As far as I could tell, since arriving in Florida I’d only been receiving messages from Jennie rather than being able to effectively transfer any information back. Our communication was completely one-sided. Although Olivia’s spirit seemed to have been able to master communicating with me by manipulating physical objects like my music boxes, Jennie’s spirit had an easier time with electrical devices. Early in March, when I’d set my earbuds in my ears as I began my walk to school, I’d heard a voice I knew was Jennie’s before I’d even tapped my phone to start playing music. She’d been repeating a three-syllable word over and over again. At first it had sounded like “tomato,” but it was quickly drowned out by a noise that sounded like high winds, the kind that knock the breath right out of your lungs and whip your hair around your face. Wisconsin storm season wind, the kind I’d never yet experienced in Florida—the kind that used to drive Moxie to hide under the bed and whimper. Almost a week ago, I’d left my laptop open to a blank page in Microsoft Word while doing homework late at night, and I’d come back from refilling my water bottle to find that she’d managed to type characters that formed a shape on the page like this:

—

\ /

At first I’d thought she was warning me about a “V.” Violet. Being certain that Jennie was trying to caution me about something but having to guess what it might be felt like scratching off a lottery ticket to find all winning numbers until reaching the last one and realizing I hadn’t won anything at all. Like being hit with a one-two punch of hope and defeat. Upon seeing the characters on my screen last Wednesday night, I asked the pendulum to confirm my shot-in-the-dark suspicion that Jennie was trying to warn me about a tornado, and the pendulum had said Yes. From there, the messages became muddled, and no matter how I phrased my question about who was in danger because of a tornado, the answer was always yes, yes, yes.

But it was early April. Tornado season didn’t truly begin in Wisconsin until summer.

I checked the local weather in Wisconsin every morning on my phone, and never once in the last six days since the weird typing incident had unseasonable storms been mentioned in the forecast.

By midnight, when I knew I had to at least try to sleep, Kirsten still hadn’t replied to my text. I was panicking. A thorough scouring of social media with what little information I knew about her turned up nothing. The only account that I came across that I suspected might be hers was on Instagram, and it was private. I tossed and turned, knowing that it wasn’t fair to be furious since Kirsten was basically a stranger who didn’t owe me anything. But still, I didn’t want to think about what might happen the next day if too many hours passed before one of us was able to perform the candle ritual again.