Ebb leans back, thinking. “With all the magic in the world, some things still can’t come back. But maybe it’s okay. Because of what lies up there that we can’t know.”

I take this in.

“I only wish it wasn’t up to me to fight,” I say. “I just wish someone else could, somebody bigger and stronger and braver than me. But there’s nobody else.”

Ebb is still and silent for a long while. Then he reaches into his pocket, pulls his hand out again, and lays it over my palm. As he pulls his fingers away again, I see that he’s placed something in my hand.

Fred the ghost spider.

I twitch my fingers. I can’t feel the spider, but still he sits there—a little glowing speck on my palm. I suppose he manages to perch on me the way ghosts manage to sit on chairs and move across floors—some kind of friction between the real and the unreal, perhaps. But it’s such a delicate balance that when I move my hand too fast, he floats through it.

“He can’t fix anything for you. But maybe he can give you courage,” Ebb says. “When you feel alone. Having him with me always helps me, at least. He told me he wouldn’t mind.”

I slowly hold up my hand, and watch the spider scurry across my palm, then down into my coat pocket.

“But what about you?” I ask.

“The witches aren’t after me,” he says. “You need him more.”

I sit quietly for a moment. And I wonder if inside my coat the spider can hear the beat, beat, beat of my heart as I realize that Ebb has become my friend—that I’ve made another friend besides Germ—just when I’m about to leave. Maybe it’s hard not to grow and change. Even for me.

“Thank you, Ebb. After this is all over, if I ever get to see you again, I’ll give him back.”

But Ebb is looking at me strangely.

“A weapon close to your heart,” Ebb says. “And you’re not a weapon-y kind of person. Maybe your weapon is not necessarily weapon-y either. Maybe it isn’t exactly a weapon at all.”

We look at each other, and Ebb waits for me to catch on. “What’s your favorite tool for fighting the dark?” he asks me. And suddenly I see where he’s going.

I stand up, and Ebb follows. I know where I left my bike when we arrived at the attack, but I don’t know if it will still be there.

But then, I see it’s where I left it—lying on the grass at the edge of the driveway. And attached to the handlebars is my Lumos flashlight.

I detach it and hold it in my hands, then look at him. “Do you think it could work?”