Homer hangs his head gently. Clearly he does not want to give the answer he believes.

“I’m hoping you’ve put the Memory Thief on the defensive for now. I’m hoping she’ll lie low for a while, lick her wounds. She’s not used to being defied, and it must terrify her—even if your weapon didn’t hurt her. Now that we know the risks she’s willing to take, she could return at any time when the moon is obscured. And now that we are dealing with, well…” He takes a deep breath.

“To anger the Memory Thief is a terrible thing. But to trick and tangle with the Time Witch…” His voice trails off. “The Memory Thief is a force to be reckoned with, but the Time Witch is something else entirely. Some say she’s the worst witch of any of them, besides Chaos. If she hasn’t heard about you yet, she soon will, and she will be angry. She will play with you like a cat plays with a mouse. She’s twisted. Unpredictable.” He clears his throat. “It would be madness not to go into hiding now. Obviously”—he nods to the shambles of my house—“you have no choice. I know a ghost in Arizona, in Coronado Cave. She can take you in at first, and help you figure out your next move.”

Beside me, Ebb is very quiet. I keep shooting him looks, but he only stares down at his feet.

“We can stay at my house so you can get some rest before you go,” Germ offers. “My mom won’t mind. We can tell her it was a tornado that hit your house. Would that be okay?” She looks to Homer.

“Well,” Homer says, “I think the Memory Thief will be too rattled to return right away, even on a dark moon. I’d give yourself a day, maybe two, to get ready. And then I’d leave as soon as you’re able.”

“And your mom can stay with us as long as she needs,” Germ says.

“Sun’s coming up soon,” Ebb says sadly, looking at me.

“Oh yes,” Homer agrees, looking out at the horizon for the first pink rays of the sun as they snake, just barely, their fingers above the line of the sea.

And a moment later, something strange begins to happen all around us. Tiny, glowing spirits of bugs that were killed in the fray, crushed by falling walls and pummeled against trees—fireflies and dragonflies and crickets and ants—begin to float up from the ground, all tiny luminous ghosts rising and surrounded by sparkling pink dust.

“What’s happening?” I ask Ebb, leaning close to him.

“Their spirits are going Beyond,” he whispers back.

And now I know for certain, this is what was happening to the Murderer, too. He was moving on.