I tiptoe past Germ, then out into the den, where my mom sleeps on the couch. It’s no small feat to walk through a trailer full of six sleeping people without waking anyone, but I’ve always been good at being quiet. After bundling into a coat, hat, and mittens, I walk out into the deep moonless night.

I shiver from the cold as I make my way to the shed. I wish for my flashlight, but it’s still attached to my bike—which I left abandoned back home. So I find my way by feeling through the dark with my hands. I find the chain saw in a corner next to the lawn mower. I can’t even lift it, and I don’t like the thought of trying to use it. I think it has something to do with the bright red WARNING sticker on it showing a person accidentally cutting off their own arm. Still, I hoist it up into my skinny arms and carry it outside. I pull some tape out of my pocket that I brought with me, and tape my story to the side of the chain saw. And then I wait. And I wait. I shiver and wait for the next twenty minutes to see if something magical happens—some puff of color and light.

When nothing happens, I try other things I find in the shed: an abandoned fencing sword, an old slingshot David made of wood, a screwdriver. (I’m getting desperate.) Nothing—when I throw it, shoot it, swing it—gives off any magical color or glow of any sort. I don’t try to turn on the chain saw, but something tells me it’s not really my style of weapon anyway.

I think about The Witch Hunter’s Guide and what it says about weapons: A weapon is as much a part of a witch hunter as her fingernails or her teeth. It is tied right to her heart, and that’s where she keeps it close.

I think how the cloud shepherd, too, said it needed to be a weapon close to my heart.

But there’s nothing close to my heart in this shed. These aren’t even my things. All my things are at home.

And that’s where I think I need to go.

I ride Germ’s bike since I don’t have mine. I’m so tired, I swerve on the path now and then. I pedal the long curvy trail through the woods to my house, finding my way by memory alone, since there is no light. I’m scared that the Memory Thief may be lurking about, but I’m also scared not to figure things out as fast as I can.