“Right, but the letter said that the curse’s power comes from believing that you’re cursed, right? So what if your mom thinks the curse is real and it makes it hard for her to get close to you because she’s so afraid she’ll lose you?”

She’s quiet for a long moment. “Maybe.” She brushes her eyes quickly.

“The problem with that is that in the meantime, while she’s trying not to lose you, she is anyway.”

“Yeah.” Her voice is barely above a whisper. She bobs her head, and we’re quiet, but the silence is full. There are so many ways a relationship can go wrong, it’s amazing we keep trying at all.

“We should probably go,” Willow says, reaching for the locket’s clasp. “If that guy who keeps showing up is as eager as he seems, he may want Simon to do a showing right away.”

Willow’s eyes are still a bit watery, but she looks calmer now.

“You should keep that necklace,” I say. “Especially if your mom is planning to sell everything in the house. It’s like your souvenir.”

“Maybe,” she says quietly.

I’m desperate to not leave the house, but more than that, I’m desperate at the thought of no longer being with Willow. “Hey, do you maybe want to hang out a little bit longer?”

“Definitely.” She slips the locket under her shirt. “You’re right. I’m going to keep this.”

We end up at the Star Wars pizza place that Emma told us about, and while we split a pepperoni droid (a small and medium pizza put together to look like BB-8), we discuss our next move.

Willow holds up her phone. “Violet texted back. The aunts have no idea what the last line of Sage’s letter is referring to.” She sighs, then takes an enormous bite. The pizza has perked her up a lot. If she were something I was observing in the night sky, I would write that fact down for future reference. When subject appears dim, feed her pizza and she will regain her sparkle. Not that Willow could lose her sparkle, but I hated seeing her so sad.

“ ‘The last story is ours. You know where to find it,’ ” I repeat. The tough part about this final clue is that it is so clearly geared toward Willow’s mom that I’m afraid we won’t be able to find it without her. Not that I want to tell Willow that.

“What if we do a really thorough job of searching the house?” she asks, but she makes a face immediately. “I know it’s useless. We already did that.”