The way he says it lets me breathe a little easier. Like whatever he’s afraid of is not coming.

But then there is the smallest shift in the breeze. Clouds cross over the moon and linger there, and we are engulfed in darkness.

A moment later—somewhere outside and over the ocean, far away but unmistakable—a distant shriek carries across the air.

Ebb turns back to the window, tilting his head, listening. “Maybe it has nothing to do with us,” he whispers. “Maybe…”

The wind begins to blow.

The ghost in the yellow rain slicker bursts through the wall in a panic. Noticing us, he whispers, “Hide,” and then zips through the opposite wall and out of sight.

Fog is rolling in thickly off the sea. On the air, I hear what sounds like the softest of whispers—so soft, I think I’m imagining it. “Tricked?” the whisper says, far away but also, somehow, close, and as ancient-feeling as dust.

“Back in the closet,” Ebb whispers, and Germ lurches for the slatted doors as I step back.

“My mom,” I whisper, moving to grab her arms.

Ebb floats in front of me and hisses, “There’s nothing left for the Memory Thief to take from your mom but you. You’ve got to hide.”

I feel Germ grab the back of my shirt and pull me backward.

Into the closet we stumble, Germ closing the door behind us with her free hand. Ebb zips through the door and settles beside us.

Just as we settle, I hear it. The sound of the window sliding open again.

Beside me, Ebb is dim and trembling. The thought crosses my mind that he should have nothing to fear since he’s dead, but all thoughts flee at the sound of rustling outside the window, a sound like thick silky fabric rustling. Germ gently grasps the inner edges of the door as if to secure it with her bare hands.

I press my face close to the slats and peer through them.

With the moon gone, it’s almost black, but I can just see the outlines of a figure in a dark dress moving about the room, looking all around it as if for something it has lost. I can’t see the figure’s face, but I can hear her sniffing the air. She flits through the dark carefully, softly—stopping to study and sniff this and that. She reminds me of some animal, and after a moment I realize it’s an insect, a moth—fluttering and feeling her way along. She moves to the foot of the bed, where my mom still sleeps.

I take a breath, and for a moment the figure pauses, swiveling slightly toward me, listening. Ebb shakes his head at me, and I hold my breath.

Eventually the woman turns back to my mother.

She speaks, in the same dusty voice of the whisper from the air.