I turn the page, but the rest of the book is blank. This is where the guide ends, with my mother talking about how she will be found.

I lay the book down, still open, and reach my arms around myself. I look up at Ebb.

“Is this all real?” I whisper. “Are these witches”—I nod to the book—“real?”

Ebb nods. “As real as I am. The women in your family have kept track in this book. They’ve kept everything they could learn about witches in one place.”

The three of us sit in silence for a long time, as I try to make sense of what he’s saying. I stare down at the last page again. This is how they will find me.

I touch the words, trying to touch my mom’s old self that wrote them.

“They found her?” I ask.

He nods solemnly.

“Yes.” He clears his throat. “Witches don’t take kindly to those who hunt them.” He avoids my eyes.

I take this in for a few moments, a strange, sea-urchin feeling prickling in my chest. I gather my breath. “Hunt them?” I finally ask.

Ebb nods, and his expression is unreadable.

“You come from a long line of witch hunters, Rosie,” he says. “And your mom is the last known witch hunter alive.”

CHAPTER 7

“My mom’s not a witch hunter. She’s a data entry specialist,” I say.

My stomach churns hotly. Beyond the octagonal window, the thick sliver of moon darts out from behind a cloud for a moment and then dims.

“This isn’t true. None of this is true,” I say. “There are no witches. I’ve given up believing things like this.” There has to be an explanation for all of it: dreaming, hallucinating, a bad sloppy joe at school. I wait for Ebb to evaporate the way dreams do when you realize you’re in one.

But Ebb only looks back and forth between me and Germ, as if he’s deciding something against his better judgment.

“I can show you something more. I think it would convince you about witches and everything else,” he says. “But you’d have to promise me that you’d both do as I say. Even the witch’s familiars—as mindless as they are—might notice Rosie now that…”

“Now that what?” Germ asks for me as I hesitate.

“The sight changes you. It’s an extra sense, and witches and their familiars can pick up on it like a light in the dark.”

Germ swivels her head, studying me as if looking for the change.

Glancing out the window at the height of the moon, Ebb floats backward.

“It’s about time for them to arrive,” he says. He turns toward the stairs to the attic, then suddenly pivots back to us.