“You can’t disturb what’s happening. You can’t meddle in any way. Promise me that you won’t. You couldn’t stop it if you tried, anyhow.”

“We promise. But stop what?” I ask. And I hear my voice teetering.

He turns reluctantly to the stairs. “Your mom’s curse. Are you coming?”

Ebb nods to us, then floats up the stairs and through the door of my mom’s attic room. I follow with Germ at my heels, take the knob, hold my breath, and open the door slowly.

My mom is sleeping peacefully. The moon peeps out again from behind the clouds, then disappears behind the overcast sky. Nothing strange, nothing out of place.

Ebb ushers us into the closet, then drifts in behind us and nods to Germ to close the door. It’s slatted, so we can see out, though it’s harder to see in. I used to hide in here when I was little, watching my mom, trying to figure her out.

“We’re safe here,” Ebb whispers. “They’re mindless creatures, like I said. Your sight’s the only reason we even have to hide at all. And they won’t look for us or notice us if we stay quiet and hidden.”

“ ‘They’ who?” Germ asks. But Ebb is intently watching through the slats now, staring in the direction of the attic window, and he doesn’t answer.

We follow his gaze and wait. For several minutes, nothing happens and nothing comes. And then Ebb raises an arm slowly, extending a finger to point at something beyond the window.

In the distance, a strange shape is making its way toward us over the ocean, like a ribbon threaded through the air. Whatever it is, it’s made of the same diaphanous glowing stuff as Ebb, and moving fast. Before long, it’s close enough that I can see it’s not one shape but a cluster of smaller ones—hundreds of tiny, glowing silhouettes fluttering and flapping in the breeze.

“What are those?” Germ whispers.

“Moths,” I breathe, a feeling like rocks in my stomach, remembering the page from The Witch Hunter’s Guide to the Universe, the picture my mother drew.

“The moths and what they carry are deeply precious to the Memory Thief,” Ebb says, “like a collection of jewels she hoards away. There are billions of them, I imagine. Far too many for her to ever even notice. But it doesn’t matter; her greed for what they steal is limitless. They come here like clockwork every night to collect. Ever since the night your mom was cursed.”

The shapes get closer and closer. The moonlight glints off their wings, which undulate with color. The first few arrive at the attic window like in an air ballet—graceful, delicate.