Summary

With fewer and fewer guests on the island, Ava and the other Bigtree children had free time on their hands. It was during this time that Ossie began to change. She’d found the spell book “The Spiritist’s Telegraph” in the library boat and began reading it. Ossie would not let Ava read the book but did allow her to flip through it. Ava remembered a portion about the underworld and asked her father about it. He told her there was no such place as the underworld or even heaven or hell. That those ideas were all fairy tales. Ava tried to explain it was a book for witches but her father didn’t take her concern seriously. Ava and her sister had begun playing with an Ouija board, trying to contact their mother.

Ava...