“Annabelle Oaks, how long has it been? Ten years, eleven? It’s good to see you after all this time. You do look much changed, much less lively. But… have you been hiding something from me? Something my moths have seen?”

Her voice is full of controlled rage and something else: longing, loneliness. She studies my mom asleep in the bed, clearly thinking.

And then she turns and begins to sniff around the room again.

“I do smell a child,” she whispers. “Or is it something burning? I can’t tell.”

She listens, sniffs, and my heart is nearly bursting out of my chest.

“It’s not possible. We took…,” she says, and is silent for a few moments. “Unless…”

And then she makes her way over to the wall to the side of the closet, putting her hands on it.

“Did you cheat me? Is there a child here?” she asks. “A hidden child? A girl child?”

Germ reaches for my fingers and squeezes them tight. I don’t know if it’s to comfort herself or me or both. The woman moves away from the wall, and I silently let out a breath.

And then suddenly a face appears up against the slats. The woman has crept up to the doors and now she’s peering in.

Green, sad, empty eyes meet mine. A pale gaunt face. A slim snake of a smile spreads across the woman’s lips. Germ grips the doors tight, hopelessly, while I stay glued to the slats, unable to move, paralyzed.

“Come out, come out. I won’t hurt you,” the woman says, her eyes going from me to Germ and back. A cloud of moths rises from behind her and toward the slats of the door, landing and crawling on them. The slats start to creak, coming loose from their grooves.

Despite myself, I let out a small moan. There’s nothing to keep her from us. As more and more moths gather, the slats begin to pull away. Germ lets go of the doors and grips my arm.

But at that moment, there is another change in the room. At the back of my mind I register it: the clouds shift. Moonlight, sudden and bright, floods in on us. The witch—inches from me—startles, and turns. She shrieks, then floats to the window. Pausing for just a moment, crouched on the sill, she turns back to look at us.

“Watch for me at the dark moon, child,” she calls over her shoulder. “At the dark moon, I’ll end you.”

And then, moths gathering around her, she falls out of the window, and is gone.

CHAPTER 8

We wait for several minutes, but nothing happens. The house lies still around us; the moonlight remains bright through the windows. And then the man from downstairs, the one in the rain slicker, floats into the room, muttering to himself. “Scare of my afterlife,” he says. “Never been that close.”