As we linger for a moment, I look to the horizon for any sign of the memory moths returning or a witch approaching (though, I’m not sure exactly how witches approach places—on brooms?), despite Homer’s reassurances about witches steering clear of moonlight. Dread sits heavy in the pit of my stomach.

But then, something else in the sky takes my breath—not a witch, but something even more stunning and strange.

I don’t know how I could have missed seeing it. It lies low over a cliff that juts out into the ocean: the bright crescent moon and something—a ladder, as impossible as that is—dangles down from its edge, just grazing the clifftops.

Ebb and Germ both follow my gaze.

“What is that?” I ask, nodding toward it.

Ebb is quiet for a moment. “It’s an invitation, to any brave enough to accept,” he finally says.

“Invitation to what?”

He shoots a look at me as if I’ve asked a really obvious question. “To the moon.”

I think back to what Homer was saying about the Moon Goddess. It’s hard, in a way, to believe she really exists. But the ladder makes it suddenly real. I think for a moment about astronauts, landing on the moon and not knowing there’s an invisible Moon Goddess hovering around them.

My heart leaps.

“Why don’t we just climb the ladder? We could ask her what we should do about the Memory Thief. She could help us!”

I feel sudden hope flooding over me, but Ebb is shaking his head.

“It’s probably been centuries since anyone’s climbed up there,” he says. “You can only climb it if the Moon Goddess allows it. Otherwise, when you get about halfway up, the ladder disappears and…” He whistles and makes a plunging motion with his hand. “Nobody ever really tries it.”

My spirits drop. “That’s terrible. I thought she was supposed to be good.”

Ebb flickers as he thinks how to explain. “The Moon Goddess is a force of good, but she keeps her own plans, and she’s very exacting, and I suppose only the pure-hearted and brave can make it all the way to her. Otherwise the witches would probably climb up.” His shoulders droop with gloom. “Anyway, she wants people to help themselves; she can’t fight their battles for them. At least, that’s what all the legends say.”

I look up at the moon, anger prickling. What’s the point of being a good and wise Moon Goddess if you don’t help? But Germ’s mind is on another tack.

“Ghosts have legends?” she asks.

“Sure,” Ebb says. “Like that beyond that pink haze is a paradise for all the souls who’ve moved on. And like the sea contains all the time that’s ever existed and you can travel through it in the mouth of a magical whale.”

“Is that true?” I ask.