The third card was set on the table, and the table rattled and shook on its own as if an earthquake was occurring in the Simmonses’ kitchen. Its legs knocked loudly against the kitchen floor, and I slid my chair back a little bit, in fear. Oddly, despite the table’s erratic movements, the stack of cards remained intact without spilling, and the three cards Mischa had already placed in an array stayed fixed to the tabletop as if they’d been glued there.

“I don’t like this,” Mischa said as her fingers hovered over the deck.

“It’s too late. I already shuffled, I already set my intention,” I reminded her. “We have to finish it.”

She set down the fourth card, and a breeze swept through the kitchen, catching all three of us by surprise. Our hair was swept up over our heads and across our faces. A stack of mail on the counter behind Violet scattered across the room.

And somehow, the shoestring of the gris-gris became unknotted at the base of my neck. The leather pouch slid down my chest and hit the table in front of me.

The first rush of wind died down to a moment of alarming stillness before another—stronger—blast of air stirred around us. Cabinet doors opened and slammed shut. A wire rack suspended from the ceiling over the stove from which copper pots and pans hung began swaying, and the pots and pans clacked and clanged. I was grateful to Henry for having taken the knives upstairs because it seemed entirely likely that if he hadn’t, there would have been blades flying through the air. Petals were torn from the spring bouquet set atop the kitchen counter in a crystal vase, and bits of pink and peach miniature carnations flew past our faces. The vase skidded across the countertop toward the edge, but none of us dared to get up from the table to keep it from falling off. The table continued to shake, now rocking back and forth on its four legs.

I wondered how it was possible that Henry hadn’t heard the commotion from the next room, but for all I knew, he’d driven himself home.

The blood had drained from Violet’s face, and unexpectedly seeing her appear so genuinely afraid made me more anxious about what was happening than the hurricane unfolding around us. She raised her voice to be heard over the raging wind. “Something isn’t right! We should stop!”

But nothing had been right for months. Fear wasn’t an adequate reason to give up. In fact, if I’d learned anything so far in my dealings with Violet’s spirits, when they were trying to scare me, it was usually a good indication that I was on the right track.

“Jennie, should we continue?” I asked breathlessly. The crystal vase slid over the edge of the countertop and shattered on the tile floor a few feet behind Violet, startling all of us.

Before Jennie could reply to my question, Mischa squealed. A fifth card was rising above the deck entirely on its own, levitating in the air for a moment before drifting into the row on the table to join the other four cards. “I didn’t do that!” she exclaimed. “I didn’t even touch it!”