I do this for two reasons: One, I can only stand not talking to Germ for so long; forty-eight hours is about the maximum. Two, if anyone can teach me how to shoot a bow and arrow, it’s Germ, who never met a physical activity she wasn’t great at. I once saw her do a front handspring in gym class, her heavy frame flipping deftly end-to-end, simply after watching someone else do it one time. She can ski backward. I need her for this. And, I reason to myself, it doesn’t involve her fighting a witch, only her helping me figure out how to do it myself.

Above, the sky is so overcast, the clouds look like a wet soggy web. Worried that we could be in for a dark, moonless night, I bundle the bow and arrows into my backpack (they poke out the top, but I wrap them in an old towel) and climb onto my bike.

I steer into the woods—down the well-worn path between Germ’s house and mine. As I ride, I keep thinking about last night and everything Ebb told me. I keep coming back to something he said about his death—that he feels like he was responsible for something terrible, and now he needs to do something good to rectify it.

It’s not just the sadness of the story that clings to me. It’s that it feels like it means something important, but I can’t quite figure it out. The meaning is out of my reach, something that keeps slipping my mind.

A few dragonflies follow behind me as I go deeper into the woods. As I pull up at Germ’s, I leap off my bike and lean it against the usual tree, and on second thought, tuck the bow and arrows behind the bike in case Mrs. Bartley is home from work early. (Usually she works till long after dinnertime.) Germ’s brothers do sports after school and are rarely home before seven.

Germ thinks her trailer is shabby, but I’ve always loved it because it’s overflowing with her and her mom and her loud and unruly brothers. Today the sight of it makes me nervous as I climb the stairs. Usually when I need to apologize but can’t find the words, Germ says, “Let’s pretend we already did this part,” and all is immediately forgotten. But this—Bibi West and how Germ is changing and I’m not—is bigger than any fight. It’s not something that can just go away. And that’s something new.

I knock, and wait. After a minute the door opens and Germ appears. She looks unsure whether she’s happy to see me. A hint of a smile flashes across her face, but then it moves aside for anger, and also, maybe, uncertainty.