Leslie immediately collapses to the floor.

I mean, ceiling.

She covers her head in her hands and starts rocking back and forth.

“This can’t be happening, this can’t be happening,” she whispers.

Mira, at least, seems to be taking it a little bit better. “What did you think would happen?” she asks, circling her flashlight around the ceiling. Her light glints off the cutlery and plates and expensive glasses. My eyes catch on the knives. Did that one just move?

“Not this,” Leslie says.

“Then why—”

“There’s no use arguing about it,” I say. “I mean, come on—we’ve all done silly things like trying to get Bloody Mary to come out of a mirror, you know? No one really expects them to work. She didn’t mean for all of this to happen.”

Leslie’s eyes glint with tears when she looks at me. Thank you, she mouths.

I kneel down beside her.

“Who gave you the idea of the séance, anyway?” I ask.

“I don’t know,” she admits.

“What do you mean you don’t know?” Mira asks.

“I mean, I got an email. I didn’t recognize the sender. It was all anonymous. I figured it was an upperclassman covering their tracks. And it just said to do the séance at midnight and say those words because it would really scare everyone.”

“They weren’t wrong,” Rohan mutters.

I sigh.

“So we’re stuck in here, and we don’t know why,” I say. “All we know is that someone wanted you to do the séance. They must have known what would happen.”

“I bet it was Bradley,” Rohan says. “He’s enough of a jerk to do something like that.”

“Why would he do that if he’s trapped, too?” I ask.

Rohan shrugs. “Maybe it backfired.”

“Maybe,” I say. “But that still doesn’t answer why we’re trapped, or who the Grand Dame is, or how we’re getting out of here before something worse happens.”

“Speaking of,” Mira says. “Is it feeling a little warm to you?”

I look over to see her tugging off her scarf. Rohan, too, is shuffling in his layers, unzipping his coat and pulling off his hat, his dark hair matted. I’d been so distracted—or else my coat was so good at keeping out both the cold and the heat—that I hadn’t even noticed, but she’s right. I peel off my gloves. The air is warm. Like, early summer warm. Did someone turn on the heat?

Reluctantly, I start undoing all my layers, leaving just a sweater and jeans and my scarf. Leslie does the same. And as we take off our heavy winter clothes, another change happens.

The lights in the inverted chandeliers flicker on.

Above us, fires roar to life in the massive fireplaces, and the glass votives on the tables begin to glow. Their flames trail down, toward us, and just staring at the way the fire defies physics sends a whole new wave of vertigo through me. I reach out and hold on to the wall for support as the upside-down dining room glows warmly.

As the room comes to life.

“Whoa,” Rohan whispers. He stares up at the ceiling, or the floor—whichever—entranced.

Distantly, I swear I hear the faint music of a string quartet.

“We should find the other kids,” Leslie says. She pushes herself to standing, rolling her shoulders back. Clearly trying to take control of the strange situation and fix the mess she made, even if she didn’t mean to make it.

She takes a few uncertain steps into the room.

Mira takes my hand and helps me to stand. Rohan waits expectantly a few feet away from us.

Leslie almost reaches the chandelier when we hear it.

Clank.

We all look toward the door. But the sound isn’t coming from there. It isn’t from the beast outside.

No.

Something glitters on the ground between Leslie and Rohan and Mira and me.

A knife.

“What the …” Mira begins.

Another clank cuts her off.

The fork that fell wobbles only an inch from her feet, the prongs embedded in the ground.

We all glance up.

To see the cutlery beginning to hover over the tables.

Another fork falls down toward us. And another. And another.

“Run!” I yell.

But Leslie can’t run. Because now, she begins to hover above the ground. She yells out in fear as forks and knives fall around her, and she starts falling up.

Mira and I huddle against the wall, and a moment later, Rohan’s feet begin to lift off the ground as well.

“Rohan!” Mira yells out.

She grabs my hand and takes a step forward. As I cling feebly to the doorknob, she stretches out, toward Rohan. His feet are inches off the floor now, and his eyes are wide with fear. Beyond him, over his shoulder, I watch as Leslie floats higher, and knives and cutlery fall around her like glittering, dangerous snow. She tries to swim through the air, tries to grab on to the chandelier as Mira finally latches onto Rohan’s hand.

“Help me!” Leslie calls out. “Please!”

But there’s no helping her. She’s too far away.

Mira’s grip tightens painfully on my hand as she struggles to hold on to Rohan. He grabs her hand with both of his and tries to pull himself toward us.

Behind him, Leslie twists and rotates slowly. She’s nearly to the top, could reach out and touch a table if she tried.

Mira’s grip on my hand strains. I look down to see that she, too, is starting to lift off the ground.

“No!” I yell out.

As Mira’s fingers slip through mine.

As Rohan yells in fear.

As Leslie reaches the ceiling, and her feet touch.

The moment she’s standing, it’s like gravity snaps.

Instantly, Rohan and Mira collapse back to the ground, and the final pieces of cutlery clatter to the floor in front of us.

“Ow!” Rohan yelps, landing on his knees. Mira manages to land a little more gracefully.

Leslie, however, is still stuck on the ceiling.

“Um, guys?” she calls out. “How am I—”

But she doesn’t get to finish what she was saying.

The lights around us snuff out, the whole room going pitch-black.

Someone screams.

A moment later, the lights flicker back on.

Mira and Rohan and I stand, surrounded by tables, the chandelier above us and all the cutlery set at its proper place. Just as it should be.

Like nothing ever happened.

Except Leslie is nowhere to be found.