CHAPTER 25 
“Well, go on. Use it again,” Germ says.
It’s the following night and the three of us are together now: Germ, Ebb, and me. We sit in my abandoned living room shivering, staring at my Lumos flashlight, which I’ve placed in the middle of us. The moon is a new, tiny sliver above.
I slept most of the day, exhausted while Germ went to school. And now, with everyone back at the trailer asleep, Germ and I have snuck over here together, bundled against the cold.
I study the flashlight, biting my lip. “I’m scared I’m going to hurt someone with it,” I say.
“It probably only hurts bad guys,” Germ says.
“You try it,” I say to her. “You’re good with aim and stuff.”
Germ shrugs, picks up the flashlight, points it at a wall, and turns it on. But it’s only a beam. She hands it back to me. As soon as I take hold of it, the bright, breathtaking bluebird appears—and then wreaks havoc. She circles the room, tearing down the chandelier above the overturned dining room table, knocks over the one vase that was still standing, and nearly eats Fred the spider as he sits on my knee. Just in time, I cover Fred with my free hand, and turn the flashlight off again before she can reach him.
“I don’t think she just destroys bad guys,” I say.
“Um, yeah,” Germ says.
Under Ebb’s worried gaze, I shepherd Fred into my pocket.
“This time,” Germ suggests, looking thoughtful, “maybe see if you can control it more. Like, be calm, know what you want to point it at. Try to think of it as an extension of you. Like your arm or something. That’s what we learned in nunchucks class.” Germ has taken every athletic class known to mankind.
I warily hold the flashlight again, taking a deep breath before I turn it on, then direct it at a safe, empty corner of the room.
The little bluebird appears again. This time, though, she is slow and gentle, pecking around the floor at imaginary seeds. She seems to suddenly notice us, looks over, cocks her head inquisitively. I tense up as she hops toward me, nervous she’ll hurt me. But she only hops up onto my hand.
My fingers twitch a little. She feels like part air and part feathers. Like a half-imaginary, half-material thing. She appears to like me. To want to please me, actually.
“We should name her,” Germ says. “How about ‘Chauncy’?”
“Chauncy” is Germ’s name for everything that needs a name, because she thinks it’s funny.
“I knew a boy named ‘Chauncy,’ ” Ebb says wistfully. Germ snorts into her hand.
The bird sits on my finger, nuzzling up to me, chirping very softly—as if she didn’t harbor a powerful, destructive side. She doesn’t have much of a voice, but her liquid dark eyes hold cleverness, I decide. And courage, despite her size.
“Little One,” I say decisively. “She looks like a Little One.”
We walk out onto the lawn, so that we won’t break anything else in the house. (Not that it matters with the house already so broken—we just don’t want things to land on our heads.)
“Get her to do some stuff,” Germ says.
I direct my flashlight—and Little One along with it—at a piece of paper on the grass. She pecks at it, and it bursts into small flames. I direct her up into the air, and watch her fly, quick and sure, darting in and out around trees, diving and soaring. I point her at a chair that’s been tossed out of my house, and she flies right at it, takes one little peck at its leg, and the leg breaks in half.
“She’s, like, a barreling bluebird of destruction,” Germ says, impressed. “Do you think she’ll be enough… if the Memory Thief comes for you?”
“I don’t know,” I say.
I think we’re all wondering, not if but when. I hate the thought of always hiding, always waiting for the Memory Thief to appear.
“I wish we could find her first instead,” I say. She is the only witch, it seems from what I’ve learned, that might be reachable somewhere in the world.
As I ruminate on this, something happens to Little One. Fluttering up toward a tree branch, she begins to fade, and suddenly blinks out.
I shake the flashlight, but nothing happens.
And then I realize. “Batteries.”
As Germ and I search the kitchen for more, I think about something the cloud shepherd said.
“A witch weapon is limited only by the boundaries of your own heart,” I say to Fred in my pocket, sardonically. Your own heart, and battery life, I guess.
It takes the wind out of my sails. My weapon is a dinky little plastic flashlight that cost three dollars, and it’s useless without batteries. Little One may be able to crunch on chairs and paper and moths, but a witch is a much bigger thing. What if Little One’s not strong enough? She seems pretty ferocious, but she’s also tiny. As much as I hate to admit it, it’s still hard to think she could be any match for a witch.
I turn the flashlight beam on again once the new batteries are in. Little One appears perched on a chair, looking at me inquisitively. I walk outside again, to where Ebb is waiting, looking thoughtful.
As she flutters up toward a tree, something draws Little One’s attention toward the woods. Suddenly she’s executing a thrilling dive through the air—barreling across the distance faster than I’ve ever seen anything move. I see, just before she reaches her target, what she’s going for: it’s a memory moth, floating out of the edge of the woods, probably looking for me. Whatever the reason, Little One swoops down on it like a dive-bomber. Though it’s almost as big as she is, she snatches it out of the air and eats it in one gulp, chomping with bright-eyed satisfaction, tilting her head this way and that as if to savor the flavor.
We wait breathlessly for a distant screech, the sound of the Memory Thief losing one of her precious creatures. But there is nothing, no sound, no anything. Maybe Homer’s right, that the witch is somewhere licking her wounds. I look at Ebb and Germ, and after a few minutes of waiting, we all exchange a giddy smile.
Then Little One tilts her head, staring toward the woods again. She chirps and chirps and chirps at me.
And then she again barrels into the woods.
I see just a flash of her—soaring toward a treetop—and there’s a bright flicker as she catches another memory moth in her mouth, then gently lets it go. She circles back to me, chirping, restless.
“I think she’s telling you something,” Ebb says.
