The cloud seems to shrug.

“Just take your gift and combine it with a weapon close to your heart. That’s all.”

“I’m not really gifted at anything,” I say. “Just making things up.”

The cloud smiles at this, as if I’ve said something incredibly silly. “Here’s what we’ve seen people make up: Skyscrapers. Countries. Cures. Ships that fly to the moon. It took a dream to make the first house. The first language. Made-up things make the world.” An arm of mist reaches out as if to pat my head, and though I can’t feel it, the gesture feels nice inside. “Imagining is a little like the opposite of witches, don’t you think? To stretch and grow beauty from nothing at all?”

I am silent for a moment, at a loss.

“I don’t think I can figure it out, or do any of this, on my own,” I whisper.

“You are not alone,” the cloud whispers. “Don’t you realize that now? The past and the ghosts and the trees and the bugs and the animals and the moon and the hum of things—that you are connected to all of it?”

The face scrunches up a little bit and shifts this way and that, looking around, then smiles at me. “It’s going to rain.”

And then, without warning, the face disappears, and the rain falls down around and onto me from above.

And I sit staring out at the sea, legs dangling, like I’m staring off the edge of the world.

CHAPTER 22

I’m trudging home through the darkness just before dawn, shivering cold, finding my way by following the shore, when it reaches me—the sound of quiet voices singing something beautiful and sad, but not in any language I’ve ever heard. The closer I get, the more certain I am—it’s coming from home.

Around me the woods are quiet as if listening too. And when I make my way out of the trees and into the clearing of my yard, I find what seems to be every ghost within a five-mile radius, including every ghost from the historic cemetery, joined together in the song.

I see Germ across the yard. When she sees me, she runs across the grass and tackles me in a tight hug. She is covered in dirt and bruises, and her hair puffs out like a tangled mane. I’m sure I don’t look so great myself.

“Is my mom okay?” I ask.

“We’re all okay,” she says. “Your mom’s asleep in a pile of clothes and blankets I made in the kitchen. She doesn’t have any idea what happened, really. She thinks it was a tornado.” She nods back over her shoulder to where Ebb and Homer are sitting together on a log across the yard. “Ebb went to get Homer, but he and the others were already on their way.”