CHAPTER 22

I’m trudging home through the darkness just before dawn, shivering cold, finding my way by following the shore, when it reaches me—the sound of quiet voices singing something beautiful and sad, but not in any language I’ve ever heard. The closer I get, the more certain I am—it’s coming from home.

Around me the woods are quiet as if listening too. And when I make my way out of the trees and into the clearing of my yard, I find what seems to be every ghost within a five-mile radius, including every ghost from the historic cemetery, joined together in the song.

I see Germ across the yard. When she sees me, she runs across the grass and tackles me in a tight hug. She is covered in dirt and bruises, and her hair puffs out like a tangled mane. I’m sure I don’t look so great myself.

“Is my mom okay?” I ask.

“We’re all okay,” she says. “Your mom’s asleep in a pile of clothes and blankets I made in the kitchen. She doesn’t have any idea what happened, really. She thinks it was a tornado.” She nods back over her shoulder to where Ebb and Homer are sitting together on a log across the yard. “Ebb went to get Homer, but he and the others were already on their way.”

She looks at me, waiting to hear what happened in the woods. When I hesitate, she presses.

“Did you catch the cloud shepherd?”

I nod.

“Did it tell you anything important?”

I look at her for a long moment. And then I shake my head. This may be the first lie I’ve ever told Germ, even with a nod or a shake. But I’m thinking of the whistle, and the shape that rose from the waves. And I decide, I will keep my mom’s great secret a secret for now. The witch I’m after is here on earth, hiding somewhere in the now. And that’s my only concern.

I look around me at the spectacle of hundreds of ghosts gathered on my lawn. “What are they singing?” I ask. I see that Homer and Ebb are now floating toward us.

“It’s a song for Crafty Agatha,” Germ says, turning solemn as she follows my eyes. “I guess it turns out that when a ghost is killed by a witch, it’s forever. No going Beyond. She’s just”—Germ looks down sadly—“been turned into nothing.”

Floating up beside her, Homer shakes his head. “We’re singing to the moon, in a language even the earth can understand, to mourn her. We’re mourning that witches exist at all.”

I think of Crafty Agatha, who never bothered or hurt anybody. And my heart fills with rage at all that the witches have done. What could the world be like without them? What if their ugliness and greed were not just an inevitable thing? I guess that question is what sent my mom wandering across the earth looking for ways to destroy them in the first place. For once, I can imagine what compelled her so strongly to go.

“Does the singing help?” I ask.

Homer tilts his head thoughtfully. “I don’t know why it helps to just share how we feel, and to sing something beautiful at the darkness, but it does.” He clears his throat and wipes a small tear from the corner of his eye.

“How are you feeling, my dear? I hear you were touched by the witch?”

“Just barely.” I think about the strange sense of memories being lost, yet still leaving their mark on my heart. I think of my mom and how it must feel for her, to have it go so much deeper. “I feel a little… empty in places?” I admit.

“You must have the smallest graze of a curse, but manageable,” he says. “The moths may pilfer a memory or two here and there if they can get close to you. But you got very lucky, considering.” He looks at me a long time, sympathetic.

“Ebb told me what you learned from the Murderer,” he says sadly.

I swallow. “Do you think my brother could still be alive?” I ask.

Homer hangs his head gently. Clearly he does not want to give the answer he believes.

“I’m hoping you’ve put the Memory Thief on the defensive for now. I’m hoping she’ll lie low for a while, lick her wounds. She’s not used to being defied, and it must terrify her—even if your weapon didn’t hurt her. Now that we know the risks she’s willing to take, she could return at any time when the moon is obscured. And now that we are dealing with, well…” He takes a deep breath.

“To anger the Memory Thief is a terrible thing. But to trick and tangle with the Time Witch…” His voice trails off. “The Memory Thief is a force to be reckoned with, but the Time Witch is something else entirely. Some say she’s the worst witch of any of them, besides Chaos. If she hasn’t heard about you yet, she soon will, and she will be angry. She will play with you like a cat plays with a mouse. She’s twisted. Unpredictable.” He clears his throat. “It would be madness not to go into hiding now. Obviously”—he nods to the shambles of my house—“you have no choice. I know a ghost in Arizona, in Coronado Cave. She can take you in at first, and help you figure out your next move.”

Beside me, Ebb is very quiet. I keep shooting him looks, but he only stares down at his feet.

“We can stay at my house so you can get some rest before you go,” Germ offers. “My mom won’t mind. We can tell her it was a tornado that hit your house. Would that be okay?” She looks to Homer.

“Well,” Homer says, “I think the Memory Thief will be too rattled to return right away, even on a dark moon. I’d give yourself a day, maybe two, to get ready. And then I’d leave as soon as you’re able.”

“And your mom can stay with us as long as she needs,” Germ says.

“Sun’s coming up soon,” Ebb says sadly, looking at me.

“Oh yes,” Homer agrees, looking out at the horizon for the first pink rays of the sun as they snake, just barely, their fingers above the line of the sea.

And a moment later, something strange begins to happen all around us. Tiny, glowing spirits of bugs that were killed in the fray, crushed by falling walls and pummeled against trees—fireflies and dragonflies and crickets and ants—begin to float up from the ground, all tiny luminous ghosts rising and surrounded by sparkling pink dust.

“What’s happening?” I ask Ebb, leaning close to him.

“Their spirits are going Beyond,” he whispers back.

And now I know for certain, this is what was happening to the Murderer, too. He was moving on.

I lean back and watch in awe as they lift off—hundreds of them, rising into the sky. It is a beautiful, triumphant, and sad thing. I don’t want them to go, but I also know they are going to a place where they belong. It’s comforting because it makes me feel like the broken things of the world have a place after all, and that they get put back together again somewhere else.

Ghosts begin to trail away to their graves as the morning arrives. Ebb and Homer wave before departing.

Germ and I watch the last of the ghosts of bugs rise into the dawn—a beautiful glowing ballet of tiny spirits.

And I don’t believe that any witch darkness could blot out the beauty of them rising.