“I’ve laid my curse. The Oaks woman’s memories are mine now,” she says, moths fluttering out of her sleeves as she speaks. “She won’t remember anything—not us, not our secrets, not the sight, not even herself.”

The second witch considers for a moment, her mouth crooked in bitterness. She glances at the ghostly moths fluttering through the air, then turns her eyes to the lump under her companion’s robes.

“And this?” she asks.

“No one will remember him, either.” The sad witch waves a hand, and the folds of her cloak part to reveal a baby, hovering in the air just in front of her stomach. She smiles down at him. There is something terribly needy and desperate about the smile.

“Strange. The Oakses are always girls,” the blue-eyed witch reflects.

The grasping witch clearly longs for the baby. She appears to be the kind of witch who longs for everything. “Can I keep him?” she asks.

The blue-eyed witch fingers the pocket watches around her neck and looks down at the baby with disgust. Then she waves a hand, and the baby floats across the space between them. He begins to cry as the blue-eyed witch glares at him.

“I want no more of this family. The last of them comes with me.”

“What will you do with him?” the grasping witch asks.

The other witch smirks, her eyes as blank and endless as a reptile’s, and then she gazes in the direction of the sea, though it is too far off to be seen. “It’s a fine night for sinking to the bottom of the sea,” she says before waving the child toward her, into the folds of her own cloak, which close around him like curtains.

The two witches look at each other meaningfully, their dark hearts beating a thorny, unsteady rhythm. And then, as quickly as they appeared, the witches drift into the forest from which they came.

And—but for the trees and stones and spiders and crickets and cats—nobody sees. Nobody but one curious haunt with glowing red eyes and a rash around his neck.

Ghosts have endless time to fill with talk: stories and rumors and legends to pass the long nights. But because the ghosts have fled, there will be no whispers of this moment later—no rumors of what’s occurred—drifting amongst the spirits of the seventh ward.