Coming in here has always felt like walking into a museum of the person my mom once was. There are old photos on the wall of her standing on a boat or in front of the Egyptian pyramids, holding a bow and arrow aloft proudly at summer camp with a blue ribbon on her chest, riding a horse, gazing at my dad with a joyful smile—a wild, brave, happy person. There is her diploma for art history. A soft purple bedspread lies over her queen bed; all sorts of stained-glass baubles hang in the window to turn sunlight into rainbows. There are paintings she once made of flowers and statues and people, things she painted while traveling the world. (Though, now I realize, with a deep chill, she was traveling the world hunting witches.) All her subjects have personalities: a rose looks self-confident; a building looks tired; a statue of a man in robes, glimpsed through a painted window, looks curious and kind.

There are empty spots on her shelves where her books used to be, empty spaces left where I’ve stolen her knickknacks—retreating to my room with treasures in my arms, trying to steal bits of my mom, I guess.

Mostly she has either not noticed what I’ve taken, or not cared, but a few books she has stolen back: Where the Wild Things Are, Hansel and Gretel, Rapunzel. I go to them now, flip through the pages—which are full of witches and monsters, faeries and magic. Does she keep taking these books back because the secret to finding and killing witches is hidden on their pages? A witch getting pushed into an oven, a monster being tamed when you stare into its eyes?

But if there are clues in these books about how to fight a witch, I can’t find one. I doubt I could push a witch into an oven or tame one with my eyes.

As quietly as I can, I search the rest of the room. It’s disheveled and disorganized. I find Mom’s wedding ring in a ceramic mug next to a chewed piece of gum; I find Mom’s bank card in a pile of receipts, and an engraved pendant with her birth date on the floor. I look through folders, boxes, plastic bags.

And then I find, amongst a pile of blank postcards from places she must have visited once, my birth certificate.

It reads:

State of Maine Certificate of Birth

Place of Birth: Saint Ignatius Hospital

Date of Birth: September 1, 2010

Name of Child: Oaks, Rose Kristen

Sex: Female

Weight: 6 lbs, 8 oz

Hair: Brown

Eyes: Brown