully led the spirits to an area of the dark place where she’d been able to imprison them. I never dared to find out what would happen if I didn’t transfer a soul in time. This was simply a condition of my life, and I believed wholeheartedly that when I did die, the curse would die with me.

It took me a while in college to figure out what I really wanted to do with my life, flipping between majors almost every semester. My father scolded me about wasting time and money, especially because I could have gone to school in Florida at the university where he taught for free, but I didn’t feel like I was wasting either. I’d been accepted to the University of Wisconsin with a generous scholarship after winning an essay contest on the topic of perseverance.

I’d been inconsolable with grief over losing Trey throughout my senior year of high school. The only person with whom I communicated regularly was Henry after we resumed our morning FaceTime chats. He’d convinced me to come back to Wisconsin to be closer to him. When I did, it felt so normal and right to be back in Wisconsin and around him that I was in no hurry to graduate and move on with my life.

Ultimately, I settled on veterinary studies because through my work with Brian, my psychic mentor, I realized that I had sympathetic communication abilities with animals in addition to dead people. I couldn’t very well tell my dad how gratifying it was for me to hear from someone’s sick pet what was wrong with them, or to provide dogs and cats with comfort on their way to the spirit world. Being ever mindful of Mrs. Robinson’s request that I be a bright light for those who needed my abilities, I considered it an obligation to help people whenever I could. Dad never came right out and said it, but I knew he considered my decision to go to veterinary school as a form of betrayal because he saw it as my following in Glenn’s footsteps—and in a way, it kind of was.

Mom and Glenn relocated to a modern condominium in Ortonville that looked kind of like a gingerbread house. While I knew it was hard for my mom to close the chapter of her life that had unfolded on Martha Road, she knew there was no turning back after the second fire. She and Glenn never married, but they seemed very happy together whenever I visited. Glenn was delighted to help me with homework and even let me spend weekends when I drove up to Ortonville working as an aide to gain experience.