“Yeah, we didn’t tell her about any of that,” I said. “It’s complicated. Better that she not remember anything from January.”

“Listen,” Violet said. “The curse clearly jumped from me to her. I mean, there’s just no other explanation.” She didn’t have to mention the tornados for me to know what she was referring to.

“You told me that when you first inherited the curse from your grandmother, you tried to ignore the spirits when they demanded souls,” I said. “And they threatened to kill your mom? Well, Mischa’s been getting weird messages about the number three. And now both of her parents are dead, and Amanda’s probably going to die soon too.”

The line fell silent. “Well, at least she’s caught up now.”

“Are you kidding me, Violet?” Her casual attitude about death never failed to blow my mind every time it surfaced.

“I’m not making light of it, okay? It’s awful! I feel so shitty! I’m just saying, there wasn’t anything she could do to stop it. At least the worst is over now. Plus, my life isn’t all that great now that the curse isn’t on me anymore, but that’s irrelevant.”

I ignored Violet’s defeatist attitude, refusing to believe there was nothing we could do. We hadn’t broken the curse, but we’d changed the circumstances, and that made me believe more than ever that it was possible to end this. But dealing with a murderous version of Mischa was more than I could handle on my own. “Do you have any idea how bad this is? Mischa was ignoring the spirits because I begged her to. Now she’s probably furious! She’s going to come after me. She’s going to come after you!” I hissed.

“I know, I know! That’s why I texted you! The next new moon is on April twenty-second. Maybe we can figure out how to end this before then.”

I felt, once again, as if I was going to start crying. “How?! I’m all the way in Florida! And I thought we’d already ended it!” Kirsten had told me shortly after our adventure in Michigan that she believed the original spell that Violet’s grandmother had cast to help Violet’s mother with fertility had mixed with another spell or curse. “Spell interference” was what she’d called it. But we were back at the starting line in terms of solving the dual mysteries of exactly what was happening and how to undo it.

“You need to get back to Wisconsin. I’m not dealing with Mischa alone. She won’t even talk to me, so it would be impossible. And it’s only going to be harder if she’s sent away now that her parents are dead.”

Violet told me that she’d heard Mischa had spent the night at Matt’s house, but we agreed it was unlikely that she would be allowed to live with her boyfriend for long. I knew Mischa had at least one living uncle, her uncle Roger, but he lived in northern Wisconsin.

“There’s a memorial for Mr. and Mrs. Portnoy on Sunday, and their funeral is on Monday,” Violet told me. “They can’t really sit shiva because the house is totally destroyed, so they’re just having people pay respects at Gundarsson’s. Tell your parents that you need to be here for that.”