I’ve never heard Germ sound so agitated. She took on ghosts last night with relative calm. Now her voice quivers with fear. I feel a tinge of disappointment that Germ even cares about any of this stuff right now.

And then I think, If I’m not there to comfort Germ if she does get humiliated, which is fairly likely, who will be?

“I’ll be there,” I say, keeping the disappointment out of my voice. “Of course.”

I can practically hear her sigh of relief at the other end. “Thanks, Rosie.” She pauses. “I did do a bunch of internet research on witches and stuff like that yesterday. But sorting out make-believe stuff from real witches is, like, impossible. There are all these books that say witches don’t float. And I read a bunch about the Salem witch trials, which just sounds like people back then were afraid of women who did what they wanted. I’m gonna keep looking.”

Behind her, I can hear the news, which she always has on, and then the doorbell.

“Uh-oh, that’s Bibi at the door. My cover’s blown—gotta go.”

She hangs up before saying good-bye.

I sit there for a moment, engulfed in jealousy I don’t like and that I wish I didn’t have.

Get it together, sweetie, I tell myself.

And then I look at the clock. It’s already eleven o’clock.

By afternoon, I’m on my bike riding alone to the hospital, in the rain, in an oversize raincoat I borrowed from Mom since I don’t have one. I wear my Lumos flashlight under my coat for good luck.

I pull off the ramp where I’ve always seen the decrepit sign that reads SAINT IGNAT SPITA, and wind down a woodsy road. It’s deserted, and I wish again that Germ were with me, because she always makes me feel at least 75 percent braver—but I steel myself and keep pedaling. Whenever Germ is afraid, she says she thinks of gummy bears with ketchup on them, and it’s so disgusting that it helps. But it doesn’t work for me.

In the dim rainy light, I marvel at the loneliness and emptiness of this place. It must have felt to my mom, when she came here to have me, like she was going to the ends of the earth to hide.

I pedal on and on, and it looks like nothing is back here until the moment that, up ahead as I round a bend, the hospital looms up from the woods.

I brake, and catch my breath.

No wonder Homer said this was a dead end.