And I felt lost without my phone. It was possible that Violet was texting me to see if I was home yet, and her house was much too far from mine for me to even consider walking. Matt Galanis, Mischa’s boyfriend—with whom she was most likely staying—lived pretty far from us but within walking distance. I was putting Maude on her leash with the intention of strolling over to his house to see if Mischa was there when our landline rang. I heard Mom answer it in the kitchen. And then, “McKenna? You’ve got a call.”

“Who is it?” I asked. No one ever called our landline except my grandparents and telemarketers fund-raising for charities.

“It’s Cheryl,” Mom said.

Out of everyone I knew, Cheryl was my only friend who would have even known my home phone number from back in the days before we all had cell phones. Maybe she’d been trying to reach me on my cell and Trey had told her that I was back in town, and that he had my phone? Cheryl was the only one of my female friends who Trey truly liked, so it was possible—though unlikely—that he would have replied to her. He hadn’t hesitated to do whatever I asked of him in an effort to save Mischa’s life, but I got the sense that he thought she was shallow and pretentious. I took the phone from my mom and pressed it to my ear. “Hello?”

“McKenna, it’s Violet.” Her voice was trembling and high-pitched. “I need you to come over to my house right now.”

My heart immediately started to pound. I side-eyed my mom, who was making a pot of coffee. I had to sound casual. “Uh… what’s going on?” There was no way my mom was going to agree to drive me over to the Simmons house. Technically, Violet still had a restraining order against me. But something had to be very wrong, and I fervently hoped Henry didn’t have anything to do with it.

On the other end of the line, I heard another voice in the background before Violet replied, “Amanda Portnoy’s doctors are saying that she’s not showing any signs of improvement, and Mischa’s here. Just come as fast as you can.”

Mischa? At Violet’s house? “Are you safe?” I asked.

There was a long pause before Violet said, “No. Just hurry.”

Click.

My chest ached as if the wind had been knocked out of me. The only reason I could think of for Mischa being at Violet’s house was if she’d decided to kill Violet—either in an attempt to rid herself of the curse, or to punish Violet for having started all of this in the first place. As extreme as it may have been to imagine Mischa showing up at Violet’s house in a murderous rage, I knew that’s what Henry had been thinking too—and Mischa had just as valid a reason.

“I’m going for a walk,” I announced in a tiny voice. My mom said something in response about the cold, but I was already on my way into the living room to put on shoes. Maude whimpered at the front door when I set her leash back on its hook on the wall. I couldn’t put her at risk.