“Then what do you want to do? I think—” He cut off; Del was strolling over to our yard.

Del had a sheen of sweat on his round face as he trudged across the dead grass. “Rough morning for you, too?” He looked at me, eyes bloodshot. “I heard you ladies had an interesting night.”

I cocked my head to the side, unsure of what Jess had told him.

He continued. “She told me about it all. How you all used the Ouija board, got scared, and broke some wineglasses, and then Emily had a nightmare.”

I looked at Mark, who raised his eyebrows. I could see the relief behind his eyes that there was another, mundane explanation for what had happened. Even if it was a lie. But if that was what Jess wanted Del to think, or what he wanted to think, I wasn’t going to refute it.

“Something like that,” I muttered, and he turned to Mark to resurrect a joke from the night before.

I took it as my opportunity to go inside. I couldn’t feign interest in their evening of laughter while the girls and I were in darkness. Closing the front door behind me, I sank to the ground, back against the wood. I didn’t understand how things had gotten worse after the Ouija board. We must have widened the opening between our neighborhood and Mavis, allowing more of her darkness to come through. I covered my face with my hands. We may have cursed our friend and our families forever. Melissa had been right.

I stood up slowly and went into the kitchen, where Jack and Emily had left a stack of printer paper and markers out. I began to gather them up into a pile, smiling at the picture Jack had drawn of the school carnival. It was of the bounce house, with small stick figures inside, some in midair. I was reaching my hand over to sweep the drawings into a tidy pile when my hand froze.

Emily’s drawing was of two figures. One was her, with two braids and a pink dress. The other, behind her, was a dark shape with long hair. It had a stick arm and hand reaching out, nearly touching her. Threatening her, although stick-figure Emily didn’t seem afraid.

I stared at it, and another thought came to me. What if the child in the picture wasn’t Emily but Amelia? And she was showing Emily what her mother had done?

A burning sensation began to build in my stomach, and I felt like I was going to throw up. I grabbed the paper and wrenched open the front door, intending to show it to Mark. I stopped when I saw there was now a group of husbands gathered on our lawn, rehashing their evening.