“Dude, you should see your face,” Jasper says, slapping me hard on the shoulder. “You look like you actually believe a hand is going to rise up from the dirt.”

Rhett shoves the bottle of whiskey at me, as if it were my prize for doing what they said. I take a slug, then hand it back.

I think we’re done, that we’ll head back now. The snow is falling in thick sheets, and I follow them out through the cemetery gate. When we reach the shore, I turn left. But Jasper calls out to me. “Where you going?” he asks. “Did you think that was it? All you had to do was say some dead lady’s name three times?”

Rhett laughs beside him, but Max looks just as serious as ever.

This next part is why we really came out here.

This is what they’ve been waiting for.

I walk to the edge of the lake where they stand, snow blowing sideways through the trees. A storm is coming. The counselors warned us at dinner to add more logs to our woodstoves, to shut our doors tightly so the wind wouldn’t blow them inward.

But now we stand out in it, the mountains to the north obscured by black clouds.

“You have to walk out on the frozen lake,” Rhett says, his voice buoyant and light, enjoying this. The main event for the night. “All the way out to the center.”

“And then you have to twirl in a circle like a ballerina,” Jasper explains, grinning so wide the gap in his teeth seems broader than usual.

I don’t look at them—I stare out at the frozen surface of the lake. At the dark water still visible beneath.

“You’re getting off easy,” Rhett says. “We could make you sleep outside in the cold.”

I shake my head slowly. “The ice won’t hold me,” I say. I can see that it’s still too thin—not frozen solid. Only a month or so ago, I’m sure there was water splashing onto the pebbled shoreline.

“You don’t have a choice, newbie,” Rhett answers, his voice cold now, his mouth grinning with self-satisfaction. He enjoys this part of initiations—he enjoys the brief sense of power.

“I’m not doing it,” I say, refusing to look away from Rhett. I want him to know that I’m serious. Saying the name of a long-dead witch three times is one thing. But this is something else completely. I’d rather sleep out in the cold all night—I’d rather fight all of them—than risk walking out there.