“Are you there?” Cheryl asked after a prolonged moment of silence.

I hoarsely choked out, “Yes.”

“I don’t know if this is true or not, but my mom’s friend said she thinks Amanda’s spine snapped. She was afraid to move her.”

A broken back. That would probably mean paralysis.

“There’s more,” Cheryl said.

Somehow, I had known the moment my head turned toward the TV at the sound of the newscaster’s voice that there would be.

“The second tornado touched down across town. It hit Mischa’s dad’s car dealership.”

I summoned a memory of Portnoy Luxury Automobiles to my mind. I’d never actually gone inside or looked at a car there, but I’d probably driven past it a thousand times in my lifetime. It was on the far side of town on the way to Ortonville, the more upscale part of town, closer to the subdivisions of Sherwood Hills, where Candace had lived, and Timber Creek.

I barely felt my mouth form the words. “Is her dad okay?”

There’s no reason to assume he’s dead, I told myself. He might have been working in Green Bay or Sheboygan today.

“I don’t know. All I heard was that there are cars everywhere.”

That was two tornados. Two members of the Portnoy family. As if on cue, Cheryl continued slowly, knowing how much the news she was delivering would tear a hole in my heart. “And the third tornado touched down on State Street, not far from Mischa’s mom’s real estate office.”

I waited. “And?”

“It ripped up the asphalt, messed up buildings and cars along one side of the street. And the other side of the street looks fine, like nothing happened.”

Don’t leap to conclusions, I ordered myself. Mischa’s mother was a real estate agent. She rarely had reason to be in the office since she was often showing houses to prospective buyers around town. But deep down, I knew it was too coincidental. In the past, when the evil spirits had demonstrated their ability to interfere with matter and energy in our world, I’d always interpreted their actions as threats. This time, they’d called my bluff. They’d shown me—and Mischa—what they were capable of doing.

“Do you think Violet has anything to do with it?” Cheryl asked. “She’s been missing at school a lot this spring. I mean, not that I’ve been paying much attention. But she’s in US History and calculus with me, and she was out for almost two weeks straight in February.”

“I don’t know,” I replied. “I don’t think so.” Surely the tornados had to do with the curse that had originally been on Violet, but I didn’t have any reason to believe that she had involvement in its cycle anymore. The spirits had moved on and were focused on Mischa. Even though I hadn’t heard about Violet missing school, I was too stunned by everything Cheryl had just told me to consider what that might mean while we were still on the phone.

The pain in my head was unbearable when I asked Cheryl to call me if she heard any news. One, two, three. Mischa had been right. Violet’s spirits had collected on their debt, three times, just like they’d been threatening they would.