I look at Little One, uncertain. “What?”
“Maybe you don’t have to wait for the Memory Thief to come for you,” Germ offers suddenly. “The moths are all sent by her, right, from wherever she hides?”
I nod, slow to catch on. And then it hits me.
“Little One can follow the moths,” I say, breathless.
“I’ll come with you,” Ebb says, “as far as I possibly can.”
I try to process what he’s saying. It hits me hard. I feel scared, maybe even more scared than I did the night I first got the sight. Because I know what this means.
It means it’s time to find the Memory Thief, and fight.
It’s not easy to pack everything you need to survive a journey to find a witch, especially in a trailer full of sleeping people without waking anyone up. But my mom sleeps soundly as Germ and I move about the main room, stuffing my backpack full of granola bars, water bottles, Gatorade, nuts and peanut butter, Slim Jims, bread, and peanut M&M’s.
I roll up my sleeping bag and connect it to the pack with Germ’s brother’s belt. I’m wearing layers: a sweater, tights, coat, hat, and scarf. I’ve already taken all the money out of my mom’s wallet, and left a piece of paper with the letters IOU in its place, because I saw it in a movie once. I slip Fred the spider into my pocket, ever so slowly. He’s already, in the short time we’ve been home, built a web in the corner of the room with the beginnings of a word.
In the bathroom, I splash warm water on my face to wake myself up. In the steam on the window, I write, You can do this, sweetie.
Germ lays a note for her mom on the kitchen counter, lingers for a moment staring at it, and then stands at the door, silhouetted by the porch light, waiting. It doesn’t register, for the moment, why she’d do such a thing. I am too lost in thoughts of leaving, my throat aching.
I stand over my mom on the couch for a moment, looking down at her sleeping form. I crouch beside her, and think: Either I’ll succeed and see her again and the curse will be broken, or I’ll never see her again at all. Ever so gently, I touch her shoulder and give her a soft kiss on the cheek.
“I’m going to fight the Memory Thief. I’m not sure if I’ll be back,” I whisper. “But if I do come back, I hope you remember me then.”
I step toward the door. Then I gasp. Extra batteries. I almost forgot.
Germ directs me to a pack in one of the kitchen drawers, and I stuff them into my bag. Then I follow her out into the yard. Ebb has promised to meet us halfway between our houses.
It’s not until we are a few minutes down the trail (walking, this time—too loaded down to bike) that I realize Germ is also carrying a backpack. I halt abruptly.
“You’re coming?” I say.
Germ looks slightly sheepish.
“I thought I could take you just as far as I can.”
I stand there hesitating, unsure whether I should let her come or not.
“I left a note for my mom. I told her I’d be gone for a few days and I’d explain when I got back and to try not to worry. If at the end of three days, we haven’t found anything, I’ll turn back.”
“That’s six days. And worry? She’s going to lose her marbles.”
Germ doesn’t say anything for a minute because she knows I’m right. “I brought tons of beef jerky. Tons.”
I still don’t know. The thought of having Germ with me as I set off into the woods is about the most comforting thing I can imagine in the world right now. But I want her to stay.
“Rosie,” Germ says. “I know I can’t fight a witch. I know it’s not my destiny like you. My destiny is to be, like, a normal person. But I still want to help. I’ll come as far as I can. And then I promise, I’ll let you go.”
I don’t know how many days or miles it will take to get to the witch. It may be that it’s a distance too great to travel and that I’ll have to turn back anyway. But I soften as I think, At least I will have Germ for part of the way.
“Okay,” I relent. “But when it’s the right time, you’ve got to let me go.”
Germ nods. “I will. I promise.”
Ebb is waiting for us in a patch of moonlight at a familiar boulder where I asked him to meet me. There’s a light dusting of frost on the ground, and trees that make everything sparkle.
“You packed light,” Germ jokes, because of course he is just floating there like he always is.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” I ask Ebb.
He nods.
“I haven’t ventured more than a mile or so from home since I died,” he says, “but there’s a first time for everything,” he says. He looks scared.
We stand for a moment, staring at each other. And then I pull my flashlight from around my neck. I point it at the horizon to the north, and Little One appears, sitting on a path of dry leaves ahead of us, tilting her head at me quizzically. I breathe deeply.
“Follow the moths,” I tell her. “Just don’t eat them. We don’t want to draw attention to ourselves.”
Little One is zipping over the trees—a flash of luminous bright blue against the dark. And then she is gone. We stand there in silence and wait. Minutes pass. We look at each other, nervous, the forest hushed.
And then there’s a woo-wup-woo-wup-woo far off in the trees. And Little One shoots up above the treetops in the distance like a tiny firework, chasing a tiny, luminous moth. She stops midair, and then hovers. She’s waiting for us to follow.
We trudge into the woods.
I glance over at Ebb, who appears pained.
“You okay?” I ask him. And he looks over at me and nods.
“Does it hurt?” Germ asks.
Ebb considers this like he isn’t sure. “I feel like my soul is at the end of a yo-yo string that’s stretched too far. Yeah, it hurts.”
“Do you want to turn back?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “It’s bearable,” he says. He takes the lead before I can argue.
When we catch up with Little One, I point my flashlight forward again like a kind of command, and she takes off. She covers lots of distance, but never goes so far that we can’t hear her woo-wup-woo-wup-woo, and see her little figure when it rises, victorious, from the trees. Each time she finds a new moth, she circles like a beacon—her bright blue shining iridescent in the dark sky.
“The moths may end up stretching all the way to Japan,” Germ says.
And with that cheerful thought, we walk into the night and whatever it may hold.