Twelve years after her mother’s suicide, eighteen-year-old Abby Williams is eager to escape her rural Mississippi town and the infamy of her name. Kids at school whisper behind her back, her reclusive father barely engages in conversation, and her former best friend—the only girl she’s ever kissed—looks right through her.

And when Abby starts seeing things, as her mother did so many years ago, the dream of moving away and starting a life free of baggage too heavy to carry slips through her fingers. Movement out of the corner of her eye, shadowy figures, whispers at the base of her skull—Abby is sure she’s following Mama’s footsteps, and after years of not talking about her or her illness, Abby desperately needs answers before she loses herself completely.

But answers don’t come easily; as the voices grow more insistent and Abby withdraws from everyone she loves, a classmate’s attempts to hurt her intensify from barbed words to physical violence. And as Abby pieces together her mother’s past, she suspects her schizophrenic demons weren’t all in her head. Especially when one makes Abby an offer she might not be strong enough to refuse—revenge against everyone who’s made her life a living hell.

And as her classmate’s violence escalates, she’s forced to choose: duck her head and let her tormentors do what they please, as she has her whole life…or embrace the demon and make everyone—including herself—burn.

Just like Mama.