There is a magical thread of connection through all things Most people sense this even if they don’t say it. Water, trees, grass, animals, insects, and people are tied together by it, each with gifts to share: water quenches the thirst of the trees, the trees shelter the animals, the animals are masters of motion and flight and song, and the people build worlds beyond what animals can dream. Even the moon has gifts to share—reflecting magical light for people to dream and hope by, its gravity steadying the earth on its axis.

But the witches have begun to break this thread, their curses turning people to their darker natures, causing them to forget, to take, to grab at the world around them. They want people to forget their connection to all the other pieces of the world, and to magic itself.

If the witches succeed—and break the thread that binds us—they can send the moon and its goddess spinning off into space. Without the moon, nights will become unspeakably dark. The earth will lose the rhythm of its tides. The weather will grow wild. Witches will be undeterred by moonlight. Untold chaos will reign on earth. And people will forget, once and for all, that they are connected to anything but themselves. And we will all be lost.

I sit back, my heart sinking, feeling a deep sense of dread. I think of how much Germ worries about what she sees on the news. Are the witches and the world so inescapably tied? Is the world really in so much danger?

I flip back to the section on witches and find the Time Witch—whom Ebb spoke of with such bitterness.

Revisiting Mom’s drawing makes my skin prickle and my hair stand on end. It shows a woman with a hungry mouth and sharp teeth staring out at the reader, dark black circles around her empty blue eyes, the pupils as tiny as pinpricks. She wears an old-fashioned black lace dress and a necklace of pocket watches, but it’s her eyes that scare me most. They’re deep, limitless, empty—like the eyes of a fish. The first time I looked through these pictures, it was the Memory Thief who struck fear into my heart—but now I feel relief that it isn’t the Time Witch who wants me dead. There’s a hunger to her and a malice and a deep empty coldness that makes the Memory Thief look meek in comparison.

I read the description of her.