Margot fell in line behind Witchety, with Kant keeping pace. The older woman led them back toward the property’s boundary. Margot let the silence hold for a few minutes before speaking. “I hope it isn’t rude to ask, but is Witchety your real name?”

“Sure, it’s real,” Witchety replied. “Might not be the one I got at birth, mind, but I’ve been called Witchety for so long now that it’s more my own than anything else.”

Marsh, held at her side by the leash, bumped his black nose against Witchety’s hand. She brushed her swollen knuckles over his head.

“My parents started calling me witchety girl when I was little because I’d brew up potions in old bottles. I’d make them from snails and moss and once the foot of a dead bird I found. They thought they were teasing me, but I liked the name. I’ve always been interested in the unnatural. Never studied. I believe these things are more intuitive than a lot of people want to think.”

They reached the property’s boundary line; a sturdy wooden fence ran along it, overrun by unmown grass and occasional saplings. Beyond that, past a row of trees that had started to twist and collapse from age, Margot caught glimpses of the road. There was no traffic on it.

Witchety wrapped the leash around her arm and then peeled back the shawl. Beneath, tied to her clothes, was a pouch. She opened it and withdrew a bottle that filled her palm.

“Holy water,” she explained. “I get the local priest to bless it for me. You should have some too, in your kitchen somewhere. Let me know if you’re getting low. It’s not the kind of thing you want to run out of unexpectedly.”

Again, Margot glanced toward Kant. This time he met her gaze, but his thoughts were kept well concealed behind his gray eyes.

Finally, Witchety withdrew a talisman from the folds of the bag. Suspended on a loop of crimson thread was a cluster of strange objects. Margot frowned as she tried to get a better look at them. She recognized a bird skull, possibly a crow’s, the bones picked bare and sun bleached. Several old and rusted keys. Dried flowers threaded with dried herbs. Loops of scrap metal. Tiny bells.

Witchety held it in one hand, the threads trapped in her palm while the excess hung over her fingers, not unlike the way a rosary might be clasped. Then she began walking.

With each step, the clustered metals and bones knocked against one another and set up a faint, ringing tone. Witchety placed her thumb over the bottle’s open top and let water fall one drop at a time, each one catching the light for a fragment of a second before disappearing into the long grass.