Explain Lisa’s decline and what events lead to her desperate attempt to contact the Land of the Dead

Loneliness and social isolation play a big part in Lisamarie's coming-of-age story. Lisamarie is someone with strong ideals and dislikes having to change herself to please others, just like her Uncle Mick. Lisa is often bullied in school for being "weird." She also chooses to isolate herself from her female friends, such as her cousin Erica, rejecting the superficial "girly girl" mold that is pushed on young women. She finds better company with boys, but as she becomes a teenager, the typical flirtation between the sexes makes platonic male friendship a challenge as well.

At the root of Lisa's alienation are her spiritual gifts which make her aware of a whole layer of reality to which others are blind. She is not just lonely in school, but in her own home life, where her more materialistic parents believe her visions to be a mental illness that needs to be eliminated. Alienated from her own Haisla lineage and spiritual traditions, she has little context to make sense of her abilities. Only with Ma-ma-oo does she feel recognized and understood rather than seen as a freak, which is why her grandmother's death is so catastrophic for Lisa. Ultimately, Lisa seems to learn that she is never truly alone, eventually experiencing contact with Uncle Mick and Ma-ma-oo from the other side.