Still, I know something gnaws at Germ—I can see it, just like time gnaws at me. She likes to flip through the newspapers and clip out the upbeat stories, then tape them to the wall in her room. With bad news, she bites her lip. She thinks and thinks, like she is figuring something out. It’s a problem, this knowing we have more power than we thought we did. Even for a non-witch-hunting, boy-crazy, longing-to-be-normal person like Germ.

Mom and I like to sit on the grass in the afternoons watching the late spring flowers bloom, basking in the sun, and taking in the breeze from the ocean. And at times like those I know we’re thinking of Wolf, and how it doesn’t seem right to be here without him.

Sometimes we laugh and talk, and sometimes we’re quiet thinking about Wolf, and I find myself staring at the ocean. I’m happy, but I’m troubled all the time. To never really know what happened to him—it keeps me up at night, and makes my stomach ache. He might be out there, and he might not. He might be forever gone, but then, he might not.

We talk about the witches and all the things my mom has learned. There are no surprises, but there’s one thing she is very careful not to mention—the thing the cloud shepherd showed me that night, that clearly she doesn’t want me to know.

She only hints at it once, as we walk across the grass on our way inside one afternoon. “If you ever plan to leave me, Rosie, please don’t tell me. I don’t think I could stand it if you do, and I know I could never let you go.” I listen for a moment in confusion. I think I understand, but I’m not sure. And I don’t bring it up again.

The days go on this way: small victories, slow recoveries, sometimes giddy happiness, and sometimes deep regret and worry about what we’ve lost. But I’m restless. And every night, I watch the moon rise, and wonder. And every night Ebb floats around the yard keeping watch, especially on dark moons. We never know when one of the other witches might come for us, or if—as we hope—they’ve forgotten us altogether and moved on to things bigger than a small girl and her imaginary bluebird.

And then one dark night, when Germ is sleeping over in her sleeping bag on the floor, and the rest of the house is asleep, I wake to the sound of something in my room, or rather, the sound of nothing. It’s completely silent. Germ’s usual snoring has stopped.