“Derek, it’s okay. Really. I’m glad you were there to keep me from doing something even more wicked.”

Derek wrapped her in a hug.

“You’re the least wicked person I know,” he said.

Maria smiled. This was exactly the right response.

Derek cleared his throat in Maria’s ear, and Maria realized that the brown recluse spiders — along with the others — were standing there watching them. Perhaps they were waiting for their next command. Derek eyed them nervously.

“Do you … do you know what they want?”

“Nope,” Maria said. She nodded at the rings. “I would need those to know that.”

“You don’t think … I mean, they’re not going to … eat us … are they?”

“I don’t think so,” Maria said. “I don’t think they liked how Luellen had been treating them. You can use a ring to make an obedient animal, but only a friend will help you in the end.”

“Oh, yeah? So you’ll be there for me next time I get mixed up in an unspeakable evil?”

“Always,” Maria said. “I hope you know that.”

There was something wonderful about being on a boat.

The fishing pond in Falling Waters was no private lake, but the important thing today was that the Lopez family was here together, on their very own boat. Well, the Lopez family plus its honorary fourth member, Derek.

Their little boat rocked as Rafi’s line went taut on a catch. The sun beat down on them, focusing extra hard on Maria’s black jeans and T-shirt. She hardly minded. For one thing, she could see in a full circle around them, and what she didn’t see was a single shadow or spider.

“What’d you catch?” Mom asked as Rafi reeled in his line.

“Looks like a catfish,” Derek said.

“A tiny one,” Rafi said. “I’m going to let it go.” He unhooked the fish and threw it back in the water. He had done this five other times already, claiming that each fish was either too small to eat, too big to carry, or else too sad-looking.

Rafi had been acting different in the week since last Saturday. For one thing, he’d been noticeably nicer to Maria, which was all well and good. But he was also a little quieter, and a little jumpier, too. Maria hoped these changes would undo themselves in time. But it had been nice to hear him on the phone today, telling Rob that he didn’t have time to hang out because he was going fishing with his own family.

“You know, you haven’t touched your book since we got out here,” Mom said to Maria.

“I didn’t want to be rude. Besides, I only brought it out here because I thought fishing was supposed to be a silent activity. But you three have been talking nonstop since we stepped in the boat.”

This was Maria’s poor attempt at a joke. In truth, Mom had been a little quieter, too. Mercifully, neither she nor Rafi remembered everything about that night. But they remembered enough to know that Maria had saved them from something they weren’t entirely sure they believed in.

“There’s just something about still water that makes you feel like you have to whisper,” Derek said. “It’s like being in church.”

“That reminds me,” Mom said, “I’ve been thinking about how much I liked the people at Grandma Esme’s church. They were just so welcoming. What would you guys say if we started going to that one on Sundays? Maybe pick up the Meals on Wheels program?”

“Sure,” Rafi said.

“Sounds good to me,” Maria agreed. Mom had been suggesting all kinds of little changes in the past few days, from family game night to Taco Tuesdays. They’d bought this boat before they even had the money from Grandma Esme’s house, which they were definitely selling. Maria was fine with this, having finally decided that it was probably healthy to keep memories of a person in your heart, instead of in their objects. Then again, she was still wearing the purple pendant necklace today, and she’d placed the old anchor whistle on the same cord, deciding it was the exact kind of jewelry one should wear in a boat.

“So, um, Maria?” Rafi said. “The man … Arturo? He was our grandfather, but he wasn’t a Lopez?”

Maria nodded.

“His real last name was Antonescu. He told me so in a story. But I think Grandma Esme would have wanted us to stay Lopezes. Don’t you, Mom?”

“I do,” Mom said. “And I, for one, like that our name starts with our little family.”

The police investigation had finally ended this week when the wound on Arturo’s neck had tested positive for black widow venom. It was determined that Rafi and Mom had been saved by the age difference and Maria’s 9-1-1 call. Whatever the officials wanted to believe was fine by Maria. She had no interest in reliving the real details for anyone. Rafi and Mom hadn’t even asked how they’d come to be in the basement of Vic’s Antiques, which officially had been renamed Derek’s Junk Shop two days ago. They were celebrating the living.

“Rob’s parents said it was lucky the spiders at Claire’s party weren’t the same kind that bit us. She just had the regular scared-of-spiders kind of fainting.”

“Oh, Claire,” Derek said. “How long do you think it will be before she starts being mean again?”

“I think it might be a while this time,” Maria said. “I told her I was sorry for telling people she had followers instead of friends, and she said she was sorry for the locker thing.”

Derek flinched at the word followers, but Maria shrugged.

Maria reached into her pocket and pulled out a handful of rings. The sight of them made everyone nervous. Rafi clearly thought they were real spiders at first.

“What are you doing with those, Maria?” Mom said.

“I think I’m getting rid of them,” she said.

“That’s probably for the best.” As soon as Mom had woken up in the hospital, she’d said to Maria, “Your grandmother warned us,” then immediately fallen asleep again.

“Are you sure?” Derek said. “Those rings could make you rich forever. I mean, after you sell them, of course,” he hastened to add. Mom and Rafi still had no idea that the rings had powers.

Maria shrugged. Money wasn’t everything. It certainly wasn’t worth the life that these accursed rings bought.

“Can I see them one last time?” Derek said.

Maria hesitated. She’d kept the rings hidden from everyone this week, locked in a trunk where not even the spiders could get them. They were just too tempting.

“Okay,” she said, handing him the rings. “But just for a second.”

Derek took them and looked at them. Each ring was a little different, in its own horrible way. Maria hadn’t spent much time examining them.

Then Derek put them behind his back and moved his hands around.

“Guess which hand the Brown Recluse is in,” he said.

“That’s not funny, Derek.” Maria reached out her palm for him to give them all back.

Her voice must have sounded awfully frantic, because right away Derek stopped and gave her back the rings. “I was just teasing you,” he said.

Maria took the rings in her hands, and brought her hands to her mouth. There were no spiders in sight, but she hoped, after everything, that they would be able to hear her.

Thank you, she thought. Thank you for everything. I don’t have much to give you, but I can give you this.

Without looking closely, Maria hurled the rings into the water.

Her mother gasped, and her brother gave her an odd look, but Maria didn’t care. She had all the gifts she needed right here, in this little boat.